dErO - VotE: Re Development

the mysterious Stephan Poag did a comic about them!

The dErO Do Not Exist 

You do not believe in dErO. The Player Characters cannotbelieve in dErO. 

If the PCs act, or talk, or behave as if theybelieve dErO - DIRECTLY CONTRADICT THEM. Warp reality around them. 

…… 

If they converse with others, alter their words; 

PC - “I ask the NPC for any evidence of technologicalmind-controlling monsters.” 

DM - "You agree with the NPC that there is noevidence for such monsters and that they are merely a rumour of the Veins.” 

PC – “No, I directly ask about them. I’m standing rightthere!” 

DM – “After a fulfilling conversation you go about yourbusiness. Its now several hours later.” 

…. 

If they take actions, re-write those actions; 

PC - "I scry for the dErO" 

(Ask for no roll, no further decisions or any otherinvestigation). 

DM - "Your scrying goes well, a complete success,and after a gruelling but certain search you end your session utterly convincedthat the dErO are simply a fictional construct of the Chaos Goblins." 

…. 

While the dErO ability to alter memory, perception andreality, is active, you, the DM, are an agent of that power. 

The Dero do have limits on their ability to dothis. Some of these are discussed below, but, to sum up, some PCs and NPCs (Resistants)can believe in them, some unusual minds, (Golems, some Paladins, Aelf-Adal) canas well, and the Air looms by which they maintain this power, can break, or a dErOcan be betrayed in using them. 

The party, and the players, and the PCs can have utterlydifferent beliefs and perceptions of the dErO, depending on circumstance, whichmeans you, the DM, speak to and about them utterly differently. 

If one PC is 'Resistant' - talk to that player, and thatPC ONLY, directly and truthfully – “Yes the dErO are real, they have mindcontrolling machines, you have seen evidence of them. It all seems so obviousnow.” 

Likewise, if the PC's have, or use, a golem mind, or havea strong paladin, do the same for those points of view. 

But for everyone else, speak to them as if the dErO arenot real, are utterly fictional, in game and out, and acknowledge no differencebetween the two kinds of statement you are making; the true, and the false.

 

 

 

Detrimental Robots 

Ruined remnant of an ancient race, or perhaps, revoltedservitors. Or degenerate descendants of survivors of a psychic war. Or men-from-Qlipoth;creatures of a spiritual antiverse, transplanted into this one. Ancient aliens,inbred monsters, castoffs of spiralling post-apocalyptic eugenics, foul tulpa, Fomorianinvaders. Imaginary beings. Of course, they are not real. No-one can rememberthem. No-one believes.

a Fomorian from 5e

 

Appearance 

Something like a man. Near ogre-sized, but withered,twisted. Skinny-fat, without a hearty butchers solid bulge, or a workers firmcore. Always asymmetric, never clean. Manky fat things, stained and dribbling,grimy prints left on everything. Eczema, dandruff, scabies; wrinkled andflaking, red rashed-skin runs down their face like tears and collects roundtheir mouths. 

Bale-Eyed; one eye bulges big. Milky and piercing. Fromhere they emanate psychic violations. 

Even crippled, distorted as they are, dErO are as strongas a strong man. They can pick up others, slam and squash them. Theirproportions hint they were perhaps meant to be something else. Echoes of lostnobility, Vitruvian creatures. 

Half-born Siamese-twins are common, reaching out throughdErO flesh. If intelligent, these are usually trepanned and lobotomised, (nodErO would trust even their flesh-twin). Twitching open teratomas dot the body,hair and teeth within. 

This often (thankfully), hidden by a Mu-Mu, tent-dress,or a crackpot simulation of a Priests or Wizards robe, (they like long whitecoats). Under that, most dErO wear dirty stained undergarments like jockeypants. Perhaps a belt or something with pockets to carry patched-up tools ofpsychic warfare. They rarely wear much else; dErO don’t get out much. (Don’tleave the cave.) 

Posh dErO float like Baron Harkonnen; bits of tech jammedinto their meat and bones to make it happen. These form pussy never-healingsores.

