delericho
Legend
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.)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?
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.