Chapter 1824 Gray Dwarves
After the stone giant, four dwarves teleported over. Compared with Klein and Scholz, their complexion was darker, as if they were covered in soot, and their bodies were thinner than ordinary dwarves. Their eyes were dark and cold, and their jaws were uniform. He has a short beard as rough as a steel brush, and his hair is clean-shaven.
The costumes of the four dwarves are different. The head is wearing a black sacrificial robe, lined with chain mail, and wearing a gold ring, looking like a priest.
The other man was wearing a full set of plate armor, walking with a bang, like a squat tin can, holding a heavy pickaxe exuding psychic brilliance, and a crossbow slung behind him, obviously a dwarf warrior .
The bald man who followed the dwarf warrior out of the teleportation array was dressed in civilian clothes and did not carry a weapon. The wristbands on his arms emanated magical aura. Joan deduced from his simple attire and brisk pace that he should be a monk.
The last dwarf who came out of the teleportation array was wearing a gold ring and chain armor, and was also equipped with a heavy-duty psionic pickaxe and a large enchanted crossbow. Behind him was a hard-shelled black beetle as large as an elephant, and his scalp was tingling. Hissing and whistling.
Joan is quite familiar with the insect creatures in the underground world. After a little observation, he recognized the huge coleopteran insect-shaped magical beast named "Cracking Beetle". It has both brute force and thick armor. It spits highly corrosive acid, and among the insect-shaped creatures in the underground world, it can be regarded as the top predator.
The broken city beetle has a violent and aggressive temperament, but Joan saw that it was following the dwarf, and it looked as docile as a domestic animal. It can be seen that it is a tamed animal companion, so it can be deduced from this that his owner is probably a tall man. High ranger - after all, druids can't wear metal chain armor.
When Klein saw the group of dark-skinned dwarves appear, his expression immediately became ugly, he turned his back to them, and whispered to Joan: "Brother, be careful of those gray dwarves, one counts as one, or it's in the brain. A mad dog with pits, or a villain full of bad things, in short, there is no good bird!"
Joan nodded knowingly, avoiding the provocative gaze cast by the gray dwarf.
"Dwarfs" are named for their skin color and are also known as Dugga dwarves.
Just as the dark elves and the surface elves were originally a family, the ancestors of the gray dwarves were also ordinary dwarves. Because they were too obsessed with exploring mineral deposits, they endlessly dug deep into the dark region, and finally bumped into the territory of the mind flayer, the underground world. A happy tragedy ensues.
The mind flayers are very interested in the tenacious and stubborn creatures like dwarves, and imprisoned these dwarfs who came to their door, as experimental subjects, and conducted a series of perverted experiments on them from the body to the mind.
As we all know, "enslavement" and "reformation" can be described as the forte of the mind flayers.
From the githyanki and githzerai in the astral world, to the aquatic kuo-toa, to the stone-blind barbarians who were originally humans, they were all slaves of mind flayers. Their special physiological structure, To a large extent, it was also transformed by the mind flayer slave owners. Of course, it also caused different degrees of psychological shadow.
Ancestors of the duergar can also be found in this long list of species that have been mishandled by mind flayers.
After being enslaved by mind flayers for several generations, the dwarven descendants of these devastated dwarves underwent a drastic change in color and spirit, and a new subspecies of dwarves, the "duergar" was born.
For countless years since then, the gray dwarves have always played the role of loyal servants and powerful thugs of the mind flayer master. It was not until they were inspired by a god named "Ladug" that they germinated the will to resist. After suffering countless bloodshed and sacrifices, he finally got rid of the mind flayer's control and regained his freedom.
Although the duergars have gained freedom as a race, the imprint on their spiritual level by the mind flayers has not been erased. The thoughts of the duergars have long been poisoned by their slave masters, and they are even more vicious and cruel than the mind flayers.
The duergar also inherited two legacy items from former slave masters.
One is the firm will that has been forcibly tempered by being tortured by mind flayers all year round, which is extremely resistant to poison, paralysis, charm and illusion;
The ancestors of the gray dwarves were once used as experimental subjects by the mind flayers, who artificially opened a "spirit pool" in the dwarves through surgery—just like what they did to the ancestors of the githyanki in the astral world.
The dwarves who underwent this experiment had a high mortality rate, and the experimental subjects who survived by chance had a certain chance of passing on their acquired psychic powers to their offspring. After several generations of screening and elimination, this genetic trait gradually stabilized.
Today, the duergar have transformed into a true psychic race, and almost every newborn is gifted with psychic powers—this is their second legacy from their former slave masters.
Adult duergars can usually manifest two innate powers, "enlarge" and "invisibility."
Individual gifted gray dwarves can also awaken more bizarre psychic powers, and may even become more professional manifesters, such as "psychic warriors" or "psychic warlocks".
The gray dwarves are not grateful to their former masters, because they lost far more than they gained. However, what is even more unfortunate is that the god who saved the gray dwarves, Ladug, is even more insidious and evil than the mind flayers.
There are rumors that this so-called "God of the Gray Dwarves" is actually an incarnation of the Lord of the Nine Hells, the "Devil King" Asmodeus. Use them to expand the devil's sphere of influence in the Underdark.
The gray dwarves kept silent about this rumor, neither admitting nor denying it, but their behavior was indeed devil-like, such as frantically launching wars, capturing other intelligent creatures as slaves, and even using slaves as a currency to measure value.
Aside from mind flayers, duergar have a similar aversion to their lighter-skinned dwarven kin.
"The gray dwarves hold a mysterious resentment, thinking that the reason why they were enslaved by the mind flayers was that other dwarf clans either stabbed them in the back, or turned a blind eye to their suffering and refused to help each other for the sake of their fellow clansmen. Save them, it is ridiculous to let them be tortured by mind flayers!"
Klein shook his head and sighed, he didn't have the slightest affection for his gray-skinned distant relative.
"The most unbearable problem of the gray dwarves is that they blame others for their mistakes. However, if someone asks them to help, the gray dwarves will change their faces. It's a good show!"