I think any of my characters who ran into these things would see them as a less redeemable form of goblin

Derro, an Illithid delicacy.

I’ve always played Derro as being similar to Goblins. Just a bunch of tweaky little bastards that want to shive you and take your shiny bits.

It seems like everybody who makes dungeons and dragons videos just looks into the camera and talks I like this channel best because it's not about filming yourself it's about the lore and imagery and good narration

Thanks, AJ! You’ve given me all sorts of ideas! I’ll stop bugging you now. These little guys are probably the second group I least want to get captured by in the Underdark.

The book Venom in Her Veins features a derro settlement...they are as crazy as you can imagine

I had actually played one, back in 3.5. But mine was born by a curse on the cheating wife of a dwarf, cheating him with a gnome (so that hybrid was born). He was an CN archivist/warlock with passion for bad pranks and megalomania, already seeing himself in the path for goodhood since liv1 (when something went wrong it was just a test for his endurance). I also made the "bad" choice to have his madness represented also by the fact that when he lied, if the lie was convincing (aka passed the contested roll) he will be SURE about that was the truth. This made into hilarious moments like when i lied to a pixie, sain' that the bard was just a puppet and him a ventriloquist... after that he will be bewilded when the bard started to talk by himself and yell "Silence Belly!" to his own stomach. But the pinnacle was a twisted plan for have an orcish tribe fight for him agaist a gnoll tribe the party was hunting down. He convinced a orc taken prisoner of bring him alone nighttime to the orc village for speak with the shaman, here he said (paraphrasing) "i'm a chosen of Gruumsh, here for bring war on the gnolls" (i'm putting down simple now, but he made many preparations, and had 2 backup plans if all went bad). He even carved out his own eye (he was mad after all) to prove himself. Nat 20. So suddenly he belived Gruumsh actually send him, also the Shaman was ecstatic. I've changed PC after that, a liv4 controlling a orc warband was a little bit too far. Maybe one day we will met him again as an npc, convinced to be a jinn sultain or gods know what xD

I want to play a Derrow. He'll be completely insane and cannibalistic. The only reason he doesn't kill and eat the party is because he has convinced himself that he has already eaten them all and their spirits live within him so he has all their knowledge and powers. He takes all the credit for every action the party does. Nothing can convince him that the party is real, but if he was somehow convinced (like a nat 20 insight check) he would immediately attack. He also has a hook hand. He cut off his hand for flipping him off. He claims he lost it in a battle against a bunch of Drow, and a Mindflayer, and Myconids, and a Dragon, and giant Flumphs, and surface dwellers, and a crocodile, and an army of golems, and Pennywise the Clown. It's a conspiracy and they know I'm onto them, see? That's why their ringleader cut off my hand, so I wouldn't be able to communicate to you through sign language about their plan.

One of the few "friendly" races in the underdark. Good luck getting them to trust you though.

Derro are such lovely little buggers, up there with other fun small races like Goblins and Kobolds for me. I feel that as a race so truly mad there should be a bit more too them, surely some of the more crazy ones among them should be capable of coming up with some incredible things, or even uniting people in some grand cult/community. But then again that might make them too similar to Kua-Toa.

With the blasphemy of them wanting to create life as a core of their culture, I could see a lot of semi-intelligence clockwork and Frankenstein-style undead being part of their encounters. Could even make them the source of Warforged and/or Androids in some settings.

It's scary how you can't even say the word Nazi without getting demonetized. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I'm toying with the idea of them being failed versions of the illithid experiments that created the duergar in my setting. They definitely are underutilized!

The deeper you go in the Underdark the more extreme and predatory the environment becomes. So much so that the Derro are pretty average as dwellers go. Imagine being this screwed up, just to survive down there? Surface dwellers are pretty soft and tame in comparison.

The concept of the Derro originated with the "Shaver Mystery" stories published in pulp scifi magazines of the 1940's & 50s. These were presented as fact by the publishers and tens of thousands of people believed in the Shaver mythology, much of which revolved round an underground race named the Deros - short for "detrimental robots" - who controlled the minds of surface dwellers with invisible rays. In those stories they were also an ancient and degenerate species. Coincidentally, Richard Shaver passed away the year after 1st edition was published.

