[Drow] 3rd Edition/AD&D 2E vs. AD&D

[Crust]

War of the Spider Queen told the story of Lolth's silence (resulting in the denial of clerical spells to her priestesses) and the quest to learn why. The series also resolves that conflict. I highly recommend the books. It helps to have the Dark Elf trilogy (and perhaps Tangled Webs and Daughter of the Drow) read, but I don't think it's necessary.

I think the most interesting thing about War of the Spider Queen is how the males in the books accomplish more than the females. Gromph, Dyrr, Ryld, Pharaun, Valas, even Jeggred contributed more (and in some instances surely had more power) than the females. Of course, the priestesses can't pray for spells, but I still found that an interesting irony when set against what we've seen before in modules, sourcebooks, and novels. It also shows how engrained the idea is within all drow that females are superior.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

Well I didn't want to read them, I was just interested. What caused that silence? What was the result?

 

[Shemeska]

Well I didn't want to read them, I was just interested. What caused that silence? What was the result?

Lolth's attempt to reform herself as a greater deity by causing some much destructive chaos in the wake of her silence that it would catapult her in power despite the temporary loss of worship.

It's a good series of books, especially one or two by specific authors that contributed to the series. However... the book uses the topsy turvy 3e FR cosmology, which makes some things awkward, though in a few places references to Great Wheel specific things linger (one of the Ships of Chaos makes an appearance in one of the better books of the series). Some of the more cosmologically wonky things involves having the FR bizarro version of Anthraxus (Inthracis the Ultroloth) killed by a mortal drow from all of three spells, tanar'ri that are specifically affected by lightning, lightning immune yugoloths, and a lesser deity commanding an archfiend to do something inside that archfiend's fortress on his own home plane.

But outside of the bizarre kinks and continuity issues the use of the breakaway FR cosmology brings up, the series is a really excellent exploration of Drow society, the friction between Lolth's priestesses and the male dominatined wizardly caste of society, and drow deities outside of Lolth making plays for power among her worshippers in her absence. I enjoyed the series tremendously.

 

[Faraer]

Graz'zt is linked to the drow in Greyhawk lore by Eclavdra serving him in Artifact of Evil and Sea of Death.

 

[Ron]

Like the Shadow Elves from the oD&D known world? I think there's even a booklet about them in the WotC Classic Downloads section on the website.

Sure, I am convinced that the Shadow Elves are nothing less than Drow done right.

 

[Ron]

I've been DMing a 3e conversion of G 1-2-3 for the last six months or so, and Monday night the PCs finally learned who was behind the giant raids. I have to say, it was pretty darned sweet. Many of my players have gamed for years, but by strange coincidence none of them had actually ever read or been run through the GDQ modules.

[...] The disguised agents claimed that the giants were being manipulated by cultists using a powerful artifact of evil, possibly the Hand or Eye of Vecna, and maybe even both.

So all through the G series the PCs have been "seeing" signs of Vecna cultists. When they captured a stone giant who told of a horrid “Temple of the Eye” on the second level of Snurre's Hall, the PCs were immediately thinking of Vecna's eye.
[...]

That was clever. Certainly made the adventure much more interesting.

 

[Ron]

and if you want you can look to the OD&D booklets and Chainmail for even more background. look up faeries. they are to elves what gnome are to dwarves.

Interesting, I will check it later. I am so sick of the core races that, except for humans, I plan not use any of them in my next campaign.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

One cliche that has crept in to Drowlore is the idea of Lolth being a Drow goddess. That might be true for the Vault in D3, but even there Lolth has competition from other demon lords and evil gods. It should also be pointed out that Lolth has human followers like Lareth in T1. The idea of Lolth being a Drow goddess is a recent brain bug.

The original scanty source material for Drow of G+D+Q series indicates clearly that Drow worship "demonlords". Lolth weighs in as a peculiar but not notably powerful demonlord, when compared to that what we see in the AD&D Monster Manual.

This idea of Lolth as some particularly significant Drow deity started creeping in in Deities & Demigods. For me, this sucked a lot of the coolness factor out of Drow. As I read it, the original concept of Drow was a race that was intrisically unpredictable as they would seethe the inherently chaotic nature of the powers of the Abyss.

IMHO Lolth as the canonical Drow deity sealed their fate as annoyingly Chaotic (LAWFUL LAWFUL LAWFUL) Evil.

I would advocate rekindling the concept of competing overt and covert demonic sponsors for various Drow factions.

 

[Endur]

It's a good series of books, especially one or two by specific authors that contributed to the series.

The series overall is good, but some of the authors are much better than others, and few of them are a match for Salvatore. It was definitely written with a focus that the males are sympathetic characters and the females are unsympathetic characters.

 

[Faraer]

Deities & Demigods also introduced Sekolah as the god of the sahuagin, seemingly in place of the deviltry given as the basis of their society in the Monster Manual. I too prefer the demon-/devil-worshipping.

But then our-world religion is not without such misunderstandings.