Fleshing out Derro in Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Brainstorming

Alright, 3 rooms pre-cleaned, now break time for the body, work time for the mind.

So the team has captured a Derro Savant who is described in the Tome of Foes as such:

“Derro slink through the subterranean realms, seeking places that are safe from the perils of the Underdark. Equal parts fearful and vicious,, bands of the dwarf-kin prey on those weaker than themselves while giving simpering obeisance to any creatures they deem more powerful. Wild-haired, haggard, shuddering and shabbily dressed, a lone derro seems a pitiable creature but when a cackling, spitting, growling, howling horde of them attacks, the sight inspires both fear and revulsion”

There’s more but I feel like there might be copyright issues and I don’t want to type out a page long word-for-word story about them.

So we got our boy Adario the Derro.

Male, wizard type. Low ass wisdom, decent dex and charisma with avg intelligence. He’s a slave (More or less) to Nito and while the party is stronger than him, Nito is perceivably stronger than the party. So Adario is scared of the party, but more scared of what’s going to happen to him if he gives up Nito. I’d think that from his perspective that death awaits either way and the party may be a quicker death.

He refuses to look people in the eye so lacking in confidence, that might be part of his low wisdom. I’d like to say a Gollum like attitude but that doesn’t really fly with the high charisma. So who do I know that’s charismatic but not so world wise… An angry baby.

(can I just say that I love that I can walk from my desk-top to my laptop and pick up exactly where I left off?)

So I’m picturing this little dwarf-like goblin, wrapped up in vines and being questioned. He has a ragged voice and is reluctant to give up any more information. If names are dropped he’d definitely know about Yerin, maybe not Vekrish but Yerin for sure. I’m thinking a temper tantrum for being caught but maybe blaming his other party members for not being quick enough or for lagging behind on a certain challenge.

there were 4 challenges, 1 lost a hand, one lost a memory, Adario lost his first level spells, and the other took a decrease in stats. Maybe the hand loss was a reluctant one. “If it wasn’t for that damned archer we would have beat you, to put something as insignificant as a hand before the conquests of Lord Nito, I should have killed him on the spot!” At this point he’ll start foaming at the mouth or gritting his teeth angrily I’m thinking…

See the problem with going too much further into detail than that is that the more details you’re certain about, the more you’re funneling yourself into an idea that the Party might not even lean towards. Which can lead to rail-roading (when you force the Players to go your way)

So Adario is basically a angry man-baby, blames his team for his failure and wants a quick death. I could see him pushing for that, trying to instigate. Playing on Yerin’s weaknesses of fear of being back stabbed “You’re just a pin cushion, doomed to be betrayed time and time again!” He’ll be very focused on Yerin as that’s the only one he’ll know by name.

Now lets focus on Nito’s role. He hired? Subjugated? this Derro Culture, they’re primarily from the Underdark which might be a new realm to our PC’s as they have no elves or dwarves in their group. So what’s the Underdark in my world?

I’m thinking it’ll be a spiritual realm that lies just under their plane. One that you could accidentally trip into, more of a magical realm, like a parallel plane, everything is identical but darker, more evil. AH! Maybe, that dream they had was actually the Underdark bleeding into their realm. Yea I like that.

Okay getting off track but pulling it back, lets say Nito has opened a small tear in the fabric between the realms and that’s the black cloud that they’ve seen in other sessions. That also could have been the explosion on the Astral Plane. Alright now we’re starting to tie up some loose ends.

Alright so he’s the TL;DR:

Adario, the Derro, is from the Underdark, he and his horde was subjugated by Nito after he tore open a rift between the two realms, having effects on other realms. Adario, is basically an angry dwarf-goblin baby, set on getting himself killed by the PC’s. The information he does have will be minimal, he knows the location of their base but maybe it’s called something else where he’s from and he never learned the name of it here. Like Raven’s Skull Cove but on Avoa, it’s called “Sparrow’s head bay” similar but enough that they may question it.

I think I have a good start. If anyone reads this and has any ideas or plot twists, lay it on me. I’m all for outsider influence.