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

[Scars Unseen]

Personally, I'm not a fan of just dropping new subraces as a "solution" to problems that people have with existing lore. If they drop the new subraces near areas already in heavy use, publishing-wise, then it's going to contradict past products(yeah, I know WotC's recent stance on canon; not a fan of that either). If they drop them in remote areas sparsely documented enough to not contradict lore, then it effectively changes nothing anyway from a writing and gameplay standpoint.

If it were me, I'd write new stories and treat past products not as descriptive, but perspective in nature. You can keep a society oppressive without all of its inhabitants being evil, inherently or otherwise. Menzo's society in particular (or pick another city to focus on to avoid messing with RAS's stomping ground) I'd retool to be something of a perverse meritocracy where the results are what matter not matter how you accomplish them, enforced by a Stasi-like priestess caste with frequent wild and lavish celebrations to let people blow off steam and prevent the whole thing from imploding from the pressure.

Plenty of room in that kind of environment for stories about drow trying to survive without turning cruel and potential heroics involving revolt attempts and escape. Like published Ravenloft stories, the status quo would eventually win out in the city itself, but enough non-evil drow escaping could eventually turn the tide of opinion at least in select surface communities that unknown drow traveling would perhaps be met with caution and curiosity more than immediate hostility.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Isn't it primarily that the nobles among the Ur-Drow(?) are evil and naughty words, along with the priesthood of Lolth, while the average citizen is mostly just probably dickish or whatever but not full on baby eating like the leaders often are?
I mean honestly, the culture of the Lolthian drow is actively nasty in a way that would generate hatred in others.
Does that mean the drow we're most familiar with are somehow innately evil? No. But they live in a culture that pushes a particular viewpoint that seems to be designed (by Lolth maybe?) to get tons of groups & nations wanting to kick their naughty word in hard.
And unfortunately, because most of those nations or groups only encounter the priestesses, the slave raiding parties, and the nobility mostly, all the evidence they put together points to the drow as honest-to-god pricks.

This is my take. Most drow are at most complicit in an evil society they can't escape, with the truly heinous individuals being part of the upper classes that Lolth has arbitrarily picked-out. Since the drow are isolated in the Underdark most other peoples will only interact with the Lolthite leaders and their chosen. Lolth could even have designed things this way to generate hostility against the drow, keeping them from escaping her influence.

So if Exandrian orcs & half-orcs don't have this curse of ruin screwing them over, why does it seem like they have larger (seemingly innate?) impulse to give into violence & anger compared to other races there? Because that is what the text is telling me.

Well, for one thing the stuff in the Wildemount book is essentially a retcon (and Tal'Dorei Reborn could have even bigger retcons in store). The Wildemount book paints the curse of ruin as essentially being Gruumshite propaganda that many orcs and non-orcs have bought into due to confirmation bias. Whenever an orc or half-orc is violent the alleged curse is taken to be the cause. Followers of Gruumsh could also use this alleged curse of ruin to foment hostility against orcs, hoping to force even non-Gruumshite orcs to return to Gruumshite communities.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Since I brought it up twice in the previous post, I should address the idea of an evil culture largely made-up of one people group trying to essentially use prejudice against them to make the outside world too hostile for objectors to leave.

"Oh, you don't want to worship Lolth/Gruumsh and want to leave? Where are you going to go? The other peoples you would desert us to live with will always look at you with suspicion and fear, never knowing if you can be trusted or if you're secretly a follower of our deity preparing to strike at them. Lolth/Gruumsh teaches us that the other peoples of the world are our enemies, and they have made sure we will never be accepted by them. This is where you belong. Submit to our deity's will and do as they would command us."

It totally seems like something evil organizations would do. It sounds realistic. In fact, it even has recent historical precedent:

“Terrorists like ISIL are trying to divide us along lines of religion and background,” the president said. “That's how they stoke fear. That’s how they recruit."

With this in mind, even though it's realistic for evil organizations to act this way, D&D is supposed to be a fun fantasy game. For many, having Lolthite drow civilization or Gruumshite orc civilization using tactics similar to those ISIL did is too real and too uncomfortable. I do think this could be mitigated by diversifying the followers of Lolth and Gruumsh beyond just drow and orcs, while also making good drow and orc societies more common.

I think Critical Role made a good choice by having the drow of the Exandria setting largely be non-Lolthites who oppose the Spider Queen and want to help the drow of Lolthite society escape the evil goddess' influence (I could even see the Spider Queen of that setting eventually becoming divorced from the drow, instead taking followers wherever she can get them). I guess the Forgotten Realms is trying to do that with the aevendrow and lorendrow, but it seems like a clumsier execution. Plus, Wildemount is new, whereas the Forgotten Realms has decades of history that did not include the aevendrow and lorendrow.

 

[Remathilis]

This is my take. Most drow are at most complicit in an evil society they can't escape, with the truly heinous individuals being part of the upper classes that Lolth has arbitrarily picked-out. Since the drow are isolated in the Underdark most other peoples will only interact with the Lolthite leaders and their chosen. Lolth could even have designed things this way to generate hostility against the drow, keeping them from escaping her influence.

I brought up the notion that the faerezz (sp) makes Drow* more susceptible to brainwashing via propaganda and magical influence from Lolth and her demons. It hardens thier hearts and conditions them via societal pressure to be crueller and to give positive reinforcement to those who act out that cruelty. It's a nationwide cult; a Jonestown on an epic scale, and it's successful because the cults God-leader is literally a Demon-Goddess.

