is there a "Canon" skin tone / colour-range for Drow?

[Draconi Redfir]

Mainly asking because googling "Drow" seems to provide varying results. I myself always pictured them as all but pitch-black with an occasional tint of purple or blue depending on individual.

But other images I've seen have ranged from almost-white blue, to slightly-dark blue, to pitch-black, to purple, to kinda dark-red-ish, every flavor of gray, even a sort of Pinkish-light-gray colour for some reason. When i was getting an artist to draw my own Drow character, i eventually settled on a sort-of-dark Purple that i still wish was darker. And that was mainly to avoid her being drawn as outright Pink.


So what's going on here? Was it just never fully stated what skin tones they have? or is it just a lot of cases of different creators taking different liberties with them?

Mainly asking for Drow because the other races are all generally fairly simple. Humans, Elves, halflings, and Dwarves have general real-life human skin tones, Orc and Goblins are green to some degree, Gnomes are generally any bright colour, etc. Drow though don't seem to have any consistent theme that I've seen. Even the general "Dark skin" baseline that seems to be given for them seems to be ignored at times in favor of a slightly off-colour bright skin tone.

what are your thoughts on the matter?

[NerdHut]

There are probably other sources, but I went straight to Drow of the Underdark. They are described in detail on page 36, including:
"All drow have black skin."
"...true black, the color of onyx..."
"...varies only slightly..."

It also describes their hair, indicating more variation, but strongly tending toward white and platinum in color.


That said, I wouldn't have a problem with allowing bluish colors in my games. The important part to me is that their skin color is thematically in line with night or caverns or magical darkness.

[Draconi Redfir]

yeah, hair and eyes are weird too. White hair is a given, but it's never clear on if black hair is a thing, or if their eyes are solid one colour, or if they have irises like we do.

Do think future versions of my Drow i'm going to try and insist on a darker skin tone for sure. maybe very light on the purple, but yeah...

[Telonius]

Mainly asking because googling "Drow" seems to provide varying results. I myself always pictured them as all but pitch-black with an occasional tint of purple or blue depending on individual.

But other images I've seen have ranged from almost-white blue, to slightly-dark blue, to pitch-black, to purple, to kinda dark-red-ish, every flavor of gray, even a sort of Pinkish-light-gray colour for some reason. When i was getting an artist to draw my own Drow character, i eventually settled on a sort-of-dark Purple that i still wish was darker. And that was mainly to avoid her being drawn as outright Pink.


So what's going on here? Was it just never fully stated what skin tones they have? or is it just a lot of cases of different creators taking different liberties with them?

Mainly asking for Drow because the other races are all generally fairly simple. Humans, Elves, halflings, and Dwarves have general real-life human skin tones, Orc and Goblins are green to some degree, Gnomes are generally any bright colour, etc. Drow though don't seem to have any consistent theme that I've seen. Even the general "Dark skin" baseline that seems to be given for them seems to be ignored at times in favor of a slightly off-colour bright skin tone.

what are your thoughts on the matter?

In general, it's probably because just-plain-black is harder to draw than grey or purple. (Not impossible, just harder). You can do some tricks to layer lighter tones on top of it, but the usual "shadowing" to show depth just isn't going to be possible. So as a shortcut, some artists might make something dark purple or grey (or some other dark shade) instead of flat black, just to make it easier to show where an arm ends and the rest of the skin starts.

Another way of showing depth is "depth by light" - showing a light reflecting off of a dark surface. That necessarily makes some portions of the thing being painted (whether it's an 8-ball or a drow) lighter than it usually would be.

[BowStreetRunner]

...is it just a lot of cases of different creators taking different liberties with them?
I think another explanation for some of the discrepancies has more to do with the "what color is the dress" issue (google it if you aren't familiar). Certainly not all of them, but a few would be shown in different colors depending upon the palette used in the picture itself. Pick any comic book character and look through enough images and you will find some with different color palettes that make their skin look completely different than normal if put side-by-side with a normal-lighting image.

[Celestia]

I don't mind it when artists give drow various skin tones, but it does bother me when they lighten drow up. It makes no sense for the dark elves to be almost white. Plus, I just really like that dark skin. Black skin drow get me hot and sweaty. :smalltongue:

[Draconi Redfir]

I don't mind it when artists give drow various skin tones, but it does bother me when they lighten drow up. It makes no sense for the dark elves to be almost white. Plus, I just really like that dark skin. Black skin drow get me hot and sweaty. :smalltongue:

I can respect that :smalltongue:

does always confuse me when i see super-light drow as well. kinda seems to defeat the point if you ask me.

