D is for Deros

Deros are a race of horrible, degenerate humanoids that can be found both in the undercity of Uz and in other underground areas throughout the Desert of Demons and the Lands Beyond.  However, they are not confined to these areas and will often gather together into small bands to raid the surface for potential victims.  Few know what horrors await these men and women who are dragged off by the Deros.  Even fewer return from such an ordeal, and those that do tell horrid tales of torture and less pleasant things.

Deros appear as completely hairless humanoids with metallic blue skin and glowing red eyes.  When they enter light the red light of their eyes dims.  The innards of a Deros are composed tight coils of yellow cords.  These cords pump the white liquid that serves as the creatures' blood throughout their bodies. Though Deros tend on average to be stockier than most humans, they vary greatly in height and weight.

Deros are created by strange machines that lie deep within the ruins of the antediluvian world.  What the original purpose of these machines was, few can say.  Now they capture any humans that stray too close to their great bulks and convert them into the monstrous Deros.  What this process entails is shrouded in mystery, but it does drain any feelings of compassion, love, and empathy from the newly created Deros.  Deros are therefore violent in the extreme, and will seek to torture and kill any creature it encounters other than another Deros.  The only exceptions are those poor victims who are taken to the great machines to suffer a fate worse than death, and the pallid lizard-things they ride on the surface.

Due to their savage natures, they rarely are capable of using anything more than simple spears and scavenged armor.  Still, occasionally some are intelligent enough to use antediluvian technology.  The most famous technologies they wield are the strange saucer-craft seen flying over the desert and the metal rods they use to produce crackling beams of painful energy.