The response back was "nope, always-evil black person stand in. Thermian argument. Do better".

So I will not justify it any longer. Drow culture is full mostly good, honest folk who live in perpetual fear of a tiny but powerful ruling elite. They are forced to commit atrocities they do not want to do under pain of death and if they could find enough powerful adventurers to help, they'd overthrow the Lolthites in a heartbeat and establish an enlightened, democratic government.

You can use that same paragraph for orcs, Thayans, and any other nation that bends towards not playing nice with thier neighbors.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

You don't have to run your game differently than you want to just because strangers on the Internet are complaining. Given the nature of the Internet, it's impossible to know how much of any given sentiment boosted by a vocal minority of Extremely Online individuals is actually representative of people in general.

Your primary commitment should be to your players. If they were to be uncomfortable with something then you should make changes.

For example, I had one drow NPC that I had planned to be more explicit about his hatred of the gods and the disdain he feels for their followers (due to his experiences as essentially the pet wizard of the matron mother of a now ruined Lolthite city), but one of my players immediately let me know upon the first line I had the character say about the followers of the gods being foolish that she wouldn't accept that because, as a religious person herself, she didn't want to interact with an NPC who hated religious people. I haven't actually gotten rid of this element of the character, but since then it's been represented in things he's done "off-screen" rather than anything he's said.

 

[Remathilis]

You don't have to run your game differently than you want to just because strangers on the Internet are complaining. Given the nature of the Internet, it's impossible to know how much of any given sentiment boosted by a vocal minority of Extremely Online individuals is actually representative of people in general.

Your primary commitment should be to your players. If they were to be uncomfortable with something then you should make changes.

I mean, that goes without saying. Everyone here has the power to edit the game as they see fit and what you do at your table is your business. TBH, I'm not even running anything FR at the moment, I was running Eberron and an starting Ravenloft (eventually). But I kinda care about the direction of the game and the core assumptions contained there in. Make no mistake, I'll run what I want, but right now my game looks a lot closer to the default assumptions and if those change radically, I shift from "go read the book" to "here is my multi-page document of changes and house rules".

 

[Zardnaar]

I brought up the notion that the faerezz (sp) makes Drow* more susceptible to brainwashing via propaganda and magical influence from Lolth and her demons. It hardens thier hearts and conditions them via societal pressure to be crueller and to give positive reinforcement to those who act out that cruelty. It's a nationwide cult; a Jonestown on an epic scale, and it's successful because the cults God-leader is literally a Demon-Goddess.

The response back was "nope, always-evil black person stand in. Thermian argument. Do better".

So I will not justify it any longer. Drow culture is full mostly good, honest folk who live in perpetual fear of a tiny but powerful ruling elite. They are forced to commit atrocities they do not want to do under pain of death and if they could find enough powerful adventurers to help, they'd overthrow the Lolthites in a heartbeat and establish an enlightened, democratic government.

You can use that same paragraph for orcs, Thayans, and any other nation that bends towards not playing nice with thier neighbors.

I kind of look at them kind of like the Aztecs. Mist Drow probably genuinely believe in Lolth and co the ones that don't mostly go along with it.

It's not like their government is newly ascended to power.

It's not biological though and Drow on other world's can be whatever. Mine are going to be either mutants or non Lolthite vault dweller's in the Underdark.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I kind of look at them kind of like the Aztecs. Mist Drow probably genuinely believe in Lolth and co the ones that don't mostly go along with it.

Yeah, I keep going back to the Aztecs when I think of civilizations like this. The Aztecs had a beautiful city. However, they also practiced ritual human sacrifice out of a belief that doing so was required by the gods to keep the world from falling into chaos and had made enough enemies out of their neighbors that the Fall of Tenochtitlan had many, many, many more indigenous warriors fighting to bring down the Aztecs than Spanish conquistadors (if I understand correctly, there were around 1000 Spanish and 20,000 natives from various enemies of the Aztecs). You can't ignore what the Spanish did afterwards throughout the region, of course, but the neighbors of the Aztecs were clearly looking for a reason to strike against them and saw an opportunity with Cortes and his indigenous advisor and interpreter Malinche (there was a Mexican-made Amazon original series called Hernan released a few years back focusing on Cortes, Malinche, and Moteczuma I'm very curious about, but it's not available in English).

 

[Scribe]

With this in mind, even though it's realistic for evil organizations to act this way, D&D is supposed to be a fun fantasy game.

People absolutely need to determine how serious or dark their game is going to be ran.

I think having the 'default' lean towards 'there are no evil cultures' in a setting which often leans into High Fantasy (Good vs Evil) tropes, makes very little sense.

I think retconning Lolth dominated culture would be a mistake, as I dont believe you need to remove these elements from the game at all. Lolth is a villain. The party is (often) Good. Good adventurers stand against villains, and if you play with dungeon delving, kicking in doors, and multiple encounters a day to expend your abilities, well you need "Bad Guys" to do that against.

If you wish for your world to run as a 'mostly peaceful world where adventurers just explore and meet other people to talk to' I mean, fine, I certainly hope you enjoy that game.

Its not FR though at that point, by a long shot, so play it in Eberron or some other world.

 

[Yaarel]

I wonder if the loren drow in Chult, are especially to correct the Eberron jungle drow?


(For those of you who read the novel, are avendrow, lorendrow, and udadrow capitalized as proper nouns or lowercase?)