The Worker Caste

Despite the large number of slaves the Dhe’nar use for manual labor, a worker caste, composed of Dhe’nar is maintained. The worker caste is made up of two types of Dhe’nari elves.

The first type is the skilled artisans and merchants. These included the blacksmiths, artists, craftsmen as well as those who trade with outsiders. The Dhe’nar are far from self-sufficient and by creating trade goods and establishing trade routes with local races, the Dhe’nar can provide a great deal of materiel to the Dhe’nar cause.

These are the Dhe’nar who most often deal with the tameshai artisans. The two groups, Dhe’nar and dwarf, have shared many secrets of their trades, be it smithing, quarrying, armoring, or masonry.

The second group of the worker caste are those who have either proven to be unskilled, failed in joining another caste and managed to survive that failure, or have fallen from grace from the other three castes.

This second group is relegated to manual labor and often put in charge of groups of slaves performing the same tasks. The Dhe’nar are very careful to insure that these workers are not overwhelmed by slaves. The tasks these Dhe’nar often oversee are very dangerous; sometimes more dangerous than anything the Dhe’nar of this caste have previously encountered.

The Dhe’nar do not reward failure.

Fatalities among this segment of the Dhe’nar worker caste are common, as are suicides. The Dhe’nar, as a whole, are a proud people and even those who suffer failure can rarely tolerate it. They often overcompensate for their deficiencies by taking huge risks or discarding their customary caution.

However, some of these fallen Dhe’nar become incredibly proficient as slave overseers. It is often as if their true role was as a member of this caste, supervising the other workers and the slave workforce. In this way they truly redeem themselves in the eyes of their people and provide a valuable service to the Dhe’nar population.

Both types of workers know their places and they accept their roles. They realize that by providing for their people in this way that it unifies the race’s collective spirit and contributes to the eventual ascendance of the Dhe’nar.