D&D 5E Jeremy Crawford Discusses Details on Custom Origins

[Remathilis]

Guys, I have proof orcs aren't universally evil. There are no evil orcs in Ravenloft, Ravnica, Theros, Athas, Krynn, or Aebyrnis!

 

[Oofta]

This just in: there are also no evil drow on earth!

 

[tetrasodium]

So your proof of how the default core rules are wrong consists of Ravnica, which doesn't have drow. Their "dark elves" are not Drow. Ravenloft, which does have Drow, but you didn't link it. You linked non-drow elves instead. Look up the realm of Arak for where the real Drow live. People don't generally survive encountering the real Drow. And Eberron, which makes an exception to the core default that Drow are evil.

That's very unconvincing. The default is that Drow are evil and the one exception, Eberron, does not invalidate that default.

There is also

Spoiler: darksun

You seem oddly broken up about the undeniable fact that your "Drow as a race/subrace are almost universally evil" statement is flatly untrue in multiple settings not named forgotten realms. Do you have anything to say about the topic of TCoE's changes that is relevant to the scope of mechanics they change & expand though or would you rather start a new thread titled "Drow as a race/subrace are almost universally evil in all settings" or something?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So your proof of how the default core rules are wrong consists of Ravnica, which doesn't have drow. Their "dark elves" are not Drow. Ravenloft, which does have Drow, but you didn't link it. You linked non-drow elves instead. Look up the realm of Arak for where the real Drow live. People don't generally survive encountering the real Drow. And Eberron, which makes an exception to the core default that Drow are evil.

That's very unconvincing. The default is that Drow are evil and the one exception, Eberron, does not invalidate that default.

I have to pretty much go with you on this one Max. The vast majority of depictions of 'Drow' are portrayed as evil. In fact I'd almost say this is a defining characteristic of them, in D&D. Races such as the Eberron 'Drow' seem to hardly even qualify as the same thing, being broken themselves into 3 'races' and sharing literally nothing with FR/GH/AD&D Drow (which all seem to be roughly the same thing).

This was a MUCH noted racially questionable depiction, given the skin color attributed to Drow! In fact, there's actually, IIRC in one of the later reprints including D3, of a very negro-looking Drow priestess (this is pretty atypical, but clearly artists were able to draw this linkage).

If it were me, I would model 'Drow' as an underground race of elves, much like Eberron does with one of its branches of what they call Drow. Are they evil? Well, sure, sometimes perhaps. Are they shaped by their environment? Yeah, of course they are! However, there can still be diverse societies within that race/species and there need not be anything inherent to them which makes them evil.

If you want a model for one possible version of this, the story arc of 'Drow Tales' works pretty well. The characters in this story include a range of different moral philosophies, although their society does predispose them to consider humans and other 'goblins' (as they call them) inferior. They are also not specifically of one coloration, etc. In fact their origins, lineage, and appearance are fairly complex topics in that milieu. I don't know if everyone would find the depictions there racially sensitive or not, I'm no expert, but they are definitely more nuanced than EGG's depiction in D3, which has pretty much set the type in most of D&D since.

 

[Maxperson]

There is also

Spoiler: darksun

View attachment 128351

You seem oddly broken up about the undeniable fact that your "Drow as a race/subrace are almost universally evil" statement is flatly untrue in multiple settings not named forgotten realms. Do you have anything to say about the topic of TCoE's changes that is relevant to the scope of mechanics they change & expand though or would you rather start a new thread titled "Drow as a race/subrace are almost universally evil in all settings" or something?

So I'm not broken up at all. It's simply a fact that drow are evil by default. The Darksun elves(not Drow) are again not even applicable here. Nobody is saying that Drow have to exist in every setting. It's simply that Drow in every setting but one AND default core rules are evil.

 

[Don Durito]

I tend to think that evilness is more central to the idea of dark elves then their skin colour is.

Other games have dark elves that don't have dark skin (supposedly the Forgotten Realms dark elves in Ed Greenwood's home game didn't originally have dark skin). In the Scarred Lands setting the Dark Elves have been retconned to have pale skin.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I tend to think that evilness is more central to the idea of dark elves then their skin colour is.

Other games have dark elves that don't have dark skin (supposedly the Forgotten Realms dark elves in Ed Greenwood's home game didn't originally have dark skin). In the Scarred Lands setting the Dark Elves have been retconned to have pale skin.

I agree, in my own campaign world (which actually PREDATES the D series of modules) 'dark elves' are pale skinned, although I admit that they are in some sense inspired by/colored by the D&D depiction of Drow. Honestly they almost never came up in actual play in all the years we have run things in that world.

 

[Maxperson]

I agree, in my own campaign world (which actually PREDATES the D series of modules) 'dark elves' are pale skinned, although I admit that they are in some sense inspired by/colored by the D&D depiction of Drow. Honestly they almost never came up in actual play in all the years we have run things in that world.

Just to add on to what @Don Durito said. I think dark elves got their dark skin because Gygax needed to distance D&D legally from Tolkien. Tolkien's dark elves looked like any other elf, but were evil.

 

[glass]

That's very unconvincing. The default is that Drow are evil and the one exception, Eberron, does not invalidate that default.

The default was that Drow are evil. Per direct statements from WotC they are moving away from "(insert mortal species) are evil". Especially species like drow who are differentiated by their skin colour. And rightly so.

_
glass.

 

[Oofta]

In theory drow were inspired by the dark elves of norse mythology. However "black elves" apparently referred to the color of their hearts which were black as coal not skin color.

I could sort of see black skin in a world with darkvision as an adaptive trait, but the white hair negates that. In any case, I'm not even sure they exist in my campaign world any more for a variety of reasons.