Most dwarves are male, though outsiders would struggle to tell the difference. There is no functional difference between male and female dwarves, though females tend to have thinner beards, and are less vain about them. Some populations of city dwarves even shave their beards (particularly among the females), and ape the styles of their neighbors.

Dwarven gestation lasts eighteen months, and almost always results in a single birth. The gestation cycle is uncomfortable for the female, but not nearly as burdensome or fraught as it is for humans. Most female dwarves are able to conduct themselves normally until they enter labor, and are largely recovered within a week. Stillbirths are rare, and infant mortality is low, particularly with the dwarven standard of care. Children’s beards come in around the end of their first year, though remain extremely sparse until puberty.

Dwarven children follow a development path roughly similar to human children until the age of seven. Puberty starts around twenty years of age, and lasts until about the age of thirty-five. Males and females are fertile until reaching venerable age (~250 years), though female fertility declines steeply in middle age. Hair turns gray during middle age, and baldness, while uncommon, tends to strike males no sooner than middle age.

Dwarves do not suffer the debilitation of old age as much as other common races. At middle age, attribute adjustments are -1 CON,1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 CHA. At old age, adjustments are a further -1 STR, -1 DEX, -1 CON, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 CHA. At venerable age, add -3 STR, -3 DEX, -2 CON, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +1 CHA.

Dwarves are a co-dreaming people, and their dreams inherit ancient iconography that has been passed down for milennia. Even more so than their history, dwarves do not discuss their dreams.

Virtually all dwarves are sworn to their gods (particularly the Rock-Father Kazadarum), and the dwarven gods scrupulously collect their dead. The dwarven halls of the dead are full of shades competing for the glory of the gods, and a chance to be reborn or forged into a servant of the gods. Dwarves believe that their worthy dead are celebrated in the halls of the gods, and rewarded when they have suitably impressed and delighted their patrons.

It is said that all dwarves are greedy, and indeed, dwarven society hinges on ideas of worth, fair price, and trade. The transactions that underpin dwarven society may involve the exchange of actual coin, but just as often they involve contracts and promisory notes. They are scrupulous record-keepers, and count forgery and embezzlement to be among the highest of crimes.

Dwarves are organized into clans, which run as large corporate conglomerates. Their subsidiaries run individual business enterprises (mail service, mining, architecture, farming, surveying, freight, etc.). These subsidiary companies hold title to one or more families. Though the term implies genetic relation, dwarven families are fiduciary constructs.

For the first twenty years of life, children are the property of the mother’s family, and may be sold within the clan. Upon reaching puberty, dwarven teens are rented out to various companies within the clan, and the proceeds go to the teen’s family. Between the ages of twenty and forty, they work farther afield, though generally still within the clan’s companies. During this time, half of their earnings are personal property, from which they will be expected to purchase their adult careers.

Dwarves are considered to have completed their education at the age of 40, at which point they buy their way into a suitable company (almost always within the same clan). Those who cannot purchase their adult employment often seek employment among the surface races. Purchasing employment outside the clan is possible, but most clans levy a formidable surcharge to accept employees who have been employed outside the clan.

Dwarven society is polyandrous, with most wealth circulating among the females. Since females produce offspring and this produces revenue for the family for decades to come, the vitality of a dwarven family (and thus its company and its clan) hinges on the number of females it can procure. Thus, females enjoy a much reduced price to buy their way into adulthood. Particularly desperate families have even been known to accept token payment for a female’s employment, in hopes of future offspring.

Dwarven households tend to belong to the family. Individuals outside the family are allowed to rent space in a family home, or even rent entire homes. Marriage is allowed outside the family (and outside the clan), though males generally buy their way into the family as soon as possible. Married males receive a stipend for the number of children their females carried to term, and receive a lifetime benefit for confirmed offspring. Most males in prosperous companies have the funds to confirm their offspring. Females receive a small grief payment for stillbirths and offspring who do not reach maturity.

While there is no social stigma for out-of-family births (or unconfirmed parentage), the family stands to gain more from confirmed parentage within the family. Thus, sometimes even a female or a non-parent will pay for the confirmation service.

Non-dwarves with sufficient resources can buy their way into a dwarven family, though it is rarely profitable to do so. The rare non-dwarven resident in a dwarven community typically has an exotic specialty of great value, or lives on the proceeds from a lucrative contract or sale.

Dwarves speak Dwarvish as their daily language, but all dwarves raised in their cultural tradition also learn Halgolok (dwarven signs) and High Dwarvish. These other languages are not shared with outsiders, though individual signs occasionally circulate in dwarf-heavy adventuring parties, and High Dwarvish place names are rare but not unknown.

Among the mountain dwarves, their language is the same the world over. Their extensive schooling and their habit of moving from city to city have maintained their cultural unity across the millennia. What appears as regional variation in sign and spoken language is actually in-group code and jargon.

Hill dwarves, conversely, may be hard for other dwarves to understand. Their limited schooling and circulation in the larger dwarven community lead to a certain amount of linguistic and cultural drift. Some hill dwarf communities are not even fluent in High Dwarvish.

Even uncultured dwarves recognize their Runic script and the sound of Dwarvish and High Dwarvish. Cultural tradition provides the following benefits:

• hill dwarf: bonus feat (Educated, weapon proficiency (urgrosh)), 6 ranks total in Language (regional Hill Dwarvish, Dwarvish, High Dwarvish, Halgolok)
• deep dwarf: bonus feat (Educated, Literate, weapon proficiency (urgrosh)), 6 ranks total in Language (Deep Dwarvish, Dwarvish, High Dwarvish, Halgolok)
• city dwarf: bonus feat (Educated, Literate, weapon proficiency (urgrosh)), 6 ranks total in Language (Dwarvish, High Dwarvish, Halgolok)
• mountain dwarf: bonus feat (Educated, Literate, Aristocratic Knowledge (Halgathûl), weapon proficiency (urgrosh, personal firearms)), +3d6 years, 6 ranks total in Language (Dwarvish, High Dwarvish, Halgolok)

Halgathûl is the map region that spans dwarven settlements of moderate depth throughout the Wilderlands region. It is the home region of all mountain dwarves, and many other dwarves are familiar with it. This region includes virtually all dwarven settlements that are not surface-based, and dwarves consider its vast wealth the inheritance of their patron god. This can be thought of as the “civilized” portion of the subterranean world.

Beyond the reach of conventional dwarven construction, dark elves, deep dwarves, and other unsavory folk make their homes in the Underdark. This region spans the breadth of the Wilderlands map region, and encompasses the “wilderness” portion of the subterranean world.