Drow: How Would *You* Write Them?

[Weirdlet]

Hey, all- I have a question and I'd like to see what others in the Playground have to say. Over the time I've frequented the boards, I've seen many threads and posts mentioning dissatisfaction with the way drow are written/portrayed/played. I've certainly had my share of 'what the heck?' moments when reading anything about them- for the most part I like to turn my brain off and enjoy the pretty battles, but once in a while I like to think of how it would work if *I* ran the drow.

My question, to those who aren't enamored of the institutionalized psychosis that is drow life under Lolth- if you were to write the drow into your world, and do them differently than their usual portrayal, whether subtly or dramatically, how would you do it?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I personally think if I were going to make a campaign setting including the drow, here's what I'd do.

Shortly after the split between the drow and eladrin and elves, Lolth descended further and further into insanity. She molded drow society into the paradigm that D&D already uses, but eventually the drow came to their senses and realized just how insane Lolth really was and engaged in a race-wide rebellion. The drow came to their eladrin and elf kin begging forgiveness, which they were loth to give. They attacked the drow until Corellon intervened and demanded they stop. He tried to wash away the taint of Lolth's power, but couldn't, and surprisingly, the drow did not mind. They knew the stain was a reminder of just what they had almost become and the drow of today are now zealous crusaders for good, working to make up for the sins of their past, and proving to their eladrin and elf kin that they have truly changed. Lolth now considers the drow her greatest enemy, tempting normal elves and eladrin into hatred and anger against the drow.

How does that look?

[Froogleyboy]

In my campaign world the drow have another god just as powerful as lolth. He is Lolth's half-brother and the drow who follow him are gypsies who travel the surface world surching for a home. They are mistrusted by other races and they have sufferd many hardship and much racisim

[Nefreet]

A few years ago IRL, my players began what came to be a race war betwen the drow (or "Deep-elves" as I call them) and the dwarves. This culminated in the death of the Drow and Dwarven gods, as well as nearly causing both races to go extinct. When earth elementals tunneled out the main drow city they were left homeless.

Shortly after, in the next campaign I ran, I didn't allow either race to be played, allowing for them to "recover" their populations. In that campaign the players failed to prevent another Immortal and his newly formed sect from blocking out the sun, causing what came to be 700 years of near-global darkness.

I'm running the game again starting in a couple weeks, another 700 years in the future. By now the drow have lived on the surface for nearly a millennia, since there was no sunlight for quite some time to hurt their eyes, and they have lost their innate magical abilities, since the underdark emanations are absent and they have had no god to watch over them. Their culture drastically changed. Needing to revamp their numbers, females were forced to take to the sidelines and reproduce. They still generally lead the houses, but males are now more capable and less... intimidated?... by females.

There are also a large number of half-drow throughout the world, something no campaign I've played in before ever had. When there's only a handful of your race left, and a bunch of horny male drow and few females, you're going to find some mixing going on.

Also, physically, I made my Deep-elves pale in skin and have dark hair, with random tinges of purple or blue. Surface elves of pure blood have silver hair, while surface elves with any human or other race in their ancestry have human shades of hair.

But then again, that's just what I made them out to be. There is now a new drow god, and he's male. The female-controlled days are probably not going to come back. My players have enjoyed the change in culture.

[Meek]

I would remove all the anti-hero exceptions within the race and just leave them as-is. They're campy baby-eating evil magnificent bastards except for like five dudes.

Though as more of a final solution (first solution in my case) I just had them and elves be nigh-extinct within my setting.

[Dixieboy]

I personally think if I were going to make a campaign setting including the drow, here's what I'd do.

Shortly after the split between the drow and eladrin and elves, Lolth descended further and further into insanity. She molded drow society into the paradigm that D&D already uses, but eventually the drow came to their senses and realized just how insane Lolth really was and engaged in a race-wide rebellion. The drow came to their eladrin and elf kin begging forgiveness, which they were loth to give. They attacked the drow until Corellon intervened and demanded they stop. He tried to wash away the taint of Lolth's power, but couldn't, and surprisingly, the drow did not mind. They knew the stain was a reminder of just what they had almost become and the drow of today are now zealous crusaders for good, working to make up for the sins of their past, and proving to their eladrin and elf kin that they have truly changed. Lolth now considers the drow her greatest enemy, tempting normal elves and eladrin into hatred and anger against the drow.

How does that look?
I didn't see your avatar and username before i read this and yet i knew it was you, curious, eh?

Seriously in your campaigns is there any evils except demons and evil gods?
Fighting evil would be impossible, you'd just be fighting people who are in fact, less good than you are.

Smite evil would work on people who do not give 60% of their income to charity :smallamused:

Translated from Snarkish with a douche accent: Kinda mary-sue ish.

[Froogleyboy]

I would remove all the anti-hero exceptions within the race and just leave them as-is. They're campy baby-eating evil magnificent bastards except for like five dudes.

Though as more of a final solution (first solution in my case) I just had them and elves be nigh-extinct within my setting.

actually if u left them "as is" a good portion would be good guys because "as is" there is a drow goddess named "ellisteree" she wants drow to return to the surface and she has thousands of worshipers

[Alteran]

Isn't she only in the Forgotten Realms?

[Dixieboy]

actually if u left them "as is" a good portion would be good guys because "as is" there is a drow goddess named "ellisteree" she wants drow to return to the surface and she has thousands of worshipersThat is FR.

Also in FR
She's dead
as of year 1379 DR

[Weirdlet]

If we could keep things polite when talking about our preferred versions of drow, that would be a help.

As for me- sometimes I look at the drow as written and just despair- they could be such cool evil, dangerous guys if I could take them seriously! As it is- they're not fighting for anything but the will of a deranged goddess who's got them coming and going, living a life so joyless and full of pain and paranoia that I'm sometimes surprised creative suicide isn't a national pastime. The drow ideal seems to be trying to prove to their goddess who's "more crueler!" and Lolth's idea of a good time seems to be making her toys try to figure out her tune and dance to it.

Not that that doesn't make for some bad guys ready to take it out on the rest of the world, but it's not something I'd put in my own setting. It seems overblown and to be honest, silly.

In my own world, I've got some nebulous images of drow, but for the most part they're regarded as mysterious spirits, much like elves. In my world, if you meet a PHB-standard elf, then you're encountering a changeling who was tossed out of Underhill without name, power, immortality or memory- or a descendant of same. Underhill itself is the realm of tricksy, powerful spirits who seem to regard humanity as something to amuse them when they want to go out a-hunting on rare, century-marked nights. The dark elves are almost equally feared and storied as the powerful and rarely seen Underhill elves, but they live in the desert and retreat to underground cities during the day before riding out at night. I'm still trying to figure out their actual society, but for the most part they're the 'mystery' element.

But that's only in my world- built from the ground up, how does one make the dark elves viable as a threat and an interesting race, while still keeping some of the same general ideas?

[Falconer]

Well, for one thing I'd change is the exact nature of the underdark. For one thing, in my book, the underdark shouldn't just be some kind of "underland", where its just like the surface, just...underground. No.

The underdark is a place where, if you want to go there, you are either absolutely fearless or bat**** insane, and probably both. 'cause this place is claustrophobia central. Winding, cramped, endless tunnels that go every direction. You could be walking (or crawling) on fairly even floor one minute, the next your screaming as you plummet into a chasm. Food? A rarity. Water? You're lucky if its drinkable. Light? Nonexistant. Air? Yes, but...well, lets just say that in some tunnels, you should hold your breath.

And don't even get me started on the monsters. For one thing, I've got an idea for these swarms of flesh-eating beetles...


So now, imagine a race that has managed to survive all that. Thats how I imagine the drow, as they should be. Tribal, brutal, and utterly savage in every sense of the term.

[Josh the Aspie]

I wouldn't. I'd leave them in FR where they belong, and wave goodbye to the Underdark, the Drow, and quest giving wizards and their huge floppy hats.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I didn't see your avatar and username before i read this and yet i knew it was you, curious, eh?

Seriously in your campaigns is there any evils except demons and evil gods?
Fighting evil would be impossible, you'd just be fighting people who are in fact, less good than you are.

Smite evil would work on people who do not give 60% of their income to charity :smallamused:

Translated from Snarkish with a douche accent: Kinda mary-sue ish.

Oh good heavens, of course there'd be evil people. What about the hold-out drow cults who came back to worship Lolth, feeling abandoned after the elves didn't accept their apology the first time?

And then there'd be the "evil" merchant cartel who doesn't do anything truly evil like rape or kill, but they use underhanded methods to get rid of competitors and drive people into debt, but are a vital and necessary part of the economy so there's nothing that can be done to fix some of the problems they cause.

And the twisted serial killer who stalks his victims for days sending them notes, some threatening, some idolizing the victime, until they're found dead in their bed with some vital organ cut out of them and a freakish symbol painted on the wall in their blood?

Just because I like paladins doesn't mean I can't think of evil stuff too. :smalltongue:

[Swordguy]

I would remove all the anti-hero exceptions within the race and just leave them as-is. They're campy baby-eating evil magnificent bastards except for like five dudes.

Pretty much this. If you want to play a "good drow, heroically rebelling against the evil legacy of his ancestors", do it at someone else's table*.


*There are exceptions - based on how well I know the PLAYER can RP. But the "default" is "no".

[Diagoras]

A sub-race of elves, systematically enslaved by their "superior" relatives. Of course, the elves are too clever by half to openly enslave their brethren. Instead, they establish a government that grants them special social privileges through unfairly weighted elections. This effectively reduces the Drow to the status of second-class citizens, despite being the ethnic majority.

Of course, after the magical-industrial revolution, the newly educated Drow masses begun to show discontent with the current status quo. After all, they own the means of production...

What, I run Magipunk games much? Never!

[Myou]

In my setting there's a rare recessive gene that makes elves be born with black skin and white hair, colloquially known as 'drow'.

That's about all I could (or cared to) slavage from the train-wreck that is the drow race.

[Dixieboy]

Well, for one thing I'd change is the exact nature of the underdark. For one thing, in my book, the underdark shouldn't just be some kind of "underland", where its just like the surface, just...underground. No.

The underdark is a place where, if you want to go there, you are either absolutely fearless or bat**** insane, and probably both. 'cause this place is claustrophobia central. Winding, cramped, endless tunnels that go every direction. You could be walking (or crawling) on fairly even floor one minute, the next your screaming as you plummet into a chasm. Food? A rarity. Water? You're lucky if its drinkable. Light? Nonexistant. Air? Yes, but...well, lets just say that in some tunnels, you should hold your breath.

And don't even get me started on the monsters. For one thing, I've got an idea for these swarms of flesh-eating beetles...


So now, imagine a race that has managed to survive all that. Thats how I imagine the drow, as they should be. Tribal, brutal, and utterly savage in every sense of the term.
Isn't that basically how it is now?

[Weirdlet]

Yes, but it's got pseudo-Nietszchean trappings of formality and order, while being prone to self-destruction rather than functional savagery.

[BloodyAngel]

Personally, I've always liked the warhammer take on Dark Elves. Before 7th edition. They made them too "I am evil for the sake of being evil, Rawr!". They're physically almost identical to the high elves, and are just the result of an elven civil war a long time ago, spurred on by demon-worshiping cults and the ambitions of the son of a great elven hero, who thought he should be king.

They got exiled from their home to a bitter, frozen wasteland (AKA: Canada) and are angry, bitter, hateful creatures who use dark magic to kill their fair kin and enslave the lesser races as work-horses. Their society is brutally militaristic, like spartans with pointy ears. When dark elves show up in my games, my players run... not snap Drizz't or Lloth jokes.

[Weirdlet]

Their society is brutally militaristic, like spartans with pointy ears. When dark elves show up in my games, my players run... not snap Drizz't or Lloth jokes.

That's something that occurred to me a little bit ago, that might be an interesting take on the drow- make them into Spartans. Militaristic indoctrination, survival of the fittest, children belong to the state until formation into ranks- if they're going to be all 'rawr, blood for the spider-goddess!' why not have them be actually *good* at it? And it'd definitely be a contrast to the elfin way of 'go with what you feel'

[Swordguy]

That's something that occurred to me a little bit ago, that might be an interesting take on the drow- make them into Spartans. Militaristic indoctrination, survival of the fittest, children belong to the state until formation into ranks- if they're going to be all 'rawr, blood for the spider-goddess!' why not have them be actually *good* at it? And it'd definitely be a contrast to the elfin way of 'go with what you feel'

For the average Drow male, that's not far off of what it is anyway. Replace "state" with "family" and it works just fine, as written.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Oh good heavens, of course there'd be evil people. What about the hold-out drow cults who came back to worship Lolth, feeling abandoned after the elves didn't accept their apology the first time?

And then there'd be the "evil" merchant cartel who doesn't do anything truly evil like rape or kill, but they use underhanded methods to get rid of competitors and drive people into debt, but are a vital and necessary part of the economy so there's nothing that can be done to fix some of the problems they cause.

And the twisted serial killer who stalks his victims for days sending them notes, some threatening, some idolizing the victime, until they're found dead in their bed with some vital organ cut out of them and a freakish symbol painted on the wall in their blood?

Just because I like paladins doesn't mean I can't think of evil stuff too. :smalltongue:

Haha, is it weird that I had the same reaction as Dixieboy? :smalltongue: My first thought was 'Paladin fanboy' but, admittedly, theres no spite in it since you are an admitted paladin fanboy.:smallwink:

Er...and those really don't sound so evil. Except for the last one. >.> Maybe you DO need a dose of pure un-justifiable evil from a none alignment born source (aka demons/devils/etc.). :smalltongue: Anyway, I don't really see what's wrong with drow except why they have to live underground in the Underdark. They'd fit just as well on the surface as an evil kingdom/empire but then I guess the Underdark wouldn't be as strongly 'every thing down here is an evil version of something up top! If not evil then morally ambiguous! Like that...mushroom! It's evil and poisonous unlike surface mushrooms! A hook horror is just the evil version of a blue jay!' :smalltongue:

Then again my Underdarks are usually only populated by aberrations and their experiments, making a foray too far below ground level like a trip into a small part of the Far Realm.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Recently, in my campaign, Lolth died (most adventurers have never heard of her). The Underdark was effectively destroyed (most adventurers have never heard of the underdark proper - they don't venture down low enough). They emerged on the mini-continent island next to the holdings of the main empire, and took over. The death of their goddess (and largely their whole society), their forced exodus, and the influences that caused all this in the first place combine to make Drow Island a rapidly mutating social experiment. The only thing you know about a Drow you find is that you can't make assumptions.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Haha, is it weird that I had the same reaction as Dixieboy? :smalltongue: My first thought was 'Paladin fanboy' but, admittedly, theres no spite in it since you are an admitted paladin fanboy.:smallwink:
Moral ambiguity makes my head hurt. :smallfrown:

Er...and those really don't sound so evil. Except for the last one. >.> Maybe you DO need a dose of pure un-justifiable evil from a none alignment born source (aka demons/devils/etc.). :smalltongue:
And the serial killer isn't a demon worshipper, or a priest of an evil god, or posessed by a ghost. He's just an awful human being.

[Swordguy]

And the serial killer isn't a demon worshipper, or a priest of an evil god, or posessed by a ghost. He's just an awful human being.

I so love hearing that. I love it when you can't pass the buck regarding "why" somebody's so horrible. Some people just are.

Gratz.

[The Mentalist]

I've always gone with it just being conditional, they are a fairly chaotic people in my games, it's not so much "HAIL TO THE SPIDER WENCH!" as "Get ahead, if that means over a mountain of corpses go ahead." They are the ultimate opportunists making and abandoning pacts when it suits them just from how they are raised. This in my history is what ended up driving them underground, they are safer there.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I so love hearing that. I love it when you can't pass the buck regarding "why" somebody's so horrible. Some people just are.

Gratz.

It's a concept that has taken me years to try and realize. And I still have trouble applying it to Lolth.

[Pronounceable]

Whatever anyone says, the original CE but still working drow society (by Salvatore) is awesome. Just tone down stupid bloodlust, chronic backstabbing, and mindless sadism and drow are fine. Maybe apply a tiny bit of care and love for friends and family (emphasis: tiny) to highlight their nastiness against the rest of the world.

Obviously remove the rebels with hearts of gold. Drow are inherently nasty, cruel, greedy and powerhungry. But not gothic cartoon villains rated M.

[d12]

I've only ever gotten around to a vague framework of a drow rewrite, so you'll have to excuse any gaping holes in it as it currently stands. Also, I now see this post is very long. Sorry about that too. :smallredface:

First, no Lolth. I just have a conceptual problem with racial deities in general. Much of the time it just seems to spawn an entire race of copycats (Dwarf: "lol Moradin loves smithing, therefore I'm one"; Elf: "lol Klingon Lothario loves archery and singing and molesting small forest creatures, therefore I do too").

Now that that's out of the way, their origin would more or less involve some of the ancient elf population following some kind of madman posing as a prophet (or who genuinely believes himself to be one, what with being mad and all). I haven't worked out the exact dogma of this madman, but eventually the soon-to-be drow would involve themselves in some kind of mass ritual which was seen as some massive act of hubris by the gods, who then decided to make an example of them by cursing them with their current physical appearance as a sign to all that they're considered a "fallen" people. They then either were exiled or fled underground (haven't decided which). The "fled" branch could possibly involve doing so as an act of penance (depriving themselves of much of what elves tend to value (ie, nature-y stuff)). When it became clear forgiveness was not forthcoming, they got all bitter (if going with the exiled branch, go directly to bitter).

Yes, drow would still consider themselves just plain better than everybody else (for various reasons..maybe believing their adaptation to subterranean life proves they're more evolutionarily advanced, maybe some believe their ancestors glimpsed some forbidden truth of the universe during their ritual and they tried to pass it down through metaphorical stories, etc). Any non-hostile relationships with other races would mostly be business-like dealings (ie, those they're dealing with are just considered useful for self-gain) and usually involving illegal trade and other nefarious dealings. Some could possibly involve themselves in mercenary groups (getting paid to kill non-drow? does life get better?), arms trade, slave trade, privateering/piracy (I had an idea a couple years ago for a drow pirate captain :smalltongue:), drug trade, assassinations, etc.

As far as society goes, I would retain the matriarchy but ditch the part where it gets insane. I don't really see why there must be a definite reason for a matriarchy to emerge--that's just the way it worked out. Rule would generally be exercised by powerful extended families that have established control in whatever cities they happen to rule in over the centuries. Less powerful families may seek alliances with a ruling family through marriage or other methods. Lesser families may also possibly seek to ally with each other to topple a ruling family. Rule of law probably isn't much of a priority in most cities and much of the existing law would be at the whims of the ruling family. More or less go from there I guess. I have no idea how closely that meshes with drow society as officially drawn up.

