User:GreytideSkye/Sandbox/Lore:Dwarves

Hailing from the deepest reaches of space; Dwarves are a diverse (even if other races can't tell) people with rich history, powerful mining and trade routes and a fondness for drink and industry.

The Founding

First and most almighty in the heart of Dwarves is their founding father. A man of a world now lost known only as Ashbeard. Dwarves speak of hushed whispers of a world once glittering with diamond snow, seas of blue and great fields of green. It was Ashbeard who saw this world of plenty turning to rot and began a long and arduous battle. He fought in the courts, forests and snows, in the shipyards and dockyards and megacity streets. Against him were the forces of rot, beings of laziness and who wielded twisted bureaucracy against him. He fought for a new freedom and the right of those who would become the Dwarves to have their own world free of the dangers they wished to live behind.

And he for all his strife succeeded. Colony ships, the first of such a scale, prepared for the furthest reaches. But Ashbeard did not follow. At the last gate he had a final stand guaranteeing the safe launch of the colony outward. His name, remembered in flame, for his sacrifice.

Left to lead was the widowed wife of Ashbeard, Merrywine. She who once planned to lead together had alone the daunting prospect of managing the great colony and its migration. Lead she did with love and care with a fondness forming in her people for her and her own struggles. The colony did not travel in the blink of an eye nor did its people sleep in an icy slumber. Generations lived and toiled on the migrant colony before they found it. Exactly where Ashbeard and Merrywine promised. The Palladium Worlds.

In the ages since their loss the pair of Ashbeard and Merrywine, along with a multitude of other minor Founding Saints, are treated as both historical and supernal figures. Ashbeard became revered as a symbol of justice, law, combat and sacrifice. Merrywine was remembered as a champion of family, sciences and healing.

Varying between each Clan, the creeds told by their Saints are praised and influence clerics and paladins alike who hold a special place in Dwarven Culture as advisors and oracles. While they find true miracles outlandish they believe that Ashbeard and Merrywine can bend fate and bring good tidings. Dwarves pay respects to the Saints and ask for boons with song, quality crafts and the odd ritual.

The Palladium Worlds

Dwarvenkind started anew on these worlds of their founding. Named Palladium Worlds for a metal most holy to the fledgling Dwarven Kinds, the Trinary Star System they called home had at first three and soon seven worlds founded that were habitable for the stubborn and stocky Dwarves who could handle the pressure of their high gravity.

Somehow these worlds had avoided detection. Raiders from their home dared not follow the distance they trekked nor did any alien of soul call them home. It was here their first colonies grew into brilliant megacities hewn into mountain sides as rich mines were dug deep into the rocks and high into the asteroid belts.

Now in the era of 2500 each Palladium World is a mountainous econopolis with a hub of trade, influence and control. Leaving their isolation became a resounding success as Dwarven Merchant Fleets formed long lasting trade routes galaxy wide.

New Palladium Worlds were founded as well as a new form of world, Worlds Aspirant.

Worlds Aspirant

While Palladium Worlds were the heart of Dwarven society the Worlds Aspirant were its feast.

Dwarven Worlds not marked for colonization were prepared for aggressive resource reallocation. With great machines in orbit the planet is cracked open by team after team of Dwarven Miners. If the planet happens to have inhabitants the operation becomes one part mining push and another invasion.

At the end of the decades long process nothing is to be wasted. The very edge of Dwarven space is littered with hollow husks of useless slag where planet's used to be.

The Dwarven Clans

It was on these Palladium Worlds began the first Clans. Dwarven Clans were at first families forged together through blood and alliance. Dwarven Clans were forged with purpose with the most influential and well honoured being those that trace their history to the very founding of the Palladium Worlds.

The founding member of a Clan is remembered as a Saint, a house deity revered and respected highly. Dwarven folk live out their lives in accordance of the clan to honour their Founding Saint and the ancestors beyond them. These Clans are made not only of flesh and bloodlines but also tight knit alliances and marriages. All things that pump through a heart of a dwarf matter to the clan, not just the creed of their blood.

Those without Clans, even those who are not Dwarves, are welcomed by Clans who find respect in the drive and energy and who may be a better fit with them. The process of changing Clan is mired in mystery and ritual.

New Clans are not unheard of, started by the found family of Saints who performed great deeds.

Clans are as varied as there are stars in the sky but can often be categorised by their purpose and their mantra.

Fighting Dwarves, Blood and Honour

There are always battles to be won. Dwarven Clans of battle spend lifetimes honing their skills to become the best warriors they can be. Each clan reveres its own kind of weapon that they master in battle.

Fighting Dwarves are often Paladins themselves or frontline Miners. Other clans are honourbound to the protection of the great Dwarven Merchants, their tradelines and Dwarven interests both local and far far away.

Mining Dwarves, Drill and Iron

The mining of asteroids and aspirant worlds is an intense and dangerous lifetime. The Clans responsible for their mining are some of the toughest and most respected of all. It is them who secure lifelines of valuable alloys and ores often living so far from the brilliance of the Palladium Worlds. Their sacrifices are remembered in great holidays by the Dwarven kind.

In many ways they have become the greatest export of the Dwarven kind. These mining clans can easily be mistaken for companies, especially as smaller clans working alongside on frontier worlds band together.

Making Dwarves, Forge and Hammer

All that is mined must be forged. Making Dwarves are rich bloodlines of artisans, smiths, builders and shiprights. Dwarves have always respected any craft of quality be it the smallest tool or the greatest ship or hab-block built in far orbit. Dwarven constructs are known for their quality worlds away and are the heart of their rich and brilliant trade routes.

Trade Dwarves, Coin and Splendor

Keepers of the great trade routes, Trade Dwarves live the rough road in their gigantic ships that travel far from the Palladium Worlds. Many Clans focus on diplomacy and first contact while others secure regular routes that have made their worlds strong and prosperous. These Trade Clans work tightly with Making Dwarves with deals that go back a dozen generations.

And of course there are Clans of trade Dwarves who began to slowly use their connections and influence to guarantee more than legal deals. Considered in some part a necessary evil, and even encouraged if the scheme is clever enough, under-dealing and smuggling is not uncommon among their kind.

Thinking Dwarves, Lore and Mystery

Since the founding of the Palladium Worlds Dwarven Kind has been enamored with their history, creeds and legends. Clans of Thinking Dwarves master the sciences, forge ironclad and esoteric systems of bureaucracy and function of the masterful brains of Dwarven Society.

Mercury

Core to the efforts on Mercury was the mining, refinement and trade of Sulfur. The particularly ionized form of Sulfur under Mercury's crust was discovered by early Sol drones to be a potent powersource. Before the shift to Bluespace Engines it was the massive foundries on Mercury that powered most starships and even now Sulfur production feeds into welding fuel and power pellets used in industry across the galaxy.

Dwarven kind capitalized on this fast. Their half of the deal for the colonies on Mercury was the Sulfur with businesses forming overnight when the deal was struck both legal and otherwise.

In the decades since colonization of Mercury started in earnest the Dwarves that run Mercury colony have grown distant to their family across the stars. Rituals and ancestry are mostly a thing of the past with Clans called and celebrated mostly as lip-service.

The Dwarven nature for self-governance has made Mercury's foundry cities a place where SolFed's tight laws are often overlooked. 'A working man's Pluto'. Dwarven holdings on Mercury are often 'grey markets', places where talented traders can buy and sell official goods that will raise no questions at SolFed's ports. Important resources such as Sulfur, Plasma and others flow through Mercury to the rest of SolFed's space, including the largest plasma smuggling operations run by Dwarves and Plasmamen hand in hand.