The Builders (Patreon)

The Ith were beings of creation.  They spawned beings, concepts, and inspiration from their own minds into the world.  But there comes a point at which creating the same thing over and over again becomes tedious.  Why create a million bricks when you can create a people who excel at brickmaking?  Such reasoning lead to the creation of dwarves.  "Dhrvans" as they were called were the Ith word for builder/craftsperson, beings who could be trusted to go out and build a thing and not mess it up.

Unlike elves, dwarves were fairly autonomous; they would be given a task and then trusted to fulfill it.  The Ith didn't particularly care where a road went so much as the reliable movement of goods to their cities.  If the something failed, make the dwarves build it again.  And if the dwarves needed labor, give them a few thousand humans to do it.  And for a time, it worked.  Ith directed, dwarves designed and engineered and supervised the projects.  But as the Ith entered decline, annoyance grew.  Ith would order works simply to order them moved, destroyed, or replaced by something even more fickle.  The instruction to 'move' a road was bad enough, but few dwarves loved the idea of 'moving' a mountain to improve an Ith's view from their palace's dining room.

Dwarves were based off the human design, but efficient.  Working out in the wilds or deep underground required bodies that could do the most with very little.  Dwarves can remain conscious and active in half the air of a human, get more energy out of the same amount of food, require less water and less sleep, and have much longer lifespans.  After all, it was nonsensical to spend fifty years learning advanced engineering only to have the dwarf die in a few more decades.  Physically, the early dwarves resembled humans, but shorter and wider.  After all, if dwarves needed something up high, there were human laborers to order to fetch it.

When the rebellion against the Ith occured, dwarves were the combat engineers and sappers that assailed the Ith's strongholds and cities.  But more over, they learned of the Ith plan to breach the barrier and concluded it was a threat to the survival of the planet itself.  The dwarves immediately began building elaborate bunkers deep in the mountains of Quintus.  Dozens were completed before the rebellion concluded.  These fortifications were stocked with supplies and magical tools.  Surely, if the worst should happen, they would survive, right?

They did... all two of them.

The release of power was orders of magnitude greater than even their greatest estimate of 'survivable' force.  Several were crushed outright.  Others survived the impact, but flooded by boiled sea water.  A few survived both, the the inhabitants inside were unable to restore air and suffocated in the dark.  But two survived, located the greatest distance from the epicenter of the detonation.  Recordings of the event are filled with the unnerving grind of continents skating over the mantle for days.

Even so, both fortresses found themselves trapped even deeper underground than initially planned.  The southern fortress struggled with salt water inundating and corroding vital systems while the northern one desperately attempted to shore up against collapse.  Yet both survived, and both owed their survival to the humble Bubble Mushroom and Black Mushroom.  The former was an unassuming little fungi, less than ten centimeters high, pale white with a mucus coating that constantly bubbled... as it released oxygen as a byproduct of its digestion of carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds.  The fungi itself was horribly poisonous, but the air it gave kept both of them alive.  The latter was a small black capped mushroom that was notable in that it could digest and grow off any organic matter shoved on it.

And since they were buried alive, the dwarves started to engineer a way out.  For more than five centuries, both would work to simply reestablish connections with the surface.  The southern group dug through layers of sea bed and crust that had piled up as the continent had moved, occasionally encountering pockets of scalding water and rotten sea life.  The northern group simply struggled to prevent cave in after cave in, the fractured continent shifting and quaking every day.  Three generations later, the dwarves reconnected with the surface.

What they found was a hellscape of steaming oceans, broken muddy land poisoned by sulfur, and inhabited by feral humanoids and monsters that had utterly reverted back to savagery.  They took all this in soberly, secured their air supply, and went back down into the earth.  They were on their own.

For a thousand years, the dwarves of Ara and Litha focused on survival; fortifying and expanding their underground living arrangements.  Much of that involved studying and mapping the geological formations caused by the Shattering.  Ara struggled with volcanism, as magma started to melt new channels through fissures formed in the crust while Litha found itself shoved almost to the north pole.  As the world cooled, polluted ice and snow and freezing became a greater concern.

Yet both realized that for the first time, they had the opportunity to do what they wanted rather than how they were directed.  And so they began to come up with practical solutions, expanding and making life more and more pleasant for themselves while occasionally monitoring the outside.  As the shattered sea cooled and the climate stabilized, dwarves hoped that one day the conditions would be safe enough to expand out on to the surface and grow good crops.  They steadily amassed better and better tools to build and construct with.  Finally, after two centuries underground, the dwarves of Ara tried to return to the surface.

