Dwarves



Little is known of the Dwarves. What records remain from before the Schism show them to have been a squat, stocky people, and one of the dominant forces in the world at the time.

They reached technological and magical heights unequaled both in their time and ours. Their artifex were the finest the world has ever seen, specializing in the creation of autonomous machines. The most famous of these were the monstrous mining machines--Rustworms--which would burrow deep into the earth's crust to collect minerals in places too hostile for any living creature to survive. Legend has it these gigantic creatures still roam the twisted crust of the Surface, looking in vain for their masters.

Coalfolk legend holds that, when the Schism occurred, the most powerful artifex of the Dwarves combined their powers in order to trap their minds in mechanical bodies. The Coalfolk believe themselves to be those ancient Dwarves, awoken after long ages of slumber. Their memories are garbled, they say, because of the intensity of the Schism's magical energies. They claim they only survived at all because their brainpans are all constructed of the incredibly magically-resistant Varrite.