[Dwarves]

Race relations

Humans: Allies
Orcs: Hostile
Elfs: Friendly
Harpies: Friendly
Anu: Friendly
Darkin: Friendly

Unity Through Oden

Oden was a travelling apothecary, a rarity given that he was a Dwarf, but he loved to help people with his medicines and prepared his whole life to be that of a public servant. He had visited every Dwarven settlement across the country, and although they were all tribalistic in nature, they eased up to Oden as he would cure local people of their sicknesses, and give the people a better quality of life through his medical practices trained into him by his mentor, an Anu doctor who Oden happened upon on his many travels.

During Odens lifetime he had seen many ill tidings from the other countries, the Humans scared him the most as they were gearing up for expanse and as their weakest neighbor it was only a matter of time until the Humans averted their eyes from the Orcs and set their sights on the Dwarves. With this revelation in his mind he set out returning to the many villages he had visited and helped to ask that they attend a conference, choosing his home city Dhavien as the meetup location, it was later to grow into the capital city of the Black country.

The village chiefs and elders all agreed to his request, breaking traditions of their chosen solace and meeting up to discuss terms. Oden explained his worries with the others, explaining to them that the Humans were a major threat and that the only solution was to join forces and unite under one banner. The elders were hesitant, but seeing as how they had already enjoyed the benefits of outside help they were inclined to accept. With this coming together of the newly established country, Oden was declared King of the Claw, referring to the capitals location looking similar to a claw on a map, and with their cooperation and teamwork quickly erected indomitable castles across the country.

The Black Victory

While the humans warred with the Orcs over the golden road, they also warred with the Dwarves over the small amounts of land they owned. They saw their small territory and stature of Dwarven people as a weakness that could easily be exploited and so they declared war against the dwarves, expecting an easy victory they sent their full forces in at once with little to no tactics, to storm the gates with ladders and infiltrate the dwarves, **** them to swear fealty to the humans and act as a puppet state for the humans profit.

With the human invaders grouped up beneath the city walls, ladders stacked and being climbed - the Dwarves put their plan into play, atop all the ladders currently being climbed a black oil was poured down, sending many invaders falling to their deaths, the oil was described my many soldiers as 'pitch' as the oils color was "pitch black". The oil pooled at the soldiers feet, the fools still unaware of their demise attempted to re-climb the now sticky ladders until a single arrow flew through the air, alight with a fire it landed and the entire field went up in flames - the screams of men burning alive and the awful smell of human flesh cooking, melting into the iron suits they wore to battle. The event was called The Black Victory due to the charred human remains of the soldiers who knew not about the properties of oil. Ever since that day, the humans have never dared attack the Dwarven people, and the region was now synonymous with this battles name and so was born the Black land, ruled by the Dwarfs.

The Watery Graves

With the invention of ships by the Dwarven coastal genius Thork, the basic schematics were sold for an absolute fortune to the other races, items like gold, silver, precious metals and gemstones were paid to get their hands on these new devices. With the ships affinity for trade and fishing capabilities, maritime cities were constructed all over the world in no time flat to make use of the until now untapped resource of the sea. And before Thork's ****, he developed one last invention to go along with his ships in an attempt to thwart the rise in a new type of bandit - the pirates that now attacked his beloved creations. He developed a cannon, utilizing a compound he had been fiddling with for 50 years of his life - sparkpowder.

Unlike the ships, this cannon was never sold to the other races and was purely a way for the Dwarves to protect their own interests. The pawning off of such a creation could spell trouble to the Dwarven people and so its creation remains a secret to anyone but specific Dwarf officials and craftsmen. With the many skirmishes and battles across the seas taking place, lives were being lost over these newly established trade deals and fishing spots. To die without being cremated is a huge taboo in the eyes of religious Dwarves, essentially marking them as cursed to stalk the planes of midland forever in complete solitary.

Theneism (Dwarf Religion)

Theneism is the belief that a prime mover named Duradal put all natural orders into play before he left the Universe to fight his evil brother Ladarud in an eternal battle over the soul throne, the position able to modify the natural world into their own making. Theneiasts believe in three states of being, lowland, midland and highland. Lowland is the state of being alive in Adien, a mortal being bound to the natural order. Midland is the state of being lost after ****, if your body isn't burnt then you cannot pass on after **** and are doomed to a plane of nothingness with full consciousness of yourself and your surroundings, doomed to steadily go insane with infinity staring out forever and ever. Highland is the state of passing on after **** by being cremated, after **** you are reborn as the purest form of yourself and serve Duradal in his fight against Ladarud.

Due to Theneisms authoritarian stance on life after **** in regards to Dwarfs, it is illegal and punishable by severe means to be an athiest, religion to Dwarves is as necessary to them as oxygen is to lungs. Finding public dissenters to Theneism is unheard of, to the point that even outside traders know not to speak on the subject at all.