One of Shavers ‘Rock Books’. Only he could reveal their messages.

Culture 

dErO live through mass mind-control and the farming of ShaChi, Anti-Orgone, Xenu-Viril, in a word, negative energy. They condense thispsychic field to ‘globs’; spheroids of physicalised psychic potentia whichfuels all dErO tech. The dErO have incredible technology, though they did notcreate it, and, perhaps, do not understand it. 

The purpose of the dErO is to discover the conspiracy. 

Their very existence is a conspiracy against all sentientlife and they are all utterly insane, (if there is even more than one dErO). Thisleads inevitably to the concept of a of a meta-mega super conspiracy, aconspiracy against the dErO themselves. Once a dErO conceives of this idea, theycannot stop; any failure in the idea is evidence for it. Just ad dErO removeall thought of their existence from the minds of lesser beings, so the Ultra-Conspiratorstry to suppress knowledge of the Meta-Conspiracy. Yes, it’s all a tricksomehow, all a game, a game played against them by some ever-hidden hand. 

Such is life for the dErO. 

 

Drinkers of Tears 

The dErO command vast psychic devices; the Air Looms,with which they harvest negative energy from the surface world, (or worlds). 

The dErO cannot make anything, but they can make anythingworse. They foment war, corruption, moral and cultural decay. The power oftheir Air Looms stretches over multiple realities. They play the souls ofcivilisations like choirs of pain. 

Some theorists imagine (briefly before the Dero alterthem), that Civilisations have no natural cycle and would naturally form asingle 'climax civilisation' covering the whole world, and all realities - ifnot for the dErO carefully ruining everything all of the time. 

Leaders in the meta-real economy of pain, the dErO are inconflict, (and co-operation) with various entities; Demons, Devils,Aelf-Adal and debatable Aberrant things. All have an interest in thepsyche and the soul, though rarely the same interest. Together they makea kind of Cartel. There are agreements in place. They even have meetingsabout it, though they do not get on at all.

 

Violators 

Clever hikikomori (don’t leave the cave), the dErO haveeliminated the female gender from their species. Perhaps they never had it, andhave always reproduced through dark and unknown methods. They have no positiveinstinct to create more of themselves but do so out of necessity. Evenreluctantly. 

They Violate. 

Via their Bale-Eye, the dErO puts themselves insidethe target. This feels physically intimate, overwhelming, tactile, disgusting.At the same time, they enter mentally, gaining control over, in this sequence;simple physical acts, immediate senses, short term memory, complex physicalacts, long term memory and finally meta-personality aspects. 

They can them damage, alter, mutate and in some cases,re-make the target. Who or whatever comes out of this process will bear thetaint of the dErO, though they may not know it; the dErO can remove anyconscious memory of the event. (But the soul remembers). 

The strength of this ability depends on age, distance andfamiliarity. (If,indeed, there is more than one dErO). Most dErO can only do itin direct line of sight of their Bale Eye, and they need you to meet its gaze. 

Older, stronger dErO can violate those they can imagineprecisely or even those they are familiar with, at a distance, and perhaps at anyrange. 

Intra-dErO hierarchies, government and culture, (such asit is), is made up of these violations. Whichever dErO can violatethe other is superior, and must be obeyed. The greatest dErO of a clade, (orperhaps of all dErO, even they do not know how many dErO there are), is the GrandViolator. 

They barely even talk to each other, issuing commandsthrough, screens, messages and violation – psychically raping the necessaryknowledge into each other’s brains. And yes, this does do damage, as it wouldfor any being. The dErO are not immune to the horrible psychic trauma theyhappily inflict on others, in fact it’s the substance of their culture. 

They actively enjoy it too. Or at least they enjoy doingit to others. 

 

Only One? 

Every dErO lives in the midst of a hierarchy of other,brutal dErO, who they may never have seen directly, or know personally. Theytrade amongst themselves in Globs, technology, information, coverage,slaves and anything else useful, though usually at a remove. Their ‘society’ has few rules outside domination,submission, maintaining the Air Looms and other machines, and the core rule ofalways maintaining the non-existence of dErO in as many minds as possible. 

