D&D 5E Tasha's Drow Art and the Future of Their Depictions in D&D

[Doug McCrae]

IIRC the choice to play a Drow PC (outcast/other backstory) has been available since Unearthed Arcana, 1985, though I could be mistaken.

That's right. Unearthed Arcana:

Drow are generally evil and chaotic in nature, though player characters are not required to be so.

A dark elf player character is considered an outcast from his or her homeland deep within the earth, whether by matter of choice, alignment, or merely being on the losing side of some family-wide power struggle.​

Gygax considered Drow PCs to be a reasonable possibility as early as 1979. From the Sorcerer's Scroll, Dragon #31 (Nov 1979):

The roles the various drow are designed to play in the series [D1-3] are commensurate with those of prospective player characters. In fact, the race could be used for player characters, providing that appropriate penalties were levied when a drow or half-drow was in the daylight world.​

 

[Scott Christian]

No, I do not choose to play a RPG with alignment. The first thing I do with any edition of D&D is to remove the alignment. Thankfully in 5e this is super simple as the alignment has practically no mechanical impact.

I'm with you. I remove it in any game that has it. Yet, it still does not change the fact that things are labelled using this system; from NPC's in adventure paths to races in the PHB to monsters and races in the MM. The game uses this system, and it is pretty embedded; therefore, many others will use this system. You and your table don't - I am with you. But, other tables I have played at use it more than enough for our two tables that don't.

I love the Middle-Earth but it is a product of its time. And even Tolkien himself was bothered with inherently evil orcs. I want modern fantasy products to stop trying to badly imitate LotR and and move past the simplistic black and white morality.

Even Lolth doesn't need to be 'evil.' She can merely be a fierce and ruthless patron of the drow. A frightful deity for sure, but give her more depth. She can be more like Kali instead of one dimensional cartoon villain.

Again, I don't understand. We are talking about a culture here. Describing everything as gray just leads to a gray setting where everything just sits in shades of gray. No color. No light. No darkness. It is great for some games, Masquerade comes to mind. And it can definitely work for D&D if the DM wants to build their setting as such. But with every slather of gray paint, a distinction is lost. In worldbuilding, it might suite some, but for others it leads to a blandness.

Describe what they do and let the reader be the judge of whether it is 'evil' to them. And yes, the label of 'evil' definitely dumbs down the discourse. Instead of giving things realistic motivations or the reader/player trying to understand those motivations, we just go to 'they're evil so they do evil stuff.' That doesn't produce interesting drama, it doesn't even produce good villains.

You seem to be taking this out of context. If a culture does something, like raid, rape and kill all boys under the age of twelve, and then take the women as theirs, they are evil. They may have very realistic motivations for doing said things: they seek revenge on a thousand year war, they were cursed from their god until they find the special relic that the people of another culture are hiding, they are dying in their homeland because they lack resources. It doesn't matter. They can be labelled as evil. Doing so doesn't dumb down the discourse - it gives the DM an opportunity to demonstrate what morals exist in their fantasy world.
In this case - evil. Maybe in a different campaign world, not evil, but that is the norm. And there may be some players that want to play in that campaign. But that has never been my cup of tea.
So A DM can give motivations to their villains. It is encouraged, in my opinion. But, just because Dracula used to love someone and then lost them, doesn't make his acts of preying on young women morally gray. It does give the DM instructions on how to roleplay him. It does allow the PC's to learn about him. It doesn't create a vagueness about his morality.

 

[Scott Christian]

It would have been kind of hard to have stories about a hero fighting against the culture of his upbringing, and being truly exceptional while doing it, if the culture he came from was not based on cutthroat evil. Heroes have to have opposition, I think D&D works better for a lot of people if the lines between good and evil are pretty clearly drawn.

This. Most players I know want distinction. They want a demarcation. It doesn't mean you can't have a villain that has both a good and bad side. But it does mean you can't have every villain have a good and bad side. If you do, the game is unplayable using the so called term "races." Sure, you can go kill a giant spider or dire bear, but then, what about the ecosystem you are damaging?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Regarding the origin of the drow, Gygax says in Dragon #31:

Drow are mentioned in Keightley’s THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, as I recall (it might have been THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH—neither book is before me, and it is not all that important anyway), and as Dark Elves of evil nature, they served as an ideal basis for the creation of a unique new mythos designed especially for AD&D.​

Keightley's The Fairy Mythology (1828) does mention Trow, though they are not particularly evil and sound like normal elves/fairies. But a few pages further on it describes "Black Dwarfs" which sound much more like drow.

