D&D General Drow in early D&D

[pming]

Drow are the Boba Fett of the D&D universe. I guess that would make the new drow subraces like Jango Fett.

A drow ninja dual-wielding katana light sabers and driving a Lamborghini is as much kewlness as a 12-year old mind can possibly handle.

Ahhh... Synnibarr! Fun system and setting...but absolutely BONKERS-BANANAS-INSANE in virtually every way.
..
Oh, wait. You were talking about AD&D. Whups! I should have caught the missing of the word "Invisible-Antigrav-" before "Lamborghini". My bad.
..
(oh, and fyi...I am NOT KIDDING about the Invisible-Antigrav-Lamborghini's; the Terra Police force use them to hide and spy on the time-stream so they can time travel to before a crime happens in order to prevent it).
..
Synnibarr... it's wacky.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Mercurius]

Ahhh... Synnibarr! Fun system and setting...but absolutely BONKERS-BANANAS-INSANE in virtually every way.
..
Oh, wait. You were talking about AD&D. Whups! I should have caught the missing of the word "Invisible-Antigrav-" before "Lamborghini". My bad.
..
(oh, and fyi...I am NOT KIDDING about the Invisible-Antigrav-Lamborghini's; the Terra Police force use them to hide and spy on the time-stream so they can time travel to before a crime happens in order to prevent it).
..
Synnibarr... it's wacky.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I wonder what good old Raven c.s. McCracken is up to these days? (Did I spell that right?).

 

[wellis]

Yup, I never felt that grey elves were particularly arrogant based on what little lore is written about them. In Greyhawk, the County (later, Kingdom) of Sunndi is predominately human with a significant population of grey elves, dwarves, and gnomes) and ruled by a grey elf. The populace is viewed as unified with narry a hint of elven arrogance.

I wonder if the issue is that Forgotten Realms really displaced Greyhawk and Mystara, so then perceptions on races invariably got influenced by FR's versions of them, leading most players to reflexively think of the FR version instead of the older versions from Greyhawk.

Like I suspect a lot of newer players wouldn't have really heard of Mystara's shadow elves, for example.

Like honestly, I suspect the OC donut steal drow you often see in homebrew RPGs, or erotica, is based heavily on the Forgotten Realms versions.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I wonder if the issue is that Forgotten Realms really displaced Greyhawk and Mystara, so then perceptions on races invariably got influenced by FR's versions of them, leading most players to reflexively think of the FR version instead of the older versions from Greyhawk.

Like I suspect a lot of newer players wouldn't have really heard of Mystara's shadow elves, for example.

Like honestly, I suspect the OC donut steal drow you often see in homebrew RPGs, or erotica, is based heavily on the Forgotten Realms versions.

you are likely correct for the most part, with some influence from other things they end up hearing about but mostly FR as that is the ruling dark elf mould.
I only know what a shadow elf is because of The Glen's videos, who has decided to freak out about the new drow types for some reason.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I wonder if the issue is that Forgotten Realms really displaced Greyhawk and Mystara, so then perceptions on races invariably got influenced by FR's versions of them, leading most players to reflexively think of the FR version instead of the older versions from Greyhawk.

Like I suspect a lot of newer players wouldn't have really heard of Mystara's shadow elves, for example.

Like honestly, I suspect the OC donut steal drow you often see in homebrew RPGs, or erotica, is based heavily on the Forgotten Realms versions.

If the issue is displacement by a later setting the candidate is not Forgotten Realms, but rather Dragonlance. The "grey elves" of Krynn are the Silvanesti, who are xenophobic, isolationist and arrogant. If D&D ended up with a grey elf stereotype, that's more likely the source. (Particularly since Faerun's Sun Elves don't really even look like grey elves.)

 

[wellis]

Maybe. I kind of get the feeling Dragonlance hasn't been quite as influential, beyond generally making elves super dickish, vs Forgotten Realms and its particular ideas on orcs or drow.

