I am getting to play a Derro in an Underdark game. I do believe we are starting in the city of Telderist. What I need are some conspiracy theories that by little paranoid Derro believes.
Thank you in adavnce
DAA
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While not Darklands themed, there are some fun conspiracy theories here.
For Derro, specifically, mad little darklands dwellers?
1) Light is a poisonous magical radiation created by sorcery or destructive entropic forces of uncreation like fire or lightning or that hideous bloated unnatural thing they call 'the sun' which blinds your vision to the things you can only see in the dark as it was designed to do, by those same dark forces that want to keep you blinded to their presence.
2) Derro capture and torture people and drive them mad, attempting to unleash the derro trapped within them, because every humanoid creature is a deformed mutant derro soul, stolen away and forced to be born as an 'elf' or 'human' or whatever, denied it's rightful heritage. By clawing at the surface of both flesh and sanity, derro 'torturers' see themselves as rescuers and midwives, attempting to save these poor derro who were born into the wrong race's bodies and cultures. All souls are created as derro souls, and it's only through the machinations of gods like Calistria, Torag, Aroden (formerly), etc. that some souls are siphoned off and diverted to form elves, dwarves, humans, etc. in an act of ultimate abomination.
3) Cytellish is natural and harmless and a primary means to identify which creatures have been tainted by unnatural otherworldly forces. If the creature reacts adversely to cytellish, almost as if it was a poison (ha ha, crazy, right?), that just means that the creature is unnaturally tainted, and must be 'cured' of that taint, or, regrettably, put down for the good of the world.
Check out Occult Mysteries and Inner Sea Intrigue. Both have pretty good sections on rumored or real Galorian conspiracies. Alternatively there are some pretty darn good ones people really believe and post to the internet. Most google searches involving the word conspiracy will come up with something funny
Here are a few of my favorite I've encountered while gaming. Note you might have to play with them a bit to make them fit your Derro
1) Dragons are actually in charge of everything. Bored with their extremely long lives, vast riches, and near limitless power they decided to turn life into a game with the multiverse as their board. Everyone is merely a pawn for them to move in the Great Game
2) The gods are a lie. Divine casters actually manifest their own power, simply in a different manner than arcanists. Unlike wizards however, clerics have decided to brain wash the masses into believing their fairy tails that happen to align righteousness with following the clerics. Religious divisions are actually just different sides trying to justify murdering the other's followers
3) Paladins are all secretly evil. All beings are imperfect. Hence any being claiming to ALWAYs follow such a high standard must be lying
4) Dreamscape Matrix
Here is one:
Dwarves and their gods are all secretly evil. They pretend to put on airs to impress the surface folk, but they have always been just as twisted as anything else that came from the underdark.
Orcs are just a poor minority that has been driven into harsh conditions by the dwarves. When the dwarves went on their mad 'quest for the sky', they drove the orcs out of their ancestral homelands. The brave and noble elite of their kind stayed behind to keep the short hord at bay, allowing the elderly and young to escape. Driven to the surface, they were faced with a strange, alien land where they were not welcome and had no goods to trade with. The dwarves got by using their illgotten hordes of gold, but the orcs were driven to the wastelands as refugees. It was only later that they began to band together, and even stole some of the dwaven sky citadels as retaliation for the ancient scars that last to this day.
The fun part is that this has various shades of truth- it is just a different historical interpretation from the perspective of a race that has no love of the surface's 'civilized' folk.
I added the 'dwarven gods are secretly evil' bit because... have you seen torag's paladin code? It pretty explicitly gives an answer to the 'goblin baby' problem...
Admittedly, this is not as snappy as some of the other things suggested. But it could be an interesting role play conversation with a dwarf player.
I remember a 1st Edidtion Underdark book talking about Mind Flayers, as a society are plotting to extinguish the Sun.
D and D 3.5 Lords of Madness had a full rundown on that and other aberration plots. Definitely one of my favorite 3.5 books
Brilliant! Keep them coming