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

[Baduin]

Derro (originally DERO, Detrimental Energy Robots) have been invented by certain Richard Shaver, in a book titled "I remember Lemuria"

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/index.htm#contents
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/irl04.htm#fn_16
http://www.sacred-texts.com/ufo/irl/irl10.htm

In D&D terms, they could be said to be a human race mutated by a long exposition to negative energy. The above-mentioned author (who seems a bit mad) named them "robots" because they lack free will and are fully under control of an impulse to kill all other living creatures. He also thought that they still live in tunnels under Earth and use mind-control machines on people, which is the reason for mental sickness.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Going back to the source, and years and years of precedent


Loth=Demon

Correllan=nowhere to be found in the "sacred text" of the drow (or even the later FR heresies).

I, also, chortled heartily at our friend's ignorance of history.

Ho ho!

Dwarves are axes, mead, and roast meat. Duergar are endless toil in a sunless world, moving silently and eerily through the caverns.

Copy that. Duergar are Dwarves positive aspects turned into negative aspects.
Instead of creating identical tributes of great skill, they churn out identical copies with no creativity or love.
Instead of being brotherly toward each other, they blindly follow a leader in slavish, unthinking devotion.

 

[Pbartender]

Why would they be a different race, going with your background? Wouldn't they just be a particularly xenophobic dwarven culture?

Exactly. That's the point.

Any sub-race could easily use the base stats of the main race, but with a few guidelines toward usual class/feat choices and stereotypical cultural viewpoints for that particular subset.

D&D already does it for humans... FRCS has dozens upon dozens of different human cultures, each distinctly different from the others, but they all use the same human racial bonuses and adjustments. Yet, at the same time, almost every separate demi-human nation gets its own subrace... Elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes all have a half dozen different variations.

I think it's uneccesary, considering their "simplify it" ideology. Send the subraces the way of the Prestige Classes, and define the subraces by Racial Feats, Paragon Paths and Epic Paths instead.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Why would they be a different race, going with your background? Wouldn't they just be a particularly xenophobic dwarven culture?

Pretty much. Racial abilities are pretty much a combination of inherent traits and cultural learnings. Duargar are basically regular dwarves with a little psionics thrown in.

Psionics are an inner power, it seems perfect to tie that in with a group of people abandoned by everything. The gods didnt help them, their fellow dwarves didnt, so they turn inward. Tweak it so Laduguer was a dwarf from clan Duergar who discovered psionics and used it to lead his people to freedom, eventually attaining godhood. The cruel irony being that they escaped slavery only to be beholden to another tyrant, and gave up their kinship, religion, art, etc in the process.

I just dont see the need to throw in more demonic/devil influenced races, as it feels cliche to use that as an explanation.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Where's that Adversary/Ally/Anybody format from? I know I've seen it before ...

Really? It might've been from me. It's the New Monster Gospel I'm preaching, the three things I think any monster should be able to accomplish in the game. It lacks mechanics (of course), but as long as a monster can address all three roles, I think it's a "complete" monster. Anything less, and we have something less-than-useful to me.

I like the idea though that the Duergar you describe really are "just Dwarves, with cultural differences." I like the idea that "good" Hill or Mountain Dwarf can become a Duergar if he succumbs to the darker half of the Dwarven spirit. There are so many better stories you can tell if their nature is driven not by a defect in their genes, but in their souls.

The stealth, enlarge and invis can be explained with just a little multi-classing. They need to take levels in wizard anyway, as part of their craftsmanship. There's more than steel in Duergar blades.

You could easily do that (though perhaps you should change Wizard to Psion? ). IMC, duergar is an insult amongst the other dwarves, saying you've becomes something alien, something twisted, something not-dwarf.

Personally, I'd keep the psionics, the growth, and the invisibility as powers that they just sort of get, perhaps from their enslavement with the giants, perhaps from some long-forgotten curse, perhaps from their own psionic experiments, but stylistically as a literal magic metaphor for "the hidden potential for destruction" that the Duergar embody for me. Maybe they're just minding their own business, but you know their own business is trouble.

