Editing Autia (section)

====Ghol (Underground)====

The city of Ghol is unique, even amongst the dwarves. This place is not nearly the stronghold that their people are known for, rather Ghol is a city of learning and craftsmanship. The city is home to the Gholi dwarves and a large number of stone elementals. The two sets of beings live symbiotically, with each providing for the other. The elementals aid the dwarves by building the very city and its infrastructure while also protecting the dwarves, and in return the dwarves provide the elementals with comforts and amenities that they crave. Nearly the entirety of the city was made by the elementals. The dwarves settled here specifically to live a amongst the earthen denizens of this area. Built in an old cavern of a great lava flow that has ceased moving and lost its heat a millennia ago. The old flow runs right to the edge of the Great Shelf, a precipice in the dark. The shelf is an immense drop off that reaches down to the deepest depths of the earth and is as large as an inland sea. The murky black and sheer size of the hole means no living being has even been to the bottom, or at the very least not made it back up to speak of it. It is on the old lava flow, against the edge of the Shelf, that they dwarves chose as their home.

The Gholi dwarves are a diaspora of an old Hold that existed under the ground between Autia and Lapus. The stronghold was sturdy and the dwarves were proud. They prospered for generations without turmoil. That was until a great earthquake rocked their civilization. Nearly everything they had built and worked towards was destroyed as the entire world around them trembled and crumbled. The survivors of the calamity reported that at the height of the rupture, when the cracking and moaning of the earth was at its most intense, they heard a deep and ominous voice groaning from the walls, floor, and ceiling of the earth around them. This, they decided, was the great Spirit of Stone. This Spirit is reportedly a sentience of the very stone that comprises the solid world itself, and they believed that through some transgression they had incurred the wrath of this great spirit. Their survival would depend on righting this wrong, and living in harmony with the stone of the deep places. They wandered through the dark for a generation until they found the location to build their city. The place they chose was full of earthen elementals, and rested on the edge of a great chasm. This chasm was important for the Gholi, as they believed the Spirit of Stone resided in the deepest depths of the world. Here they made a pact of companionship with the elementals and built a society that reveres the very stone around them.

The earthen beings that comprise the other half of the Gholi society are nearly ageless. They are slow, calm, and methodical. Even when they move it is with a careful deliberateness. They are truly spirits that inhabit physical stone, animating it and even living as it. They come in a variety of rock and exist in all shapes and sizes. They can be a stone parody of a dwarf to great masses of boulders larger than buildings.
The elementals are capable of shaping solid stone as if it were clay, and perform incredible feats of building on behalf of the dwarves, construction nearly every building and work of rock within the city. They also comprise the bulk of the cities defense, like an avalanche crushing their foes. In return, the dwarves provide the elementals with heat and water. High temperatures and hot air loosen the stones that comprise the elementals. With enough heat they become more active and mobile, with their general lethargy subsiding and being replaced with an almost youthful energy. The water is a comfort, flowing streams diverted through the city provide a place for the stone spirits to lounge and relax. The water rolling over their forms is very soothing for them. Without these amenities the elementals can lay inert for extended periods of time being nearly indistinguishable from a pile of rocks or a cavern wall. They are naturally drawn to this place, living on the old lava flow, still hoping for the long lost heat of the place. In this way, the dwarves have provided them with the warmth they desire.

The dwarves now have a culture of scholarly pursuits, with geometry and geology being of chief importance. Magic is prominent among them, using powers of fire and light widely. The dwarves here differ from much of their kin in that martial pursuits are rarely undertaken. With the elementals making up the bulk of the physical might of their society, they dedicate themselves to power and thought. They do have a conscription force for defense but this is a minority of their armed forces, only making up about a third of the cities army. For these reasons, the Gholi are not known for creating great weapons and armor like some dwarves, but instead their forges and craftsmanship are directed towards metalworking for the sake of precise tools and refined jewelry. The furnaces of the city are always alight, and the heat they produce is deliberately sweltering for the comfort and needs of the elementals. The City of Ghol is always basked in the warm glow of their many fires. They have a very good friendship with the Moles of the Nest of Princes to their immediate north, and trade with them often. They despise Drow, making no distinction between the different cities, and would never allow the "slave-makers" near their scared home.