D&D General better dark elves?

[delericho]

long term dark elves as you evil elves seem both likely to die and has too many unpleasant implications but what else could they be?

what other role could they take up past evil subversion?
not only about drow more all evil subversion options as well I wonder if there is anything left for them past the dustbin?

IMO, one of the big issues with row is that elves are too benign. Going back to the source materials, though, and especially moving beyond Tolkien, and they're much more ambiguous or even outright malevolent. (Also, all elven societies should be matriarchal, but that's a slightly different topic.)

However, one approach that I thought might be interesting is if the ancient elf/drow split wasn't about good vs evil, but rather that it was the drow who first taught human wizards how to use magic. This then prompted the high elves to try to wipe them out, and when that didn't work, they instead spent millennia blackening the reputation of the drow.

(Also, regarding skin colour - I tend towards the view that elves are somewhat polymorphic, a holdover from Corellon's influence, and they therefore adapt to their environment. So drow have dark skin because they dwell underground, but if a drow were to live aboveground for a sufficiently long time, or an elf underground, they would eventually change. Likewise, aquatic elves and blue skin, wood elves and green/brown, and so on.)

And also, also... to be honest, at this point I'd be at least somewhat inclined to drop drow from the game entirely. They carry a lot of baggage, and I'm not sure it's ever really going to be possible to unpack that totally. It might well be better simply to have elves, some of whom live underground.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Instead of being 'evil' and dark, just make them spiteful and terrible in the more legacy view on the term. That is, unless you dont want them to be a negative at all, in which case I point you to the 'lore developments' of post 2020.

despite what cartoons have told me I do not see dark and evil as synonomus when to bright light regularly give you a headache it alsp stops making light seen as inherently good.
spiteful and terrible might as well be evil.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

A good option these days is to not give an entire race a tendency to have a certain alignment, behavior set or personality. Instead, let them be individuals.

Whilst alignment is obviously nonsense and individuals need not be bound by their heritage, I don't agree that species shouldn't have personality and behavioural tendencies. To me it seems extremely dull and unrealistic if every intelligent species are mentally just humans.

In any case, assuming one would want to work with existing setting material, I'd first throw away the alignment. Then consider the setting material to be written from the point of view of the species and cultures formerly considered "good." So whilst major facts might be correct, and it is not all just lies, what they say about themselves will be written in extremely flattering light and omit all sort of nasty things, and what they say about their enemies will paint them as monsters. For example perhaps the matriarchal and sexually openminded nature of the drow society is being demonised by conservative an patriarchal human kingdoms. Then work out the "truth" from the position that no group is really evil or good, just a bunch of people who have their values and beliefs and reasons to do what they do.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm very much unconvinced that the idea of Dark Elves as a distinct race/species is worth saving. Having evil elves as a distinct species from "normal" elves (let alone one distinguishable by skin color) was a horrible choice from the beginning, but as far as I can tell, it's the central reason for having Dark Elves, and any future iteration is going to be perceived in relation to that history. So while the Dark Elf concept certainly can be improved from its historic origins (indeed it would be hard not to improve), I think abandoning this concept and focusing on novel cultures and species would probably be a better use of creative energy.

Well, I think you can have edgy and a bit creepy underground elves without them being evil.

 

[JAMUMU]

In my Greyhawk campaign there are three main drow sub-cultures. Those that worship the Elemental Eye are the extremist always-evil-hate-all-life drow. Those that worship Lolth just want to be left alone to play emo-rulers of the underdark, farm spiders and wear fabulous silk creations. The third group are drow that reject both of these cultures and have struck out on their own, turning up anywhere as they often wish to see the world above their own. Sort of like expat Australians.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

To me, it depends on what parts of "Dark Elf" you want to keep/feel are fundamental to the race, and then you can do pretty much anything you want from there. Is the defining feature of Drow their dark skin? Is it the fact that they live in the Underdark? Is it their religion/culture?

Maybe you like most parts of the Drow, but just want to allow for more cultural complexity. In which case, I suggest you take an approach like Exandria or recent Forgotten Realms lore, where some Drow serve Lolth and are evil but some/most don't and can be as good or bad as humans. Additionally, in Exandria the cult of Lolth isn't limited to Drow and has members from other races like Humans and Orcs. If you like the Lolthite part of Drow but want to detach it from the subspecies, maybe just adopt that lore in your setting.

Or, you want to take just the mechanics and appearance of the Drow but want to put them in an environment that their traits could make sense for. In Eberron, there's 3 main subgroups of Drow, and most of them don't live underground. The main drow faction, the Vulkoori, lives under the canopy of Xen'drik and worshipping a scorpion deity that fills a similar role to Lolth (except he may not exist, like the other Eberron gods).

Or you could take their trait of living underground and want to focus more around that, possibly modeling them after Exandria's Pallid Elves or The Elder Scroll's Falmer, being an albino subterranean elven subspecies. I would personally probably merge them with the Grimlocks, being former Mind Flayer slaves that mutated to use hearing/smelling instead of sight to adapt to the darkness of the Underdark, but granting them the cultural/moral complexity of other elves.

Or if you like Norse Mythology, just call Dwarves "svartalfar" and have them be related to elves somehow.

 

[Hriston]

Drow could be the descendants of elven shadar-kai who rebelled against the Raven Queen and escaped from the Shadowfell, living as refugees/colonists in the Underdark, sort of a mirror image of the high elves. Their tutelage under/worship of Lolth and/or other deities (such as the EEE) could be exhibited by certain factions among them, mostly as presented in the original material.

 

[Scribe]

despite what cartoons have told me I do not see dark and evil as synonomus when to bright light regularly give you a headache it alsp stops making light seen as inherently good.
spiteful and terrible might as well be evil.

Your going to have to define 'dark' and 'evil' then I think.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Your going to have to define 'dark' and 'evil' then I think.

evil is complex but we all more or less sort of what we mean.

dark is varied for example batman is dark being moody, likes the night, stealth and having a plan to backstab his friends but he is normally good, there is physically dark in the sense of location, lots of shadows and such, dark ways of doing things like ruthlessness, stealth certain forms of magic, dark personalities such as being moody, aggressive, fatalistic and depressing but none of that is morally evil by nature not a one to one nature at least.

 

[Scribe]

evil is complex but we all more or less sort of what we mean.

It doesnt have to be. "Evil" in the Alignment/Game Term for me can be distilled into a single other word, Selfish.

dark is varied for example batman is dark being moody, likes the night, stealth and having a plan to backstab his friends but he is normally good, there is physically dark in the sense of location, lots of shadows and such, dark ways of doing things like ruthlessness, stealth certain forms of magic, dark personalities such as being moody, aggressive, fatalistic and depressing but none of that is morally evil by nature not a one to one nature at least.

Ah, Shadar-kai then.