Derro were described as a Human/Dwarf crossbread of pseudo-magical and psionic origin, and they retained that description in the 1E Monster Manual II. They were a part of the Dragonlance Campaign (Dwarven Kingdoms of Kryn, also on ESD), but I think their origins were altered for that setting.

In 2E, they lost this Human-related aspect in their description. However, a Dragon artical (Annual #3, I think) attributed them as being the decendants of the Suelise that fled underground after The Rain of Colorless Fire.

My own origin for them is a bit off, but I'd have to type 3-4 pages of history to explain it properly.

--------------------

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sergeant Krag:
Derro were described as a Human/Dwarf crossbread of pseudo-magical and psionic origin, and they retained that description in the 1E Monster Manual II. They were a part of the Dragonlance Campaign (Dwarven Kingdoms of Kryn, also on ESD), but I think their origins were altered for that setting.

---

well i don't know where the psionic bit went but MM p. 80 "Derro are degenerate and evil human-dwarf crossbreads who live in the Underdark".

--------------------

quote:

---

Originally posted by Olive:

well i don't know where the psionic bit went but MM p. 80 "Derro are degenerate and evil human-dwarf crossbreads who live in the Underdark".

---

Gygax's excellent 'Sea of Death' establishes clearly that on Oerth the Derro are degenerate remnants of the Sueloise who live in the ruins beneath the Sea of Dust. Being Sueloise explains their albinoid complexion.

1st ed MM2 strongly implies that the derro reproduce by breeding with their (80% female) human slaves.

Derro have nothing to do with dwarves genetically, unless you accept later post-Gygax D&D editions as canon. Derro are the human equivalent of the dwarves' Duergar and the elves' Drow.

--------------------

From Dragon #278 (Dec 2000)

"Duergar" is the plural of the Danish "duerg," meaning "dwarf." The Danish word is likely cognate with the Anglo-Saxon "dweorg," which became "dwergh" in Old English, then "dwerf" and eventuially "dwarf" to us. The Danish brought their legends of malevolent dwarves with them to Northumberland, the section of England they conquered in the 9th century AD. Since their stories differed from conventional English fairy tales by depicting the dwarves as uniformly evil and deceitful, the Danish spelling was retained to connote these specifically Northumbrian "black dwarves." Much as their Monster Manual description states, they wore stone-colored clothes to blend into the rocks and were masters of illusion and invisibility.

The "Derro," meanwhile, enjoy slave-raiding and torture. They resemble nothing so much as the Dero, the "DEtrimental RObots" imagined by Richard Shaver (1910-1975) for a series of science-fantasy stories in Ray Palmer's Amazing Stories magazine in the late 1940's, beginning with "I Remember Lemuria!" (1945). Shaver's Dero were stunted, deformed creatures who followed cruel religions of pain and mockery, mastrers of vile machines in caverns deep under the earth. Although Richard Shaver was quite probably severely mentally ill (his Dero stories were originally printed as fact in his letters to Palmer), the nature of the Dero clearly stems from the Morlock in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine (1895) and literally refers back to Arthur Machen's devolved subhuman race beneath the earth that were featured in such stories as "The Shining Pyramid" (1895) and "The White People" (1904). Machen, of course, drew his notions from Victorian anthropologists theorizing about the origins of fairy lore -- including the tales of the wicked, child-stealing duergar.

--------------------

Anyone else have anything interesting on the Derro?

--------------------