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Thread: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
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2016-10-07, 08:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2015
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
It's unprofessional if you judge it as a book written for adults. For children, her poor writing skills are acceptable and even laudable. As an adult, having read quality writing, her poor writing skills are jarring. I assume she was intentionally writing to make it easier for children to read, which is fine and dandy.What's weird is adults who still think her stuff is passable, or even good, writing once they are adults.
Meanwhile Salvatore doesn't even make that standard. His works are close to unreadable, not 'written for children but still judged decent by adults'. Also not Elminster in Hell unreadable. But close.
Edit: I've said my piece like 4 times too many already in this thread, so I'll totally leave it be now. Feel free to PM me if you want to continue disagreeing forcefully.Last edited by Tanarii; 2016-10-07 at 08:41 AM.
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2016-10-07, 08:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
Perhaps I am merely less discerning than you, then. *shrug*
It's been a long while since I read the Drizz't books. I found them to be decent light reading. I tend to judge quality based on how well the story holds together. You can have a perfectly fine story where events just happen in order, as I think Salvatore's works tend to do. Rowling's work shows more inclination towards things like foreshadowing as you get further along. Sanderson is a master of weaving things in early which come up later, and he and Rothfus tend to make page-turners that keep me going "just one more chapter" by building the mystery on a fundamental level. That is truly great writing, in my opinion. (Now, if only Rothfus would actually FINISH HIS DARNED TRILOGY.)
BAD writing, to me, mostly happens in adult fiction when a writer falls in love with the idea of showing off his world and won't advance the plot, having his characters do practically nothing for novel after novel. Robert Jordan and, with the last novel or so, George R.R. Martin are guilty of this.
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2016-10-07, 07:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
I keep seeing that pop up now and then, and now I can't help but imagine a gnome bard skipping through the Underdark singing,
"The wonderful thing about drows
Is drows are wonderful things!
Their tops are made out of rubber
Their bottoms are made out of springs!
They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy
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2016-10-07, 08:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2016
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- The Lakes
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
Rowling has her faults as a writer -- all writers do to some extent -- but to hold her up as an exemplar of bad writing... um... OK.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2016-10-07, 09:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
OK why are we even talking about other writers? I'm just talking about why I enjoy drow or dark elves that what we should be talking about.
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2016-10-07, 09:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2012
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
Not that bringing up Rowling & others isn't moving outside the overall topic of Drowdom in general... but, what's really there for us to talk about with regards to your enjoyment of Dark Elves? You're not really leaving room for our input in any fashion, it's just a blanket declaration of your preferences (I like Drow because Drow are great) of which we can't really do anything but say "Okay".
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2016-10-07, 10:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
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2016-10-07, 10:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2014
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.
01001110011001010111001001100100
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2016-10-07, 11:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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2016-10-08, 12:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2007
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- NO LONGER IN CHINA!
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
...but there isn't really a topic to talk about. It's just you saying; "I like Drow", and us looking at you for a moment and saying "Okay", and then going on with whatever we were doing.
I remember once a flatmate brought home a copy of "The Thousand Orcs" from the library, it got passed around the flat and everyone really enjoyed it, although none of us were much into fantasy at the time. Then every other Salvatore book that I've encountered since I've wound up putting down in the "unreadably bad" pile. I've never been sure whether "Thousand Orcs" was an honest-to-god fluke of an actual GOOD book or whether there was something in the water in that place that fooled us into thinking it was reasonable.
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2016-10-08, 04:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
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2016-10-08, 04:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2015
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
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2016-10-08, 05:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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- The Frozen North
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2016-10-08, 05:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Moncton NB
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2016-10-08, 06:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
Oh God, soooo much about Drizzt is now clearer to me!
A neutron walks into a bar and says, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you? No charge.”
01010100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001 10111101110010001000000110111001101111011101000010 00000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001011 100010111000101110
Later: An atom walks into a bar an asks the bartender “Have you seen an electron? I left it in here last night.” The bartender says, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “I’m positive.”
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2016-10-08, 10:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2015
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
We could of used this earlier in the thread when people when people were almost literally asking what the topic of the thread was supposed to be (ex. #6). Of course we are still talking about what is to like and not like about Drow, the books that are about them are part of the experience.
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2016-10-08, 10:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
Sorry. I didn't know that the topic will be so bland and boring.
As I said in the beginning of the top quote. I didn't know that the topic will be so bland and boring.
I prefer the original D&D Drow why because they're much cooler than the different version RPG.
Yeah. Sorry my bad.
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2016-10-08, 10:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2016
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
How about Pathfinder's drow?
Last edited by falcon1; 2016-10-08 at 10:45 AM.