The inhabitants of Rügen believe in three kinds of Dwarfs, or underground people, the White, the Brown, and the Black; so named from the colour of their several habiliments...​

​

The Black Dwarfs wear black jackets and caps, are not handsome like the others, but on the contrary are horridly ugly, with weeping eyes, like blacksmiths and colliers. They are most expert workmen, especially in steel, to which they can give a degree at once of hardness and flexibility which no human smith can imitate; for the swords they make will bend like rushes, and are as hard as diamonds. In old times arms and armour made by them were in great request: shirts of mail manufactured by them were as fine as cobwebs, and yet no bullet would penetrate them, and no helm or corslet could resist the swords they fashioned; but all these things are now gone out of use.​

​

These Dwarfs are of a malicious, ill disposition, and delight in doing mischief to mankind; they are unsocial, and there are seldom more than two or three of them seen together; they keep mostly in their hills, and seldom come out in the daytime, nor do they ever go far from home. People say that in the summer they are fond of sitting under the elder trees, the smell of which is very grateful to them, and that any one that wants anything of them must go there and call them. Some say they have no music and dancing, only howling and whimpering; and that when a screaming is heard in the woods and marshes, like that of crying children, and a mewing and screeching like that of a multitude of cats or owls, the sounds proceed from their midnight assemblies, and are made by the vociferous Dwarfs.​

Drow-like creatures also make a brief appearance in the Appendix N novella The Roaring Trumpet (1940) by L Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, which is based on Norse mythology:

The limits of the place were invisible in the flickering red glare, through which scuttled naked black things, like liquorice dolls. Heimdall whispered: "These would be dark dwarfs from Svartalfheim, where no man nor As[gardian] has ever been."​

EDIT: The drow first appear in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King (1977). In Dragon #31 Gygax cites the Harold Shea stories (The Roaring Trumpet is the first in this series) as inspiration for G1-3:

The “G Series” modules (STEADING OF THE HILL GIANT CHIEF, GLACIAL RIFT OF THE FROST GIANT JARL, and HALL OF THE FIRE GIANT KING) were certainly inspired by the de Camp and Pratt INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER.​

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Regarding the origin of the drow, Gygax says in Dragon #31:

Drow are mentioned in Keightley’s THE FAIRY MYTHOLOGY, as I recall (it might have been THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH—neither book is before me, and it is not all that important anyway), and as Dark Elves of evil nature, they served as an ideal basis for the creation of a unique new mythos designed especially for AD&D.​

Keightley's The Fairy Mythology (1828) does mention Trow, though they are not particularly evil and sound like normal elves/fairies. But a few pages further on it describes "Black Dwarfs" which sound much more like drow.

The inhabitants of Rügen believe in three kinds of Dwarfs, or underground people, the White, the Brown, and the Black; so named from the colour of their several habiliments...​

​

The Black Dwarfs wear black jackets and caps, are not handsome like the others, but on the contrary are horridly ugly, with weeping eyes, like blacksmiths and colliers. They are most expert workmen, especially in steel, to which they can give a degree at once of hardness and flexibility which no human smith can imitate; for the swords they make will bend like rushes, and are as hard as diamonds. In old times arms and armour made by them were in great request: shirts of mail manufactured by them were as fine as cobwebs, and yet no bullet would penetrate them, and no helm or corslet could resist the swords they fashioned; but all these things are now gone out of use.​

​

These Dwarfs are of a malicious, ill disposition, and delight in doing mischief to mankind; they are unsocial, and there are seldom more than two or three of them seen together; they keep mostly in their hills, and seldom come out in the daytime, nor do they ever go far from home. People say that in the summer they are fond of sitting under the elder trees, the smell of which is very grateful to them, and that any one that wants anything of them must go there and call them. Some say they have no music and dancing, only howling and whimpering; and that when a screaming is heard in the woods and marshes, like that of crying children, and a mewing and screeching like that of a multitude of cats or owls, the sounds proceed from their midnight assemblies, and are made by the vociferous Dwarfs.​

Drow-like creatures also make a brief appearance in the Appendix N novella The Roaring Trumpet (1940) by L Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, which is based on Norse mythology:

The limits of the place were invisible in the flickering red glare, through which scuttled naked black things, like liquorice dolls. Heimdall whispered: "These would be dark dwarfs from Svartalfheim, where no man nor As[gardian] has ever been."​

The last parts are theories and speculations about their origins and to date are not confirmed. Make of it what you wish from Folk Lore Study the latter which, for the most part, is of no inherent use to me. I'm going with the story as related in the Prose Edda and which Keightley (whose book I own) was obliquely referencing..