Appearancewise, I would give them more variation in skin tone. Maybe ranging from black to darkish gray to some kind of deep bluish-purple. Hair would still generally be white or silvery. Not sure how drow eye colors are generally described, but I would go with a range involving standard-looking eyes with red, black, or purple irises to eyes that are solid white, solid black, solid red, solid purple, etc.

As far as good-drow goes, yeah, I don't see why not. Maybe it's just because I haven't been exposed to Drizzt clones, but I don't have a problem with not all of them being evil. Especially among those who deal with members of other races. On occasion, one may have the thought occur to them that 'hey, these guys don't seem to be a bunch of sub-drow (or whatever fantasy version of "sub-human" you can think of--I know I can't think of one) monkeys.' Over time such an individual just may lose their taste for their line of work and either seek a more "domestic affairs" job or try to leave the society entirely, even if it would mean taking on a whole new set of hardships (isolation, prejudices, distrust) because they just can't stand their current life anymore. Just how frequently that happens is another question.

[AslanCross]

I'd probably keep them mostly as-is, except make them Lawful Evil instead of Chaotic Evil. (Btw, in core they're listed as usually NE; it's really only the FR flavor that somehow seeps into the whole batch). A society that can thrive in the dangerous, unpredictable and downright deadly environment such as the Underdark needs to, you know, not tear itself apart on the whims of its capricious rulers.

I did, however, like the Vhaeraunian drow from FR. They dwelt on the surface as outcasts of Lolth drow society, and made a living by being bandits and mercenaries. I'd think that with their boogeyman-like reputation of being evil and OMGLEET in their martial and arcane traditions, such surface-dwellers would typically hire themselves out. This would make them generally neutral. In fact, it might even be more interesting if they have a sense of honor about them while still hiring out their services. That's likely how I'd run them if it were up to me.

Eberron's drow are pretty cool too.
Apart from the common elf origins they share with all other elves in the world (they started out as savages whom the giants enslaved to build their empire), drow have the following characteristics in Eberron:
-Scorpions, not spiders.
-Boomerangs and chains, not hand crossbows and rapiers. IIRC they tend to favor throwing weapons.
-Deep jungles and cyclopean ruins of the giants' empire, not giant undergrown caverns.
They aren't tied to any alignment in particular, although they tend to be evil, bitter, and vengeful. If you do it right, you could still make friends with them, however, and not because they're secretly planning to sacrifice you to the Mockery. I think if you actually earn their respect and respect them, they won't kill and eat you.
The novels have avoided drow PCs so far, so I don't recall any character being sold as a drow anti-hero or mary sue. Their reputation as utterly dangerous masters of stealth is still retained--people just don't want to mess with them in general.

In fact, the Explorer's Handbook has one sidebar that details dealing with drow. For the most part, it says this: Run away, and bring lots of antitoxin. See if you can lead them to a giant encampment; hopefully their mutual hatred will occupy them both instead of leading the giants AND the drow to attack and likely kill you.

[Shpadoinkle]

Well first I'd drop the "they all live underground, worship some bat**** insane spider freak, and have jet-black skn and white hair* thing.

I'd start by making them essentialy atheistic- they got burned too bad by Corellon to be able to put thier trust in any of the gods. While they can still technically be clerics and paladins, almost all of them would be clerics of an ideal, not a deity (note this IS allowed in the core rules). As far as the dark skin and white hair goes, I'd replace it with something else- maybe a birthmark resembling a scar on thier face.

There would be many, many wizards among them- they'd be driven by a desire for revenge or retribution against Corellon, and seek magical power as a means to exact it. ALTERNATELY, they might simply shun magic altogether, both divine and arcane, somehow creating then living in a large dead-magic zone. Either way, they'd have pretty much rejected the gods altogether. Corellon rejected them, and Loth lost her battle against him. There might be an evil deity or two who takes an interest in them, but the drow would be wary, distrustful, and reluctant to have anything to do with them, due to thier history with divine beings.

Extremely xenophobic and ruthless- thier history makes it clear that you cannot rely on anyone else, and others are not to be trusted. Slavery would probably be common, especially for outsides who happened to wander into ther territory, but outright murder of each other, while not unexpected, wouldn't be like an everyday occurance (as canon basically claims it somehow is) either.

If the magicless variant is used, they'd probably be larger and more savage looking than other elves, with long canines and more muscle mass. Magicless drow would probably also pour a lot of effort into scientific and technological research to make up for the disparity.

[Kroy]

Personally, I've always liked the warhammer take on Dark Elves. Before 7th edition. They made them too "I am evil for the sake of being evil, Rawr!". They're physically almost identical to the high elves, and are just the result of an elven civil war a long time ago, spurred on by demon-worshiping cults and the ambitions of the son of a great elven hero, who thought he should be king.

They got exiled from their home to a bitter, frozen wasteland (AKA: Canada) and are angry, bitter, hateful creatures who use dark magic to kill their fair kin and enslave the lesser races as work-horses. Their society is brutally militaristic, like spartans with pointy ears. When dark elves show up in my games, my players run... not snap Drizz't or Lloth jokes.

May I sig?

[Maerok]

I like drow, and if I were to mind-wipe everyone I'd probably leave them as is to some degree. Salvatore would have mysteriously disappeared somewhere in there. Any attempt to Mary Sue the drow or play any fanciful twist on what they were original created to be would be submitted to the killbots and purged in acid.

Of course, I believe that playing a Half-Dragon is deserving of corporal punishment and even fathoming a Half-Angel-Half-Fiend should put a person in the stockades. And I've got a set of thumbscrews for every time anime and DnD characters have some unholy union across the character sheet.

[Xallace]

So I figure there's got to be some reason they worship that crazy spider she-...expletive, right? So here's what I say:

The drow and the elves are taught two very different stories. We all know the elf side of the tale- how Lolth and Gruumsh conspired against Corellon, how Corellon took out Gruumsh's eye and banished Lolth and all her ilk underground. But the drow side of the tale is a little different.

In the drow's legends, Lolth was not their patron when they were on the surface. They were created by Corellon, just like all other elves. But when Corellon looked upon what he had created and saw the drow, he deemed them ugly; their white hair and black skin reviled him, and he was disgusted. So, he cast the drow underground so that he wouldn't have to view them anymore.


Shunned and ultimately forgotten, the drow roamed the underdark without guidance. Many of their number were picked off by Underdark predators.

It is said that, as the drow neared ultimate extinction, a goddess of the Underdark noticed them, and looked upon them with pity. This goddess, Lolth, was a patron of spiders and insects. She came to the broken race, and took them under her protection. She taught them the arts of stealth, taught them how to hunt for food and ultimately survive.

But Lolth knew she could not take care of these people on her own, and called in for a god she knew, a god of the slimes and oozes that roamed the Underdark. He saw in the drow the potential to survive, and agreed to help Lolth revitalize them. This god, Ghuanadaur, taught the drow of poison to help them hunt, and taught them of the many strange and varied creatures the dwelt underground.

Soon, more disjointed underdark gods joined to raise and protect the drow, a race that an increasing number of beings were beginning to see as their own children. Selvetarm, a god of the gems and metals that rest within the earth, taught the drow of metallurgy and the proper craft and use of weaponry. Kiaransalee, a protector of those laid to rest in the dirt, taught the dark elves not to fear death and, in time, became the Goddess of the Dead.

Soon also came Vhaeraun, who taught the drow the art of assassins, honing their hunting skills to the peak of perfection. Eilistraee arose from the drow themselves, a manifestation of the drow longing to return to the surface.



So what's up with drow in modern times? Well, the majority of the common dark elves still believe Lolth to be savior of their race, and that the priestesses are her voice in the world. The priestesses, on the other hand, have primarily become corrupt. Lolth originally selected females to act as her clerics because she could most easily sympathize with them; these days, the priestesses have become absolute authority over the drow communities through their own machinations. The priestesses have begun the slave trade, segregated male and female drow, and begun campaigns against the surface.

The other churches of the drow, once united together with Lolth, have fractured. While most of the churches are content to sit and let things happen "by the will of Lolth," as the priestesses say, the churches of Vhaeraun and Eilistraee have started campaigns to topple the priestesses and expose them as liars and heretics.

Public drow entertainment includes magically-created raves, festivals celebrating the joining of each god into their "family," and (more recently) public executions of the "heretics" that the Lolth priestesses find.

[BloodyAngel]

I'd be honored hun! No one's ever sigged me before!

[Behold_the_Void]

I remember a friend of mine genocided the drow in at least three of his campaign settings.

I tend to go with the exile route myself, and also tend not to screw around with the Underdark.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So I figure there's got to be some reason they worship that crazy spider she-...expletive, right? So here's what I say:

The drow and the elves are taught two very different stories. We all know the elf side of the tale- how Lolth and Gruumsh conspired against Corellon, how Corellon took out Gruumsh's eye and banished Lolth and all her ilk underground. But the drow side of the tale is a little different.

In the drow's legends, Lolth was not their patron when they were on the surface. They were created by Corellon, just like all other elves. But when Corellon looked upon what he had created and saw the drow, he deemed them ugly; their white hair and black skin reviled him, and he was disgusted. So, he cast the drow underground so that he wouldn't have to view them anymore.


Shunned and ultimately forgotten, the drow roamed the underdark without guidance. Many of their number were picked off by Underdark predators.

It is said that, as the drow neared ultimate extinction, a goddess of the Underdark noticed them, and looked upon them with pity. This goddess, Lolth, was a patron of spiders and insects. She came to the broken race, and took them under her protection. She taught them the arts of stealth, taught them how to hunt for food and ultimately survive.

But Lolth knew she could not take care of these people on her own, and called in for a god she knew, a god of the slimes and oozes that roamed the Underdark. He saw in the drow the potential to survive, and agreed to help Lolth revitalize them. This god, Ghuanadaur, taught the drow of poison to help them hunt, and taught them of the many strange and varied creatures the dwelt underground.

Soon, more disjointed underdark gods joined to raise and protect the drow, a race that an increasing number of beings were beginning to see as their own children. Selvetarm, a god of the gems and metals that rest within the earth, taught the drow of metallurgy and the proper craft and use of weaponry. Kiaransalee, a protector of those laid to rest in the dirt, taught the dark elves not to fear death and, in time, became the Goddess of the Dead.

Soon also came Vhaeraun, who taught the drow the art of assassins, honing their hunting skills to the peak of perfection. Eilistraee arose from the drow themselves, a manifestation of the drow longing to return to the surface.



So what's up with drow in modern times? Well, the majority of the common dark elves still believe Lolth to be savior of their race, and that the priestesses are her voice in the world. The priestesses, on the other hand, have primarily become corrupt. Lolth originally selected females to act as her clerics because she could most easily sympathize with them; these days, the priestesses have become absolute authority over the drow communities through their own machinations. The priestesses have begun the slave trade, segregated male and female drow, and begun campaigns against the surface.

The other churches of the drow, once united together with Lolth, have fractured. While most of the churches are content to sit and let things happen "by the will of Lolth," as the priestesses say, the churches of Vhaeraun and Eilistraee have started campaigns to topple the priestesses and expose them as liars and heretics.

Public drow entertainment includes magically-created raves, festivals celebrating the joining of each god into their "family," and (more recently) public executions of the "heretics" that the Lolth priestesses find.

Hmm...And yet Lolth is still evil, right?

I forgot that a big part of why evil gods have followers is the fact that they can have just as good a PR department as the good gods. I'm reminded of the story of Vecna they provide in Open Grave, where instead of a power-mad tyrant, he's portrayed as a Ghandi-like reformer.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I'd go back to 2e. They're evil killers, living in an enviroment the PCs are afraid to even enter, using gear and magic far beyond the PCs capabilities to strike from behind, when they're weak. Attempts to fight normally end in death or capture, attempts to run just make them chase you. Capture means slavery for burtal uncaring overloards or sacrifice to their dark gods. No BDSM, no good versions throwing off the yoke of their evil kin(Detect Good is unnecessary, they just don't exist), no weaknesses and no mercy.

Of course, my Underdark concept is 'Lots of predators, most of which get a surprise round. The very few non-predators still strike first for safety, and usually have defenses that make running easier than fighting. The Kobolds are Tucker, the Mindflayers are geniouses, the animals could eat Jurrasic Park, and all of them run away from the Drow'.

[Ganurath]

There would be four relevant factions:

CE West: Orcs, goblinoids, etc. They're constantly attacking everyone, themselves included. The only reason they aren't extinct is because they make rabbits look chaste.

CG East: The forests of the elves, who manipulate the human nations to fight off the West for them. Cliche hidden villages backed by a small army of assassins scouts.

LE desert nation: Along with the LN and LG nations, these three act as the primary buffers between the elves and the West. Devoted to Hextor, dontcha know.

The Drow: Elves that immigrated to the LE desert nation because, while none of the human nations as a whole trust elves, the desert nation has a habit for killing problematic nonhumans. Their dark skin is caused by living in the hot, shadeless desert. The loss of normally abundant food has somehow robbed them of most of their pigments, don't judge me, and other than these aesthetic differences and some differences in mechanical ability pertaining to culture they're like normal elves.

[Faulty]

That is FR.

Also in FR
She's dead
as of year 1379 DR

You must be confusing FR for some other horribly written, incredibly contrived campaign setting.

I have an idea for Drow in a campaign world that are unilaterally evil because they're a group of normal elves that made a dark pact with evil fey forces, and their very nature has been warped. Rather than Lolth, I'll have the head Drow have a vermin fetish.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Why does everyone seem to think the best thing for the drow is to make them COMPLETELY EVIL AND IRREDEEMABLE again? I like good members of evil races. I think they're cool.

[SirSigfried]

Personally I think that the Drow as written are a failure. The attrition rate between various House wars is much too high and would surpass their birth rate and would cause extinction... like 5,000 years ago.

Personally I would have them rewrite their cultural/religious doctrine and have them place Drowish life above all others, and the penalty within their society to harm or kill other Drow is to be turned into a mind slave (having a few mind flayers on the payroll help for this) and turn them into cattle-like breeding stock. The majority of House wars will be conducted by subjugated slave-warriors of various races (i.e. expendable cannon fodder) with standing orders to capture rival drow nobles. Those Drow that refuse to surrender are captured and turned into breeding stock. (only if obstinate, those that do surrender say after a siege are given quarter but only if they swear loyalty to their captor otherwise... that is what the Mindflayer Inquisition is for.(no one expects it.)

[Faulty]

Why does everyone seem to think the best thing for the drow is to make them COMPLETELY EVIL AND IRREDEEMABLE again? I like good members of evil races. I think they're cool.

For the purposes of the setting I have in mind, they'd be evil and I think it'd be a cool aesthetic that works with the rest of the setting. I do like good Drow though, or at least interesting ones. My avatar is of Eilistraee, for God's sake. :smallbiggrin: I don't really like Drzzit, honestly, he's way too goodie two-shoes, but Liriel Baenre (from Elaine Cunningham's Starshine & Shadows trilogy) and Viconia DeVir (from the Baldur's Gate games) are really interesting, awesome characters. If you romance Viconia, she becomes sort of like a tragic heroine, and it makes me think much of Drow evilness is really just social programming.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Why does everyone seem to think the best thing for the drow is to make them COMPLETELY EVIL AND IRREDEEMABLE again? I like good members of evil races. I think they're cool.Because sometimes you just need an implacable, unopposable foe that cannot be reasoned with, works on an alien methodology, and will do whatever it takes to destroy you. Star Trek used Borg, Jurrasic Park used Raptors, I prefer Drow. If the setting doesn't have at least one region to make players beg for Call of Cthulhu, you're doing something wrong.

Trust me, my other opponents are much more dark grey than black. Starving Kobolds, Necromancers whose only crime is nercomancy, deluded worshippers of Vecna in disguise, that sort of thing. Though for a good being to come out of an Evil society is much harder than an Evil one out of a good society. There better be an explanation for how they survived without stabbing people in the backs.

[Faulty]

Jurrasic Park used Raptors

They were just hungry, and weren't smart enough to question their actions.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

They were just hungry, and weren't smart enough to question their actions.Doesn't make what I said wrong. Replace 'destroy' with 'eat'.

[Pronounceable]

In the drow's legends, Lolth was not their patron when they were on the surface. They were created by Corellon, just like all other elves. But when Corellon looked upon what he had created and saw the drow, he deemed them ugly; their white hair and black skin reviled him, and he was disgusted. So, he cast the drow underground so that he wouldn't have to view them anymore.


Shunned and ultimately forgotten, the drow roamed the underdark without guidance. Many of their number were picked off by Underdark predators.

It is said that, as the drow neared ultimate extinction, a goddess of the Underdark noticed them, and looked upon them with pity. This goddess, Lolth, was a patron of spiders and insects. She came to the broken race, and took them under her protection. She taught them the arts of stealth, taught them how to hunt for food and ultimately survive.

I like this. Quite a lot. It's much more mythological than your standard fantasy race origins fare.


But Lolth knew she could not take care of these people on her own, and called in for a god she knew, a god of the slimes and oozes that roamed the Underdark. He saw in the drow the potential to survive, and agreed to help Lolth revitalize them. This god, Ghuanadaur, taught the drow of poison to help them hunt, and taught them of the many strange and varied creatures the dwelt underground.

Soon, more disjointed underdark gods joined to raise and protect the drow, a race that an increasing number of beings were beginning to see as their own children. Selvetarm, a god of the gems and metals that rest within the earth, taught the drow of metallurgy and the proper craft and use of weaponry. Kiaransalee, a protector of those laid to rest in the dirt, taught the dark elves not to fear death and, in time, became the Goddess of the Dead.

Soon also came Vhaeraun, who taught the drow the art of assassins, honing their hunting skills to the peak of perfection. Eilistraee arose from the drow themselves, a manifestation of the drow longing to return to the surface.
[quote]

Oh noes, drow have been woobied! (at least as far as underdark gods are concerned)

I kinda like this, especially picturing them going about their rampant evil as Lloth looks down on them going: "Aww, they're really just big softies at heart...", with Nanny Ogg about Greebo intoning (major bonus points if she's knitting a sweater with spider motifs while sitting on an armchair by the fire).

Great. Now, I can't stop picturing Lloth as a dark skinned, elven granny. A granny that knits spider adorned sweaters and gloves from spidersilk. Funny how mind works, eh?

[quote]So what's up with drow in modern times? Well, the majority of the common dark elves still believe Lolth to be savior of their race, and that the priestesses are her voice in the world. The priestesses, on the other hand, have primarily become corrupt. Lolth originally selected females to act as her clerics because she could most easily sympathize with them; these days, the priestesses have become absolute authority over the drow communities through their own machinations. The priestesses have begun the slave trade, segregated male and female drow, and begun campaigns against the surface.

The other churches of the drow, once united together with Lolth, have fractured. While most of the churches are content to sit and let things happen "by the will of Lolth," as the priestesses say, the churches of Vhaeraun and Eilistraee have started campaigns to topple the priestesses and expose them as liars and heretics.

