The Dead-EyedDwarves are bald and bearded, shorter and stronger than men. They value onlywork and blood. 

 

Appearance 

STOMP STOMPSTOMP – the heavy iron-shod boots of Dwarves passing invisibly but for glaringlamps and lances of light. 

For theDead-Eyed Dwarves have many magics; cloaks which make the wearer invisible,clicking rings which make their owner large or small, strange insect-lenseswhich pick up every drop of light and ever stranger eye-wear; pearl-palecyclopean masks which perceive the flow of ‘dark’ itself and twin-cone faceswhich turn rebounding clicks and whines into images in the air. Beneath these,often, grills or tubes, breathing apparatus or voice amplifiers, who knows.Beneath those; beards. 

Their lamp areharsh, actinic and directional; itself a near-aggressive act within the Veins.The blinding sharp-edged light turns the Dwarves behind them into silhouettes. Thetramping, trudging, armoured and indifferent Dwarves. Few cultures of the Veinsdare to wear full-armour underground; none but the Dead-Eyes possess the craftto endlessly clean, amend and fix their metal shell, the brutal endurance tocarry metal weight, nor the size-shifting techno-magic which lets them shrinkand grow, giving them access to shafts and warrens which others attempt only inextremity. 

They can passinvisibly, but they are loud. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Too big, too small. Disappearingin the blink of an eye. Hooded, armoured, masked, with wild prickling beards.Lights powered by crackling batteries which drip toxic alkali slime. Loadedwith crossbow, axe and pick, careful maps and guidance dials, grappling hooksand superlight chains. Walking and moving in unison, grunting to each other in mutteredsubsonic; a guttural under-speech, as if they resented even, the need to speak,even to each other. 

The most likelyencounter is that you are simply ignored. The cost/benefit assessment ofenslaving you simply doesn't move the dial. 

 

The Dead Eyes

Things don’t getbetter when the masks come off. There is just something missing in there; thestrange, deep-time, assessing gaze of a Dwarf, but with the humour, honour,boldness; gone, washed away, leaving what? Eyes pale as slate, empty as theletter O. 

They eat,breathe, smell, move like living things, more than many in the Veins, yet avampire, or a crazed patchwork Gilgamash, can have more 'anima', moreindividuality, vitality and humour than a Dead-Eye Dwarf. 

They are notpleasant to deal with, but they are reliable, practical and rational, andthey think long-term, which makes them an incredible stabilising force. Yetno-one, and nothing 'likes' the Dead-Eyed Dwarves.

 

Abilities

Powerful Lights

Bright whitespheres, hanging lanterns and lances of burning white light. Used to blind ordisorder seeing foes, or simply to pick out blind enemies.

 

Invisibility Cloaks

Heavy toxic thingswith pointed hoods, less useful in the Veins than you might think, these areused mainly in raiding other lands. When wrapped around and buttoned up,everything they cover turns translucent. Complex physical movements, like mostforms of attack, will make the wearer visible, at least for a moment.

 

Size-Control Rings

Heavyclick-clacking bracelets which turn like locks or rings of code. Rapid tactilecodes are needed to make use of one, and once that code is known, each ring isstill is different, tuned for a particular Dwarf. Worn, usually on the left arm.Move the right hand over and quickly, and loudly, click through the code beforecarefully carefully carefully clicking through the size-set sequence.

When a Dead-EyedDwarf shrinks or grows, its not a smooth transition. Its as if they were animage and each heavy CLACK spun some fresh lens in front of them so that theyseemed smaller or larger by leaps. CLACK CLACK CLACK and big, big BIG, as ifthey were projections, with the ‘real’ dwarf somewhere else.

It takes time andtraining to accustom oneself to getting bigger and smaller on the regular.

 

Seeing Lenses

They like these,though its questionable how useful they are. Varied masks and lenses, the mostcommon are Light-enhancing eyes, heat-trace Snake-Pit lenses and Sonic Lenses.More rare are the special ‘Dark Vision Lenses’ which literally treat darknessas a substance.

Each Dwarf willonly have one set of Lenses, if they have any, and few groups will have morethan one set of each kind. They are hard to make, maintain and repair and eachDwarf makes their own.

 

Mouth Masks

The Dead-EyedDwarves don’t even use gas that much, purchasing it from the RayMen occasionally,but they like to wear the masks. Some protect from gas, some change the voiceto a harsh bark, others alter voices to simulate those heard, still othersprovide air should the Dwarf go underwater, or into airless spaces.

Again, each Dwarfonly has one set and the whole group rarely has more than one of each. Its nota systematised technology.

 

Combat Encounters Morale

Morale plays nopart in the decisions of the Dead-Eyed Dwarves

Everything is basedon their immediate objectives. If violence is required, and they think theywill win, it starts at once, without warning.

