Hebroni Dwarf (heb-roh-nee)

The Dwarves of the Mountains of Hebron are an oddity amongst the peoples, for they alone have more people living outside of their homeland than within it. Defined by their unique and ancient faith, they form a particularly vibrant and widespread thread in the tapestry of the Dar-al-Shams. For they were the first people in all of history to venerate the Light.   

Dwarf Traits

Ability Score Increase: Your Constitution score increases by 2.   Age: Dwarves mature at the same rate as humans, but they're considered young until they reach the age of 50. On average, they live about 350 years.   Size: Dwarves stand between 4 and 5 feet tall and average about 150 pounds. Your size is Medium.   Speed: Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor.   Darkvision: Accustomed to life underground, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.   Dwarven Resilience: You have advantage on saving throws against poison, and you have resistance against poison damage.   Dwarven Combat Training: You have proficiency with the battleaxe, handaxe, light hammer, and warhammer.   Tool Proficiency: You gain proficiency with the artisan's tools of your choice: smith's tools, brewer's supplies, or mason's tools.   Stonecunning: Whenever you make an Intelligence (History) check related to the origin of stonework, you are considered proficient in the History skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.   Dwarven Toughness: Your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.   Languages: You can speak Low Solar and Dwarvish. You might read and write any of these languages depending on your Background.  

History

  Once, long ago, The Kingdom of Hebron was a free land high above the earth, a mountainous world set apart from the affairs of the continent. The Dwarves of Hebron practiced a unique faith, venerating Light itself as the manifestation of God in the world. They believed that once they had been slaves of demons deep beneath the surface until a prophet named Gerezim appeared to lead them to freedom on the surface. The Light spoke through Gerezim, and he gave the people a Law to order their society and an Instruction to show them how to live moral lives. After Gerezim, The Light would chose other prophets, and the stories of their lives and teachings would be added to the Instruction of Gerezim. United by the Law and the Light, The Kingdom of Hebron was peaceful, secure, and unified.   It couldn't last. The Kingdom of Hebron was conquered by the rising empire of the fire genasi city of Kan Jinnroc, with most of the Hebroni population being deported to the Jinnrocii heartlands. After the rise of the Quanar Shahdom, the Hebronim were permitted to return to the Hebron Mountains, and they rebuilt their Great Temple, which had been destroyed by the Jinnrocii. However, the Hebron Mountains would later be conquered by the Elysian Empire, putting an end to Hebroni independence yet again. The Hebronim would later rise against their Elysian overlords during the Great Dwarvish Rebellion, which failed and led to the Elysian Emperor Demetrios sacking and destroying the Second Great Temple. 60 years later the Hebronim tried again, rising up under the leadership of the self-proclaimed Moshiach, Simon Bar Kokhba. Though they did manage to create a de facto independent state, after three years they were crushed by the Elysians again. Determined to prevent another Dwarvish uprising, the Elysians deported the vast majority of the Hebroni population, scattering them throughout the other provinces of their empire.   It was in the wake of the failure of the Dwarvish Rebellions that modern Hebronism took shape. Without their sacred Temple and ripped from their sacred homeland, the Hebronim were forced to reorient their faith if it was to survive. It was the educated religious scholars, called Rabbis (meaning Teachers), who emerged as the preservers and maintainers of the Hebroni traditions. Though they lived as minorities amongst a variety of other nations and cultures, their religious and cultural traditions (along with prohibitions against intermarriage with non-Hebronim) allowed the Hebronim to maintain their distinct religious and ethnic identity.   But this distinctiveness was a double edged sword, and the price for their refusal to assimilate was distrust and persecution by the Elysian Empire. Ironically, this persecution grew more intense after the Elysians converted to Helionism, despite the fact (or perhaps because of it) that Helionism had grown out of Hebronism. Many church leaders found it very inconvenient that there existed another tradition that could lay claim to The Truth and The Light.   Under the Helionic Empire, many laws were passed restricting the rights and privileges of the Hebronim. They were prevented from constructing new synagogues, and the penalty for a Helionist converting to Hebronism was death. The Elysian church seemed hell bent on destroying the Hebronim by degrees, squeezing and squeezing until their faith and culture ceased to exist.   It was for these reasons that many Hebronim greeted the arrival of the Shamsar with joy. In the first days of The Migration, many Hebroni rabbis said that the Shamsar were their long prophesied saviors, cousins who hailed from the same subterranean homeland come to restore the Great Temple and the Law of Gerezim. They were to be dissapointed. The Shamsar religion was distinct, and the Shamsar regarded the Hebronim as being no more or less correct than the Helionists or the Quanar. And, instead of restoring The Great Temple, the Shamsar constructed a great House of the Sun on the Temple Mount and banned non-Shamsari from entering or praying there.   Still, life under the Khalifate was far better for the Hebronim than life had been under the Elysian Empire. Classified by the Shamsar authorities as a People of the Light, the Hebronim were permitted to practice their religion freely, construct synagogues as they wished, and had equal access to Shamsar courts and justice. Like all non-Shamsari, they were obligated to pay the Jizya tax and were officially barred from the highest government posts, but many Hebronim have achieved high station in the Khalifate. They particularly excel in academia, producing many scholars of great fame and notoriety.   As a people who highly value education, the Hebronim are particularly known for their Bards, Clerics, and Wizards. Hebronim Paladins are rarer, but quite famous. Known as Nazirites (Oath of Glory), they take oaths to abstain from alcohol and to never cut their hair in exchange for tremendous supernatural power. The Hebronim have become a very urbanized people, so Hebronim Rangers, Druids, and Barbarians are very rare, though not entirely unheard of.