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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 9549696" data-attributes="member: 15538">My pronunciation is a lot closer to "draw," but in an American way, without a phantom R, but also not a Texan way with a flat vowel. Or I could say it rhymes with Nassau, the city, not the place in New York. I could say the vowel sound is the same as in bout, but then I would have to tell you that for me, that has a different vowel sound than cow. I have a peculiar accent, but it's based on my native northern Arkansas accent. Dog and hog don't rhyme for me. I won't say someone is wrong for saying it rhymes with cow. Or with grow, knowing that drow is a cognate of trow, which is also troll. Drow, draugh, trow, troll are all words with a common origin.As far as their presentation, they are clearly a mix of "dark elves," having traits of what might be two Scandanavian types, but also heavily influenced by Melniboneans and Gygax's own peculiarities. I think you can try to present them in a more balanced way. Or you can dig deep into the existing lore, and give them a role, a structure, a purpose for existing. What I will suggest is that you can't use them uncritically. As originally written, they were a mix of always-evil tropes, misogyny, stereotypes of women from swords and sorcery, racism, and exoticism. Melniboneans have more nuance; "dark elves" from Scandanavian lore were less human; any early depiction of drow probably needed more personality. Drizzt became a window into making drow more interesting. But he also made it really obvious how unstable and inconsistent the lore was.My personal take is to make drow shadow-dwelling elves. Their society can be cruel and strange, but they aren't necessarily more evil or intrinsically cruel than other sapients. Most of the bad stuff others hear about them is the result of their rules, who are decadent demon worshippes (a la Melnibone). Depending on my mood, they could be either pale or more purple-gray. Sometimes I like to imagine that their ruling class is a purple-black color as a result of breeding cambions into their line (the creation of which was mentioned in 3d); the lower classes look just like wood elves, or maybe pale underground dwellers, depending on how I'm depicting their environment in that version. I don't feel like I need drow in my fantasy worlds, but I sometimes think about things I could do with them.</blockquote>

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