What are Drow, anyway?

[arwink]

Drow, in my games, are a set of stats that constantly have a new outer shell applied to them. I've used the stats for a race of arcane goblin-spiderss in one campaign, as a race of fey elves in another, and they're currently cropping up now as a race of demon-spawned nobility from an evil empire.

I like the idea of drow, but I don't think I can use them to generate the right amount of fear on players that have been over-exposed to the concept.

 

[John Crichton]

Word. (heh)

In more than 10 years IMC, my players have met drow only *once* - and we play in FR. They live in mortal fear of them, as they have only encountered them once; generally only hearing rumors, and they have read very little about the drow (just the Salvatore books - that's it) and don't frequent messageboards, etc. [To be honest, if all you know about the drow are from the Salvatore books, they are quite frightening, actually.] They don't even know that books/adventures like GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders and the like exists...

If the DM is intelligent and uses drow sparingly, they still can invoke terror in the players...

Especially in the FR I found that it was important to keep the drow threat there but at arms reach. They only appear when needed and if they do you should be dead unless you are lucky or really powerful. It's best to do what you've been doing and use them in a subtle way rather than have them popping up all over the place.