What They Don't Tell You About The Duergar - D&D

squat and broad the humanoid creature's skin resembles stone hard rough and gray in color like a dwarf yet distinct the creature appears completely hairless and their strange milky eyes evoke beasts of the deepest darkest caverns armor finally made but crude in appearance protects the creature's vital areas while a wicked looking axe at their hip details would be attackers the creature sneers their teeth stark white against the slate gray of their skin this is a duragar also known as a gray dwarf a not so distant cause into the normal dwarves you know though these are dour sad and just generally angry all the time and they also hold one of the most interesting secrets deep within their culture but before we go and talk about them let's first talk about our sponsor today this video is brought to you by the questo nomiken on kickstarter my last video is actually just a candid conversation between me and jacob the creator of the questanomicon book and i mean he actually took that video as 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level 1 adventures set in the wild west in the swamps haunted regions urban landscapes and more there's a bit of everything here hey go over to the questanomicon on kickstarter following the link below and check it for yourself they got a ton of really cool goodies that you can have for supporting them at various levels and there is no better time than now considering that it is literally just about to end there's only one day left on this kickstarter so it is now or never get it while you can queso nomiken on kickstarter now back to the video the entry that we got for the durgar and fifth edition is actually pretty fantastic plus we also got an entire section dedicated to these sour dwarves in mordenkin and stem of foes which makes my job simultaneously both easier and also harder but in any case what's a better place to start than the monster manual we only get one page but it is shock full of good information the tyrannical duragar also known as the grey dwarves dwell in fantastic cities deep in the underdark using ancient dwarven knowledge and myriad slaves they worked tirelessly to expand their subterranean kingdoms here we learn why they are the way they are it says that duragard were once dwarfs before their greed and endless delving beneath the earth brought them into contact with the mind flayers held in captivity for generations by the elephants the dwarves eventually won their independence with the aid of the evil god lauder slavery had forever changed them however darkening their spirits to make the duragar as evil as the tyrants they had escaped despite winning their freedom durgar or dou are pessimistic untrusting creatures always toiling and complaining with no memory of what it means to be happy or proud now of course the summary there of their beginnings is shortened for the sake of having it fit here in a single page but it is a bit more complex than that there's a bit of betrayal that happened between this particular group of durgar and the rest of dwarven kind and that's what got them imprisoned by the main flares but we will talk about that later on down here they say that on top of having amazing physical stamina they also have incredible mental fortitude resulting from their time as slaves of the illiterates a durgar's mind is a fortress able to shrug off charms illusions and other spells this is very true though what they don't tell you is that they are also able to completely shrug off a very peculiar type of illusion magic called phantasm magic basically they are immune to spells like shadow blade or illusory dragon or really any kind of psychic based illusions that deal damage and the duragar are psionics which the monster manual does not mention at all but we will get to cover that later it says here that the underdark is saturated with strange magical power which the duragar absorbed over generations of imprisonment a durgar can increase its size and strength for a short time becoming a powerful ogre-sized warrior if it faces a foe it cannot fight or when spying on creatures approaching its territory it can just easily become invisible to slop away into the darkness in actuality disabilities are not necessarily because of the latent energies of the underdark but instead it is all part of their psionics which were granted to them by the mind flayers again more on that later lastly here and this is the fun part of this entire entry it says that asmodeus a lord of the nine hells has been known to impersonate durgar gods in order to cultivate the evil brimming in the hearts of the great dwarves he offers them divine guidance and vengeance against their enemies while urging them on towards greater acts of tyranny all the while concealing his true identity this part is sick and it opens up so many doors and you might need to know that it may indeed go even deeper than that but anyways uh here's a stat sheet and most of what it is in here was covered by the lord which is great so i don't have to really do much here the durga are actually supposed to be completely immune to charms and illusions not just resistant and they're also supposed to be 100 immune to poison as well so they nerfed them there quite a bit everything else is pretty straightforward though as the lord described it they can grow larger to become stronger