Strange.. the dark subterranean dwarven race in my own story setting(non dnd related) is four armed... But thats about where the similarities end mine are are a utilitarian, one might even say eugenic society, I call them apex dark elves(The term dark elf was first used in the poetic eda and most likely was in reference to the dwarves) their common ancestors with the dwarves we're famliar with had very insect like proportions (hearkening back to when odin first uplifted them from the magots feasting on ymir's corpse), the apex dark elves still maintain some of these features. They're pretty zen and they're actually capable of Smithing in their sleep. The reason they don't come to the surface is because their hereditary desire to smith is so strong that in order to avoid wasting time mining they have developed a symbiotic relationship(not like venoms relationship with eddi brock more like a persons relationship with their car) with sack like creatures that consume mineral rich soil and excrete ore, and those creatures dont to to well near the surface.

New to me. My party is heading to the under dark shortly. I'll be making use of these guys. Thanks AJ!

I feel sorry for these guys. If only there was a way to peice them back together, to have them heal.

Sometimes even though you pity someone you still have to bring them down.They will cause to much suffering to excuse otherwise.

In my world Derro are C/E dwarves and are pale with white hair and white eyes and they are absolutely mad and solitary a Derro can make other Derro with other Dwarves and Driinka is the god of the Derro and is individually more powerful than the other members of the dwarven pantheon but all together the lawful Dwarven gods can defeat him amd keep him away from the rest of the dwarves

I feel like crazy races like the derro and koatoa as well as abberations should be played kina like the Malkavians from vampire the masquerade. With a gift of insight manifest as the strange cluster of visions and such we already have something kinda like this with the savants. I think it would make for an interesting roleplay with the dm

I'm getting ready to wrap up a campaign and start a new one.I had just last week brainstormed an encounter using a derro sorcerer, derro assassin and some Dharzi Hunting Dogs- from the first printing of the Deities and Demigods. They are tracking Elmo has he makes his way back to Hommlet. Now I've got some new juice to add to the mix. A sorcerer with an eye beam attack, and the assassin with a tentacle arm.

I love the underdark. I like to call it the work zone

You should do a video solely based on different types Shamans. Lizardfolk Shamans, Kobold Shamans, and Gnoll Shamans are some of my suggestions.

"Degenerate Derro race" AlMoSt As MuCh Of A dEgEnErAtE aS mE?

Ever since you did your other Dwarf videos, I was really looking forward to you doing a Derro one. They changed a little since I used them. Then again, I'm a 2nd Ed and earlier dinosaur. Do current editions have a player character version? Decades ago, I had a player who wanted one. He did pretty well until he failed to keep up his Gnome disguise. He was a really fun cruel comic relief guy. Not bully cruel, but like The Joker (DC Comics) cruel. The irony is that he was True Neutral (Cn leaning)... always seeing himself as some kind of saint. His class was Bard, Jester kit.

I so want to team them up with those cannibal halflings from Darksun! Story reason for alliance? Derro flesh tastes truly horrible. :3

May be worth mentioning the game Sword Coast Legends features a derro assassin you can potentially recruit into the party. He’s just as insane and evil as you describe here, and wonderfully written.

I love the ferro dwarves, like a young hardworking man uses his rage to work harder as he holds it in. The drow are like social, charming and fun, but tricky and majestic, the illthids hammer you with thier authority and destroy your minds, and they all eat the fungus in the underdark. Pretty fricken sweet

Darren and Damo in DnD? What a time to be alive

i could see a prisoner getting messages in dreams from Diinkarazan, making him a cleric or warlock of the demigod and ultimately escaping to take revenge on their captors(and killing some derros occasionally). Maybe freeing the Mad God could be the end goal of the campaign for the character, creating a BBEG or a whimsical benefactor

Wish I had listened to this for the first part of "out of the abyss" - one flavor my players vividly remember is coming upon their friendly guide as he arranged dozens of body parts in an intricate and artistic pattern.

I use the Derro as a slave race of the Drugar. Whipped chained and used in an almost magic giant tracking blood hounds. With a very evil dwarven gimp suits. Sniviling pain loving wretched things. They are so wretched that they would attack anyone or anything that would try to free them.

I’m always torn about some of the underdark races. I want to feel bad for races like the Derro or the Drow because their Gods are so cruel to them. But being tormented so has caused them to enact that same cruelty upon random people. There are always things that stalk the deep places of the world, much more vile things that deranged dwarf offshoots, let’s hope they help stem Derro populations before they spread too far.

