D&D General Drow in early D&D

[Warpiglet-7]

I remember the word ‘haughty’ being used in an entry about a subspecies of elf….

need to consult my ancient tomes to verify….

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I remember the word ‘haughty’ being used in an entry about a subspecies of elf….

need to consult my ancient tomes to verify….

I have not found it and only see that grey elves avoid others

 

[Jack Daniel]

What strikes me with that is not what it says about drow but what it says fairies: "fairies are good". Our perception of fairies has changed a lot since the 1970s, influenced by earlier folk tales rather than the twee Disneyfication of the fair folk. Now they are generally seen as chaotic, capricious, and sometimes malevolent.

But that modern interpretation is still just an interpretation, and an exaggerated (and annoyingly edgelordy) one IMO. "Oh, look, another dark setting where the fay are alien and amoral and treat mortals as inconsequential playthings, how… original." Nuance would be to treat fairies as the bog-standard genii locorum they were, running the gamut from bane to blessing, with little rituals of respect and propitiation believed to produce concrete results (whether keeping the malevolent fairies neutral and aloof or currying the direct favor of the helpful ones).

On the topic of grey elves, consider that Tolkien originally used "gnome" to refer to the Noldor (because of its association with "knowledge"), and "Faerie" was his original name for Valinor (which, it has been remarked, bears some similarity to Dunsany's version of "Elfland" in The King of Elfland's Dauger). It wouldn't surprise me at all of Gygax was aware of this (despite his vaunted dislike of Tolkien)—and he was, after all, working in a specific context.

 

[Helldritch]

What were Greyhawk drow like vs Forgotten Realms drow?

The differences were not that much. In fact, FR expanded a lot on what Greyhawk had already established. In Greyhawk, however, while most drows are worshipping Llolth and fear her wrath, some are just pretenders and worship the Elder Elemental Eye (aka Tharzidun) and seek to over throw her hold on drow society but not out of goodness but for their own gain.

What they share though is their violent tendencies and utter lack of compassion. Their society is truly evil and it promotes evil.

Also, all drow, even the lowliest ones, owned magical chainmail and weapons of +1 equivalence and they coyld fight with two weapons without penalties... That made them all Dritzz... Noble house drows would get better gear and higher level ones would get additional innate spells to cast. Their life span was almost equal to a Grey Elf so this made them incredibly long lived with a maximum of 1500 years or so ( Grey could go up to 2000...)

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I don't know you can really say that Lolth was the sole deity of Greyhawk drow. Maybe of Erelhi-Cinlu, but I don't know why we should be making assumptions based on seeing a single city.

 

[Yaarel]

The main difference between Greyhawk Drow and Forgotten Realms Drow:

the FR Drow were more likely to be player characters.

By humanizing and empathizing with the FR Drow, they are extremely different from the GH Drow "monster",

even if the descriptions of the race are moreorless the same in both settings.

 

[Yaarel]

I remember the word ‘haughty’ being used in an entry about a subspecies of elf….

need to consult my ancient tomes to verify….

I found this in the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

"The Sun Elves ... are seen as the most civilized and haughty elves, preferring to remain separate from humankind and other nonelven races."

So it is Forgotten Realms who, by one sentence, turned every elf into racists.



It probably started with teens putting on airs, pretending to be European aristocracy. It feels like it ended with this "haughty" trope becoming a vehicle of racism against reallife Europeans.



I am happy 5e is taking pains to rethink D&D lineages. When I saw the picture of Drow Elf and High Elf as grayish white and dark blue, I felt relief.

 

[the Jester]

Maybe the arrogant elves trope never came from game designers, but from the people playing the elves?

I think it's from Tolkien.

 

[Alzrius]

The main difference between Greyhawk Drow and Forgotten Realms Drow:

the FR Drow were more likely to be player characters.

By humanizing and empathizing with the FR Drow, they are extremely different from the GH Drow "monster",

even if the descriptions of the race are moreorless the same in both settings.

While little more than a footnote, minor exceptions popped up here and there in Greyhawk. For instance, Tysiln San, the drow on the cover of WG12 Vale of the Mage (affiliate link), was Chaotic Neutral.

I think the closest Greyhawk ever came to pushing the envelope where PC drow were concerned was the "Attack of the Drow" expansion for the Chainmail miniatures game (2000 – 2003), which had D&D-compatible stats (if I recall correctly). They received D&D-specific coverage in Dragon #298, "Chainmail: Exiles from the Vault," by Chris Pramas.

 

[the Jester]

I don't know you can really say that Lolth was the sole deity of Greyhawk drow. Maybe of Erelhi-Cinlu, but I don't know why we should be making assumptions based on seeing a single city.

She's not. It's established in D3 that the Drow worship demon lords; the worship of Lolth is but one example of such. However, this has largely been tossed aside is the years that followed.