Making the drow more alien

[Hand of Evil]

I think you have to ask questions and provide responses as reactions that would not be expected, base it around their alignment. Things like:

A drow is wounded bad and can't travel, what do the other drow do?
What does the wounded drow expect?
How does the drow view the other races?
A member of another race is wounded and found by drow, what do they do?
What is vaulable to a drow?
What does a drow find beautiful?
What is music to a drow?

I always say define good and evil in your games, this builds cultral taboos and such, this is doing the same thing, you have to build and define reactions that your players would view as alien.

Oh, never let PC be drow!

 

[eris404]

I second that. Don't remake drow so suddenly noone knows them any more. Why bothering to try to recreate that touch of mystique they had back then? Just go ahead and create something completely new. Instead of saying "my drow aren't like the ones you all know" you have a new race and noone even presumes that they know it. No "Hm.. in that respect at least, they're just like the normal drow"

{jumping down a bit}

You could do something like that. Want truly evil elves? Create a subrace that lets even drow look like paragons of goodness by comparison. Let them originate form a strange place - an outer plane or even the Far Realm - and give them strange powers - pseudonatural stuff, psionics, whatever.

I was going to suggest the same thing. In some of the other MM, there are great fey or outsider critters already statted out that might fit what you're looking for. But if you really want to muck with the drow, I was thinking the pseudonatural template might be a good way to go about it.

 

[Gez]

How to make them more alien, the easy way, part 1: Slap the Pseudonatural template on them.

Player: "Oh, a drow embush. Do we still have antitoxins? Yes? Right. I charge the nearest." *roll die*
DM: "When you hit the dark elf, his body explodes in a mass of swarming, writhing tentacles."

 

[DMH]

If you want stats-

http://hub.mortality.net/

click on OGC and then look for the Wyrgith race and Focus of the Arachnid under Wrack and Ruin. Wyrgith are drow that have diverged and became more spider-like with their time on the Forge.