Jungle Dwarf

a.k.a. Wild Dwarf

Personality

Jungle Dwarves care little about goings-on in the world at large, especially the doings of those that are not Jungle Dwarves and care even less about material possessions. They are much like the beasts they strive to emulate. Jungle Dwarves live and see the world in terms of hunter or prey, they believe they have more in common with the beasts of the jungle than they do with their dwarven kin. In the minds of the dur Authalar, securing a meal and surviving is the purest of life, seeing each day as a struggle to kill or be killed. The hunt and family is what makes them strong.

Physical Description

They favor and sometimes have heavily tattooed bodies which they grease to ward off insects and make them hard to hold. Jungle Dwarves wear very little along with their long, woven hair. Jungle Dwarves are dark-skinned, short, and stout, with dark brown eyes. These dwarves are the small for their kind ranging about 3' 4" and averaging 145 lbs. Because of their height, Jungle Dwarves can duck under vegetation that normally impedes humans—yet they are stockier than gnomes or halflings, and able to bull through what they can't avoid.

Relations

They chose instead to live independent and hunt in bands with ever shifting memberships. They have nothing to do with all trappings of civilization. They live nomadic lives, which leaves little room for material wealth or the need for goods, trading is strictly done between tribes. Few to none leave their traditional way of life willingly.

Alignment

Due to their unforgiving environment Jungle Dwarves lean towards chaotic, rejecting typical strictures of civilized societies. They often need to make harsh and difficult discussions that normally are not made by others. Regardless if evil, good or neutral loyalty to family, tribe, and band are high.

Jungle Dwarf Lands

Jungle Dwarves originate on the Svimohzish Isles, and their greatest population can be found in the Dashan-Tanezh Mountains. They are also known to be see across almost every jungle terrain throught Tellene.

Religion

Jungle Dwarves will make offering to many deities, but they truly worship the Battle Rager, and the Great Huntress. Their folk lore is the basis of their faith and these lore’s are circled around animal spirits and the beasts of the jungles. They always have a great respect and live in harmony with the land around them.

Languages

Jungle Dwarves speak a rare and ancient dialect of Dwarven, which they use to pass down their extensive oral history. The rare individual who is literate, normally the elder, typically teaches one to carry the traditions of the written language. They too will not teach their ancient language to outsiders and is just as deep, throaty, and guttural as any other dwarf dialect. Most non-dwarves get raw throats if they try to speak this dialect of dwarven for more than a few hours.

Adventures

Few wild dwarves chose a life of adventure; most are thrust into it by slavery, those that escape most find and make their way in the world. These dwarves lack support of the pack in which they were raised, and see the close companionship of adventuring as a close approximation of their traditional hunting-bands and hence seek out such groups. Hardy to a fault, Jungle Dwarves are explorers, pathfinders, and sometimes guilds.

Un-like their more civilized kin, the Jungle Dwarf has withdrawn into barbarism beneath the thick jungle canopy. In the face of the many dangers that stalk their home, survival demands the heightened senses, fast movement, and battle rages of the barbarian.

Source Notes: Forgottten Realms, Races of Faerum, Unearthed Arcana D20