Public drow entertainment includes magically-created raves, festivals celebrating the joining of each god into their "family," and (more recently) public executions of the "heretics" that the Lolth priestesses find.

Yoinked. All of it. If I ever have a drow society in any game, it'll be this. Complete with Granma Lloth and her family: old, senile father Ghaundaur, shifty uncle Vhaerun and angsty, rebelling teen sister Eilistraee...

[Khanderas]

Hey, all- I have a question and I'd like to see what others in the Playground have to say. Over the time I've frequented the boards, I've seen many threads and posts mentioning dissatisfaction with the way drow are written/portrayed/played. I've certainly had my share of 'what the heck?' moments when reading anything about them- for the most part I like to turn my brain off and enjoy the pretty battles, but once in a while I like to think of how it would work if *I* ran the drow.

My question, to those who aren't enamored of the institutionalized psychosis that is drow life under Lolth- if you were to write the drow into your world, and do them differently than their usual portrayal, whether subtly or dramatically, how would you do it?
I do not qualify, as I actually do like the way they are portrayed.

[Saph]

I'd go back to 2e. They're evil killers, living in an enviroment the PCs are afraid to even enter, using gear and magic far beyond the PCs capabilities to strike from behind, when they're weak. Attempts to fight normally end in death or capture, attempts to run just make them chase you. Capture means slavery for burtal uncaring overloards or sacrifice to their dark gods. No BDSM, no good versions throwing off the yoke of their evil kin(Detect Good is unnecessary, they just don't exist), no weaknesses and no mercy.

This.

A lot of people forget that the reason Drizz't was so popular was because in the earlier editions, Drow were freaking scary. They were basically PCs, But Better. They had magic, equipment, teamwork, high levels, and everything the PCs got . . . except more of it. Fighting a squad of Drow was terrifying, especially in the Underdark where they held the home field advantage.

That was the reason Drizz't was so popular. He was one of the super-deadly evil guys, except he was pretty much the only one on the surface that was Good. (And if you read the books, he still gets treated like he's radioactive by just about everyone.)

Then a few players started playing Good-aligned Drow PCs. Then more of them. Then more of them. And in about ten years, it got to the point where there were so damn many Good-aligned Drow that they probably outnumbered the evil ones. And somewhere along the way, player attitudes stopped being "Oh my god, Drow! Run!" and started being "Oh my god, Drow. Somebody kill him before he starts wangsting about his backstory."

Reboot the Drow and get rid of all the Drizz't clones, and they work fine again.

- Saph

[Avilan the Grey]

I have always viewed them (in the official material) as Aztecs on Acid.

Now... if I was to constuct a D&D world I think I would do the word more gray. And clean out a lot of races.

Drow would become Drow: Subterranean elves ruled by a female cleric class, worshiping three gods ruling as one:
Lloth-replacement (spider, death, rebirth, motherhood, female stength and superiority, Lawful neutral)
"Goddess of lust and love" (Lust, pleasure, music, drugs (any drugs), Caothic neutral)
Goddess of protection and strength (armed resistance, swords, homesteads, stubbornness..., Neutral Good)

The drow broke off from their elven brethren due to theological and philosophical differences a number of thousands of years before humans and dwarves were created. They are not Evil anymore than other intelligent races, but their world view and culture makes them both suspicious to other races as well as outright hostile to anyone not following their religion. Plus, the underdark is a dangerous place. Ever since the dawn of Dwarves, there has been on and off war. Humans usually side with the Dwarves in any conflict mostly because of the (relative) close bonds by trade forged over thousands of years; plus most humans never encounter Drows other than through the tales of dwarves.

Lately though things are changing; due to cosmic events the water level is shifting, forcing all things living underground closer to the surface. Dwarves have had to move into human cities, or try to constuct on-the-surface villages of their own. the Drow, who did not live as deep down to begin with, have had to try to make a living on the surface too.

[Khanderas]

I'd go back to 2e. They're evil killers, living in an enviroment the PCs are afraid to even enter, using gear and magic far beyond the PCs capabilities to strike from behind, when they're weak. Attempts to fight normally end in death or capture, attempts to run just make them chase you. Capture means slavery for burtal uncaring overloards or sacrifice to their dark gods. No BDSM, no good versions throwing off the yoke of their evil kin(Detect Good is unnecessary, they just don't exist), no weaknesses and no mercy.

Of course, my Underdark concept is 'Lots of predators, most of which get a surprise round. The very few non-predators still strike first for safety, and usually have defenses that make running easier than fighting. The Kobolds are Tucker, the Mindflayers are geniouses, the animals could eat Jurrasic Park, and all of them run away from the Drow'.
Ok, after reading the threads, I may have changed my mind. THIS is how the Drow should be.

Xallace makes a very good post as well. Frankly, I think they can be combined. The drow have their version of the truth of their origins, taken in by a godess of spiders and the whole race stays alive by being hard and militant, with few (if any) moral limits.

[grautry]

Why does everyone seem to think the best thing for the drow is to make them COMPLETELY EVIL AND IRREDEEMABLE again? I like good members of evil races. I think they're cool.

Because sometimes, you just need a foe who can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. :smallwink: Sometimes you just need a cruel, sadistic, selfish psychopath who's not a big softie at heart. Someone who's just plain evil.

And the drow - as a humanoid race, not some outsider personification of evil - can work perfectly for that, but only if you get rid of all the antiheroes.

Because personally? I find the lows to which humans(or in D&D case, humanoids who ostensibly have free will and choice) can sink far scarier than any devil or demon.

[FoE]

I don't mind the drow as written. They're murderous elves living in caves who worship a giant spider-lady. What's not to like?

[Killer Angel]

Once I've run an underdark campaign.
The premise was that the sun was fading and the world was slowly dying, the surface was ice-covered, earthquake, etc.
The underdark suffers heavily. The greatest menace is represented by the empire of fungi... the creatures are semi-sencient, forming some sort of hive-mind... they constantly wage war against the other subterranean races, and they are winning (have fun creating new type of fungi breeded for war).
With the border-line cities constantly under siege, and with resources rapidly decreasing, Drow and Duergar were forced to made an alliance to survive: the two races now live together, creating an iron-fist society, no more controlled by priestess, but by the power of nobles families (military power and possession of caravan routes is more important).
There are also some new noble families, formed by the fusion of a Drow family and a Duergar Clan: they don't mix blood, but they share the structure... a kind of alligiance, but much more exclusive.
Some Drow didn't accept this, and there was a civil war and a schism... so there's still a little Drow Empire "classic style", even more extremist than the "usual", who planned revenge on the "heretic" drows.
The pc's were lower member of a mixed-family Drow-Duergar.

[Ganurath]

I don't mind the drow as written. They're murderous elves living in caves who worship a giant spider-lady. What's not to like?That they replace cuddling with the male being eviscerated?

[FoE]

And make them a full-blown Lady Land (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LadyLand)? Could work, I guess.

[kamikasei]

If running a normal, generic-setting game, I'd go with Sstoopidtallkid/Saph.

For my own setting, I have them sketched out as boogeymen who haunt the depths of arctic forests, where the trees are ancient and enormous and the sun never reaches. They are in fact albino, which seems to me to make much more sense than jet black underground dwellers, but use various warpaints to appear striped or totally black when seen by outsiders. Lolth is not an insane bitch queen, but her analogue is a spider-themed goddess of secrets, manipulation and sucking the gooey innards out of still-living prey (that's totally a portfolio!). Their society is much more coherent and functional than the war-of-all-against-all of standard drow, but it's deeply, profoundly unpleasant. There's no real Underdark in this setting, and the closest they come are cave-dwellings in the style of Menegroth and Nargothrond. They, and other elves, would have to be heavily reworked from what's in the PHB/MM for this setting, though, and I've not gotten around to it yet. Elves in general are more closely fey-linked, so these drow are like a combination of drow, svartalfen, and unseelie.

Watch "Let the Right One In" to set the mood.

[bosssmiley]

Drowleks (http://webamused.com/bumblers/?p=399). That is all.

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[FatR]

No Lolth. Or other racial gods. Drow society is high magic (compared to the rest of the setting), but this magic is concentrated in the hands of the chosen few, who throw the rest scraps they don't care about. A bunch of powerful, jaded, depraved, practically-immortal magic users rules all and the rest of their Houses is, de facto, their slaves/pleasure toys. Fortunately for the rest of the world, drow magocrats hate each other (but much prefer to wage their wars through proxies) and those of them that are still alive generally are disitirested in open conquest and military domination. They secure various exotic things that are necessary for maintaining their debauched lifestyle and for their magical experimentation by combination of extorting tribute from their non-drow neighbors and trade. In fact, drow cities with relatively mentally stable rulers serve as trade hubs and neutral grounds of the Underdark, because the drow magocrats are not actively genocidal towards other Underdark races and powerful enough to make things like illithids and beholders behave. Of course, surface dwellers, interested in exotic slaves, rare drugs, magic baubles, forbidden spells and morally questionable pleasures also can visit drow cities. Drow are not really discriminating. Of course, you must willing to brave threats of the Underdark on the way, even greater threats of the cities (if you do not have backing of some reasonably powerful neighboring Underdark faction or well-known trade partner, you better have some idea how to convince drow city guards that just enslaving you right away would be a mistake) and possibility of catching attention of some level 15 ancient despot who does not take "no" for an answer.
An average drow has following alternatives in life: sucking up to immortal and invulnerable (from a practical standpoint) tyrant with rather... disturbing tastes; living outside of a House and literally being treated as non-entity to be abused on a whim by anyone; trying to survive the Underdark in the company of other outcasts (not likely). This tends to make drow extremely not nice. House drow (who, despite being little bitches of their House's head, usually live in comfort and luxury, unimaginable for most humans, thanks to magical crumbs from his table) tend to hold everyone else, and particularly non-drow in contempt as their "lessers". The rest are bitter, trusting either no one or no one outside of their immediate group, and capable to do literally anything to survive.

[FatR]

Why does everyone seem to think the best thing for the drow is to make them COMPLETELY EVIL AND IRREDEEMABLE again? I like good members of evil races. I think they're cool.
Because it is cool to hate Drizzt clones. Personally, while I think that Salvatore writes trash, I heavily dislike mortal races that are totally bat**** evil, just because. Also, DnD already has more than enough things with which PCs can't interact without being stabbed in the face (mindless monsters, fiends, many aberrations) so I think that there is no point in making drow automatically, unrelentingly, 100% hostile.

[Serenity]

It's cool to hate 'Drizz't Clones' in the same way that it's cool to make fun of Aquaman. It's a trite observation that's not even, strictly speaking, accurate. Drow are no less terrifying or capable for the existence of even as many rebels as there are in the Forgotten Realms. The evil drow you encounter are still powerful fanatics who survive in one of the most deadly environments in the world by being more ruthless than everyone else. They will still happily turn non-drow into slaves, or skin them for fun and profit, or stab just about anyone else in the back to advance.

Of course good drow exist. That's the way alignment works. If your smarter/more self-aware than an animal, and your not an outsider--effectively an avatar of an alignment--you can be of any alignment. (Well, OK, there's a few other 'always X', but there either magically created or...well, I won't defend Dragon color coding.) Honestly, people are practically encouraged to play good members of other evil races--the only joke that gets cracked in those cases is that the monster isn't worth the Level Adjustment. (Or, I guess, Pun-Pun, in the case of good kobolds.)

"There are more good drow than evil drow!" No. There aren't. In total, it's probably a safe estimate to say there's nearly as many drow in a given world as of any given surface race. There are a lot of them, even if they weed themselves out regularly. Even in Forgotten Realms, which canonically has the largest population of good elves, I would be surprised if the numbers were as much as equal--and this being FR, I'm sure that the exact numbers are stated somewhere. And as large as the enclave is, its still no reason for most people in the world to trust a drow when they see one. Any given two PC drow are highly likely to be played in two seperate campaigns, run by separate DMs. Even if both DMs are using the same setting, one drow does not exist in the other's campaign unless that DM wants him too.

[Athaniar]

My take (spoilered for massive text):

First, there were only elves, living on the surface and worshipping their chief deity Corellon. One day, a group of elves decided to colonize the largely unexplored underground they called the Underdark. They delved deep into the earth and founded a great city, Aevhar. But then something strange happened: Corellon would not answer the call of his priesthood. For months the elves wondered what had happened, and they prayed for a sign. And a sign the received. Or so they thought. A strange apparition, like an elf of great beauty, but with black skin and white hair, visited the colony, and told them she was Lolth, and emissary sent by Corellon to bring his magic into the Underdark. The clerics and leaders embraced Lolth as who she claimed to be, and got their magic back. But something was wrong. Their magic started to have ill effects on the people, making them ill-tempered and vicious, and turning their skin and hair into a resemblance of Lolth’s own. By the time they realized what had happened, Lolth had full control over them. And an emissary of the divine she was not, but rather a demon lady trapped in the Underdark since ancient times by Corellon.

Lolth now had an army to fight the servants of her imprisoner and arch-enemy with. All she needed now was for her dark elves to carry out a ritual that would unleash their new deity upon the world. But as the ritual commenced, the other major power of the Underdark, the Illithids, sensed the raw power, and invaded Aevhar, scattering the elves. The larger group of dark elves, furious at Lolth’s deception and afraid of Mind Flayer attacks, fled back to the surface, but once there, the surface-dwelling elves, who had not seen their kin for more than a century, shunned their transformed kin, and forced them to flee into unhospitable marshlands, and dark forests. Not even Corellon would welcome them back. Now even more angry and hateful, these elves called themselves the Drow, the short form of a phrase meaning “hated by all”. From that day, they swore to bring the surface world into an age of eternal darkness, and they would let no-one, not Corellon, not Lolth, not the Illithids, stop them.

The Drow are generally very xenophobic, especially against other elves, and will generally avoid deities, preferring to rely on the arcane. Occasionally they will ally themselves with creatures with a similar hatred towards the elves, such as the orcs, but they never trust them completely (partially because the orc deity Gruumsh is a demon lord akin to Lolth). Their society is based on skill, males and females are otherwise equal. They have little of what we humans (and the elves) would consider “morals”, and are willing to go to any length to achieve their goal. They have no central capital, but rather several major cities, each one ruled by a political figurehead controlled by a cabal consisting of the city’s most powerful spellcaster, warrior, and rogue(-like individual) (that’s three people).

A minor number of dark elves remained in the Underdark, and they are primarily divided into two groups: the Lolthari, a secretive matriarchal faction devoted to releasing Lolth while simultaneously escaping the Illithid war machine (they will also at times ally with the extraplanar Githrezai for the latter); and the Mind Elves, dark elves that struck a bargain with the Mind Flayers so that they would live, and are now supervising Aevhar for their masters, enslaving any stray Underdark dwellers (including Lolthari) using their pretty significant mental power, which they got in exchange for occasionally giving some of their own to the Illithids to be used as food and lab rats.
(and yes, I made that up on the spot)

[Fishy]

Obviously the way you write drow depends on the way you write elves. Ideas!

Elves live in harmony with nature -> Drow are masters of the world around them. Drow live in sprawling cities, or underground and in caverns that they scratched out with their metaphorical teeth. They have a fascination with things mechanical, magical, and artificial, they prefer music to birdsong and paintings to sunsets. They refuse to suffer discomfort or to 'rough it', and by extension, they don't do anything that the can get a slave to do. They worship Lolth, the Weaver of the Demonwebs, who built an entire universe out of nothing, and every time it falls apart, she spins another one. Because each Drow sees themselves as master of their own little universe, and they live in such tightly packed clusters, a certain amount of politicking and infighting occurs, but they're more than willing to work together for Great Projects.

Elves are ancient and mystical -> Drow are short-lived and practical. Maybe they live in a ruthless environment, underground or in the desert or on Xen'derik or in Canada. Maybe there was a plague, and the Drow were shoved into a millennia-long quarantine. Maybe some ancient Eladrin set things up to bless his bloodline at the cost of cursing his brother's. Either way, every single Drow can feel death looking over their shoulder. Some of them become hedonists, insisting on living every second of their brief lives to the full. Some shun any form of frivolity, because they just don't have the time. Few of them are wizards- when a Drow wants you dead, she'll pull a trigger and shoot you with a poisoned crossbow bolt- quick, efficient. This isn't to say they're stupid: any one thing a Drow does probably advances her towards several goals at once. Drow society is very clannish and family-oriented- no single Drow lives long enough to start from nothing and make something of themselves, so everyone wants to pass on as many advantages as they can to their kids. Hence the matriarchy: the mother gets to decide how her inheritance is split up among her children, which gives Drow women an awful lot of power.

Elves are wise and intelligent -> Drow are mindless insectile drones of the Spider Queen. Well, why not? Make the Underdark a giant termite mound filled with things that look and act like sentient and independent beings. Actually, since the Elves are famous for coming in millions of sub-species and flavors and splinter-groups, why not make every single Drow exactly the same?

Elves are rare and mysterious -> Drow are common and mundane. Elves live in far away lands, studying magic in lonely towers, but Drow can be found in the peasantry and in the underclass of every city, delivering messages and sweeping floors and... this ends with dark-skinned elves working in the fields which is kinda cool but extremely non-PC so let's pretend this never happened.

[FatR]

Obviously the way you write drow depends on the way you write elves. Ideas!
Elves live in utopia -> Drow live in antiutopia. Elvenkind is ancient and mastered higher circles of magic (and high levels in general, if non-casters can do anything comparable in the setting, due to houserules or whatever) long ago. All of its branches utilize enough magic power to create a society that is just as, if not more advanced, compared to the standard DnD pseudo-medieval world, as our own, except with magic instead of technology. But surface elves managed to overcome the problem of powerful magic inherently being limited to a very small group of people and figure out how level 1 peons and level 15 immortal demigods can coexist in one society, without the latter stripping the former of all rights (through guidance and oversight of Good gods, for example). Drow did not.

[LibraryOgre]

If we could keep things polite when talking about our preferred versions of drow, that would be a help.

As for me- sometimes I look at the drow as written and just despair- they could be such cool evil, dangerous guys if I could take them seriously! As it is- they're not fighting for anything but the will of a deranged goddess who's got them coming and going, living a life so joyless and full of pain and paranoia that I'm sometimes surprised creative suicide isn't a national pastime.

Not to turn this political, but we certainly don't know of any group in real life who does this, do we?

That said, looking at the obvious reference, you're going to have some who are the insane suicide raiders, or who backstab their way through a sexist hierarchy in order to exert theological control over the entire population... then you're going to have the vast majority. The ones with little power. What you need to figure out to understand drow society is "Why are the average drow loyal to Lolth and her messed-up system?" A few reasons that help to make drow society make a bit of sense.

