Gray Dwarf

Regions: Dwarf (gray), The North, Turmish, Vaasa, Vilhon Reach. Most duergar characters have little contact with other cultures and choose the gray dwarf region.

Racial Feats: Arachnid Rider, Hammer Fist, Iron Mind, Stoneshaper.

Level Adjustment: +2.

Dwelling in great subterranean cities of the Underdark, the gray dwarves are deep-dwelling cousins of shield dwarves, known for their cruelty and bitterness. Like their surface-dwelling kin, gray dwarves are famed for their smithwork and craftsmanship, but unlike their brethren in the Realms Above, the duergar are grim and cheerless, living lives of endless toil. Like their gold and shield dwarf kin, the duergar have forged great empires, founding such realms as the Deepkingdom of Gracklstugh and the Steel Kingdom of Dunspeirrin in the endless darkness of the Realms Below.

Averaging 4 feet tall, gray dwarves weigh nearly as much as an adult human. While other dwarves tend to be round-bodied and stoutly muscled, duergar are wide of shoulder but wiry and lean, their limbs corded with tough muscle. The skin of a gray dwarf is light or dark gray, and his eyes are dull black. Both genders are usually bald, with males having long gray beards and mustaches.

Gray dwarves are consumed with bitterness, feeling their race has forever been denied what was rightfully theirs. The duergar expect and live lives of never-ending drudgery. While their work rivals that of shield and gold dwarves, they are relentless perfectionists who take no pleasure in their craftsmanship. Only cruel jokes and petty torments bring a moment’s smile to most gray dwarves, and they delight in tormenting the weak and the helpless.

Gray dwarves have the life expectancy and age categories defined for dwarves.

Random Starting Ages

Aging Effects

Use the table below to determine an gray dwarf's height and weight.

**Gray Dwarf Random Height and Weight **

Gender Base Height Height Modifier Base Weight Weight Modifier
Gray Dwarf, male 3'9" +2d4 110 lbs. x(2d4) lbs.
Gray Dwarf, female 3'7" +2d4 80 lbs. x(2d4) lbs.

Abilities and Racial Features

Racial Abilities: Duergar have all the dwarven racial traits except as follows:

History

Gray dwarves trace their history back to the establishment of Barakuir, one of the eight kingdoms of Shanatar. The Iron Kingdom was dominated by the shield dwarves of Clan Duergar, who venerated Laduguer as their kingdom’s patron. Although they swore allegiance to the Wyrmskull Throne, the rulers of Clan Duergar thought their king should have been selected to rule Shanatar at the conclusion of the Second Spider War. Consumed with bitterness, the dwarves of Barakuir largely turned away from the rest of the empire. The foolishness of this action was quickly proved when war broke out with the illithids of Oryndoll, a city that lies deep beneath the Shining Plains, around –8100 DR. Although Shanatar battled the illithids to a stalemate, the enemy’s armies managed to cut off Barakuir from outside reinforcement. By the time the Mindstalker Wars had ended, Barakuir had fallen to the illithids, and most of its inhabitants had been enslaved as thralls.

After millennia of enslavement and countless illithid breeding experiments, the descendants of Clan Duergar were transformed into a new dwarven subrace: the gray dwarves. Roughly four thousand years before the start of Dalereckoning, the duergar rebelled against their illithid masters and eventually freed themselves of the mind flayers’ dominion. These newly liberated gray dwarves carved out their own holdings in the northern Underdark beneath the Orsraun Mountains and in isolated caverns deep beneath the Great Glacier.

In the North, gray dwarves founded Gracklstugh, City of Blades, in –3717 DR. As the first city of their kind in the North, its holdings grew without rival throughout the upper and middle Underdark. The Deepkingdom reached its peak around –2600 DR, but in –1803 DR, the kingdom fell into a slow decline after smashing the quaggoth nation of Ursadunthar which lay deep beneath the Spine of the World. For centuries thereafter, the overextended duergar battled barbaric quaggoths (who were incited by the drow), as the Deepbear Battles raged until –1350 DR.

