What are the most important features of the Drow?

[amerigoV]

To me their most important feature is not anything mechanical, but more of what they represent. They are an unapologetically evil race that is a mirror to the "goodly" surface races. They are not shown as being a degenerative race like Kou Toa or brute ugly evil like Orcs and the goblinoids. They are not "beautiful tricksie" evil like many of the fae that are beautiful, charming, and friendly one round then drag you to your doom the next.

Its the taking of what is considered the best good races (elves) and keeping everything that is good about them on the surface (interaction with nature, abet underground, cultured, beautiful) but turning them evil.

Its the "you meet this beautiful elf of dark skin who smiles and immediately tries to kill you" aspect that makes the Drow. You wonder how this beautiful creature with a strong culture and at one with world (again, underdark world) could be so unapologically evil. Its not a misunderstanding or cultural difference - they want to kill you, enslave you, or use you as a tool to be destroyed in the process.

Ultimately, there is this "well if the goodly elves could fall to this, what chance do we have?" At a risk of pointing to real world history, they are kinda like the Nazis - at the time one of the most advanced cultural and technological societies on the planet fell into into evil and did unimaginable things - how could that have happened? Could it happen again? Is it happening again? (before the ancient alien astronaut theorists took over the History channel, the Nazis were quiet popular and I think its was this underlying disturbing concept that drove it).

That, to me, is the most important feature of the Drow.

 

[Yaarel]

@Amerigo.

Yeah, part of the fascination with the Drow is an exploration of the darkside of humanity.

There is boundary between reallife violence which is a catastrophe. And the fantasy violence which is dreamlike, archetypal, symbolic, where death isnt real. Dream violence is more about losing and rebuilding an identity, painful but constructive.

Around the same time as the Drow, and similarly, vampires were entering the popular culture. Like the Anne Rice novels and movies, and games like the Masquerade.

Personally, I dont get into the cruelty or gore, but the magic and mystique of the vampire genre is a guilty pleasure. (I even watch the Vampire Diaries, regularly, and Twilight!) My fascination with Drow seems similar.

For me, the contrast between the light of Good compassion versus the darkness of Evil predation - the contrast can be interesting. 4e often made everything ‘darker’, ‘edgier’, ‘tainted’ - but if everything is ethically gray, the homogeneity is just as boring as if everything is goody-two-shoes Good or nihilistically Evil. I like that 5e is returning to classes and races that are innocently Good, and so with the contrast, ‘darker’ classes and races like Warlock and Drow add interesting stories.

Most stories have a villain, and the stories are more interesting when the villain isnt a flat stereotype, but is actually a tragic hero whose flaws self-destruct but who gains the audiences sympathy.

 

[Yaarel]

I added the following to Post #10.

‘
TYPICAL CULTURE
Because of Dexterity:

In some Drow houses, the army of Rogues is specifically an army of Assassins. These houses rarely go to war, instead they kill those enemy leaders who want to go to war. Enemies lose the wars before they even start, because waves of assassins overwhelm and systematically eliminate their leadership. Leaders hestitate personally before deciding to go to war against the Drow.

’


I got the idea from a scifi short story I read years ago. If I recall correctly, it is called The Swiss Army (?). The premise of the story is, Switzerland didnt have universal military service. Instead, Switzerland trained the entire Swiss population to be assassins. The leaders of other countries decided it was better to leave Switzerland alone.

The concept seems like an ‘isolationist’ policy, and nonconducive to imperialism, but appropriate for factions within the Drow culture.

 

[Yaarel]

The feature that enjoys the strongest support is ‘Elf’.

The Drow is a subrace of Elf.

This suggests 4e made a mistake when it split Elf, Drow, and Eladrin into separate races. The Drow needs to remain an ‘Elf’.



A solution is to make the Elf a family of races that includes ‘Sylvan’, Drow, and ‘Celestial’.

In the Monster Manual, the Elf entry can include several races.

Similarly, Elemental, Dragon, and so on include various kinds within the entry.

Elf, Celestial (Sun, Moon, Star)
Elf, Dark (Drow)
Elf, Sylvan (High, Wild, Wood)

 

[Li Shenron]

The feature that enjoys the strongest support is ‘Elf’.

The Drow is a subrace of Elf.

This suggests 4e made a mistake when it split Elf, Drow, and Eladrin into separate races. The Drow needs to remain an ‘Elf’.



A solution is to make the Elf a family of races that includes ‘Sylvan’, Drow, and ‘Celestial’.

In the Monster Manual, the Elf entry can include several races.

Similarly, Elemental, Dragon, and so on include various kinds within the entry.

Elf, Celestial (Sun, Moon, Star)
Elf, Dark (Drow)
Elf, Sylvan (High, Wild, Wood)

I think the designers pretty much agree with you! It's not in the playtest rules, but it's been said by Mearls that the idea of subraces is for each to cover a variety of fantasy settings actual races. So that what is presented as Celestial Elf (currently High Elf in the rules) can be called more specifically Sun Elf in one setting, Moon Elf in another etc. (although this doesn't prevent Campaign Settings books to override the core version). Drow in the playtest rules are still presented separately rather than a subrace, it might be because they weren't sure yet whether to put them in core or not, or because they didn't want them to look they are available by default, or maybe they might even decide they are evil enough to be in the DMG.

 

[Yaarel]

These are different Elf races, with different stats.

For example,

The Sylvan Elf:
- High Elf (Dex Int)
- Wood Elf (Dex Wis)
- Wild Elf (Dex Str)

The Bright Elf
- Sun Elf (Cha Int)
- Moon Elf (Cha Wis)
- Star Elf (Cha Str)

The Dark Elf
- Drow Elf (Dex Cha)



Here, the Drow are kind of a missing link between the charismatic Bright race and the dexterous Sylvan race.

These seven kinds of Elf correspond closely to the seven kinds of Eladrin from the 2e Monstrous Compendium.

These also correspond to the separate races with separate stats in 4e. Celestial/Eladrin, Drow, and Sylvan/Elf.

Note, the 4e Eladrin being the Sun Elf (Cha Int) and the 3e Sun Elf (Int −Con) have no Dex bonus. This is a nonphysical mental race known for magic.
​

 

[Yaarel]

In the Forgotten Realms Setting, there are three different kinds of Dark Elf subraces.

Dark Elf
- Drow
- Ilythiiri
- Miyetari

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In the Forgotten Realms Setting, there are three different kinds of Dark Elf subraces.

Dark Elf
- Drow
- Ilythiiri
- Miyetari

I've heard all three terms, but I wonder how many people can describe the differences without visiting the FR wiki? (I know I can't!) Just more elfitis I know one group are "good drow" which is frankly ridiculous.

 

[Yaarel]

Without looking them up, apparently theyr color coded?

Drow = Black
Ilythiiri = Blue
Miyetari = Brown

Black are any alignment (such as Drizzt) but usually evil.
Blue are usually good, but still exhibit some of the traits from the descent into the earth.
Brown are usually good, and identical to the ancestral Dark Elf race.

 

[Yaarel]

In the Forgotten Realms setting, a conservative estimate would have at least 20% of Dark Elves be of Good alignment, even if ‘peer pressure’ sometimes makes them hide it.