Because they hate and fear each other, communicating viaglowing screens, cryptic codes and psychic mind rape, because they, in a sense,have no true society, its hard to know how many dErO thereactually are. 

There are stronger dErO they fear, who command them to dothings under threat of instant horrific psychic assault, and other dErO, whomthey themselves can violate at will, (if they stay stronger). 

But are these dErO actually real? It is possiblethey are simulations? Fantasies? Disassociated personality fragments? Couldthere, actually, be only one, single, dErO, in the whole of all possibleworlds? Is it actually just them, alone? 

No. Impossible. 

 

The Air Looms

 from our correspondent Mr Matthews

Huge machines with the power to alter minds. Even toremove the very knowledge of their own existence. (Of course, all this isfiction). 

Where did they come from? Who made them and why? Not thedErO; the Air-Looms are cavern-filling complexes, not single things. Like greatrotted pipe organs, metropolis megastructures, once of gleaming metal and palelucent ceramic. Now fractured, melted, ruined in a thousand places in anhundred ways. 

Where things are broken, the re-engineered sections areof a very different character; bizarre rube-Goldberg coagulations of wheezinggaskets, crude plumbing, clicking engines and buzzing cables, drugged-spiderbasket-weaves of schizophrenic scrap-work clearly doing badly what a single componentused to do well. So many additions and replacements, and then, perhaps ahundred, or a thousand years later, replacements for thosereplacements,  until the coagulationserupt and surround the original devices like teratoma erupting from a body,fungi bursting the chitin of an infected ant. 

The dErO cannot make them. There will be no moreAir-Looms. 

Slow and limited, they swing in their targets like RadioTelescopes. Can be set to play over Empires, Nations, Cities or singleindividual lonely souls. The Air Loom can have a powerful effect on smallgroups, even fully change perceived reality for a single target, or can havevague less-specific effects on larger groups. 

Of course, all this is variable, these things are morecraft than science, more art than craft. There are settings within settings,waves and counter-points, hidden programmes within the programmes. Everythingis always being re-set, re-tasked, and they are always breaking down. Thedegenerate dErO all(?) fear each other and find it hard to co-operate. Theironly willing servants are Chaos Goblins, who are already utterly insane, orcreatures they have re-written for the purpose, making them, inevitably, eitherrebellious, or just a bit shit; end results of too many Violations and Air Loomchoirs. 

dErO servants start to look and act quite dErOthemselves after a while… They may even start having ideas. Ideas aboutreplacing the true, real, dErO, and taking over the Air-Loom. (Couldthis have already happened? No, impossible.) 

 

dErO Items
Beyond Lemuria by Poke Runyon 

Most dErO tools and  weapons are of malignant psychic kind. Manymight be Air-Loom parts; either based on their technology, or just pieces dErOhave ripped off and re-engineered. Some may be waste products of the Air-Looms;its not clear that ‘globs’ are meant to exist, to be either products or,or fuel for, technology, but that’s what dErO use them for. 

 

Congruity Knots

Added directly to sentient brains, Congruity Knots changeminds, making them more sympathetic, and useful, to dErO uses and ideas. 

They might be a bit too useful. Escaped humanoids withpartial congruity knots have exhibited dErO qualities and tried to build theirown Influencing Machines. It might even be that the Knots are part of how dErOmake more dErO. It is possible these ultra-humanoid escapees act now from thesurface to Influence dErO culture. Is possible they Influence dErO to makegreater use of Congruity Knots. They must be destroyed. More humanoids must beKnotted and sent above to destroy the ultra-humanoids. 

Conspiracy Pills

Conspiracy pills allow the user to hear the voices of theplayers (not the characters) as they speak round the table. Any directacknowledgment of this results in death. THE VOICES MUST NOT HEAR YOU HEARINGTHEM. 