[lightningcat]

While the black skin is the "canon" version. Any mention of other colorations that I recall has been due to undeath or poisoning.
The hair and eye colors officially have more variety, although sometimes it has been cosmetically changed, and other times natural variants. But for hair, red (natural and not), blonde, platinum blonde, white (default), and grey have made appearances. For eyes, they have spanned from red (default) through purple to blue, although I remember amber-colored being mentioned as well.

There was also a "throwback" drow that looked identical to standard elves, that were used as spies and sabatours on the surface. They however did not blend into the general drow population.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, with forty some years of ''canon", there is a lot. Even more so with each edition of just D&D.

In the Froggoten Relams Drow can be: dark grey, jet-black or obsidian(both with with shades of blue) and albino skin colors. They can have white, yellow, copper, or silver colored hair. Drow eyes were usually bright red, but some had different colored, often much paler eyes such as blue, lilac, pink and silver - these pale eyes were often so pale that they appeared to be white - in fact, their eye color could be of practically any color. Sometimes a drow's eyes could even be green or blue, which meant that that particular drow had some surface elven blood in their veins.

E. Gary Gygax's 1977 AD&D Monster Manual describes them as "Black Elves", but it does not say any more about their appearance. The 2nd Ed. AD&D Monstrous Manual says, "Drow have black skin and pale, usually white hair." In the Greyhawk setting, all Drow have black skin and white or lustrous silver hair. In the Mystara setting, the comparable Shadow Elf, all, have albino-like pale bluish skin and white hair.

Pathfinder does add the dark purple skin color.

And, oddly, some art does even show brown skinned drow, but only the Forgotten Realms has this: The ancestral Dark Elf subrace is called the Ssri-tel-quessir, who exhibits brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair. Other brown skin drow might just be art mistakes.

And ''Dark Elves" from every other game or fiction are a whole rainbow of colors.

[Kish]

In which setting?

The original drow and Forgotten Realms drow are explicitly black-skinned. By the time Pathfinder came out, this was widely recognized as cringe-worthy, so Golarion drow are explicitly purple-skinned. Dragonlance drow are a social condition rather than a race (any elf who gets cast out of elven society is known as a "dark elf" or a "drow") and so drow there are pale-skinned.

[hamishspence]

In which setting?

The original drow and Forgotten Realms drow are explicitly black-skinned. By the time Pathfinder came out, this was widely recognized as cringe-worthy, so Golarion drow are explicitly purple-skinned.

Some of them, at least:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-drow

Physical Description: Drow are similar in stature to humans, but share the slender build and features of elves, including the distinctive long, pointed ears. Their eyes lack pupils and are usually solid white or red. Drow skin ranges from coal black to a dusky purple. Their hair is typically white or silver, though some variation is not unknown.

It should be noted that purple skinned drow predate Pathfinder though - 3.5's Drow of the Underdark referenced it - albeit only as a faint shading variation:

Skin tone varies only slightly from individual to individual - perhaps appearing a shade lighter on one, or faintly violet-tinged on another when viewed under very bright light; in any case, these distinctions are subtle and rare.

Drow of the Underdark gives them a lot more eye colour variation than any other source:

Red, white, purple, green, and gold all appear with roughly equal frequency (red being, perhaps, slightly more common than the others).

[Draconi Redfir]

In which setting?

ehh, mainly any official tabletop-RPG setting really. Like i realize "Drowtrails" for example is it's own independant thing and don't expect that to follow the general idea. (Though i DO like and use their idea that Drow get drunk off Chocolate.)


Seems to be a general consensus that "darker is better" but with some cooler colours such as blues and purples possible as highlights. Still not sure where the Pink came from in my case then.

Still kind of annoying to see super-light-skinned Drow around then. Like if i wasn't spesifically googling Drow, i would never guess that this one (https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQoqEzzS-Ix2a1KSYNP8LfrM8lDLdgirZkav1niEa1fLADCp_oZ) was a Drow. Moon, Gray, or Night elf maybe, but hardly a Drow.

God i wish some of this stuff would just be sealed and agreed on by as many major players as possible :smalltongue:

[Malphegor]

I like that quote from the Pathfinder dark elves above- them looking purpleish when exposed to light but black in darkness does lend itself nicely to the idea that it's mostly a camouflage adaption.

