D&D 5E New Drow cultures coming in Starlight Enclave, the Lorendrow and the Aevendrow

[Scribe]

I mean, the other option is a complete blank history, so a flexible canon as probably the best option overall. And anyway, as Napoleon said, "History is just the lies we've all agreed upon."

The other option is an actual hard canon, with a 'Word of God' approach.

 

[Dire Bare]

Not much good as canon then.

And yet . . . it's always been this way my dude. With D&D, with Star Wars, with Star Trek . . . with every major, long-running franchise. The recent D&D announcement on their policy towards canon isn't really a new thing, they've always operated this way.

I already brought up a great example in this thread. The idea that drow were once light-skinned elves (or later, dark brown skinned elves, as if that makes it better) that were cursed with ebony skin and driven underground by God (Corellon, specifically) . . . . and then redeemed by Christ's sacrifice (Eilistraee, in this case) and have their original, lighter-skin tones restored . . . . hoo-boy! That is "canon" and it is incredibly racist. Should we hold on to that, because some D&D writers & designers in the past didn't realize the racist implications of this story?

The drow have long been problematic for multiple reasons, the above included. Should we ignore that, shrug "it's just fantasy" and move on with that systemic racist crap in our games? Thankfully, the stewards of D&D don't feel that way, and haven't for quite some time. The story of how the drow were cursed with dark skin (and their restoration) has been quietly shelved. Drow are no longer described as having jet black skin, but retconned into having a range of skin tones from light gray to jet black, with hints of purple. All of this done quite some time ago, quietly. And for close to 40 books now, Salvatore has been working to give the Menzoberranzan drow culture more nuance, portraying the drow not as inherently evil, but just as people caught up in a highly dysfunctional and oppressive society. Although, he's certainly kicked it up a notch in the last four books or so. ALL of this breaks earlier canon on the drow.

And now WotC is making an additive change to the drow lore, by adding two more, non-evil, drow cultures, the aevendrow and the lorendrow. Some of us like the changes, some of us don't . . . regardless of how we feel about the sacredness of canon. And that's okay.

Plenty of D&D writers and designers of the past have put in some BAD elements into the D&D canon (because they're human and sometimes humans make bad calls) . . . sometimes racist, sometimes misogynist, sometimes contradictory to existing lore, sometimes just plain stupid . . . . are we stuck with all of that because canon? Including the unintentionally contradictory elements? That's just, forgive me, stupid. Adjusting and tweaking as necessary, to remove problematic and just plain bad elements of D&D lore is the smart call, it's the way WotC has always treated the property, they're just being more straightforward about it now . . . . likely because there ARE some bigger changes coming up in the near future . . . .

The other option is an actual hard canon, with a 'Word of God' approach.

Ugh.

 

[Scribe]

Ugh

Exactly how I feel about forcing a few 'but it's always been this way' cultures into a setting where they didn't exist.

I don't have issue with removal of some clearly flawed elements. I have issue with how it's done.

This doesn't reinforce any kind of continuity, it simply shrugs and says oh but of course we aren't saying all drow, see here!

It's simply too obvious, too 'we need some way to look less terrible' and it's too transparent.

 

[DarkCrisis]

This book could have been subtitled: Drows Super Bowl Sunday

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Exactly how I feel about forcing a few 'but it's always been this way' cultures into a setting where they didn't exist.

I don't have issue with removal of some clearly flawed elements. I have issue with how it's done.

This doesn't reinforce any kind of continuity, it simply shrugs and says oh but of course we aren't saying all drow, see here!

It's simply too obvious, too 'we need some way to look less terrible' and it's too transparent.

Continuity can go jump off of a cliff. It's all made up anyways.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Exactly how I feel about forcing a few 'but it's always been this way' cultures into a setting where they didn't exist.

I don't have issue with removal of some clearly flawed elements. I have issue with how it's done.

