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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 2587298" data-attributes="member: 1165">They are overexposed - Elf Only Inn had a hilarious comic about that issue.I hate the way they are portrayed in novels - and this spills over into the game. I think maybe a third of FR novels have drow as main characters, with Drizzt-sagas being the longest single-running novel series.In the novels, they are "uber" for no good reasons. Their strengths are emphasized (sometimes to the point of being ridiculous - you can't hit them, for instance, even if you are a skilled warrior) while their weaknesses are discounted (they're "not as fragile as they look", they can resist alcohol very well unless it's "Russian" stuff, etc).They're better at everything a human can do, as they have their ambition but near-elven lifespans. They Bluff better (when a human can out-bluff a drow, they are very surprised that humans can actually have any kind of talent), cast spells better, fight better (only in Salvatore's work can a human face a drow in combat and have even a nearly chance of winning, and I'm not just talking about Artemis Entreri here) - dragons live in fear of them rather than beholders or other actually dangerous creatures, high-level human adventurers cringe in fear and are easily killed instead of fighting back when they encounter drow (third book in the Windwalker series), etc.Their priestesses casts "mage" spells that let them read minds and turn male drow into gaseous mist - when they're not turning into Lolth! ( - second book in the Windwalker series.)Drow cities are expected to contain "multiple artifacts" (this was more of a messageboard thing, actually).They're so evil that an encounter with drow can't actually occur - the drow are actually preparing to kill their party mates - the encounter ends up with PCs finding a bunch of dead drow all over the place. Because the drow killed each other silently, the PCs don't know that the drow were stalking them just five minutes ago. (Okay, this is very sarcastic.) I really hate it when evil characters kill each other "just because". It only makes sense if you actually drink the power of the dead drow, instead of just making yourself weaker fodder for the opposition.The mastermind of goblins, orcs, etc found in Faerun are drow. It feels like every time. (I found Twilight Falling to be a great escape from the overused drow cliche.)Eilistraee made me really hate them, however. At least Drizzt became good-aligned before he met Montolio. He didn't need an alignment crutch - not much of one, anyway, and nothing so blatantly obvious. But maybe that's just because only R. A. Salvatore can write drow reasonably (and even he loses 12 ranks in Craft (writing) points anytime he mentions mindflayers or the sun). But every female drow I've seen who encounters a priestess of Eilistraee becomes a follower after some time passes - there's a virus or something. I have yet to see an exception to this rule. I made the mistake of reading that six-novel drow series - it actually started off well, with a goblin stabbing a drow no less <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> and non-evil drow that bear no resemblence to Drizzt - but I had to skip half of book five because of the overuse (any use) of Eilistraee and refuse to read the last book because I'm afraid Danifae will become a worshipper of Eilistraee (she met Halistra after she became a follower of Eilistraee).I heard a rumor that followers of Eilistraee get a streak in their hair, letting you know who they worship (so you shouldn't kill them). I hope this is untrue, because if it is, it's BS. My character would kill any drow who claimed to worship a good drow goddess, especially if they tried to "bluff" me with that hair-streak nonsense, on the grounds that "all" drow are "incurably evil" and have such great Bluff checks anyway. *rolleyes*I don't run DnD anymore, but I still play it. If I were to go back to DMing and run an FR campaign, the very first thing I would do is publically kill Eilistraee, preferably at the hands of a kobold deity.Ironically enough, drow in-game are wimps. It's funny watching a DM put more work into a drow encounter than in an encounter with any other creature type, as even normal DMs turn into RBDMs when drow are concerned. It's even more fun when the PCs just slaughter them anyway. Drizzt-clones are especially wimpy (light fighters in DnD suck, unfortunately, and dual-wielding scimitars is just pathetically weak).There are plenty of other evil races that don't get enough exposure. I'm so glad Eberron came out - I don't think I'll ever see a drow in any of the novels, and if I do, they might not be evil (at least, not in the same way as FR drow), nor will they be uber.I think I found something I hate in FR more than drow, however. Mystra!Cheers!Then they would no longer be drow. They'd be evil elves. Not that I dislike evil elves (I really like Elaith Craunolber, despite the whole elf > human nonsense), except there are no evil elven deities.</blockquote>

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