Even though generally dark-dwelling creatures tend to go pale irl, because who needs to be dark when there's not enough light for vision anyway?

I... guess the darkness comes from Lolth's spider godness, and the skin is meant to be the same colour as a spider's carapace?

[inuyasha]

On the "Why are they dark-skinned and subterranean" and "Does black hair exist?" fronts, I just wanna point out that the First edition PHB calls them out as "dark reflections of surface elves", because high-elves didn't used to be the Tolkien-esque, tall, blonde ones.

Gygax wasn't the biggest fan of LotR, thus, D&D elves were short, pale-skinned and all had dark hair, which is why drow are even shorter, onyx-skinned, and extremely bright-haired.

[Draconi Redfir]

I like that quote from the Pathfinder dark elves above- them looking purpleish when exposed to light but black in darkness does lend itself nicely to the idea that it's mostly a camouflage adaption.

Even though generally dark-dwelling creatures tend to go pale irl, because who needs to be dark when there's not enough light for vision anyway?

I... guess the darkness comes from Lolth's spider godness, and the skin is meant to be the same colour as a spider's carapace?


well i mean if you think about it, if you're living in a dark place like the Underdark in a D&D world, then that means everyone around you probably has Darkvision. And Darkvision is described as being in black-and-white / various shades of gray.

So if your predators can see you in black-and-white, it might serve you better to have darker skin so that you'll have an easier time blending in against a dark background. the white / light hair could also attribute to this. It's better to be a mostly-black and slightly white profile on a mostly-black on slightly-white background then an entire black OR white profile on a black-and-white background.

[Jeraa]

well i mean if you think about it, if you're living in a dark place like the Underdark in a D&D world, then that means everyone around you probably has Darkvision. And Darkvision is described as being in black-and-white / various shades of gray.

So if your predators can see you in black-and-white, it might serve you better to have darker skin so that you'll have an easier time blending in against a dark background. the white / light hair could also attribute to this. It's better to be a mostly-black and slightly white profile on a mostly-black on slightly-white background then an entire black OR white profile on a black-and-white background.

Except when drow were created, there was no uch thing as darkvision. You either had infravision (heat vision) or ultravision (ultraviolet light). Ultravision was mostly useless underground, and being black (or white) wouldn't help with infravision. Regardless of color your body heat would stand out against the cooler background.

While it might make some sense with darkvision, the only reason for the drow coloring is Corellons curse. It has nothing to do with stealth.

That being said, being black shouldn't help with darkvision. A black object would still visibly stand out against the grey stone background. In order to blend in, drow would need to be stone colored. Being black would be of no help at all.

[Ramza00]

Different settings have different default Drow skin colors, but even in those different settings there are exceptions to the general rule.

And since you have drow often in storytelling as the "outcast society" that is different than the main race, and you also often have some stories with this group of stories (so a smaller group) where the drow is the outcast society, but you play a drow who is an outcast of the outcast and suddenly it gets crazy for often you have the outcast of the outcast look differently via skin tone, or have a different build, or have a different perspective of how society should be organized, or you make the queer, or blah, blah, blah.

So what I am saying the combination of many things cause the Drow Race to be very varied in art and such, while other races are almost homogenius instead of a heterotopia of choices that is the Drow Race.

[Draconi Redfir]

Except when drow were created, there was no uch thing as darkvision. You either had infravision (heat vision) or ultravision (ultraviolet light). Ultravision was mostly useless underground, and being black (or white) wouldn't help with infravision. Regardless of color your body heat would stand out against the cooler background.

While it might make some sense with darkvision, the only reason for the drow coloring is Corellons curse. It has nothing to do with stealth.

That being said, being black shouldn't help with darkvision. A black object would still visibly stand out against the grey stone background. In order to blend in, drow would need to be stone colored. Being black would be of no help at all.

Shhh, they've just "evolved" through the ages is all :smallwink:

Think i was mainly thinking of empty-space things, if your darkvision is 60ft and the nearest wall is 80ft in front of you, then after a point you're just going to see black. soo... *shrug*

yeah i'm reaching.

[Faily]

Eberron Drow are not really subterrean like the ones in FR and Golarion, with the exception of Umbragen Drow (Sulatar and other Drow settled above-ground). They still have "dark skin and white hair" to keep with the iconic look of Drow though, but there's no Corellon's Curse or "adapted to living underground"-thing going on. They just look different.

