Dwarrow¶
"From Stone and Earth I come to Preserve until such time as I return again to Stone and Earth." — inscription on a dwarven pendant, in Dwarvish (S420)
Contested
The Origin of the Dwarrow question in Open Questions is pending a ruling; see the account below and the earlier accounts at the end.
The Dwarrow were the progenitors of the Dwarves: "a race of super-intelligent, technologically advanced earth elementals (fae creatures)" who sided with the elementals against the Einar in the Primordial War, withdrew into the deep places of the world, and fought the Eldritch for thousands of years. The last mortal Dwarrow are long dead, and "their creations returned to dust," but their machines still turn in flooded ruins, dwarves still call them the Ancients, and the Dwarf-god Khardas was once one of them.
Also called: Dwarro (the 2014 phylogeny).
Origins¶
In the newest dedicated account the Dwarrow are Fae, earth elementals, and so creatures without Ethereal souls, which is why demons, who devour souls, could not touch them. "During the primordial wars, they sided with the elementals against the invaders (the Einar and their subjects). After the defeat of the elementals, the Dwarrow moved deep underground to avoid the influence of the new gods (Elder Gods)." There they lived until the new races expanded into the depths and found them.
The 2015 notes on the Elder Gods give them a parent instead: Morkagan the Forgemaster, "Father of Giants, Dwarrow (precursor to dwarves)." The earlier phylogeny makes them a mutation of the Ventari; see Earlier accounts.
The wars with the Eldritch¶
Once rediscovered, the Dwarrow fell under the law that had exiled the other elementals from the Material Plane. The Eldritch, "the Keepers assigned by the Elder Gods," were tasked with subjugating them. "What followed were genocidal wars that raged for 1000s of years between the highly magical Eldritch and the technological Dwarrow." These are the Eldritch-Dwarrow Wars.
The Dwarrow were at a disadvantage the Eldritch did not share. "Eldritch reincarnation was well known to be a constant problem for the Dwarrow, as the Eldritch reincarnation cycle was very short (a matter of months), whereas a killed Dwarrow would take centuries to replace via normal birth and rearing cycles." Some scholars of demonology argue from this that the Dwarrow made or called the first Demons as a weapon, soul-eaters against whom the soulless Dwarrow would be immune; the stories of that war "describe the Eldritch as their primary victims," but "beyond these conjectures, there is no substantive evidence to support this theory."
What the Dwarrow certainly did was bring allies from another world. They carried the outcasts of the Uk'Zarai to Terrun "to save them from the Goddess Sukmaril and to act as allies in their wars against the Eldritch," and separately found an uninhabited world, Efferhien, for the An'Zarai whom that goddess was exterminating, so that neither people knew the fate of the other.
"With the fall of the Elder Gods and the birth of the younger, the tide of bloodshed subsided for a time." A civil war among the Eldritch, between loyalists of the Old Gods and sympathizers of the Younger, "allowed the beleaguered Dwarrow to regroup."
Khardas and the Dwarves¶
"Khardas (a Dwarrow) became the first Dwarrow shard holder/god. In time, there were others (Adranus and Malix)." Khardas and the remaining Dwarrow then "formed the Dwarven race (as non-fae) as the successor and inheritor of the Dwarrow legacy." The Dwarves inherited many Dwarrow traits but reproduced far faster, resisted magic better, and, being non-fae, were tied to the Material Plane. "The Dwarves were accepted into the order of the younger gods, while the Dwarrow were still regarded as elemental-spawn outcasts."
The early dwarves, the First Ones, "assisted the Younger Gods and were armed and trained with Dwarrow technology. They used the Dwarrow technology with great efficiency to wipe out the now isolated Eldritch." The frescoes on a Khardic vault door in the Kilmarn temple complex remember the sequence: "the creation of the dwarven race (by Khardas and Dwarrow)," then "the ascension of Khardas to Godhood (kneeling before Kalar)," then the creation of rune magic and the founding of Kahun'Darahl.
The dwarves of the Fifth Age still name themselves heirs of this line. A dwarven berserker of the Stone Dwarves bears the titles "Heir of the Firstborn, Last of the Stone People," and his pendant reads on its reverse: "Heir of Stone, Keeper of the Ancestral birthright, I bring honor to the Ancients and death to the Corruptors," where the Ancients are the Dwarrow and the Corruptors are spellcasters. Khardas is also said to have tried to destroy a hybrid bred from Dread and Dwarrow blood, a parasitic shapeshifter met in the Sancturi campaign.
Technology and ruins¶
Dwarrow technology was the hinge of their history and the great loss of their heirs. "Unfortunately, very few Dwarrow remained to teach the new dwarves the secrets of their technology. As time progressed and the last of the mortal Dwarrow died and their creations returned to dust, much of knowledge surrounding the dwarrow technology was forever gone." The dwarves "reconstructed much of the Dwarrow technology during the Golden Age of Kahun'Darahl," and lost it again with that city's fall and the loss of most of their cities "during the first demon wars."
What survives is formidable. At the Well of Stars, a shrine of Arya built over Dwarrow ruins, the old site "had been a protected place where the injured and sick had gone to be treated. Since then, the rejuvenation pool has flooded several wings. However, the dwarrow machines that operate it are still functional, despite the fact that they're underwater," and where the stonework has crumbled it reveals "the smooth, metallic dwarrow walls." In the Underdark beneath the White Towers, orc hollows have been disrupting Dwarrow engineering. A master of Dwarrow knowledge, Thidryn, helped the Last Augur Koradikken build a hidden machine that distorts auguries and divination across the world. The Tolassovores, children of an Elder God, once "possessed advanced technology rivaling the Dwarrow," and some scholars hold that the Cthul stole their own technology "from the Dwarrow and other races."
Gap
No source describes a Dwarrow in person: their stature, their speech, their cities before the wars, or what their technology looked like beyond "machines" and metallic walls. Nor is it said when the last mortal Dwarrow died.
Earlier accounts¶
The 2014 phylogeny tells the origin the other way about. There the Dwarro "were a natural mutation of Ventari which were unable to practice magic," born "about the same time, and likely due to the changes in Ventari reproduction necessary to produce Lothim." Such infants were at first euthanized, "but some survived and began to flourish in exile," living underground to avoid detection and adapting to "the brutal underdark." At least one great war between the Dwarro and the Ventari and Lothim "is credited with speeding the end of the Ventari race," and "the Dwarro built a civilization around technology which has never since been rivalled. Their machines enabled them to stand toe to toe in conflicts with the Lothim and Ventari." In that account the Dwarves are an offshoot of Dwarro blood mixed chiefly with Gnomes, the Trolls are "descendants of genetically enhanced Dwarro warriors," and the first Goblins were "the result of some Dwarro technology gone terribly wrong." The 2015 regional notes add that "Dwarves are a Innus and Dwarrow hybrid." This 2014 reading against the 2019 account above is the Origin of the Dwarrow question.