Cave Dwarves

Female Examples: Kili, Herumma, Haraka, Naltila

Male Examples: Thini, Ovor, Thorkon, Simlin

Karmeny names are always singular unless appended to a title and generally have a repetitive pattern on the vowels and rarely on the consonants. When introducing themselves or needing to clarifying which 'Glon' they are; A Karmeny will give the name of his father, his father's father, and his father's father's father: Karmeny Damka, Gleb the Strong; Son of Glon the Brave; Son of Glav the Ruthless

The Karmeny Drachev are dutiful to their kin, yet they hold tradition and religious values close to their hearts. Throughout their time in the realm, the Karmeny Drachev have dedicated themselves to the crafting of ores and refinement of jewels and armor. It is no question that their wealth has caused jealousy among the other races and thus they have become battle-hardened from their previous wars, skirmishes, and conflicts. Their natural strength from generations past that slaved among the forges and smelters has caused their physiques to become naturally polished and muscular. These creatures have a devout love for their homeland, traditions and treasures and will go to the very last man to defend their heritage and honor.   The Karmeny Drachev are very Guild centric and their rule makes up a democratic style where the Guild’s representatives come together to vote upon important issues and policy. It is an odd style of rule but one that allows all of the Karmeny Drachev to vote for their input and ideals for the betterment of their kingdom. There is a King but he is seen more as a figure of faith and a leader that embraces the religious ideals of Vykovat, and his lineage is simply a symbol to the other Karmeny Drachev for them to remember the first son of Vykovat and his desire to create a great populace.   Almost all Cave Dwarves speak Yazyk and Common.

Religion

The Karmeny believe themselves to be the direct lineage of their god, Karmeny Karlik, and the first families in existence. For this reason, their religious observances mesh directly with their family practices. They venerate their elders, listening to their wisdom, and either throughout or at some point in their life, most of them will write their life's story down in a tome or journal. While some families keep these tomes, other, more wealthy families have them transcribed onto metal tablets to last eternity in giant books of these thin metal (gold, if it can be afforded,) plates. As a religious practice, Karmeny read the tomes of their elders from a young age, learning the story of their family from a first person perspective. For some, this story ranges all the way back to the first few dwarf families who ever lived, though the link has often been broken by war, with dwarfholds being lost, and the precious tomes within destroyed or lost with them.   Beyond this, though, the various guilds and clans of the Karmeny keep their own tomes, written by a specially appointed historian, which includes the history of the clan, as well as the history of major events in the lives of those within the clan. Many Karmeny also read and learn the stories of their clans and guilds, and attempt to use this historic knowledge to give them wisdom. A frequent saying within Karmeny culture is simply "Read the next tome," meaning several things. First, it is a literal saying, a piece of advice given when one doesn't have a good piece of advice, generally telling someone to read the next tome in your family's history, to gain wisdom about your current problem from it there. It can also be used to tell someone to calm down, take a breather and collect their thoughts, so that they might get the chance to read the next tome, or sometimes, to see what comes next in their own life if they are soon to make a suicidal mistake.   Regardless, this fusion of ancestor worship and religion has caused their society to have excellent record keeping, near universal literacy, and an almost stunningly efficient banking system, appreciated in every corner of the old world. It also allows them to keep track of grudges from acts committed against them tens of decades ago, with ease, and the dwarves harbor these grudges like a dying flame. There are whole dynasties of Rehk whom cannot safely travel in their under-roads to get to the North because of acts committed in the long past, and while the whole world around, even the dynasties, have forgotten what occurred, the Karmeny remember.  

Family

The family of the Karmeny is in an odd position of balance with the other half of Karmeny society: the guilds. While the families of Karmeny are large clans, held together by familial knowledge and bonds of blood, with each Karmeny having between two and four children over the course of their lives, the guilds draw from all the families. For a long period of Karmeny history, there was only the families, and there was much more war under the mountains at that point. Grudges ranging back hundreds of years, blood feuds, and unapproachable familial differences made their every interaction with one another war. At this stage, even the outside world was only seen as enemies, spies for one family or another, so relations were never friendly. For millenia the dwarves fought in bitter wars, until they were brought to the edge of extinction, when a clanless orphan named Simlin from a dwarfhold, razed to the ground, created the first guild, the Guild of Alchemists.   It wasn't just this he created, either. He also was the first person to figure out how to alchemically create pure gold from lead. With this one invention, he became the richest of all Karmeny, capable of buying the end of the war by paying weregilds to the grudges of each family, and propping up the organizations which would become the guilds of today. The guilds, associated with various crafts, prevent the previous blood feuds by recruiting from all the families, and binding them all together with trade. Eventually the guilds became so powerful that they assumed political control of the Karmeny, but this was not unexpected, and had been predicted for decades before. In this system, each dwarfhold counted as a clan, and each guild sent representatives to the clan's council.   Though the peace between the families at this point is much more sure, some grudges could not be repaid with simple weregilds, so many of them nurse their own bitter hatreds of certain other families, creating factions within the guilds that don't always work perfectly together. Their society for the past millenia or so has been a give and take between the families and the guilds, the power dynamic being contested and frequently falling one way or another within the various clans. Some dwarves consider themselves to be Clandwarves, who view the history tomes of their clan to be more important than that of family, that would likely introduce themselves as the son of their clan, giving a list of clan leaders instead of their fathers' names. A very few consider themselves to be Guilddwarves, venerating the story of their guild, and they'd give the names of their master within the guild, as well as the masters before them. The majority, however, are kindwarves, who know the stories of their families, and introduce themselves by the various patriarchs who came before them.  