Personally, I think the reason we get such a big variety of colors on drow in art is because it is difficult to portray pitch-black skintones when not using extreme lighting. An artist will try to balance the hues and saturation of a picture, and try to show details rather than just a dark blob with eyes, hair, and mouth. Even when I've made Drow-characters in D&DOnline, I usually go for a more "washed out" skintone because it shows the features of my character better (I'm weird that way).

[fallensavior]

Eberron Drow are not really subterrean like the ones in FR and Golarion, with the exception of Umbragen Drow (Sulatar and other Drow settled above-ground). They still have "dark skin and white hair" to keep with the iconic look of Drow though,

I thought Eberron Drow had a much wider range of possible appearance. Did DDO just make that up?

[Jeraa]

I thought Eberron Drow had a much wider range of possible appearance. Did DDO just make that up?

Most likely just made up. I can't find any mention of drow appearance being different from the default. If it differed from the default, it would of been mentioned.

[Necroticplague]

Personally, I think the reason we get such a big variety of colors on drow in art is because it is difficult to portray pitch-black skintones when not using extreme lighting. An artist will try to balance the hues and saturation of a picture, and try to show details rather than just a dark blob with eyes, hair, and mouth. Even when I've made Drow-characters in D&DOnline, I usually go for a more "washed out" skintone because it shows the features of my character better (I'm weird that way).

Not to mention when you want to depict them in-environment. The Underdark suffers from a bad case of 'dark and grey subjects on dark and grey background'. So frequent artistic liberties would be taken with colors to make things stand out more. Making the subject dark purple on dark grey and upping the contrast would seem a relatively straightforward one.

[Enixon]

I forget where I heard it, but I seem to recall that one of the reasons why Drow were sometimes brown skinned in older art was that back then a lot of the art was just quick commissioned pieces done by whatever artist TSR could get ahold of. The artist would then often just have a basic description to do their drawing off of so they'd see that they were to draw a "black skinned elf" or something vague like that and just assume that ment the human version of "black skinned" rather than literally charcoal black.

Not sure how true that is, but it always made sense to me.

[HouseRules]

If you don't already know, the Terahertz scan in air port is just a high resolution white light (and some uv and ir) scan that looks through the weave of your cloths. Thus, solid clothes could stop it. The image from those scans are required to be color inverted.

Drows are therefore color inversion of Elves.

Though their skin tone is onyx with slight variation is a valid description or is it not? What is slight variation? A certain dark shade of any color could be called varying from black.

[Psyren]

well i mean if you think about it, if you're living in a dark place like the Underdark in a D&D world, then that means everyone around you probably has Darkvision. And Darkvision is described as being in black-and-white / various shades of gray.

Sure, but remember that Drow darkvision range is often longer than that of many other creatures down there. So being able to hide in the dark can still be beneficial even in a place where so many predators can see in it clearly. If you outrange someone's darkvision and can stay hidden even when they try to use light to see you, you have a distinct advantage.


Eberron Drow are not really subterrean like the ones in FR and Golarion, with the exception of Umbragen Drow (Sulatar and other Drow settled above-ground). They still have "dark skin and white hair" to keep with the iconic look of Drow though, but there's no Corellon's Curse or "adapted to living underground"-thing going on. They just look different.

Don't the Eberron Drow that are above-ground live in a continent that's almost covered by thick jungle canopy? It might not be the Underdark but can still have a lot of fairly lightless areas.

[fallensavior]

Don't the Eberron Drow that are above-ground live in a continent that's almost covered by thick jungle canopy? It might not be the Underdark but can still have a lot of fairly lightless areas.

The books say Drow live all across Xen'drik. Specifically called out are jungles, mountains, plains, and deserts. There are also marsh, tundra, volcanic, and crystal terrains though.

[Draconi Redfir]

Sure, but remember that Drow darkvision range is often longer than that of many other creatures down there. So being able to hide in the dark can still be beneficial even in a place where so many predators can see in it clearly. If you outrange someone's darkvision and can stay hidden even when they try to use light to see you, you have a distinct advantage.

you're "sure, but..." there makes it sound like you're trying to add a counter-point against what i said, but everything you said makes it sound like you're agreeing with me to some degree. So i'm not sure what's going on :smalltongue: