The underdark reimagined.

[Invader_Nym]

I've been working on a MUD on and off for a while now, and one thing I've thought a lot about is if, and how, I would incorporate the idea of the drow into my campaign setting.

There have been discussions on these forums about the Udos Droxun conception of the drow, and the problems that came with it; priestess characters were expected to be given automatic respect, the roleplay was often one-dimensional, and grimly torture-centric, and lacked the sort of human element that makes stories worth telling. A major problem with the classical conception of drow is that even basic things like friendship are supposed to be shunned. This can be a bleak and unrewarding scenario to try and simulate.

Ultimately, the classical conception of the drow seems to work best as a sort of canvas on which to have a more 'human' protagonist struggle, which is why the novels work, but it has always been hit-and-miss in persistent worlds, from my experience, because you've removed that more human protagonist from the equation.

I've been thinking about how one might be able to overcome these sorts of obstacles while keeping the desirable elements of the drow intact.

My conception of the drow would be that they retain their highly xenophobic nature, while ditching the gender-based dominance, and the shunning of friendship. In fact, my vision for how the drow might actually work and be fun and prosperous in a PW is that they're staunchly and unyieldingly loyal to each-other, while still retaining all their malevolent tenancies towards outsiders. In this way they retain their evil nature, and the fundamental lore regarding how they are cunning and evil and dangerous to surfacers, can all be retained, while all the problems I outlined above get addressed.

Perhaps the idea is too radical for Arelith, but I'd be interested in your thoughts in any case.

[JediMindTrix]

an LE society

[Cortex]

so, duergar?

[FrozenSolid]

I think the drow society lore wise works okay how it is. I would wish to see more players respect classical drow roots, for example humans March down to the UD and maybe they can PvP a drow to doom so they are just annoying and arrogant. Rarely anyone bows to drowesses and it seems like most Male drow follow a path of defiance of classic drow traits. In my opinion.

It is more obtuse in my opinion to see a human or other actually fear or respect the drow's lore based savagery or personalities or in the same regard any other race, even drow themselves.

There are plenty of reasons for drow to be loyal or friends. Be it lust for power, wealth, or reverance for heads of faith etc, it's how the drow works as a race.

At the moment I think a lot of drow players have a good skew between classical drow and the addition of more modren principles that allow for things to be more fun for everyone even if it breaks the lore a bit. I have found drow players to be very accomodating.

I think it's wrong to try to make drow more human to make them more appealing to RP. They aren't human, that's the point.

[Invader_Nym]

There are plenty of reasons for drow to be loyal or friends. Be it lust for power, wealth, or reverance for heads of faith etc, it's how the drow works as a race.

Friendship is expressly forbidden in traditional drow society, and everyone, including your own mother, is fair game for backstabbery if it will elevate your own status in the society. If you don't understand this very basic fact about the drow, I'm doubtful you understand the drow at all.

It seems to me that the playerbase in the underdark is basically naturally drifting towards the model I just described in my original post. Hardly anyone plays llothite drow, and there are more and more humans in the underdark every day.

[Invader_Nym]

In fact I think I remember reading in one of the novels the drow literally don't have a word for friend.

[FrozenSolid]

Their society, as a whole, is seemingly nonviable. The only reason they do not murder themselves to extinction is by the will of Lolth, working primarily through her clergy. Lolth does not tolerate any Drow that threaten to bring down her society, and the clergy make certain that perpetrators cease their destructive actions by either threatening or killing them.

There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Some communities of drow worship other gods (like Vhaeraun or Eilistraee), and thus, their hierarchy changes, reverses the roles of males and females, or (such as in the case of Eilastree) even approaching something like a workable, progressive society.

I think there was just a large Lolthite first house before the current one? Drow can have emotions and I've never seen anything that says they cannot be friends. Friends for drow probably means something different then how we imagine it, it has different standards. I imagine female drow might befriend each other that doesn't mean they won't kill each other if the chance for power appears.

