Alternative origins of the drow

[klofft]

I really want to be able to use more of DotU in my present game, and so I pose a question to all of you:

What origin stories have you used for "dark elves" in your game? I'm content with my zillion sub-races for elves in my game as just being that - sub-races of "elf" - but it seems that the CE drow really deserve their own "origin story," instead of just being another subtle variation of the basic model. In my homebrew, I can't easily use the "official" story, as my gods are a little less personified than those in the story (e.g., none of my gods are related or lovers), though I am using both Corellon and Lolth. However, they were both gods in their "present" incarnation from the outset and are essentially co-existent in time.

The easiest thing, of course, is to just say that Corellon created "good" elves and Lolth created "drow." But I really like the idea of a "fall" of some elves into their present drow state.

Any ideas? Anything that has worked well in your own games as an alternate origin of drow?

 

[Umbran]

I have stolen somewhat from Tad Williams....

In the past, elves were the greatest of the Fey. Immortal, wise, good, all that stuff.

There was a major conflict with an evil force (which I'll not detail here). And the elves were losing. Some came to know despair, and chose a dread path - to ensure the continued existence of their people, the younger brother of the elven king murdered his brother, and bathed in his blood...

This worked, sort of. This was the first time one of the great fey drew the blood of another, and the repercussions were downright cataclysmic. The cataclysm did as much damage to the enemy as themselves, calling an end to the conflict, for the nonce. The long-term repercussions have been dire, and the descendants of those who performed the ritual have been marked with the rusty-black of the blood they bathed in.

 

[Voadam]

Start out with Corellon creating elves, strong in magic. Lolth is the DemonQueen of Spiders and corrupted certain elves with demonic pacts. These pacts changed the drow infusing them with fiendish might (thus the spell resistance, darkness abilities and weakness, etc.).

Works fine without having Lolth and Corellon as former lovers.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

The current Drow IMC are actually half-drow, though they refer to themselves as drow.

The original drow were a band of extremists driven to dwell underground after a failed uprising against the ruling monarchy. Millenia of dwelling in the dark, coupled with magical experiments, made the drow into their "perfect" (i.e., standard D&D stat) form.

However, the drow society went into serious decline after decades of wars with the Troglodytes (a duergar/derro/svirneblin race IMC, and not the standard D&D creatures), fragmenting the drow into several smaller groups scattered throughout the Underdark.

One large group of drow intermingled with humans, creating the "current" half-drow Drow that still exist. They generally follow one of the major religions on the realm.

One tiny group of "pure" drow exists in the Underdark, though they are on the verge of extinction due to conflict with other Underdark dwellers. They are noted fiend-worshippers, and many of the elites have traces of fiendish blood (if not being outright half-fiends).

And, the rest of the drow groups were slain or captured by the Troglodytes, who later interbred with the captives (so the Troglodytes IMC are actually a big mix of duergar, derro, svirneblin, and drow).

The only PC-playable versions are the common half-drow mentioned above.

As an aside, the standard D&D troglodytes and kobolds are members of the same race, the Sla'adeshk. The small ones are more common, but the larger ones are in charge. They are noted for worshipping slaads (from which they've derived their name).

 

[Tonguez]

Drow are the natural state of all elves - all are capricious vindictive and cruel. Their skin contains a bacetria which energizes their bodies. When exposed to light however the bacteria die and this manifest as burning of the Drows flesh

This was used as a punishment to exiles who were taken to the surface and exposed to the sun most of them died. However a few practiced in the ancient art of Da-Corellion were able to survive the process and became the first elfs

 

[RangerWickett]

My 'drow' were just elves who were ethnically oppressed by their fellows, and who fled underground to escape the power of a sun-themed enemy. They're not evil.

 

[billd91]

This is my take on elves for my Greyhawk campaign:

Elves are one of the oldest folk living in the Flanaess. They have existed there throughout known time, ever since their creation by Corellon Larethian, patron of the Elves and Father of the Elven pantheon.

In the days before the great migrations of Suel, Oerid, and Baklunish peoples from the west, the elves lived throughout the Flanaess, on plain as well as in forest. The human people, the Flan, lived in peace with the elves, existing at the periphery of the elven communities and nations. But even then, the semi-nomadic Flan were a rising people, growing in culture as well as in number.

In those days, there were several clans or groupings of elves. There were the Gold elves, mighty in fighting prowess and vigor, the Silver elves, strong in knowledge and intellect, the Sylvan elves, strong in limb and dwellers of the forests, the Drow elves, masters of the arcane arts and insatiable in curiosity, the High elves, fleet of foot and open of heart, the Sea Elves, living under the waves, and finally, the Grugach elves, friends of beasts and the wild country. The clans existed in harmony and mutual cooperation.

While elves may have gotten along with the Flan as well as the halflings and gnomes, there were other races with whom they fought tenaciously. These were the goblins and gnolls and other humanoids, but most particularly the orcs. The orcs of the Flanaess were almost polar opposites of the elves, cruel, rapacious, and violent. Orcs hated elves passionately, supposedly because of some conflict between the chief elven god and the chief god of the orcs, the one-eyed Gruumsh. They tried to war constantly on the mighty elves, caring little for their own losses and tragedies.

