The dwarf craftsman, Fojal Wilhelm, had once been an oddball among his people. The guy feared nothing and no one.
As everyone knew, dwarven culture had two central traditions.
The first was the powerful sense of community born of collectivism. The traditions dwarves treasured and the virtues that guided them were deeply rooted in a rich culture, one that bound them together through family, community, and religion, producing a deeply entrenched clan society.
The second was the stubbornness born of conservatism-their refusal to change, though this also meant loyalty, reliability, and deep affection.
These two cultural traditions had shaped the dwarven race, making them intensely conservative in both temperament and technology.
On the one hand, dwarves were social creatures. From birth, a dwarf had to get used to sharing a bedroom with a crowd. Whether eating or bathing, they always had others around them. Privacy did not exist, and dwarves took that for granted.
On the other hand, this lack of personal space made dwarves fiercely protective of their privacy in social relationships, especially the privacy of their inner thoughts.
It could take decades of acquaintance before a dwarf would open his heart to someone. Until then, dwarves never readily expressed their thoughts. They might occasionally agree with views that matched their own, but offered no comment on anything they disagreed with. Ask, and nothing was wrong. Try to get something done, and they refused to cooperate. Ask again, and they still had no objections. It left others at a complete loss.
Together, these two deeply ingrained racial traits produced technological conservatism. Dwarves resisted innovation and progress. They would rather drown clutching "the wisdom of their ancestors" than move forward.
Yet the fiercest opponent of this attitude was none other than Moradin, the dwarven god-king. Moradin had always encouraged dwarves