Within three months, half were dead from a horrible malady that filled the body with stabbing pain all over, but especially in the extremities.  This was followed by agonizing paralysis as bones fused together.  Finally the victims died from horrible internal bleeding.  The corpses showed horrific growths of bone fused together or grown spikes.  Their years under ground had made them hyper sensitive to vitamin D, and prolonged exposure caused hypercalcimia to form.  This disease, called sun sickness, closed off the surface to the vast majority of dwarven kind.

In Litha, sun sickness was less of a problem than the horrible conditions at the top of the world.  The chill glaciers and frequent blizzards necessitated covering up anyway, and dwarves found themselves navigating icefalls and chasms that opened and closed as the ice sloughed its way south.  A few critical hot springs provided water and warmth, and most of the land grew around this geothermal hot spot.  Lithican dwarves grew more accustomed to hunting mammoths and whales, and gradually moved southward, using tunnels to navigate under glaciers easier.

Both groups, however, had the same problem: they were tired of Blackcaps.  Though the fungus was tenacious, it also was barely palatable.  And as the lands above them greened and humanity spread unhindered, dwarven kind at least wanted access to them.  Thus did dwarven emissaries make a deal.  In the middle of the night, they tunneled into the middle of a tribe's camp, emerged with steel weapons and armor, and took the chieftain hostage, and told them that if they traded food with them, they'd get the weapons and armor and their enemies wouldn't.  If they turned down the offer, they'd make the deal to their enemies.  Most aristocratic human lineages can trace their fortune to a progenitor who said 'yes' to the deal.

Unlike elves and humans, dwarves have an innate aversion to absolute authority.  While having someone in charge is useful, they are usually assigned an arbitration role as opposed to a leadership role.  Dwarves favor meritocratic organizations aligned to utility.  A community would thus have a head miner, a head smelter, a head food preparer, and so on.  These heads would be elected democratically by the members of that field.  These groups were organized into trade guilds which came to define dwarven settlements.

The arrangement was simple: every guild would work together, because if any one failed everyone would suffer.  Thus the belief was that ever guild would at least make an effort to a settlement's survival.  And it worked, more or less.  Dwarves were pragmatists, and while the occasional ego might strive for power they were unqualified for, they rarely stayed in position for long.  Dwarves came to identify as individuals, then family, then their associated guild.  Some guilds may have only a few people, the minimum being three, while others may have thousands, such as the merchant's guild which organized and managed businesses.

Crime was relatively simple.  The accused would have a trial before a jury of ten or one hundred.  Each member would vote guilty or not guilty.  The degree of guilt would determine punishment.  At less than twenty five percent, the accuser would owe damages to the accused.  At twenty five to less than fifty percent, the accused would be released as not guilty.  At fifty to less than seventy five percent, the accused would be given a light punishment, and if guilt was over seventy five percent, a severe punishment.  Ninety percent or higher guilt could merit execution or exile.  The guilty would be given a list of punishments drafted by the judge, the prosecution, and the victims and select their sentence.

War was similarly democratically conducted.  If a guild supported conflict, they had to pay war taxes.  If they didn't, they would not, but also would be refused any cut of rewards.  The military was effectively a mercenary force that occasionally would be leased to outsiders that proved extremely lucrative, specializing in penetrating's defenses and employing short, brutal force.  Only one dwarven army was ever beaten in battle, that by Aran's founder, who lured the dwarven army into prolonged battles in the sun until they were too enervated by sun sickness to fight on.

Dwarven communities are defined by the relative strength of their guilds.  A settlement devoted to mining gold likely has little interest in lumber, while one near the surface cutting logs would have little interest in mining.  Dwarves approve of this organic arrangement, and if a dwarf is unhappy in a weak guild in one settlement, they can transfer to a guild in another settlement.  If interguild disagreements break out, settlements may sue both for negligence and pushing both members.

Inter-settlement conflict is rare, but can happen.  In such cases, both members table the problem, putting on table what they want and what they're willing to give in exchange.  When everyone is happy with the situation, a deal is struck and signed.  Without a deal, settlements are to keep themselves apart.  If they are too close together physically, a vote might be held to merge the settlements together, fuse their respective guilds, and remove the conflicts.