This doesn't reinforce any kind of continuity, it simply shrugs and says oh but of course we aren't saying all drow, see here!

It's simply too obvious, too 'we need some way to look less terrible' and it's too transparent.

It's not like they plopped them down 2 miles outside of Waterdeep. They are at basically the North Pole and deep inside a mostly unexplored jungle. Saying "no one knew about them" isn't unreasonable in these cases. Also, the fact that there were dissenters who didn't go underground with the rest of the drow isn't a huge stretch even with established canon.

 

[Dire Bare]

Exactly how I feel about forcing a few 'but it's always been this way' cultures into a setting where they didn't exist.

I don't have issue with removal of some clearly flawed elements. I have issue with how it's done.

This doesn't reinforce any kind of continuity, it simply shrugs and says oh but of course we aren't saying all drow, see here!

It's simply too obvious, too 'we need some way to look less terrible' and it's too transparent.

Because the cultures of the Torilian north pole and deep jungle have been exhaustively detailed, with no room for mysterious, secretive cultures to be added? A genre trope long existing in fantasy, sci-fi, and pulp? We can't have new things added to D&D lore unless they've already been referenced in canon? No thanks.

How you feel about the new additions, the quality of the story ideas and writing, is independent of how one feels about the sacredness of canon. Two different issues. You can feel that canon needs to take a back seat to good story, good worldbuilding, and the cleansing of problematic lore elements . . . and feel WotC and Salvatore dropped the ball with the aevendrow and lorendrow. Of course, most of the folks I've seen complaining . . . haven't read Starlight Enclave . . . quelle surprise.

These changes to drow lore are going to be dribbled out over years, potentially. The aevendrow were introduced in Starlight Enclave, but were not exhaustively detailed (which is okay). We don't know much about the lorendrow yet, perhaps we'll learn more in the next Salvatore novel, which we won't see until sometime in 2022. Will WotC release some sort of supplement detailing the new cultures for the game itself? Perhaps, I hope so, but they haven't made any announcements yet, so . . . maybe again in 2022.

In my opinion, the decision to add additional, secretive drow cultures in remote parts of Toril is a fine one. The basic strokes of the aevendrow and lorendrow are fun and neat. The introduction and description of the aevendrow in Starlight Enclave is a bit heavy-handed and on-the-nose . . . Salvatore has his strengths, and his weaknesses, as an author and world-builder . . . but they are an interesting and fun culture that I hope gets more detail in the next novel and/or game book.

The biggest issue I have with the portrayal of the aevendrow so far, is that they are as good as the Menzoberranzan culture is evil. Hard to criticize one without criticizing the other, but a more balanced and realistic culture would have been better. Having said that, the aevendrow are paranoid to a fault, and almost toss our heroes off a cliff when they fear our heroes MIGHT be spies for Callidae's enemies. After coming to trust our heroes, they still insist that the heroes be mind-wiped should they choose to return home to the south, keeping Callidae's secret intact.

 

[Bladesinger]

Exactly how I feel about forcing a few 'but it's always been this way' cultures into a setting where they didn't exist.

I don't have issue with removal of some clearly flawed elements. I have issue with how it's done.

This doesn't reinforce any kind of continuity, it simply shrugs and says oh but of course we aren't saying all drow, see here!

It's simply too obvious, too 'we need some way to look less terrible' and it's too transparent.

This is how I feel too. I don't mind new societies or such, but it was the ham-fisted way they introduced them coupled with the 'holier-than-thou' attitude that I seem to get. But hey, this is just me, YMMV.

I think another thing that bothers me is that there was plenty of Realmslore to work with to get 'other' aligned Drow, both Good and Neutral. This was basically ignored, and in some fashion re-written, as Starlight Enclave seems to hint that Menzoberranzan is the ONLY Drow city, even though they mention Ched Nasad. It is very confusing.

I feel that the announcement that novels are not canon right before this book dropped is telling.