and then can turn invisible to hide from their enemies but there it is the monster manual entry for these creatures and now that we got that out of the way let's talk about what they don't tell you about the durgar the first thing that we need to talk about to truly understand these grey dwarves is their history since that's the reason why they are the way they are to give you a timeline that makes sense they escaped their imprisonment from the mind players about 5 500 years ago by that point they had already been slaves for around 4 000 years but to tell you this story we really have to go even farther back see dwarves as you can imagine are a race that had their heyday millennia ago but then eventually fell over time as other species took over their territories and dismantled their kingdoms originally about 13 000 or 14 000 years ago the elves had their massive war that eventually ended with the dark elves becoming the drow as you know and then being banished down into the underdark well those drow were dominating everything underground because they were so strong and basically invaded and destroyed the original empire of the mountain dwarves also known as the shield dwarves now these dwarves were forced to migrate further north and during this massive migration their king and leader killed four bad ass blue dragons which then were transformed into a big throat which became sort of like this symbol of power within the dwarven community well that's the same throne that you see in storm king's thunder i wanted to bring that up because i felt like you guys would find that interesting but anyways this king and hero of the dwarves had eight songs and each of them were sent to spread and build each of their own cities in such a way so that each of these cities would then take over a god of the dwarvish pantheon as their main god patron all of these cities combined we call the ancient kingdom of shanatar well wouldn't you know it one of these cities was owned by clan duragar just a normal city of mountain dwarves who for their city took on the patron god lodiger back then larger was a god of artisans magic weapon creation hard work things like that well eventually the drow once again attacked this kingdom but thanks to the combined effort of all of these cities banded together they defeated the drow these we call the spider wars the region owned by clanduragar was called back then the iron kingdom and they were pretty powerful but also very gritty and with the first victories against the drow they themselves wanted to make their own leader the king of the iron kingdom into the high king of the entire empire of shanatar which of course the other clans rejected in a bid to punish the rest of the dwarves the iron kingdom the clan durgar sort of decided to just separate from the rest of the dwarvish empire at the time which they ended up paying for very dearly see when the spider wars had ended the mine stalker wards had started basically dwarves versus mind flayers overall the dwarves actually won those battles pretty well too but with the iron kingdom now separated from the rest of the dwarves the mind flayers took advantage and invaded them and then controlled them and the fact that no concerted effort was made by the kingdom of the dwarves the kingdom of shanatar to liberate clanduragar and their kingdom from the deportations of the mind flayers is actually what grew in them this is spite for other dwarves and it is why the duragara hate other dwarves like i said before this domination of the mind flayers over them lasted around 4 000 years in which the mind players effectively permanently changed them into what they are today over time as far as the other dwarves are concerned the kingdom of chinatard eventually sort of got destroyed and the dwarves were forced to travel not just further north but also to push much more closer into the surface while the duragar were kept underground this is why durgar's skin tone was evolved to match the dark caves of the underdark while the skin tones of the mountain dwarves has remained light now the one thing that you need to understand from this domination of the mind flayers that will help you truly understand how the duragar feel is that because of the constant mental domination and the lack of self-control and sentience that the clan durgar was forced to follow their imagination and creativity was completely destroyed durgar are effectively dwarves without inventiveness or the ability to feel inspiration they still possess the dwarven nature of being greedy and the ability and desire to smith granted to them from birth but without the ability to express themselves which results in our boring dull creations that grants them no semblance of satisfaction or happiness even though they feel no completeness from creating they still feel that need to create they construct things for practical reasons more you know quantity over quality and without any ornamentation or beauty this has bled into their culture to form durgar kingdoms where the very concept of happiness is bred out and punished with their children being taught from very early on that life sucks and then they are physically punished heavily to grow physically and mentally stronger dwarves now during these 4 000 years of mind flayer domination the duragar obtained the ability to produce psionics it is a bit unclear whether this was