1) Power. The Matron Mothers wield significant power in the name of Lolth. They can cure wounds and diseases, raise or animate the dead, and slay with a thought, a word, and a gesture. They also have access to extraplanar beasties to enforce their will. They have parlayed this significant personal power into political power, and use the threat of their power to keep the lessers in line. While other groups have power... Wizards being a notable group... the nature of drow society means that they can't really trust each other to overthrow the Matron Mothers... who are fractious, but united behind their collective rule. The wizards are in the same essential situation of customers in a bank that is being robbed... collectively, they have the strength to take down the robbers. However, none of them can count on the others for support, so they cannot act without being the "hero".

2) Mythology. Drow mythology is not going to be like elven mythology. It's not that Lolth went mad, it's that Corellon refused to see her wisdom. The drow weren't cast into the darkness; they went into darkness because the elves of Corellon could not follow, being weaker than the drow. They do not return to the surface world because of its unsuitability... below, the drow rule. Above has nothing of value. Below is the chosen land of Lolth, who shields them from the wrath of Corellon, redeems them from their base compassion, and shows them that the only true way is to survive.

3) Sociological structure. Being elves, drow are chaotic. However, they have welded themselves into a very specific society... one that favors the power of hierarchy, while encouraging individual drow to excel. Drow are taught that the House is above all, and the way they can best serve the house is to better themselves. In-fighting and assassination are encouraged, but only so far as they make the House stronger. If you assassinate your superior, be able to do their job as well or better, or you will be killed for wasting a valuable resource. Make allies within your House to increase its strength... but remember that your allies have their own ambitions, and are allies only insofar as your goals coincide.

Really, look for Schlock Mercenary's "7 Habits of Highly Effective Pirates" and read through those rules. There is your ideal drow society... one that is out for itself... but realizes that the self is sometimes best served by allying with others. One that doesn't shy away from violence, and when violence is used, it is brutal and annihilating, not warning shots.

[kieza]

In the setting I'm working on (4e) the dark elves were the third branch of the elven race after they fractured in the aftermath of their empire's destruction. As opposed to the high and wood elves, who wanted to reconcile with the other races of the world or remain in seclusion, the dark elves wanted to continue their attempts to subjugate the world. They eventually tried to force their cousins to join them by fabricating a war between them and the humans, at which point the other elves wiped the dark elves from the face of the planet. A handful survived, but they've been hunted and killed ever since, mainly by their honorable cousins. Lolth also "blesses" other elves that are sufficiently depraved or offer her worship; they gain the characteristics of dark elves: chalk-white skin, raven hair, and power over darkness.

[Morty]

How would I write Drow? It depends. In a D&D setting, they're fine as they are, they simply suffer from the alignment system. And no, I don't think that an utterly Evul race that can't be reasoned with is in any way "necessary". For lazy players, DMs and writers, maybe. But I like a challenge and I like good guys to actually do good instead of simply murdering everything with an "evil" label.
That said, in a setting without arbitrary, objective moralty, I don't think I'd change the drow much. I might go with a route similiar to the drow from FR - they're elves who were banished underground after a huge civil war that tore the elven race in two. Of course, barring divine intervention, they wouldn't be black-skinned then. They might even have a brutal, matriarchal society if i deemed it beneficial to the setting as a whole. They'd probably have a deeply-ingrained grudge against surface elves - the parents would tell they children over and over again that elves are their enemies. So, pretty similiar to FR or other D&D setting.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Kind of reminds me of the way my co-author and I wrote up the drow for our campaign setting, The Vale of Thorns.

In the Vale of Thorns, fey are the dominant race, with eladrin and elf cities warring against the shadar-kai. All fey were made by the semi-sentient and completely malicious thorns that cover the entire area, twisted into their forms from genasi the Thorns captured. Those fey that founded civilization in the Vale threw of the madness known as The Curse that the Thorns impose on all fey. It was Lolth who made the drow, but not intentionally. Lolth's main contribution to the Vale was the introduction of Taint (my co-author modified the taint rules from Unearthed Arcana and Heroes of Horror). The drow are elves and eladrin whose very souls were infected with Taint (as opposed to merely their bodies and minds, which is what taint normally effects), driving them completely insane and almost irredeemably evil.

The drow of the Vale don't have a unified civilization. There are too few of them, and none of them are stable enough to work with others for more than a little while. A few manage to maintain their sanity enough to try and be good, but these drow fight a constant uphill battle not only against the prejudices against them that are all too often justified, but against the very nature of their souls. It's almost painful for drow to do good, so Tainted are they. They aren't meant to be an enemy civilization. That would be the shadar-kai, who have warred against their eladrin cousins for milleina, each destroying cities in revenge for other destroyed cities with the constant claim "They started it!" Drow are singular, terrifying enemies who represent the worst evil the world has to offer. They don't worship Lolth out of gratitude or for power, but because Lolth is the only being in the entire multiverse that shows any acknowledgement of them, and that acknowledgement is really only as pawns that she can use to spread her corruption even further.

The Lolth in our setting is kinda like Morgoth in The Silmarillion. Her raison d'etre is to corrupt and ruin everything around her just for the hell of it.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Well here's a question in line with how people would re-write drow...

Why are they always the masters of the Underdark? This baffles me as much as why elves always have the bestest civilizations. Why are the drow at the top of the pecking orders for Underdark races? It doesn't make too much sense to be honest.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, in the setting I just mentioned, the drow don't have a civilization at all. Each and every drow is unique. Most of the time, new drow aren't made by procreation, but by some elf or eladrin coming into contact with a massive amount of taint.

And they aren't the masters of the Underdark. Directly beneath the ground in the Vale is a massive nation-sized city, that was inhabited by the genasi before the catastrophe that caused the Thorns to emerge happened. That city is still mostly intact, but is infested with undead, whose closest semblance of civilization is roving in packs in search of the living, to consume as food and/or increase their numbers. Below this ruined city, known as the Labyrinth, is the Underdark proper, and that's mostly empty, save for a group of nomadic warforged who were meant to be soldiers for the genasi but were activated after the catastrophe hit. They don't need to worry about things like food or shelter, but they can't make it to the surface either because the undead overwhelm them each time. One of our players is a warforged who was lucky enough to encounter some adventurers travelling through the Labyrinth, and it joined up with them for safety.

[Mephit]

Well here's a question in line with how people would re-write drow...

Why are they always the masters of the Underdark? This baffles me as much as why elves always have the bestest civilizations. Why are the drow at the top of the pecking orders for Underdark races? It doesn't make too much sense to be honest.

They have powerful magic and a structured society. Why wouldn't they? I can't think of any other humanoid intelligent race that can be more destructive than the drow.

Personally, I lean towards Saph's opinion.
I have a great dislike of good drow. Not that I think no one should be allowed to play one, but for someone to play it in one of our games, it'd be a one-tim, excentric thing that would never be done again.

My GM always portrayed the 3.5 drow as the single most evil race on earth. They were always tough bastards, too. They were the kind of opponents who, once they knew they were trapped and going to die, would try to sunder your equipment just for the hell of it so they could laugh at us once we took 'em down.
Dude, not cool.

I remember one specific incident where our mage researched a 'Detect Drow' spell before we went into the Underdark just to deliver a message. (We never, ever took on quests that made us stay in the Underdark for more than a day.)

Drow are evil in our games because their society is all about being evil in our fluff. I personally prefer killing some cruel drow than slaugthering Orc or goblin minions.

[FatR]

Well here's a question in line with how people would re-write drow...

Why are they always the masters of the Underdark? This baffles me as much as why elves always have the bestest civilizations. Why are the drow at the top of the pecking orders for Underdark races? It doesn't make too much sense to be honest.
Rule of Cool. As to why elves always have the bestest civilizations - that is hardcoded in the image invoked by the word "elf". If your elves aren't the precursor race, why call them "elves"? (Unless they are built around the "treehugger" part of their image, which I consider much less cool, or the author hates said image entirely and wishes to write some revenge porn, or, as it called nowadays, "deconstruction".)

[chiasaur11]

They have powerful magic and a structured society. Why wouldn't they? I can't think of any other humanoid intelligent race that can be more destructive than the drow.


Maybe because the underdark is also home to Mind Flayers and Aboleths AKA nastiest guys in the future and past, respectively. It's like a country had T-1000s and super intelligent T-Rexes as native populations, but everyone really feared 16th Century Tudor Courtiers. Who are insane and prone to infighting.

If I was doing it, Drow, due to the whole psycho survival of the fittest bit, would be really nasty one on one, but not a major threat to any civilization able to post a town guard of more than thirty people. In other words, adventurers try to avoid them, but they aren't the top mission targets, and the other underdark races control most of the territory.

[Morty]

Rule of Cool.

:smallconfused: What does Rule of Cool have to do here? Drow ruling Underdark aren't inherently "cooler" than Drow being one of races living there.

[chiasaur11]

:smallconfused: What does Rule of Cool have to do here? Drow ruling Underdark aren't inherently "cooler" than Drow being one of races living there.

And Drow are a good deal less cool than the competition, IE Mind Flayers, Trogs, etc.

[Callos_DeTerran]

They have powerful magic and a structured society. Why wouldn't they? I can't think of any other humanoid intelligent race that can be more destructive than the drow.

Personally, I lean towards Saph's opinion.
I have a great dislike of good drow. Not that I think no one should be allowed to play one, but for someone to play it in one of our games, it'd be a one-tim, excentric thing that would never be done again.

My GM always portrayed the 3.5 drow as the single most evil race on earth. They were always tough bastards, too. They were the kind of opponents who, once they knew they were trapped and going to die, would try to sunder your equipment just for the hell of it so they could laugh at us once we took 'em down.
Dude, not cool.

But that still doesn't make sense. The common drow is a CR 1 1st level warrior for crikies sake! They inhabit the same places as CR 8-9 mind flayers (and their CR 25 Elder Brains), CR 7 aboleths, CR 12 beholders, and various other much stronger beasties. The first two ALSO have highly structured societies and powerful magic but don't constantly try to murder each other as well. Even when you don't take into account the intelligent beasties, the un-intelligent alone would wreck havoc by sheer strength and numbers.

And yeah, my one IRL GM tries to portray dark elves as the evilest bastards in the world too. There's just always this voice whispering 'Do they eat brains, mutate you into aquatic servitors, tear down free will like it was a hobby, and have existed for eons (past or future)? No? Well..they can't be THAT bad then.


Rule of Cool. As to why elves always have the bestest civilizations - that is hardcoded in the image invoked by the word "elf". If your elves aren't the precursor race, why call them "elves"? (Unless they are built around the "treehugger" part of their image, which I consider much less cool, or the author hates said image entirely and wishes to write some revenge porn, or, as it called nowadays, "deconstruction".)

I don't call them anything at all. Elves are never the precursor race, if there is one, in my games and unless a PC IS an elf or heavily interested in elves (any kind) I never willingly involve them. They just seem utterly pointless to me and I have yet to see a GOOD explanation for them. The only reason I even have some liking for drow is because it means I get to kill elves without worrying my character is doing a bad thing. Stupid inherently better pointy-eared blighters. Hell, that is probably the reason for the drow as they are written. Some clever designer probably set about making a Kill-Ok elf sub-species PCs wouldn't feel bad about killing.




And I think I've derailed this thread enough with my elf hate. :smalltongue:

[chiasaur11]

But that still doesn't make sense. The common drow is a CR 1 1st level warrior for crikies sake! They inhabit the same places as CR 8-9 mind flayers (and their CR 25 Elder Brains), CR 7 aboleths, CR 12 beholders, and various other much stronger beasties. The first two ALSO have highly structured societies and powerful magic but don't constantly try to murder each other as well. Even when you don't take into account the intelligent beasties, the un-intelligent alone would wreck havoc by sheer strength and numbers.

And yeah, my one IRL GM tries to portray dark elves as the evilest bastards in the world too. There's just always this voice whispering 'Do they eat brains, mutate you into aquatic servitors, tear down free will like it was a hobby, and have existed for eons (past or future)? No? Well..they can't be THAT bad then.



I don't call them anything at all. Elves are never the precursor race, if there is one, in my games and unless a PC IS an elf or heavily interested in elves (any kind) I never willingly involve them. They just seem utterly pointless to me and I have yet to see a GOOD explanation for them. The only reason I even have some liking for drow is because it means I get to kill elves without worrying my character is doing a bad thing. Stupid inherently better pointy-eared blighters. Hell, that is probably the reason for the drow as they are written. Some clever designer probably set about making a Kill-Ok elf sub-species PCs wouldn't feel bad about killing.




And I think I've derailed this thread enough with my elf hate. :smalltongue:

No such thing as enough elf hate. Pointy eared pains in the butt got it coming to them.

[Mephit]

Maybe because the underdark is also home to Mind Flayers and Aboleths AKA nastiest guys in the future and past, respectively. It's like a country had T-1000s and super intelligent T-Rexes as native populations, but everyone really feared 16th Century Tudor Courtiers. Who are insane and prone to infighting.

Yeah, but I halways had the idea that the drow had much larger numbers than either of these creatures. Plus, drow live in cities and large communities, while mindflayers are more solitary creatures.

[chiasaur11]

Yeah, but I halways had the idea that the drow had much larger numbers than either of these creatures. Plus, drow live in cities and large communities, while mindflayers are more solitary creatures.

Mind Flayers cluster around an elder brain in reasonably stable societies, if I've read right.

And given an average Drow is a backstabbing sociopath with no reluctance to practice the habit on its own kind, and no higher a reproductive rate than any other race, plus they make unpleasant enough neighbors everybody would want to kill them one way or another, I can't exactly see them having that big a general population.

[Swordguy]

But that still doesn't make sense. The common drow is a CR 1 1st level warrior for crikies sake! They inhabit the same places as CR 8-9 mind flayers (and their CR 25 Elder Brains), CR 7 aboleths, CR 12 beholders, and various other much stronger beasties. The first two ALSO have highly structured societies and powerful magic but don't constantly try to murder each other as well. Even when you don't take into account the intelligent beasties, the un-intelligent alone would wreck havoc by sheer strength and numbers.

Drow routinely have class levels. What's more, in a society that emphasizes backstabbing and the constant conflict of the Underdark, they'll have a WHOLE LOT of opportunity to gain XP. The entry in the Monster Manual is the starting point for drow.

I've got some old 2e stuff with Drow routinely being in the 5-9th level range. And that's in 2e, when 9th was pretty damn high-level.

[FatR]

:smallconfused: What does Rule of Cool have to do here? Drow ruling Underdark aren't inherently "cooler" than Drow being one of races living there.
They are cooler than other races living in the Underdark. This might have something to do with the fact, that they were presented as super-badasses from the beginning. Therefore, they rule the Underdark.

[chiasaur11]

They are cooler than other races living in the Underdark. This might have something to do with the fact, that they were presented as super-badasses from the beginning. Therefore, they rule the Underdark.

Did you not notice the mindflayers?

Squid faced mind controlling monster dudes beat elves any day in the cool department.

[Morty]

They are cooler than other races living in the Underdark. This might have something to do with the fact, that they were presented as super-badasses from the beginning. Therefore, they rule the Underdark.

In this thread alone there are at least three people - including me - who don't think drow are "cooler" than other Underdark species. So Rule of Cool is as useless here as it is everywhere.

[Weirdlet]

It's been my impression that Rule of Cool isn't always about what's actually cool, but what the creators think will sell as cool- explosions, magic kung-fu, fan service, elves that always have the top spot as better-than-everyone-else, even when 'better' means 'meaner and more badass to the point of inability to suspend disbelief'.

[FatR]

But that still doesn't make sense. The common drow is a CR 1 1st level warrior for crikies sake! They inhabit the same places as CR 8-9 mind flayers (and their CR 25 Elder Brains), CR 7 aboleths, CR 12 beholders, and various other much stronger beasties.
Normal spellcasting progression > all in DnD 3.X. For example Rays-B-Gone spell that totally screws beholders is level 4 IIRC (and even without that beholders save DCs are kinda pathetic, they aren't really worth CR 12). You don't care about "common drow" any more than you care about human militia, you care about two-digit level monstrosities that can kill armies of grunts while sleepwalking, summon demon legions and make your soul fall off. And drow have ridiculous as$loads of them. And in previous editions drow were the most overpowered humanoid races, with their uberequipment and stuff.


I don't call them anything at all. Elves are never the precursor race, if there is one, in my games and unless a PC IS an elf or heavily interested in elves (any kind) I never willingly involve them. They just seem utterly pointless to me and I have yet to see a GOOD explanation for them.
You don't care about them, that's OK, but books and RPG materials about elves are usually written by people who do for people who do, you know.

[FatR]

Did you not notice the mindflayers?

Squid faced mind controlling monster dudes beat elves any day in the cool department.
How many books (including novels) about squid faced mind controlling monsters, say, WotC sells every year? And how many about elves? So no, elves totally stomp all over mind flayers in the coolness department, as far as any sensible setting authors are concerned.

[Morty]

It's been my impression that Rule of Cool isn't always about what's actually cool, but what the creators think will sell as cool- explosions, magic kung-fu, fan service, elves that always have the top spot as better-than-everyone-else, even when 'better' means 'meaner and more badass to the point of inability to suspend disbelief'.

Well, yeah. Rule of Cool means that sometimes, it's okay for things to not make much sense if the effect is fun enough. It's just that people somehow forget that "cool" is one of the most subjective terms there is and repeat "Rule of Cool" over and over as if it solved everything.

[FatJose]

I've been working on a campaign world/comic and while drow aren't a big part of the story I spent a good deal of time tooling around with them as a subrace in the setting.

Dokkalfar -The more I write the name, the less I like it. Probably will change it to just drow.
Alfar-Elf
Dokkalfar-Drow
Dvergar-Dwarves

During the Winding Wars in the darkest reaches of the earth, many alfaren bonded with their dvergar allies. Younger alfar became so intrigued by dverf culture that they slowly picked up their traits and mannerisms. Alfar who spent decades fighting in mostly dvergar platoons lost their cultural sensibilities and went native. IT was common for alfar to be placed among dvergar to act as their arcane or scouting support. They had none of the dvergar talents so blood tampering became common. Three decades into the Windings War 30% of the alfaren who were actively fighting had been transmuted with traits of the creatures who lived in the subterranean environment. The results were more aggressive alfar with darkness piercing vision and skin that better allowed for blending into their surroundings.

After the end of the war, a good number of these dokkalfar chose to remain under the earth. The alfar were disturbed by how much the Dokkalfar had changed. Dokkalfar are as obsessed with armor and weapon crafting as the Dvergar. Unlike the dvergar, they still have the chaotic bent of their cousins even with their very strict dvergar conditioning. Dokkalfar made cities of the old wartime defense posts and are on relatively good standing with the surface alfar, for the most part. There are some hard feelings over the way the veteran alfar were treated after the war.