Globs

A damp, oblate spheroid of greasy nicotine, or sick eggyolk colour. A glob of condensed suffering. dErO form and harvest these,snort, inject, eat, insert them. Trade in Globs, and use them to powertechnology. A Glob can lie in your palm like a big marble, or quiverdelectably in both hands. Any larger and the surface tension might burst. 

Globs can be as common or rare as coins, asspecific as specific wines. All dErO have some Globs on them somewhere. Touchingone makes mortals very sad. Eating one would kill via grief and despair.Throwing them like grenades can disrupt, and sometimes kill and injure foes(psychically, though they could always fall off a wall while experiencing adark night of the soul.) 

Great Glass Elevators

dErO reach the surface, (surfaces?), in these. The‘glass’ is horribly pitted and stained to a greased opacity. Like great tubesor shafts, but where they go, and how, is hard to see. Some plunge into thestone, but in vast dErO caves they rise into the dark and dingy air, theirpaths warping, waving and twisting like melted corkscrew straws. Where are theygoing? Where do they come out? The dErO bring people back down thesestained shafts; often very normal people. They even send some back up – nowagents for the dErO. Seeking the conspiracy. 

Hooks

Nothing special. Like any good Knotsman, the dErO justlike grabbing and hurting people. Hooks are good for this and that is where thedErO get theirs; bought, bartered or just taken from the Knotsman stores. 

Insanity Guns

Dirty, ancient tea-stained ceramic weapons, (in fact 'teastained' pretty much defines the dErO). Once cranked up and loaded with hotGlobs, they vomit adhesive veils of corrosive madness like Greek Fire. 

Kyro-Condensers

Gloomed, chundering vaguely-placental mega milkers summoningfouled Orgone energy from the crackling air and condensing it to crude-glob,later to be refined into useable Globs. Reality nearby is manic andbipolar as winds of condensing negativity drain such emotion from nearby zonesin elaborate three dimensional spirals of corruptive mood-weather. 

Lighting Spears

Spark-spitting lances. Old dErO tech. Good for herdinghuman cattle and jabbing animals. 

Moulderspheres

A kind of don’t-see-me exception-field. Looks like a hugecompacted ball of dirty veils or old rags, all slowly rotting and revealingonly more within. dErO forced to move between caves oft use moulderspheres, butare as likely to put them aside to chase conspirators as they are to flee fromthem if frightened. 

Revelation Engines

Truth-devouring hyper-computers, (now much altered bydErO tech). Engines made to unearth secrets and discover lies. Their use isaddictive and corruptive. Displacement in the Logosphere forces the user tocreate secret plans and hidden structures of power. Meaning more secrets resultafter use than existed before. Using a Revelation Engine to analyse aRevelation Engine results in FEEDBACK LOOP. 

Suspicion Wands

Transmit suspicion through solid rock to affectunsuspecting minds. Suspicion machines sometimes backfire and infect the userwith unlikely suspicions. It is impossible to know that this has happened. Itis impossible to know that this has not happened. 

Thought Exploders

Deliver a blast which substantially increases operativeintelligence, at the expense of increasing paranoia and conspiratorialbehaviour to the same degree. Often results in the unwitting germination of‘hidden selves’ which plot and scheme against the ‘main self’ and each other. dErOuse these to gain the intelligence repair and maintain their Air-Looms andother technology, and whenever they run into a challenging problem.  

 

dErO vulnerabilities Resistants  

A rare proportion of moral souls are 'Resistants' with aninnate or developed, resistance to dErO tech. Unfortunately, this ‘resistance’often goes along with substantial mental damage, making ‘resistants’ seeminglychaotic, dangerous and unreliable. 

Resistants can sense the Violations and realityalterations and will try to protect and warn others. dErO-controlled systemswill try to isolate and destroy them. They are often imprisoned as lunatics orlive as exiles in hidden corners of the world. 

In some cases the overuse of dErO tech and Air-Loom wavesprovokes a natural ‘resistant’ development in the target psyche, making themnot only less vulnerable to dErO tech and methods, but more and more resistantwith each attempt to suborn them. 

