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

[The Glen]

We could have avoided all the drow drama if they had just went with Mystara as the default setting. Everybody loves the Shadow Elves, those plucky yet incredibly naive knife ears!

 

[Vaalingrade]

Also?

I like elves with ears that can't be completely hidden by a hairdo.

For too long, elves have basically been seen in universe and out and by themselves as just 'humans but better'. At least with visible ears, there's something to set them apart

I miss eladrin solid eyes and in my world, also give them carnivore tooth design rather than omnivorous teeth. They like protein and carbs because they're arboreal badasses that Disney's Tarzan all over the place. They use bows only because punches aren't ranged.

 

[Azzy]

The curse was a 3E innovation iirc. Wasn't there iirc in 2E or Gygaxian Drow. Tasha's art in general is bad or at least to cartoon like IMHO.

Heck, Lolth wasn't even supposed to be drow's primary object of worship in 1e—just the "best-known example".

 

[Mercurius]

Artists have depicted dark elves in alllllll kinds of ways for a while now. A quick pinterest search shows this.

But until recently, dark elves in D&D, specifically, were the drows; evil looking, underground dwelling, black skin, white hair, matriarchal, spider-worshiping elves. So artists auditing for D&D art, or commissioned for D&D art, represented drows according to these artistic guidelines. This monolithic artistic representation was coherent with D&D's monolithic description of the drows. It looks like there was a recent and deliberate shift in this paradigm, so you should expect more variety from now on.

Nevertheless, D&D will always keep some kind of guidelines in their artistic direction. At least I hope they do. The trick is always to set the proper range in variance. For example, I'm not sure I'd be cool with something like dark elves having anywhere from 1 to 5 eyes, because diversity! 1-5 eyes dark elves can be cool, but let it be setting-specific. Exaggerated example is exaggerated, but it illustrates what I mean.

FWIW, I would have preffered that dark elves had kept their black skin, and evil Lolth-worshiping matriarchal drows were made a setting-specific drow nation among a few others, and were given a more neutral description in "core" D&D PHB and following supplements.

Yes, well said.

I think part of the problem is that D&D grew out of Greyhawk, with default lore in later editions harkening back to Greyhawk. Nothing wrong with GH's lore, and I understand the reasons behind having a default universal lore for the core rulebooks, but there hasn't been as much emphasis on "create your own" as there could have been. Quite a few settings have varied from it--namely, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and Eberron--but the default rules are still based on GH.

So I would love to see WotC emphasize the customizable nature of D&D lore both through the example of different settings (which they are doing to some extent, at least with the Magic and Exandria books), but also in the core rulebooks, with examples of different approaches to lore components.

 

[squibbles]

So, in case you need me to spell it out for you, the skin color appears to have changed. [...]

So, let's discuss. Do you think that this is likely to be a change that we'll see in the future, and if so, what are your thoughts on it?

It seems fine--neither better nor worse. I think the older art pieces you included are mostly better looking; the stronger color contrast is more dynamic. But that won't necessarily be true of future artwork and it's not a big deal to me either way--if they gave all drow the pigmentation-less appearance of a cave olm, I'd be fine with that too (and it would make more sense).

And yet, it seems bizarre for WotC to try to address the controversy in this area by stealth-changing artwork.

If no one notices the change then they aren't really affecting anything, and if the change is noticed--and good catch on your part--then they may as well have explained it openly and given their reasoning.

Just a garden variety corporation trying to navigate its way through our fraught cultural zeitgeist safely, I guess. They'll probably keep the change unless (until?) they get substantial negative feedback.

 

[Mercurius]

We could have avoided all the drow drama if they had just went with Mystara as the default setting. Everybody loves the Shadow Elves, those plucky yet incredibly naive knife ears!

Yeah, but elf-beards. Plus, the best thing about Mystara was Stephen Fabian's art and given that he's in his 90s, I'm not sure he can be lured back to D&D.

 

[Voadam]

The curse was a 3E innovation iirc. Wasn't there iirc in 2E or Gygaxian Drow. Tasha's art in general is bad or at least to cartoon like IMHO.

I was thinking it was an AD&D thing but I can't find any reference to it and in FOR2 Drow of the Underdark it says they were dark skinned before the wars that sent them into the underdark.

"The Descent
We know very little of the Ilythiiri, or "Elves of the South," before this crucial event. Even then, they were known as "Dark Elves," for the hue of their skins. They dwelt in the jungles and hot forests of the South. A proud, warlike, culturally advanced (some sages of other elven peoples say "decadent") folk, the Hythiiri attacked all neighbors, including other elven tribes. Their cruel raids and depredations, ordered by warlike nobility and the clergy of their two cruel deities, Ghaunadaur and Lolth, forced elves, humans, dwarves, and others to ally against them.
Defeated in a series of titanic magical battles, the dark elves fled into underground warrens they had earlier discovered. This event, known as "the Descent," marked the end of the drow as a surfacedwelling race."

 

[Mercurius]

I think it's really messed up that in the "You can be good drow, too, see?" artwork all of the good drow are pale-skinned to the point of being almost white.

Making the visual change happen right as they make it explicit that no race is wholly evil? It's very blatant "Dark = Evil, Light = Good" imagery.

I had the same thought. Like you, I don't think it was deliberate, just poorly thought out.

As to the "Albinism makes more sense, anyhow" brigade: Drow didn't "Evolve" to be obsidian skinned. It's an ancient curse from Correllon which was laid upon Lolth and all who followed her, as well as Eilistraee.

I've been an outspoken critic of connecting fantasy ideas with real world racism, but even this is too much for my sensibilities. Thankfully it was written out of canon, or at least is pretty much ignored ("Let's just sweep this one under the rug and forget its there"). A few months ago, I think someone figured out (maybe me) that the last published mention of this was in the FRCS, and that was 20 years ago. Could be wrong, though.

EDIT: I missed the post above mine. Evidently it is an artifact of 3E and didn't come before. I'm too lazy to check my 1E books, though.

 

[Voadam]

3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting page 13:

"Descended from the original dark-skinned elven subrace called the Illythiiri, the drow were cursed into their present appearance by the good elven deities for following the goddess Lolth down the path to evil and corruption. Also called dark elves, the drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian and stark white or pale yellow hair."

I looked in 2e's Drow of the Underdark, Demihuman Deities, Monster Mythology, and 1e's Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, Fiend Folio, Unearthed Arcana, and the Dragon 63's articles on the Elven Point of View and Elven Deities and did not see it there.

A weird thing to change in 2001.

 

[Zardnaar]

3.0 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting page 13:

"Descended from the original dark-skinned elven subrace called the Illythiiri, the drow were cursed into their present appearance by the good elven deities for following the goddess Lolth down the path to evil and corruption. Also called dark elves, the drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian and stark white or pale yellow hair."

I looked in 2e's Drow of the Underdark, Demihuman Deities, Monster Mythology, and 1e's Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, Fiend Folio, Unearthed Arcana, and the Dragon 63's articles on the Elven Point of View and Elven Deities and did not see it there.

A weird thing to change in 2001.

Essentially a retcon. They fleshed it out later apparently but I missed that part of FR (post 2006/7).