In the heart of Faerûn, gray dwarves founded Dunspeirrin, City of Sunken Spires, beneath the Orsraun Mountains. In time, the holdings of Underspires, as the city was also known, grew to encompass the Underdark of Turmish and the Dragon Coast, and the gray dwarves grew strong. In –1850 DR, under the leadership of their greatest queen, Duerra, the gray dwarves launched a series of attacks against the drow of Undraeth, the illithids of Oryndoll (from whom Duerra is said to have wrested the secrets of the Invisible Art), and other Underdark races. Duerra’s armies turned their simmering hatred against the remnants of Deep Shanatar sometime around –1800 DR. The gray dwarves overran Ultoksamrin and Holorarar and conquered the caverns of Alatorin for themselves. Laduguer rewarded Duerra with divine ascension. Afterward, Dunspeirrin fell into a centuries- long decline, from which it has only recently begun to emerge. The return of Deep Duerra during the Time of Troubles has sparked a new age of empire-building, but the city’s Army of Steel now finds itself locked in a three-year-old conflict with the gold dwarf Army of Gold over control of the caverns of ancient Shanatar.

Outlook

Gray dwarves view the world with bitterness, convinced family, clan, other dwarves, and the rest of the world have cheated them of their birthright and their due. They see life as nothing more than endless backbreaking labor, a torment from birth through death. The duergar evince little mercy for the helpless or the weak and enjoy tormenting those they can prey upon. From a young age, gray dwarves are quickly schooled in the harshness of the world, taught that their lot in life is nothing more than never-ending labor accompanied by betrayal and then death. Gray dwarves rarely adventure out of choice. Those who are exiled or flee imminent banishment often gravitate to the life of an adventure simply in hopes of surviving. Adventuresome duergar are usually focused on the acquisition of material wealth, caring little for the plight of others.

Gray Dwarf Characters

The ever-present dangers of the all-enveloping darkness are taught to gray dwarves from a young age. Most receive some training as fighters or rogues to better defend their homes against those who would steal their hard-earned wealth. Clerics are common as well, for those who serve the duergar gods claim positions of relative influence within their clan. Experts who combine traditional smithcraft with skill in the arcane arts are also much respected. Wizards are much more common than sorcerers among the gray dwarves. Common multiclass combinations include fighter/cleric, fighter/expert, and fighter/rogue.

Favored Class: A gray dwarf’s favored class is fighter. The Underdark is a harsh and unforgiving environment, where only the strongest can survive. Gray dwarf fighters have formed the bedrock of duergar armies for generations, enabling them to hold off such varied threats as aboleth, drow, illithids, kuo-toa, and svirfneblin.

Prestige Classes: Gray dwarves gravitate toward prestige classes such as assassin and blackguard. A few become dwarven defenders. As with their cousins, the shield dwarves, the gray dwarves have a tradition of rune magic, and so a number of clerics become runecasters.

Language and Literacy

Like all dwarves, gray dwarves speak Dwarven (language) and employ the Dethek rune alphabet. Gray dwarves also speak Undercommon, the trade tongue of the Realms Below. The primary gray dwarven dialect, Duergan, is an offshoot of the shield dwarven dialect, heavily influenced by drow and illithid words and language constructs found in Undercommon.

Common secondary languages reflect those spoken by traditional foes, including Draconic, Elven (the drow dialect), Giant, Goblin, and Orc. Those who have extensive dealings with creatures of elemental earth often learn Terran, while those who trade with inhabitants of the Realms Above often learn the trade tongue Common.

All gray dwarf characters are literate except for barbarians.

Gray Dwarf Magıc and Lore

Gray dwarves have a strong divine spellcasting tradition, with many of the Stout Folk called to serve Laduguer or Deep Duerra as clerics, runecasters, or runesmiths. Arcane spellcasters are much rarer, but wizards skilled in the crafting of magic items are much respected.

Spells and Spellcasting

Gray dwarves favor spells that aid their abilities in combat, assist in craftwork or mining, or facilitate stealthy movement.

Spellcasting Tradition: Some gray dwarves take the Duergar Mindshaper feat, part of the lore they stole from the mind flayers.