If victory becomesimpossible, or if the situation changes, so that violence no longer serves,they simply stop, again, without warning, usually turning invisible and simplywalking away.

If there is no wayout, they fight, bitterly, to the emotionless end

 

Combat Tactics

Armoured;the Dwarves can weather most projectiles, and most blows. 

BrightDirectional Lights; these can be used to blind many Veins inhabitants.Activating then turning off the lights can be more effective than actualinvisibility. 

InvisibilityCloaks; if out-ranged, bottled up or boxed in, a combat team can use theirinvisibility to close with the enemy, or to escape if needed. 

Size-Change =BIG; The Dwarves can ‘click-click-click’ up to Ogre size. This always takesan action and is loud. All of their equipment changes with them, as if it, toowas being projected from somewhere else. A Dwarf might turn huge and fireballista-sized crossbow bolts, or get close before turning massive and layinginto a party from behind its lines. 

Size-Change =small; mainly used for escaping should a situation turn bad, especially byaccessing crawl-spaces or similar. Combining this with Invisibility makes themnear-impossible to catch. 

The enormouspower of their techno-magical abilities, combined with their utter ruthlessnessand invincible will, means the Dead-Eyed Dwarves don't need fancy 'tricks',though like many Veins cultures, though they have an expertise in Poison (towhich they have a meaningful resistance), and sometimes use various forms ofGas. 

 

Chameleon/Tarantula Cavalry

Mainly used inand around their settlements, due to the enormous costs of keeping them fed,but the Dead-Eyed Dwarves do often use ‘Cavalry’ formations; their favouritesare a very chunky form of huge Tarantula, and kind of sticky lizard with someChameleonic abilities. 

They willusually change size to something smaller in order to comfortably ride thesethings. The combination of activating their toxic invisibility cloaks, thegiant animals, and the glaring lights they carry, creates a truly bizarreappearance. 

 

Non-Combat Encounters

No Pride, No Shame

The Dead-EyedDwarves don’t carry resentments around, if they beat you before, or were beatenby you, their attitude will be what it always is - relentlessly practical. 

This makesconflict with them a troubling experience; they will not try violence unlessthey believe they will win, and they are rarely wrong. 

Non-Combat Encounters

the Dead-EyedDwarves will pass invisibly, except for their lanterns. They seem like trudgingshadows passing underneath an actinic light which glows like a willow the whisp. 

Did they justwalk right past? 

Whatever theyare doing, they are doing it. They have a purpose and if the PCs cannot help

or impede them,what do they care? 

 

Goals of the Dead-Eyed Dwarves

[THIS NEEDS WORKBUT HERE IS THE BASIC IDEA 

A simple way todo this might be for there to be three goals; 

One BIG THINGthat the whole of local Dead-Eye Dwarf culture is currently aiming towards. Youroll for this when you are generating the Veins and it remains the samethroughout the Campaign. 

Two –a mediumscale political or large structural goal that will help them towards the MAINTHING. This can change from session to session and can differ from settlementto settlement. (But it doesn’t have to change). You can roll for thison-encounter, or during the session or just keep it from previous sessions ifthat make sense. 

 

Three - acurrent goal for *this particular group*, the mission or thing they arecurrently trying to fulfil, which will lead towards the second, which will leadtowards the third. You roll for this when you encounter these guys. 

Do, whenever youare dealing with Dead-Eyes, just look at this list; they are doing A, toachieve B, to finally achieve C. And all you need to think about, as it is allthe Dead-Eyes are thinking about, is ‘how do I achieve the next goal and makesure it connects to the main goal’. ] 

They must alwaysbe working 

 

Simple Behaviours For Encounters Literal

They do not likemetaphor. Things mean one thing. If a thing tries to mean two things then itbecomes nothing. 

LITERAL DOESN'TMEAN STUPID  - they do not like metaphors,but they understand them. They know that you or other characters, arenot being literal, and they can understand that, but they themselves will doeverything they can to avoid it.

 

Taciturn, Concrete, Direct 

Get to thepoint, get there now and be explicit about what it is. 

Use the minimalnumber of words to make things clear. 

Do not 'chat'. Everyconversation has a clear and concise point towards which they are going.

 

 

Dead-Eye Culture

Long ago thefirst of them emerged from a distant primal core. He made himself. That workgoes on. They believe they are improving. It is their mission to do so. 

Their familytrees spring up, not down. Each generation more focused and efficient than thelast. This is the Ascent. Dead-Eye heredity. A machine of blood and bone,carrying them into the pre-remembered future. One of only two things in whichthey truly believe. 

They havestatistics, and the graphs all show a clear upward trend. Production,efficiency and development, all increase. 

