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Dwarves generally bare the semblance of humans, but are shorter and stout in comparison to their height. Many members of other races find them to all look alike, and are unable to tell which one they are talking to. Although more abundant in ancient days, dwarves grew rare on both sides of the Great Sea for many ages. The majority of the native Eastland dwarves were massacred by the invasions of Psuedo-Duncanthrax in 666 GUE, congesting to kingdoms in the far southern regions of the Eastlands. During the reign of Syovar the Strong, they brought finely woven silke fabrics of every imaginable color from those counrtries to the annual craft fair at the Castle of Zork.
The legacy of the Antharian dwarves has primarily survived in their workmanship, such as sturdy sea chests. For many centuries, they went into seclusion beneath the uncharted mountains of this island-nation to hiberate from the toils of the rest of the world. After the Peltoid Valley was made barren by the mining of marble and the polishing guilds, the abandoned lands were populated by vast hordes of monsters. This left the land for the dwarves, permitting them to polish their own marble without the interference of the avaricious guilds. Those who desired to mine what the guilds had forgotten were required to hire the dwarves. There were a few around, but they did not use fixed addresses and were called (much to their distaste) "renegade miners." The dwarves bitterly found this defamation to be terrible for business, as many refused to buy from a "renegade." Thus not many sought them in those day.
Many of the dwarves in the days of Peltoid Valley build open-air workshops, complete with polished marbled floors, tables of rought marble, and workers diligently sculpting marble. The dwarven children played marbles while the men labored to carve stateuettes and other wares.
By the 17th century, the dwarvish population replenished through the Eastlands, adding to the economic and technological rebirth the area through their thorough and obsessive mining projects. The dwarves were the best (and only) miners in the land. The tunnels and tracks of their mining projects catacombed mountains across the Eastlands. From these mines, they extracted minerals needed for metals, as well as silver and gold, and eventually illumynite. One of the most famous dwarves of this time was Feebo, who unfortunately unearthed the Cluster (see respective sections for more information). It was also during this rebirth of their race that the dwarven miners claimed the Sword of Zork as their own even though it was formally owned by the elves, even renaming it the Dwarven Sword of Zork. This relic became legendary amongst their kind.
Little is known about the dwarven ways of life save some minor details of their mining and military heiarchy. Dwarven mines were usually overseen by a single Head Dwarf Miner. Armies of the dwarves were run by a series of generals. The soldiers marched to a cadence that matched the route through the current mine they were assigned to protect. These "mining codes" were also interwoven into normal conversation, in a manner which no one would suspect. Only the elect dwarves were capable of discerning these coded messages from normal dialoguing.
Dwarves are members of the Supernatural and Fantastic Wayfarers Association.