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2016-10-08, 10:48 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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2016-10-08, 11:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2015
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
What about them do you like? What is it about the underground, brutal-minded, back-stabbing, matriarchal theocracy that you find appealing? Do you prefer the original drow from WORLD OF GREYHAWK® or the variation found in the FORGOTTEN REALMS®?
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2016-10-08, 11:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
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2016-10-08, 11:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
While I have long favored the ideal that so called "Elves" of the surface were exiled there for being insufficiently badass, where the day star bleached them! See: Drow the original Elves.
But for a compelling alternate narrative of the origin of the Drow:
Spoiler: Sunlight & Stairs BYMULTIPLEXERThe Canyon
During the world’s early age, when hideous, powerful beasts ruled the world and Gods roamed the Planes, the elven tribes huddled together in a narrow, high-walled canyon bisected by a river.* Weary from the endless Dragon wars and marauding armies of demi-humans, the elven tribes*hoped to find peace, quiet, and a safe place to raise their children.*** The canyon walls provided protection while the grasses and river provided food.
For a while, life was good. The people were at peace.
Time passed and the tribal populations grew.** Land became scarce.* Soon, tribes bumped into their neighbors.* Neighborly bumping turned into fights. Fights turned into battles.* Battles turned into wars.* Tribe fell on tribe.* The river ran red with blood.* Many died during the struggle to end the fighting and forge a single kingdom.
From this mayhem stood a hero.* He pointed to the walls of the canyon and shouted:
“Stop fighting!* My tribe’s Goddess is a Goddess of building.* She has shown me the way and the way is*up.* We have plenty of room for us all to live together in harmony!* We will build our city up the canyon walls!”
And so they did.
Lead by the Builder Tribe, the tribes put down their weapons and built their cities up first one canyon wall, and then the second in great edifices of architecture. The tribes grew food from enormous terraces.* To maximize living and working space,* the tribes left only the narrow river running between the two sets of buildings.* Now everyone had plenty of space.* Problem solved!* The tribes lived together, forever safe from the endless apocalypse outside their canyon, in peace.
The tribes had a brand new problem, though:
Sunlight.
Like all people who rely on magic, they don’t think too hard about physics.* As the buildings grew in height to house more people, the buildings cast deeper shadows on the ravine below.* Those who lived at the top enjoyed full sun and those who lived on the bottom experienced sunlight only at noon. The people at the top had plenty of sun for their plants and crops. This can’t possibly be fair, those who lived on the bottom said to those who lived on top. We are all equal. We are all People of the Canyon!
But those who lived on the top laughed and threw their leftovers down on the Sunless below.* They said: “Perhaps you should have worshipped the Builder Goddess.”
Stratification
Safe from the world’s terrors by the canyon and ensconced in their Canyon City, the Tribal People became one people. Over time, their society stratified into castes based on their access to sunlight and thus better, fresher plants. While they didn’t know what Vitamin D was, the effects of more sun on health were apparent.
The Builder Tribe lived on top and enjoyed full sunlight and the incredibly scarce resource of the roofs.* They fashioned themselves the Canyon’s royalty and nobility.** They crowned a Queen.* The Sunlit, as they renamed themselves, wove delicate bridges of stone and magic high in the air over the river ensuring the canyon walls did not bifurcate into two societies.
Directly beneath the Sunlit lived the military leaders, the Wizards and the Clerics – the intelligencia, the scientists, and the armed and dangerous.* With a dangerous outside world, the Sunlit kept the military close, highly trained and ready.** No one knew when Planal Horrors or Demons of the Abyss would appear from the desert and attack the Canyon City.** Those best equipped to support the magic buildings and fight the world’s terrors lived closest to the top beneath the Sunlit.
The military provided a layer between the rich and everyone else.* Should the lower castes rise up, they literally had torise up.* They had to climb the endless stairs to fight an uphill battle against an always armed and well-trained military. In the city’s beginning uprisings, were plentiful. Blood shed on the stairs. Yet blood, like all liquids, flows back downhill.
Beneath the military, Wizards and Clerics lived the non-magical but highly skilled craftsmen – the clockmakers, the tool makers, the apothecaries, the engineers, those who kept the waterworks flowing and understood the pumps to bring water to their terraced gardens.* These were the builders and merchants. They were key to ensuring the Canyon City functioned.* These were the City’s “middle class.”
These middle class citizens fought over windows where they could see the sun and place their windowsill planters. Small battles erupted over deck access.*They had sun but never quite enough sun.* Full sun was for their betters.
At the bottom of Canyon City lived the Sunless. *Their lack of sun (and proper nutrition)*condemned them by birth to live among the enormous piles of refuse thrown from above.* Those living on the canyon floor enjoyed sunlight only when the sun was at noon and, even then, only in summer time; otherwise they dwelt forever in a twilight dimness.
