Dwarves of Kharn Burim (Bal Duran)

Overview
The Dwarves are an ethnic group originating from the north-western region of Koganon. They are a proud and stout people, known for the scale of their constructions. They entirely reside in the mountain of Bal Duran. The Dwarves of Bal Duran are odd in the way that they came to be, being born of the volcanic core of Bal Duran. At this time, it is believed that they were shaped by the Earth god.

Appearance and Traits
Dwarves are generally the same height as Humans, despite their name, although they are noticeably wider, and of a stouter build, making them fantastic in the roles of miners, and builders. The Dwarves are a very calm, and stoic people, being very hard to anger, but when done, use their skills of construction and destruction to show why they prefer to be left alone. The Dwarves, having chosen to keep to themselves, have become very reclusive, being very protective of their home, and as such, currently do not let many within their walls and within the underground rings that make up their home.

Customs and Lifestyle
The Dwarves of Bal Duran live deep underground, seclusive and rarely seen, and as a result, have grown accustomed to life without many things on the surface. In fact, Copium was created by the Dwarves of Bal Duran for the purpose of fertilizer, to grow crops without sunlight at all, allowing their farms to be completely underground. The halls of the Dwarves are excessively tall, using the high ceilings to not have to worry about suffocation from the forges and furnaces constructed there. It is a common sight to see Dwarves coming up from the many holes and passageways beneath the main ring with various materials, and valuables as they empty the lower areas of their mountain to make room for more of their people.

The Dwarves have an extreme reverence of the Earth, and all it provides, though they dig and build completely within it, they take care to not harm it more than necessary going out of their way to be non-destructive towards the land around their underground home. Ironically, these beliefs have led them to fit perfectly within the religion of the Arcadian Altanate. Due to the similarities between the Dwarven Earth god Fjaldi, and the Arcadian Earth god Xamu they are generally considered to be one in the same. Another thing the Dwarves deeply believe is that their ancestors watch over them and guide them at all times, due to this belief, the Dwarves are hesitant to destroy, remove, or replace anything that was placed, or was their before they were, instead making many of those places protected historical zones, not allowing any to take or destroy what is there.

There are many things that the Dwarves hold dear, one of the main ones is their pickaxes, as it is this tool that allows the Dwarves to continue their underground existence, without it, they would be mere cave dwellers. As such, the Dwarven Pickaxes are some of the best in the world, being nigh unbreakable, and cutting through stone like butter. For a Dwarf to come of age, they must venture deep within the world and return with 3 objects, a diamond, obsidian, and the head of the Dwarves arch-nemesis, the spider. Due to the nature of their home, and the lives they live, the spiders of Alathra are a never ending source of woe, coming up from the depths of their mines and killing and nesting within the mines, stopping all further progress until they can be cleared of the mine.

Due to the size of their home, the Dwarves have been searching for ways to offload thousands of tons of stone, and recently they have begun to add stone to the top of their mountain, as well as using the stone to construct many different things on the surface, now that they have finally reached it. Creating the Walls of Rim Lodir and the Tower of Thil Farum. Plans to massively increase the height of the mountain with the stone that have aquired has recently begun, as they continue, and nearly finish the slope of their initial mountain expansion.

Spirituality
For most Dwarves, practicality is king. Though there are few things that the Dwarves reverently believe, chief among those, is that the piece of the mountain that Auvengr and the first group of Dwarves woke in is a holy site that is not to be touched. The Dwarves hold the location of this deep cave jealously close, and while to most it would seem to be just another tunnel, the Dwarves refuse anyone entrance to even the general area of the location, having it locked away deep within their mountain home.

History
Deep under the mountain of Bal Duran, is where the dwarves were born, created, or perhaps shaped, as of this time it is unknown. The Dwarven awakening was caused by the repeated murders of the thieves of Bal Duran by Hargreevs, though it would be many moons before they reached the surface and made contact with the rest of the world. In that time, the Dwarves found each other, banded together and slowly began to find their way amongst the tunnels and caves that criss-crossed the underground. Shortly after the leader of the Dwarves, Auvengr, began to receive visions of the past, and the future, the very same Dwarf led his people to the surface using these visions. Where the Dwarves of Kharn Burim came into contact with the first friendly person they had ever met, Glider Fraemani.

Though communication was damningly difficult, Auvengr used the knowledge from his visions to communicate with the Arcadian, and the pair came to an agreement. The Dwarves of Kharn Burim would get the mountain of Bal Duran, and in turn, join the Arcadian Altanate. With the agreement made, the Dwarves of Bal Duran and Arcadia traded ideas, resources, and other goods. The Dwarves heavily benefiting from this sudden surge of material and technology, quickly adapted the new knowledge, and begun the great dig of Kharn Burim, or Bal Duran, as it's commonly known to outsiders. The dwarves rapidly made progress underneath the mountain, fully digging out the top layer of the first ring within weeks. Construction of the Nur Lodir, or the Walls of the rim followed shortly after, protecting the only grassland that the dwarves had access to early on.

With the mountain expansion in the east nearly completed, the Dwarves began to add on to the roof of their home, building a near sheer straight shot upwards, filling in the mountain and immediately going to work building tunnels within the new mountaintop, they are slowly growing the top of the mountain by digging out the bottom, reinforcing the whole way.