Dwarf

 

Physiology

Dwarves are short and stocky, but powerfully built and dense - what they lack in leverage they more than make up for in raw horsepower. The average dwarf stands 110 cm tall and weighs 40 kg, with little difference between males and females. Dwarves have a range of complexions and of skin, eye and hair colour, with each characteristic tending to inherit strongly from either the mother or the father, rather than homogenizing over generations, thus dwarves with dark skin and pale blonde hair, olive skin and icy blue eyes, or porcelian skin and coarse black curly hair are all more or less equally common, even within a single family. That males all wear beards, and the sometime suggestion that even females have them, are cliche stereotypes.

Life Cycle

Dwarves have similar bonding patterns to humans, with most dwarves committing to - or at least enduring - lifelong monogamy once they become parents. Most dwarven couples tend to have only two to four children, usually fairly close together, with twins being almost unheard of. The dwarven lifecycle is six years long.

Culture

Dwarves are highly industrious and are passionate builders and engineers, known for their work ethic. This, combined with their longer productive lifespans, affords them a greater opportunity to accumulate wealth and to get ahead, even in a pre-industrial society where subsistance living is the norm. Dwarves are very class conscious and very lineage conscious, and in dwarven marriage, the decision of which family name to adopt can be a long and complicated process involving comparing the successes of ancestors going back generations. Marrying down is important to ensure you carry on the family name - but not any further down than necessary. At the same time, giving up the family name to marry up can be a great boon; and the higher up you can marry the better.

Adjustments

Physically, dwarves are hard as oak, and their mental focus and determination is renown, but they are guileless and direct. They gain bonuses to their Health, Vitality and Will, but suffer a penalty to their Cunning. They are stout and dense, and do additional damage in combat, but can't move as fast as taller folk. They are adapted to toiling in forges and working in mines, and have the Night Vision perk as well as the Mental Mapping perk which affords them a profound spatial sense when indoors or underground. They also start with Apprentice level of mastery and a free initial roll in the Industry skill field.