The poorest Sunless, living next to the now-polluted river, survived by garbage picking.* Those luckier, who lived in hovels on the lowest building floors where the pressure from above was greatest, served as servants, manned the endless ropes of the enormous elevators, worked the terraces and gardens, ferried the endless garbage, and labored in the bowels of the City.* No Sunless could pass for the military class or even the middle class; these above*shunned*them for their skin untouched by rays of sunshine.
The Sunlit ruled with a tyrannical fist and maintained order over their delicate society. They unleashed their military upon their own people as readily as external threats.* In their mind, Canyon City must survive.* Their people lived here.* They weren’t any more and there wasn’t anywhere to go.* They were a tiny flame in a universe of chaos and darkness.* Should their society collapse, they all would be afterthoughts in this Age of Terrors.
The Sunlit would do what they needed to do – and reap the rewards of sunlight.
Under the Sunlit’s leadership, the Canyon City survived the terrors of this Age. The people metastasized into a stable society.* They built culture and religion around their stratified class system.* No one dared marry someone from a different floor.* No one even*hiredinto a job or position they hadn’t been born into.* They lived a segregated existence.
The canyon people forgot equality.* The Gods put them in their place for excellent reasons.* The middle class didn’t want to be Sunlit as Sunlit had all the responsibility.* Sunless didn’t want to be middle class because they had to sit at desks all day.** Memory of a more egalitarian time before the city and the wars faded and then were gone.* Eventually, the Sunlit ruled, the military and magic users married among themselves, the middle class fought for windows, and the Sunless picked through refuse and operated the elevators.
There were fights. And bloody uprisings.* Many died on the stairs up.* They made their own history. But life in the canyon was, over the arch of this age of history, stable.
This was the Will of the Gods and their Chief, the Goddess of Building in High Places.* This was the way it was and forever will be.
Forever it turned out, even to people of this early age who*measured*time in eons instead of years, was too long a time horizon for their survival.
Childhood’s End
The world warmed. The rains came. The desert turned into great expanses of grazing grassland. *New intelligent peoples emerged from the caves and tiny enclaves. Without the Canyon City noticing, the Age of Terrors ended.** A new era began.
More terrifying than any dragon, demon, or demi-human army, man was the ultimate destructive force in the universe.* Man multiplied their population ten times faster than the Canyon City people.* They tore metal from the ground and honed iron into swords and armor.* They domesticated beasts.** They tore down forests to sew fields of wheat.
Pushed by population pressures, great horse tribes swept from the east led by chariot-riding warlords.* They began the great and storied Age of Heroes.* They destroyed the monsters of the earlier age.** Dragons died. Demons died.* Man wrested their lands and settled their people.* They spread and fought and kinged themselves.
Heroes stumbled upon a few Sunless who left their Canyon City and survived the terrors of the world.* These Heroes listened to the Sunless’s tales and told these creatures they would free their people from the Sunlit’s merciless bondage. (“Is that such a good idea?” asked the Sunless but one cannot stop a Hero once he has a Quest.)* Seeking treasure, magic, and power, the greatest Heroes of the Age held high their magic swords, bonded together into a great Murder Hobo adventuring army, and marched on the Canyon City.
The Sunlit were not taken completely unaware.* Their Wizards warned them horrors were coming.* The Sunlit roused their military and readied*their spells.* The ensuing battle between Sunlit and Man was terrible and bloody.* But men are cunning bastards and they rallied the lower castes long jealous of the Sunlit to their cause.* Many centuries later, in the mouths of bards, this battle was cast as an epic battle between Good and Evil.
When it was over, and Canyon City destroyed and plundered of its ancient riches, man was victorious.* They lifted the Sunlit high and pronounced a terrible sentence on them:
“For your crimes, your people and your Goddess shall be cast underground.* You will forever be deprived of the sun.* You will not even earn an hour a day in summer time.* Never again will people be oppressed by you or your kind.”
Man cast the Sunlit, including their military and magic-users, into a deep underground cavern and sealed them away with*magic.** Some say they survived the catastrophe with the help of their Goddess of Building but no one has seen them since.
Gazing upon their destroyed city and life with men standing by smiling and going “hey wasn’t this a great idea,” the people of the canyon did the only thing they could do.** They gathered their possessions from the rubble and drifted away from the canyon and out to the strange new grasslands and forests full of new intelligent beings.* Bewildered city people not equipped to hunt and fight, they lived mostly on their magic and gifts from their Gods.
The middle class re-tribalized.* They turned into enclaves of families and familiar groupings.* They choose to live closer to man’s settlements but never with the home-destroying mankind. They found man’s cities filthy, the technology crude, and their feudalism lacking the old caste system’s elegance. The prior middle class hid in their forests but learned their lesson and kept an eye on the world.* Always nearby, always apart.
