Duergar: I'm shocked - a flavour change I really like!

The original Duergar (from Monster Manual II)

INTELLIGENCE: Average to Genius
ALIGNMENT Lawful evil

The duergar are the seldom-encountered race of evil dwarves. They are also known as the gray dwarves or gray ones. Malicious in the extreme, duergar dwell in subterranean depths where their evil need not withstand the light. Normally but a handful of these wicked creatures will be discovered, but occasionally a lair will be discovered with hundreds of
duergar there.

SNIP

(they include) 3rd-6th/3rd-6th level cleric/assassins and 9th/7th-9th level cleric/assassins

SNIP

The duergar lair will always be subterranean, extensive, and consist of many passages, rooms, chambers, and secret areas. There may (25%) be some monster kept as a guardian in the lair complex. There is a 75% probability that there will be 10-40slavesthere. Roll 1d20 to find the type of slaves kept: 1-8 = mountain dwarves or orcs; 9-12 = dwarves or goblins; 13-16 = gnomes or xvarts; 17-1 8 = halflings (stout) or kobolds; 19 = svirfneblins or norkers; 20 =adventurers or others.

Duergar have been know to dwell with derro (q.v.) and similar evil creatures, but such communities are rare. Duergar surprise on 3 in 6. They are surprised only 1 in 10. As with normal sorts of dwarfkind, duergar save vs. magical attacks (deathmagic,polyrnorph, rodet al, and spell) at +4. They are immune to paralysis and poison. Spells of the
illusion/phantasm category do not affect duergar.

All duergar have the following psionic disciplines: expansion, invisibility, molecular attraction, and reduction. Performance level is equal to hit dice of experience. Duergar speak the silent speech of subterranean creatures, their own tongue, and Dwarf. Some speak other tongues as well.

Duergar appear as emaciated, evil-visaged dwarves. Their skin is medium to dark gray. They favor garb of drab color, typically that which blends into their environment. They live longer than do normal dwarves, some reaching 500 or more years of age.

And their possible companions: the Derro.

INTELLIGENCE: Very to Genius
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil

The derro are a degenerate race of dwarf-like stature, possibly a cross between evil humans and dwarves. They inhabit the great subterranean realms common to drow and their ilk (kuo-toans, mind flayers, troglodytes, etc.). Although the derro hate light and suffer from nausea in sunlight, they venture out upon the surface of the earth at night through secret shaft openings to steal and kidnap humans for slaves. Rumor says that some humans are actually eaten as well. Derros have high dexterity (1 5-1 8), so armor class must be adjusted accordingly.

SNIP

A derro lair will always have 30 plus 3-1 2 additional normal derroes, a corresponding number of higher level leaders, 1-3 savants, 2-5 student savants, 15-40slaves(80%female), and 1-3 gargoyles(70%), or a lamia
(30%) as allies.

Savant derroes are sage-like, with the ability to use any sort of magic item and weapon. They cast spells as follows: affect normal fires, antimagic shell, blink, light. lightning bolt, minor creation. charm person, cloudkill. ESP. hypnotic pattern, ice storm, invisibility, levitate, paralyzation .repulsion, shadow magic, spider climb, ventriloquism. wall of fog, wall of force. They have apprentices known as student savants, or merely students. The latter know only a minor field of study and are only 25% likely to be able to use a nonfighter magic item. Derro savants have 5-8 hit dice; students have4-7. Scholars will have 2-3 useful (and used) magic items of offensive and/or defensive nature, while students will have 1 lesser item. Savantswill know6-9 spells, students 1-3. They also comprehend languages and read magic. Performance is at 12th tevel of ability.

Typical magic items possessed are any potion; any scroll; rings of fire resistance, invisibility. protection, and spell storing; any wand; studded leather +l armor and shields; any swords up to +3; bracers of defense, brooch of shielding, cloak of protection, etc.; and any miscellaneous weapons.

The derroes are said to have a major stronghold somewhere deep beneath the ground, and there their savants plot and scheme to devastate the upperworld and enslave all mankind. Derroes are very much like humans, only shorter and slightly more muscular in proportion to their height. Their features tend towards grossness. Their hair is pale tan or yellow, their skin isverywhitewith a bluish undertone, and their eyes are very large.

Dour, gray, psionic, rulers of their own realm. They had a cool thing going. Turning them into warpstone-sucking Chaos Dwarves does not work for me.

Click to expand...

Y'know, I'm a bit with Pawsplay on this one. I liked the Duergar because they weren't "in your face!" evil. They were quietly, selfishly, insularly evil, an example of the sort of everyday cruelty you find amongst humans in your own neighborhood. Cold, distant, pitiless, they would smile as you starved and they would kick you for begging. They were a quiet, icy-stare kind of evil that sent chills down your spine rather than claws in your chest. Their powers of invisibility and growth just added to their deceptions, and their schtick of being hardcore craftsmen lent them a sort of Industrial Revolution kind of villainy: any price, any labor, all fuel for the fire of the physical object. They were potential: short things that could grow immense, the invisible sounds of scuffling on the stones behind you, the sense that maybe the blade you wield has a much higher price than gold attatched to it...

I imagined them as Gray in the "dark, dismal, clouded, hard" kind of motif. Grey like the stone, cold like metal, evil like a stereotypical Big Corporation is evil, crushing all beneath it without regard to sympathy or emotion, pursuing the goal of gold above all. Gray dwarves were what happened when a dwarf valued money over friendship, family, and clan.

