Should Drow be more "Norse" because of their origin?

[The_Gneech]

Actually, "drow" comes from the Shetlands IIRC ... so they should be Scots!

-The Gneech

 

[painandgreed]

Sure! make the drow norse! Though it would be a bit tough to go sailing across the ocean when you dwell subterraneanly, and start to blister in daylight.

I'd say go less with the viking sailing idea and go more torwards Norse religion. Lolth and her spider form make a decent replacement for Odin and his eight legged horse. Eight legged horse and spider both being symbolic of a coffin being carried by four men. Change the Drow mythology so it is much more pessimistic and filled with doom*. The Drow know they are going to die, there is no way around it. The end, and their death, is coming and the only thing the Drow are attempting is to make the world have the end they want. Perhaps they race, when they formed an alliance with Lolth, was already fortold to be dead, but their deal has allowed them to cheat fate for a little while (in the great scheme of things) so they can gain revenge on the other elves. They are a doomed race who can only expect to be carried off by Lolth for an eternity of servitude upon death.


*Not that I'm really familiar with any Drow mythology beyond what was printed in the original D3. Nor am I really family with Norse religion beyond Gaiman's American Gods.

 

[BryonD]

No.

 

[billd91]

My kobolds act like Ferengi, but with russian accents, so what ever floats your boat man

Hmmm... my orcs are more russian. So I can't yoink that one. My kobolds speak like my kids did as toddlers, they don't use personal pronouns. But I could certainly yoink the idea of them in lederhosen...

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Actually, "drow" comes from the Shetlands IIRC ... so they should be Scots!

*Personally I don't make the distinction between "light" and "dark" elves I lump all the elves into a single race that has elements of mesoamerican culture as well as early post-Roman Europe, and season with mildly disturbing magical biotechnology.
*My orcs are based on picts with some overtones of holy war. They are all madly devoted to winning back the tribal lands they were driven from by the Goblinoids.
*Kobolds are based on Bolsheviks, only their devotion is to the dragon that originated their tribe whom they're all descended from and revere in a pseudo-Stalinist cult of personality.
*Dwarves on the other hand are very Old-School British Imperialist Dogs in their overall presentation and attitude, somewhere between the end of the Crimean War and the Zulu War.

 

[awayfarer]

Now I am picturing drow as acting like the Swedish Chef. Mmmm-bork bork bork!

You rang?

 

[William drake]

Should Drow be more "Norse" because of their origin in Norse mythology?

jh

how are Drow Norse?

 

[William drake]

Other than there being a 'svartaelf' (dark Elf, though there probably are a double handful of interpretations of what that really meant to them) in Norse Mythology, there's no connection between the Drow and Norse mythology. Their origins and look as presented in D&D have no correlation to anything Norse at all. They are so different that they are their own thing.

Yeah, thats what I thought...not Norse, celts had dark elves, but they were almost the same as the normal ones, those were the ones that J.RR talked about when he created this Middle Earth.

 

[Aaron L]

As Umbran said, Drow are more of an Unseelie refletion of the Seelie "Light Elves" of the surface, and don;t have very much svartalfar influence at all. In D&D those would be the duergar.

I treat Elves as a combination of Humanoid, Celestial, and Fey, and thus Drow are a combination of Humanoid, Demon, and Fey. Also, I treat my Dwarves as a combination of Humanoid and Elemental.

Not really any game mechanic difference, just flavor for my setting.

Also, I make my kobolds look and act like Gremlins, with a dose of German mining flavor mixed in because of their mythological origins. I also make them blue, for the same reason. I keep the same stats, though.

 

[Gentlegamer]

This may be heresy, but I would rather drow be like the dark elves (Dunmer) in the Elder Scrolls games, particularly Morrowind, mostly because the drow in D&D are rather "played out," so to speak. In fact, I think at this point the Elder Scrolls Orcs would probably be pretty cool, too.