D&D General The Gygaxian Origins of Drow and Some Thought on their Depiction As Villians

[Chaosmancer]

Also do note that spiders are very protective of their children in real life, with wolf spiders going into full-blown panic attacks and anxiety if their eggcase is stolen from them

Some sort of prototypical spider goddess that was eventually corrupted into the Lolth nowerdays could still have aspects respected in other elven communities

I did not know this. That is... odd considering how closely I believe arachnids and insects are related.

Super frickin cool for mythology purposes though.

Just go with the 4e Lolth story of her original Fate Goddess weaver form before she sacrifices herself to become the Spider Queen of Demons and contain the Abyss.

The point is for her to be non-evil though. As an experiment for my new world.

 

[Fenris-77]

I like pale-skinned drow, personally. Black just doesn’t make sense to me. A range of cool, dark colors is fine, if a little silly in my opinion.

That black skin always bothered me for the same reason. Underground and deep sea creatures are quite often pale or even translucent skinned. Hmm, translucent skinned Drow, that's got some appeal actually, I always loved the Newhon Ghoul.

 

[Eric V]

Remember when Phil and Dixie addressed the drow? Especially panel 6

 

[Chaosmancer]

Remember when Phil and Dixie addressed the drow? Especially panel 6 View attachment 123341

I'm a huge fan of Phil and Kaja Foglio, I actually have the collected issues of "What's New" that I got at a local con

 

[Traycor]

World of Warcraft would be an interesting touchpoint for how Drow could be depicted visually. Dark Iron Dwarves (charcoal black skin) are now a playable option that has black, gray, and ashy white skin as options. The first time seeing it, the design was striking in that it still captured the same feel. It was subterranean and different from normal fleshy tones of all colors, shades, etc...

The Highborne Elves are basically drow, but their skin tones include very dark blue. Night Elves have purple (also based on drow).

Coming back around to drow: they have been depicted in art for years with purple, gray, and dark blue skin. It works visually and players are already comfortable/familiar with this.

5e drow should have a variety of available skin tones. Dark purple, dark blue, gray, ashy white, and charcoal black. More options for players, better visual variety for art/games/movies, and cultural problem addressed.

 

[Catolias]

That black skin always bothered me for the same reason

Much the same. As a newbie way back, I remember being condescendingly told that I couldn’t play a dark elf because they’re always lawful evil. I wan’t confident back then to say that’s stupid.

 

[Pauln6]

I noticed that the wicked elf in the Silmarillian seemed to use spells similar to the innate abilities of the drow.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There's the issue of the most matriarchal society in D&D being the most prominent villains.

A lot of weird gender and sexual hangups are all mixed up together in our classic picture of the drow -- there is, as you mentioned, a rather improbable amount of whips and chains. Is their villainous matriarchy specifically an issue, though? Like, imagine the most matriarchal society in D&D not being villains. Imagine the gnomes or whatever are said to have these strong attitudes about gender superiority, but are presented as "good" or at least respectable. That doesn't really work either, right?

So if there are going to be matriarchies in D&D, they kind of have to be on the bad side. They just need to not be weird about it.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

One thing I'm trying to do, and I haven't had a lot of success so far, but I also haven't had a good chance to focus on it, is to make spiders more important to all elves, as well as just reunify the elven cultures. Mostly just to do something different.

Problem is, I haven't figured a decent way to make spiders more generic and less evil. So, I'm still mulling it over and trying to do some minor research for ideas

I'm pretty sure the equation of spiders with evil in modern fantasy derives almost entirely from the arachnophobia of one J.R.R. Tolkien. In folklore, they're far more commonly expert crafters, tricksters, and symbols of good luck. The worst depiction I can think of off the top of my head is Arachne, who's certainly no hero but hardly a monster either.

 

[Imaculata]

One thing I'm trying to do, and I haven't had a lot of success so far, but I also haven't had a good chance to focus on it, is to make spiders more important to all elves, as well as just reunify the elven cultures. Mostly just to do something different.

Problem is, I haven't figured a decent way to make spiders more generic and less evil. So, I'm still mulling it over and trying to do some minor research for ideas

I have a spider queen in my campaign setting that lives in the fey wild, and sits in between the seelie and unseelie fey. Spiders are neutral, not evil. They can be very helpful or cruel.