 

[Bladesinger]

The biggest issue I have with the portrayal of the aevendrow so far, is that they are as good as the Menzoberranzan culture is evil. Hard to criticize one without criticizing the other, but a more balanced and realistic culture would have been better. Having said that, the aevendrow are paranoid to a fault, and almost toss our heroes off a cliff when they fear our heroes MIGHT be spies for Callidae's enemies. After coming to trust our heroes, they still insist that the heroes be mind-wiped should they choose to return home to the south, keeping Callidae's secret intact.

This was a problem for me as well. Again, I almost feel this was part of the mandate. That being said, I actually do like the idea of Callidae and the Avendrow. I just think it could have been done better.

 

[Dire Bare]

This is how I feel too. I don't mind new societies or such, but it was the ham-fisted way they introduced them coupled with the 'holier-than-thou' attitude that I seem to get. But hey, this is just me, YMMV.

I think another thing that bothers me is that there was plenty of Realmslore to work with to get 'other' aligned Drow, both Good and Neutral. This was basically ignored, and in some fashion re-written, as Starlight Enclave seems to hint that Menzoberranzan is the ONLY Drow city, even though they mention Ched Nasad. It is very confusing.

I feel that the announcement that novels are not canon right before this book dropped is telling.

Menzoberranzan isn't the only city of udadrow in the underdark . . . . but it's the only one that most casual D&D fans would have ever heard about. Plus (to my knowledge), all other "known" drow cities or settlements are expansions of the evil, underdark-dwelling, udadrow culture that venerates Lolth . . . or some other evil deity like Ghaunadar, Vhaerun, or Kiaransalee. Ched Nasad, specifically, was destroyed in a war with Menzoberranzan many novels ago . . .

So . . . WotC could have:

1. Taken an existing drow settlement and retconned it to not-quite-so-evil . . . but the canon police would be cranky, and drow culture would still lack diversity.
2. Give all drow more nuance, less all-evil-all-the-time and more mortal folk caught up in a dysfunctional and oppressive society . . . which they've actually been doing (slowly and inconsistently) for decades now. But we'd still be left with all drow come from an evil society, which itself is problematic.
3. Add additional drow cultures to the world . . . and why do that if they are just like our existing drow, but not-evil? WotC chose to add some variety to drow culture with our glacier drow (aevendrow) and jungle drow (lorendrow).

Salvatore has presented the aevendrow culture (so far) as pretty goody-two shoes, in opposition to the chaos of Lolth. But it's not hard to tweak ever so slightly for more nuance, not unlike how the Menzoberranzan drow have been tweaked over the years to be less auto-evil. I think the aevendrow, as described, are an easy and fun add to my campaign, with minor tweaks making them less all-good much like the udodrow are less all-evil.

One of the reasons why Salvatore has given us such a utopian drow society, is to present an alternative to our heroes within the story. In the background of the last two novels, roughly half of the houses of Menzoberranzan have rejected Lolth, and the city is about to be torn apart in a bloody civil war, with the Lolth-sworn loyalists likely to come out on top. Part of the motivation of our heroes is to find ways to lessen the conflict and loss of life, and ensure that the Lolth-apostates win the day, saving the udadrow people from continued suffering under Lolth's tyranny. Jarlaxle, Zaknafein, and Drizzt aren't convinced this is likely, and the discovery of another drow culture not under Lolth's sway gives them an example, and hope, that Menzoberranzan can be saved. Part of what has kept Menzoberranzan under Lolth's thrall for so long is the belief that there is no other viable path, you live or die by Lolth's rules, love them or hate them. Jarlaxle in particular is moved to tears, to displays of emotion that surprise his long-time companions . . . . he's coming out of this a changed man, even moreso than his slow evolution over the past 30 or so Salvatore novels. Again, yes, it's a bit heavy-handed in places, but . . . I'm digging the direction the story is going, and the new-and-improved lore of the Realms.