Dwarves are a stout race, built as solidly as the mountains they call home. Their skin, typically a light tan or dark umber tone, is coarse and often streaked with ore dust or soot, as dwarves take pride in displaying the efforts of their labors. Hair and eye color, ranges from rust red to browns to black; dwarven hair often turns silver or slate gray by adulthood. Dwarves prefer the same somber, earthen tones in their clothing, often adorned with precious metals.
The dwarven mindset centers on the forge and family. They respect dedication in all forms — to hard work, to their clan, and to codes of honor. A dwarf holds nothing so precious as her family and nothing so beautiful as finely worked steel. Dwarves have little time for frivolity. Their music consists entirely of dirges for their ancestors or anthems of clan tradition. Other races often view dwarves as dour and humorless creatures but retain high praise for dwarven craftsmanship.
Dwarves claim a spiritual kinship with the earth itself. Some humans have distorted this, believing that dwarves are actually elemental spirits. Many human folktales speak of dwarves who require a diet of gold and gems or who turn to stone if touched by sunlight.
Homelands
The center of dwarven culture is the town of Tempe Falls in Darkon, though nearby Corvia also hosts a sizeable dwarven population. Smaller dwarven communities have also spread south along the Balinoks and to other mountainous regions, such as the Sleeping Beast of Lamordia. In recent years, dwarven explorers have also been making inroads into the forsaken region of the Mountains of Misery once known as Arak. There they have been laboring to reopen the abandoned mines and a long-neglected trade route that once connected Tempe Falls to Liara in Nova Vaasa.