The important thing to remember about Kachuk is its history -- which is, coincidentally enough, hard to forget since the Dwarves have taken the liberty of etching it into the walls of every single tunnel in or out. What is today one of the largest cities in all of dwarfdom was originally a glorified concentration camp, formed by the Drow of Alerar after the War of Inference was resolved. As explained by the writings on the wall, Alerar's own historical texts don't exactly tell the full story behind the Treaty of Congruity, nor are the terms very well known outside of the city of Kachuk and the Dark Palace of Ettermire.
Simply put: History remembers the Treaty of Congruity as a rare, benevolent show of mercy by the Drow. It wasn't, at least not at first. The first version of the treaty relocated the Dwarves of Alerar, by force when necessary, to the Kachuk Mountains; essentially a slow-acting death sentence for thousands due to the scarcity of resources and the distance from viable trade. Whatever they managed to produce, the Dwarves were required to give to the Drow, receiving little in exchange.
They did the best with the hand they were dealt. They began mining, quickly and quietly and with all the ingenuity of a people oppressed. Two years into the internment, the Dwarves had established a full-blown network of tunnels. Their first act of rebellion, not recorded in Aleraran history books for obvious reasons, was to lure the camp guards into the tunnels and slaughter them.
It took months before word reached the Royal Family, and months more before the Drow returned in force to the region. The Dwarves were waiting for them. By the end of the first day, the corpses of Vazerith's soldiers had literally formed a barricade at the tunnel mouths, and the Dwarves had tunneled so extensively that it was simply impossible to smoke them out. They had adapted to the mountains well enough that the Drow couldn't dig them out either.
In the end, Vazerith's cousin, Sindareth, braved a cleared passage into the tunnels and offered to accept a conditional surrender. An unknown Dwarf is famously replied,
Surrender? Like hell, Lady-boy! This is how the Dwarves of Khaz-Kachuk negotiate!
The rest, as they say, is history. The Treaty of Congruity was 'renegotiated' to the point that it didn't even acknowledge a Dwarven surrender in the War of Inference, and the burgeoning city of Kachuk became a vassal to the Drowish nation in name only -- and even that was eventually dissolved into a more formal alliance with the founding of Ettermire. By today, the alliance of Dwarves and Drow has grown so tightly interwoven that it's difficult to politically differentiate between the two at all.
This is the story etched into the entrance tunnels of Kachuk. Besides going deeper and feeding into the more modern tunnels that define the city, they've gone unchanged for close to a thousand years now. The bones of ancient, fallen Drow and Dwarf warriors still litter the ground beneath the etchings. What's left of the original concentration camps also still lie in ruin around the entrances, little more than sticks and oddly shaped rocks lying in circles around old firepits. It's a cold, barren place of remembrace, occasionally punctuated by fiery orange lights and frosty winter nights.
Once you get past the Entrance Tunnels though, Kachuk is almost welcoming. Militantly paranoid, but still almost welcoming provided you have lots of money and a high tolerance for heat, alcohol and violence. Kachuk is renowned for having all three in excess, in addition to having some of the most breathtaking architecture in the world.
Kachuk is, quite literally, a city underground. There are buildings of every sort, some of them dozens of floors tall and others so high that they seem to 'drip' from the ceiling like hollowed out stalactites. Light comes from the dozens of huge torches and boiling wells of molten ores that litter the city, each one owned and guarded by a different Dwarven clan and its allies and vassals.
It bears mention that despite the average four-or-so foot height limit most Dwarves live with, Kachuk is actually an incredibly spacious place. Excuses for this vary to insanity, but the truth is just that more room makes it easier to swing a weapon. Beyond that, it leaves fewer places to take advantage of Drowish talents for stealth, effectively fortifying every building and turning every street into a potential alley of death in the event of an invasion.
The majority of Kachukian industry is centered on mining and processing, with a large minority dedicated to smithing metals into weapons and army of a quality you just can't find anywhere else. The smallest, and ironically the most powerful section of the population are the Agrariate Clans, who use magic to provide Kachuk with a stable means of farming underground. Members of the Agrariate are also responsible for most of the local enchantments put into certain Dwarven weapons and armor, and despite their small size, these Clans have a commanding say over any kind of territorial dispute or trade agreement.
Beyond that, the Dwarves of Kachuk are known for being honorable to the point of egomania. Beards are cultivated into flawless manes, braids and dragontails -- a local term, since
ponytail was deemed too girly. Their society as a whole is martial to the point of excess, with every Dwarf learning how to use at least one weapon almost as soon as they learn to walk. All native Dwarves are expected to learn smithing and mining practices around the same age they learn to read and write, and every Dwarf is required to speak at least three languages if they plan on going abroad. Armor is considered fashion in Kachuk, and to have rusty or ill-polished armor is tantamount to being nude. The only exceptions are blacksmiths and on-duty miners, and even they often go out of their way to put armored plates or bands around their beards.
Magic runs rampant in the city of Kachuk, particularly among the Agrariate Clans, though all Clans have at least a few spellcasters handy in case of an emergency. Geomancy is considered the best form of magic, but the importance of other elemental schools are still recognized; Kachuk's water reserves, air supplies and the fires that make its molten wells and torches possible are all the results of elemental magic.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the Dwarves have combined all these things into a fanatical love of what they call the Solid Arts -- sculpting and its ilk. Nowhere is this more evident than in the statue of Anon'durr Khazan, the Unknown Dwarf. Easily fifty feet tall, it depicts a Dwarf from the era of Kachuk's founding, wearing the names of all Clans throughout the city's history. Space to etch a Clan name is at a premium, and only a token few individuals have ever been awarded the honor of putting personal names on it.
Directly above it, and above all of Kachuk for that matter, is one of the most dazzling sights of Althanas: The Shimmering Skies, consisting of more than a million glimmering gemstones of every type lodged into the city ceiling and positioned as they would be in the skies above the original Dwarven homelands. The Clans guard this work zealously, and have been known to kill outsiders just for saying they want a closer look.
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