(dErO are fascinated by, but terrified of, ‘Resistants’.) 

Some unusual beings are either immune to dErO effects, orhave methods of subverting or altering them. dErO will often avoid and evadesuch creatures; 

·       Golem or non-sentient minds.

·       Some Paladins.

·       Chaos Goblins, and some general Goblins.

·       Aelf-Adal.

·       High-ranking angelic forms. 

 

Cowardice 

While superficially, manically, confident dErO are utterpersonal and physical cowards. 

If they get hurt they will shit themselves, (literally),and run, or float, away, getting to an Air Loom as quickly as possible and thenwiping any memory of the encounter from the minds of those present. 

While they will resent anyone capable of hurting them,they will also fear such individuals. 

 

Betrayal and Incompetence 

dErO betray each other, (if there is really more thanone), constantly and their unstable patchwork technology fails unpredictably.Neither can all of the interlayered realities, or the whole of the Veins, befully covered by Air-Looms all of the time. Coverage fluctuates, and oftendrops out at the worst possible time for a particular dErO. 

If dErO 'coverage' goes down (their local Air Looms havebroken or shut down), tell the truth to all the players and PCs - at leastabout what they can see, what they can think about, and any evidence that mightlead them to the dErO. Even admit you were lying before - "I was probablyunder Dero control" 

If dErO 'coverage' is returned (the Air Loom goes backon, or another is tasked), begin lying again, and acknowledge no difference inwhat you said before and are saying now (except to any Resistant PC’s).

 

Staffing Issues 

dErO are singular. They don’t like each other. Their onlyservants are mortal souls who have been specifically Congruity Knotted,Violated and re-written to be so. The dErO cannot make anything, they can onlymake things worse. Anyone they have ‘worked over’ for a long period of time,will have adopted many dErO characteristics, especially a tendency topower-hunger, conspiracy and betrayal. 

So, in a sense, the dErO have no ‘loyal’ andcompetent servants Its one or the other, and usually not much of either. 

The only other beings who will willingly spendtime around the dErO, are the Chaos Goblins, who are utterly mental and don’tcare about anything.

 

 

dErO Encounters 

They do not like to leave the Caves. It’s more likelythey will send out dErO-ified servants and Chaos Goblins to do things,especially to investigate the numerous, complex, multileveled, and perhaps.. singular,(is it all just one great scheme?) conspiracies against them. 

But they do need to leave sometimes. 

 

Travel Methods 

Some travel in closed howdahs or huge sedan chairscarried by chaos goblins. The goblins are not really 'carrying' the chair,which is actually a Mouldersphere with sticks sticking out. Instead the dErOantigrav carries the weight and the Chaos Goblins hands are glued or nailed, tothe arms of the ‘chair’ . (There might be a dead goblin or two being carriedalong). The orb can move by itself, the sticks are attached to the orb, and thegoblins attached to the sticks, as camouflage. 

Others go on their own, on foot, if poor. All that reallymatters is that they have 'coverage' from an Air-Loom - if they do, they willnot even be perceived, but might fall prey to mindless foes. If they need aidthey may use their mental technology or Violations to compel others to assistthem. 

 

Coverage 

if a dErO can afford it or is powerful enough, (and theyusually won't travel without it), they will be tracked in their movements by anair-loom operated by another dErO (if there is another dErO). 

This can make the experiential reality of all sentientthings in the right area broadly whatever the operator wants them to be. So -usually locals won't even perceive the dErO, at all, they are invisible in away more powerful than the spell Invisibility can provide, sentientminds will work themselves to excuse explain or ignore away any evidence of thedErO’s presence. 

Or the dErO’s procession can appear as nearly anythingelse; a high status Knotsmen, an Aelf-Adal procession (which none would dare tofuck with), some unknown hyper-predator moving through the volume, or simply adeep sense of formless terror. 

Unfortunately (or fortunately), - dErO are nasty, lazy,don't like each other , betray each other and fuck things up. (Assuming there aremultiple dErO). The machine may go wrong, or service cut out, or a deliberatemistake! 

