Lives & Habits
The lives and habits of the duergar
Despite what you'd think, duergar and surface dwarves have much in common more than do drow and surface elves but less than svirfneblin and surface gnomes. This is partially because the duergar lifestyle is not as radically different from surface dwarven life as drow is from other elves, the basic dwarven nature both races share dictates many similarities.
The physical differences between dwarf and duergar however, are easily spotted. The duergar, is pale, with a distinct gray undertone to its skin (unlike the ruddy hill or mountain dwarf), leading to the nickname 'gray dwarf'. This lack of colouration is the result of untold centuries spent far from the light of the sun, in greater isolation than their better-known cousins experience.
The relative emaciation of duergar results from the relative lack of food in the underworld and the quality of what food they do eat, consisting of subterranean beasts and fungi. Then, too, the hostile environment of the Underdark does not allow a fat, slow, clumsy duergar to survive for long.
Ages of living under these conditions have made duergar tougher in stamina than their surface cousins.
The psychological differences between dwarves and duergar are considerable. Accustomed to lives of hardship and deprivation, duergar scorn the values of surface races and of other dwarves. They are believers in the absolute control of all resources to benefit themselves, at whatever cost to other races and beings. They thus have a penchant for slave labour and mount many raids to secure more slaves
In these raids, any beings not currently allied with the duergar are fair game, and resistance is overcome with skill and fury.
The fate of these slaves is not enviable; any duergar slave-owner will treat rebellious and useless slaves with utter ruthlessness. Indeed, there are those who say that duergar have more in common with orcs than with other dwarves. Similarities between dwarves and duergar, however, are so widespread that former duergar slaves generally find themselves quite uncomfortable among surface dwarves. Under circumstances where dwarves and duergar must get along, as when they are both slaves of some other race, they generally find that they have much more in common with each other than with non-dwarven fellow slaves, and cooperation between them, however forced and temporary, is remarkably smooth and effective.
One cultural trait shared by duergar and dwarf is their attitude toward the beard, though this is not universally shared by all duergar. To those who care, the beard is a symbol of status and a source of pride. Cutting or shaving the beard is a mark of great shame, while burning the beard off with a coal or candle is reserved for those who have utterly disgraced themselves or their clan. As do surface dwarves, duergar plait their beards and braid them, using dull-coloured strips of leather to indicate status and profession. These decorations follow a system, but the systems differ enough that a duergar and surface dwarf cannot "read" each others. beards, except in the vaguest way. The closest analogy to this is the widely varying systems of indicating rank and status used by human armies; most soldiers can tell an officer from an enlisted man in an unfamiliar army, but finer distinctions are difficult to make.
As noted, not all duergar share this pride in the beard: Those who do not are often regarded as uncivilized and the least worthy of favourable attention i.e., other duergar clans will raid those "prideless" clans without hesitation.
Another similarity between surface dwarves and duergar concerns an appreciation for craftsmanship, Duergar raftsmen make many of the finest tools, armour, and weapons available to the underground races and take great pride in them. Even the dark elves and deep gnomes, no mean craftsmen in their own rights, admire the duergar's solid, unadorned, but highly effective creations: As is the case with surface dwarves, many duergar are so immersed in their crafts that they have no desire to marry. However, duergar are almost exclusively concerned with craftwork of a hard, practical, military nature, involving the construction of fortifications and the smithing of weapons, armor, traps, and the like. Artistic endeavours are rarely practiced and tend to be crude, though even these have a peculiar, harsh strength in artistic terms.
The Duergars World
The Duergars' World
Duergar society is highly structured. The basic unit is the clan, an extended family of duergar. Most clans are so ancient that the actual kinship between most living members is quite remote. A duergar is highly loyal to his or her clan and will not willingly betray or weaken it. Duergar adventurers have great difficulty in transferring this attitude to their comrades, seeing them always as âoutsidersâ. Given considerable time and reason for respect, however, duergar may become quite loyal to their companions once their comradeship is won, especially if dwarves or gnomes of similar alignment and attitudes are present.
The clan itself is supported by the priesthood of the duergar community, which is almost always in the service of Abbathor, the much-feared dwarven ancestor whose greed is his hallmark. Little attention is given to the other major dwarven ancestors, and services and offerings to them are often so minimal as to be insulting. The clan is also supported by its internal security force, in some ways a combination of police, thieves guild, and assassins guild. These carefully trained duergar rogues and warriors operate under the direct command of the leaders of a duergar colony and form the leaders. intelligence system, warning of danger outside and dissension within the colony. Dissident duergar and enemy leaders are quietly put out of the way.
Professions
Duergar professions
Young duergar are put through intensive testing when they reach adolescence. This testing, which may prove fatal, has two purposes. The main purpose is to identify professions for which a youngster is suited. The dangerous tests, the duergar say, also have the side effect of weeding out weaklings before they can harm the community.
When the testing is completed, the youths are sent to rigorous training in a particular profession. This training is carefully designed to foster qualities such as ruthlessness, a racial self-centeredness, and a disregard for life, mercy, and other beings.
Duergar priests call themselves the servants of Abbathor, whose symbol is the jewelled dagger, They use their spells/incantations to improve the duergar community in general: first to aid their own clans, then to aid any other duergar, then the priests themselves, then any allies their clans may have.
The majority of the youth pass through the hands of the best warriors in the community, who drill them in the skills of underground and surface warfare. This training is considered supremely important, and many of the best minds the duergar have are devoted to improving it.
