Dwarfs

The Dwarves of the Stolen Expanse are a race carved from endurance, tradition, and the memory of the mountains. Formed in the shadow of the Prime God Ginto, the Stone-Bound, they are a people of deep roots and unshakable purpose—masters of stone, metal, and sacred labor who build not only with tools, but with time and will.

To be dwarven is to endure. It is to be shaped by hardship rather than broken by it—to find pride in legacy, strength in silence, and holiness in honest toil.

Appearance and Bearing

Dwarves are short, stout, and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and calloused hands. Their skin is often earth-toned, as though dusted by the stone from which they were born, and their eyes glint like polished gems beneath heavy brows. Beards are sacred among both men and women—woven with beads, runes, or flames depending on clan and calling.

They move with the certainty of a hammer's swing and speak with a gravitas earned through centuries of ancestral memory.

Society and Culture

Dwarven society is layered and ancient, built upon oaths, clans, and sacred craft. Their great mountain homes—such as Keldrim’s Crown, Stonehearth Bastion, and Emberforge Hold—are more than cities; they are vaults of memory, with each hall a chronicle carved in stone.

Their culture reveres labor as divine. Blacksmiths, masons, and artisans are the priesthoods of dwarven life, for to create is to honor Ulgrim, the Exalted Smith, and to uphold the balance laid by Ginto, the Stone-Bound. Dwarven children are taught their lineage through stone tablets and hearth stories, and adulthood is marked by the forging of a personal oathstone—a talisman bound to a life’s purpose.

Dwarves are slow to trust and slower still to forgive, but their loyalty, once earned, is absolute. Betrayal is among the gravest of sins in dwarven culture, and a broken oath is said to echo louder than a shattered mountain.