Longbeards

A dwarf who has fought for a century or two earns his place among the Longbeards, the grey-bearded elders who anchor the centre of any throng. They have stood in shieldwalls since before the youngest warriors' grandfathers were born; there is no horror of the deeps they have not already killed at least once, and no battle plan they cannot improve by loud comparison with how it was done in their day.

Younger dwarfs find their grumbling maddening and their presence priceless, for panic cannot survive within earshot of a Longbeard's contempt. Their beards, bound in rings of gold and iron, are ledgers of age and honour, and when the Longbeards plant their boots and lower their axes, the line they hold might as well be a wall of the hold itself.