granted by the main players in order to produce stronger and better slaves or if it was just an innate ability born into them from years of mental training in order to resist the powers of the illithid if you're actually interested the place where the clan durgar was kept was this enormous mind-flayer city called orondol probably the the biggest and first illiterate kingdom on faroon the sort of leader of the city is this massive elder brain called encephalitis which is said to be the most powerful psionic in the world unmatched by no one save deities in any case thanks to the help of laudager the patreon god of clan duragar and their naturally born resistances to mental attacks glenda regard managed to successfully rebel against the mind flayers and the rest is well history after that with clan duragar making their own cities which eventually turned into kingdoms and then spreading their influence across massive swats of the underdark in fact they became really good at it their mental resistances and deep knowledge of the inner workings of the mind player communities allowed them to win war after war against the illithid but partly thanks to the power of one of the greatest queens that the duragarh have ever had queen duera who frankly just wanted to massacre all mine players she expanded the duragar kingdoms so much that she was then venerated as a god and then she ascended since both durgar and drow share the love of magic item crafting and slave ownership they end up trading a lot with each other which keeps them from annihilating one another plus duragar are completely immune to poisons which makes many drow strategies obsolete against them eventually the hegemony and power of the duragar kingdoms became so great that they could openly challenge even the other dwarves which resulted in what we call the kin wars remember when i said before that the dwarves were eventually driven out of the underdark and pushed farther north and into the surface yeah that was actually because the duragar completely obliterated them and so that finally brings us to the now a race of grey-skinned dwarves who hate every other kind of dwarf who feel no semblance of happiness who wear their clothes and make boring looking weapons who build tremendously and quite impressive cities all across the underdark to the point of near dominion of the place so now let's talk about some fun stuff that you probably didn't know so duragar are actually supposed to be represented as emaciated nasty looking dwarves and many reasons have been given to this from the general change that they went through attributed to the mind players into the absolute lack of proper sustenance that their particular corner of the underdog possesses to even a form of evolution forced into them by their patron god in the regard don't really have that bulky you know big shape that most dwarves have instead they're meant to be very skinny with small but extremely powerful muscles you know just how they in practice only worry about function over form so does their body behave in a very similar way being basically peak efficiency without looking all that great this body type lends them great ability to sneak too which of course complements their psionic ability to turn invisible but even without that ability to disappear from sight their ability to stealth is very feared within the underdark they're really good at it with their skin and clothing almost camouflaging in the shadows and dragon are supposed to be a bit more dexterous too than what the fifth edition monster manual portrays them to be now their religion is a bit bizarre as well since they venerate their god larger but without receiving any kind of joy from it an interesting saying among the races of faerun towards the durgar is that they don't just hate everyone most of all they just hate themselves the culture and civilization of the durgar are very self-damaging teaching their children that it is pointless to feel joy promoting endless and joyless toil amassing wealth for literally no purpose and breeding out the strongest form of dwarf they can at the cost of their own fulfillment in life the ones who make all of these decisions as to how life should be and what rules the clans should follow are the priests of lodiger known as the full doors you can tell apart during our priests by the holy brands that they have inflicted upon their forehead with the shape of the symbol of their god a broken arrow these priests create all the laws and also enforce them but to become one is a very torturous process the rights involves many brandings tortures and the performance of feats of superhuman endurance meant to call the weak only the best and strongest can become a thuldor the final culmination of all of these messed up trials pits the durgar initiate between two crushing blocks of stone and then leaves them there in isolation for a whole week if they survive they then get to become a cleric of larger now the people of the surface affair and probably see the duragar as a single unified group but the reality is that their kingdom is honestly quite massive and very spread out and so many different subcultures pop out here and there between them and some of the bigger sects may remember very well the reason for their transformation thanks to the enslavement of the mind players but other communities are known to create their own origin