The Horrifying Diary
of Hornikatta The Dwarf

All the clever scientists (mages, of course - who else?) think that they figured out the dwarven social structure.
You certainly read many thick tomes about how dwarves are divided in clans based on their practical abilities and functions, blah blah, blah. How the basis of dwarven society is patriarchy - where cleverest and most able male dwarves rule the clans, how they are competitive and often fight their opponents, the strongest wins, yadda yadda yadda.

Yeah, right.

And have you heard about the Cloaked Matriarchy? No? I thought so.
It is the only system that actually works within the dwarven society. The male dwarves think they rule the clans, make decisions, etc. But when they get really drunk and start planning another fight or silly war (silly, mind you, as opposed to the conflicts which are needed for the dwarves to gain more wealth and land) - their wives hit their husbands with heavy objects... on their heads of course - so that the men can start thinking logically. And that's why all the male dwarves wear helmets indoors as well. I bet you always wondered about why the male clan members don't take their helmets off their heads even when going to sleep. Well, now you know.

Anyway, a dwarf is, um... "approached" by his wife... on his helmet, preferably with a skillet or with a rolling pin. He either starts thinking logically (for some reason at that point the men are very respectable and agreeable when it comes to listening to their wives), or he falls under the table, completely drunk. In the morning, they don't remember anything anyway and everyone goes about their business as usual. And the future and prosperity of dwarven society is saved once again.

And since we talk about dwarf females - yes, dear human reader, there are dwarf females - LIKE ME!!!
It is not true that grown male dwarves just pop out from the stone deep in the mines. Seriously, where did you hear that? I don't understand where you humans get those ideas. It is true that many dwarven women wear beards, especially the warrior women, and that's how you people confuse them with men, especially since they drink just as well as men. Just because the human females don't do those things and lead very boring lives just sitting at home and giving birth to hoards of human squealing babies, doesn't mean that we dwarves have to choose your strange path. I simply don't get it - what is wrong with a woman wearing a beard? It's just hair, after all. You should try it all, it keeps you really warm in winter!

There is a Secret Matriarchal Council. Its members are clan leaders' wives of course - how do you think their husbands got their jobs in the first place? The Council makes the crucial and most important decisions. And afterwards, the council members make their husbands think that all those ideas were theirs. Clever, huh?
Anyway, my mom Grizelda Brightblade is one of the council members and she shared the secret with me. I'm the one to be the next true clan leader, not my elder brother, against to what everyone (especially the humans in our village) has been thinking. The clan leadership is handed down in the female line, mother to daughter. They just have to find me a suitable husband (really... I think they will be searching for a long time, since currently no young and eligible bachelors in the clan are up to the task - lucky me! more time for adventures with my friends!).


I have another idea, however. Why not ruling the clan on my own, after I have proven myself? Then I could choose the husband myself (preferrably one that looks like this ). I'm a bit concerned that my parents may find me a husband who was strong, brave and clever... some 200 years ago. For the sake of our political alliances with other dwarf clans, you know the story... *sigh*

And now, dear reader, I have to kill you, because you know too much about the secrets of dwarven society. No non-dwarf knows of these things and it has to stay that way...

Many things are said about us, dwarves, that are not quite true. Who is to blame for that? Mostly humans, this young and immature race. They have their ideas about the world, their mages write a lot of books with their theories and then send these all around the place. And everyone believes everything that those old farts write. Just because they are old. And because they fa... um, nevermind.

You know, Mages, especially human mages, like to drink wine. They say it's only for the health purposes... but we know better, don't we?
So they sit in their towers or wherever they like to sit, drink wine, bottle after bottle, and write some stupid things about us, dwarves. I guess they think that they have a right to do it since they are so tall and bearded. Hmmpf!

We allow them to write those things as it makes the world misinformed about us, dwarves. And when everyone is misinformed, they tend to make mistakes. It's very useful when you deal with the enemy - or a trading partner, I assure you. Several hundred years ago, an old Mage by name of Marcus Polonius traveled from the land of Peremonien to our lands and when he returned back home, he wrote some kind of a travel diary. My ancestors got one copy from seafaring traders and kept reading it every night - and laughing their heads off. For example, the mage wrote that we dwarves live underground, like moles, and are afraid of the sunlight. Several years later, some traders from Peremonien came by. And guess what - they brought us some old-fashioned lanterns to use underground. Of course, we respectfully declined (as the old saying says, you don't bring wood to the forest, do you?) and asked what else they had. It turned out that their wagons had been filled with their fine peremonian colored glass - they planned to travel to Bern, but couldn't do that because the winter was coming sooner that year and the wanted to get back home. So my great-great-great-great-grandfather Zorander Brightblade told them, keeping a poker face,  that of course dwarves lived underground, so the clan didn't need any glass since there were no windows in our clan houses. And because of that fact, the glass is totally useless for us, but since they look like nice humans, we'd buy the merchandise from them, so they can return home safely. And guess what - we didn't even have to haggle! They lowered the price substantially, we closed the deal and everyone went their way.

And what happened next? We sold most of the peremonian fancy glass to the High Elves of Bern, charging them triple the nominal price of the Peremonian traders wanted (since we bought it for 10x less, we earned 30x more money! That's what I call a profitable trade deal!).
Some of the glass we kept to ourselves -we needed it for the windows in the village. Oh yes, did I mention then at those times we were already building the best buildings in the whole Aelos?
Remember, kids - the modern dwarves do not live underground anymore, we just mine shiny things there.