This change seems to take them away from that insidious level of wickedness into a more XTREME DEVIL BLARGH. Which kind of sucks. It's not like there's not enough devil-dealing whatsis out there who grow spikes and shoot fire from their bums.

Let's see where I'd take the Duergar, if I had my druthers...

[sblock]
As An Adversary: Two things should emerge in combat with a Duergar: their finely crafted goods, and their deceptive quiet. Duergar should make good Defenders. They are, after all, dwarves. The giant growth would be their main thing here. However, they should also have great stealth skills. Think armor that doesn't make noise when they move, and that is gray like the stone. This plays in with their Invisibility angle. They watch you like a thousand invisible eyes, and they form something of a wall of potential intimidation. If you fight a Deurgar, you should never know where the next attack is coming from, and they should be as hard to penetrate as solid stone. High AC. High HP. Decent Dex. Good Sneak skill. Powers related to stealth, defense, and, of course, the ability to grow large and lay the smack down (perhaps even make that available after being bloodied).

As An Ally: Outside of the party, their goods should be very valuable. Duergar weapons are better than most dwarf's, duergar armor is smoother, less noisy. The efficiency is rutheless -- it invites you to use it, and spares nothing on decoration or embellishment. When teaming up with a Duergar in an encounter, they should be your silent pair of eyes on the other side of the enemy, ready to spring out and deal with them in rutheless efficiency. Duergar should make good fighters, and their racial abilities should focus on making them *stealthy* fighters. NOT Fighter/Rogues. We don't want them leaping all over the battlefield and pulling out Sneak Attacks, necesarily. We want them to lurk in the darkness, invisible, and then spring out all of a sudden, giant-sized, a wall you didn't even know was there.

As Anybody: Duergar fill the role of the "fallen dwarf." They have become too insular -- they have become pitiless. They have become too greedy -- their materials are all that matter to them now. They have become too deep underground -- now they are part of the shadow and the stone. Whereas the Drow are ostentatious decadence, the Deurgar are reserved simplicity. They are the Pilgrims' harshest punishments. The dour faces of American Gothic. The hard life, the stony heart, the cold metal. They lurk deep underground, banished from the halls of those dwarves who still know the value of a heart and a soul, who have not offered their beings to the dark deapths of greed, of cruelty, and of isolated distance. They serve as a lesson for the other dwarves of the world: if gold or forgecraft is all that matters to you, if you cannot care for your family and your clan and your friends, if you forget the songs of the beerhalls and the warm roar of a fire and the smiles and laughter of a feast....you have become duergar, Gray, pitiless....
[/sblock]

I mean, I don't really MIND them having an attatchment to a devil. It's totally in-character. But it seems that the design is going a little too far afield, a little gee-whiz, bang-zoom-pow, now they have BLOOD RED SKIN and SHARP CLAWS and FIERY BREATH and SPIKEY BEARDS and they can LAUGH MANIACALLY!

In an adventure, I can easily relegate this to a quirk of a particular clan. That's fine with me. I'd hate to totally loose the idea of "The Gray Dwarf" though, and trading it out for "The Devil Dwarf" seems a bit like it's been done before with a hundred other humanoids.

Rechan said:

Hmm. Isn't Tharizdun the Cthulu? Wouldn't that make him far-realms related?

Click to expand...

Jonathan Moyer said:

Demons (and demon gods like Tharizdun) actively want to destroy everything, including (eventually) themselves. I don't think Cthulhu wants to destroy himself.

Click to expand...

My solution to such a conundrum:
They dug too deep, found Cthulhu, and were shown the Truth that Cthulhu would destroy all in a manner that would result in the standard issue Mayhem, Madness, and Eternal Servitude, eventually Ending All Existence.

So they then came to the perfectly rational conclusion that the only way to prevent this was to kill everyone before Cthulhu could.

The end result is a race that has become fundamentally insane out of a fear of something else.

END COMMUNICATION

When thinking about this, though, remember that (IIRC) one of the design goals of 4E is to make monsters as fresh to veteran players similar to when the monsters were encountered the first time in past editions.

So I think it can be expected that there will be *many* more examples of this type of change. Mearls does like to tinker with monsters, ya know?

Rechan said:

I never got the impression the Drow were demon-corrupted. Lolth wasn't a demon, just a God that betrayed Corellan.

Click to expand...

Originally she was just a demon. Drow were corrupted and driders were intended to just be another corruption. A chaotic mess of spider and drow born from demonic chaos and not some drow who failed 4th grade. I don't like the fact Lolth went from some demon to some goddess. The original flavor was best when it came to Lolth and drow.

Rechan said:

This also makes me wonder, "Well, what the hell are derro?"

Click to expand...

I'm hoping their take them back to their insane, deeply bizarre roots.

Finally something about 4E that actually makes me say "Hell yeah! ... I like that!" Hopefully WotC will come out with more.

Hmmm.

If I use any of this, instead of making duergar into evil dwarves, I might make my dwarves into "good" duergar. (Scare quotes because I'm not sure about the good part.)

Rechan said:

This also makes me wonder, "Well, what the hell are derro?"

Click to expand...

Who? Yeah I won't shead too mant tears (like none) if they don't make the jump over to 4e.

That said I'm neutral about the Duergar changes. They sound okay to me.