No living person has seen a dwarf, but everyone knows someone whose great-great-grandfather swears he did business with them. Their artifacts still turn up in markets from time to time, metalworking of unsurpassed quality.

After the war with the Ditani the Dwarves retreated into their mountainholds. Over hundreds of years their xenophobia grew, until they finally sealed their fortresses and stopped having any contact with the other constructed races.

Dwarven civilization is centered around the Hold. Each Hold is composed of the manses of the Hold's ruling families. Each family continues to excavate its manse, retreating further and further from the fora where clans meet. When a clan has dug itself far enough from the other members of its Hold it will split off, form a new Hold, and fragment into sub-clans to begin the cycle anew.