Gray Dwarf Magic Items

Gray dwarves favor magic items that aid in combat, facilitate craftwork, shield the mind, or enable stealthy movement. Blades and axes are commonly crafted with bane, keen, lawful, mighty cleaving, sundering, stunning, unholy, and wounding special abilities.

Hammers and maces are commonly crafted with bane, impact, lawful, returning, stunning, sundering, throwing, and unholy special abilities. Armor is typically crafted with etherealness, shadow, slick, silent moves, and spell resistance special abilities that facilitate stealthy movement.

Common Magic Items: Cloak of arachnida, dust of tracelessness, ring of mind shielding, and the whetstone of keen edge. Duergar are notoriously suspicious of outsiders, but duergar merchants trade throughout the Underdark. These items are commonly available at a 10% discount in any duergar settlement of at least large town size.

Iconic Magic Items: Gray dwarves have fabricated many unique magic items, such as absorbing shields, the bolt of battering, and stonereaver axes.

Duergar Deities

Laduguer, the Gray Protector, is the harsh taskmaster of the duergar and the patron of their subrace. Although the duergar nominally venerate all the dwarven deities of the Morndinsamman, in truth they venerate only Laduguer and his daughter, Deep Duerra. Before the rise of Shanatar, each of the shield dwarven subkingdoms had its own patron deity. The kingdom of Barakuir, dominated by the dwarves of Clan Duergar, honored Laduguer and never accepted the ascension of Dumathoin as the patron deity of shield dwarves. The ancestors of the gray dwarves continued to honor Laduguer during their long enslavement by the illithids of Oryndoll. Unlike their shield dwarven brethren, the duergar did not evolve their religious practice toward the veneration of the pantheon as a whole.

Deep Duerra, the Daughter of Laduguer, is said to have been a great warrior queen who stole many secrets of the Invisible Art (psionics) from Ilsensine, god of mind flayers. Deep Duerra is venerated primarily by duergar who study the Invisible Art and by those militant gray dwarves who would rather crush their subterranean neighbors than trade with them. Her faith is particularly strong beneath the Osraun Mountains of Turmish, where her followers rule Dunspeirrin, the City of Sunken Spires.

Relations with Other Races

Dour and suspicious of outsiders, gray dwarves have uniformly bad relations with all other races, including other dwarven subraces. The duergar regard their shield dwarf cousins with particular bitterness, dating back to the shield dwarves’ failure to succor Clan Duergar during the Mindstalker Wars. The Kin Clashes forever cemented the mutual animosity between the two dwarven subraces, a hatred that continues today. Gray dwarves regard their gold dwarf cousins as arrogant rivals and potential threats, but trade is possible between the two groups.

Gray dwarves view the surface-dwelling races—elves and halfelves, gnomes, halflings, half-orcs, and planetouched—with suspicion but willingly trade with those who are foolhardy enough to venture into the depths. The duergar harbor a longstanding hatred of their subterranean rivals, the drow and the svirfneblin. Nevertheless, they regularly trade with both groups, pitting them against one another whenever possible.

Gray Dwarf Equipment

Duergar carve and emboss scenes of bloodshed into many items they craft. Though they have a fierce appreciation for fine craftsmanship, they are pragmatic enough to shun ostentatious decoration (such as glittering gems) when it prevents them from creeping unseen through the Underdark. Duergar traders may be richly appointed or seem poorly equipped, depending on the sort of bargaining advantage they seek.

Common Items: Exotic military saddles, thunderstones, and any poison.

Unique Items: Gray dwarves have perfected armor lubricant to assist armored warriors in stealthy maneuvering.

Arms and Armor

Even more so than other dwarves, duergar favor weapons clearly derived from the craftsman’s tools. They favor hammers and picks of all sorts.

Common Items: Heavy pick, light crossbow, light pick, maul, warhammer, breastplate, chainmail.

Animals and Pets

Gray dwarves favor common bats, hairy spiders, osquips, and spitting crawlers as pets and familiars. Deep rothé are the preferred type of livestock. They employ pack lizards as beasts of burden. Although gray dwarves are known for their use of steeders as mounts, some clans employ riding lizards as well.