Dwarves love math.  Geometry, trigonometry, and calculus were all invented by dwarves.  Art is almost always mathematical, abstract, and thought provoking.  Dwarves favor stone and metal statuary, and often work in mathematical puzzles and hints into their work for the keen eyed to pick out.  Contrary to stereotype, dwarves do not love gold.  Gold is useful because humans love gold.  Dwarves love uniqueness, because it is easy to become lost in a settlement or guild, and thus distinct tools or items are prized more than amassing coins.

Dwarves also are vigorous foodies.  While Blackcap is always available, dwarves tend to burn through a lot of calories in a day and cherish imported food.  Dwarves always have a public eatery and from there private businesses can produce specialized food.  Such establishments are one of the rare times humans may be encountered, because few dwarves have the opportunity to live in human cities and learn their cuisine.  The stereotype of drinking beer is accurate, but dwarves are also fond of wine, mead, or other mildly alcoholic drinks.  Their density makes intoxication difficult, and they tend to avoid distilled spirits.

There's a dwarven saying: work dirty, relax clean.  Dwarves are fastidious bathers.  When working in the mines or elsewhere, dwarves tend to get pretty grimy.  Any settlement is going to have a public bath, and many build elaborate baths with pride.  some are heated by hot springs, while others use gas fires.  Dwarves have no nudity taboo; in such close spaces people will see things.  Dwarves prize comfortable casual clothes when not laboring and in the household.  Filth is often associated with

In family concerns, families are like little guilds.  Members can join or leave as they need to, and if a family struggles, it's not uncommon for children to move to another family in the guild.  Dwarven sexuality encompasses a wide spectrum, with many dwarves shifting between attractions.  Marriage is contractual, not reproductive.  Two, or three, or four gay dwarves can adopt as many dwarven children as they wish to support, and there is a slow supply of excess children from the prostitute's guild to meet such demand.

While humans occasionally live in dwarven cities, they tend not to enjoy the experience.  Dwarven cities smell, are relatively dim, and the inhabitants rarely notice either.  Thousands of inhabitants living in a confined space with industry tend to make an rather humid odor, even with the best ventilation.  Most humans tend to form symbiotic villages on the surface, joining guilds, and participating in the activity of those guilds.  Such humans tend to tattoo or brand themselves to denote their dwarvish affiliation.

As Ara and Litha stabilized and spread, dwarves soon came to realize that greater economic opportunities lay in human cities farther from their mountains.  Digging massive tunnel networks was rarely worth the investment.  However, many dwarves desired to have 'picks in the grounds' in Throne, Ossid Pashir, Gullport, and Dyne.  Thus dwarves set up enclaves under the cities.  Human cities craved underground infrastructure, which dwarves could dig quickly and cheaply.  In exchange, the dwarves would be given a block of two to wall off for their own economic activity.  These blocks would become settlements that could go down for hundreds of feet, or even thousands.   Dwarves would venture out at night, or in severe need, during the day wearing many layers of cloth, and conduct businesses.  Because of the peril of travel, once dwarves reached the enclaves, they stayed there, often for the rest of their lives.  Human cities with dwarven enclaves tended to thrive as well, and thus the establishment of a dwarven enclave was a note of prestige for most humans.  Ara specialized in metalworks and gold, while Litha exported marble, granite, and gemstones.  Both imported food, cloth, and wood.

Indeed, the largest problem enclaves faced were when they were drug into human conflicts.  They were prime targets for mobs and invading armies alike.  Many enclaves made multiple escape routes out in the event of a riot.  'Dwarven conspiracies' would rise up, circulate, and die down, but occasionally caught fire and resulted in massive backlash against the Enclaves, especially humans that lived there.  Conspiracies ranged from basic corruption to lewd speculation to wild accusations of demon summoning and human slavery.

In reality, dwarves are rarely so exotic.  They play by the rules because breaking rules in a mine gets people killed.  Likewise, sex is just another pastime and rarely needs to be a decadent orgy every night.  As far as magic is concerned, dwarves long ago worked out an arrangement with elves over the dangers of breaching the barrier.  While humans might forget, dwarves were careful about policing such arcane studies.  Otherwise, magic was just another tool to be used; and generally not as useful as a good steel pickaxe.

Life was good for the dwarves of Ara and Litha.  The former was called 'The Dwarven Dominion' by humans for it's might and power.  It seemed that would never change...

Until someone discovered why the core of Quintus was molten...