The system for drow works when it's adhered to, of course some admittances are made to include other players and right now Lolthite drow have largely been dismissed after imploding upon themselves giving way to the none traditional houses to rise. But what kinda ties drow together is the furthering of their race, power, and service to whatever deity they serve.

I'd suggest that classical drow roots should be maintained, primarily the aspects that make the drow unique. Making drow more human like I think would be more boring.

[Red Ropes]

i think the better thing to do is less trying to be things from the stories, but, inspired by them

and players, not being words on paper or npcs, create the world they wish to see

in the compromise of togetherness

(and sweet pvp killbash crities)

[FrozenSolid]

Stories just sorta serve as a basis for how to play a drow, that's why there's a guide for them on the wiki and I believe if you look up the drow subrace the lore is a required read. I figure the purpose of that is to maintain a certain drow culture, not that there can't be outliers but the majority following at least some sort of standard play style that can be understood

Edit: http://wiki.arelith.com/Playing_any_UD_ ... 2C_and_why

I think I the wiki offers a lot of answers to questions or opinions it's a good read

[Dreams]

I think people need to stop thinking Underdark = Drow. Really it's a horrible place full of all kind of monsters, including Drow, including monstrously evil or suspect humans, and so on. Just think of it as generally a hostile environment. The weak should fear the strong. Weak the fear should the strong. Should the weak strong the fear.

[FrozenSolid]

"The drow are hostile, a feared and deadly opponent...feared even more so than many other hostile opponents, because a dragon will only eat you, but a Drow might let you live...but in a way that death would be preferable. [...] I don't want you to be a wanker about it OOC, certainly, but IN CHARACTER, you have typically got to react to drow as you would an extremely dangerous hostile enemy (they are). [...] In Faerun, mothers scare their children into obedience with admonitions of "if you don't eat your vegetables, the Drow will take you away in the night!" and other such pleasantries." -Jjjerm


Surface/Underdark relations need not necessarily be hostile, however trust should not be implicit or even assumed.
Drow should not be kind, gentle, forgiving, or sympathetic. The Underdark is a dangerous place where survival is extremely difficult, and those Drow who put others before themselves rarely reach adulthood.

Pulled from the wiki, if we were meant to be maintaining this atmosphere I think aspects of this are not the case. Dominantly the respect drow are supposed to command, that is largely ignored unless the player is efficient in pvp.

There's other good quotes for monsters in general, I'd say the UD loosely maintains these guidelines, I'd venture to say they could even be more evil!

But that's my opinion! I kinda like the way the wiki presents the UD as a whole I'd like to see more of that style as opposed to more human qualities.

Also the wiki seems old it still talks about the kill.scripts which haven't been around for awhile?

[Ork]

Andunor Drow have adapted to their environment, I believe. You're always going to have drow on the more fanatical side, but now there's more drow playing more pragmatically. There's a lot of OOC grief directed towards fanatical drow, but they're an integral part of the UD.

I also want to refute the belief that to be "feared" you must be good at PvP. To be "feared", you really have to work that RP muscle. Lazy roleplay is hardly ever convincing and the whole maxim of "bow or die" is predictably forcing your opponent into an ultimatum where you DO have to be competent in PvP to enforce it. However, there are a notable number of Drow I recall that were terrifying - and it all came down to how convincing their RP was, not how many levels they had.

If you're a drow and want to be feared, produce that result by the way you interact with others in RP. Imagine your drow as a three-dimensional character with aspirations, desires and weaknesses not entirely chained to the lore.

[Dreams]

I also want to refute the belief that to be "feared" you must be good at PvP. To be "feared", you really have to work that RP muscle. Lazy roleplay is hardly ever convincing and the whole maxim of "bow or die" is predictably forcing your opponent into an ultimatum where you DO have to be competent in PvP to enforce it. However, there are a notable number of Drow I recall that were terrifying - and it all came down to how convincing their RP was, not how many levels they had.

