Dwarfs

What is a dwarf? The short answer would be a very broad shouldered, bearded, short man with a terrible temper and bad habit of hitting things with a battlehammer. But I suppose you came for the long answer.  

Apperance

As I allready mentioned, dwarfs are short. The tallest dwarf - Drak the giant - was 1,60m. What they lack it hight, they make up for with width, dwarfs have an extremly broad torso with extremly muscular arms - quite a contrast to their (in comparission) slim legs. Dwarfs aren´t good runners. A dwarfs hair and beard is most of the time braided and is either red, brown, black or grey. From under their thick eyebrows a pair of big brown eyes will look at you.
You could argue that this is not very comfortable but a dwarf allways wears armor. Some joke they do that because they dont have enough fabric in their tunnels. But if thats true or not (its not), a dwarf wears armor, no matter on what occasion.
A dwarvish wedding is quite the sight - even the bride will be geared up reay for battle.
  Dwarvish armors are very much asked for by all races. The dwarfs discovered a whole lot of different metals underneath the dragonfang mountains and made some really unique alloys that every sane warrior wants to have. Every city has their own patterns and colours, but all dwarvish armors are extremly detailled and covered in patterns which in some cases tell the history of the wearer and the city/region they are from.  

Culture

So, what is their culture like? Is there any? In the end they are living in lightless tunnels underneath a mountainridge... Oh, you are as far from the truth as you can possibly be. The dwarfs have the oldest and seeminly everlasting culture of Nandaahr. Nobody knows for sure when the dwarvish empire began, but it must have been at the dawn of time. The dwarfs have builded 6 major cities to this day, scattered around, or shall I say under the dragonfangs. Each of their cities has a king that rules with absolute power - but all six kings, who each rule over a part of the mountains obeys the "emporer of the depths" who resides in the biggest city a few kilometers underneath the surface. The emporer of the depths has absolute power over all dwarfs. He has a group of ministers to advise him, but he has the last word on everything.
What made them last so long as an unified empire over such a long time are their strict rules. Dwarvish society ist pretty rigid and the unspoken rules of society are more like laws for the dwarfs. That builds a big contrast to their scientific curiosity. As I allready mentioned, dwarfs are marvellous craftsmen, they even managed to alter metal into flesh. This is a bad description, but some dwarvish mages made limbs from metal, that work as fully funktional bodyparts - just that they consist of solid metal. This lead to the fundation of the "iron garde", the elite army of the emporer of the depths. These dwarfs changed nearly their whole body into this living metal, which makes them pretty much invincible. Ever tried to stab a armored block of steel?
Eventhough dwarves among themselves are very peaceful, it is regarded as the highest honor to join the army and help keep the mountains to the dwarfs. While they tolerate a few minor settlements in the mountains for trading, as soon as some human, elf or orc would go underground without invitation, they will be slaughtered. But due to their craftsmenskills and weaponry, the other races have to tolerate these incidents where people get killed for entering the wrong cave.  

Religion

Dwarfs are atheist. Dwarfs have their own explination for how Aar and everything on it came into existance. Something about a big bang and some ridicoulously long time spans. Crazy right? They claim a lot of stuff that sounds nuts, but what do you expect from someone who belives everythinhg appeared out of thin air?  

Magic

The magic of the dwarfs is tightly bound to their subterran livestyle. Nobody can magically alter things, especially metals, like the dwarfs can. The great dwarvish sorcerers can even create golems out of rocks and command them around.  

Their Cities

Dwarvish cities really are a sight to behold. I know what you might think now, this turd has looked far to deep into his mug of ale, what is so remarkable about some dark, wet and cold cavern, that is covered by slimy layers of the smoke and grime of the millenia? Ha! Let me tell you about these dark and cold caverns. Their cities are filled with light in all colors of the rainbow. The dwarfs managed to magically light up crystals into colorful supernatural flames. In one city they even builded a complicated railsystem on the ceiling above the city to drag the crystals around, simulating a night- and daycycle. And the Buildings... Dwarfs dont just carve more caverns into the stone, no, they enlarge the caverns until a whole city fits in it. Then they built all kinds of weird, but beautiful castles, houses, mansions, smithies, labs and other stuff in these caverns until you have a fully functional underground city that could easily put a metropolis like Svedero to shame. 
But their crown jewel is their capital, just called "the depths". This City is the second oldest and was founded when some dwarfs found this absolutly massive cavern while mining 4 kilometers underneath the dragonfangs. The walls are covered in yellow glowing crystals, while the ceiling is covered by bioluminicent worms who produce a white and blue shimmer, making the ceiling look a bit like the nightsky. And after two millenia the dwarfs have builded quite a city here. Houses and fortifications cover the ground, walls and some are even glued to the ceiling. The city is allways illuminated by the natural glowing crystals, so everything is bathed by a warm golden light, which combined with the golden lanterns the dwarfs put everywhere, the city seems to on fire. A truly magical sight.   

Dwarvish food

Well, as I told you, dwarfs are formidfable craftsmen and architects - but when it comes to cooking, you really don´t want to trade places with them. They hatch a lot of exquisite mushrooms in some darker tunnels, but a big part of their diet are white eyeless bugs and spiders who can grow to ginormous sizes. Even worse are those with eyes - big lidless giant black orbs that seem to stare into your very soul... And they eat these all the time. But maybe you get used to that after a while, I never stayed long enough to find out really. But they do have some farms on the surface where they grow normal vegetables and hatch some more normal animals like cows and pigs. But these farmes probably have the most dangerous life of all dwarfs. They are exposed to the murderous wildlife of the dragonfangs. Eventhough the dragonfangs are a pretty fertile chunk of land in many places, the winters are harsh and were you find big herbivores like the Titanomammoth, you find big predators as well... Did I mentioned the dragons yet? Most sane dwarfs stay away from the surface when they can, but some stubborn ones work the farms no matter the odds - to the benefit of the dwarvish cuisine.