Help on the Drow and Underdark

[Sigdel]

IMOC my DM plans on running us, the PC's, through The City of the Spider Queen. See I have never been a big fan of the Drow. They always seemed so...bla. A "old reliable" of sorts as far as monsters go. I know about the origins of the Drow, but I'm about as excited about them as I am about another D&D movie. Trust me, thats not all that much. So if anyone can give me info on if COTSQ is a good adventure (no spoilers please ), or more fluff on the Drow (please no Drizzt, I do know about him) it would really help me get more input on a vanilla monster and an adventure full of vanilla monsters.

Thanks, Sigdel

 

[Luvin Lt. Fingers]

IMOC my DM plans on running us, the PC's, through The City of the Spider Queen. See I have never been a big fan of the Drow. They always seemed so...bla. A "old reliable" of sorts as far as monsters go. I know about the origins of the Drow, but I'm about as excited about them as I am about another D&D movie. Trust me, thats not all that much. So if anyone can give me info on if COTSQ is a good adventure (no spoilers please ), or more fluff on the Drow (please no Drizzt, I do know about him) it would really help me get more input on a vanilla monster and an adventure full of vanilla monsters.

Thanks, Sigdel[/QUOT

The players in my campaign have a few more levels to gain from the Ret. Temple of Elemental Evil, then I was going to take them on the Spider Queen adventure too. The levels should line up perfectly. I've just read the back cover and it sounds like an extremely dangerous adventure so if anyone else has played it please let me know too.

 

[chris7476]

I ran a good portion of CotSQ and wasn't a big fan of it honestly. Be prepared for LOTS of combat. If you are a spellcaster, make sure you take Spell Penetration. The drow get very annoying VERY fast. I found that the module read a lot better than it played.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Drow are kewl becuase they're elves except they live underground and are evil instead of living above ground and being good.

Yup, that's really about it.

There's a reason there's no Underdark in my world.

 

[RangerWickett]

This might not line up completely with your question, but I'm writing a serialized story where the characters end up heading into the land below. There aren't any 'drow' in the Forgotten Realms sense, but you might be interested in taking a look.

The Mother of Dreams

Drow are intriguing because, if you really delve into the culture, it finds a way to make being evil work well for an organized society. Not just being evil, but in fact valuing evil as something to aspire to. Conceptions of evil dark Elves intrigue me the way hard science fiction intrigues me when it discusses what effects robots might have on human culture, or how people might adapt to meeting aliens. Sure, those topics have been done over and over again, but they're not inherently cliche. It's up to the author to make a story compelling.

City of the Spider Queen is tough as hell from what I've read of others' experiences, and from what I've read of the adventure myself, but there's a lot of cool flavor in it, if you're willing to focus on that.

Either way, give my story a read for some ideas on adding some texture to traveling into the underdark.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Drow are one of those races that depend on brackground, they are tough, tricky and evil. The problem is that everyone over the years has added something to them and allowed players to find out too much. They lost that mystery, they became common.

As a DM they allow me to be really evil to my players, some points why I like them:

Pack - basicly pack animals, following a strong leader. The leader always has to be aware of challanages, the only advancement is killing a higher up.
Smart - They think and plan. Are magic users.
Cool Weapons - Hand crossbows are just cool but add to that poisions. Other weapons should be looked at, web slingers, and such.​