Dokkalfar have a shameless reliance on arcane sources of power. The Dvergar find magic inherently blasphemous and while they accepted Alfar help during the war, they also were very vocal about their disapproval of the practice of it. This has caused a rift between the Dokkalfar and Dvergar over the last century since the end of the war. Much of the violent tendencies of the Dokkalafar come from their leaders who were mentally scarred during the war. Dvergar are more durable both physically and mentally to the atrocities they witness and commit in wartime. The young alfar did not have this same resistance and the blood tampering is said to have also played a part in their unstable personality as a young race.

Dokkalfar have skin that range in the same basic colors as the Alfar but much darker and often with a grayish tinge. Their skin also appear to have a smooth rock texture. They can have almost any color of hair, even multiple colors. Their ears are slightly larger and teardrop shaped for enhanced hearing and their slightly larger eyes can be silver, gold, red, purple or yellow. (There's an old first generation Dokkalfar with pitch black eyes I'm working on.)

[chiasaur11]

How many books (including novels) about squid faced mind controlling monsters, say, WotC sells every year? And how many about elves? So no, elves totally stomp all over mind flayers in the coolness department, as far as any sensible setting authors are concerned.

Cool isn't the only thing that sells books, though.

If it was, Twilight, for example, would sit on the shelves and rot, as it should, but a whole lot of really good stuff would as well. I mean, few people would say Maus is cooler than Nextwave, but that doesn't mean the Pulitzer committee should just reaward the prize to Warren Ellis.

So, yeah. Sales are about the worst measure you could have picked for how cool something is.

I mean, Nextwave is possibly the coolest(and one of the most hilarious) thing ever, and it was cancelled after 12 issues. Cool is not the same as sales.

[FatR]

So, yeah. Sales are about the worst measure you could have picked for how cool something is.
No. As "coolness" is entirely subjective, sales is about the only measure there is (and yes, in case of RPG supplements/noves and similar pure entertainment it is the only thing that sell books - particularly if we talk about the books under the same brand name). It is like the popular vote, except that (in RPG supplements case) voters put their money where their mouths are. And drow clearly get more votes than squidheads.

[Satyr]

Well, this text originally started much shorter, before it developed into an essay of how to write interesting stuff for fantasy settings (with the drow as a workshop example); yes, I know, it is a wall of texts, and I should probably have created a separate thread for this.

The development of a good species nd culture for a fantasy game require several qualities that makes them indeed good; the species at hand must be have a narrative purpose and function, so it can add to the atmosphere, flavor and taste of the gaming world and play a role in it (because when it doesn't add to the world, why bother?); the species must fulfil the role of adequate antagonists and protagonists (black and white morals are a distinctive trademark of bad writing); the species must have an allure for player characters and must be playable (why create wonderful stuff if it's only "look, don't touch"?); and finally and most importantly, the species must fit into the inner logic of the gaming world and be plausible in itself (obviously contrived, stupid stuff is anathema to quality).

Yes, I know, according to these criteria, the vast majority of D&D fluff for species and cultures is mediocre at best. But does anybody seriously disagree with this?

On this base, it is not so difficult to make a few cornerstones for an interesting drow species in a D&D game; I will add some thoughts on this specific topic, even though I never found Drow particularly interesting and normally leave them out when I create settings.

Drow

Physical Appearance
I would actually change very little to nothing in the physical appearance of the Drow. The greyish skin and white hair is iconic for them and D&D as a whole. And, frankly, it looks good and interesting. It is exotic (it is perhaps a sad statement, but pretty much every non-white skin color qualifies as "exotic" in a way) and fantastic (grey skin has no equivalent in real humans, and the hair that is lighter than the skin is also somewhat rare). But most importantly, people are superficial and "they look awesome" makes a larger part of the appeal of the Drow.
So, our new and improved Drow look pretty much the same as the old version- they are Elves, and the silhouette doesn't differ much from surface Elves- Drow are perhaps a little bit smaller. The skin is relatively dark and has a distinct grey color, sometimes with a tint into a deep purple or dark blue range of color. Eye color vary widely and exotic colors (e.g. amber, purple, or red) aren't as uncommon as they are among humans, for example.

Apart from the skin color, there are little physical differences between surface elves and drow; the eyes work different and drow are more used to a life in Darkness, and perhaps the Drow are smaller and skinnier in average because a small frame is actually helpful in a world of cramped spaces, like the underworld. The other physical traits of Drow and other Elves are virtually identical.

Now we have to face the first relevant question - Why have Drow their distinctive complexion? Such a variation does not appear for no reason, and since "A wizard did it" is not an explanation, but an excuse (and a poor one at that), we need to come up with a satisfactory explanation. I am a poor biologist, and so I cannot think of a plausible biologic explanation (in the real world, a dark skin is usually a mean to protect against the sun, and the result of not needing to get Vitamin B through sun shine; but since the drow live underground, adaptation to the sun is probably not a relevant factor; a camouflage coloring for the black and grey environment of the underdark may be a significant influence, but the bright white hair contradicts that somehow.), so I am willing to leave the natural explanations outside and look for a supernatural solution. An idea I think I like is that the distinctive color is the result of a powerful curse, a stigma the Drow were marked with for some reason we will determine later.



Culture and Society
First of all, the idea, that one species shares only one distinctive, monolithic culture is not only ridiculously stupid, it is also a trademark of the abominable fantasy racism, making it stupid² and even more insulting (yes, I think that presenting obviously stupid crap is a way to insult the audience, effectively treating it as idiots). Therefore the headline probably should read 'Cultures and Societies. A multitude of societies ias not only obligatory from perspective pf plausibility, it is also desirable from a dramaturgic point of view. The more complex a setting is, the more vibrant it can become, the more different stories can be told with this background and the deeper and more interesting the background generally is through a multitude of facettes, aspects and additional ideas it offers. As long as 'complex is' not confused with 'convoluted', the only excuse to simplify (and simplification is nothing but an euphemism for 'dumbing it down') is that the intended audience is not capable to deal with the material. This is acceptable when writing for kids, but intolerably condescending when the target audience can be expected to be relatively mature.

Now, for the Drow that means, that means that one society would only be enough if we think of the Drow of a very small group of people. This could work, but in comparison to a multitude of different societies, this would be both lame and offer less options, making it the clearly inferior solution.
So, we need more than one societies for the Drow - and since this is the part, where, apart from the mere superficiality of the appearance the really interesting part begins, as here the foundation of how the characters could or would feel like, how they work are developed and what causes these specific features - if you do not want to create contrived crap, the causes are just as important as the effects.

For the Drow, we have two characteristic parameters, which are pretty much universal:



They are related to Surface Elves;

The majority, if not all of them live in a sub terrain environment;

Now we have some more basic fluff, we could or could not use: The drow live in a theocratic, matriarchic society, which sounds like the basics for one or two excellent drow cultures.

Drow live in separate city-states, creating different, and clearly separated, territories, which allow for different cultures in different cities. One culture per city would look a bit artificial, but the idea of separated enclaves would be another good common feature, which would also explain the number of different cultures we strive for in a relatively small population – the isolation of the different city-states lead to several differences between the different cities.

Drow are eeeeeevil. Well this is the crap no writer with a hint of talent or ability for reflection would use, out of refusal to spoil the own works with the influence of childish moral notions. What would work is set of morals deriving from their society that are not particular congruent with the surface dwellers’. And probably a traditional role as the bogey man in Elven legends and, independently if this is justified or not. The moral aspects will be discussed below in the protagonists and antagonists “chapter”.

Drow have some serious prejudices against surface elves and vice versa. Remembering the supernatural curse as an explanation for the distinctive drow complexion? Probably the same reason for the antipathy and the bad reputation of the drow among the surface elves.

If we put this together, we can easily create seven to ten drow cultures that group around important city-states, whereby one big and powerful city becomes a dominant factor and a few lesser ones share the specific cultural traits; as in the underground world of the drow, space is probably at premium, the lesser cities could probably be the colonies or settlements of the larger, and older ones.

This model – which looks as plausible on the superficial level as a society of underground dwelling elves probably can look – offers a multitude of different societies and cultures – and if you need that contrived simplification, there is place for good drows as well as evil ones.

You can easily have the traditional, BDSM matriarch theocracy in some cities, which doesn’t differ at all from the books.
You can have a rivalling city state of pretty relaxed drow that are more open for other people and keep a few contacts and even trading posts to the surface.
You can have another city state, that is very poor and has to offer he service of their warriors as mercenaries for other cities or powers (and seriously: which noble, merchant prince or royal wouldn’t like to show of with some badass drow bodyguards? They could probably become a status symbol for the rich and powerful, like Viking guards in Constantinople).
Yet another city state could be a noble republic, where the different noble houses intrigue against each other, secure their spheres of power and enjoy a life of luxury, while they follow a strong code of honor (yes, this would be Shogun or the Song of Ice and Fire with Drow protagonists. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound intriguing).
The last one I can think of is a magocracy, where the wizards have took over the power in the city and created a place of studies and education – and sheer power through knowledge, including a famed academy and an enormous library.

Yes, these are only very raw and undetailed one sentence descriptions and these rough basic ideas – albeit they are probably quite interesting doesn’t guarantee that the implementation of these ideas works equally well, and there is little as frustrating as an interesting idea which is still recognizable behind a poor implementation (see for example, Star Trek Voyager). But with a bit of time, dedication, training and talent, I think you could take the five city-states above and create a whole campaign in drowspace without getting the players bored. And, the open structure also allows to add additional city states- small ones, large ones, outposts and so on – with a distinctive culture, specific details and so on. In questions like this, the more options and facettes are implemented in the game world, the better.

One short notion to religion: I really think that the way gods are described in D&D is one of the worse representations of the topic I ever come across the fantasy genre, as most religions are terribly contrived, often redundant, and almost always terribly dull. The drow deities are the same, only more so.


Protagonism and Antagonism
Every well-made group in a fantasy setting- every species, every faction, every cult and every realm has the potential to fulfil a role of protagonists and antagonists, often at the same time when the perspective slightly changes. Certainly, there are several groups, which are more suitable for one side than the other, but in the very basics, a group of heroes with no drawbacks and flaws are just as boring and dull as a group of villains without a sympathetic streak; and the players must be able to relate to the motivations of all sides of a conflict, or the lack of challenge and dilemma will limit their interest and attention to the plot. Again, there is no sin as big as treating your players as if they were unable to cope with a moral conflict which is more complex than a chess board color theme.

Generally speaking, the Drow are probably more likely to appear as antagonists than protagonists, especially through their conflict with the surface elves (which are probably more popular, both within the gaming world and by the players). The nature of this conflict is an interesting lever for the design of the Drow and their narrative purpose. Effectively, there are five different scenarios, which could have caused the strive: (a) it was all the drows’s fault, and the surface elves’ hatred is completely justified. As described above, such absolute approaches are regularly less interesting and almost always less convincing than a moral ambivalent explanation.
(b) It was the other Elves’ entire fault. Again, absolute = dull, but this one is slightly more interesting than solution (a), when the role of Drows as antagonists is emphasized, by giving them a “start of darkness”, which makes their behaviour understandable without making it necessarily nice. The problem is, this is an almost overdone approach and can lead to many rolling eyeballs and a feeling of déjà vu.
(c) Both sides have made terrible faults and now it’s too late. The probably most plausible explanation, as monocausal explanations are rarely convincing or that plausible; while we all know and see how two parties of a conflict can escalate the situation equally through sheer idiocy.
(d) Someone else made them do it. I really don’t like the idea that some kind of gods commands how their followers act; that is as if the cheap excuse “the devil made me do it” suddenly becomes true and frees the acting people from all responsibilities. That’s an unsatisfactory solution, because it cheapens the impact of what seems to be a major fissure for the cultures of both species, and this would be significantly cheapened. Yes, this is closest to the original fluff as far as I know, but that doesn’t change that it is just bad writing.
The last option (e) is “nobody really knows why” and that one is an easy cope-out for unoriginal days, a filler that can be conveniently replaced when a better idea comes along.

For obvious reasons, the third option is the best – both sides have made mistakes, have caused problems and felt slights. I would settle for a story like this:

”Once, the ancestors of the people today known as Drow were the Alîsathar, the first of the Elves, a ruling caste over all people. The Alîsathar was a body or rule and justice that arbitrate the disputes among the Elves. But more importantly, the Alîsathar was a core of tradition and lore within a then semi-nomadic society of hunters and gatherers, a fix star for the orientation of the Elven people. Membership in the Alîsathar was based on heritage as well as merits, and the greatest honor an Elf hunter or healer could ever obtain was the rise into the ranks of this council and court.

For a longer time than humans roam the earth, the Alîsathar ruled over Elfkind and their rule was light and just. But then a great hunter and warrior, Corellion Larenthan, was eager to join their ranks, as he saw the honor and the respect towards the Alîsathar, but was blind for the responsibility. 17 times, he came for the court of the Alîsathar and asked for membership and seventeen times he was refused. And Corellion grew bitter and spiteful over this refusal. The Alîsathar did not see Corellion’s bitterness, and the court was in argument over him. The ones who spoke for him praised his eagerness and his strength, his leadership abilities and his youthful passion; and those who opposed him saw his brashness and how covetous he was, the arrogance and the carelessness. And so the Alîsathar argued while Corellion made his plan.

Corellion was not the only one who was discontent with the Alîsathar’s rule. The hunters in the deepest wilderness felt that the court’s rule limited their freedom; the powerful wizards refused the decision of the Alîsathar to forbid the summoning of demons and angels alike and some of the most powerful warriors felt like dogs on a leash since the council forbade them to wipe out other humanoid creatures, like the old ancestors of the humans, Halflings and orcs. Corellion collected these discontents around him and formed a powerful party who opposed every single decision the Alîsathar made. When the Alîsathar made a declaration, Corelion and his own council, the Seldarine. And what starts as politics slowly but unstoppable turned into civil war.

On the one side, the Alîsathar and his allies, against the Seldarine of Corellion and his allies, and in an eon of battles on all spheres, the war was waged. And slowly but steadily, the Alîsathar won. But Corellion was beyond mortality even then, and no Elf, no matter how powerful could face him in battle. He alone decided battles, but even he could not be at all places at the same time, and so the Seldarine lost. Corellion felt anger and fear, when he saw how the ranks of his armies and allies melted, and he knew he had only one chance to win this war – through sacrilege. In the next battle against the Alîsathar, Corellion no longer slain his foe, but absorbed his very soul, adding to his own power and he who was beyond the mortal flesh before, became a god through every soul he took into him. And with his power, the horror of the Alîsathar grew. Corellion taught his closest allies how to read the souls, and they, like him strived for godhood. And at one point, the will of the Alîsathar broke as they saw, that the war was not to be won for them, without committing the same sacrilege. And so the once almighty Alîsathar capitulated.

Corellion was drunk on his own power and victory. He took all power from the Alîsathar and their closest allies and banned them from Elven land and the light of the sun for all time. He put a curse on them, that their skin become grey as ashes to show them how they were inferior to his rule in every regard and to be reminded of that in all eternity. One third of the Alîsathar died from the curse, and one third succumbed in madness. But the survivors were banned from the light of the sun and into the darkness beyond the earth so that Corellion would never gave to see them again.

And here we live. And here we dream of revenge and here we can hear how Corellion’s favored children laugh and play in the sun, and drink purple wine while we live from the cold flesh of pale, blind fishes. Corellion is no longer unmatched in strength, since younger people with younger gods came and challenged him, and he knows that there are those who could overcome him. Down here in the darkness, we found our own god, and she is a patient one. And so we became patient as well, waiting, waiting, for when the net is strong enough to capture a god. And like the spider who drinks its prey’s blood, we will drain the stolen souls out of Corellion and his minions and on this day, the Alîsathar will be avenged. Elliya Lolthu!”

To put it in a nutshell, my Drow would be full of hatred and thirsting for a revenge. After thousands of years, the whole reason for the hatred has become insignificant for them. Lolth is transformed in a goddess of patient hunters and people who spin long term plans, and who can keep up this hatred for a long time. Now, the Drow cannot strike at the one they really, really want to hurt –Corellion Larenthian (who is probably not that much of a megalomaniac jerk as the Drow myth above makes him) –so they strike at proxies- surface elves.
The whole hatred for the surface is a powerful tool for a theocracy, as the constant external threat is a great way to keep internal strive at a minimum. This may work in some of the city states, and not in others.




I could probably write just as much about Drow as PC sources, but I feel slightly tired from writing this post. To keep it short: Don’t generalise. People are diverse. Individuals are more diverse. With a number of various different cultural and social background for Drows, you get more playable resspources for PCs as well. Everybody is happy.

[FatR]

Back to the topic. A little bit about the role of drow in my campaign.

I already said, that I don't really need another race that cannot interact with PCs without stabbing them in the face. This role is usually relegated to undead, fiends, utterly alien aberrations and their mortal flunkies. Also, I don't need another race full of hateful supremacists, militaristic conquerors and slave-taking raiders. Because DnD already has as$ton of such races - orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, you name it. "The same schtick but on steroids" is unsatisfying and raises the question why drow hadn't obliterated everyone who struggles even against lesser threats yet. Drow cities in my games are not the sources of overt military threat, but Skullport-like hives of scum and villainy, places where practically anyone can go (with great caution) to obtain forbidden knowledge, forbidden powers and, last but not least, forbidden pleasures. People who are pretty much exterminated on sight in most places, like demon cultists, bat**** vivisector wizards, vampires and mindflayers are accepted here without question as long as they don't break personal toys of local House's head, don't disrupt trade, can pay for their stay, and watch for themselves. Things that cannot be bought in most places, from poisons and vile spells to guides for obtaining lichdom and stolen scrolls of Resurrection for people who have a snowball chance in hell of getting raised the normal way, can be bought in drow cities. And you can satisfy virtually any of the vices imaginable by surface-dwellers there, and then some that aren't. Torture as a form of art and public entertainment isn't the most hardcore things you can encounter in drow cities. Imagine just what can invent a few-thousand-years-old ultimately jaded despots who generally have no grand overriding goals besides enjoying themselves (and keeping themselves alive). And because these magocrat despots, still remain super-strong spellcasters, even if debauched beyond all measure and incapable of acting together, there is not much anyone can do with these nests of corruption - theoretically, of course, there are powers that can crush the drow cities one by one, if they can devote their full attention to it and accept huge casualties, but in practice they have their hands full of more immediate threats and concerns.

Drow found outside of their cities typically act as self-serving, backstabbing and often exceptionally vicious, but not completely unreasonable bandits and mercenaries (in both cases they typically are runaways, who grew tired of butt-kissing and being locked into position of powerlessness forever). They are the guys in the service of current evil overlord wannabe you are most likely to convince or bribe into abandoning him or turning on him... except you often don't want to, because their idea of good fun is rape and torture.