If you're a drow and want to be feared, produce that result by the way you interact with others in RP. Imagine your drow as a three-dimensional character with aspirations, desires and weaknesses not entirely chained to the lore.

Totally agree with this.

[Hunter548]

The thing is, drow lore gets misrepresented. Menzo is not the typical drow city, and drow actually don't give a Snuggle a Bugbear about Lolth beyond it being a means to control, personal power and societal power (for females) or lip service they usually have to pay in more traditional cities to show they're not rocking the boat too much and thus not a threat to The Man (for males). It's not some vast religious calling or personal epiphany the way it is for a lot of other races.

Menzo, again, is not the typical drow city. Go look at a list of them on FR wiki, or in whatever sourcebook you like; the slight majority are (some flavor of non-universal Lolthite rule), while a decent minority are Lolthite but less hardline and traditional.

The sort of "bow to all females, all the time, no matter who you are" that flourished on Arelith years and years ago isn't really lore accurate. Especially not in cities where the drow aren't the dominate race (LIke Skullport and Andunor).

And, for reference Frozen: That policy was written around ~12 years ago, when drow were the dominant race in the Underdark and had their own Menzo-Equivalent. It's not applicable anymore, and should probably be removed. (As I recall, it mentions no friendly drow/surfacer interactions too.)

[FrozenSolid]

Yeah, I agree mostly. I like the way the wiki suggests the.atmosphere should be. Maybe it's dated but I like that style. I think Curremt Underdark.is quite different I'd like to see more reverance to drow regardless of race just respecting what they are.

But that's purely my opinion.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I'd love to see a greater exploration about the whole Crown Wars and what exactly occurred, and how the drow (and elvenkind) fit into it. I feel like for such a vital, pivotal, and cataclysmic event, it needs more heft in the memory of both elves, and drow. Could one argue that the Crown Wars paved the way for human-kind in Faerun? Dark elves, to my understanding, were not drow in the contemporary sense, but were influenced by Lolth during the Crown Wars.

Furthermore, as well all know, history is written by the victors. While we have to take lore with some degree of truth, I certainly never like fully entrusting myself to Ed Greenwood. There's a couple things that are disatisfactory with Lolth's/Araunshee's betrayal:

- Araunshee was a "consort" of Corellon. Why consort? Why not wife? What was their actual relationship? If we agree to the idea of consort, then we must agree to a power imbalance in their relationship.
- Araunshee "grew ambitious." Well of course she did. She's the consort of the Protector of the Seldarine. It's acceptable for any "lesser" in the relationship to grow jealous, bitter, or spiteful of the success of the "greater."
- She bore his children. But she wasn't the only one?
- Super weird how, at least in the FR Wiki, all the major players on Corellon's side were female elven goddesses. Also weird how they created Angharradh, the "elven goddess queen." Why wasn't Araunshee given this title?
- Yeah, yeah. Araunshee went to Malar and Gruumsh. Tbh, people don't give Gruumsh enough credit by how badass he is and how he shakes up like almost every pantheon in FR. Malar was busy killing gods too. So of course she turned to god-killer gods to help her overthrow Corellon.
- There's also this Fenmarel Mestarine figure. It's convenient that the lore repaints Araunshee in the "seductive Eve" trope.

This might be too anachronistic, but there's a lot to deconstruct about Lolth's "betrayal." If she won that final fight, we evidently would not have called it such. I'm notorious for poking at the lore of evil gods, and how they were depicted (see Shar being the spurned goddess of the sun), but I think there's a lot that drow could rise above.

I also personally love the "the Jedi grew too arrogant" trope in these discussions of big, diametrically-opposed forces. In short, the trope magnifies that evil (the Sith) flourishes and appears attractive to the uninvolved because the good guys have become corrupted, filled with hubris, and really undermine themselves.
Maybe Araunshee thought she could rule better than Corellon? Maybe there was court drama among the Seldarine? Maybe she was a Cersei-esque figure, and wanted more than her whoring husband?