stories with parts and pieces probably made up but then others which might come from truthful beginnings see the the brain of the duragar is different from many others thanks to the powerful psionics awakened in them and so when in distress or when inebriated burial racial memories can awaken that the drug can relive as if they were happening right there in front of them and so stories have evolved within certain do regard communities about the truth of their origins a really interesting one actually goes down as follows and this is something that you don't even find in modern canister foes quote duragar claimed that their god laudiger forged the world in the time before time the world was but a shill nothingness containing neither light nor life the desire for creation existed and the empty void of the universe pulsed with the uncontrolled desire to be from that hunger formed the figure of a dwarf wielding a hammer and with his hammer he shaped the void into a cold dark world of eternal twilight larger beget lodiger it is said he birthed himself out of sheer will and the desire to create lot of er thus peopled the first world with his children the durgar the grey dwarves he gave them the desire and skill to work and provided them with materials with which to toil he commanded them to serve him with production to emulate their creator by creating new and wondrous things the durgar called this the time of creation where they worked in peace to forge magnificent items for their god and all were content even then sometimes durgar creations floundered some attempted to make great things and failed and thoughts larger cast the unworthy into his forge as punishment one such ambitious dwarf sought to set himself above the rest making himself superior to the others although latigor made all equal he worked in secret struggling to master the power that only lodiger commanded the ability to create life he forged stranged creatures ugly spindly things that he flung from his workshop in disgust the lone craft man as duragar called him struggled day and night for a year each time failing in his creation and throwing the mewling misshapen monstrosities into the wilderness all the creatures races and monsters of the world animals giants elves humans kobolds and orcs arose from the lone craftsman's anvil thoughts due duragar created all other races after a year of failure the lone craft man finally succeeded by his experience in will he forged another dwarf he made his creation taller stronger and more beautiful than the durgar with skin of copper hair of bronze and gems for eyes the lone craft man was admiring his creation when lodiger found the secret forge and flew into a terrible rage the lone craft man fell to his knees begging his god for mercy he pleaded that he made his creation only as a tribute to lodiger's greatness laudager roared insolent fool do you think you can improve on my work by creating a life greater than your own you do this for your own glory not mine he struck the lone craftsman and turned him into a freaking gibbering madman without the skill patience or talent to create anything ever again and thus was born the first darrow the damage already done this began an age known as the time of perversion the works of the lone craftsmen and their offspring spread over the world forming societies and raising the best of their miserable races to the status of gods gods who defiled the world with bright sunlight green things song and other foolishness the duragard despised this rejected creations but none so fiercely as the dwarves descended off the lone craftsman's finest achievement these bright-faced dwarves who lived in the mountains and fancy themselves great craftsmen reveling lotur's children the regard refused to suffer these other dwarfs existences and hunt them relentlessly now duragar live apart from the other races in hidden strongholds beneath the earth where they work ceaselessly for the glory of their god there they train as fighters spies and craftsmen to ensure the survival of their people they trade by necessity grudgingly offering the least of their wares for food and materials other races provide they disdain all things pleasant bright and beautiful as useless frippery and refused to sully their exquisite creations with such pointless accoutrements all durgars near the fantastic lies the other races spin about their origins because the grey dwarves know the truth each durgar exists merely to serve larger and they all dream of the day when their efforts are enough for lotaker to vanquish the other races bought out the sun and bring about the time of perfection then durgar will return to the cool dusky surface where they can forge in peace for all eternity and quote these are the types of stories that duragard tell each other about themselves and about the world it is no wonder then that such a powerful entity like asmodius would find interest in this vile rays of dwarfs at the bottom and the last paragraph of the fifth edition entry they talked about asmodius potentially impersonating duragar gods in order to corrupt them but how deep does this actually go what the duragard don't know and what you also probably don't know since they don't talk about this at all neither on the monster manual nor a more than canister of foes is that and embrace yourself for this one the patron god of the durgar laudager and