EDIT: Oh, and about the good drow. There are some. They meet much less justified mistrust than usual, because drow as a race are much less agressive. They are really rare. The society where passable equivalents of immortal god-kings own you from birth (or you officially are non-entity), your social standing is mostly determined by your ability to kiss their butts pleasure them and satisfy their whims (drow that actually must be useful and occupy key positions are either mindraped into unquestioning obedience and complete devotion to their masters, or turned into some kind of creature that has puppet strings attached to it, so they don't really have any moral choice) and you're often being screwed with just because your owner is a bored sadist produces few nice people.

[FatJose]

First of all, the idea, that one species shares only one distinctive, monolithic culture is not only ridiculously stupid, it is also a trademark of the abominable fantasy racism, making it stupid² and even more insulting (yes, I think that presenting obviously stupid crap is a way to insult the audience, effectively treating it as idiots).

Yeah, humans still haven't made a world spanning empire and or republic. What makes these fantasy races so special in comparison? Especially when it comes to a race that is inherently chaotic in most canon. Besides certain instinct based compulsions, there should be many variations of behavior in each of the races without the need of just making a full on subrace.

[FatR]

What makes these fantasy races so special in comparison?
Needs of simplicity. I really don't care about cultural differences between orcs of Gloomy Hills and orcs of Putrid Fens, if I'm at the game table to kill things and take their stuff. Or to kill the villain and save the princess. Or, really, to do anything action heroes usually do in books and movies. And those parts of DnD which are not aimed at faciliating crawling dungeons, are aimed at faciliating playing an action hero.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, this text originally started much shorter, before it developed into an essay of how to write interesting stuff for fantasy settings (with the drow as a workshop example); yes, I know, it is a wall of texts, and I should probably have created a separate thread for this.

The development of a good species nd culture for a fantasy game require several qualities that makes them indeed good; the species at hand must be have a narrative purpose and function, so it can add to the atmosphere, flavor and taste of the gaming world and play a role in it (because when it doesn't add to the world, why bother?); the species must fulfil the role of adequate antagonists and protagonists (black and white morals are a distinctive trademark of bad writing); the species must have an allure for player characters and must be playable (why create wonderful stuff if it's only "look, don't touch"?); and finally and most importantly, the species must fit into the inner logic of the gaming world and be plausible in itself (obviously contrived, stupid stuff is anathema to quality).

Yes, I know, according to these criteria, the vast majority of D&D fluff for species and cultures is mediocre at best. But does anybody seriously disagree with this?

On this base, it is not so difficult to make a few cornerstones for an interesting drow species in a D&D game; I will add some thoughts on this specific topic, even though I never found Drow particularly interesting and normally leave them out when I create settings.

Drow

Physical Appearance
I would actually change very little to nothing in the physical appearance of the Drow. The greyish skin and white hair is iconic for them and D&D as a whole. And, frankly, it looks good and interesting. It is exotic (it is perhaps a sad statement, but pretty much every non-white skin color qualifies as "exotic" in a way) and fantastic (grey skin has no equivalent in real humans, and the hair that is lighter than the skin is also somewhat rare). But most importantly, people are superficial and "they look awesome" makes a larger part of the appeal of the Drow.
So, our new and improved Drow look pretty much the same as the old version- they are Elves, and the silhouette doesn't differ much from surface Elves- Drow are perhaps a little bit smaller. The skin is relatively dark and has a distinct grey color, sometimes with a tint into a deep purple or dark blue range of color. Eye color vary widely and exotic colors (e.g. amber, purple, or red) aren't as uncommon as they are among humans, for example.

Apart from the skin color, there are little physical differences between surface elves and drow; the eyes work different and drow are more used to a life in Darkness, and perhaps the Drow are smaller and skinnier in average because a small frame is actually helpful in a world of cramped spaces, like the underworld. The other physical traits of Drow and other Elves are virtually identical.

Now we have to face the first relevant question - Why have Drow their distinctive complexion? Such a variation does not appear for no reason, and since "A wizard did it" is not an explanation, but an excuse (and a poor one at that), we need to come up with a satisfactory explanation. I am a poor biologist, and so I cannot think of a plausible biologic explanation (in the real world, a dark skin is usually a mean to protect against the sun, and the result of not needing to get Vitamin B through sun shine; but since the drow live underground, adaptation to the sun is probably not a relevant factor; a camouflage coloring for the black and grey environment of the underdark may be a significant influence, but the bright white hair contradicts that somehow.), so I am willing to leave the natural explanations outside and look for a supernatural solution. An idea I think I like is that the distinctive color is the result of a powerful curse, a stigma the Drow were marked with for some reason we will determine later.



Culture and Society
First of all, the idea, that one species shares only one distinctive, monolithic culture is not only ridiculously stupid, it is also a trademark of the abominable fantasy racism, making it stupid² and even more insulting (yes, I think that presenting obviously stupid crap is a way to insult the audience, effectively treating it as idiots). Therefore the headline probably should read 'Cultures and Societies. A multitude of societies ias not only obligatory from perspective pf plausibility, it is also desirable from a dramaturgic point of view. The more complex a setting is, the more vibrant it can become, the more different stories can be told with this background and the deeper and more interesting the background generally is through a multitude of facettes, aspects and additional ideas it offers. As long as 'complex is' not confused with 'convoluted', the only excuse to simplify (and simplification is nothing but an euphemism for 'dumbing it down') is that the intended audience is not capable to deal with the material. This is acceptable when writing for kids, but intolerably condescending when the target audience can be expected to be relatively mature.

Now, for the Drow that means, that means that one society would only be enough if we think of the Drow of a very small group of people. This could work, but in comparison to a multitude of different societies, this would be both lame and offer less options, making it the clearly inferior solution.
So, we need more than one societies for the Drow - and since this is the part, where, apart from the mere superficiality of the appearance the really interesting part begins, as here the foundation of how the characters could or would feel like, how they work are developed and what causes these specific features - if you do not want to create contrived crap, the causes are just as important as the effects.

For the Drow, we have two characteristic parameters, which are pretty much universal:



They are related to Surface Elves;

The majority, if not all of them live in a sub terrain environment;

Now we have some more basic fluff, we could or could not use: The drow live in a theocratic, matriarchic society, which sounds like the basics for one or two excellent drow cultures.

Drow live in separate city-states, creating different, and clearly separated, territories, which allow for different cultures in different cities. One culture per city would look a bit artificial, but the idea of separated enclaves would be another good common feature, which would also explain the number of different cultures we strive for in a relatively small population – the isolation of the different city-states lead to several differences between the different cities.

Drow are eeeeeevil. Well this is the crap no writer with a hint of talent or ability for reflection would use, out of refusal to spoil the own works with the influence of childish moral notions. What would work is set of morals deriving from their society that are not particular congruent with the surface dwellers’. And probably a traditional role as the bogey man in Elven legends and, independently if this is justified or not. The moral aspects will be discussed below in the protagonists and antagonists “chapter”.

Drow have some serious prejudices against surface elves and vice versa. Remembering the supernatural curse as an explanation for the distinctive drow complexion? Probably the same reason for the antipathy and the bad reputation of the drow among the surface elves.

If we put this together, we can easily create seven to ten drow cultures that group around important city-states, whereby one big and powerful city becomes a dominant factor and a few lesser ones share the specific cultural traits; as in the underground world of the drow, space is probably at premium, the lesser cities could probably be the colonies or settlements of the larger, and older ones.

This model – which looks as plausible on the superficial level as a society of underground dwelling elves probably can look – offers a multitude of different societies and cultures – and if you need that contrived simplification, there is place for good drows as well as evil ones.

You can easily have the traditional, BDSM matriarch theocracy in some cities, which doesn’t differ at all from the books.
You can have a rivalling city state of pretty relaxed drow that are more open for other people and keep a few contacts and even trading posts to the surface.
You can have another city state, that is very poor and has to offer he service of their warriors as mercenaries for other cities or powers (and seriously: which noble, merchant prince or royal wouldn’t like to show of with some badass drow bodyguards? They could probably become a status symbol for the rich and powerful, like Viking guards in Constantinople).
Yet another city state could be a noble republic, where the different noble houses intrigue against each other, secure their spheres of power and enjoy a life of luxury, while they follow a strong code of honor (yes, this would be Shogun or the Song of Ice and Fire with Drow protagonists. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound intriguing).
The last one I can think of is a magocracy, where the wizards have took over the power in the city and created a place of studies and education – and sheer power through knowledge, including a famed academy and an enormous library.

Yes, these are only very raw and undetailed one sentence descriptions and these rough basic ideas – albeit they are probably quite interesting doesn’t guarantee that the implementation of these ideas works equally well, and there is little as frustrating as an interesting idea which is still recognizable behind a poor implementation (see for example, Star Trek Voyager). But with a bit of time, dedication, training and talent, I think you could take the five city-states above and create a whole campaign in drowspace without getting the players bored. And, the open structure also allows to add additional city states- small ones, large ones, outposts and so on – with a distinctive culture, specific details and so on. In questions like this, the more options and facettes are implemented in the game world, the better.

One short notion to religion: I really think that the way gods are described in D&D is one of the worse representations of the topic I ever come across the fantasy genre, as most religions are terribly contrived, often redundant, and almost always terribly dull. The drow deities are the same, only more so.


Protagonism and Antagonism
Every well-made group in a fantasy setting- every species, every faction, every cult and every realm has the potential to fulfil a role of protagonists and antagonists, often at the same time when the perspective slightly changes. Certainly, there are several groups, which are more suitable for one side than the other, but in the very basics, a group of heroes with no drawbacks and flaws are just as boring and dull as a group of villains without a sympathetic streak; and the players must be able to relate to the motivations of all sides of a conflict, or the lack of challenge and dilemma will limit their interest and attention to the plot. Again, there is no sin as big as treating your players as if they were unable to cope with a moral conflict which is more complex than a chess board color theme.

Generally speaking, the Drow are probably more likely to appear as antagonists than protagonists, especially through their conflict with the surface elves (which are probably more popular, both within the gaming world and by the players). The nature of this conflict is an interesting lever for the design of the Drow and their narrative purpose. Effectively, there are five different scenarios, which could have caused the strive: (a) it was all the drows’s fault, and the surface elves’ hatred is completely justified. As described above, such absolute approaches are regularly less interesting and almost always less convincing than a moral ambivalent explanation.
(b) It was the other Elves’ entire fault. Again, absolute = dull, but this one is slightly more interesting than solution (a), when the role of Drows as antagonists is emphasized, by giving them a “start of darkness”, which makes their behaviour understandable without making it necessarily nice. The problem is, this is an almost overdone approach and can lead to many rolling eyeballs and a feeling of déjà vu.
(c) Both sides have made terrible faults and now it’s too late. The probably most plausible explanation, as monocausal explanations are rarely convincing or that plausible; while we all know and see how two parties of a conflict can escalate the situation equally through sheer idiocy.
(d) Someone else made them do it. I really don’t like the idea that some kind of gods commands how their followers act; that is as if the cheap excuse “the devil made me do it” suddenly becomes true and frees the acting people from all responsibilities. That’s an unsatisfactory solution, because it cheapens the impact of what seems to be a major fissure for the cultures of both species, and this would be significantly cheapened. Yes, this is closest to the original fluff as far as I know, but that doesn’t change that it is just bad writing.
The last option (e) is “nobody really knows why” and that one is an easy cope-out for unoriginal days, a filler that can be conveniently replaced when a better idea comes along.

For obvious reasons, the third option is the best – both sides have made mistakes, have caused problems and felt slights. I would settle for a story like this:

”Once, the ancestors of the people today known as Drow were the Alîsathar, the first of the Elves, a ruling caste over all people. The Alîsathar was a body or rule and justice that arbitrate the disputes among the Elves. But more importantly, the Alîsathar was a core of tradition and lore within a then semi-nomadic society of hunters and gatherers, a fix star for the orientation of the Elven people. Membership in the Alîsathar was based on heritage as well as merits, and the greatest honor an Elf hunter or healer could ever obtain was the rise into the ranks of this council and court.

For a longer time than humans roam the earth, the Alîsathar ruled over Elfkind and their rule was light and just. But then a great hunter and warrior, Corellion Larenthan, was eager to join their ranks, as he saw the honor and the respect towards the Alîsathar, but was blind for the responsibility. 17 times, he came for the court of the Alîsathar and asked for membership and seventeen times he was refused. And Corellion grew bitter and spiteful over this refusal. The Alîsathar did not see Corellion’s bitterness, and the court was in argument over him. The ones who spoke for him praised his eagerness and his strength, his leadership abilities and his youthful passion; and those who opposed him saw his brashness and how covetous he was, the arrogance and the carelessness. And so the Alîsathar argued while Corellion made his plan.

Corellion was not the only one who was discontent with the Alîsathar’s rule. The hunters in the deepest wilderness felt that the court’s rule limited their freedom; the powerful wizards refused the decision of the Alîsathar to forbid the summoning of demons and angels alike and some of the most powerful warriors felt like dogs on a leash since the council forbade them to wipe out other humanoid creatures, like the old ancestors of the humans, Halflings and orcs. Corellion collected these discontents around him and formed a powerful party who opposed every single decision the Alîsathar made. When the Alîsathar made a declaration, Corelion and his own council, the Seldarine. And what starts as politics slowly but unstoppable turned into civil war.

On the one side, the Alîsathar and his allies, against the Seldarine of Corellion and his allies, and in an eon of battles on all spheres, the war was waged. And slowly but steadily, the Alîsathar won. But Corellion was beyond mortality even then, and no Elf, no matter how powerful could face him in battle. He alone decided battles, but even he could not be at all places at the same time, and so the Seldarine lost. Corellion felt anger and fear, when he saw how the ranks of his armies and allies melted, and he knew he had only one chance to win this war – through sacrilege. In the next battle against the Alîsathar, Corellion no longer slain his foe, but absorbed his very soul, adding to his own power and he who was beyond the mortal flesh before, became a god through every soul he took into him. And with his power, the horror of the Alîsathar grew. Corellion taught his closest allies how to read the souls, and they, like him strived for godhood. And at one point, the will of the Alîsathar broke as they saw, that the war was not to be won for them, without committing the same sacrilege. And so the once almighty Alîsathar capitulated.

Corellion was drunk on his own power and victory. He took all power from the Alîsathar and their closest allies and banned them from Elven land and the light of the sun for all time. He put a curse on them, that their skin become grey as ashes to show them how they were inferior to his rule in every regard and to be reminded of that in all eternity. One third of the Alîsathar died from the curse, and one third succumbed in madness. But the survivors were banned from the light of the sun and into the darkness beyond the earth so that Corellion would never gave to see them again.

And here we live. And here we dream of revenge and here we can hear how Corellion’s favored children laugh and play in the sun, and drink purple wine while we live from the cold flesh of pale, blind fishes. Corellion is no longer unmatched in strength, since younger people with younger gods came and challenged him, and he knows that there are those who could overcome him. Down here in the darkness, we found our own god, and she is a patient one. And so we became patient as well, waiting, waiting, for when the net is strong enough to capture a god. And like the spider who drinks its prey’s blood, we will drain the stolen souls out of Corellion and his minions and on this day, the Alîsathar will be avenged. Elliya Lolthu!”

To put it in a nutshell, my Drow would be full of hatred and thirsting for a revenge. After thousands of years, the whole reason for the hatred has become insignificant for them. Lolth is transformed in a goddess of patient hunters and people who spin long term plans, and who can keep up this hatred for a long time. Now, the Drow cannot strike at the one they really, really want to hurt –Corellion Larenthian (who is probably not that much of a megalomaniac jerk as the Drow myth above makes him) –so they strike at proxies- surface elves.
The whole hatred for the surface is a powerful tool for a theocracy, as the constant external threat is a great way to keep internal strive at a minimum. This may work in some of the city states, and not in others.




I could probably write just as much about Drow as PC sources, but I feel slightly tired from writing this post. To keep it short: Don’t generalise. People are diverse. Individuals are more diverse. With a number of various different cultural and social background for Drows, you get more playable resspources for PCs as well. Everybody is happy.

...This...this is downright awesome! Probably the most perfect write-up of the drow I've ever seen!

[Swordguy]

No. As "coolness" is entirely subjective, sales is about the only measure there is (and yes, in case of RPG supplements/noves and similar pure entertainment it is the only thing that sell books - particularly if we talk about the books under the same brand name). It is like the popular vote, except that (in RPG supplements case) voters put their money where their mouths are. And drow clearly get more votes than squidheads.

Coolness isn't subjective whatsoever. It's measured by a rigorously scientific method:

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n294/wolffe42/Funny/225px-Coolometer.png

In MegaFonzies.

[Dixieboy]

You must be confusing FR for some other horribly written, incredibly contrived campaign setting.

I has source.

FR should be taken with a heavy dose of "It's just a game, i really should just relax"
Besides
Baldurs gate was awesome.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Maybe because the underdark is also home to Mind Flayers and Aboleths AKA nastiest guys in the future and past, respectively.
....
In other words, adventurers try to avoid them, but they aren't the top mission targets, and the other underdark races control most of the territory.

Exactly. I never saw any logical reason for them to have any sort of supremacy whatsoever. In a campaign I'm planning (distinct from the one I'm starting), the drow are the goblins of the Underdark - powerful enough to destroy border towns and adventurers (and, with the drow, distract the aboleths and illithids). However, they aren't on the prime hit-list (that would be aboleths/illithids, the equivalent of surface-world "other human nations"), and if Lolth ever started to really act up some divine smackdown would be involved. Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, except no fiendish conspiracy - just a good old fashioned beating. Misogyny not encouraged.

[Weirdlet]

I've been trying to post all day, but the board keeps cutting out on me-

I'm greatly enjoying all the discussion so far, and Satyr? When you're less tired, could you please go on about drow as PC sources? I'd like to hear your take.

[Pronounceable]

stuff

That is all well, good and proper, but when there's about 14 million humanoid races (plus double that for nonhumanoid but intelligent critters that can form societies) the amount of work for doing this becomes unacceptable. Not to mention even if it's actually done, the resulting info will fill an encyclopedia. Not cool for players and downright awful for DM. Monolithic and lightly/dumbly fluffed fantasy races are there for these reasons.

When most players want to kill and loot, thought spent on making a fantasy race "real" is good as wasted. One might argue that this is wrong and such detailed background can only enrich the game, but that's ignoring creative efficiency. Rich background doesn't automatically mean more fun. If the amount work spent on making drow/orcs/bugbears into a real race is instead spent on actual stuff relevant to players, the fun at table will be much more.

This sort of "interesting writing for fantasy" is completely incompatible with standard DnD. Only if you're homebrewing a setting with no more than 5 seperate races can this method feasibly be used. Obviously if that's the case, not doing this would be criminal. For standard DnD? No way.

