No one in Lerrisaine knows what happened to the dwarves. They disappeared in a time before most remember, though writings remain from when they were known. Outside of the studied, however, they are just strange tales.
Some say they grew reclusive. Once happy in the hills, they moved to the mountains and the ground beneath them, carving entire cities out of the rocks and depth. Why they took up their tools for that no one knew, and the dwarves themselves spoke nothing about it to outsiders.
Then they were gone with most of what they possessed. Their mountain cities of centuries stood open and empty. Some books and scrolls say they descended farther to find a new world better to their liking, and others that they become something else entirely, beings more stone than flesh.
Every so often scholars argue their theories with one another, and every so often a random artifact from their past finds its way to the markets of Lerrisaine. But for most, they remain a mystery, if not a myth entirely. If any, including the gnomes, know any more, they do not speak it.