On the Dwarves of the Darkwood

Of the Dwarven peoples, the varieties residing within and on the outskirts of the Darkwood Forest—encompassing all of the Davos province and sizable portions outside it—are often overlooked. Quiet peoples, the Darkwood Dwarves would best be categorised in two: the hairless and tan peoples living deep in the forest, and the hairier and generally pale peoples living by the edge. These two groups are sometimes called halflings or gnomes, though there is an evident lack of consistency to these names of exonymic nature. Clearer would be to refer to these two groups as Deepwood Dwarves and Edgewood Dwarves respectively, and together to refer to them as Darkwood Dwarves, though these too would inherently be exonyms. Reality is that the groups are obscure, and folks even within the immediate region are often ignorant to their existence. Given that all their kin fall within Imperial domain, it would be fairer to treat them with some basic regard, even if they are a minority even in their home areas.

On a general level the Darkwood Dwarves are technologically inferior to their northern cousins—particularly the Deepwood variety stubbornly sticks to their traditional ways, not unlike the other inhabitants of the Darkwood, whereas the Edgewood variety has largely adopted the imperial way of life.

The varieties of Dwarvish the groups utilise are mostly unintelligible to their northern counterparts. Close analysis reveals some common vocabulary, but the languages seem to have drifted apart over a long period of time. Deepwood Dwarvish has evidently been influenced by the Lagosi language, and has less in common with Common Dwarvish than Edgewood Dwarvish does. Edgewood Dwarvish on the other hand poses more similarities to Common Dwarvish, hinting at more contact with their northern cousins when compared to their Deepwood counterparts. The Deepwood and Edgewood varieties are evidently separate languages, though do to a degree form a dialect continuum.

 

Deepwood Dwarves

Records on the dwarves living deep within the forest are sparce. They seem to have been in close contact with the Lagosi people as well as Giants in the region—how far into history these contacts go and what was their general nature remains unknown. The Deepwood Dwarves are isolationist, rarely engaging with imperial business, though given the poor level of infrastructure within the forest, opportunities for prolonged cooperation have remained scarce. The Deepwood Dwarves almost exclusively practise traditional and unorganised faiths.

Edgewood Dwarves

The dwarves residing on the outskirts of the forest are far more ingrained into imperial society, having adopted many of its cultural tenets as their own. Some appear to worship the Mother, whereas others remain with traditional faiths of the ancestral spirits of the woods.

 

—Scholar Daren Gondar, Faculty of Culture, Imperial Academy