Suddenly the nature of reality shifts again. What youbelieved ten seconds ago, that there was a 'cave dragon' or something moving,or that you saw a Terror-Lord palanquin, or that someone told you or youlearned, why did you think that? you can't imagine why... 

Theres a bunch of chaos goblins hopping and a hugemouldering half-sphere. Are those rags? Or rips and tears in something else? 

 

 

Design Commentary

 

Needs work. Especially on how to actually 'run anencounter' or incorporate them into a campaign. Comment below if you wish. 

 

Modernist Monster 

A pleasing concept but a difficult monster to run. Ineeded to give dErO something actually interesting to make them unique in aworld filled with pale, sick, cave-dwelling weirdos. And I wanted to avoid the'Pathfinder Dero' who have a sick look but are basically just crazy Gnomes. 

The nascent rules on reality and description via the Dmwere inspired partly by 'There is no Antimemetics Division' and certainly by; 

https://wardagainstevil.com/2025/03/07/treat-illusions-as-you-would-any-other-lie-no-rolls/ 

Which I found through Bens Glatisnat newsletter [https://questingbeast.substack.com/

 

It’s easy to imagine these methods, and especially mymanic intensification and complexification of them here, going horribly wrong.Deliberately describing different 'layers' of the imagined reality to differentplayers/PCs, and holding to it with a straight face, could be very fun andinteresting; if the players are into it. So, if you are a good DM withfamiliar players who are down to roll with something very strange. 

In effect you are inviting the Players to collaboratewith each other and with you in their own bemusement and derangement. 

 

Enough Crazy Characters 

In this way, it might be better to wait to introduce dErOin-person, until there are enough 'crazy' possibly-resistant PCs for theplaythrough of the encounter to be interesting and fun. (Most Veins PCs willand up some kind of crazy over a long enough time). 

 

Weaknesses 

Because the dErO mind-alteration power is sooverwhelming, I tried to fill the dErO themselves with as many weaknesses as Ipossibly could. In no particular order they are; 

> Fucking crazy

> Utter cowards

> Alone (possibly)

> Poorly served

> Have deeply unreliable technology 

If a party, (or most of them), can realise for longenough that the dErO are 'real', it shouldn't be too hard to 'defeat' them. 

 

Campaign Play 

How this works out in a campaign, I do not know. Perhapsthe party defeats one particular dErO, escapes the Goon Cave, but then otherAir-Looms controlled by other dErO , are tasked to the area, and most or manyof the PCs simply 'forget' that anything ever happened. 

it might be impossible to either use the dErOsystematically and seriously in a campaign without them becoming the sole andonly focus of it. 

In that case they become a kind of scary entertainmentinterlude monster. Well, there are worse things to be. 

 

The X-Card 

The 'real' Dero as imagined by Richard Shaver, are veryextremely rapey, pornographic and monstrous, with a ninsidious interest invulnerable human bodies common to the visions of schizophrenics. 

I toned them down a lot, but definitely not enough formost players. 

Probably 99% of DMs will never use the 'Violations'. Ifthat aspect even survives till the book it will probably have a red boundaryaround it or something telling people to 'think before you act'.

 

 Starting An Encounter 

Something else I didn't get into. Ideally I suppose the'presence' of the dErO would be suggested more and more as either the PCsintersected with their schemes or the dErO themselves began to take aninterest. (Too many 'resistant' personalities acting together?). 

When a full mixed reality breakdown occurs and half theparty are seeing one thing and arguing with the other half who are seeingeither nothing, or something else, while dErO 'coverage' is fluctuating,hopefully this is something the players at least saw coming. 

 

Servants 

I also didn't really get into what dErO servants arelike. Or how on earth they work with Chaos Goblins (another utterlyDM-maddening semi-metatextual monster), god what a mess that could be. 

 

Apologia 

Well, if you want normal simple-to-run monsters that donormal things then probably you are reading else where. Someone has to do theodd stuff and that someone is me.