Fate of the Duegar

[MReav]

What happens to Duergar when they die? Duergar are an evil dwarven subrace, but how does the "Death With Honour" thing affect them? Were they originally created alongside the dwarves, but still separately so they were exempted from the rules about dying with honour?* Did they make some pact with a dark power that exempted them from Hel? Or are they in the same boat as their dwarven kin, and they are merely aiming to die with evil honour?

*I'm now imagining the god that insisted that all the player races have a more powerful underground counterpart that's usually evil use some sort of wordplay to get out of surrendering their souls to Hel "Hey, the rules say that you get the souls of a 'major race'. The Duergar may be the same species, but they are a different race."

[Grey_Wolf_c]

What happens to Duergar when they die? Duergar are an evil dwarven subrace, but how does the "Death With Honour" thing affect them? Were they originally created alongside the dwarves, but still separately so they were exempted from the rules about dying with honour?* Did they make some pact with a dark power that exempted them from Hel? Or are they in the same boat as their dwarven kin, and they are merely aiming to die with evil honour?

Your whole premise is a bit off. There is no need to posit Duergars - there are Evil dwarves, and they don't all end in Hel. Therefore, there is a way to both be Evil and have honor, even if it is just amongst thieves. Or, as Rich put it, a politician assassinated due to their political views has died with honour. And we all know politicians are always evil (kidding!)

Grey Wolf

[hamishspence]

The guy Haley bought weapons from for the Resistance looks like a Duergar:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0531.html

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The guy Haley bought weapons from for the Resistance looks like a Duergar:

Agreed. And I'd say that if he gets killed by a goblin patrol while smuggling items into Gobbotopia, he'll have died with honour.

ETA: Mind you, we have no way of knowing if he is Evil. In general, I think we are well past the point were we could argue that an entire race in OotS is Evil to start with, which is what felt off about the OP.

GW

[Ron Miel]

If a dwarf dies in battle his soul goes to the afterlife appropriate to his alignment. No reason to suppose evil dwarfs are any different.

[MReav]

The Evil thing is a bit of a red herring for this discussion. I'm only really brought it up due to a comment Rich made in one of the commentaries about evil underground counterpart races (hence my joke about the deity that insisted every PC race have a more powerful underground counterpart). I was mainly asking if Duergar are considered Dwarves for the deal with Hel, or due to the massive differences between them and vanilla dwarves, and the fact that the word "race" was used when it's not the same as "species", are they considered a different race than the dwarves that Durkon belongs to?

[pendell]

Have we confirmed that Duergar exist in OOTSworld? I know we've seen dark elves, but I don't think we've ever seen a confirmed Duergar or indeed heard them even mentioned. You'd think at some point in a thousand odd strips Durkon or someone would have brought it up by now.

At any rate, we would need Giant to tell us what their deal is, if they exist in OOTSworld at all. For all we know they are in another pantheon and are outside the pseudo-Norse pantheon altogether, and have a different afterlife altogether.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[martianmister]

The guy Haley bought weapons from for the Resistance looks like a Duergar:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0531.html

..........

[woweedd]

Good and Honorable are not synonyms. My favorite example is Captain Hook. Indisputably villainous, a pirate, in fact, yet with a great adherence to the idea to the idea of "Good Form."

[Gift Jeraff]

..........

Maybe hamishspence is on pendell's ignore list.

[pendell]

Maybe hamishspence is on pendell's ignore list.

No, hamishpence is not on my ignore list. He said Haley bought from someone who looked like a Duergar. That's not the same thing as a confirmed Duergar. It could still be an ordinary dwarf.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

As far as I know we haven't had any debate that was significantly less than friendly - maybe it was just overlooked.

Swordsaged

[LadyEowyn]

the god that insisted that all the player races have a more powerful underground counterpart that's usually evil

Do the halflings? Gnomes? Humans? Lizardfolk?

Or is this joke just based on the elves and dwarves?

Just curiosity speaking.

[hamishspence]

Do the halflings? Gnomes? Humans? Lizardfolk?

Or is this joke just based on the elves and dwarves?

Just curiosity speaking.

