Dwarf

''Miril brought forth every form of fauna and flora that has ever been found in Elrinia, and Visrin cultivated the fish, and the great Leviathan, and he set the constellations in the sky, with the help of Thara, to make maritime navigation possible. And it was during this time that Thradia used her great mastery of the elements to bring forth the races, and reasoning beings were brought into existence.''

History
And Thradia took stone from the mountains of Erynodd and made from it a hearty people, short and strong in stature, that the cold could not chill, with great beards upon their stern faces. These people were the first dwarves, and they learned to hunt for great game in those mountains, and they ruled the mountains and lived atop the peaks.

In that time, there were giants in the world, and they conquered the dwarves, and mighty wars with the dwarvish tribes came about which split Erynodd into what we now know as Eyrodd and Erranor. And the dwarves were ruled by the giants, and they were made to learn the craft of the giants in order to better serve them.

Generations passed and the dwarves became masters of giantcraft. They learned to mine, to forge steel, mithral, and adamantine, to craft intricate goldworks, cut stone, and they learned the magic of the giants. And the dwarves of Eyrodd learned to make great machines which were powered by steam, and flying ships to sail through the sky. And they learned to condense fire into black powder, and create weapons which blasted with the crack of thunder and lightning. Over those years, the dwarves knew only prosperity under the guidance of the giants.

It was during this time that Thron, king of Erranor, made a pact with the elf lord, Kalibrim. Their pact opened trade between the elves and the dwarves, and greater prosperity resulted from their friendship. Duron, the son of Thron, would have carried on that alliance, but the elves revealed their treachery and struck down Duron's first born with wicked magic, and a great war ensued which ended with the loss of Duron's life. The dwarves have not trusted the elves since that time.

When the great wyrms of old came into the world, the giants held back the onslaught of fire and smoke at the cost of their own lives, and the dwarves inherited what was left behind in the wake of their conflict. But some of the old serpents lived through the war of that time, and those that remained scourged the dwarves with frost and fire, and those dwarves who were driven from their halls vowed to take revenge upon the dragons who had displaced them into lands far from the halls of their fathers.

And the Five Legions of the Hobgoblins fell upon the world with great ferocity, and all peoples were broken by their power. The dwarves of Eyrodd were trapped in their great halls by the Storm Legion, and the dwarves of Erranor were cut down in open field by the Blood Legion. And the dwarves groaned under the harsh hand of their new masters, and they longed for the elder days of the giants, when they only knew safety and prosperity. But the oppression of the hobgoblins would not last forever, and when the gods arose from their lofty thrones, the oppressors were struck with a sickness that slew thousands and tens of thousands. And the dwarves drove them back to their strongholds.

After that time, the death priests of Shadowlyn arose and brought with them a horde of the dead, and the land of Elrinia was consumed with war during the time that would become known as the Great Conflict. During that time, the dwarves pacted with elves and men to push back the undead, and though the cost was great, they were victorious. The dwarves still sing songs of their honored dead upon those blood soaked fields, and they keep watch over the land of Shadowlyn; that it might never become a haunt of the dead again.