Stone Dwarf
Stone dwarves also know in dwarven as the “durvalk” live deep underground, rarely encountering humans at all. Whether because they live in remote caverns, their enemies bar them from it, or they simply do not wish to make the effort, stone dwarves often spend their entire lives apart from non-dwarven races. Stone dwarves live brutal, demanding lives and have less respect for intangible rewards than their cousins nearer to the surface.
Stone dwarves are masterful miners, and their race has delved far below deep below the surface of Tellene. Here they have often encountered other subterranean races, and they wage a constant war against these evil races. As a result, stone dwarves have developed a unique fighting style for fighting in small cavern and confined passageways.
Personality
Stone dwarves are usually harsh and unkind, clear reflections of the world they inhabit. They live in small families that remain independent even of each other, though they band together when an outside threat calls for mutual protection. Stone dwarves are reticent. A long winded stone dwarf is shunned by his peers.
Physical Description
Durvalk have gray or chalky white skin, and their hair and beards tend toward gray, charcoal or black. Eyes are black, deep brown, hard gray or rarely a cold blue. They are a least as bulky as lowland dwarves.
Relations
Stone dwarves distrust surface races. Other dwarves are the only race with which they consistently interact, and the limited trading that occurs is done exclusively with highland and lowland dwarves. An individual member of another race can earn the respect of individual stone dwarves through acts of courage or knowledge, but stone dwarf society never accepts outsiders. Stone dwarves hate all evil subterranean races, and would never willing work with them.
Alignment
Stone dwarves tend toward neutral or lawful neutral alignments. Those who tend toward evil or actually are evil ambush surface-dwellers that venture too close, while the good stone dwarves might act as guides.
Stone Dwarf Lands
No place above the surface is home to the stone dwarves. They populate large cavern systems under or attached to the Grottos, live in huge realms underneath the Dashahn Mountains, and mine deep below the Napalago Hills.
Religion
Most stone dwarves worship the Founder, the Earth Mother or the Watcher. The Dark One, while not widely worshiped, is paid sacrifice to stay away and keep from harming their people. The Locust Lord also receives propitiation; hunger is always a danger underground.
Languages
Stone dwarves do not often learn surface languages. They speak Dwarven and Terran fluently and might learn the languages of various enemies.
Adventurers
Stone dwarf adventurers are rare, but those who do choose to leave their underground are most often rogues. Fighters, rangers and clerics are less common, but not unknown. Though their isolation is ideal for monks, few stone dwarves choose that class. Wizards, sorcerers, psions are quite rare.