D&D General better dark elves?

[Fifinjir]

Magical underground folk is still a good enough niche to fill.

Were I to use them for a campaign, I’d probably characterize them similar to how the “grey” aliens are often depicted. Mysterious, rarely communicating, not necessarily hostile to humans but if their plans intersect with humanity then they tend not to wait until the humans read the fine print and signed the dotted line.

 

[Hriston]

Close but flipped for me.

I'm assuming you mean you'd flip high and wood elves, which is understandable given the Feywild's association with the sylvan woodland. The reason I associate high elves with the Feywild is I regard it as the D&D version of Valinor and the high elves as Tolkien's high elves, the Calaquendi, in exile.

 

[Scribe]

I'm assuming you mean you'd flip high and wood elves, which is understandable given the Feywild's association with the sylvan woodland. The reason I associate high elves with the Feywild is I regard it as the D&D version of Valinor and the high elves as Tolkien's high elves, the Calaquendi, in exile.

No, flipped as I just think High can be replaced with Eladrin, and Drow may as well be replaced with Shadar-Kai, with Wood being the 'material' Elf.

 

[Hriston]

No, flipped as I just think High can be replaced with Eladrin, and Drow may as well be replaced with Shadar-Kai, with Wood being the 'material' Elf.

Ah, then we're pretty much on the same page!

 

[Ancalagon]

I would highly recommend these blogs entries on the topic. It's a great example of how to create a strange species and how to show that strangeness at the table.

OSR: The Drow, Part 1

Drow: The “Black Elves,” or drow, are only legend. They purportedly dwell deep beneath the surface in a strange subterranean realm. The d...

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com

OSR: The Drow, Part 2

Continued from Part 1 . (On watching a Komodo dragon eat a live chicken). The three of us were sitting ashen faced as if we had just wi...

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com

 

[Vaalingrade]

So remove shadar-kai and eladrin and just have three types of elves:

drow for the Shadowfell,​

high elves for the Feywild,​

and wood elves for the Material Plane.​

How about we make Shadar-kai humans again and then remove all elves but eladrin?

 

[Steampunkette]

Easy answer to keep drow the antagonists without making them evil:

Ancient grudges and competition for resources leads to antipathy between them and surface elves, but individually they've got all the same variety as anyone else.

Y'know. Like France and England. Or Spain and England. Or Germany and England. Or England with other Britons. Damned English, ruining England for everyone else!

 

[billd91]

I still like having antagonist peoples in my settings. And drow really are a favorite, matriarchal, spider-worshipping, harsh society and all. My take on them is that they were one of the several broad elven cultures along with the high elves, wood elves, grey elves, etc. And taking some cues from Tolkien, the drow were among the most magically adept and curious (like the Noldor were regarding magic craft and knowledge) and their studies got them in contact with the Queen of Spiders, a version of Lolth that I've raised to be a bit more like an Ungoliant/Melkor/Satan style antagonist of the other elven gods. In the ensuing conflict, the surviving drow retreated and hid in the depths of the earth with their society promoted and shaped by the Queen of Spiders until it becomes the culture of D&D drow. Any drow that stayed on the surface would have been ones who sided with their other elven brethren rather than their own clans. In the centuries since, they've fully integrated and no longer remain a distinct population.
I do, however, stay away from any external indication of their nature akin to a darker skin color, though. It's the society they've built/endured (depending on their status) that marks them as alien to contemporary elven culture and outlook.

 

[Hriston]

How about we make Shadar-kai humans again and then remove all elves but eladrin?

You could do that. No one is stopping you.

 

[Neta]

My approach to the alignment system has always been to regard it as akin to political allegiance rather than actual morality because of how inconsistent it was otherwise, and judging a society so alien and divorced from our own like the drow's seemed completely futile. People who live in a dangerous underground environment under the auspice of a strict hierarchy will not be pleasant folks. That said, when I did a campaign, the first thing that I wanted to do was avoid the implication that their features were correlated to their brutal culture, which I tried to do by making their grey skin a symbol that their ancestors took on when they rejected the authority of the high elves. It seemed particularly fitting since early anthropologists believed that the mythical Amazons were a matriarchal stage of civilization where women rebelled against patriarchal abuses, with my campaign having the first drow be elvish women who settled underground because they refused to be subordinate to patriarchal norms.