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Jayngfet
2008-11-21, 05:52 PM
Well we had a thread for this months ago, so I wanted to re pitch this idea.

A) Menzoberranzan(I need to look over my life if I can spell that right from memory) has a lot of spellcasters making plenty of magic items, any drow can become a sorcerer(if I've interpreted it right), and there is a a good amount of good drow.

B) Not every drow is going to like the idea of rushing towards the fireball(drizzt had a special reason to).

Therefore, there must be a lot of spare magic items and good drow. So why not make a drow superhero team?

Tsotha-lanti
2008-11-21, 06:18 PM
Your conclusions do not follow from your premises.

Good drow are rare, largely because it's not possible to survive in drow society and actually be good. Drizzt left Menzoberranzan in what would amount to his early teens (he was, what, 50 or something? That's not even adventurer age for elves).

In order to survive, good drow would have to commit mildly evil acts over and over (not interfering to prevent an atrocity is evil). Going beyond the alignment system, they'd have to constantly justify this to retain their sanity, and would end up with a moral system amounting to neutrality, along the lines of "I can do good if it's not an inconvenience to me."

So no, there's not a whole lot of good drow, and they probably wouldn't be aware of each other. The only linked good drow would be infiltrators or agents owing loyalty to Eilistraee.

There's also no "spare" magic items. Even with magic relatively common, most of it is very low-level: the "enchanted" weapons and armor dependent on the faerzess radiation, house insignia, and other similar minor objects. Even these are carefully guarded - a minor magical sword is at least just as important and valuable as an assault rifle in real life, and you can guess what happens to a soldier who loses his rifle. (And how much worse the consequences would be in drow society.)

All magic items are owned by someone, and even if they don't need or want them, they'll take a steep price for them.


Moreover, a team of drow heroes would get squashed very fast. A city full of evil high-level clerics with no end of divination magic and demons and minions at their disposal?


Not that I don't think playing a team of Eilistraeen drow undermining the evil society in a drow city couldn't be fun, but you should try to portray that city with some accuracy.

hamishspence
2008-11-21, 06:21 PM
am not sure how big the gap between him completing his training, and leaving, was, but not big. He finished training around 30. Spent 10 years in underdark, and nearly 10 on surface before start of The Crystal Shard. about 13 years later, he's 70. that leaves a fairly short gap between finishing training, and leaving.

hamishspence
2008-11-21, 06:24 PM
Neutral of various flavours and unfond of the hierarchy isn't implausible. At least one cleric of Lolth (Liriel Baenre) was closer to CN than CE, and ended up leaving. you can also meet CN drow in the City of the Spider Queen adventure.

Jayngfet
2008-11-21, 06:48 PM
Zakenafien, Hallistra, all of ellistrae's old clerics, Ryld...

Must I go on, I think I missed a few.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-11-21, 08:27 PM
Zaknafein was an assassin, and Neutral at best. Ryld seemed (in the first books, anyway) Neutral at best, more likely Evil (at the very least by complicity). Halisstra is initially very obviously evil and later converts.

All of these examples just reinforce the point the point that you can't be Good and live in drow society.

Jayngfet
2008-11-22, 04:37 AM
So Zak killed people, people he knew were evil and was enraged when people the thought could barely count as good were killed. We don't label PC's evil for killing their way through a goblin or ogre camp(really, did Zak even have a choice there, if he didn't Malice would probably kill and rape him, in no particular order).

Nerd-o-rama
2008-11-22, 04:52 AM
Drow superhero? Whoever he is, he probably hates Spider-Man with a passion.

More seriously, responding to the original topic, I can see a small underground of masked do-gooder drow. They probably wouldn't be as high profile or effective as regular super-heroes (because then they'd be squashed, and Menzo's espionage community is a lot better than most comic book cities), but it's an intriguing idea. I also don't see teams happening very easily. Drow are too aware of their own backstab-happy culture to trust others with a secret that will get them killed as thoroughly as being a hero. Then again, when teams do form, it's likely that they'll have some factor that causes them to be very tight knit.

Jayngfet
2008-11-22, 01:20 PM
You know, I've been toying with an idea of a team masquerading as one of the more unimportant houses. If you stay low on the totem pole other houses won't attack you as much, you have some measure of defense, and if you send a couple of kids to Sorcere you have you're magic items there. Just make sure no one notices the guy that saved you from a rampaging demon looks an aweful lot like that weaponmaster or matron mother...

Of course mooks and such wouldn't be in on it.

Hey, if some clan finds out you could find an excuse to attack them.

Lord_Asmodeus
2008-11-22, 01:22 PM
The drow already have a superhero:

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/musicupla/spiderwoman_cho.jpg

Just change her skin to black and her hair to white and you're good to go :smalltongue:

hamishspence
2008-11-22, 01:27 PM
Drow in the 3.0 Dragon mag affectionately referred to as "Drowconomicon" are evil practically from birth, murderers in infancy (raised in creches, only a few get out alive) and dangerous even as children (suggests giving them character levels.)

WOTC books don't go that far. And even if Good ones are implausible- very rare, Neutral, heroic but ruthless, ones are rather more plausible.

Nerd-o-rama
2008-11-22, 02:03 PM
Drow Punishers, then? I think it works.

And don't be so flippant of Spider-Girl. She's the last good part of that franchise.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-11-22, 02:52 PM
You know, I've been toying with an idea of a team masquerading as one of the more unimportant houses. If you stay low on the totem pole other houses won't attack you as much, you have some measure of defense, and if you send a couple of kids to Sorcere you have you're magic items there. Just make sure no one notices the guy that saved you from a rampaging demon looks an aweful lot like that weaponmaster or matron mother...

Of course mooks and such wouldn't be in on it.

Hey, if some clan finds out you could find an excuse to attack them.

This is probably the most feasible option. A house of good drow would be no more out of place than a house worshipping Vhaeraun or Ghaunadar, both of which exist; all three would be wiped out if they were discovered. A good-aligned house does face some unique problems, however.

Jayngfet
2008-11-22, 07:51 PM
This is probably the most feasible option. A house of good drow would be no more out of place than a house worshipping Vhaeraun or Ghaunadar, both of which exist; all three would be wiped out if they were discovered. A good-aligned house does face some unique problems, however.

Hey, a campane with no problems isn't exactly fin isn't it? I can already imagine a few worse than usual supervillans...

Jayngfet
2008-11-23, 02:56 PM
You know, the more I think about this the more viable it seems.

You could survive as a team and clan by a number of contacts. Save a few orcs and goblins from sacrifice and you have contacts in the low class area's when they escape. Take a demon you know a high ranking clan summons a lot and give it a helm of opposite alignment and you have another mole. You could have eyes in every clan in menzoberranzan and a dozen low class area's.

Jayngfet
2008-11-23, 11:34 PM
Bumped.:smallbiggrin: