Short and stout, of about four feet tall. Dwarven society predominantly exists in extensive, exogamous clans. If a new hold is formed, a new clan is as well. Dwarves ken single-step relations, father/mother, brother/sister, son/daughter, but consider all other Dwarves in their clan to be two steps away, the uncle/aunt/grandparent/niece/nephew/cousin level. As such, they do not have their own words for these, though acknowledge that others do have them. As they exist in clans, what Men consider to be professions for Dwarves is more considered to be chores performed around the hold.
Dwarves are expert miners and artisans. As such they do not value currency, per se. Sure, it is incredibly useful and necessary for survival, but to them money is simply a product of work and time, both things Dwarves have in abudance. They instead value favours. Many Men have gone deep into debt with Dwarves only to be significantly better off because of it, up to and including the Summer King. Dwarves will always ask for favours that one can provide, and always, to them at least, equal to what they provided. Demanding ruinous favours stops you from asking for favours in the future, and Dwarves view this as self-defeating, (though they will if they consider their own costs worth the trouble they cause you).
Dwarven holds will normally start as mines, and they dig up the side of a cliff, opening up windows for air and light. Their windows are normally left open, because they do not need to worry about warmth as Men do. Dwarves will ornately carve everything in their lives, including their holds, (though this will often take centuries to come to fruition).
Dwarves love their baths. Young holds will normally have two baths, one for each sex, but mature holds will normally have baths in each chambre. The bath is heated with a stone, that Dwarven Pyrans will force heat into. When traveling, Dwarves will bath in whatever river and stream presents itself, as they do not have to worry about the chill that Men would. Most races come to love Dwarven baths as Dwarves do. In truth, much of the Summer King's wealth and influence came from his seating of Dwarves baths across the Empire, and later back to Cynn, where they often became the core of a nacent city.
For magick, Dwarves apply external mana into objects imbuing them with powers. This can be seemingly eternal enchantments, or enchanting the explosion in their firearms as it is firing to change it's effects.
Dwarves are far stronger than Men and can live for over three centuries. Because of this they rarely work to make their own lives easier. This means that Dwarves often have tremendous knowledge and ability to make the lives of others easier, if you become friendly enough with them to help you.
Because of their long life, and their belief that more dangerous professions provides more social credit, male Dwarves die as often as Men, while female Dwarves rarely die of anything other than natural causes. This lead to tremendous amounts of spare females that Dwarves consider a standard and proper marriage to be one male to several females. When the husband dies, the wives grieve, often for decades, and then move on. Widows rarely have to worry for their survival, as the remainder of the clan will take care of them. In truth, any clan they are friendly with will take care of them, at the most this will be considered a favour. At the least this will be considered hospitality.
Dwarves view a friend staying with them as an invitation to stay with them. The reverse is also true, and if you are in an area and do NOT stay in a friendly hold, that can and often is viewed as telling them they are not welcome. The females take care of their males. Males offer hospitality to visitors. If a female offers hospitality to a male from another clan, this is viewed as flirting. Despite it's banal apperance, Dwarves take this with extreme severity, to the point that a male might have to keep his cup covered for nearly an entire meal, as letting an, (often persistent), female fill his cup, is considered flirting in return.
Dwarven females believe that if they aren't getting enough attention from their husband. It's their fault. They just need to put more effort into it. The nacent Summer King, (the fabled Lion of Cynn; once nothing more than a simple knight), had a maid who proved that you simply have to work harder if you want to get a husband. The Lion called her Dragon, for her force, (and her voice). Dwarves, by contrast, call her a Demon. It encouraged female Dwarves to try even harder than they had before when trying to marry a husband.
The traditional form of marriage for Dwarves has a male relative introduce the female to her prospective husband. She does what she can to act as his wife. If he already has wives, they often will not make this easy, unless they especially approve of her. At a certain point, the marriage becomes a betrothal. And once betrothed, the male takes the female to bed, and upon the first seeding, they are married. This can be troublesome for those of other races, (or clanless Dwarves), who do not know the rules, and might have trouble telling exactly what part of the courtship they are. Dwarves react the same way a man would act if a female has her betrothral broken off. Before this line, however, at any time, the male can send the female away, and the relationship is broken off. Sometimes this might happen at what other races would consider an inappropriate time, but the usual response is that Dwarves are as robust as they seem. The females won't take it as an insult, but it will normally prevent a relationship from forming between them in the future.
Partially from wanderlust, and partially from the intensity of their own marriages, males Dwarves will often spend a year or more away from his clan and family. Trading, exploring, learning, etc.
