Race:Dwarf

Dwarves are short, stocky humanoids. Generally speaking, they are proud of their hair and are competitive with elves. If you are reading a wiki entry about our MUD, you probably have some idea about what dwarves are. So let's cut to what Karchanian Dwarves are all about.

Dwarves the most prolific race in Karchan, which is known as The Dwarven Valley for good reason. In general terms, dwarves can be distinguished based on where their clans originate from. There are two main types of clans: mountains clans and plain clans.

Mountain Clans
Mountain Clans hail from deep in (or under) mountainous areas, both in and out of the Karchan realm. Mountain Clans frequently dedicate themselves to mining and smelting ores, and harvesting valuable jewels from their mountain homes. Because of their immediate access to rich ores, the Mountain Clans claim to have the greatest smiths and craftsmen. Mountain Dwarves are Kuri-reknowned for their smelting, producing the purest metals known on the planet. Mountain dwarves commonly have black and red hair and swarthy skin tones, though very dark skin is not uncommon, and eyes of the darker colors in the human eye-color spectrum, though lightest blues and grays are most common.

Plains Clans
Plains Clans are typically nomadic, and commonly hail from exiled Mountain Clans. Despite living out in the world, beneath the open sky, they are usually just as insular a culture as the secluded mountain clans, and distrust outsiders. They typically make their livelihood through trade, and are known as shrewd business-folk. Most commonly the dwarves of these clans have eyes of green, but hazel and brown are not rare, nor yellow. In complexion plains dwarves are often similar to humans, favoring the lighter skin shades, and their hair is of lighter browns, reds, and blondes. Because of their access to a wide variety of materials from many different geographic areas, through their travels and wide trade networks, the Plains Clans claim to have the greatest smiths and craftsmen.

Hill Clans
Hill Clans are often similar in culture and society to Plains Clans, but are known for a far greater respect for their Mountain Clan ancestry. They are quite often disparaging of Plains Clans, denying all similarities, though they are themselves just as commonly from exiled Mountain Clans. Known to widely populate the foothills of great mountain ranges they uphold tradition smelting methods though their ores more commonly are drawn from peat, sluice, and the occasional slope or slant mine. Due to millenia of tradition and the ingenuity of years of innovation, as well as the recent addition of black powder that makes previously impenetrable ores available, Hill Clans claim to have the greatest smiths and craftsmen. In appearance, most dwarves of the Hill Clans have eyes the same shades as humans, though they commonly favor shades of brown, and swarthy complexions in various depths of earthen tones. Their hair is often in earthen tones, though the blacks and reds of their ancestry are not uncommon.

Deep Dwarves
Deep Dwarves comprise a few remnants of many old Clans, but rarely have their own. The oldest myths simultaneously hold that these peoples, called Duergar, went willingly with the Thauranko to the dark lands of Kraal, were forced into servitude by these beings, and were simply mountain dwarves of unruly Clans that 'dug too deep' and never came back. Commonly understood to have far superior darkvision and hearing, the Duergar are invariably dark hair tones but light of skin tone, having eyes of red or of all black. From dark rites gleaned in unknown circumstances, and from their access to the rarest and strangest of ores and heat sources within the planet, the Duergar have from to claim that their kind hold the greatest of all craftsmen and smithees in all of Kuri.