They are really interesting creatures ... you can do with them much more strange things than you can do with a dwarf, especially with the mutations part ... and I like that part :)

I looooove the Derro. Being a fan of the Lords of Madness these guys make great minnions..... Oh you want toavoidthe Drow hunters, and Mindflayer Slavers, have insane Dwarvencasters! Hahahahaha!

I was originally going to play Curse of the Crimson Throne and completely replace the one instance of Derro with undead children, but I'm coming around to the Derro, provided I build them up. This is something you've generally been very helpful with. I've been able to establish encounters far before they actually happen by peppering encounters with different walks of life conspiring against the players and gradually revealing deeper depths of conspiracy backed by a population of one thing or another. My players are now, for the moment at least, in charge of a guild of wererats, because I made their plight and schemes a more integrated part of the initial campaign. Thanks for that, man, I really appreciate it!

i could see a single derro trying to attacka group or town or such by itself but thinking its part of a large army or such and well can see how that would turn out if its just one regular derro

I did a one shot Goblin party in the underdark

Great video as always AJ. I've always thought derro have been underutilized by D&D in general. I've read most of the published forgotten realms books and can only remember them being used once as the derro savants controlled the duergar king of one of the bigger duergar cities but the king's son had them all killed after a successful coup. Malicious psychopaths was how they were described. An accurate assessment it would seem.

The best bedtime stories. AJ the legend

good start to the day to find a new AJ video, thanks for another nerdy gift Sir

I always liked the Derro. I think it was because of the cool drawing of one in the AD&D Monster Manual 2.

NEGA-GNOMES!

One of the villains in my current campaign is a derro savant guarded by derro anti-paladins. They are followers of Nyarlathotep questing for certain arcane texts. PCs might have to cut a deal with him as he has info on a drow city they need to infiltrate.

Thanks AJ for this awesomeness. I so appreciate all you do~!

Good morning! Er, afternoon..? Yes. :D

2:05 I think I have this exact mini. I recognize the pose and the haircut.

I always thought these where just crazy practice dummies that run around and scream when you hit them. Now i kinda feel sorry for them...

Good stuff, AJ! I'm still rockin' Greyhawk in my home group and love hearing the references!

Here wuz Seamus! Seamus has a job lined up! Big government job too. Review process is terrible, had to drive all over the state these past four days.

I love the derro. So many possibilities. I remember that there were rules for removing derro insanity I read somewhere but I can't remember where it's from.

Nice video. And 1.2k views in one hour, good job.

YEssss an AJ video and coffee, happy morning =)

I've always been interested in them but have never Incorporated them into any of my games

I am a little confused. If the derro are creations of mortal experimentation; the the chained god is unknown to all but the elder brains, and the gods are thought-beings, then does the chained god actually exist? Is this one of those instances of multiple timelines blending and/or retroactively erasing each other like the creation of the ilithid?

oof being a derro doesn't seem like it's a happy experience.

"Are {the derro} running out of favor?" Well I can tell you I've set up a band of derro underneath an industrial human city in my current campaign that the party is hunting for to put a stop to their abductions. Mostly inspired by their appearance in Paizo's Curse of the Crimson Throne, though I'm also using derro NPCs from Kobold Press and, obviously, looked up your vid to mine fore more ideas to use. Looking to be a good time, I do love these demented little experimenters.

Love you work! Have you considered doing a "series" on some of the famous wizards?

I just introduced him to my campaign in yesterday so this video actually help a lot thank you brother

Thanks been looking forward to this one

I accidentally genocided the derro in an epic divine game. Mostly it was a result of lighting the Underdark with a variant of Amaunator's eternal sun. To be fair, It did forever imprison. Father Llymic who was released after having atropus almost kill the sun. The world was barely recovering from the global undead epidemic.... and then the ice age hit. And the Underdark became a haven for the survivors of that unlucky double blow. Only the survivors weren't particularly merciful to the derro or the drow. So the world was mostly saved. Only world where you can go blind looking down hahaha. oops.

Lol my last name is a damn midget monster wtf 😂

I like to use them as tie ins for the Far Realm, specifically I change the Duergar in the gates of firestorm peak adventure to Derro

The Derro are truly derro

there's something tame in D&D always blaming the screwed-up-ness of a race on gods. if we take gods from the equation, Drow, Duergar & Grimlocks could have the same Ilithid origin (not Svirfneblin, these guys were subject to Fomorians). what unimaginable evils could have happened to a group of Duergar to make them Derro is something most DMs & module writers would never willingly touch.

