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→Origins of the Andugr: Added link
When the duergar freed themselves from the [[4e Index (4e Other)#Mind Flayer|mind flayers]] and began attempting to build their own place in the world, the archdevil [[4e Index (4e Other)#deities|Asmodeus]] offered them dark and terrible power in their time of need; all he asked in return was that the duerger help further his goals in the material world. Desperate and weak, many duergar accepted his offer without question, and most duergar today carry obvious signs of infernal corruption. Some were not so eager to side with Asmodeus: they knew that [[4e Index (4e Other)#Devil|devils]] consider no one as equals, and that their race's pact with Asmodeus was nothing if not a more subtle form of slavery. Angered by their brothers' weakness and determined that the fate of the duergar should be that of master rather than slave, these small factions broke off from the larger duergar society.
But these new duergar faced the same problem as before: they were few in number, scattered across all across the Underdark, and they possessed very little power. In their time as slaves, however, they learned the fundamental truth of the world: if you want power, you must wrench it away from someone who already has it. Their few remaining spellcasters began scouring tomes of ancient lore seeking the means by which they could claim power from another race. Eventually, they found what they believed to be the most powerful source of all: the very spirits of the world. These primal entities had in ages past banished both the primordials and the gods from the world, and they exist as embodiments of every imaginable force in the multiverse. In time the duergar learned to bind a multitude of spirits to their will, but one type caught their attention above all others: the spirits of [[4e Index (4e Other)#Giant|giants]]. Having narrowly escaped servitude to Asmodeus and still baring the scars of their enslavement by the illithids, the duergar were reminded of eras long past when all dwarves were slaves to the fire giants of the [[4e Index (4e Other)#Elemental Chaos|Elemental Chaos]]. What better way to begin the new era of their species, they reasoned, than to enslave the very spirits of their original enemies? The duergar bound these giant spirits to their own souls and in doing so gained a portion of their power, granting them the ability to alter their bodies and grow to tremendous size.
These duergar are not widely known about by surface dwellers, as they are still relatively few in number and still strongly resemble a normal dwarf. Among those few who are aware of the split in duergar society, the term durzagon is used to refer to those duergar who formed the pact with Asmodeus, while the term andugr refers to those who did not.