They imagine thefuture and the things they will build there. It belongs to them. They want itmore. They understand it more. They will become what the future needs them tobe. The future is a god to them. A god-above-gods. They know it to be true. 

Even as the raceslowly winds itself deeper and deeper into the earth, passing through frettedvalves and carved abandoned chambers they have made, falling in its orbit ofstone, they map their continual advance. 

Each thing mustbe built upon another thing. A word, a deed, a thought, each must have itsfoundation. Arguments over the Ascent are arguments over reality itself.Without its sustaining foundation, the word becomes a gabble of sound, the deedan accident, the thought a dream, the existence a lie.

 

Dull 

One of the mostpowerful, wide-ranging and transformative of all the cultures of the Veins, theDead-Eyed Dwarves are dishwater-dull, to deal with. Utterly reliable and quiteinsane, they are a power second only to the Aelf-Adal, to whom they are almost immune,and with whom they enter irregular war. 

 

Makers Of Ruin

The totality oftheir physical effect on the Veins of the Earth is enormous. Dead-Eyesnever stop working, mining, carving, delving. They are always building,cutting, shaping, and thence always moving. 

They cannot stopworking, ever. 

This makes a Dead-Eyecity or settlement, more like the cast of a worm than a singular place. Theymine and carve EVERYWHERE, continually, they do not stop to inhabit very long. ADead-Eye settlement is like a time-worm; it’s not located in any particularplace but is continually being delved, leaving the carved and developed volumesbehind it, like the cast of a worm. 

The Dead-Eyestherefore make the Veins more ‘ruined’ and more ‘empty’ than they wouldotherwise be, for an empty building can be empty in ways a cave cannot. 

Dead-Eyes dostill consider that they 'own' anything that they have worked on, (that theyhaven't formally agreed to sell or exchange), which means these vastPiranesi-ruins that plunge through the Veins are technically 'theirs'.

 

Neutral, Practical Evil

Dead-Eyes do nottorture or psychologically destroy their slaves. Not deliberately at least.They simply kill them when they fail. 

Skilled slavescan appear to rise far in Dead-Eye ownership, and will (any skill at work mustbe nurtured and sustained so that better work may be done). But it is not theindividual that is respected. It is the work. The work passing through thealien flesh. 

They do notreally hate their slaves. They do not realise that they are beings at all. Onlyvectors for work. 

They do notreally hate anyone. Because they really don’t know there is anyone there tohate. 

Neutral, ultra-reliable,non-bigoted, they may be the sanest (?) culture in the Veins. 

They arehonestly quite boring to encounter and maybe that's ok. Remember it’s not aboutoffending them, it’s unlikely you even could offend them, it’s aboutgetting in their way, and if you do get in their way, they will grind throughyou and over you with utter ruthless indifference. It’s almost like fightinggolem. 

 

Skill Is Meaning

They respectskill. But it is the skill itself they respect, which is work movingthrough the body, not the body or the person itself, which are just bearers ofthe skill.

 

Work Is Meaning

The only otherthing they understand is work. 

A body and amind are only useful because of the work they can together do. The soul is thework passing through the flesh. 

No other racegrasps this. They might ask “What are the Dead-Eyes working towards? What istheir plan?” 

They are workingto be working. Work is the plan. Work is the point. 

They will neverstop. They can never stop. 

They will cutcities from bare stone, tear up every vein, embellish every surface, then, whenthere is no unworked spot or unplanned gap, when every single piece and thinghas become a channel for planned creation, when even the pebbles stare up fromthe floor with idly-carved eyes, then they move on. 

Gems meannothing to them except that they can be cut, or have been cut. 

If one loses theability to work and if they cannot further the ascent, they simply walk intothe dark. Or sit where they are, staring at nothing, waiting to starve. 

if a Dead-Eye iscrippled or otherwise prevented from working, they lose any will to live. They mustwork, they must proceed towards the goal. It is all they are. It iseverything they are.

 

Jealous

Yes, ok, perhapsthey can be a little irrational. They are still Dwarves after all. Theycan be jealous of craft and ownership, especially of unique objects andmaterials. The RayMen and their wonderous tech inspire some of this, but manyethnogroups have a little this or that which really, really, should thatnot truly belong to the Dwarves?

 

No Dreams

They do notdream, rather they experience a lucid ebony. Its possible they are not even reallyunconscious, just ‘shut down’. What are the Nightmare-Men going to do? Givethem a spook?

 

Fidget Spinners

Since theyliterally can't stop working, they tend to have a lot of ... odd things they dowhen they can't physically work, like knitting. If they are waiting, they carvestones or rock where-ever they sit down, leaving tiny faces in pebbles or mapson flat slate. (Although you never actually see them 'waiting’.)

 

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