DWARVES

DWARVES

Because everyone has their own version of stuff.
Here are Dwarves.
Or, rather, what the players in my campaign will refer to as:
DWARVES!

And now it looks weird because I've been looking at the word too much.


They live in mines, caverns, and subterranean dwellings. We all know this.
What else do we know?
Sturdy. Hardy. Resilient. Stubborn. (Alcoholic? What?)

But there are limits to how far you can go, living in the dark.
ASIDE from vitamin C deficiency that makes you go looney.
I'm talking about that most precious material, deep in the dark.

MEAT.

You can only live on fungus for so long.
Cattle (or whatever the collective term for whatever deep dark lunch animal that dwarves has even IS) still eat the same resources you do. At least you (probably) won't know if they've gone completely spare.
But to sustain any reasonable population, you'll find you only have one choice.
Eat the weak.
Eat the sick, the old, the infirm, the useless.
Recycle, reuse or be extinct.

Tough. Adaptable. Cunning. Willful. A little crazy from their... diet.

You don't see old or weak dwarves.
Okay, technically you do, but we call those Hungerlings and they're barely sentient. Starving (literally, ho ho ho) wretches driven forth by both hunger and fear of the Hunger Drivers.
And generally unknowingly infected by the mysterious potion developed in inter-dwarf combat.
It makes you explode in toxic goo after a short while.
Because when two clans war for THE BODIES OF THEIR FOES the logical thing for the losing side to do, is deny the opposing force their prize.

Which serves to push the dwarves to the surface.
The sun kills them.
At least they think so.
Only the craziest (HUNGERLINGS YOU SAY?) head out without heavy gear.
You might see some well-covered dwarven farms dotted here and there around well-concealed tunnels, but you're far more likely to see metal covered, polearm and crossbow-armed (because don't risk your MEAT) dwarves hunting for prey.
Prey being anything that isn't them.

They're not all flesh-crazed mad-people, of course.
You're likely to find a few slavers and slave merchants wandering around with their big hats and filthy beards. Still, there's something unsettling about the way they look at you, and be thankful they don't offer to share their meals with travellers.
Sort of.