In the midst of these wars with the humanoids, evil slipped into the elven realms. The arcane studies of the Drow had gotten them in contact with the Queen of Spiders, a mistress powerful in the magical arts, who seduced them with offers of power and knowledge, capturing them within her webs of deceit. By the time the other elven clans took notice, the Drow were already making their bid for dominance over the other elves. This is known as the Sundering, or alternatively as the Kin-Slaying. In a great struggle, the clans fought to first expunge the evil that had seduced the Drow, then to control them, and finally, to destroy them in a final effort to save all of elvenkind. The clan of the Drow was obliterated, but so were the Gold elves who had formed the nucleus and front line of the opposition against the Drow. The Grugach were severely reduced to a few families and all of the rest of the clans were scarred. Acrimony rose between the remaining clans over the conduct of the war and its consequences, damaging relations between them. The Silver elves, tarnished by the events of the war, were to become known as the Grey elves. The Sea elves retreated to their watery depths. The Sylvan elves insulated themselves within the deep forests. The Grugach barely clung to existence, hiding in the most remote of wildlands. Even the High elves turned inward.

The damage wrought by the Sundering caused the elven domains to retreat to the forests where their strength remained, leaving the plains to the Flan. Not long after that, the great migrations pushed whatever elves remained beyond the forest reaches into the woodlands.
The elves today have recovered a great deal from the Sundering. Although those events happened many generations ago, their legacy lives on. The Sylvan elves still cling to relative isolation, even among other elves. The High elves have again become the most open of the elven folk. The Sea elves have again emerged from the ocean depths. The Greys are also insular like the Sylvans, but they isolate themselves within their ivory towers of knowledge rather than deep forest homes. The Grugach are encountered only on rare occasion. The harmony and cooperation between the clans is not as strong as it once was.

There are some social characteristics most elves share, despite clan differences. Most elves are individualists, relishing their freedoms. They are also generally charitable, helpful, compassionate, and merciful. Many are also reclusive, proud, and patient (they live long enough to take a very long view). Elves love good entertainment and enjoy taking part in dancing, singing, telling stories, and drinking and eating find foods and wines.

Most elves also despise spiders of all sorts, keeping their homes clear of spiders and their webs. It is an old sentiment from the Kin-Slaying that spiders are the spies of the seductress. Giant varieties of spiders are always exterminated when found within elven domains.


That's what elves and PCs knowledgeable about elves know. What they don't know is that the Drow survived undergound, pale and leeched of nearly all pigment, and still under the sway of the Queen of Spiders. They also don't know that remnants of the Gold elves survived and are now the servants of the Valley of the Mage (as valley elves).

 

[Dark Psion]

I have toyed with the idea that Elves area Sundered race. Exactly what caused this has been either forgotten or purposely made secret, but once upon a time there was the Sidhe a true fey race of elves.

After the sundering, four new races of elves came to be. Aquatic elves in the seas, Winged Elves of the air, High Elves in the Forests and Grey Elves rebuilding the ash ruins of the Sidhe.

Many of these elves sought to regain what had been lost, but when then the atempt was made, a second sundering occured. This time new evils were released into the world. From the Aquatic Elves came the Sahuagin, from the Winged Elves came Harpies, from the High Elves came Orcs and from the Grey Elves came Drow.

Each of these new evils sought to destroy what their parent race defends and they hate each other with such ferocity that no one believes that this mistake can ever be undone and may fear what might be released by another sundering.

 

[Blue Sky]

IMC, elves are from the faerie lands, on the other side of the moon (literally and figuratively). A couple of millenia ago, they decided to make war on the Humans, whose dreams were shaping the faerie lands too much. They were a slow breeding race, though, and needed an army. So they made three races:

First they made Lizardmen, hoping to instill fear into the hearts of men. It worked for a little while, but they were weak against magic.

So the elves made the second race in their own image, the drow. Created as weapons, designed to kill wizards, they were the backbone of the elven Imperials.

(The third was the Tarrasque, but it never got activated. )

Once the dragons shattered the elven empire, the drow were freed, and given a chance at their own lives.

The "true" elves, the ones that still live in the faerie lands, occasionally slide into the waking world to hunt down the drow (can't let your weapons fall into the hands of others), but most people accept them.

 

[CruelSummerLord]

D&D myth has it that Corellon's blood, shed when he fought Gruumsh, gave rise to the elves. And that is true, but that's not all there is to the story...

Yurtrus, the orcish god of disease and corruption, tainted and corrupted the souls of many of the elves by defecating in them, permanently corrupting them and turning their nature to evil, as vengeance for his lord's defeat.

It was then that the demoness Lolth, seeking a race to worship her to increase her power, as the likes of Demogorgon and Yeenoghu were doing, took the tainted, polluted elves for her own, making them worship her as their patroness.

Lolth led her people to the depths of the Oerth, where the mysterious radiations that passed through the depths mutated them, giving them the strange magical powers they came to possess, and also empowering their weapons and armor. The weapons and armor were not magical, but the radiation enhanced them so they seemed magical.

These elves were permanently and totally rotten to the core-completely, totally, purely, evil. A good-aligned drow would be a freak, an aberration, a mutation, a crime against nature. And because the radiations of the depths of the Oerth were the antithesis of the energy of the sun, any drow who came to the surface would be burned alive and destroyed utterly if they saw the light again. This is borne out in canon, as it's well-known that drow weapons and armor are ruined by sunlight.

As such, there will be no Drizzt Do'Urdens, no Eilistraees, no emo-drow wannabes in Greyhawk.