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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 1963070" data-attributes="member: 2020">TO SERPENTEYE   (You, obviously, must ok this post before it becomes official IR history.  It is subject to any modifications that please you.  You are the DM here.  Although I told this to nobody - including William and yourself - I have had this planned, everything below planned out in detail - since early December, a full month ago.)  -  -  -  The Withdrawal  For 20,000 years the drow have lived in the Underdark, and nursed off the deadly milk of Darkness and Foulness from the Lower Planes.  Even before that, Lolth - Araunshee fallen - was there, poisoning the ancestors of the drow, pouring her Evil into them, poisoning them with it?s intoxicating, sweet, and deadly draught.  The drow have reveled in the Darkness.  They have been awash in it.  They have glorified in it, given over their lives and very spirits to it.  Like some horrific and utterly illegal drug, the Darkness has poisoned and intoxicated and addicted the drow until their very flesh and blood is poisoned black by it?s tonic.  But now, there is no more drug.  With the closing of the Crystal Sphere, there is no access to the Lower Planes or Negative Plane ... at least, not any conduits that lead to the drow.  And Lolth, is gone.  Lolth, is not pouring her deadly Darkness and poison into the drow.  Lolth, is not enforcing her evil upon them, not preaching hate and horror and terror into their minds.  Her omnipresent shadow, is withdrawn.  Likewise, the other drow dieties are gone.  Ghaunadaur is not there with his elemental evil, oozing his way into drow minds and souls with primordial blackness.  Vhaerun is not there, enticing the drow to murder and empire on the surface.  Kiransalee is not there, igniting the drow to ardent vengeance on all who they perceive to have done wrong to them.  Only Eilistraee, the Dark Maiden, remains.  As a demipower whose home was the Prime, an Avatar of Eilistraee remains on Oerth.  And another demipower of chaotic neutral alignment remains, but no drow deities of evil are present.  In otherwords, the Light remains, no power remains to challenge the Light, and the drow are - when all is said and done - elves who fell, elves who drank in the addictive, sweet, deathly power of primordial evil and darkness, and were corrupted by it.  Now, the primordial darkness and evil within the drow begins to dissipate away, and the drow go into Withdrawal.  It is not something they could have expected.  It is not something they could have prepared for.  In fact, it is not something they could have even understood.  It is most certainly not something they understand now.  It HURTS.  It HURTS, BADLY.  It is the worst of drug withdrawal, payback for 20,000 years of abuse of what they truly are - elves - with flirtation with darkness and evil.  This is not some gentle and slow withdrawal, in which mercy is granted by a relatively benign medicine.  There is no doctor or hospital available to mitigate the pain, or adminster anti-toxin to protect the patient.  The evil and darkness are horrific things, and in leaving they inflict as much pain and damage as is possible upon those who foolishly drank of their deadly draught.  The drow have a chance to evacuate their cities, then begin work on the Great City.  Then, the Withdrawal hits, with all the subtlety and force of a nuclear blast wave.  All the drow fall deathly ill.  No magic they can summon halts this illness.  No items of power mitigate the pain.  No arrogance and self belief counters the debilitating blast of horror and suffering that is decreed.  All work on the Great City ceases.  All work ceases period.  The drow, as a race, fall into a stupor filled with pain and horror images.  They fall into profound confusion, experiencing thoughts and feelings utterly alien - feelings they would have had, should have had, as elves - and utterly foreign.    Eclavdra attempts, using the Regalia of Lordly Might, to salvage her elite forces.  In the end, Eclavdra cannot save herself, for the enemy here is herself, and even the Regalia cannot protect Eclavdra from Eclavdra.  Of course, the Servitor Races, who are normally evil and savage, rise up immediately.  This is their chance.  Their long awaited chance.  They take it.  They take it with glee and dark delight.  They move to utterly massacre the drow, down to the least and last.  The yuan-ti, breaking free of the drow compulsions upon them, reacting with the hatred and violence of their own evil nature, also move to destroy the drow.  But someone is standing in the way.    In the darkest hour of the drow, when they face utter obliteration at the hands of their own folly, face the consequences in full of their ways, someone stands to defend them.  It is Eilistraee herself.  The Dark Maiden.  The Diety of the Good Drow.  And Eilistraee brings her followers, and large forces of the faerie, to her aid.  The Servitor Races flee, heading to the surface, abandoning the anticipated slaughter, vowing that that slaughter will happen yet, and they join forces with the yuan-ti, repulsed by Eilistraee, screeching in frustration as Eilistraee and her followers block and destroy every entrance to the Great City under construction.  Then Eilistraee and her good drow, those good elves who follow Eilistraee, and the good faerie, move to save the stricken drow.  The drow are dying.  The withdrawal is too much for them to survive.  This drug, the drug of evil and darkness, does not permit it?s users to escape with their lives.  Such charity is not granted.  But Eilistraee grants charity, and Eilistraee has mercy in her heart.  As a diety, she has the power and understanding that Eclavdra did not have, could not have even with the Regalia.  And her followers are strong, were always strong.   The faerie are steeped in the lore of their own power.  Their combined strength saves the drow from the Fate Decreed, enables them to survive the Withdrawal, gives them the fortitude to mentally comprehend what is happening, to understand their emerging natures, to embrace who they truly are.  This does not happen in a day.  This takes months.  For months, Eilistraee and her followers watch over the stricken drow, even as Florence Nightingale and her nurses watched over the ill of the Crimean War, and they gently and carefully bring the drow through the Withdrawal.  When the elven nature of the drow reemerges, the drow are gently and firmly required to acknowledge and embrace their ancient selves.  At the end of this time, by the end of Turn 1, the drow are a good aligned race, completely rejecting every aspect of their old ways.  Eclavdra is still their leader, but the Eclavdra that was is dead, and she who took her place is more akin to Lady Gwyndilyn, than to anyone once known as Eclavdra.  -  In game terms, this of course tears my power in half.  There will be, on Turn 2, the good drow of the Great City under construction, and the evil yuan-ti empire above.  Somehow, I must play both of these groups, who will never see things the same way again.    Most of the Servitor Races join Paxus? power, giving themselves over to the worship of the Wolf God.    (PAXUS, TAKE NOTE.)  The evil yuan-ti drive the humanoid Servitor Races out of their empire, those they did not enslave, and these hordes of humanoids thus descend upon the hapless Touv and Olman Peoples of the Hempmonaland Coast, and upon the lands in Hempmonaland held by the Scarlet Brotherhood.  (GUILTY PUPPY, TAKE NOTE)  As for the drow of the Great City, they spend Turn 1 under the protection of Eilistraee and her followers, and the faerie.  Whether this protection saves them from outside attack, is not under my control.  Serpenteye must determine the strength of Eilistraee and her followers.  And other players, will do as they wish, regardless of the drow and their problems.  Old hatreds and rivalries do not go away with the evil and the darkness.  If Thomas does not return to the IR, and if the drow survive Turn 1, and IF Serpenteye allows that this post is legitimate and does not rule it invalid ... then in all likelihood the drow of the Great City will join Aliador as one power.    The Yuan-Ti Empire will remain a separate and distinct power, the one remaining part (but a strong and sizeable part) of my original power.</blockquote>

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