[hider=Application]
[b]Name of Nation:[/b] Federated Clans of Thorum, or simply Thorum

[b]Species:[/b] Dwarves

The dwarves of Thorum are sentient beings. They are humanoid in shape and possess nearly all of the body parts found on a human. They are fairly short compared to the humans; however, the dwarves are extremely bulky making them weigh about the same as the average human being. They are also very strong with powerful and extra muscles, broad shoulders, and large hands. They are resliant due to their heavier and harder bones that are much more difficult to break than those of a human. They have very large lungs due to the fact they have preferred to live high up in mountains where amounts of oxygen are less than at lower elevations. They live decently long lives, and rather than becoming weaker with age they become stronger until they reach the age of 225 in which case they slowly become weaker until death.

Height: 4-5 ft.
Mass: 65-80 kgs.
Lifespan: 250-275 yrs.

[b]Description of Government:[/b] Aristocracy

The Federated Clans of Thorum is governed by an aristocracy which consists of seven individuals, known as "the Council", who hold all of the power in Thorum. 

The Council

The Council is the governing body of Thorum and there are a few requirements that one must meet in order to join the Council. First, the individual must be the thane, or chief, of a dwarven clan recognized by Thorum. Second, the individual must be a male dwarf. Third, the individual must be a citizen of Thorum.

The process of becoming a councilman is simple but difficult. In order to be elected to the Council, the individual must be voted in by at least five of the councilmen, or in certain circumstances one less than the total number of councilmen on the Council at the time of elections. If all members of the Council happen to pass at once then the duty of electing councilmen falls on the highest ranking military official at the time. 

In order for the Council to make a decision at least five of the seven councilmen must approve of the decision if it is to pass.

[b]Description of Military:[/b]

[img=http://sho3box.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/steelwarrior4.jpg]

The armed forces of Thorum are skilled in the art of ground warfare but are still rather primitive in space combat compared to other nations.

Military Size

The Thorum military is composed of 4,375,000,000 strong with 35,000,000 being added annually. The selection of these soldiers are done at birth where the newborns with the most potential to be great soldiers are chosen and each clan has to meet a quota of 5,000,000 soldiers each year. The newborns are raised normally until the age of 20 in which they began their military training. The training last 20 years and at the end of this training the dwarves are put into the various branches of the Thorum military. The dwarves stay in the military until they reach the age of 200 in which case they can retire or continue on in the military. 

Military Technology

The Thorum military has come along way in the field of technology ever since its beginnings, but the technology may not be as powerful as some other nations. For weaponry, the dwarves only use projectile weapons for both space and ground combat. The dwarves have used projectile weapons for a long time and they have proven themselves reliable and effective which is why the dwarves have focused on upgrading their projectile weapons rather than researching and discovering other forms of weaponry. Several examples of weapons that the Thorum military have used are firearms, artillery, rail guns, rockets, missiles, and grenades. The dwarves also like to use their hammers when it comes to melee, and their hammers are especially strong and effective when it comes to defeating their foes in close range combat. For armor, the dwarves have used an extremely strong and multipurpose material known as durasteel which is used in everything from infantry armor to space ship armor due to its effectiveness in combat.

[b]History:[/b]

Thorum is the planet on which the dwarves originated from. Evidence suggests that the first dwarves lived on Thorum roughly three million years ago and they were rather primitive, but still possessed tiny traces of intelligence. The dwarves became smarter and smarter as time went along and evolution had its way with them, so slowly but surely the dwarves began to become a dominant species in the few areas that they lived, or wandered rather, in. The dwarves lived in a primitive state until approximately five thousand years ago when nearly all aspects of dwarven life began to suddenly and significantly advance. The accidental founding of new technologies enabled the dwarves to purposely progress to the founding of even more new and advanced technology. This process went on for a few thousand years and the focus was suddenly shifted from progression to survival when a large object struck the planet of Thorum thus causing the extinction of multiple species and the death of large numbers of dwarves. The remaining dwarves decided to retreat to their small caves in order to escape at least some of the danger that the impact had caused. The dwarves were forced to scrounge whatever food they could find either in the cave or out in the atmosphere and pickings were slim; however, due to hostility of the outside world the dwarves decided to improve and expand their caves and in that process they discovered underground lakes which held edible fish that would soon become the main meal in the dwarven diet until the atmosphere of Thorum became more forgiving. The dwarves were able to create impressive living spaces in the mountains as they did have much free time with the food crisis solved. During their times in the caves, the dwarves became skilled in the art of social interaction and were fairly close with one another. After a thousand of years of being in the caves, the dwarves emerged and began to come into contact with other dwarves who had also been living in caves. Each cave's inhabitants had appeared to form into a clan of some sorts and their began to be certain levels of rivalry between the clans. This caused a massive increase in technological advancements with one clan trying to be better and more advanced than the other. 

