Dwarves

Hardy mountainfolk with tempers to match their short stature, Dwarves are a race of warriors, miners and artisans of metal and stone. Dwarves stand under five feet tall but are broad and filled out with dense muscle making many of them weigh as much as a human who stands a couple of feet taller. They have long curly hair with a proud tradition of maintaining a magnificent beard which falls down to the chest of the typical dwarven male. Their have flattened facial features make it look like their faces were chiseled out of stone and their eyes are typically shades of brown but can range into amber and even dark yellow colours. Dwarves arrange themselves into Clans and live most comfortably in a structured hierarchy; social standing within the Clan's hierarchy is important to every dwarf and forms the basis for character judgement for these people. Dwarves live to be about 400 years old so their memories are solid and enduring like the mountains they choose to inhabit, they are slow to trust and rarely forget a slight done to them or their Clan; in some cases it is favourable to insult a dwarf individually rather than the Clan as a whole as insults against a Dwarven Clan are answered with fists. Each Dwarven Clan covets something in particular and, as a result of their pursuits, become masters in a particular craft. Often times Dwarven Clans covet masonry or smithing or some other tangible craft that can be bettered through practice, although some covet more ambiguous goals such as the ideals of strength or wisdom. In any case a Clan as a whole sets it's entire identity and culture around that pursuit and it becomes a shared ideal of the Dwarves belonging to that Clan.