Mountain DwarfMain Trait: Hardy
Life Span: 200 years
Height: 4'2"-4'6"
Weight: 200 lbs
Traditionally, clan allegiance and caste placement meant everything among the mountain dwarves, but as their civilization has declined from constant war with the Orc and Goblin hordes, so has the importance of the clans. Although bloodline is still a mark of pride for a dwarf from a particularly strong clan, personal accomplishments have come to mean more practically than the old ways, which seem increasingly irrelevant. Family life remains a prime concern for dwarves, however, and while elders play a diminishing role in childrearing, the relationships between parent and child or siblings remain as strong as ever. Most dwarves are literate and are taught to read at an early age, before being handed off to an apprenticeship appropriate to their caste. In the workplace, shield dwarves are taught to work both for not only themselves and their family but for the greater whole of their clan and most mountain dwarves are, while proud of their work, fairly humble and avoid ostentatious displays of decadence.
The ancestral homelands of the mountain dwarves are located primarily in the North. They can also be found in Damara, Vaasa, the Vast, and the Western Heartlands. Of all their strongholds, the most important is likely Citadel Adbar, formerly a part of Luruar. However, while the shield dwarves retain many homelands of their own, generations of emigration by the Wanderers has caused a vast diaspora of shield dwarves to spread across human lands. These scattered communities often form into loose approximations of a traditional dwarven clan, maintaining their own ways while integrating into the local community.
