His Majesty The Worm Monster Mash - Deep Dwarves

No true Dwarf would allow the sun to fall on his head. That’s the philosophy of the Deep Downers, a disaffected youth subculture of Underfolk who shun the surface entirely. The movement was never popular in the City due to the sheer impracticality of urban life entirely underground. That changed with the discovery of the underworld. In the ensuing gold rush a number of Deep Downer expeditions disappeared into the dungeon, vowing never to return. The bulk of them met grisly fates and came back as undead. 

A handful survived.

Though the Deep Downer movement is hypothetically open to all Underfolk who wish to return to “the old ways”, membership is almost entirely Dwarven. They dislike Halflings for serving as hated middlemen between themselves and the tall people of the surface. They welcome Trolls but few join their ranks. The best part of surface life is the ability to walk without crouching.

Deep Dwarves are visibly different from their surface counterparts, with blue skin and milky eyes. They consume a mix of fungi and metals to give themselves cave adaptation as a condition of full membership. Sunlight makes them violently ill.

DEEP DWARF (Man Minion)
Attributes: Swords 1 | Pentacles 1 | Cups 3 | Wands 1
Health/Defense: 3/4 (typical panoply is steel shield, iron armor and helmet)
Likes: Toil, Puzzles, Drink
Hates: Unclear directions, Poor project management, Surface Underfolk

• Notes
• Hard Target. Deep Dwarves play the highest available lesser doom for initiative.
• Lesser dooms
• Crossbow. Deep Dwarves carry compact bows of their own manufacture.
• Hammer. If a Deep Dwarf melee attack is twice the target’s initiative , it deals two wounds.
• Greater dooms
• Change Size. Discard a Greater Doom to change a Deep Dwarf’s size per the Weird spell. Remember they draw extra cards if they’re larger than the players.
• Shroud. Discard a Greater Doom to Shroud a Deep Dwarf as per the Weird spell. They still make a lot of noise in their armor.

  

 

DiTerlizzi

• Crawl Mechanics and Tactics
• A big block of armored fighters, immune to magic, trudging forward with wicked looking weapons, stacking damage on anyone in their path and shrugging off return blows. Fighting them head on is a recipe for disaster.
• Deep Dwarves are not fast or stealthy. They can set ambushes by turning invisible and shrinking, but if they have to move they make a lot of noise. A common tactic is for everyone to hold still while an unarmored scout moves around quietly.
• As much as they love to work (or claim to) there aren’t a lot of Deep Dwarves and always more work to be done. Adventurers who fall in battle with Deep Dwarves can expect to be stabilized, shackled and marched off to slavery in one of their underholds.
• Deep Dwarves are greedy. He who dies with the most toys wins. When faced with uncertain odds, they accept bribes rather than fighting.
• Variants
• Breachers can spend a Greater Doom to smash through a wall, break a support pillar or collapse a doorway. 
• Canaries don’t wear armor. They shrink and Shroud themselves to silently scout ahead of the main force.
• Loot & Alchemical Reagents
• Treasure: Cultural conservatism and resource deprivation make Deep Dwarf metalwork brutally utilitarian. The craftsdwarfship is good but dull, like precision manufactured industrial components. Looting it provides a few benefits.
• Weapons and tools get an additional notch before breaking.
• Armor gets some minor defensive property, like resistance to corrosion from Rust Monsters.
• Bomb: The disturbing fungal mass that gives Deep Dwarves their powers can be extracted from its place over the heart. Toss it at someone to Shrink them.
• Potion: Make a smoothie from that same fungal mass and drink it to Enlarge yourself.
• Oil: Smear Deep Dwarf blood on something to Shroud it.

 

Bergting

THE MAKING OF

A single Duergar originally appeared in Pile of Blades, my run of His Majesty The Worm. He was just there to work on the Fire Giants' plumbing but he got into a long argument with Candella the Dwarf about whether Dwarves should live on the surface. As part of the ongoing Worm Monster Mash I'm cleaning up some of my old monsters and transforming them from scenario specific characters into generic entries.

 

Cave adaptation is from Dwarf Fortress. The Dwarves refusing to leave the underworld is based on the guys from Thud!