Urdunnir [Dwarf]

Urdunnirin resemble mountain dwarves with silver eyes, pale gray skin and long beards ranging from light to dark gray. Beards are carefully tended, though little else is (women are beardless). They wear close-fitting bodysuits of stone and metal made flexible by their powers, and only leaders wear suits entirely of metal. Their name means 'orecutter' in a language so close to dwarvish that speakers understand about three quarters of each other's words; dwarven legend calls them sonsannan, 'stonefriend'.

They rarely start fights but defend kin, homes and hoards with everything they have. Each can stone walk, moving through rock and earth as if through air, so foes suffer -3 on surprise. An urdunnir can bring along up to twice its body weight. To use this as an attack, it must hit and grab a target, which may save vs. petrification to break loose; on a failure the urdunnir pulls some or all of the victim into the stone and releases it there, fusing flesh to rock and killing it. Only a wish reverses this death. Phase door cast on a stone-walking urdunnir slays it instantly.

Every round an urdunnir can stone shape eight cubic feet of rock with casting time 1 and no components, and their lairs are riddled with ingenious traps built around this power. A full round of concentration lets it mold up to five cubic feet of metal on the next round; doing so to metal a creature holds or wears takes an attack roll, and an urdunnir ready for an incoming blade can warp it on impact, taking half damage and ruining the weapon. Magic weapons and armor save vs. spell at their wielder's level, modified by their bonus.

Urdunnirin never use weapons, falling back on fists for 1d4. They save at +4 vs. poison. Bands of 20 or more follow an alird, or 'gold lord', with 3 HD, AC -2 and a suit of silver or gold, who shapes metal without needing to concentrate.

Urdunnirin draw gems and ore from the rock and turn them into masterpieces, filling their lairs with statues and gold work. Like dwarves they organize by clan, each devoted to a single substance, with clans of Marble, Gold and Ruby among those known.

They eat gems, not food. Their god gives each settlement an ever-replenishing store of stones meant solely for eating, which they defend to the death. Xorn are mortal enemies that often attack them, and urdunnirin kill xorn on sight.

Dwarven legend holds that when the young dwarven race began mining, the dwarven god of buried treasures raged at the plundering of his mountains. During that anger he made the urdunnirin out of a few mountain dwarves and hid them far from their kin, a people who could gather riches by passing through stone instead of tearing it open. He later came to delight in dwarven craft, but the lost race stayed hidden.