Drow and Mind Flayer's, please help (3.5)

[gurgleflep]

I've recently caught wind of Yaggol (Dragonlance) and the drow of Xen'drik (Eberron) and recently decided I was going to have a campaign (or at least a handful of quests) based around them in a combat situation with their Underdark counterparts, but I haven't got the slightest idea where to begin with them.

Religion seems to be a big thing for the drow most often spoke of - Evil, Lolth Worshipping, murderous dark elves from the Underdark so that could be a good enough reason for them to attack the jungle drow but I would like some more ides than: "You're drow and you don't worship Lolth?! You and your kind are blasphemous and deserve to die!"

With the yaggol and illithid though, I don't know where to begin! Would the mind flayer's use their jungle counterparts as slaves or something? :smallconfused:

~~~~~(squiggley lines of separation)~~~~~

TL;DR:
How could I have a war between jungle and underdark drow/mind flayer's? The only sources I won't be allowing are the magazines, I have no access to any of them - everything else I'm fine with.
I'm open to all suggestions.

[Manly Man]

An idea that came to me immediately after reading the word "jungle", was that the jungle drow could worship Demogorgon instead of Lolth, keeping along with the religious theme that standard drow have, but with more cause than someone simply not worshiping a particular god; the two fight against each other because they claim that one of their religious figures is their true ruler. Both of them are demons (Lolth being a demon goddess, but demonic nonetheless), one representing the loyalty sworn to the one responsible for the creation of their kind, and the others delivering homage to the one who is the prince of all things demonic, and therefore, by extension, themselves, as well as his primordial nature befitting the fact that those drow live in a jungle, wild, untamed, and quite deadly. It would be something like the Crusades, if you play it out right, so as to make things less one-sided.

As for the illithids and yaggols, the mind flayers could be trying to take slaves, but obviously, the yaggols are not so keen on the idea, and fight back. The primitive jungle-dwellers are fighting a losing battle, and although they are not helpless, they are well aware that they will either soon be killed or enslaved. If you want to add a bit more weirdness to them, have one of the yaggols take a level or two in Illithid Savant (they're close enough that I'd let them do it), so as to give them a bit of leverage in that they have something unexpected. If you go along this route, the players could end up seeing the aftermath of a skirmish between a small tribe of yaggols and an inquisition of mind flayers, and take a side. Helping the yaggols defeat the mind flayers would mean that, though the yaggols may be a very bad thing, the mind flayers, who are even worse, would be driven back. Siding with the illithids, however, would give the players better resources, more powerful 'allies' (and eventually, masters), and would rid the surface entirely of yaggols.

[gurgleflep]

Both of those are excellent ideas, thank you :smallsmile:
My one nitpick on the Demogorgon bit is that they've already got a deity: Vulkoor (http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Vulkoor) who also may be "The Mockery". But, as I said I'm open to all suggestions! I'll quite likely be using your idea :smalltongue:

I hadn't considered the Illithid Savant bit, but they are (as you've said) essentially the same race so it does make sense and I agree on that. The players have no fondness of the brain-boys, so the possibility of an alliance is intriguing and rather amusing to me :smallamused:


On a different note:
Yaggol and jungle drow alliance vs Mind flayer and Underdark drow alliance - would they ally themselves for such a cause? The illithid (both parties) would have plenty of food from the corpses of the drow and squidleys and I don't think drow would turn down such a powerful ally.

[Malimar]

I don't know much about Yaggol, but you might consider checking out the Mind Flayers of Thoon in MM5, maybe consider combining the two together. Might help with a bit of the how and the why of a war between the two mind flayer groups.

[gurgleflep]

I don't know much about Yaggol, but you might consider checking out the Mind Flayers of Thoon in MM5, maybe consider combining the two together. Might help with a bit of the how and the why of a war between the two mind flayer groups.

You can find more about them here (http://dragonlancenexus.com/lexicon/index.php?title=Yaggol) and here. (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/yaggol.php) If you need any information on their 3.0/3.5 stats, they can be found in the Bestiary of Krynn (revised).
I like the flayers of Thoon idea, but what would their reason be for allying themselves with the yaggol?

[Manly Man]

On a different note:
Yaggol and jungle drow alliance vs Mind flayer and Underdark drow alliance - would they ally themselves for such a cause? The illithid (both parties) would have plenty of food from the corpses of the drow and squidleys and I don't think drow would turn down such a powerful ally.

I doubt that any kind of alliance would last between the illithids and drow, since even the drow, who are pretty much the only other race in The Underdark that has any kind of 'peaceable' connection (read: trade that usually ends up turning violent) with the mind flayers, find them repulsive, horrific, and far too terrible to devote much time to. The illithids would, in turn, treat the drow as they do everything else; even if a mind flayer calls itself an 'ally', it still is only letting you stick around until you no longer provide benefits that are worth your trouble. They could, I suppose, work together on a mission-by-mission basis, but any time apart from that, they would likely be at each others' throats just as much as their respective enemies'.

[gurgleflep]

I doubt that any kind of alliance would last between the illithids and drow, since even the drow, who are pretty much the only other race in The Underdark that has any kind of 'peaceable' connection (read: trade that usually ends up turning violent) with the mind flayers, find them repulsive, horrific, and far too terrible to devote much time to. The illithids would, in turn, treat the drow as they do everything else; even if a mind flayer calls itself an 'ally', it still is only letting you stick around until you no longer provide benefits that are worth your trouble. They could, I suppose, work together on a mission-by-mission basis, but any time apart from that, they would likely be at each others' throats just as much as their respective enemies'.

So it's highly unlikely that such a pairing would occur for very long if it all :/ Thank you again for being so helpful with this, it's very appreciated :smallsmile: