D&D General Drow as in Cow or Drow as in Snow: Where did the Dark Elves Come From?

[TwoSix]

The only thing that bothers me with Drow is their sunlight sensitivity, though that can be easily changed to not exist.

I think your setting might have some real issues without the sun.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think your setting might have some real issues without the sun.

cackles in illithid

 

[KoolMoDaddy-O]

cackles in illithid

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Which is extra galling given that my understanding is that WotC paid him and Dave significant sums after their acquisition in '97, to ensure there would be no further disputes and make sure they had the goodwill and support of the originators.

Ask me to choose between having Gygax' goodwill and being punched in the face, and I will take off my glasses before I answer.

 

[Tonguez]

When we were kids, my buddy Steve and I got into a furious argument over the pronunciation of "pseudo-dragon," which he pronounced as "SWADE-oh-dragon" on the grounds that it was basically spelled the same as his suede shoes. Which is, honestly, a sensible extrapolation.

English, man.

Pseudo Echo was an Australian Band from the 80s (Funkytown) and Phil Collins did Sussudio so Pseudo dragon wasnt an issue here - suede was, it took me years to distinguish between shoes and turnips

 

[Azzy]

I pronounce "drow" like "cow", but if the word itself descends from "troll", then wouldn't pronouncing it like "show" make more sense? It's not like we pronounce "troll" like "trowel".

I pronounce it like "bow".

 

[Bohandas]

Yup. These kind of pronouncements are very much in keeping with what gets discussed in When We Were Wizards. Gary and the Blumes strongarmed all the creatives at TSR into signing their IP rights over to the company, and Gary led the way by signing first, but he later acted like and argued that said contract never actually applied to him. The courts in the 1980s disagreed, but here he was in 2007 still pretending

I immediately thought of this

The original word definitely rhymes with and is a variation on Trow aka Troll. As a kid I assumed Drow rhymed with snow, and thought rhyming with cow sounded absurd, but made myself get used to it after Dragon issue 142 (Feb 1989) officially told us that it rhymes with cow

Wouldn't it be pronounced "droll" then?

 

[el-remmen]

he pronounced as "SWADE-oh-dragon"

I knew a kid who pronounced it “puh-swade-oh” dragon.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I pronounce it like "bow".

I made up this limerick once:


On a boat there traveled a drow
Who helped when they happened to row
The crew gave him thanks
As they sailed from the banks
And the captain gave him a great bow

 

[Mannahnin]

Ask me to choose between having Gygax' goodwill and being punched in the face, and I will take off my glasses before I answer.

Context, though. Back then they wanted to save D&D and legitimize their succession to preserving it, and the overarching narrative was still that Gary was the paterfamilias of the hobby who had been brutally cheated and hounded from the company he started.

Unusually informed people within the hobby knew he had been legally harassed by TSR in his subsequent projects like Dangerous Dimensions, but almost no one knew the damage he had done to the company, and practically no one outside TSR (and precious few within it) knew the details of the takeover and buyout which have now come to light in publications like Game Wizards and When We Were Wizards.