Another masterpiece AJ. When will you be doing a Half orc video

The Nights Below box set adventure. Aboleth are the main villains however the Derro did show up as one of the hostiles on the way to stopping the creation of an Aboleth God.

Great video as usual. The Derro were always one of my favorite underdark races, much more so then the overused Drow and Duergar. In my homebrewed campaign, they are degenerate humans who worship a primordial of darkness modelled after Nyx.

Lmao I just massacred a bunch of derro in Out The Abyss (I’m a Ranger with prior knowledge of the Underdark btw) and my teammates were abhorred and wanted to spare them, but little did they know how crazy these little bastards are. My team is literally like the white people in Rambo 4 and I’m Rambo

Makes me wonder if Pierce Brown took any inspiration from this while writing Red Rising.

Why must you constantly tempt me with bad ideas for player characters?

I run a Derro Bard called 'Devo'. ;)

Nobody ever talks about Muls. I always wanted to play a half dwarf.

Great video:) also so close to 50k subscribers!

good video AJ

I literally just had a conversation about these things last night cause my dm is using their name for a city and i wanted to turn into one of them and he thought i wanted to turn into the city

Those silly dudes from The Time Machine. The original movie they were midgets that got hurled around like rag dolls. In the remake, they were muscle men.

Would you say they are a bit like Evil Gully Dwarves?

Derro? No. Therro.

Derro the goblins of the underdark

Wow, they really suck. Very thorough lore telling. Great video.

Yo!!!! I love your videos! They give me so much inspiration! I've created a True Good Derro Spore Druid. Her backstory is her family left her to die out in the underdark and was found by an unusual Myconid Colony and was raised among them. Now that she's old enough she acts as there agents across the verse as well as scratching an unusual adventuring itch she's had from birth. Her first stop was a "neighboring" Deep Gnome Settlement where she befriended and eventually fell in love with a Deep Gnome Gloom Stalker Ranger. Sadly their relationship wasn't to last as her gf was killed in a skirmish with Drow Raiders. She prefers to stay out of the underdark ever since except to report back to her Colony to disseminate her memories and experiences.

Fucking Glorious

I am playing a wild magic derro that has been exiled from the underdark. He is determined to shed the stigma of his race and seeks more out of life than what the underdark has to offer. He isnt crazy but he is neurotic

Hey im a bit confused a bit on where you get your information on some of this stuff such as @9:13 , can you tell me where you found that or have citations?

Derro is a techno music group I think

What's your thoughts on the new reprint where Derro are classified as aberrations?

It's probably just a continuity snarl between and within editions, but what do you make of the disturbing mention of Derro using human slaves for breeding in the 2e Monstrous Manual? "Derro hate humans more than any other race; they use humans for the most demeaning manual labor and for breeding." "The derro also raid other races for food. Sometimes, they merely rob the dwarves or the orcs, hoping to provoke an amusing conflict. But such excursions are tame compared to Open Hunting, the derro term for midnight raids into human settlements. When Open Hunting, a derro party steals cattle and swine, to let loose and hunt at a later time, but it primarily kidnaps humans. As mentioned before, derro treasure humans for slaves and for breeding." The 1e Monster Manual II states that 80% of the slaves kept by the Derro will be female, but doesn't say why. And in the description in the Monstrous Manual it states, "Their features remind dwarves of humans, and vice versa.", further hinting at their origins. I suppose their hatred of humanity is racial memory trauma from their origins and treatment at the hands of the Suel Imperium, but why would they need to use humans "for breeding"? Are we to understand from this entry that the Derro are a monogender race? Or that they breed entire populations of human slaves?

Cheese Republic Unite Great video You are in your groove Your confidence is shining through If someone is in an invisability spell, would detect magic detect them?

Melded with grimlocks,how did that turn out?

a comment

Can a Cleric become Death Knight like a Paladin?

5:45 there we go, more stuff for buppido. How the hell does this guy even know about dirinkarazan..? edit: more tharizdun adjacent lore. @_@

Second

I think Derro is a derogatory term in Australia, isn't it? I'm pretty sure.

и снова накрутка просмотра и комментария для алгоритмов ;) ! лайк прилагается 3

The more of your videos I watch. The more I realise how shit DnD lore is and how poorly it was constructed.

Back up off the mic. You sound like you are underwater.

I automatically unsubscribe from all channels that have Mid content commercials. Great channel , Good bye