[Weirdlet]

With all due respect, I disagree- considering the volumes of information just about different kingdoms, races, subraces, I think it's perfectly fine to flesh out what particular races you're going to have at the forefront of a campaign. It's also helpful to know stuff in the background in order to shape what's going on in the game, both as a player and a GM- and no one says that one must detail every little thing. Standard D&D is difficult to pin down- none of the groups I've ever been in have been purely hack and slash, why'd-you-kill-the-elf-queen-because-she-was-*there*, and often we like getting a little detail on who we are or what we're fighting. Or trading with. Or trying to slip past, or bargain with, or avoid insulting.

Besides, sometimes it's fun just to have the stuff there for love of creating it.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I concur with Weirdlet. D&D is as much an art as it is a game. :smallsmile:

[Xallace]

Hmm...And yet Lolth is still evil, right?

I forgot that a big part of why evil gods have followers is the fact that they can have just as good a PR department as the good gods. I'm reminded of the story of Vecna they provide in Open Grave, where instead of a power-mad tyrant, he's portrayed as a Ghandi-like reformer.

Yeah, she is. To this version of the Drow her "evil" is more by necessity than choice, though; the Underdark is a scary place, you need to be on top to survive. That said, I never thought of drow as angsty; questioned on the immoral nature of one's actions, I think a dark elf would simply shrug and say, "We're still alive."

Really now? Well, I never liked Vecna, but I may have to use that idea, as it somehow makes me dislike him even more.


This.

A lot of people forget that the reason Drizz't was so popular was because in the earlier editions, Drow were freaking scary. They were basically PCs, But Better. They had magic, equipment, teamwork, high levels, and everything the PCs got . . . except more of it. Fighting a squad of Drow was terrifying, especially in the Underdark where they held the home field advantage.

I like Valen's quote from Neverwinter Nights. He compares two drow armies fighting to watching two shadows merge together. You don't see anything, you don't perceive anything, and yet, you can feel it. You can feel the darkness roiling with energy and pain, and it's scary. It's really freakin' scary.

And like you said "Fighting Drow was terrifying." The idea that there's an entire war going on around me, physically happening around me and I can't perceive any of it, but know that it's there.... ooh, makes my skin crawl. Now when you realize that only one side is fighting like that, and it's not yours... Fighting Drow ought to be such a different experience from fighting other humanoids.

I think I'm gonna go now and make my PCs afraid of the dark.


Yoinked. All of it. If I ever have a drow society in any game, it'll be this. Complete with Granma Lloth and her family: old, senile father Ghaundaur, shifty uncle Vhaerun and angsty, rebelling teen sister Eilistraee...

*Bows* I'm honored. Also, Ol' Granny Lolth (and her spidersilk sweaters) is gonna show up as Lolth's avatar in one of my games now. Consider our ideas traded.

[Lappy9000]

That is all well, good and proper, but when there's about 14 million humanoid races (plus double that for nonhumanoid but intelligent critters that can form societies) the amount of work for doing this becomes unacceptable. Not to mention even if it's actually done, the resulting info will fill an encyclopedia. Not cool for players and downright awful for DM. Monolithic and lightly/dumbly fluffed fantasy races are there for these reasons.

When most players want to kill and loot, thought spent on making a fantasy race "real" is good as wasted. One might argue that this is wrong and such detailed background can only enrich the game, but that's ignoring creative efficiency. Rich background doesn't automatically mean more fun. If the amount work spent on making drow/orcs/bugbears into a real race is instead spent on actual stuff relevant to players, the fun at table will be much more.

This sort of "interesting writing for fantasy" is completely incompatible with standard DnD. Only if you're homebrewing a setting with no more than 5 seperate races can this method feasibly be used. Obviously if that's the case, not doing this would be criminal. For standard DnD? No way.No no no no no. No no. You don't write this sort of thing as the basic fluff for a race :smalleek:

You give a short and punchy version ("lightly fluffed" as you put it) for the player's convenience. Then you let out the big guns; providing extraordinarily detailed background fluff for the people who enjoy reading through an entire campaign setting manual (such as myself).

Don't assume everyone will read all of it, but keep it somewhere in case they do. This way, everyone wins.

[Dacia Brabant]

Normal spellcasting progression > all in DnD 3.X. For example Rays-B-Gone spell that totally screws beholders is level 4 IIRC (and even without that beholders save DCs are kinda pathetic, they aren't really worth CR 12). You don't care about "common drow" any more than you care about human militia, you care about two-digit level monstrosities that can kill armies of grunts while sleepwalking, summon demon legions and make your soul fall off. And drow have ridiculous as$loads of them. And in previous editions drow were the most overpowered humanoid races, with their uberequipment and stuff.

Yes you're correct, full spellcasting progression > * in 3.X, and Drow can never have full progression pre-Epic thanks to always being 2 levels behind (and once Epic is allowed they're even further behind since Epic Spells = I Win D&D Forever). This makes them suck for all practical purposes as casters, as everyone makes for better Clerics and their Grey Elf cousins absolutely embarass them at Wizardry.

Really their best bet is to go 18 deep in a Tome of Battle class, the Con penalty hurts but can be made up for and they get bonuses in 3 key initiator stats (Dex, Int and Cha) and ECL +2 doesn't wreck martial characters like it does casters. A high-level raiding party of Drow Crusaders would be pretty freaking scary. Hmm, that's not a bad idea actually.


Anyway, for my part I think Drow would work fairly well as Fantasy Stereotypical Dorians (and regular surface elves would do okay as Ionians): tight-knit, clannish, insular people congregated into small, well-protected cities in the Underdark, ruled by a warrior caste (could be male or female dominated I guess, depending on the religion or what have you--no Chaotic Stupid Goddess though please) with a sizeable population of slaves to do all the heavy lifting. I mark their societies as tending toward Lawful Evil with Neutral tendencies, but very little room for Good (defending what's theirs by right or relationship is Neutral) since universal altruism and respect for life won't get you very far where they are.

They wouldn't be effective at orchestrating long-term, wide-reaching military campaigns due to the small population of citizens compared to slaves, as well as the circumstances of the Underdark itself, but as raiders their natural individual prowess and likely predisposition toward ferocity and cruelty (again, Underdark and slavery necessities) would make them pretty terrifying. Especially to things that aren't accustomed to dealing with them, mainly surface dwellers, who they'd likely view as prime slave stock, although I'd imagine they'd give no quarter to their neighbors down below.

I guess in some ways this isn't too different from their standard portrayal, but I don't figure them for Chaotic at all. If they're supposed to be reversals of standard elves (dark skin and light hair instead of the light skin and dark hair, dungeons instead of outdoors, evil instead of good, etc.) then they should probably have strictly ordered societies instead of laissez faire ones, where the individual citizen does whatever's needed instead of whatever she pleases.

[TheEmerged]

I'll come back and read the rest of this thread when I'm awake enough to pay attention :D

For starters, the drow on my campaign world follow the same basic rules for all my races & kingdoms.

1> There is no such thing as an innately evil sentient race. There is also no such thing as an innately good sentient race.
2> Nobody sane sees themselves as evil. As a rule, all kingdoms think they're the 'good guys' and most everyone else is either wrong, evil, or deluded.
3> Birds of a feather flock together.
4> There are four members to every broad racial category. One of those four is "horror touched" and not generally available to PC's, and one will usually be 'evil'.
5> Kingdoms will always have at least one 'rival' -- sometimes an enemy, sometimes just a competitor for resources.
6> The various cultures of the world are just that -- various cultures. They don't all participate in the same mythology even when they're using the same names.
7> There will always be exceptions -- even to this rule ;)


I know some people don't like racial kingdoms, and they're welcome to their opinions. The concept works well with the established backstory of my world (imagine the Biblical Tower of Babel, where races were created in addition to languages).

The Drow are one of the four fey races of the world (alongside the eladrin, elves, and Shadar-Kai). They live underground, competing for resources with the Derro (evil psionic dwarves), with whom they share a mutual hatred. There are three drow kingdoms in the world which cooperate with each other in theory, but in practice barely talk to each other.

They are a theocratic (ruled by priests) gynarchy (rule of women). They view their males as a resource to be cultivated, and their slaves as a tool to be used. They view most other races as children that need to grow up. Like the Eladrin, they live about 50% longer than other races (long-lived/quasi immortal races are a pet peeve of mine).

The Drow worship Lolth. Their religion is manichaestic -- they believe that the god of Good and god of evil are roughly equal in power. Lolth is their spiritual god of Good; the 'benevolent creator' the rest of the world worships is the evil one. He created this imperfect world to torment the mortals, and tricks them with "rules" and "ethics" to keep them from challenging him in power. Ultimately good can only come from spirits; as such the drow view their bodies with disdain -- at best something that needs to be improved upon.

I'll come back later with more.

[Satyr]

...This...this is downright awesome! Probably the most perfect write-up of the drow I've ever seen!

No, the write-up is not particular good; the majority of the stuff is a short essay on developing species, and if this is done well, you could probably make an intriguing and fascinating write-up for every single sentient species. Drows are a bit simpler because they are so iconic and already exist in a state of ambivalence between pure evil and PC material.


I'm greatly enjoying all the discussion so far, and Satyr? When you're less tired, could you please go on about drow as PC sources? I'd like to hear your take.

I'll give it a try when I come home from work this evening.


That is all well, good and proper, but when there's about 14 million humanoid races (plus double that for nonhumanoid but intelligent critters that can form societies) the amount of work for doing this becomes unacceptable.

Probably not every species in a game requires a multidimensional and very detailed description, the relevant ones are those who are pretty much potential PC material or who can have a significant impact on the campaign. What I wrote was an abridged guideline for the creative process for major player species. I would probably not put as much effort in the development of a Troglodyte society (because, basically, how interesting are very large kobold-like walking fart jokes?).

For the major species of a setting, this is not a very demanding task, nor is it without benefits. The group I normally play in came to the conclusion that being a monster depends on what you do, not how you look like, and "ugly" PC species are not that uncommon. Hobgoblins are probably one of the most popular species for PC's in this group, and my players thirst for fluff. Seriousy, I have players who can barely remember the rules from session to session but can easily quote the gaming world's equivalent to the Edda. Different preferences and social connections favor different developments.


Not to mention even if it's actually done, the resulting info will fill an encyclopedia. Not cool for players and downright awful for DM. Monolithic and lightly/dumbly fluffed fantasy races are there for these reasons.

" Oh no! There is so much to read of mildly entertaining and easy understandable stuff about something I am at least mildly interested in! The Horror.... the Horror!"

Seriously, most players I know - or at least the types of players who enjoy my gaming groups or who I like to play with - show some kind of basic dedication and interest in the game. Yes, this approach is unfriendly towards casual gamers who are not very interested in the game, but I always felt that this is an ungrateful audience anyway and that I prefer players who care about the effort I put into the game.


When most players want to kill and loot, thought spent on making a fantasy race "real" is good as wasted. One might argue that this is wrong and such detailed background can only enrich the game, but that's ignoring creative efficiency. Rich background doesn't automatically mean more fun. If the amount work spent on making drow/orcs/bugbears into a real race is instead spent on actual stuff relevant to players, the fun at table will be much more.

Frankly, I have never seen a campaign where the major motivation was killing and looting and which didn't had as much depth as a rain puddle. That is not up to my standards, and the lack of an intellectual stimulus makes these games incredible boring (and stupid).
Besides, Orcs, Drows and Bugbears aren't any less people than the core book races, and since some of those aren't terribly interesting, developing cool, detailed and playable cultures for Drows and Orcs and Bugbears is the exact definition of relevant stuff for the players. There is no reason whatsoever - apart from tradition - to take over the traditional roles of "PC species" vs. Monster species" without questioning.


This sort of "interesting writing for fantasy" is completely incompatible with standard DnD. Only if you're homebrewing a setting with no more than 5 seperate races can this method feasibly be used. Obviously if that's the case, not doing this would be criminal. For standard DnD? No way.

I cannot agree with you in this point, but that my be caused by different approaches. But I also elimininate at least some of the species in most settings or make them rather obscure. For major species though, this amoiunt of invested thought is essential for a game that is more than just "kill things and take their stuff" and I feel that is no longer enough for me since I turned 14 or so.



D&D is as much an art as it is a game.

Not D&D in particular, but roleplaying games in general. Roleplaying is an art form and should be treated as that. It simplifies a rise of the niveau in general.

[Khanderas]

But that still doesn't make sense. The common drow is a CR 1 1st level warrior for crikies sake! They inhabit the same places as CR 8-9 mind flayers (and their CR 25 Elder Brains), CR 7 aboleths, CR 12 beholders, and various other much stronger beasties. The first two ALSO have highly structured societies and powerful magic but don't constantly try to murder each other as well. Even when you don't take into account the intelligent beasties, the un-intelligent alone would wreck havoc by sheer strength and numbers.

It should also be noted that the Drow are almost always with class levels, fight intellgently (fighters + arcane + devine magic as a team), will use devious tactics whenever possible. Possess scores of slaves as cannon fodder, summons outsiders for extra oomph. Sounds much like Adventurers to me (and those guys kill gods every now and then).

But more then that, they are vicious and that is why Drow rule the underdark. If you insult a Drow to her face, capture and torture until death / sacrficed.
If you murder a Drow of any social standing, they will band together and wipe out a town.
If a mind flayer tries to take over a city, all mindflayers will be executed within 10 days of travel. Simply put, they are crazy, but they are the kind of crazy that can actually back up their claims of ruthlessness.

That is why a group of mindflayers do not dominate town of a thousands of Drow.

[Doomsy]

I'd downgrade Lloths cultists to a somewhat minor force inside Drow society and rebuild it as something a hell of a lot deeper than chainmail bikinis, girl power, and D/S themes. Replace the 'scheming houses' stuff with an actual organized religious rift between three or more Drow/Underdark deities and their religions. Make them more lawful and scheming. Add in that one deity - Jailer Below was it? To balance things out, say a triad between Ellistrae and Lloth and him that operate as a triune force of stability, all three exiled below along with their race and none able to leave unless they all can. Of course, with two of the three being evil and one being chaotic evil, their alliances never quite work out.

Ideally, lawful evil/neutral Jailer is the 'court system' in the cities, with justice being delivered Judge Dredd style given, well, Drow society. Rule givers. They're not good, but they are reliable and predictable - follow the laws to the letter, even if they often try to use them to screw someone else over.

Ellistrae and her followers operate as the councilors, healers, and guardians of the society in many ways - make her a strategic goddess more than the moonlight & happiness crap usually associated with her, more in line with the Red Knight. They're hardened survivors and probably the people who handle the day to day city operations.

Lloth, being the mad ravening chaotic OH I HATES MEN BUT I LIKE THEM GONNA POST NINE INCH NAILS LYRICS IN MY LJ type she is, is probably more interested in trying to be the all secretive and shadowy goddess type ruling from the shadows until she comes out from the dark. As such, the other two kick the crap out of her cultists when possible or have a triune government when she is entrenched. Assume assassination, poisoning, not liking men, and general mad shrieking cultist stuff is in her jurisdiction. She's the minor power because the other two know she is about as reliable and stable as a sofa made out of toothpicks and toilet paper.
Also, I'd make Ellistrae far more hardcore. You don't survive as the sole 'good' deity in that kind of pantheon without knowing how to shank someone in the dark from behind and how to make damn sure your enemies are dead or not going to screw with you. Good does not mean stupid or soft, especially in the underdark.

[SurlySeraph]

I would remove all the anti-hero exceptions within the race and just leave them as-is. They're campy baby-eating evil magnificent bastards except for like five dudes.


I'd go back to 2e. They're evil killers, living in an enviroment the PCs are afraid to even enter, using gear and magic far beyond the PCs capabilities to strike from behind, when they're weak. Attempts to fight normally end in death or capture, attempts to run just make them chase you. Capture means slavery for burtal uncaring overloards or sacrifice to their dark gods. No BDSM, no good versions throwing off the yoke of their evil kin(Detect Good is unnecessary, they just don't exist), no weaknesses and no mercy.

This, basically. I like for the drow to have the paranoid, unstable, sadistic/hedonistic, horribly ill-planned society the fluff says they have. The drow would be boring if they weren't so dysfunctional. What originally made the drow intimidating is that they're all so individually strong and smart that they can not only keep their hellish excuse for a civilization intact, but keep it powerful enough to pose a threat to more civilized entities. Drow society is like the civic version of an Aberration - it's so hideously warped that it shouldn't function at all, and the horror of it is that somehow, against all laws of nature and reason, it does.


*incredibly logical alternate fluff on Drow religion*

And maybe I'd add this in. In fact, I think this might have to be my personal canon now.

Alternately: In the homebrew setting I'm working on, Drow are a small, obscure, swamp-dwelling tribe of scary primitive degenerate sadists. Virtually no one knows they exist, and the rest of the elves are trying to make sure that no one finds out that they exist. And by "make sure no one finds out they exist," I mean "kill them all before anyone finds out they exist." The Drow are hideously nasty people, but given that their only interactions are a) with the swamp-dwelling human barbarians, who are equally horrible and b) with the genocidal elves trying to track them down, they need to be to survive. They're not particularly religious, and not particularly big on intrigue - while they enjoy sacrificing prisoners, and they're good at manipulation, day-to-day survival takes up most of their effort.


Well here's a question in line with how people would re-write drow...

Why are they always the masters of the Underdark? This baffles me as much as why elves always have the bestest civilizations. Why are the drow at the top of the pecking orders for Underdark races? It doesn't make too much sense to be honest.

I prefer the explanation that they're not the masters of the Underdark. At all. Not even a little bit. But they think they are, and they've convinced the surface races that they are, and the surface races don't know enough about what else is down in the Underdark to contradict them. After all, it's the Drow that conduct most of the raids on the surface; the Duergar spend all their time working in their cities or at war with the illithids, whenever the illithids conduct slave raids the only people they leave behind are too mind-blasted to tell anyone about it, the beholders are busy trying to kill off everything else in the Underdark, and even the illithids have no idea what the Aboleths are plotting.

[FatR]

Yes you're correct, full spellcasting progression > * in 3.X, and Drow can never have full progression pre-Epic thanks to always being 2 levels behind
17+2=19. Bad, but not really bad, compared to how illithids and stuff are shafted by LA sytem. And I'm not really talking about PC optimization, but about the fact that drow have tons of ridiculously high level casters, according by just about all the supplements that desribe them, from their first appearance.

[FatR]

" Oh no! There is so much to read of mildly entertaining and easy understandable stuff about something I am at least mildly interested in! The Horror.... the Horror!"
When I game, I don't care about the stuff that is irrelevant to the game, because our group consists of adult people with jobs and our game time is really freaking limited. Detailed racial writeups are pretty much irrelevant unless you have one, maybe, at most two, non-human races per campaign and the entire campaign is based around it/them. Any more races will be humans in funny masks (or Always Chaotic Evil - or, as more pretentious authors like to call them, "alien" - things which will will stab PCs in the face for attempts to interact with them), so why should I bother? Your essay (where it doesn't state the obvious) can be totally boiled down to "just officially make them humans in funny masks, but keep them stabbing surface-dwellers faces for bull**** reasons, exactly as they did before", by the way. So, I probably wouldn't qualify racial fluff written by you as "entertaining". And not because I have something against "humans in funny masks" approach.

