The warforged are a race of living, sentient constructs superficially similar to golems. They are made using a blend of materials. The core of a warforged is a frame formed from wood, stone, or metal. Bundles of rootlike fibers surround the core and serve as the muscles of the construct. Plates of steel and wood are fused over this layer of tendrils, forming the hard outer shell of the warforged. 

Warforged were created in AR 798 by the legendary dwarven wizard-smith Simrak the Inventor. Simrak and his apprentices created thousands of the beings, and they were used extensively as front line soldier during the 1st and 2nd Trade Wars (AR 804-825 and AR 875-895, respectively) between Karvejia and Voldaire. Simrak perished in AR 835, when his Creation Forge on Blackfen Island suffered a mysterious accident and exploded. The art of creating the warforged was lost with him.

In AR 895, upon signing the Treaty of Vodaccium, Voldaire and Karvejia officially recognized the warforged as sentient creatures. The treaty declared that all warforged were free and were no longer to be considered personal property. Despite the ruling, the warforged are still regarded as outsiders, and many of the socially naive creatures are still employed as indentured servants.

Though they have free will, whether they have a soul is not known with certainty. While they have no biological sex, warforged may adopt a gender role as part of their individual personality. They do not age as the other races do, and it is not known what effects time will have on them. It is stipulated that, like all living creatures, their bodies must experience degradation over time.

After emerging from their creation forge, most of the warforged were marked with symbols indicating the military specialty and national allegiance, so soldiers could identify their allies on the battlefield. In the years following the Trade Wars, most warforged have had these insignia removed. However, some have left these symbols intact out of indifference or nostalgia. 

Composition and insignia are elements that many warforged may share. But every warforged has one unique feature: the sigil engraved on its forehead. As individual as human fingerprints, these symbols were not designed by human hands. When Simrak's first construct emerged from the Creation Forge, it bore a symbol on its forehead, and the second had a different sigil. Simrak called these symbols "ghulra," a Dwarven word for "truth."

Warforged adopt names to deal with humans, but when dealing with each other, the ghulra serves as an important form of identification. A warforged may wear a hood to conceal its forehead from strangers, but when among friends most prefer to leave the symbol visible. While someone could gouge away the symbol, the ghulra is a part of the warforged in a way nobody truly understands; when someone uses curative magic on a warforged, a damaged ghulra is restored to its original shape.

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