The rivalries managed to stay peaceful and friendly until a new clan sprung up and began to cause distrust and violence between the clans. For a thousand years, seven clans battled each other in order to establish dominance over the Thorum mountains, the largest and longest mountain range on Thorum. There were really no winners during this entire thousand-year period and it looked like none of the clans were budging until the Thorum clan suddenly began using firearms. No one had ever seen such a weapon at the time and the Thorum clan was able to dominate its six opponents quite easily. The Thorum clan enslaved the people of the six clans for a couple years. The thane of the Thorum clan at the time was Renin Thorum and it was his son, Garnorn Thorum, who stopped the cruelty of the Thorum clan and ultimately his father. Garnorn rallied the slaves and any Thorum dwarves that would follow him. He led his group to his father's location where he was given two options, step down as thane or die. Renin chose to die by attempting to fight against his son which ended in failure for Renin as he was quickly defeated. Garnorn then became the thane of the Thorum clan. He freed the slaves and allowed them to reform their clans and he proposed that all of the clans be ruled by a fair, single governing body that would prevent any of the events that happened with his father. The Federated Clans of Thorum was formed as a result of this proposition and all seven clans decided to join it. The cooperation between the clans enabled the dwarves to become an extremely advanced society. 

The planet of Thorum began to become overcrowded with the population reaching over 23 billion. Many dwarves had ideas of expanding to the neighboring, habitable planets within their solar system, but no one had any method of executing these ideas until a large group of scientists made space travel possible. The first space ship was made and flown in space which inspired many other dwarves to develop better space technology. Ships began to move people and resources to the six planets closest to Thorum. The Council decided unanimously that each clan would get their own planet in order to keep any one clan from becoming more powerful than the others. The planets were named after the clans themselves. Bulduum, Yamarak, Zekkar, Magakul, Farrak, Darkul, and Thorum were the names of the original seven clans and the names of the seven main planets under the control of the FCT. 

The history of the dwarves remained uneventful for a few decades until the dwarves were suddenly attacked by a sentient species who arrived one day with a fleet of several ships which inflicted heavy causalities on the dwarven side as their space technology was rather poor compared to the invaders. The dwarves were getting completely demolished until the aliens attempted to land on the dwarven planets and finish off the dwarves; however, the aliens were met with fierce brutality from the dwarves. The dwarves were able to repel all attempts at a ground invasion due to the sheer numbers of dwarves as well as their vast knowledge of ground combat. After several months of attempting to take over the dwarves the aliens decided to leave the dwarves alone as no progress was being made on either side. The FCT began to heavily invest in its military in order to prepare for another engagement with the aliens. The aliens returned every several years where they fight with the dwarves and end up losing every single time. This caused the dwarves to advance their military technologies greatly. The technology was only put to use a few times as the aliens suddenly stopped arriving and attacking Thorum. The dwarves began to focus on rebuilding their civilization after suffering from the long war with the alien species.

[b]Other:[/b]

The dwarves of Thorum have a unique culture to go along with their unique history. The dwarves love to drink alcohol and can usually tolerate more alcohol in their system than other species. The alcohol will still affect their perception and senses; however, dwarves don't suffer any long-term effects from the consumption of alcohol as other species might. Families, a major part of dwarven culture, are always close and rarely is a broken up family ever seen in Thorum.

[/hider]