The Sunless became their own tribe.* Now, with infinite sunlight at their disposal, they found they didn’t much care for it.* And they despised man. Why did they need “men” to “free” them?** In time, in this new world, they would have freed themselves.** Man destroyed their city and took away their revenge. They owed man nothing. The Sunless disappeared deeper into the darkest forests and built their own cities of magic and light. A few Sunless popped up time to time in man’s cities and man’s affairs but these were the curious and young. Otherwise the Sunless wanted no part of this new Age.
Time went on.* The Age of Heroes became the Age of Man.
The Sunlit are still gone.
Occasionally, the elder people of the canyon tribes, those who still dimly remember the Canyon City, leave offerings at cavern mouths.** They press their ears to the ground listening for sound.* They use mirrors to sharpen sunlight to a burning point hoping to summon the Building Goddess.* And, rarely, they see a faint, possible, maybe sign that the Sunlit still live and will return to enact vengeance on man for them all.
And one elder claims he saw a sigil on a dungeon wall not too long ago.* Maybe?* A building with connectors that looks, in a certain light, like a spider…
Click here for the source!
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2016-10-08, 12:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
I like drow, but my problem is that everyone has their characters be either 'redeemed super nice guys' or 'nasty super mean guys.' I really like the Eberron drow, who think that others elves do not uphold the 'honour' of the elven race, and they seem more TN than evil.
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2016-10-09, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2006
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
What level of middle ground would you prefer? I like my friends to be quite evil, but not stupidly so. "Nasty super mean guys" conjures, for me, images of sadists who are cruel for cruelty's sake. And Drow society does see little wrong with this. So I'd expect some level of reveling in vengeance and mean-spiritedness. That said, they are capable of loyalty and valuing others in their personal sphere.
The danger in decrying "super mean guys" is that you give the impression that the alternative is "neutral drow;" and that's like asking why elves are always such nice guys. It's because their culture is CG. Drow culture is CE. Exploring exceptions is easier than variants, but variants are the more interesting, I think.
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2016-10-09, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2016
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- Within 2 range increments
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
Spoiler: things in which I used to be involved before i was claimed by the great pestilence of examsThe One Sane Drow (Vergil: Drow Sorcerer 5, CN)
The Uprise (IC/OOC) (Ker'anson: Drow Arcane Spellcaster 4, NE)
Running Total Of Things I've Critically Hit That Jormengand Didn't Want Me To Critically Hit: 3
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2016-10-09, 10:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2008
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
I'm interested in the reasons and details. Not "their culture is CE", but working out why, and what that looks like for inside and outside the culture. I also tend to not like the "because Lolth" reasons very much; they're too easy, and lack predictive power. I want Drow that have a rich, complex, crazy, but also fundamentally flawed and evil culture. There are plenty of examples of this in our history too, without mad gods getting involved.
I think in part I find the Drow interesting because many of the existing descriptions of their culture, behaviour, fashion, architecture etc. don't seem to fully explore how alien these elves can be. Take the common image of a Drow city for example: a big cavern with lots of gothic themed buildings on the floor. Remove the odd stalactite and it could be any old town in Europe. At best you get "Minas Tirith with stalactites", at worst you see pitched roofs in a cavern where it never rains. I prefer the (admittedly harder to draw) idea of a city in a labyrinth, lots of tunnels and rooms in many places carved or grown from living rock. Only the locals can find their way around, and everything changes constantly as tunnels are dug or filled to follow changing alliances. It's a city in three dimensions, not a group of buildings scattered across a flat surface like the degenerate surface dwellers build.Last edited by Excession; 2016-10-09 at 10:30 PM.
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2016-10-09, 10:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
I always pictured Drow cavern-cities building out from every surface. Yes, up from the floor, but also all the way up the walls with "cliff-side" style housing, and the noble citadels actually hanging like fat stalactites from the ceiling, controlling the access ways towards "up."
Slender-by-comparison walkways extend impossibly long ways across the caverns, connecting walls to low-hanging inverse towers and high-reaching normal buildings, giving a "web-like" look to it from any decent vantage for looking across the cavern.
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2016-10-11, 09:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
I like The Shadow Elves and the jungle Drow of Eberron the best.
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2016-10-11, 09:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
The reason why I like the Forgotten Realms Drow because their society and culture is very well expanded and explained more clearly. Even though I like the good-aligned drow better than the evil and villainy drow.
Last edited by Bartmanhomer; 2016-10-11 at 09:50 PM.
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2016-10-12, 12:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2010
Re: Why Do I Like Drow So Much
That's like saying you like a certain sports team because they have one good player (but the rest of them suck).
Sorry, only non-political example I could think of.