Or perhaps it's better to say Dragonlance's influences are generally in a different area perhaps.

I've noticed even with 3rd party campaign settings, if they have some form of drow, they often worship an expy of Lolth, complete with spider motifs and a matriarchal culture.

And of course, if you're looking at a homebrew setting, dark elves or drow often use Lolth or just use the phrase "Spider Queen" to get around trademarks.

Like it's iconic with them.

What were Greyhawk drow like vs Forgotten Realms drow?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Maybe. I kind of get the feeling Dragonlance hasn't been quite as influential, beyond generally making elves super dickish, vs Forgotten Realms and its particular ideas on orcs or drow.

Or perhaps it's better to say Dragonlance's influences are generally in a different area perhaps.

I've noticed even with 3rd party campaign settings, if they have some form of drow, they often worship an expy of Lolth, complete with spider motifs and a matriarchal culture.

And of course, if you're looking at a homebrew setting, dark elves or drow often use Lolth or just use the phrase "Spider Queen" to get around trademarks.

Like it's iconic with them.

What were Greyhawk drow like vs Forgotten Realms drow?

I am fairly certain the super dickish idea came about long before DL.

I know ever the dunmer of the elder scrolls technically have a lolth mimic but Mephala rather divergent by now, the copying is likely because it is iconic and otherwise you have to start from scratch, it is the same reason dwarves and elves keep happening despite most people really not caring one way or the other about them.

 

[wellis]

I know ever the dunmer of the elder scrolls technically have a lolth mimic but Mephala rather divergent by now, the copying is likely because it is iconic and otherwise you have to start from scratch

Funny about Dunmer, they kind of make me think they're sort of like drow, of perhaps a particular city, who were conquered by a relatively liberal/progressive surface empire that kind of forced them to/was able to mitigate some of the worst abuses of their current culture, and are sort of slowly changing things to be better, even if the [insert diety] priestesses still hold some power.

It's kind of interesting about them.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Funny about Dunmer, they kind of make me think they're sort of like drow, of perhaps a particular city, who were conquered by a relatively liberal/progressive surface empire that kind of forced them to/was able to mitigate some of the worst abuses of their current culture, and are sort of slowly changing things to be better, even if the [insert diety] priestesses still hold some power.

It's kind of interesting about them.

the dunmer are what happens when you have to make a culture of satanic elves work by something other than a micromanaging demon goddess, explaining the nuances of the descendants of veloth is nuts but given they have the god of get good, dark souls and declaring you existence by struggle and murder, the goddess of liminal spaces and egoism and the spider of sex lies and secrets as your starting point thing get odd fast.

plus they seek to reach heaven by violence and are utterly mad but they have a strong culture with an interesting perspective on things less evil because we are evil, hence they remain a popular selected choice.

drow seem flat as it were at least in comparison.

the best races in fantasy have interesting points to what they are and why they are that way.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In my experience, I never go the vibe that Grey Elf et al were arrogant

Maybe the arrogant elves trope never came from game designers, but from the people playing the elves?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I remember the word ‘haughty’ being used in an entry about a subspecies of elf….

need to consult my ancient tomes to verify….

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I remember the word ‘haughty’ being used in an entry about a subspecies of elf….

need to consult my ancient tomes to verify….

I have not found it and only see that grey elves avoid others

 

[Jack Daniel]

What strikes me with that is not what it says about drow but what it says fairies: "fairies are good". Our perception of fairies has changed a lot since the 1970s, influenced by earlier folk tales rather than the twee Disneyfication of the fair folk. Now they are generally seen as chaotic, capricious, and sometimes malevolent.

But that modern interpretation is still just an interpretation, and an exaggerated (and annoyingly edgelordy) one IMO. "Oh, look, another dark setting where the fay are alien and amoral and treat mortals as inconsequential playthings, how… original." Nuance would be to treat fairies as the bog-standard genii locorum they were, running the gamut from bane to blessing, with little rituals of respect and propitiation believed to produce concrete results (whether keeping the malevolent fairies neutral and aloof or currying the direct favor of the helpful ones).