Food

The Karmeny love their kebabs. A good kebab with cucumber, peppers and beef wrapped in the delicious Rumner, a smoky, nutty flavored fungus which they grow in their caves, and finally cooked over a fire until it's brown and crunchy is considered a great delicacy to them, especially paired with ale. For that matter, they'll try just about anything on a kebab, or anything covered in Rumner and cooked to crunchy perfection. The dwarves also came up with the first effective deep frying method, and it is widely accepted that just about anything covered in Rumner and deep fried is delicious. Dwarves prefer darker ales, generally speaking, though many of them have taken a liking to lighter ales as well, leading to greater trade with the surface, as they cannot seem to produce the plants to give them the light ale they desire in the dark of their caves.

Dwarven clothing is very rugged, generally being made from all sorts of Moss and Lichen that originate in the caves of the Underdeep. Their apparel also consists of tons of Fur, Hide, and Leather made from the corpses of ghastly subterranean beasts. For a lesser male Dwarf, you will find them wearing a simple earthly colored tunic that goes down to their knees. It'll have a few pockets here and there and some sort of geometric design on the shoulders. Then, they'll have a sash-like belt that is made by either their mother or their wife. The belt is usually the nicest thing a lower class dwarf will wear. For their leg-wear, they will be wearing a pair of simple, baggy pants. This outfit is capped at the bottom with a pair of leather boots that are sometimes stuffed with fur though usually, a Lichen or Moss based cloth will line the boots. In the case of a lower-class female dwarf, their clothing will share many of the amenity of their male counterparts. But, rather than pants, the tunic will simply extend down to the shin, becoming a dress. Karmeny with greater means however are harder to pin down. The general consensus is that they will wear a greater number of furs, a greater number of layers, and own more leather garb. Due to the inherent greed of their race they have an innate need for opulence and will strive to have the richest and most garish-looking garb that they can. They also have access to giant spider silk, which is used to weave beautiful dresses and imposing cloaks, that are emblazoned with the runes and symbols of their clan.

Accessories

Karmeny absolutely love their gold, and they love to show that they have gold. A Karmeny will embroider his furs, wear gold rings, necklaces, earings, headbands, eyeglasses and monocles, torcs, brooches, and any manner of other little bits and bobs to show exactly how much gold and how many gems that they own. Frequently their weaponry will be inladen with bits of gold, and they will even use little bits of the stuff to bind their beards or hair. Almost all Karmeny smoke, and regardless of whether they do, they all carry a pipe with at least gold leafing. To not have this pipe is a huge shame to a Karmeny, second only to forcibly having their beard shaved, and so many Karmeny would melt down their last piece of gold just to cast it around their pipe.

With the relative peace and the guilds being in the ascendant for the past millenia, the art and clothing of the Karmeny has gotten to be extremely finely crafted. There is no artful pursuit in which the Karmeny have not tried their hand, no material they have not sculpted, no form of architecture they have not mastered. The Karmeny are simply the best craftsmen the old world has to offer, and they know it. Karmeny art is prized around the world, from the Gravican cities, who hire Karmeny to produce busts, to the Rehk dynasties who pay them to craft exquisite armor and jewelry. Dwarf holds themselves usually have art out for viewing on the streets, and museums of art spread about, almost two thousand years of art kept safe across the holds. Though the Karmeny are exquisite artisans, nothing has captured them quite like the distillation and creation of ale, and almost every guild has its own private brewery, creating multiple types of ale for the hold to consume.

Creation Story

According to some human Legends the first Drachev were a family of humans cursed and forced to live underground until that day they had finally lost their greed, but, if you ask a Drachev, you’ll get a very different story. They believe themselves to be a direct lineage from Vykovat, the Titan of the Underdeep, a craftsman hidden away from the rest of the Dwarven gods who were believed to forge weapons for the other gods of the Dwarves.

The dwarfs are not known to have any settlements on Anoma. Perhaps you can change this.
The Dwarfholds, as they're known in the old world, are a string of continuous dwarven citadels under the mountains which belt the old world's tundra and swerve into the north to cradle the Eastern border of Gravicus. There are some seven hundred holds, and they mostly work together, with a massive underground roadway connecting them. There are also many entrances to these citadels in both the Underdeep and on the surface of the world, making it possible to use these roadways to travel mostly undetected for vast distances, given that your path is convenient. Frequently the Karmeny of various holds will set up tolls for using these paths, but it's usually worth the gold to travel along these safer, patrolled roads, especially compared to the same journey through the Underdeep. These roads also connect the northern continents to Rehkara, the massive continent in the south, and the Karmeny have frequently made massive amounts of money off letting armies pass through to strike at their foes on the other side, then doing the same to any retaliating army. This practice has sometimes gotten them in trouble with aggravated foes, but the dwarves are no stranger to the war this sometimes brings.