On the Dwarves of Tarnzania

On the races of Tarnzania

The different races that Tarnzania plays host to are as varied as the environments that play host to them, so for the sake of fair play I will try to give them all as much as time as I deem necessary. Today I will be talking about the Dwarfish varieties. An industrious and ancient race with an undeniable claim on the title of eldest race. The dwarves also have one of the most intriguing and distressing religious origin stories.

In the beginning there was Gar'uld (untranslatable into common I believe it refers either the planet, or perhaps some kind of life force?) and all was well. Gar'uld was content and sat in the inky black of space and basked in the light of stars. It is unknown how long Gar'uld floated through space, but it is believed that it either collided with another planet or another type of interstellar refuse ,But Gar'uld was deeply wounded by the accident, and went into a type of shock, releasing something similar to what we would consider antibodies to deal with the damages. These first antibodies were the titans, and they moved stone and stitched the continents together as best they could but after eons their work was done and finished, everything on the surface was as it should be, and they laid down, stopped being titans, and became the mountains instead ( it is interesting to note that this ties DIRECTLY into the goliath origin stories of being breed of mountains and titans) but the damage to Gar'uld went much much deeper than the titans could reach, so Gar'uld release a secondary set of antibodies, the first dwarves.

The first dwarves (as implied from all accounts and archealogical digs) where vaguely humanoid piles of stone and flesh that set about repairing the veins of the world, and in doing so created great subterranean cities to house them, over time the first dwarves began to change and evolve into the dwarves that we are all more familiar with, and with these physical changes there came a change to their mission, instead of fixing what was wrong with the planet, they begin to harvest and work with the materials that surrounded them, This is furthered by the major advances that the dwarves have in metallurgy, alchemy and the deep magics. There are rumors that there are still pockets of pure First dwarves the closer that you get to the core of Tarnzania (or Gar'uld, if you prefer) and many of the more noble dwarven clans can be said to trace their heritage back to the first of the first dwarves, this is unrealistic and incredibly unlikely since all evidence points to the first record or any dwarves happens around the 2^nd age, eons after the suspected birth of the first dwarves.

Dwarves are stocky creatures, generally being considered abnormally tall for their species at above four and a half feet in height. They are gifted stone smith and jewelers, and many a kingdom has paid richly for a dwarf on staff, as their nobility and amazing practical skill set makes them invaluable. The cliché of dwarves being beer swilling beard laden fools comes from two very different pieces of information, that I feel I am delegated to record so when IF those idiots from Eula fail, and our world is destroyed, one of our most noble races will not be seen as a caricature of what they are. First, the drinking, Dwarves are NOTORIOUS for their love of alcohol, and they are notorious for getting uproariously drunk when they visit topside. This is actually a simple scientific explanation, Dwarves brew beer that puts hair on the chest of every man, woman and child, simply because as deep down as their cities are the alcohol takes more and longer to affect then it would up on the surface, I am unclear on whether this is a natural, biological, or magical effect of the caves and dwarf anatomy, so dwarves spend their entire life drinking hard brew in an environment that, frankly, is not conducive to getting drunk at all, and then they come top side, and keep drinking what they brought with them (frankly who can blame them? Even the strongest Amini firewines taste like ogre piss if you have been drinking dwarven ale for any amount of time. Hells, once I sent a fortnight in a dwarven settlement drinking like the best of them, I spent the next three weeks after my return to the surface hunting for that sweet nectar, and once I could not find it, attempting to end my own immortal life, but I digress.) Where was I? So dwarves come to the surface and keep drinking their glorious brew, and it without the fortifying effects of their deep caves it goes straight to their heads, even the littlest bit can send a full grown warrior dwarf around the bend. Now, onto those hideous beards, Once again, one of the biggest dwarven cliches is a simple explanation based in logic and history, just like any dwarven problem really. Dwarves live deep underground, but are constantly surrounded by magma that pumps into their forges, and even the smallest dwarven settlements are positioned around volcanic vents that supply their smiths with the heat necessary for making their magic items. There are depressingly few volcanic vents on the surface, to a dwarf even the caustic Sunderlands have an undeniable chill to the air. So they grew beards to defend against the cold, and over time the dwarves who went topside went back below, with riches and tales of honor, and their beards, and they became a fashion item of the rich and famous and took off.

Another important piece of information, the dwarves are also the only race that have a steady and available supply of darkstone, which is the magical base for all items and weapons. This makes them an economic super power, but this supply had been running low previous to the introduction of the Godtrees, though there had been talk of the Deep King opening up other mines that would dig even lower in hopes of finding new veins. That of course was before the attacks, and the communications of the world all seemed to fall apart...