The greatest appeal of playing non-human races is this vault of lore, opinions, and themes to draw upon.
My problem with drow, unlike all the other Underdark races, is this stupidity placed upon them by pulp fiction of R. A. Salvatore, and their totally un-dark elf like characteristics of backstabbing, betrayal, and chaos. Maybe I need to read more about Vhaerun, but dark elves, to me, should be all about "ending the war" that to them, never ended. Who gives a crap about harassing surfacers, or caring about mortal races. They want to Snuggle a Bugbear kick surface elf Snuggybear and reclaim their place in the sun.

[Xanos950]

There's a monumental column-bridge in the Myon Temple DIstrict that teaches the history of the crown wars and how the drow came to be, btw.

[Liareth]

Ultimately, the classical conception of the drow seems to work best as a sort of canvas on which to have a more 'human' protagonist struggle, which is why the novels work, but it has always been hit-and-miss in persistent worlds, from my experience, because you've removed that more human protagonist from the equation.

I don't think a 'human' element is necessary for success, at least when it comes to the books. The Drizzt novels made is easy to empathise with the protagonist, sure, and they were good books IMO, but they aren't the only books set in the world - War of the Spider Queen is a six-part series where the main party is ruthless and very Drow-like, and they are pretty good books, too. Personally, I love Drow lore. I'd be turned away by a setting that tried to keep the xenophobia but stripped away other important aspects of the race's core identity.

[Fallout]

I dont see need for change, underdark has other options for various aspects, if lawfull be Duergar, if one wants friendship be deep gnome, chaotic-drow... Friendship is something unknown as its opposite culture from the one on surface and thats why we like it. To achive friendship is hard adventure as drow, one worthy of crazy RP if it wants. All my drows rp friendship, alliances but only as another weapon in its arsenal to use other drows even within strong lolithe house those traits if revealed were fun to use against or simply manipulate with. For me taking those traits off is creating something what is something else. They are monsters!

[Beneidalus]

No offense to the original poster, but I'm gonna guess you don't play a drow regularly here on Arelith.

Ork and Hunter548 really hit the nail on the head.

I've been explicitly playing drow (off and on as I revisit Arelith) over the past six years. It's been a rather fun transformation, to watch the roleplay evolve to a more realistic and dynamic setting. It's already not at all very much much like ye ole Udos days, where one had to constantly bow or be made to suffer the consequences. While I'm a big proponent of PvP muscle to back up your words, walk-the-walk-talk-the-talk, if you will, what it means to play a drow, has come a long way.

All the old elements remain, they've just been toned down to realistic (more 'human') levels. Houses still vying for supremacy, females often receiving honorifics, lies and manipulation among your own kin and outsiders alike, while sometimes humans are your best allies against kin you otherwise hate.

If you want an idea of how to make drow work, come play one

Old wiki entries aren't going to give you a good idea of how it comes down to practice, here on Arelith.

[Invader_Nym]

Been playing drow only for about eight years. No offense taken.

[Invader_Nym]

Ultimately, the classical conception of the drow seems to work best as a sort of canvas on which to have a more 'human' protagonist struggle, which is why the novels work, but it has always been hit-and-miss in persistent worlds, from my experience, because you've removed that more human protagonist from the equation.

I don't think a 'human' element is necessary for success, at least when it comes to the books. The Drizzt novels made is easy to empathise with the protagonist, sure, and they were good books IMO, but they aren't the only books set in the world - War of the Spider Queen is a six-part series where the main party is ruthless and very Drow-like, and they are pretty good books, too. Personally, I love Drow lore. I'd be turned away by a setting that tried to keep the xenophobia but stripped away other important aspects of the race's core identity.

There are 30+ Drizzt books vs the 6 War of the Spider Queen books, and the gimmick that made the spider queen books worth enduring is the sheer magnitude of the story, in which the deities themselves are undergoing change.

