Why do drow have black skin?

[tuxgeo]

Short version of the myth (working from memory): Corellon's consort Araushnee (=Lolth) rebelled and lead her followers in civil war among the elves and against Corellon. (She wanted to be in charge.) She tricked their daughter, Eilistraee, into attacking Corellon with a bow and arrow, badly injuring him. Sehanine aided Corellon, and the rebels were defeated.
Corellon cursed Lolth and her followers, turning their skin black and their hair white, and banishing them from the surface world for their treachery. He's a Greater God, so his curse remained permanently effective. (Source? I forget, now. I'll look for it.)

 

[Kinak]

I tend to prefer albino elves myself, but traditional drow are black because that's how they've always been. The first mention of them I'm aware of (in the 1st Edition MM), refers to them as "black elves or drow."

The explination, of course, varies by campaign setting. It usually involves underdark radiation or some sort of curse.

Svart alfar and all that.

Yeah, it's right in the name. "Black elves."

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Mercurius]

[Anal Retentive Moment]

Canon, not cannon. Cannons shoot things.

[/Anal Retentive Moment]

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Short version of the myth (working from memory): Corellon's consort Araushnee (=Lolth) rebelled and lead her followers in civil war among the elves and against Corellon. (She wanted to be in charge.) She tricked their daughter, Eilistraee, into attacking Corellon with a bow and arrow, badly injuring him. Sehanine aided Corellon, and the rebels were defeated.
Corellon cursed Lolth and her followers, turning their skin black and their hair white, and banishing them from the surface world for their treachery. He's a Greater God, so his curse remained permanently effective. (Source? I forget, now. I'll look for it.)

That sounds about right.

 

[was]

If I remember the FR version, the black elves were just another variant called the Illithyri (close?). You had elves with all sorts of skin colors: golden, pale white, coppery, dark brown and black etc.. The Illythiri were attracted to Lolth, and her children Vhaerun and Elistrae, because they were black skinned elven deities. Eventually Lolth became their primary deity and used them to launch a war against all the other elven subraces.
...So, in that creation mythology the drow were black skinned before they lost the war and were driven into the underdark.
...I believe that Corellon's curse changed her nature from divine to tanarii. She eventually would reclaim her divinity.
...I think it's the FR novel Evermeet that explains it.

 

[tuxgeo]

If I remember the FR version, the black elves were just another variant called the Illithyri (close?). You had elves with all sorts of skin colors: golden, pale white, coppery, dark brown and black etc.. The Illythiri were attracted to Lolth, and her children Vhaerun and Elistrae, because they were black skinned elven deities. Eventually Lolth became their primary deity and used them to launch a war against all the other elven subraces.
...So, in that creation mythology the drow were black skinned before they lost the war and were driven into the underdark.
...I believe that Corellon's curse changed her nature from divine to tanarii. She eventually would reclaim her divinity.
...I think it's the FR novel Evermeet that explains it.

Thanks for the clarification.

Well, that's just great.* OK, I haven't read any of the novels, which fact could well explain my lack-of-being-up-to-date (as of 2E) about the nature of things in FR. . . .

* Italics for sarcasm.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Short version of the myth (working from memory): Corellon's consort Araushnee (=Lolth) rebelled and lead her followers in civil war among the elves and against Corellon. (She wanted to be in charge.) She tricked their daughter, Eilistraee, into attacking Corellon with a bow and arrow, badly injuring him. Sehanine aided Corellon, and the rebels were defeated.
Corellon cursed Lolth and her followers, turning their skin black and their hair white, and banishing them from the surface world for their treachery. He's a Greater God, so his curse remained permanently effective. (Source? I forget, now. I'll look for it.)

That sounds like the FR canon I remember.

Drow predate FR, though -- anyone recall if the Greyhawk background story is similar?

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't know how close the association of drow and spiders were to the origination of the drow in D&D... but if that background came in hand in hand with their creation in the game... that might've had something to do with it. Lloth is Queen of the Spiders, the most famous spiders (tarantulas, black widows) are dark if not black. So the association of black spiders to black-skinned elves might've gone hand in hand perhaps.

 

[Mistwell]

In the days before the sun and moon, before even the trees of the Valar and the light captured by the Silmarilian stones, the dark elves fled beneath the ground to escape the wraith of Melkor. And so, as their skin was never exposed to the light of the Valar, their skin remained dark, and they remained unchanged in appearance from the First of the Children, for all those centuries.

 

[RangerWickett]

They live deep underground, but they haven't been there long enough to evolve out of having functional eyes. So there's still value in having dark skin, because it makes you less visible in circumstances when people have light sources.