Squats

The Squats descend from human miners who settled the high-gravity worlds of the galactic core and were then cut off for millennia by warp storms. Isolation and heavy gravity made them a shorter, tougher people with their own civilisation. They live in Strongholds built over mine workings; every Stronghold is independent, most belong to one of the seven hundred Leagues, and the Guilds carry engineering knowledge between all. Every Squat is trained to fight in the Stronghold's Brotherhood, and generations of tunnel war have made them resolute close-quarter fighters; the oldest develop psychic powers and are revered as Ancestor Lords.