There are "deep gnomes" and "deep halflings" - neither of which are evil. The gnomes "svirfneblin" are grimmer, more distrustful and more morose than regular gnomes though (and, like duergar and drow, are considered more powerful than standard races and thus requiring a Level Adjustment - counting as a higher level character than hit dice alone would indicate.

Some splatbooks have "deep humans" as a variant too - Underdark, Races of Destiny. And Races of Faerun has "orogs" (deep orcs) which are more powerful than regular orcs.

The Giant did mention duergar once in OOTS context:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...r#post19821213

Monsters are everywhere, especially in underground tunnels.

While the line about picking a fight with a tree was intended for comedy, the point still remains that if you know for certain you will only get a good afterlife if you die with honor, you are far more likely to deliberately go seek out an enemy to fight—whether it's orcs, giants, drow, duergar, etc.—as soon as you know you're sick or getting old.

[hroþila]

No, hamishpence is not on my ignore list. He said Haley bought from someone who looked like a Duergar. That's not the same thing as a confirmed Duergar. It could still be an ordinary dwarf.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

With that skin tone, nope, it couldn't be an ordinary dwarf. Perhaps it could be some sort of undead, but duergar seems much more likely.

(On an unrelated note, I'm terribly upset that D&D also uses "duergar" as the singular form)

[LadyEowyn]

Thanks, hamishpence!

[hamishspence]

(On an unrelated note, I'm terribly upset that D&D also uses "duergar" as the singular form)

The plural of deer is deer, not "deers" (but the plural of bear is normally bears). Maybe they simply picked what they thought sounded best?

[pendell]

There are "deep gnomes" and "deep halflings" - neither of which are evil. The gnomes "svirfneblin" are grimmer, more distrustful and more morose than regular gnomes though (and, like duergar and drow, are considered more powerful than standard races and thus requiring a Level Adjustment - counting as a higher level character than hit dice alone would indicate.

Some splatbooks have "deep humans" as a variant too - Underdark, Races of Destiny. And Races of Faerun has "orogs" (deep orcs) which are more powerful than regular orcs.

The Giant did mention duergar once in OOTS context:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...r#post19821213

Okay, I'll take the Giant's comment as confirmation that Duergar do exist in this setting -- and that the smuggler, with the skin tone, is likely one such.

In which case, it seems likely a duergar getting into the afterlife just needs to die in battle. The old-school Vikings weren't nice people. You don't have to be good to die an honorable death in battle. So a good person who died of illness would wind up in Hel's domain while a Xykon who was killed in battle would enter Valhalla.



Respectfully,

Brian P.

[LadyEowyn]

A Xykon-like duergar or dwarf who was killed in battle would go to one of the Chaotic Evil afterlives. He just wouldn't go to Hel.

Dishonourable death = dwarf goes to Hel

Honourable death = dwarf goes wherever they would have gone if the "bet" never existed

[martianmister]

In which case, it seems likely a duergar getting into the afterlife just needs to die in battle. The old-school Vikings weren't nice people. You don't have to be good to die an honorable death in battle. So a good person who died of illness would wind up in Hel's domain while a Xykon who was killed in battle would enter Valhalla.

Maybe the Hel isn't that bad after al...

[Ron Miel]

In which case, it seems likly a duergar getting into the afterlife just needs to die in battle. The old-school Vikings weren't nice people. You don't have to be good to die an honorable death in battle. So a good person who died of illness would wind up in Hel's domain while a Xykon who was killed in battle would enter Valhalla.

Not quite. Dwarfs who die in battle go to the afterlife appropriate to their alignment. Only good dwarfs go to Valhalla. Xykon would go to one of the Evil afterlifes.

[SaintRidley]

The plural of deer is deer, not "deers" (but the plural of bear is normally bears). Maybe they simply picked what they thought sounded best?

It's irksome because it's from a real word in Old English (dweorg) which pluralizes as dweorgas. Though there's a cognate in Icelandic dvergur which does pluralize as dvergar.

[goto124]

For some reason I forgot what Duergar are and thought they're half-vampires.

I suppose half-vampires are impossible in OotS-verse.