To be selected as a trainer of the young is one of the highest honours a duergar warrior can aspire to. The first part of the training course is spent determining which students are best with which weapons. The second part of the course is devoted to perfecting the students. skills, and the last part, which is considered the most important of all, is spent honing the ruthless attitude of the young warriors. Ruthlessness, in truth, is the speciality of the duergar. They make war with ferocity and duplicity, cheerfully sacrificing allies if necessary to secure a victory. They will act cautiously in the presence of powerful enemies, but they will attack with reckless courage if a chance of victory is seen.
Their few allies, such as the drow, recognize that the duergar are prone to treachery but treachery is an art among the drow, who regard the duergar as narrow-minded and predictable. Duergar youth with unusual intelligence and dexterity are usually apprenticed to local rogues; the spies, assassins, and scouts of the clan. Besides their functions as a combined secret police and intelligence service for the rulers of the community, duergar thieves are useful to their community for their skills with locks and traps (thus gaining the treasures of their foes). Their climbing skills come in handy on expeditions into new areas of the underworld. In some duergar communities, assassins must be carefully watched because of the power and skills (and political pretensions) they have acquired.
When a youth's education has ended, he returns to his clan, marries if at all so inclined, and is considered an adult. The clan marks this occasion with celebration, climaxed by the initiation of the newest member into full clan membership.
Life for the Duergar
Duergar life
The various clans composing a duergar community often do not much like each other. Their relationships range from warm friendship to armed neutrality to ill-suppressed hostility. The priests do their best to keep matters under control, but many interclan hatreds run so strong that usually the clerics merely suppress open warfare. In these âcold wars,â assassination comes onto its own. Accordingly, assassins are as highly esteemed among the duergar as among the drow. When open fighting between duergar clans occurs, it is often by arrangement and takes place in a deserted cavern cleared for the purpose. This way, the feuding clans can have it out without endangering the community in general (not that this always works).
Within a clan, duergar usually plot and scheme endlessly for advancement. Assassination of a fellow clan member is strongly tabooed, but manipulating oneâs enemy into a situation that is bound to be fatal is a skill that is much admired. For all their rough exterior, the duergar are plotters of incredible subtlety and skill. The only persons a duergar can usually trust are a spouse, parents, and children. Duergar families work closely together, though they lack affection. Often a husband, wife, and their adult children will go adventuring together; the demanding environment of the underworld, they feel, is no place for finicky considerations about keeping onesâ family out of all danger. There are no safe places. Clans that are not riven with internal rivalry still see extremely intense competition for higher status. In many clans, this takes the form of ever-more daring mercantile expeditions to garner greater wealth. A duergar who has successfully traded with peoples whom his friends considered unreachable will be honoured but will soon find those same friends outfitting expeditions to share the riches to be had. Trade in the underworld is a dangerous business. In the depths of the earth, duergar merchants must be able to deal with kuo-toa, mind flayers, and creatures that most surface-dwellers cannot even imagine. The duergar feel that the profits make all the risks worthwhile, and add that the perils of the underworld merely weed out the incompetent.
Relationships
Relations with others
As is well known, duergar and other dwarves regard each other with antipathy, mostly because of their deep cultural
differences on such issues as slavery. Their feud is not as bitter as the elf-drow vendetta but is very real nonetheless. The duergar call surface dwarves cowards, weaklings, and âhalf-dwarvesâ (as they live near the surface instead of deep inside the earth).
Duergar and gnomes do not get along at all. To the duergar, gnomes are bumptious little creatures without proper dignity, who just want to steal treasure. To surface gnomes, duergar are a greater danger than orcs because of their intelligence and skills. Deep gnomes and duergar have feuded for centuries over living space, ores, gems, and duergar slave raids. Despite their smaller size, the svirfneblin have done well in this feud. Duergar and elves have mixed relations. The drow are often the closest allies the duergar have, and unless two communities of these races are actually at war, they will trade materials and information, particularly on the doings of the more alien underground races, such as the aboleth, cloakers, or mind flayers. As if to compensate, the duergar find surface elves even more worthless and irritating than do other dwarves, and they are prone to torture or slay elves out of hand. The duergar hardly know halflings exist. When duergar and halflings cross paths (which is rare enough), the gray dwarves often make the mistake of not taking the halflings seriously, considering the latter to make poor slaves at best.
One noteworthy area of difference between surface dwarves and duergar regards their attitudes toward humanoid races such as orcs, kobolds, goblins, and the like. Duergar regard these races as inferior but useful as fodder if manipulated properly. Some half-orcs have even been seen working within duergar communities as mercenaries (though poorly trusted ones). Humanoids are also seen as potential reservoirs of slaves, particularly when cheap, expendable labourers are needed. The humanoidsâ craftsmanship is crude, their fighting skill is relatively low, and they have no claim on duergar respectâparticularly for their lives.
Duergar regard humans with mixed emotions. On one side, they grudgingly admire humans with greater skills than duergar can attain,. The gray dwarves will hire (and closely monitor) such humans when their services are needed. At the same time, they fear and are jealous of humans and have few compunctions about enslaving or raiding them
Conclusion
Conclusion
"Strive to survive, and survive to strive" is a duergar truism. Whether as grim warriors, crafty thieves, subtle assassins, or clan-proud priests, duergar take their lives very seriously. Duergar of all walks of life usually exhibit incredible tenacity and single-mindedness, for which they are valued by alliesâbut for which they are often cursed and never trusted. Theirs is a spare and unforgiving existence; though they have no love for it, they have come to accept it as their fate and will make the most of it.
