Redoing drow

[Jayngfet]

Since FR drow are idiots taken seriously, what would you "fix"?

I say they're too far gone for serious. Make them over the top.

Every matron wears a skintight black leather bikini with matching whip. Thigh boots optional but reccomended.

They break into clan wars twice as often and ussually while dru nk. The average clan life ewpectency is a decade.

They can't go twelve minutes without whipping something to death(and you thought four hour sleep was biological).

It escalates to 40k's wet dream.

[BobVosh]

Kill almost all of em off. Make them be a werid survivor style race with cultist to Lolth. Few of them lurking around the ruins of thier great city. Menoz-whatever-it-is. I hate elves and halfelves, and psuedoelves, waterelf, name it and I hate it.

Cept Keebler Elves. They rock.

[Jayngfet]

Well duh, anything that can make cookies is awesome by default.

[Swordguy]

Kill almost all of em off. Make them be a werid survivor style race with cultist to Lolth. Few of them lurking around the ruins of thier great city. Menoz-whatever-it-is. I hate elves and halfelves, and psuedoelves, waterelf, name it and I hate it.


I generally agree with this, except you can keep the survivors in their...traditional...outfits.

What? My group is 4 females to 3 males, and the girls are all hot theatre chicks who like dressing up for their roles (wife included). Don't you DARE take that away from me. :smalltongue:

[bosssmiley]

@OP: a hate on for both standard spider-fetish Drow and for Dark Eldar then? Good. Good! Give in to your anger! :smallamused:

Take a leaf from the Dungeonomicon's book and, instead of their being (*yawn!*) pistol crossbow and scimitar drones, make the Drow the masters of one-of-a-kind, "WTFHAX?!" special weaponry. If there's a piece of homebrew or third party item cheese that you want to playtest before handing it over to the wrecking crew PCs, just issue it to the Drow first.

Of course, the traditional 'Drow item only work in Drow areas' cheese prevents the party from supercharging their combat abilities with sweet cave elf lewts. :smallwink:


From "The Dungeonomicon":

The Drow: A Higher Technology Setting

Everyone knows that the dark elves are hardcore. Even in the bad old days of DnD’s conception, dark elves were “mirror matches” to the party with class levels of their own, crazy magic items of their own, and good tactics. The real question is: “why are the dark elves so hardcore?” The answer is simple. Dark elves are living at a higher technology level than the rest of the DnD world; their society only exists because, as a society, they cheat. Rather than grow food like surface races, they eat magic mushrooms as the basis of the food chain, they enslave other races for menial positions rather than work, and rather than mine or gather their own resources, they take them from other races. They don’t even have to work that hard on defence as Underdark caverns are naturally easy to defend with small numbers of troops stationed at chokepoints

This means that your average dark elf has free time to spare. While some take that time to indulge in the pleasures of their society, most dark elves are the products of a very odd world view: if only dark elves are your peers and everyone else is a slave, then the only real power worth having is power over other dark elves. That being the case, this means that dark elves have both the free time and the inclination to attempt to enslave each other all the time. This breeds great internal strife with each noble house being an armed camp designed to use stealth, power, and manipulation in order to both resist the efforts of other dark elves and attempt to enslave them.

Like any heavily-automated wartime culture, the dark elves spend considerable resources on weapons research, espionage, and cultural misinformation. This means that every noble house or other organization is constantly looking for an “edge” in their dealings with other dark elves and other races. This leads them to kidnap experts from other races, engage in spell research, experiment with weird magic or exotic technology, forge partnerships with magically or technologically-advanced races, and otherwise do whatever it takes to grow in power. In any particular drow city you can expect to see dozens of competing forms of magic, odd inventions ranging from mechanical limbs to powered gliders, exotic troops like demon-bred orcs or elite espionage races like skulkers, and constructions with magical architecture or resonances. Since every drow is attempting to master his peers, these magics and technologies are tightly controlled, meaning that when the individual or organization that controls them is killed off, these secrets are often lost, meaning that any particular drow might be using relics from a previous generation (that he may well lack the ability to understand or reproduce).

Other races in the Underdark realize that the dark elves truly only want to control each other, so they allow the occasional resource and slave raids of the dark elves. They know that the dark elves are ill-suited to any form of large-scale conquest due to their particular style of command, so placating the drow is often the best way to conserve the resources of your society. Since the other Underdark races tithe goods to the drow and the drow are smart enough to see the value in trade relationships, Underdark races of note are allowed to use dark elf cities as major trading posts between their own kind and other races. The dark elves see all races as being underneath them, so as long as the other races show deference to them and bring in a profit in trade, they allow this enterprise to continue.

The average drow city is thus a hornet’s nest of power, full of indolent, wildly dangerous, and spoiled aristocrats. Even the lowliest of drow lives in a level of luxury suitable to the most powerful of nobles on the surface, and each one of them has reached adulthood in an atmosphere of distrust and manipulation with the weakest dying early. As individuals this makes them powerful and cruel, but as a race it keeps them inwardly looking and less of a threat than more ambitious warrior races, a fact that actually prevents other races from gathering their forces and destroying the drow outright.