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If you do, the game is unplayable using the so called term "races." Sure, you can go kill a giant spider or dire bear, but then, what about the ecosystem you are damaging?

Wow. Been awhile since I've seen a strawman this big.

In my campaigns, practically any race can be any alignment that they want. There are still evil, Lolth-worshipping Drow that are either "Kill-After-Talking-To" or "Kill-When-Provoked", as with most other humanoid races. Beasts are all free game, unless the party goes into a druid's forest and start's murdering the animals, which is a big mistake on the party's part. Fiends, most aberrations and elementals, lots of constructs, and tons of monstrosities are "Kill-On-Sight".

Having "all races being any alignment they want" is absolutely, positively not the same thing as "but what about the EcOsYsTeM!?!?" at a table. Druids, rangers, and nature clerics care about the ecosystem, but not when there are monsters killing/endangering people. You can have in-depth moral problems without becoming tree-huggers that don't belong in D&D.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

To add to this party of preferences (in part) I vote that Gruumsh has been too long an evil god-dude-orc and needs to be lawful good and get two eyes!! I will volunteer to send a good fairy to teach him the ways of etti-cat & virchew.

 

[Scott Christian]

Wow. Been awhile since I've seen a strawman this big.

In my campaigns, practically any race can be any alignment that they want. There are still evil, Lolth-worshipping Drow that are either "Kill-After-Talking-To" or "Kill-When-Provoked, as with most other humanoid races". Beasts are all free game, unless the party goes into a druid's forest and start's murdering the animals, which is a big mistake on the party's part. Fiends, most aberrations and elementals, lots of constructs, and tons of monstrosities are "Kill-On-Sight".

Having "all races being any alignment they want" is absolutely, positively not the same thing as "but what about the EcOsYsTeM!?!?" at a table. Druids, rangers, and nature clerics care about the ecosystem, but not when there are monsters killing/endangering people. You can have in-depth moral problems without becoming tree-huggers that don't belong in D&D.

The ecosystem was a joke. Didn't you see the winky face or the other poster's response of .

And in any campaign I have ever played, all the way to MERP, any race could be any alignment. You are an adventurer. You are unique. But your background could and should be based on the cultural norms of your race and where you are from. This is for good or bad. From the, I love the forest and nature wood elf culture to I rose against the drow society from which I was raised and chose a higher moral ground.

 

[Dire Bare]

I haven't read the entire thread, but notwithstanding the use of shorthand (i.e. saying that most drow are evil without specifying why), is anyone arguing for that? Because non-evil drow have been around for decades. The Forgotten Realms have Drizzt Do'Urden, Liriel Baenre, and the religion of Eilistraee. Greyhawk has Tysiln San, the Chaotic Neutral drow from WG12 Vale of the Mage (affiliate link). Eberron has non-evil drow as a matter of course, or so I'm given to understand. So the whole "they're culturally evil, rather than racially evil" thing seems like a non-issue.

Oh come on.

Of course the option to play drow of any alignment has been in the game for decades. You can also play orcs, gnolls, goblins, and other "baddies" throughout the editions.

Doesn't change the fact that drow were created to be an evil race of antagonists, an evil race cursed with dark skin. And that this fact is extremely problematic.

The exceptions to the rule do not break the rule. Not in the game, and not in real life. Heck, being "exceptional" is also an issue in racism. People throughout history have been racist towards other people, and then said, "But you, you're one of the good ones".

Yes, but you're saying that a whole race's culture has to be the same all across that race, even if there are millions of different members of that race that live in a variety of different locations. In Exandria, the Drow people as a whole broke free of Lolth's grasp and are now capable of being any alignment, which is what the Orcs, Goblinoids, and Gnolls are in the process of doing with their patron deities. The Drow in Exandria don't have to be Lolth worshippers, the vast majority of them aren't, but there are still groups of Lolth-cultists (primarily made up of old-fashioned Drow) that live in secluded locations in the world.

You can have a character that grew up fighting against the culture they were raised in even if the whole race's culture(s) is more diverse than "WE EVIL" and "DEMON SPIDERS ARE GOOD!!!".

And humans are known for having a ton of cultural diversity. We have stories of people growing up in cultures and fighting against them. So, you saying that if we make Drow capable of having diverse cultures would make these cool stories be impossible is very, very incorrect.

Good points. In the real world, there are no races, only humans. Yet we have racism, which is really discrimination based on culture and ethnicity. Having drow culture being coded as evil is just as problematic as having the drow race (or species) coded as evil.

 

[Dire Bare]

The ecosystem was a joke. Didn't you see the winky face or the other poster's response of .

Not a good one. One that came across as dismissive of those who have concerns about how race is treated in D&D.