his ascended divine daughter deep duerro are both actually dead and have him for some time after the massive wars that the durgar performed upon the rest of dwarf kind this gathered the eternal hatred of the mourning summon also known as the dwarvish pantheon for thousands of years they prepared for retaliation and then it was finally enacted on the year 1383 of the dale reckoning effectively about a hundred or so years before all of the adventures in fifth edition are set this happened quote mordin led the assembled deities of dwarf home on a crusade against the dark powers of hammergrim gorm gulfin and hala bright axe perished in the battle but muradin destroys zlaudiker and clangiting slays deep duara the plane of hemogram disperses into the astral to the sounds of the dwarf god's victorious battle hymns end quote this happened completely without the due regards knowledge and you might be asking how is that possible since normally when a guy dies all of their clerics automatically lose their powers see that is because asmodius had already been subsuming the identity of both lodiger and deep duara absorbing all prayers sent to those deities and then providing divine powers in their stead this is something that asmodius does of course for the longest time known as the god of lies if you're interested in how asmodeus can do these things or how far that rabbit hole goes feel free to watch this video of mine where we go hella deep on the secrets and hidden facts of asmodius and who he truly is hint he might not even be a devil or an angel in any case asmodeus has been feeding off of the durgar's prayers and tenting them into further and further acts of depravity is something that the duraguard find oh quite easy to do considering that the great dwarves themselves are lawful evil the same alignment as the nine hells most of the duragar remain completely in the dark about this and frankly might not even care if they found out that they're really not that particularly religious as it is but things do get quite interesting with those duragard that do find out and then it decided to embrace it if you're interested in these depraved devil worshipping durgar i actually recommend reading creature incarnations durgar on dungeon magazine number 187 but but suffice to say this durgar are tainted with the power of the nine hells they obtain massive fire based abilities they become resistant to fire of course and they build their strongholds and empires close to lava and then gain interesting uh quill looking growths in their hair which they can then project like manticores in order to do damage it's it's really weird anyways the very subtle change in leadership between larger and asmodeus has made some very interesting changes into their behavior for example now the duraguard have learned to appreciate the power and convenience of machinery especially that which involves the hybrid combination of flesh and metal drugs have started to imprison members of their communities in metallic constructs which are designed to create great pain on the host pain which then creates powerful psionic energies and psyonic energies which then fuels and empowers the machine slowly but surely most of these metallic monstrosities are being created and more and more do you see now the duragar even getting rid of slave labor in exchange for the much more obedient and powerful forms of machinery at their disposal this is the great secret of the duragar a secret so deep that they might not even know of it oh and it is pronounced durgar by the way there are two canonical pronunciations one is durgar the other one is duergar that's literally coming from the top i have video proof all right of the head honchos of wizards of the coast who say that that is the case the only bad pronunciation is dourgar that's not how you're supposed to say it all alright so so back off whoo that's it for the video thank you guys so much for watching i would like to personally thank my patreon supporters barry maskin 5v magic shop morgan johnson rusty rayne doc feeder the great codini omega scales terry culp benjamin boxers faulky 951 or doric prince daylight morning crown sabine kurshab solarensis thomas hunt nathan mccomb soulless rider lost crusader stalia olaf cleb jd green treb909 tony rc famine 52 george fordland sovereign mind trevor hess nato ashura brian camp chad aiga john the wicked shane and sam skinner stephen the living guild pack michael walker streeblo dscribe herbert johnson the wizard's vault james the perverted shoddycast horrorbound jesse feliciano hellion vantamane munchkin mania and varrick for supporting me on patreon at the 25 level if you would like to support me as well then please please head on over to patreon.com mr rex to support all right guys that's it thank you guys so much for watching thank you so much for being here sorry about the lack of videos recently i'm working on this massive project which i should be able to reveal on my next video so please look forward to it uh we i do have my parents coming over this week so i won't be able to do a video this week for next week um so yeah i'll be a little bit delayed but more videos are coming please stay tuned and i'll see you all then

Channel: MrRhexx

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Id: GWLy8UqoVqY

Length: 27min 16sec (1636 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021