[Jayngfet]

One wonders how someone like Hallistra survived that, clearly not by intellegence.

[Doomsy]

Look up 40K.

Rip off the Dark Eldar, complete with their society and a large number of their melee weapons. For the uninitiated, the Dark Eldar are essentially Firefly Reavers with more purpose. Otherwise, they're pretty much the same, right down to the gleeful self and other mutilation, a cheerfully sadistic sense of humor (Joker on a bad day), and brutally based around rapid speed attacks and raiding. Their homeworld is a constant warzone where they murder and do worse to each other constantly, with only powerful cabals organized around powerful leaders keep things in line - and then they constantly try to backstab each other. Slaves in their homeworld stay in their pens because it is safer than the vast city planet. Escaping is sure death. There are no gender differences because it is a meritocracy of sadism and cunning. They wear no to very little armor for the most part because it hinders their speed and, in all honesty, they like the pain.

Do not let your players know you did this ahead of time until they find the horrifying remnant of a Drow surface raid. Or stumble onto a Drow enclave.

It's about putting the chaotic back in chaotic evil.

[Dhavaer]

The New Greyhawk drow were a semi-hiveminded species who ran the media and jumped up and down on organised crime. They did make it a bit difficult to have adventures in the titular city, though.

[Merlon]

Every matron wears a skintight black leather bikini with matching whip. Thigh boots optional but reccomended.
It looks nice. They might as well wear victorian-gothic attire. Or BDU -s. They live long and fashion tends to change over time.


They break into clan wars twice as often and usually while drunk. The average clan life expectancy is a decade.
Average drow would use the opportunity to stab you with something if you are stupid enough to get drunk, stoned or whatever.And no drow would start a clanwar, without being fairly certain that he would win at end. There are exeptions though....And the average life expectancy will be around decade for those individuals, who are lazy, dumb, naive or just unlucky


They can't go twelve minutes without whipping something to death(and you thought four hour sleep was biological).

5 kills per hour, 60 kills per day (12 hours of straight whipping)... Drow city usually have say.... around 20 000 to 40 000 drows plus other races. Do the math.

But they can kill you say... for a decade. Continously. If it amuses them.

Most of my knowledge about drows comes from FR novels (War of the spider queen and Drizz't series mostly) and sourcebooks. Not sure what books you have read, but it would be interesting reading material.


Edit:
Fixed some accidental typing errors. And i am not trying to patronize. I jus like drows (from distance) :)

[Suzuro]

I just want to mention a few things that Doomsy said.



Joker on a bad day

This is, of course, the Joker from the movie The Dark Knight, as the original Joker was much more lighthearted.


Their homeworld is a constant warzone.... Actually....their homecity. That's right, they only have a single city, Commaragh, to prevent the thirst.....they do all that good stuff anyways in there...


I have to second using the Dark Eldar, though.


-Suzuro

[RagnaroksChosen]

i didn't think matrons wore the bikini's i thought that was just priestess'.
even then the only really elistrees children run around naked... maybe it was my games because i didn't want to see Matron Benere(sp) in a bondage outfit...

maybe you should try a different gm if the dark elves are running around in leather bondage all the time..

or play in the shinning south where the scourges where more modest bondage cloths...

[Mando Knight]

What? My group is 4 females to 3 males, and the girls are all hot theatre chicks who like dressing up for their roles (wife included). Don't you DARE take that away from me. :smalltongue:

...Seriously? I wouldn't mess up that dynamic for the world. ...wait... maybe for the world, but definitely not for a thousand euros.

...let's see, my RA's into cosplay, there's a chick down the hall who's played D&D before... (yay co-ed dorms!)

[Jayngfet]

i didn't think matrons wore the bikini's i thought that was just priestess'.
even then the only really elistrees children run around naked... maybe it was my games because i didn't want to see Matron Benere(sp) in a bondage outfit...

maybe you should try a different gm if the dark elves are running around in leather bondage all the time..

or play in the shinning south where the scourges where more modest bondage cloths...

Matron Banre died.

[Tsotha-lanti]

i didn't think matrons wore the bikini's i thought that was just priestess'.
even then the only really elistrees children run around naked... maybe it was my games because i didn't want to see Matron Benere(sp) in a bondage outfit...

This is actually excuse in Drow of the Underdark. Apparently the less you wear, the more confident you're showing yourself to be - not needing to hide your appearance (apparently the drow rival beholders in that whole "outward perfection/racial purity" department) or armor yourself.

Yeah, just when you thought they couldn't get more insulting, huh?

[Return of Lanky]

I'll third the Dark Eldar as a model for a fun over-the-top Drow do-over.

Plus, they have a character named loosely after Cruella Deville. How cheesy is that?

[Swordguy]

Is it too late for me to pull this off?



Every matron wears a skintight black leather bikini with matching whip. Thigh boots optional but reccomended.


WHAT? How could that be? I've seen no such thing! I demand evidence! Bring forth pics of scantily-clad Drow posthaste!