[Evil DM Mark3]

When I set out to create my Drow I wanted to preserve as much of their violent, religion and political nature whilst making them more viable as a civilization. My solution? Segregate them! I hereby introduce my Caste based Drow civilization.

Aristocratic: The ruling families of Drow society, tied together by webs of marriage and obligation the Imperial family is ultimately ruled by the Valshor, the Ultimate mistress of all Drow society. The lowest members of the aristocratic caste are judges, civil servants and managers, whereas the highest ranking ones are the masters of entire cities and are responsible only to the Valshor. Every Aristocrat has a Warrior, Scout and Priestess to advise them on their duties and to protect them. This is the smallest caste and the only one aside from the Worker and Religious caste permitted to own slaves, at extortionate rates set by the Valshor. They have just under half of the seats in the Valshor's advisory court (a legislative body and highest court of appeal). The colour of the caste is Gold.
Merchant: Despite what the Drow Empire might like it is necessary for them to integrate with and trade with other races to a certain degree. This is the province of the Merchant caste. Distrusted and looked down upon by the rest of the Drow as soft or sort of outsiders they do however have quite a lot of resources others don't and most other castes need to deal with them for resources. They have only three advisory seats. The colour of the caste is Green.
Religious: The one time powerhouse of Drow society, the Religious caste is now in decline due to theological conflict and their failed attempt to usurp the Aristocratic caste due to the actions of the Warrior caste. The caste is further split into Priestesses (female) and Inquisitors (male). They have only 12 advisory council seats. They have the right to own slaves for sacrificial purposes only. The colour of the caste is black.
Scout: The spies, assassins, rangers and couriers of Drow society the Scout caste is one of those elements that no one trusts and no one can do without. By tradition the aristocrat's scour aid sleeps under his bed. They are also tasked with acquiring slave labor for the Worker caste. They have just under a quarter of the seats on the Advisory Court, one less than the warrior caste. The colour of the caste is yellow.
Warrior: Responsible for the Empire's defense from outside forces. The caste is run on the principle of a strict meritocracy, all memebers are raised in commune and promoted from the ranks based only on the number of confirmed kills and competitive (but non-leathal) exams. Traditionaly quite close to the Worker and Aristocratic castes, but their ultimate loyalty is to the Empire. The colour of the caste is blue.
Worker: The largest caste whilst being the most underrespisented in the advisory council with only one seat. They are the servants, the artisans, the traders and builders. Even the most powerful have less authority than mid-ranking aristocrats.
Outcaste: A disgraced Drow. The have no right to exist in Drow society and no legal rights.

Cities: The Drow Empire is built around mostly autonomous cities. Each city belongs to a different caste who are the ones who decide the local laws. The power balance is interesting in non-aristocratic caste cities, where one caste decides what is legal and the other judges cases, but for the most part the aristocrats of these cities tend to just go through life in a state of privileged decadence. The aristocrats own about half of the cities, the Worker and Merchant one each and the others are more or less equaly divided. The Imperial City happens to be the one controlled by the Worker caste, thanks to the nature of the old internal wars.

The male/female balance: For the majority of castes females have either a legal or social advantage. The exceptions are the Workers and Warriors, the former because almost no one has an advantage anyway and the second is a strict meritocracy, but all in all is is strength, rather than gender, that makes the real difference for most castes, the gender issue as perception, not a fact.

Execution: The fun you can have with this is imminence. You can have the rabid religion, the backstabbing politics and the dangerous military, as well as having enough just ordinary people to keep the civilization ticking over. I even ran a game with the PCs as these drow.

[Satyr]

When I game, I don't care about the stuff that is irrelevant to the game, because our group consists of adult people with jobs and our game time is really freaking limited.

Well, that one is exotic. As if there are no people who have a life apart from the gaming table - and still have the time to read easy lectures. What you probably mean is "that is not important for me, and therefore it is generally not important", which is a very common mixup of subjective and objective perception. I do this all the time, too.


Your essay (where it doesn't state the obvious) can be totally boiled down to "just officially make them humans in funny masks, but keep them stabbing surface-dwellers faces for bull**** reasons, exactly as they did before", by the way.

Humans with funny masks sounds like derogative, but it is actually quite hard to create fictional, human cultures that feel organic and interesting, and in many settings - see, for example Conan - this is enough. But since the addition of non-human(oid) sentients is a standing convention in fantasy setting, this may be sufficient, but is not necessarily satisfying.
Avoiding contrived, mind-numbing stupid story elements is basically offering elements the players can comprehend, relate to and which works within the their expectations within the framework of the setting's versimilitude. So, when the people look as if they were humans and resembling the expactations to the fantasy conventions and takes the specific -physical, mental and social characteristics of the species at hand, your doing great. Remember, the target is not to write speculative fiction about how other sentient species could think like under scientific and biologic aspects, the target is to create an element that is convincing to the participants (players and obviously yourself as well), enriches the setting in a way and ideally, leads to a feeling of "I want to play this" or "I want to play with this" in your players.
And yes, this is actually banal. This should be obvious. But when you take a look at the average quality of what wotc sometimes conscider to be fluff, it doesn't look so obvious anymore.

[Pronounceable]

When I game, I don't care about the stuff that is irrelevant to the game, because our group consists of adult people with jobs and our game time is really freaking limited.

That is the main issue, only not worded well enough. I was staunchly against this gamer mentality when I was younger (when people around me had loads of free time to sink into a hobby). Now everyone's time and energy is limited. It's not about "having a life" or "much to read of mildly entertaining and easy understandable stuff about something I am at least mildly interested in", it's about the amount of fun to be had per unit effort. If the fun we have beating the crap out of each other on Wii boxing is greater than the amount of fun we have on RPG table in one evening, it's gonna be Wii boxing.

Wii boxing is a much shallower form of entertainment. The satisfaction from a properly played RPG campaign is much greater than many nights of mindless pixel violence. Unfortunately when it requires commitment from a group of people, quantity>quality.

[Morty]

*stuff*

There's too much stuff to quote so I'll just say that for once, I agree. The argument that players might not have time to read all the racial write-up is definetly valid, but there's a partial solution for that - don't make a boopload of races for no reason. D&D worlds are full of species that have no real purpose except providing PCs XP fodder when they're bored with orcs and goblins - see ogres, troglodytes(my favorite example - their description can be summed up in "they stink and eat people") or kuo-toa. If the race doesn't deserve a detailed description because of how irrelevant it is, it shouldn't exist. Simple. I'm also generally of the opinion that creating a race for the sole purpose of it being an enemy is very bad writing. We could, of course, make up stuff about how alien, monstrous, etc. they are, but what it'd boil down to in the long run would be "they're evil and you have to kill them".

[Evil DM Mark3]

Why no comments on my writeup? No love for it?

[Kylarra]

Yes you're correct, full spellcasting progression > * in 3.X, and Drow can never have full progression pre-Epic thanks to always being 2 levels behind (and once Epic is allowed they're even further behind since Epic Spells = I Win D&D Forever). This makes them suck for all practical purposes as casters, as everyone makes for better Clerics and their Grey Elf cousins absolutely embarass them at Wizardry. They can always buy off that LA by level 9/ecl11 so they're just like everyone else* with slightly higher base stats.


*everyone else being defined as LA 0 races

[Weirdlet]

Ladies/Gentlemen- the purpose of the thread was really meant to be about how different people would write the drow if they were going to include them, not debating the usefulness of fleshing out one's campaign races. I understand that as time goes by, you develop your own shorthand within the game and not everyone wants things to be overly depth-plumbing, especially after you've established a mutual canon that you like. I don't think that this is the place to argue against ever developing things further, and relevance is, well, relative.

[Dacia Brabant]

17+2=19. Bad, but not really bad, compared to how illithids and stuff are shafted by LA sytem. And I'm not really talking about PC optimization, but about the fact that drow have tons of ridiculously high level casters, according by just about all the supplements that desribe them, from their first appearance.

I understand that, but what I was trying to show was that Drow used as challenges to oppose PCs (which is basically what they're expected to be) are going to be inherently poorer at what they do than their PC counterparts, assuming CR and ECL are equal. Any Drow that your players fight will either have to be sufficiently higher level or well-optimized to pose a serious challenge, unless the players aren't very good or are unlucky I guess.

It's really just one more point where crunch and fluff don't match up is all.


They can always buy off that LA by level 9/ecl11 so they're just like everyone else* with slightly higher base stats.

An optional rule, and while it's one I like I would not use LA Buyoff as a DM for my Drow NPCs unless there were PCs in the party who had done the same.

And they are still behind by the way at ECL 11, it's just that they get to catch up over the next couple levels as they earn XP faster against the now-higher level challenges.


Why no comments on my writeup? No love for it?

I liked it, it has the kind of harsh regimented feel I was looking for, although I'm not sure I understand how it works out that the lowest caste came into control of the chief imperial city.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

I understand that, but what I was trying to show was that Drow used as challenges to oppose PCs (which is basically what they're expected to be) are going to be inherently poorer at what they do than their PC counterparts, assuming CR and ECL are equal. Any Drow that your players fight will either have to be sufficiently higher level or well-optimized to pose a serious challenge, unless the players aren't very good or are unlucky I guess.Actually, it's only +1 CR. So the Drow will be one level lower than the players, but with +2 to spellcasting stats, Will saves, and SR. It evens out.

[Evil DM Mark3]

I liked it, it has the kind of harsh regimented feel I was looking for, although I'm not sure I understand how it works out that the lowest caste came into control of the chief imperial city.It is a prime principle of the Empire that the Valshor (or, in the one rare and brief case, Valshorar, a male Valshor) has no direct control over any terrirotry. They operate only through their advisors, ministers and servators. As such SOMEONE has to be responcible for the bylaws and maintainace of the Imperial city and the safest person to give this job to is the head of a Caste with no military power (and certainly not the Aristocratic caste, and be held beholden to one of her rivals in her own home). The only choices are Merchant or Worker and as mentioned elsewhere the Merchants are not exactly idea. The workers however, with only their industrial power, cannot use the fact that they have the Imperial City to gain ground or control events.

[kamikasei]

I understand that, but what I was trying to show was that Drow used as challenges to oppose PCs (which is basically what they're expected to be) are going to be inherently poorer at what they do than their PC counterparts, assuming CR and ECL are equal. Any Drow that your players fight will either have to be sufficiently higher level or well-optimized to pose a serious challenge, unless the players aren't very good or are unlucky I guess.

It's really just one more point where crunch and fluff don't match up is all.

I don't really follow your logic here. Yes, a CR-appropriate encounter of drow will have fewer class levels than the party. This does not mean that LA hobbles drow. It means that drow have racial abilities that mean they have the advantage over PC races unless the PC races have more skill and training. It doesn't mean that a drow archmage is a spell level behind his elven counterparts; it means that (notionally, and of course not quite really because of the flaws in the CR and LA systems) a competent surfacer wizard will be challenged fighting a drow novice.

After all, if the fluff says "drow are dangerous and deadly opponents", but you always make sure they're an even match (or a CR-appropriate encounter, i.e. a five-a-day snack) for the PCs, of course there'll be a mismatch there. If the fluff says drow are supposed to be crazy dangerous, build encounters with drow to be crazy dangerous. The CR system is not a guide to in-world demographics, especially not for humanoids.

[Dacia Brabant]

Actually, it's only +1 CR. So the Drow will be one level lower than the players, but with +2 to spellcasting stats, Will saves, and SR. It evens out.

Oh that is true, I forgot that CR and ECL aren't at a 1:1 correlation. That's a little more even then, although SR isn't all it's cracked up to be.


After all, if the fluff says "drow are dangerous and deadly opponents", but you always make sure they're an even match (or a CR-appropriate encounter, i.e. a five-a-day snack) for the PCs, of course there'll be a mismatch there. If the fluff says drow are supposed to be crazy dangerous, build encounters with drow to be crazy dangerous. The CR system is not a guide to in-world demographics, especially not for humanoids.

This is also a good point, especially that last part, and I'll agree that they can be built with sufficiently scary stats to seriously challenge anything called for by the DM and players.

But as you say the CR and LA systems don't represent this very well in practice, and I'm not sure their added racial benefits are really worth it. For my part I just think a 7th level Wizard of the regular humanoid races is going to be a lot more dangerous than its 6th level CR-appropriate (or 5th level ECL equivalent) Drow counterpart just because of access to spells like Solid Fog and Black Tentacles.


As such SOMEONE has to be responcible for the bylaws and maintainace of the Imperial city

I see, so it's just an administrative function, which given their role as the general labor force makes sense, and since they don't wield the power of the sword it'd be unwise of them to try to write themselves into too much authority there.

But yeah some interesting ideas here. The merchant class would probably be the one to watch out for though, and seems the most interesting in terms of potential conflict if only because their foreign dealings could put them into some nice acquisitions of outside wealth and allies.

[Nai_Calus]

They're elves. Same as any other elf or elf-like object. They worship the elven gods and get along with their surface elven cousins when they actually run into them. Sure, some of them are rotten evil jerks, but that's some of every race. No Lolth, no psycho matriarchy, just elves who happen to live underground. They find the stone formations of their caves as beautiful as their surface cousins find the forests of the material plane and the Feywild.

But then I like Yet Another Elven Subrace Syndrome and think there aren't *enough*. Some people paint. Some people sculpt. Some people write poetry. The Seldarine express themselves through the creation of new and interesting subraces of elf. :smallbiggrin:

Plus I find 'Oh yeah all of these people are evil. It's just how they are' silly. People are people, and it's what they do and the choices they make that determine 'good' or 'evil'. I like races that have all sorts of people normally, not just one.

[FatR]

Plus I find 'Oh yeah all of these people are evil. It's just how they are' silly.
I don't. Or, well, partially don't. In the universe where creating or warping life to one's specifications is relatively common, being evil because some divine jerk wanted your race to be evil is perfectly understandable. On the other hand, DnD tends to skip "and that's how evil is hardwired in them" part (unlike, say Warhammer, which tells in details, why exactly evil races and factions are irreedeemable monsters - genetic programming, mindrape by monstrous gods, physical inability to maintain their lifestyle without torturing centient beings to death, etc) and just say "they are evil, because". Which is indeed unsatisfying.

[TheEmerged]

Previous post spoilered for ease of re-reading.

For starters, the drow on my campaign world follow the same basic rules for all my races & kingdoms.

1> There is no such thing as an innately evil sentient race. There is also no such thing as an innately good sentient race.
2> Nobody sane sees themselves as evil. As a rule, all kingdoms think they're the 'good guys' and most everyone else is either wrong, evil, or deluded.
3> Birds of a feather flock together.
4> There are four members to every broad racial category. One of those four is "horror touched" and not generally available to PC's, and one will usually be 'evil'.
5> Kingdoms will always have at least one 'rival' -- sometimes an enemy, sometimes just a competitor for resources.
6> The various cultures of the world are just that -- various cultures. They don't all participate in the same mythology even when they're using the same names.
7> There will always be exceptions -- even to this rule ;)


I know some people don't like racial kingdoms, and they're welcome to their opinions. The concept works well with the established backstory of my world (imagine the Biblical Tower of Babel, where races were created in addition to languages).

The Drow are one of the four fey races of the world (alongside the eladrin, elves, and Shadar-Kai). They live underground, competing for resources with the Derro (evil psionic dwarves), with whom they share a mutual hatred. There are three drow kingdoms in the world which cooperate with each other in theory, but in practice barely talk to each other.

They are a theocratic (ruled by priests) gynarchy (rule of women). They view their males as a resource to be cultivated, and their slaves as a tool to be used. They view most other races as children that need to grow up. Like the Eladrin, they live about 50% longer than other races (long-lived/quasi immortal races are a pet peeve of mine).

Now picking up where I left off.

The Drow worship Lolth. Their religion is manichaestic -- they believe that the god of Good and god of evil are roughly equal in power. Lolth is their spiritual god of Good; the 'benevolent creator' the rest of the world worships is the evil one. He created this imperfect world to torment the mortals, and tricks them with "rules" and "ethics" to keep them from challenging him in power.

Ultimately good can only come from spirits; as such the drow view their bodies with disdain -- at best something that needs to be improved upon. To the Drow, it doesn't matter whether the body was alive or dead at the time you started manipulating it. As such they have no problem dealing in necromancy.

The drow are also a slaver culture, something most civilized cultures disapprove of (the main exception is, of course, the derro). The drow think little of this -- the child races should be serving them anyway, so what's the big deal about whether or not its voluntary?

I mentioned that the drow and derro hate each other. Between the gender issues (the derro are patriarchial (rule of old men)), the religious issues (the derro are survivalist/atheist), and simple differences of method (drow are magical, derro are psionic) -- and add into this that they tend to be fighting over the same issues -- and the main thing keeping either of them from being more of a threat to the remaining surface kingdoms is each other.

Evil is no more bred into the drow than it is humanity. However, just like in humanity, those that do not fit into the local culture are marginalized at best and usually slaughtered as heretics. The lucky few make their way to the surface -- and are also disappointed to find how little difference there is.

[Thrawn183]

And then there'd be the "evil" merchant cartel who doesn't do anything truly evil like rape or kill, but they use underhanded methods to get rid of competitors and drive people into debt, but are a vital and necessary part of the economy so there's nothing that can be done to fix some of the problems they cause.

And the twisted serial killer who stalks his victims for days sending them notes, some threatening, some idolizing the victime, until they're found dead in their bed with some vital organ cut out of them and a freakish symbol painted on the wall in their blood?


I'm amused by the fact that you mention serial killers and capitalists. Would you by chance be a fan of Star Trek: TNG?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm amused by the fact that you mention serial killers and capitalists. Would you by chance be a fan of Star Trek: TNG?

I have never watched any kind of Star Trek ever. Why do you ask? :smallconfused:

[Shadowtraveler]

I'd keep the society and beliefs, but tweak them to make sense.

So, for example, while the drow might plot against each other, violence is rare, as senseless killing weakens the drow race (and more importantly, each others' clan) as a whole.

The clans/familes would bear greater importance than the teachings of Lloth (which are just as insane as they were originally but tempered by the realities of living in the Underdark), who paradoxically wish to one-up and ultimately destroy each other to prove their worth to Lloth and be granted eternal paradise (the drow religion states that all drow go to a purgatory when they die; the members of the One Clan will be liberated at the end times to war against the world, while the remainder will be discarded or something).

[Weirdlet]

I don't suppose it's rude to bump one's own thread?