The black peaks of the Barrier Mountains are dominated by a dwarven people.
The Barrier dwarves traditionally wear black clothes and black hats with wide, flat brims and low crowns.
It is said that the dwarves of the Barrier Mountains have hearts as black as the basalt rock of their home.
The dwarves alternate between trading and warring with the three great human states which are their neighbours - Clemencia, the Confederacy and the Cargan Empire. The relationship between the dwarves and goblins is similar, but even more antagonistic.
The dwarves sell metal goods - tools, weapons and jewellery to their surface-dwelling neighbours, and import foodstuffs and alchemical ingredients from them.
Many Barrier Mountain dwarves fought on the side of Morbazon in the Confederate civil war, and this goes a long way to explain the remaining Confederate states' extreme hostility to dwarves.