Dwarves are considered adults at 50, at which point it is common for an older male relative to take them on a journey into the lands of another races. One of the older males, (it's impossible to recruit one Dwarf), will take personal responbility for their safety, always watching over them.
Dwarves have classes, which is not a social class, but a unique set of skills and affinities for certain jobs. It does not matter what they are currently doing, they are always considered to have their class. All male Dwarves are considered to be warriors. Females can if they choose, (which they rarely do). Classes are treated like professions. While professions might not be for everyone, they are prestigious, and those who do not find one often find themselves adrift. Not all Dwarves are fit to be a thane, of course. The class is only applied to those that fervently pursue it. Those of casual interest, (by Dwarven standards), are not considered of the class.
Artisan: As economically essential as mining is to not just the hold, but entire kingdoms. Dwarves take artisanry seriously. Males take up the more physical crafts, while females take up the more dextrous ones. Though, this has to be taken from a Dwarven perspective, as beating dough into submission is typically done by their females.
Bee Keeper: This might seem strange, but Dwarves have natural allergies to bees. Bees are essential to agriculture, and honey also one of the greatest foods. Bees, (and other jacketed things), can cause a Dwarven force to rout.
Dragoon: They are experts at firearms, able to enchant the explosion in-progress, allowing them to turn a firearm into something that can launch them into the air, creates plumes of flame, or even explosions.
Mining (m): One of the most essential jobs for Dwarf-kind, especially as most Dwarven holds start as naught but mines.
Nurse (f): One of the most essential classes, the keeping of the young, and old, and infirm. They wield healing magics, while being skilled at soothing, of saying just what is needed to say to, of aiding those injured to not just heal, but recover.
Pyran (m): Dwarves love their baths. Their baths usually have a bath stone that is manually heated by a Pyran, whom channels a lot of heat into the stone. Other pyromancers can heat it, but it still a ridiculous amount of exercision to force heat into cold stone.
Shepherd: Shepherds are essential, as sheep and goats are one of the best resource any race can have. It requires a combintion of leadership and pacivity that Dwarves find most difficult. It also requires them to spend much time away from their hold, which most Dwarves find most queer.
Skald: The keepers of their words. Dwarves speak many languages, and never speak their language in front of other races. Even Men who marry into Dwarven holds, although this is as much because it takes 50 years to get decent at it. The tongues of men take far less. They maintain the libraries, act as advisers, and wield Word Magick. These words are all Dwarven, leading to few if anything that can possibly ken their existence.
Viking (m) / Valkyrie (f): They ride the wind and channel the storm. Dwarves do not channel magick through their body, but directly from the environment into objects. Because of this, they can channel lightning into objects. Channeling lightning through the body risks striking the heart, (for despite it's power, lightning is such a fickle thing), which will instantly kill most of the Greater Races. While they cannot fly, they can shunt wind against their bodies, cloaks, and shields. They can use lightning to quicken their limbs, (as the lightning will not seek it's way into their hearts).
Fantasy Counterpart: Scottish / Nordic
Dwarves view Men as a young race that won't have the chance to get old. But, unlike the long-lived Elves, the Gnomes that live slightly longer than Men, and Fauns that live shorter lives, Men do interesting things. They build, they explore, they fight over petty grudges, (the best kind). They can marry into a Dwarven clan, (and several, in fact), though are given only small concessions, such as understanding why they have trouble remembering every fact of every hold they are friends with. Dwarves understand that only the first wife is considered wife among Men, legally, but and that all others are considered concubines, legally. They still expect men to treat them all as wives. Dwarven females who marry men were normally viewed as Mannish ahead of time. It's only a scandal as everyone claims to have seen it coming.
Dwarves use Mannish, and related terms, to mean feminine. They consider swords to be feminine. This means they will lightly insult men they come across by calling them Mannish. When they've earned their respect, the Dwarves will often simply avoid calling them Mannish, and stop making reference to their sword. Men will often take this as as insult instead of the compliment it is meant as.
Dwarves have tremendous physical and intellectual abilities, with fields of scholarship not even imagined by Men, but Dwarves rarely find any need to use this. If a Man can get a Dwarf to aid them, it will be to death. A team of Dwarven bombadiers can change the fate of a siege. Their understanding of economics is so powerful that one of the reasons the Empire never enslaved, as they did with all other non-Mannish races. The other, of course, being that Dwarves often control mountain passes, and once they dig themselves into a hold, they are extremely difficult to remove.
Note: As of this point, only the Summer King has ever invited Dwarves to form a hold in Mannish. They normally form on their own, and once they are established, are too useful and difficult to remove to do anything about. Empire is the Mannish trait, and as such, most lands occupied by most species, are under the auspices of the local Mannigh kingdom. This includes Dwarves.