[Sinfire Titan]

Answer: Eberron Drow>>>>>>FR Drow.

And that is a major understatement. Eberron Drow are among the two types of elves I am willing to tolerate (the other being Wild Elves). Keebler Elves are Gnomes with pointy ears, and thereby much more powerful (Shadowcraft Mages that make Cookies with Shadow Miracles!).

[Doomsy]

I just want to mention a few things that Doomsy said.




This is, of course, the Joker from the movie The Dark Knight, as the original Joker was much more lighthearted.

Actually....their homecity. That's right, they only have a single city, Commaragh, to prevent the thirst.....they do all that good stuff anyways in there...


I have to second using the Dark Eldar, though.


-Suzuro

You know, I was never sure if it was just a city as we define a city, or a world city lost in the web system itself. The fluff I read was never clear on it. If it was the size of a craftworld it splits the difference anyway.

And one of the best things about the Dark Eldar is that you keep the fairly attractive elfin women in skimpy clothing.

Of course, they are often covered in other peoples blood and hopped up on battle drugs while in a state similar to the maenads of myth, but still, hot chicks in battle bikinis.

[Beleriphon]

Answer: Eberron Drow>>>>>>FR Drow.

Yeah, wild tribal nomads living in the ruins of a former giant civilization that fight outsiders for trespassing on their birthright is definitely the way to go.

[AslanCross]

It looks nice. They might as well wear victorian-gothic attire. Or BDU -s. They live long and fashion tends to change over time.




Gothic Lolita drow? I can dig that.

I have to agree with the Eberron drow being more interesting. The Chaotic-But-Actually-Lawful Drow in FR don't really make sense. I mean, Baenre's died because Lolth got tired of her ruling. We know Lolth is a psychotic S&M goddess, but uh...screwing up your main city because it's too quiet is just silly.

Though if you're in FR, Vhaeraun's elves are the way to go. Too bad Vhaeraun is dead.

[Fax Celestis]

WHAT? How could that be? I've seen no such thing! I demand evidence! Bring forth pics of scantily-clad Drow posthaste!

Delivered.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/DrowUnderdark_Gallery/104486.jpg

http://fc16.deviantart.com/fs11/i/2006/176/3/e/One_sexy_Drow_by_SozokuReed.jpg

[AstralFire]

Give me a dwarven lass any day.

[Fax Celestis]

Give me a dwarven lass any day.

You like a woman with a beard you can hang on to?

[AslanCross]

Give me a dwarven lass any day.



4E Dwarven women actually look pretty cool.
http://wizards.com/dnd/images/RacesNClasses_Gallery/111110.jpg

[AstralFire]

You like a woman with a beard you can hang on to?

Thinking 3/4e and Warcraft dwarves, here. Not 1/2 and Discworld.

[Thoughtbot360]

Well duh, anything that can make cookies is awesome by default.

Really. All this time, the answers been right in front of me.... hold on a sec. (Mumbling) Maybe I should stock up on mint extract and choclate fudge just to be thorough..

*Two hours later*

Cookies! Cookies! Cookies for everyone! *Throws cookies everywhere*

[Moff Chumley]

Sorry dude, drow are just plain better.

[RagnaroksChosen]

Matron Banre died.

right but what i was saying is its realy just the clerics, and even then FR darkelves wheren't realy as bad as greyhawk(aka drow of the underdark).

Tsotha-lanti: i think it was more of a "if your good enough you won't need armor.

eaither way OP, Im a huge Fan of Drow in FR mainly because there a Great antithesis, there intelegent, strong and can cause a lot of havoc when played right. Pc's kinda know what to expect with them which makes it even greater when you can trick the pcs with drow or have the drow manipulate them.

[Emperor Tippy]

I'll second using the Drow from the Dungeonomicon.

[bosssmiley]

It looks nice. They might as well wear victorian-gothic attire. Or BDU -s. They live long and fashion tends to change over time.

If you want to add D&D historical costume verisimilitude they should really be wearing big floppy moustaches and helmets with wings on them. And the clerics should only wield maces. :smallwink:

http://www.jimhollowayart.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/sp9.jpg

[AstralFire]

Holy crap. On this old computer (800x600 woo) I open that spoiler tag and I see nothing but a GIANT. WHITE. MUSTACHE.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I'm not a fan of Drow. Too overplayed, too riddled with cliche (I don't want to have to deal with some of the players not 'agreeing' with my portrayal), and the whole S&M themed part of their society is the sort of thing that makes saying "I play D&D" embarrassing to public society.

I'd much rather use Hobgoblins. They're disciplined, expansive, and ambitious. No reason to send the PCs out to the far corners of the earth, when the Hobs can bring a war right to their doorstep. The extra Monster Manuals are full of horrible and twisted monstrosities their arcane science created. In my campaign, if my players ever bother to ask where the Drow are I'll gladly reply "the Hobgoblins massacred and enslaved them with most of the rest of the underground." Probably won't come up though, there aren't any Drow fans in my group.