Unless you managed to kick out the negative energy soul living in your body, or it tore in half, or...?

[hroþila]

It's irksome because it's from a real word in Old English (dweorg) which pluralizes as dweorgas. Though there's a cognate in Icelandic dvergur which does pluralize as dvergar.

I imagine they borrowed it from Old Norse dvergar rather than from the Old English cognate (I'm surprised they altered the normative spelling; duergar is a perfectly kosher and authentic Old Norse spelling, but D&D clearly doesn't care about that kind of stuff). I would have accepted any of duergr, duergur or duerg as the singular form.

[Keltest]

For some reason I forgot what Duergar are and thought they're half-vampires.

I suppose half-vampires are impossible in OotS-verse.

Unless you managed to kick out the negative energy soul living in your body, or it tore in half, or...?

I don't know. Unlike a lich, a vampire clearly has hydrated, non-decaying flesh, which implies a lot of their bodily functions still work. Heck, Greg and Malack can still breathe, they just don't need to. I wouldn't count on a vampire getting pregnant (that much negative energy is probably bad for a baby), but without knowing how much their bodily functions have been replaced by negative energy (as opposed to supplemented by it, like with breathing), its possible they could still have children with living beings.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I don't know. Unlike a lich, a vampire clearly has hydrated, non-decaying flesh, which implies a lot of their bodily functions still work. Heck, Greg and Malack can still breathe, they just don't need to. I wouldn't count on a vampire getting pregnant (that much negative energy is probably bad for a baby), but without knowing how much their bodily functions have been replaced by negative energy (as opposed to supplemented by it, like with breathing), its possible they could still have children with living beings.

Or, you know, they run on magic, and if the magic allows it, they can become or cause other to become pregnant.


GW

[Keltest]

Or, you know, they run on magic, and if the magic allows it, they can become or cause other to become pregnant.

GW

Well yes, I rather felt that "It works however Rich would want it to work" was sufficiently obvious as to not need explaining.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Well yes, I rather felt that "It works however Rich would want it to work" was sufficiently obvious as to not need explaining.

Yes, of course, but that wasn't my point. I'm talking watsonian: these are creatures whose existence depends on magic. They are at their most essential an enchantment on a corpse. The lich enchantment is cast by the pre-lich person itself, while the vampiric one is carried in the bite. But they are still undead, which implies some kind of dark magic. If whomever designed vampires when world 2.0 was created (one of the death gods, I'd imagine) gave them the ability to reproduce not just via bite but also via fluid exchange, then they can. Otherwise, they can't. Biology doesn't need to come into it at all, because magic trumps it.

Grey Wolf

[Keltest]

Yes, of course, but that wasn't my point. I'm talking watsonian: these are creatures whose existence depends on magic. They are at their most essential an enchantment on a corpse. The lich enchantment is cast by the pre-lich person itself, while the vampiric one is carried in the bite. But they are still undead, which implies some kind of dark magic. If whomever designed vampires when world 2.0 was created (one of the death gods, I'd imagine) gave them the ability to reproduce not just via bite but also via fluid exchange, then they can. Otherwise, they can't. Biology doesn't need to come into it at all, because magic trumps it.

Grey Wolf

I...guess?

Maybe I just fail to see the difference between "magical-fluid exchange induced pregnancy" and "non-magical-fluid exchange induced pregnancy."

[Jasdoif]

I don't know. Unlike a lich, a vampire clearly has hydrated, non-decaying flesh, which implies a lot of their bodily functions still work. Heck, Greg and Malack can still breathe, they just don't need to. I wouldn't count on a vampire getting pregnant (that much negative energy is probably bad for a baby), but without knowing how much their bodily functions have been replaced by negative energy (as opposed to supplemented by it, like with breathing), its possible they could still have children with living beings.

Well, Libris Mortis does suggest that's possible in "rare circumstances" after a vampire's "recently consumed a significant quantity of blood"...and the other noted possible source for half-vampires is if a pregnant creature survives a vampire's blood drain attack, in which case the child may be "tainted by vampirism" or something. In conclusion: Heck if I know what they were thinking.