Making the drow more alien

[Kae'Yoss]

it includes four drow sub-species

I have seen that before, in a drow book. I find the concept of a subrace of a subrace weird

And I might add that D&D (more precisely, the Forgotten Realms) already have drow that aren't spider-kissing sexists that treat males as expendable.

But the book itself might be interesting. Are there any excerpts planned?

 

[Piratecat]

If you haven't already, read Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies. His take on elves is terrifying.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

My humble efforts along the lines of Lords and Ladies: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=114511

 

[Kae'Yoss]

If you haven't already, read Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies. His take on elves is terrifying.

Didn't you mean terrific? Damn elves messing with our heads again

 

[Piratecat]

Didn't you mean terrific? Damn elves messing with our heads again

p. 169:

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.​

Pratchett posits that everyone loves elves because no one remembers how horrible they are. His elves have a super-high charisma and are clearly chaotic evil; they lack any empathy, and they laugh merrily as they rip off peoples' arms. If I was going to do something similar with drow, I'd probably use a disguise self spell combined with a big charisma boost to simulate the glamour, and model the ability to project worthlessness on other enchantment/charm/domination powers.

 

[Ferret]

I'm planning on making the Drow more heavily based on their spider theme. Adding spell-like abilities such as jump and spider climb, perhaps even web.

Plus, I'd make them live up to their subterranean heritage. Pale white skin and milk-white eyes... long generations underground no longer need sight. They have blindsight or tremorsense.

Sounds like a great idea.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Pratchett posits that everyone loves elves because no one remembers how horrible they are. His elves have a super-high charisma and are clearly chaotic evil; they lack any empathy, and they laugh merrily as they rip off peoples' arms. If I was going to do something similar with drow, I'd probably use a disguise self spell combined with a big charisma boost to simulate the glamour, and model the ability to project worthlessness on other enchantment/charm/domination powers.

I loved that book. Too bad his elves only appear in two stories. They're one of the best renditions of elves that I saw.

I always wondered how pratchetts dark elves would be. Probably all dark and fear-inspiring, but actually good-natured.

 

[Umbran]

YOu might also want to look at the "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" books by Tad Williams. In them, he's got the Norns, which are very much akin to elves gone very, very bad.

 

[Particle_Man]

well it don't get more alien than Call of Cthulhu. Make them cultists. Have the Alienist PrCl be exclusive to them (Complete Arcane has this prestige class).

You might also want to look at Exalted: Fair Folk for some ideas on insane and dangerously alien elves, but they tend to "get involved" more than you might like.

 

[wingsandsword]

I always wondered how pratchetts dark elves would be. Probably all dark and fear-inspiring, but actually good-natured.

So, stereotypical Drow PC's?

But seriously, there is no need to reinvent drow totally. It's nostalgia for the way things were a quarter of a century ago, when everything seemed fresh and new. Drow were the mysterious new villains since the newness had worn off of Orcs and Kobolds, if you rolled really high at character creation you could play a Paladin, and .

If you want to have mysterious villains, that's a DM thing, not a race thing. You could have a campaign where the mysterious and powerful villains from below were Duergar, or Kobolds, or Pixies riding their Dire Flumph mounts, it's all in the DM'ing. How do you stage the encounters, how do you describe them, how do NPC's react?

The "Good Drow" stereotype for an good-hearted outcast from an evil civilization is pretty done to death though, so I'm quite happy for what one PC in my game came up with for a similar concept (having played a "Good Drow" in a prior game), a good-aligned Thayan Sorcerer, thus someone who is completely unwelcome in her homeland which is a renowned hive of strange magic, evil, intrigue, and appears on the first look to be like her kinsmen. All that, without any need for a new subrace or the cliche' Drizzt rip offs.