Drow-a-go-go

[Jurkunaite]

Drow to me were once a highly regimented, patriarchal surface dwelling race. Then came my misguided purchase of the Menzoberanzen box-set.

The problem with Toril is it tends to swamp the creativity of some people (including me, who ended her 2e career with a campaign setting comprised of kender, drow and the depredations of the Complete Book of Elves). Now I'm all for Forgotten Realms products (if nothing else a sponge for my disposable income) but I like the way that Dragon magazine has made everything more generic. Now if we could only turn back the clock on the idea of dark elves it'll be OK. My current idea is to turn it right back to my pre-Menzoberanzen days and fit the drow into a non-Lolth/spiders template of the militaristic, lawful, regimented ideal of my former creations. I have a large evil empire in the current draft, and my thoughts were to have the drow as elves who had been corrupted by the evil goddess Kivutar into the service of her empire, humans of course needing no prior corrupting.

I liked the unseelie variant though there is more of an individual plot or NPC in there rather than a society. Unless of course the Unseelie Court idea (from Monstrous Mythology and updated in the plane of Faerie in the new Manual of the Planes) can be implemented in place of the Lloth worshipping munchkins.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I find it strage that so many DMs get their panties in a bunch if a PC wants a drow character, accusing him of being a Drizzt clone or something like that. If a PC plays as a gruff dwarf fighter, you never have a DM accusing him of being a Gimli clone. If a PC plays as a strong barbarian type, you never hear about DMs complaing about Conan clones. If a PC plays as a mysterious ranger, you never hear them complain about Strider clones.

Anyhoo, just a thought.

 

[Erik Mona]

Anyone with any questions about how nasty drow ought to be would do well to pick up Dragon 298, which should be out in about two months. I'm editing the Living Greyhawk section right now, which features a nearly 20-page survey of the Vault of the Drow and the evil drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu.

Fun, fun, fun.

And also: evil.

--Erik

 

[Squirrel Nutkin]

Drow, schmo! I'll take Warhammer's Dark Elves over the drow any day. Now that is one scary bunch!

 

[Leopold]

the issue with drow is their alignment: Chaotic Evil. This prevents them pretty much from uniting to mount a campaign to conquer the xurface realm or any realm around them. The ONLY time they ever seem to agree on ANYTHING is when it comes to killing drizzt which i am sick to death of.

Now thinking like a CE drow female my order of businss would be:

1. Wake in the morning, sacrifice svifneblin or surface dweller, eat breakfast, brush teeth with spiderman toothpaste, drink java.

2. Plot overthrow of current matron mother and destruction of surface races, deicde which dress to wear for the day matching the color of the blood of the victem to be sacrificed for lunch.

3. Unite underlings from various houses on plans to enslave local races to my whim, pick out sacrifical victem for lunch.

4. Sacrifice victem for lunch, enjoy a mixture of debate with males, make sure one is sacrificed tonite if they displease me, thank the spider queen for this glorious day for not killing me.

5. Conduct raid with underlings on local underdark village enslave populace, make note to promote one of the males at a whim to cause infighting. Remember to smile!

6. Pick out male to be killed tonite, plan dinner, check traps to make sure noone has posined my meals or launched counterplot against me.

7. Eat dinner, sacrifice male to Lolth, kill priest who attempted to interupt my meal with a hand crossbow, order her entire family crucified outside house at behest of matron mother. Plan midnite sacrifice to the spider queen.

8. Order males to pepare for capture of underdark city tommorow. Coordinate plans with other houses using blackmail, subterfuge, and promises of power from matron mother. If all goes well I will get promoted, if all fails matron mother will take the blame. Cest la vie.

9. Sacrifice a child from the family that attacked me in my best spider silk nightie, all praise be the matron mother (whatever) and lolth (note: lolth first next time!). Goto bedroom, prepare spells for tonite, ward against intrustion and trap and posion the doors. Enjoy sleep.



Now if someone made a book with that in mind the drow would be feared! They are mostly thought of infighting and careless, but if you read deeper in the 1e modules they were smart, cunning, evil, wicked, cruel, and had goals and plots that need to be accomplished. I would put money the overall goal of conquest is the surface but give me a break for crying out loud! Conquer and enslave your neighbors, branch out and ensalve them and use them as cannon fodder, there are hundreds of underdark races that an be used to fight the surface people with and dollars to doughnuts allot of them would help willingly.

Just cause the alignment says CE doesn't mean they ALL are...

 

[Zerovoid]

I find it strage that so many DMs get their panties in a bunch if a PC wants a drow character, accusing him of being a Drizzt clone or something like that. If a PC plays as a gruff dwarf fighter, you never have a DM accusing him of being a Gimli clone. If a PC plays as a strong barbarian type, you never hear about DMs complaing about Conan clones. If a PC plays as a mysterious ranger, you never hear them complain about Strider clones.

