Dwarves are a counterbalance.
Trusting in the immortal nature of stone and nothing else, they make formidable, if uncultured, melee combatants.
Advances in technology or magic that isn't their traditional earthsinging results in the race's classical glares and mutterings.
Their beards are seen as the property of their clan, which gives clan leaders the right to have wrongdoers shaved. Seeing as the beard is a sensitive network of pressure sensors, this renders the miscreant nearly blind in the winding, lightless tunnels of a dwarf holt.

Humans are rare. They used to be the most dominant race on the planet, but their reliance on magic made them weak and easy pickings. Litterally, there were some humans who had never walked more than a foot in their life due to the constant uses of flight magic and levitations. The rise of the elven empire and their clockwork monstrosities led to humanities downfall when it was discovered that the elven war machines were largely immune to the human's most powerfull spells. Spells of Mass Paralysis, domination, even brutal favorites such as flesh-to-stone were useless against the mindless beasts. What few human strongholds that remain today survived by virtue of cunning youths who realized that spells which had an incidental physical effect, such as the kinetic energy released by a Fireball, or the metal-eating properties of an Acid Flood could still harm the Elven devices. Unfortunatly, this revelation came late for most of human civilization. Even today most elves live in the ruins of human settlments, enjoying access to the high magical enchantments spread so luxuriously about the places. Without access to their great libraries, the magical abilities of the remaining humans has dwindled considerably.

Kobolds are a divided race.
Most people only ever hear of kobolds as trecherous ugly little vermin that live in caves. But the truth is that these ugly trap-loving kobolds are a minority. They are the scum, rejects, and mutants of kobold society; cast out for one reason or other and forced to carve out homes in caves and jealously guard them with terrible traps.
The 'real' kobolds (as they think of themselves) are a much different people. Where they live is a closely guarded secret. Not even people who have been to their villages seem to remember exactly where they were, but one thing they all seem to say is that the kobolds they saw were much less ugly and much kinder than their cave-dwelling counterparts. They are also said to be primitive and childish, but this is not QUITE the truth. The truth is they live simply by choice, believing very strongly that living more "modern" lives will corrupt them like their cave-dwelling brothers or like the other races.
Most kobolds are idealistic and view each other as a large family. They are wary of outsiders, and while the few who manage to find kobold villages report that the kobolds were very gracious hosts this is only because they could not see the multitude of weapons secretly aimed at them.

Goblins appear with the wind, snatching up babies and destroying property, only to disapear again as quickly as they came. No one knows where they come from or where they go, only that they are dangerous, deadly foes.

>>2117
Traditional armament for dwarfen warriors consists of specially chosen stones that resonate correctly. Entering the fray singing, the peculiarities of the Voice of Stone make the rocks as hard as steel or as soft as clay. Some tribes make armor of mud or clay, and legends tell of squat dancers in certain deserts that fade into the swirling sands and flay skin from bone.

The race with the biggest population is the shrimp-folk who have dominion in the seas. They are short and very ugly things resembling a pistol shrimp a meter in size but one of it's legs has mutated to have a hand with 3 fingers on it and is positioned closer to the head and face horizontally. This mutation is suspected to be caused by old, primordial magic such that the shrimp-fold have been seen to tap into but often it is a dangerous thing causing as much damage to them as their enemies. They generally don't try to make contact with the land races too much but the odd merchant has come to trade with those more inland. Their technology on land is limited, they do have spears for use in land warfare. In the sea they favor their biological weapon of a claw that uses bubbles put under huge pressure for natural sonic weaponry. They have bred giant goby fish for labor and mounts. They have an Empire based society, believing the Empire is the living incarnation of the last of old gods who have all but one left the world.

Gnolls live in a cracked and barren wasteland in which only the strong and wise survive. They are consummate survivors and noted cannibals, but always appear hideously emaciated.
Their patron is a god of fire, hunger, and the sun; places marked with a sun out in the Red Wastes are sacred ground and trespassing will result in becoming a meal.
They stand at about nine feet tall, but only weigh about two hundred pounds due to the withering conditions. Their ears are square, and even petty disagreements result in all-out brawls. Long exposure to their warbling laughter in the wastes, where sound can travel for miles, is said to cause insanity.
Roughly theocratic, the law outside the populated areas is that of survival. Accordingly, visitors are rare.

