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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Immortal Sun" data-source="post: 7559107">(This was written after responding to the elements below.)So, what do I have for a vision?  Fair question.  It must be a reasonably functional nearly-global society.  It doesn't need to be universally "the same" society, but it should feel that traveling half-way around the globe would result in fairly minor cultural change.  In the way that Star Trek's Earth still has remnants of once very distinct cultures, but has effectivly become "Americanized" around the globe.  Some other sci-fantasy societies I have looked towards are Romulans (as much as they are simply "evil space elves"), Cardassians (particularly their development of the police state), Chiss (how to make noble houses function in the future) and Orville's Krill (for their religious zealotry).  I think there's a fair point made in The Orville about how a religious culture reacts to the realization that they're not alone in the galaxy, either with a moderating of views or doubling down.  I would wager the Drow would double down.  And to note, I also think Roddenberry missed something truly unique about culture by generally disregarding religion in the future and among alien races.  This would be a society that is something of a cross between a autocracy/meritocracy/plutcroacy/theocracy (yes, none of the "good" political theories).  Religion and lineage play a defining role in the ability of anyone accomplish anything but society at large recognizes those who accomplish things that are generally for the furthering of the Empire.  Even if everyone likewise understands that noone does anything that isn't to serve their own personal advancement.  But this self-promotion cannot be totally shameless, as paying tribute to the establishment, the nobility and to the church are all requisite elements.  A drow who accumulates great wealth but doesn't tithe would be seen as a godless heretic and that would provide perfect "legal" justification to destroy them.  Meanwhile a highly religious drow of low standing may be nearly untouchable for the holy work they have done in the name of Lolth.  Fragging your superiors remains an effective tactic, provided you sufficently "get away with it". Different nations on the Drow homeworld may emphasize different elements of this socio-economic-political system, but the underlying elements remain the same. I'm not looking for a singular culture to stand the test of thousands of years (at least in measures of human lifespans).  We certainly haven't accomplished it on Earth and I doubt I could develop one.  I think referring back to @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=19675" target="_blank">Dannyalcatraz</a> and their point about the longevity of the Drow, it may be worth noting that even a fraying culture could take thousands of years to completely collapse.  A cultural "rebound" could result in hundreds of years of stability, rather than a decade or two.  When the Drow version of Rome falls, the Dark Ages could be 8000 years instead of 800.  The new world powers could be considered "young" at only 2000 years.So I'm leaning at this point more towards lawful evil, but also a sort of blue/orange aligment.  The Drow don't look at life, the universe and everything like the rest of us do.  But me the puny human DM is still limited in making them something presentable to the other puny humans at the table.I like the recently put forth idea of Lolth representing a "lawful, but evil" alterative to Correllions "Chaotic and indifferent".  After being led on an exodus from the elven world eons ago, upon discovering their mistake the Drow chose to double down on their decisions rather than abandon them.  Resulting in a society with a powerful level of cognitive dissonance that even though they know there are holes in their boat so to speak they are inclined towards traditionalism, religiosity and fanatacism.  With the addition of some generally accepted level of breeding programs, eugenics and society over family; I think I would reasonablly generate a society that is at fairly functional (at least in game-time terms) but terrifying to "dig into", and most people don't. I do like the ideas @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=4937" target="_blank">Celebrim</a> presents for at least the counter-culture elements.  For as much as the government tries, it can't control everything and that is what it manifests in. Fair.  To kind of generally respond to @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=4937" target="_blank">Celebrim</a> that's certainly not the take I'm going for and yes, I realize that what is "established" is not really sustainable, but then looking at a lot of SyFy there's always an "evil empire" of sorts to, if nothing more, present an opposing viewpoint to the otherwise "American" or "Federation" approach to things.  I'm not terribly concerned if a singular Drow empire lasted a thousand years, but functionally lets say the Drow had their own world, all generally inclined in a drowish direction that eventually reached space-faring capacity.I suppose I'd be looking at something more akin to an internal federation of states than a one-world-nation of Drow.  There would be lasting cultural differences but within a much narrower developmental range, everything stemming from the same established root culture; rather than several independant cultures developing in parallel, more of adapting their existing ways of life to the land, than developing new ones from scratch.  For an IRL comparison, in the way that American, Canadian or Australian culture is unique, but clearly European and not Chinese.  The original Drow society could indeed have fallen and new variations would have risen to take its place, some closer to the original material than others. I generally agree. I think that's a good way to put it.  Nothing in Drow society leans towards people wanting to make overt statements, everything is about subtetly and carefully crafting a message within an image that, to the right audience would become visible.  I agree in broad strokes.  My concern is that fundamentally these "unsustainable" elements were written there on purpose in an attempt to make it clearly visible to the reader/player that this society is badwrong and (pardon my cynicism) celebrate Americanism.  My larger concern is that these elements were written there unconciously by people who were unable to separate their conditioned notions of how a functioning society looks and how a non-functional society looks.  This last line stood out to me most as an element I hadn't considered.  I was certainly initially thinking in terms of IRL parallels where music is highly generational.  For a race that naturally lives such a long time, I think your point is reasonable that older tastes in culture would hold sway over younger and newer ones for a much longer period of time and that "new" culture would (outside of the distinct anti-establishment element) attempt to cater towards the tastes of the old in order to gain favor, leaning towards reinforcing cultural values until the "old guard" had passed on and they were able to experiment, though by the time they've spend several hundred years reinforcing what is known and accepted, their own societal acceptance would largely be based on the fact that they have continued traditions rather than birthed new ones.</blockquote>

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