D&D 5E Tasha's Drow Art and the Future of Their Depictions in D&D

[The Glen]

Yeah, but elf-beards. Plus, the best thing about Mystara was Stephen Fabian's art and given that he's in his 90s, I'm not sure he can be lured back to D&D.

You need the beards. How else are you going to play the Amazing Zorro elves without Pencil Thin mustaches and Van Dyke's?

 

[Voadam]

You need the beards. How else are you going to play the Amazing Zorro elves without Pencil Thin mustaches and Van Dyke's?

The hair covers the pointed ears?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think it's really messed up that in the "You can be good drow, too, see?" artwork all of the good drow are pale-skinned to the point of being almost white.

Making the visual change happen right as they make it explicit that no race is wholly evil? It's very blatant "Dark = Evil, Light = Good" imagery.

I agree with @doctorbadwolf here, this is a bit of a stretch. They're not making the Drow culture be good, they're letting them be more diverse culturally. They're showing that Drow don't have to be the evil, Lolth-worshipping, spider-loving elves of previous editions (granted, most previous editions had multiple exceptions to this. 4e specifically made Drizzt be the only good drow, which is a very strange and bad change, IMO). From what we've seen, they're not making Drow be good, they're letting them be good, and also lightening up their skin to get rid of the connection between dark-skin and being evil. Drow can still be evil, they can just also be good, and are including more examples of good ones as we have plentiful examples of bad ones in the art of 5e.

If they were to have their skin color change to be white and also make all of the drow be good, that would be one thing, but that's not what they're doing. Go look at the OP, and you'll see that this is true. In the second image of the Tasha's Drow, there is a very clearly bad/antagonistic Drow that is fighting Vi atop of a Lightning Rail.

It's not "Dark equals bad" and "Light equals good", it's "Dark doesn't mean bad" and "Light doesn't mean good". I also am assuming that they'll leave Deep Gnomes with dark skin, which are a pretty neutral/good-ish race with pretty dark skin.

 

[Zardnaar]

I agree with @doctorbadwolf here, this is a bit of a stretch. They're not making the Drow culture be good, they're letting them be more diverse culturally. They're showing that Drow don't have to be the evil, Lolth-worshipping, spider-loving elves of previous editions (granted, most previous editions had multiple exceptions to this. 4e specifically made Drizzt be the only good drow, which is a very strange and bad change, IMO). From what we've seen, they're not making Drow be good, they're letting them be good, and also lightening up their skin to get rid of the connection between dark-skin and being evil. Drow can still be evil, they can just also be good, and are including more examples of good ones as we have plentiful examples of bad ones in the art of 5e.

If they were to have their skin color change to be white and also make all of the drow be good, that would be one thing, but that's not what they're doing. Go look at the OP, and you'll see that this is true. In the second image of the Tasha's Drow, there is a very clearly bad/antagonistic Drow that is fighting Vi atop of a Lightning Rail.

It's not "Dark equals bad" and "Light equals good", it's "Dark doesn't mean bad" and "Light doesn't mean good". I also am assuming that they'll leave Deep Gnomes with dark skin, which are a pretty neutral/good-ish race with pretty dark skin.

Erm they had that in2E, 3E did the whole surface Drow thing even.

Ergo it's mostly PR IMHO.

For Drow on different worlds they've been doing their own thing since at least 3E Eberron.

 

[jasper]

It very easy. The art dept of WOtc and Tsr never really followed the written description when they saw cool art. Now your version of cool and their version will never match.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Oh, absolutely. I'm not saying "WotC's Art Department and Production are a bunch of Evil Racists!" I'm saying they were all blissfully unaware of how bad a look they were putting out.

Like... all of them. One after the other after the other, approving different pieces of artwork, rejecting others, completely aware of whatever unconscious bias lead them to ultimately making it turn out like it did.

It also wouldn't shock me if there were at least a few times where someone went "Heeey... guys..? This might be a little uncomfortable to hear, but..." and then the others went "Nooo... it won't come across like that, right? I mean... c'mon! Right?" And then the concerns were ignored and off it went to print.

I guess I'm not sure how many people saw the full picture, because even in the entire D&D game studio, the art department is all of four people, all of whom worked on this book in some role (one of whom is a POC), and only one of them would have been approving/rejecting art - the art director. I bet MtG has a much larger number of people in the same roles. But really the issue isn't just with the art director or whatever - she no doubt got the mandate to do pale Drow, and heroic Drow, but may not have been aware of "Drow are no longer evil" so not been in a position to work it out. Her line manager and so on though should have been able to connect the dots.

I think it continues to point to the issues with a lack of diversity in D&D's leadership and probably WotC's leadership in general.

I mean, to be clear, I think we agree, but I think it's unfair to put it on the art department and/or people in it, because the mandates are coming from management, and management should be working out the links and foreseeing the issues.

I looked in 2e's Drow of the Underdark, Demihuman Deities, Monster Mythology, and 1e's Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, Fiend Folio, Unearthed Arcana, and the Dragon 63's articles on the Elven Point of View and Elven Deities and did not see it there.

A weird thing to change in 2001.

It wasn't changed then. It's been knocking around much longer.

Look in the Complete Book of Elves from 1993, it has the full-on detailed explanation:

Finally, however, the good and neutral elves triumphed, and they drove the drow underground. The corruption of the drow echoed in their appearance, for their skin darkened and their hair turned white. Their eyes glowed red-further evidence of the fires burning within their breasts.

Even in 1993 I remember thinking "that seems messed up".

 

[Steampunkette]

That's definitely fair @Ruin Explorer.

 

[Weiley31]

Drow are only evil because of Lolth.

Their skin however, I always thought/attributed to the fact that they were stuck in the Underdark for so long that evolution and stuff caused their various skin tones/hair color to become the way they were.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I also am assuming that they'll leave Deep Gnomes with dark skin, which are a pretty neutral/good-ish race with pretty dark skin.

Deep gnomes are grey, and usually drawn fairly pale. And are usually neutral, in a "please leave us alone" way.

 

[Ancalagon]

Yes, well said.

I think part of the problem is that D&D grew out of Greyhawk, with default lore in later editions harkening back to Greyhawk. Nothing wrong with GH's lore, and I understand the reasons behind having a default universal lore for the core rulebooks, but there hasn't been as much emphasis on "create your own" as there could have been. Quite a few settings have varied from it--namely, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and Eberron--but the default rules are still based on GH.

So I would love to see WotC emphasize the customizable nature of D&D lore both through the example of different settings (which they are doing to some extent, at least with the Magic and Exandria books), but also in the core rulebooks, with examples of different approaches to lore components.

You should look into Yoon Suin (a campaign setting), which is basically a sort of "built your own" kit. It's excellent.