D&D General The Gygaxian Origins of Drow and Some Thought on their Depiction As Villians

[Chaosmancer]

I take it the Drow are black-skinned in the sense of fertile soil, thus a fey eartlhly source of life and technology, that was always subterranean. Lolth worship is a spider-demon cult that corrupted this. But Drow who preserve earlier animistic traditions or explore other religious traditions are mainly Good. They tend to revere the earth as an all-mother.

There is no color coding, but conspicuous symbols of spiders usually display a membership in the spider-demon cult.

The Drow in the Feywild tend to be Good.

The Drow in the Material tend to be spider cult, who fled from the Feywild.

Incidentally, I view Wood Elves as a faction of Drow who initially belonged to Lolth and fled to the Material, but then realized how Evil she was, and split away, but remained in the Material.

One thing I'm trying to do, and I haven't had a lot of success so far, but I also haven't had a good chance to focus on it, is to make spiders more important to all elves, as well as just reunify the elven cultures. Mostly just to do something different.

Problem is, I haven't figured a decent way to make spiders more generic and less evil. So, I'm still mulling it over and trying to do some minor research for ideas

 

[Haldrik]

One thing I'm trying to do, and I haven't had a lot of success so far, but I also haven't had a good chance to focus on it, is to make spiders more important to all elves, as well as just reunify the elven cultures. Mostly just to do something different.

Problem is, I haven't figured a decent way to make spiders more generic and less evil. So, I'm still mulling it over and trying to do some minor research for ideas

For a more benign spider, consider them "weavers" and connect them with "fate". Weaving the web of the strands of fate. This would be very "fey" (faie), and relate to oracles, divination, prescience, and D&D Wisdom. Personally, I dislike Elf Cleric, but love Wood Elf Druid inclining toward Wisdom and Cosmic Fate. A Swarm Druid could be spiders.

Moreover, spiders with eight legs (very loosely) associates with Elf Dexterity and ambidexterity. Drow take Dexterity to an extreme, but other elves are famous for Dex.

Personally, I prefer non-Dex Elf. My favorite elf is the Cha-Int Sun Elf. Even so, I see the Wood Elf archer and the High Elf sword-dancer as celebrating Dexterity.

 

[ninjayeti]

Yep.

So to be clear when you said "many illustrations" you mean just the two from G3? Weren't you just pointing out how we shouldn't "single source" arguments about the origin of drow?

I agree those illustrations are questionable. But they are also inconsistent with the descriptions of drow in the text of G3 which say drow have "dead white" or "shining silvery" hair. So either the the text or the art has it wrong. Given these are the first pics of drow in D&D and every subsequent depiction goes with white (usually long and straight) hair it is pretty clearly a mistake on the part of the artist (or art department) rather than the smoking gun you make it out to be.

anytime there is a fictional depiction that is made, it reflects the mindset of the times and person who made it.

By the same token I think our tendency to see drow as a racist depiction based on the thinnest of evidence has more do to with the mindset of our time than it does with the intent of Gygax et al. I'm glad we are more sensitive to issues of racial justice today then in the past, but I think we also need to be careful no to lose objectivity either.

 

[Chaosmancer]

For a more benign spider, consider them "weavers" and connect them with "fate". Weaving the web of the strands of fate. This would be very "fey" (faie), and relate to oracles, divination, prescience, and D&D Wisdom. Personally, I dislike Elf Cleric, but love Wood Elf Druid inclining toward Wisdom and Cosmic Fate. A Swarm Druid could be spiders.

Moreover, spiders with eight legs (very loosely) associates with Elf Dexterity and ambidexterity. Drow take Dexterity to an extreme, but other elves are famous for Dex.

Personally, I prefer non-Dex Elf. My favorite elf is the Cha-Int Sun Elf. Even so, I see the Wood Elf archer and the High Elf Dexterity Fighter as celebrating Dexterity.

The oracular angle is a good one.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So to be clear when you said "many illustrations" you mean just the two from G3? Weren't you just pointing out how we shouldn't "single source" arguments about the origin of drow?

To be clear, I don't think you have any idea why I wrote the OP, and I find your response argumentative and tendentious. This is my sole response to you, as I find your words and your characterizations of what I said (and incredible nitpicking that did indicated you did not know the first depiction of the Drow, and when your error was pointed out, you doubled down on the nitpicking) to be indicative of the type of person I do not enjoy speaking with.

But to conclude-

Yes, as I wrote, the images of the Drow that were incorrect had erroer that were "not in the written descriptions." The first visual representations were notable for their short, curly hair. But there issues (as I also noted) continued on, such as "There's the problem with how Drow have been depicted in art, from the notoriously bad Keith Parkison painting to the occasionally 'off' Drizzt covers."

There are numerous poor depictions of Drow, from the very first ones (the aforementioned G3 Drow) to later ones that substitute in Africanized imagery and body-types.

That's not really where that post was going but feel free to google more images.

 

[Mecheon]

Also do note that spiders are very protective of their children in real life, with wolf spiders going into full-blown panic attacks and anxiety if their eggcase is stolen from them

Some sort of prototypical spider goddess that was eventually corrupted into the Lolth nowerdays could still have aspects respected in other elven communities

 

[Khelon Testudo]

There are spiders that keep their children on their back for a time after hatching.

 

[Voadam]

One thing I'm trying to do, and I haven't had a lot of success so far, but I also haven't had a good chance to focus on it, is to make spiders more important to all elves, as well as just reunify the elven cultures. Mostly just to do something different.

Problem is, I haven't figured a decent way to make spiders more generic and less evil. So, I'm still mulling it over and trying to do some minor research for ideas

Just go with the 4e Lolth story of her original Fate Goddess weaver form before she sacrifices herself to become the Spider Queen of Demons and contain the Abyss.

 

[MGibster]

I like pale-skinned drow, personally. Black just doesn’t make sense to me. A range of cool, dark colors is fine, if a little silly in my opinion.

We all have a different threshold for silliness I think. I find the idea of a thriving civilization existing beneath the ground to be rather silly myself. But it's easy enough to shrug and move on. It isn't any sillier than a lot of other things in D&D.

 

[Charlaquin]

We all have a different threshold for silliness I think. I find the idea of a thriving civilization existing beneath the ground to be rather silly myself. But it's easy enough to shrug and move on. It isn't any sillier than a lot of other things in D&D.

Indeed. For the record, I’m not opposed to silliness in D&D. In fact, I think a certain amount of it is important. As you say, we all have different thresholds for it.