Anyhoo, just a thought.

Well, the idea is that approximately half of all dwarves are gruff bearded fellows with axes. The rest are of course gruff bearded lasses with axes So, playing a PC with this stereotype is sort of like playing an elf with pointed ears.

Good drow should be literally one in a million. In this case, the player isn't merely aquiescing to racial stereotypes, they are probably copying Drizzt. Especially if a ranger or scimitars are involved. This combination of attributes is so unlikely, that it would never happen more than once if players didn't emulate Drizzt.

 

[Leopold]

Well, the idea is that approximately half of all dwarves are gruff bearded fellows with axes. The rest are of course gruff bearded lasses with axes So, playing a PC with this stereotype is sort of like playing an elf with pointed ears.

Good drow should be literally one in a million. In this case, the player isn't merely aquiescing to racial stereotypes, they are probably copying Drizzt. Especially if a ranger or scimitars are involved. This combination of attributes is so unlikely, that it would never happen more than once if players didn't emulate Drizzt.

if i had a player who wanted to be a DE fighter with a long sword and dagger, no problem. Hell if he wanted to wield a two handed sword and fight in spider armor, no problem. These are stereotypes form the core books (MM, City of Menzo, etc.) and are not Drizzt clones. These are more along the lines of what Drow SHOULD be, and not the exception. IF they want to branch out fine, no problem, just don't make a drizzt clone is all i ask..


Dwarves gruff? hell yes they are and mean tempered, and mean spirted, etc.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Well, the idea is that approximately half of all dwarves are gruff bearded fellows with axes. The rest are of course gruff bearded lasses with axes So, playing a PC with this stereotype is sort of like playing an elf with pointed ears.

Playing an elf without pointed ears would mean playing a cripple (although some argue that a dwarf without an axe is a cripple, too .

Good drow should be literally one in a million. In this case, the player isn't merely aquiescing to racial stereotypes, they are probably copying Drizzt. Especially if a ranger or scimitars are involved. This combination of attributes is so unlikely, that it would never happen more than once if players didn't emulate Drizzt.

Playing a good drow doesn't mean that they copy Drizzt! We always have Eilistraee, which is CG, and you could always play a neutral Drow character. You could make it into the usual party of heroes without actually being good (but neither being evil.) I play a CN drow rogue (soon /psion) myself, who goes out of the way to tread on a spider (vhaeraunan) and is not good, but is in a mostly good party (but being trapped on the demiplane of dread, they've more pressing problems than to hate me...)

Originally posted by Jurkunaite

My current idea is to turn it right back to my pre-Menzoberanzen days and fit the drow into a non-Lolth/spiders template of the militaristic, lawful, regimented ideal of my former creations

I don't like the concept of a lawful drow (and I don't like the concept of a lawful elf in general). They are curel, evil, mad bastards, but they're still elves of a sort, and they're not supposed to be lawful. IMHO CE, NE or CN are best for drow. Although they have their laws, that's only a thin veneer over the chaos of the race...

The spider theme is something that's only true with Lolth - worshipping drow (OK, and Selvatarm), and Lolth's not the only drow deity.

Personally, I think that the drow are still a mystery: Although we gain ever more information about the race, their weird customs and alien mindset will prevent us from understanding them fully! But I do hope that they will accomplish something big very soon, as they really lose way to often.

I already have some suspicions about that: It can well be that the drow of cormanthor will conquer Myth Drannor, bending the ancient Art to their will. That would not only make them a great player on the surface, It would certainly upset the current situation in the drow pantheon as well, for Vhaeraun's minions (and he through them), who are strongest on the surface and would surely be the ones to score Myth Drannor, will get a lot of power. That could even mean Vhaerauns ascension to the rank of intermediate deity and a shift in drow culture as a whole!

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Hey! This thread survived. I was worried it was lost to the sands of time... I'm glad I got to read all the responses. I too have been a bit bothered by all the goody drow that have popped up post-Drizzt. Probably because my stereotypes were formed DMing D1-3 back in the mid-80s. It's interesting to see that Salvatore can admit to a bit of remorse. Raises his stock with me, at least.

Thanks for the interesting discussion, everyone.

 

[Leopold]

Hey! This thread survived. I was worried it was lost to the sands of time... I'm glad I got to read all the responses. I too have been a bit bothered by all the goody drow that have popped up post-Drizzt. Probably because my stereotypes were formed DMing D1-3 back in the mid-80s. It's interesting to see that Salvatore can admit to a bit of remorse. Raises his stock with me, at least.

Thanks for the interesting discussion, everyone.

bah but my witty retorts are stuck on page 1! curses!