On the topic of grey elves, consider that Tolkien originally used "gnome" to refer to the Noldor (because of its association with "knowledge"), and "Faerie" was his original name for Valinor (which, it has been remarked, bears some similarity to Dunsany's version of "Elfland" in The King of Elfland's Dauger). It wouldn't surprise me at all of Gygax was aware of this (despite his vaunted dislike of Tolkien)—and he was, after all, working in a specific context.

 

[Helldritch]

What were Greyhawk drow like vs Forgotten Realms drow?

The differences were not that much. In fact, FR expanded a lot on what Greyhawk had already established. In Greyhawk, however, while most drows are worshipping Llolth and fear her wrath, some are just pretenders and worship the Elder Elemental Eye (aka Tharzidun) and seek to over throw her hold on drow society but not out of goodness but for their own gain.

What they share though is their violent tendencies and utter lack of compassion. Their society is truly evil and it promotes evil.

Also, all drow, even the lowliest ones, owned magical chainmail and weapons of +1 equivalence and they coyld fight with two weapons without penalties... That made them all Dritzz... Noble house drows would get better gear and higher level ones would get additional innate spells to cast. Their life span was almost equal to a Grey Elf so this made them incredibly long lived with a maximum of 1500 years or so ( Grey could go up to 2000...)

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I don't know you can really say that Lolth was the sole deity of Greyhawk drow. Maybe of Erelhi-Cinlu, but I don't know why we should be making assumptions based on seeing a single city.

 

[Yaarel]

The main difference between Greyhawk Drow and Forgotten Realms Drow:

the FR Drow were more likely to be player characters.

By humanizing and empathizing with the FR Drow, they are extremely different from the GH Drow "monster",

even if the descriptions of the race are moreorless the same in both settings.

 

[Yaarel]

I remember the word ‘haughty’ being used in an entry about a subspecies of elf….

need to consult my ancient tomes to verify….

I found this in the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

"The Sun Elves ... are seen as the most civilized and haughty elves, preferring to remain separate from humankind and other nonelven races."

So it is Forgotten Realms who, by one sentence, turned every elf into racists.



It probably started with teens putting on airs, pretending to be European aristocracy. It feels like it ended with this "haughty" trope becoming a vehicle of racism against reallife Europeans.



I am happy 5e is taking pains to rethink D&D lineages. When I saw the picture of Drow Elf and High Elf as grayish white and dark blue, I felt relief.

 

[the Jester]

Maybe the arrogant elves trope never came from game designers, but from the people playing the elves?

I think it's from Tolkien.

 

[Alzrius]

The main difference between Greyhawk Drow and Forgotten Realms Drow:

the FR Drow were more likely to be player characters.

By humanizing and empathizing with the FR Drow, they are extremely different from the GH Drow "monster",

even if the descriptions of the race are moreorless the same in both settings.

While little more than a footnote, minor exceptions popped up here and there in Greyhawk. For instance, Tysiln San, the drow on the cover of WG12 Vale of the Mage (affiliate link), was Chaotic Neutral.

I think the closest Greyhawk ever came to pushing the envelope where PC drow were concerned was the "Attack of the Drow" expansion for the Chainmail miniatures game (2000 – 2003), which had D&D-compatible stats (if I recall correctly). They received D&D-specific coverage in Dragon #298, "Chainmail: Exiles from the Vault," by Chris Pramas.

 

[the Jester]

I don't know you can really say that Lolth was the sole deity of Greyhawk drow. Maybe of Erelhi-Cinlu, but I don't know why we should be making assumptions based on seeing a single city.

She's not. It's established in D3 that the Drow worship demon lords; the worship of Lolth is but one example of such. However, this has largely been tossed aside is the years that followed.