Gnomes are often taken as slaves by other races. Despite being solitary creatures, Gnomes naturally have little concept of disobedience. This is likely due to a unique brain chemical that makes them highly suggestible: they cannot distinguish between their own thoughts and nearby people speaking Gnomish. Though this makes them poorly suited for tasks involving lots of socialization, it is quite handy for tasks in which the Gnome is largely alone, such as lawn maintenence, craftsmanship, or housecleaning.

The Green Dream is simultaneously a region in the warm areas of the plane, a kind of fragmented nature deity, and a genocidal maniac.
Massive, lush jungles spread overs seas and lands, eating up all the space it can. Most creatures in it are subsumed into the Green Dream, which then controls their actions in a limited manner. The few insane sentients that live there (entire tribes of savages, hermits and wanderers) either pay homage to it and act like animals or are forced into such behavior.
For the willing, sacrificing the use of technology allows one access to the Green Dream, enabling connections with every living thing in the area. These traitors to civilisation are marked with green pupils. For the unwilling, their will and intelligence are slowly sapped away as they revert to primal behaviors.
The nations bordering the Green Dream take extreme measures to push it back every year, but new and virulent mutations of the plants and animals surface just as quickly, and the Green Dream slowly gains ground...

If scholars are to be believed, Dwaven reproduction is a complicated affair involving no fewer than four genders.
Despite this, the common misconception is that all dwarves are bearded females (hence the nickname "Brides of the Stone"). Indeed, to the outside observer all Dwarves do appear to be just that. The difference in gender is so miniscule that only other Dwarves can truly identify a Dwarf's gender. Fortunately, outside of the act of reproduction, gender has absolutly no effect on Dwarven culture.
This is not, however, to say that it hasn't led to it's share of awkwardness. Dwarves attempting to seduce non-dwarfs have been historically surprised to find out that, while technically still compatible, non-Dwarfs have bits unheard of in even the wildest of Dwarven imaginations.

>>2116
Elves are fond of a silvery metal called Aeili that resists rust and is hard but brittle. It takes magic well, and many automatons of cheaper materials will have runeplates of it for this reason.
Several incredible weapons have been made of the stuff, the most interesting being the Razor Maul. This consists of a gauntlet with a heavily protected palm, a thin chain, and a ball approximately seven or eight inches across. Clever mechanisms inside the ball stop its movement when it reaches a certain point, which causes it to unfold in a flowerlike array of spines and blades. It will also do so if it hits a target and the chain is not fully retracted. While a spectacular and fearsome weapon, it requires a fair amount of range to use, and is very easy to trip its users up with.
Also, elvish magic cyborgs. That is all.

Wars between Elves and Dwarves used to be quite common, with neither side being able to gain a clear advantage. Currently however, a rough peace exists between the two civilizations. Interestingly, it was not by their own hands that the peace came about. Rather, it was the act of the Fae, who, for reasons entirely their own (some speculate they were in it for the lulz) used their strange magical control over emotions to distort and transform the emotions of any Elf or Dwarf who makes hostile actions against the other. What results is a strange emotional outburst that always winds up preventing the attack from taking place. What emotion results is either entirly random or follows some alien logic, but is always sufficient to prevent action. A raging dwarven barbarian may suddenly find his fury transformed into overwhelming mirth, dropping him to the floor with laughter. An elven archer will, upon lining his bow up with his target, find his calm veneer to be transformed into an unquenchable infatuation with his target. This, of course, has led to a total cesation of outright hostilities, though the two races still hate eachother and engage in a much more cold, impersonal war, faught using proxies and allies.
There are few sights more entertaining than a dwarf and an elf who are really determined to kill eachother, as an attempted battle will devolve into both sides struggling to overcome a different flood of emotion with each swing.