Opal Dwarves
Opal Dwarves
On the blue moon, Azoom, the water-aligned Opal Dwarves sail the seas in their great clan-fleets. They live as nomads and pirates: always on the move in pursuit of seasonal fishing grounds, poaching from unguarded storm giant lands, searching for safe harbors where they can build and repair ships, and of course, hunting for treasure.
Outer face
Physically, opal dwarves come in all the colors of seashell nacre from pearly white to black and including shades of pink, lavender, blue, and green. Regardless of their primary color, their skin always looks glossy and smooth like a sea mammal's, but with an iridescent sheen. They are almost entirely hairless except for whiskers on their upper lips which most opal dwarf men grow out as large walrussy mustaches. (The women don't shave, but they do typically trim their whiskers very short with scissors.) They are susceptible to sunburn so they protect their bald heads with scarves, bandanas, or hats.
Inner faith
Opal dwarf religion is a syncretic blend of the Church of Light and the druidic pagan faith of the Primordials. They view Dunaia the Wellspring as the mother of the gods of Light. They say Mahkeh the Weaver is the twin brother of Verath and the twins work together to shape reality: Verath sees what is true (i.e. conceives the platonic ideal) and Mahkeh creates what is real (i.e. gives physical form to those ideals). Cnaw the Worm is Dunaia's estranged lover and a constant threat to her, her children, and the mortals who worship them. Cnaw is possibly the father of Dunaia's children and he is credited with creating (by himself or with an unknown monstrous mother) the great predators of the deep. (I really need to do a blog post about the gods so this stuff makes more sense.)
Poachers and pirates
Each clan-fleet maintains a few "garden islands" as a source of vegetables and grains. These islands are typically small and remote with no real strategic advantage for the storm giants who dominate Azoom. The opal dwarves don't consider themselves farmers and don't tend their crops. They tidy up a bit every time they visit to harvest their produce, but they otherwise let their gardens run wild. They rely on a lot of perennial tubers and root crops. They never harvest all of their annuals and biennials; they are careful to leave some to go to seed so there will be more in a later season. This haphazard approach to agriculture means that their menu is a variety of potatoes and a random grab bag of other fruits and vegetables that are fermented and preserved as pickles for their ship stores.
As powerful as the storm giants are, they can't be everywhere at once. If a larger island seems to lack active patrols, opal dwarves will seize the opportunity to send hunting parties ashore to stock up on meat. If they have more time, they will establish a logging operation to gather timber to maintain and expand their fleets.
When they are feeling especially audacious, they will send parties to infiltrate lightly patrolled islands and use their talent for prospecting to locate a lode of ore and set up a covert mining operation under the noses of the giants. Mining is backbreaking labor, but it's considered honest work by most dwarves. Opal dwarves generally hate it because they prefer the fresh air and wide skies of the open sea. Being an illicit ore runner, however, does lend the job a certain cachet that makes it desirable for the young and foolish (or the old, foolish, and lucky enough to still be alive after decades of foolishness).
Legitimate shipping business
The opal dwarves are excellent carpenters and shipwrights. They not only build the ships of their own clan-fleets, but some clans also build ships for the storm giants in exchange for special considerations.
The most common arrangement gives the dwarves a port and drydock under storm giant protection and access to supplies. The storm giants usually allow the dwarves to make ships for themselves as well in a "one for us, one for you" deal. Of course, giant ships require more time, labor, and materials to build so a persuasive clan leader will try to arrange a more equitable ratio of shipyard output.
Opal dwarf shipwrights also build the moonjammers that sail the void between moons, but the dwarves control a minority of moonjammers themselves. The rare gems that empower the runeplates and conduits that make a moonjammer fly are strictly controlled by the giants. Enough sylphite, salamandrite, undinite, and gnomite (and their more potent forms) have fallen into opal dwarf hands through trade, embezzlement, and literally "taking a cut" of larger gems that dozens of moonjammer merchant (and privateer) ships are operated by opal dwarves or independent captains who acquired one secondhand.
Moonjammer aside
The majority of moonjammers are military ships in the giant fleets. When they were first developed the moonjammers tipped the scales of the Great Lunar War in the storm giants' favor for over a decade. However, as ships were downed on other moons, the other giants managed to reverse engineer them and added salvaged moonjammers to their own fleets. Azoom still holds naval superiority, but their lead is rapidly dwindling. The fire giants of Carnoom and the cloud giants of Viridoom have both figured out how to produce their own gems and the frost giants of Nivoom have a growing collection of moonjammer gems that they have salvaged from Azoomian and Carnoomian craft that attacked their citadels. There are rumors that the night giants of Gothoom have discovered a method to use the gems more efficiently to power larger craft with fewer gems. There are whispers of a night giant dreadnaught being constructed in a hidden Gothoomian canyon.
Adventure hook: A dwarf, elf, or other community on one of the moons offers a moonjammer ship and other loot as a reward if you can discover the secret of the lunarite gems and break the giants' monopoly over them.
Statwise
In game terms, opal dwarves are B/X dwarves but they lack skills in construction tricks, trap finding, and listening at doors. Instead, they have a cultural predisposition to navigation and artillery and a supernatural talent for mineral dowsing, which is useful for things like "We should dig for iron ore here" or "He's got gold in his left coat pocket".