 

[broghammerj]

Exactly. That's the point.

Any sub-race could easily use the base stats of the main race, but with a few guidelines toward usual class/feat choices and stereotypical cultural viewpoints for that particular subset.

I think it's uneccesary, considering their "simplify it" ideology. Send the subraces the way of the Prestige Classes, and define the subraces by Racial Feats, Paragon Paths and Epic Paths instead.

Duergar are a subrace, but in my opinion is different enough with their extra psionic powers. As a DM I don't want to take a race and have to customize it by adding character levels. Too much prep time. They have to be ready to run out of the box.

As for some of the other subraces...various elves come to mind where the + to attributes gets shifted around without other real differences, I would agree that they should go the way of the passenger pigeon.

 

[amethal]

I like the current duergar flavour just fine - especially since it was described so excellently by a number of other posters.

However, its not enough to justify them as a race. They are just dwarves with different fluff, and a taste for psionics. I don't know how they are going to handle sub-races in 4th edition, but if it was me I'd have a "duergar" talent tree (maybe in PHB2 or wherever it is that they introduce psionics) that you can use to make your dwarf a duergar.

If they actually want duergar as a race in its own right then they needed to something a bit more ambitious with them, and this they have done by making them half devils. Its not to my taste, but plenty of other people seem to like it. I'm sure I can come up with some fluff that suits me better, if the need arises.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If they actually want duergar as a race in its own right then they needed to something a bit more ambitious with them, and this they have done by making them half devils. Its not to my taste, but plenty of other people seem to like it. I'm sure I can come up with some fluff that suits me better, if the need arises.

I kind of disagree. While I wouldn't have any major problems rolling the duergar into the dwarves, the duergar are at least as distinct from dwarves as drow are from elves.

I mean, what do duergar have that dwarves do not? Some psionic powers inherent to growing big and being invisible.

What do drow have that elves do not? Some magic powers inherent to floating around and making lights.

If Drow get their own entry, duergar have earned theirs as well. If a drow's spidery motif is firm enough to suspend a different racial entry for, then a duergar's "cold metal" motif is. Or, it can be, but it has mostly been ignored because drow are sexier.

Industrial dwarves who psionically hulk out and can sneak around undetected by your senses are at least as different from "for clan and king!" dwarves who wield axes as spidery elves who magically float and can poison you are from tree-hugging fey critters who shoot arrows.

They don't need to be any more ambitious, they just have to make sure the differences that are there matter.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

*shrugs* I don't see why duergar can't be gray-skinned, dour, tyrannical psionists and also be tainted by devils.

In any case I find this to be a cool flavor change. I like how evil outsiders take a very active, interested role with the "lesser" races and, for the "darker" games I like playing, I like the evil they leave in their wake. It makes devils seem like they can play a big part in a DMs campaign, giving a very easy to use group of BBEGs to play with. It also makes killing them and taking their stuff that much sweeter.

 

[broghammerj]

Its not enough to justify them as a race. They are just dwarves with different fluff, and a taste for psionics. I don't know how they are going to handle sub-races in 4th edition, but if it was me I'd have a "duergar" talent tree (maybe in PHB2 or wherever it is that they introduce psionics) that you can use to make your dwarf a duergar.

I am starting to see what people are getting at regarding the race vs. subrace thing. You bring up an excellent point. I think their should be a Duergar racial talent tree off of dwarves much as you suggest. Brilliant! However, this should be for PCs only.

I am dramatically opposed to this idea for opponent Duergar. Regardless of their status as a subrace or independent race, they should have a MM write up so that I can use them out of the box and not have to go stating up a bunch of NPCs for my game. To me that is the whole "ease of play/less prep time tenant" we have been hearing from WotC. This would avoid all the silly devil taint background

Consider that idea similar to how the old AD&D MM had write ups for berserkers, brigands, etc. They were opponents ready for the PCs to do battle with.