If anything, the free market underscores the argument I'm making, which is that stories with a human element are the ones people keep coming back to.

[LichBait]

I'm one of the biggest drow fans around, and have been almost exclusively playing drow since the Udos Dro'xun era. I like that the Andunor setting allows for more flexibility among the drow backstories and RP. However, no matter the setting, the thing that makes drow.. drow is their core identity. Lloth is a big part of many stories, but isn't the complete end all. What makes drow.. drow and interesting is their intrigue, back-stabbery, alliances of convenience/necessity (which can be close, like a mockery of friendship until something better comes along), ect. IMO they wouldn't really be drow anymore without a lot of these traits.

The Andunor setting has thankfully made it possible to portray multiple drow cultures, but the central theme to them is largely gaining status at the cost of 'friendship'. This doesn't mean they can't have 'friends' (read: Allies that they'd somewhat regret, for whatever reason, ditching) of a sort, they just will be mildly regretful to have to spend their 'friend' for personal gain.

I guess ultimately what I want to say is that drow do have many cultures and societies, many Lloth centric, others centered about another deity, but aside from the Eilistraeeans they core of the drow identity is personal drive/gain at the cost of everyone else around them. Though their superiority complex allows them to band together like a hive of psychotic bees if their own racial superiority is threatened.

An aside, I also found the War of the Spider Queen series one of the best written drow series. They're probably my favorite books.

[Liareth]

Ultimately, the classical conception of the drow seems to work best as a sort of canvas on which to have a more 'human' protagonist struggle, which is why the novels work, but it has always been hit-and-miss in persistent worlds, from my experience, because you've removed that more human protagonist from the equation.

I don't think a 'human' element is necessary for success, at least when it comes to the books. The Drizzt novels made is easy to empathise with the protagonist, sure, and they were good books IMO, but they aren't the only books set in the world - War of the Spider Queen is a six-part series where the main party is ruthless and very Drow-like, and they are pretty good books, too. Personally, I love Drow lore. I'd be turned away by a setting that tried to keep the xenophobia but stripped away other important aspects of the race's core identity.

There are 30+ Drizzt books vs the 6 War of the Spider Queen books, and the gimmick that made the spider queen books worth enduring is the sheer magnitude of the story, in which the deities themselves are undergoing change.

If anything, the free market underscores the argument I'm making, which is that stories with a human element are the ones people keep coming back to.

How many of the Drizzt books are actually set in a Drow setting, however? Only the first one by my count (though I got little bored by the fifth book and stopped reading so maybe there's more). There are more successful Drow-setting books than there are Drow-setting-with-Drizzt books.

[Durvayas]

I'm one of the biggest drow fans around, and have been almost exclusively playing drow since the Udos Dro'xun era. I like that the Andunor setting allows for more flexibility among the drow backstories and RP. However, no matter the setting, the thing that makes drow.. drow is their core identity. Lloth is a big part of many stories, but isn't the complete end all. What makes drow.. drow and interesting is their intrigue, back-stabbery, alliances of convenience/necessity (which can be close, like a mockery of friendship until something better comes along), ect. IMO they wouldn't really be drow anymore without a lot of these traits.

The Andunor setting has thankfully made it possible to portray multiple drow cultures, but the central theme to them is largely gaining status at the cost of 'friendship'. This doesn't mean they can't have 'friends' (read: Allies that they'd somewhat regret, for whatever reason, ditching) of a sort, they just will be mildly regretful to have to spend their 'friend' for personal gain.

I guess ultimately what I want to say is that drow do have many cultures and societies, many Lloth centric, others centered about another deity, but aside from the Eilistraeeans they core of the drow identity is personal drive/gain at the cost of everyone else around them. Though their superiority complex allows them to band together like a hive of psychotic bees if their own racial superiority is threatened.

I'm mostly in the same boat as Lichbait here.
I've been playing the UD for yeeeeeaarrrs, and Andunor has been a great setting for trying new drow concepts. From openly Kiaran clergy and houses, to the delightful experiment that has been La'laskra-ism. The core of drow RP is survivalism in a setting where nobody gives a damn about your character beyond what your character has to offer. At least at first.

With the exception of Eilistreaee and La'laskra worshippers, loyalty and friendship are foreign concepts to the drow, though both faiths approach it from different angles with different motivations. Lolthite friendships are borne of convenience or,noncompetition. Whoever is not your rival, is not usually a threat.

But Nym my boy...

My conception of the drow would be that they retain their highly xenophobic nature, while ditching the gender-based dominance, and the shunning of friendship. In fact, my vision for how the drow might actually work and be fun and prosperous in a PW is that they're staunchly and unyieldingly loyal to each-other, while still retaining all their malevolent tenancies towards outsiders. In this way they retain their evil nature, and the fundamental lore regarding how they are cunning and evil and dangerous to surfacers, can all be retained, while all the problems I outlined above get addressed.

If you remove the bit about ditching gender-based dominance, you just described the essence of La'laskran drow. They're LE and fanatically loyal to eachother, but still stay true to drow sensibilities. They won't backstab eachother for the world, but they'll gleefully lie and manipulate non-drow and they retain all the usual xenophobic trappings.

I think the most important thing to note is that true CE Lolthite culture is completely unsustainable to RP(especially on Arelith due to people respawning and a lower population). As a result almost all of Arelith's drow are, objectively, NE in behavior. Its almost impossible to play a successful CE character without being either a caricature of cliches with little to no personality, or being enough of a dick you get yourself banned.
As the population of the UD has swung sharply from being 80% drow to now, where its probably about 40%, lolthite RP has become an unsustainable practice, and many player created and enforced traditions have fallen out of favor as the population has become more pragmatic.
Back in the udos era, you could count on the drow being 90% lolthite, because there was no escape for heretics. Anyone convicted got killed off(and rolled/deleted because there was nowhere they could go on the server. Still a problem today, only less so). The strong lolthite foundation of Arelith's drow community enforced such customs as restricted access to the surface(drow needed permission), no fighting in the streets(violators would be severely punished), and whips became a symbol of the clergy(despite lolth's chosen weapon being a dagger), and non-drow bowing to all drow(to a degree, this is still enforced from time to time, when the drow are strong enough to do so. Nowadays its more common they'll just make PCs bow to nobles/clergy, rather than everyone.). Arelith's drow culture has grown on its own, organically, over a decade. It is foolishness to point at the books and say it is being done right or wrong at this point. It just is.

The thing that is driving a large culture shift in recent times is that the lolthite aspect of drow RP is collapsing. Lolthite drow probably make up only about 40% of drow in existance on arelith today. La'laskrans at least 15%, Kiarans at least 10% Sharrans at least 15%, with an unknown number of Vhaerunites, selvetarglin, zinzerinaan, ghaunadaurites, and eilistreaans. The population of lolthite clergy has dropped enough and the incidence of the worship of Kiaransalee and La'laskra is so prevalent that they had to be integrated into the temple to keep the temple functional. During the olden days, Kiarans were often killbashed, and didn't even start making themselves known publicly until just before the end of the pit town era(Selvetarm was periodically banned and unbanned by the temple too.). There has been a religious progressive shift in the server's drow power structure to be more accepting of the rest of the dark seldarine, though for now, its been limited to the 'big three goddesses' Lolth, Kiaransalee, and La'laskra. Selvetarm is there too... kinda, but isn't usually trusted by the temple because 90% of selvetarglin priests have been completely indistinguishable in behavior from vhaerunite, sharran, and (for some reason still a thing) male priests of lolth.

Classic lolthite RP, while lore rich, is very oppressive. Now that there are other options, people are taking them, and its caused a paradigm shift. The lolthite way of life is dying, and the drow are adapting.