Looking back to Drizzt's first rendering on the cover of the Crystal Shard ... kinda purple.
As an aside, black skin (as well as most other black surfaces) is rarely actual black in art - the image or rendering loses detail if you do that. Typically very dark blues or purples are used and shading suggests (or tries to) the idea that it's meant to be black. Good miniature paint jobs never use solid black other than for details or washes or some such, and even for those things painters will usually avoid it. Black and white images are the obvious exception, naturally.
Obviously nobody is offended at charcoal black Drow.
See, now you're essentially saying people can't be offended by something. I've tried explaining why some not necessarily shouldn't be, not even that they can't be, and that blew up in my face already (maybe deservedly so, if I failed to make the distinction clear). Point is, none of us gets to decide what someone else is or is not offended by.
No need to be coy about it, it's because of allegations of racism; nothing recent I believe, but because of feelings that go back decades. I don't see the point in disseminating that old chestnut yet again - as with most such things it something people shouldn't necessarily take offense at, but certainly can if it comes across as such to them. Nothing really wrong with either position. If you prefer them jet black and nobody in your game will take offense, godspeed and have at it. If somebody in your game would take offense on the other hand, I'd say the proper thing to do would be to switch to greys or blues or purples or anything else that doesn't strike the wrong tone anyway - regardless of any official lore or errata to said lore.
Yeah I read up on some history about how Drow were depicted originally - like a loooooong time ago. Didn't know about the issue and don't know who actually kept pushing about Drow being offensive. Obviously nobody is offended at charcoal black Drow. They're putting band-aids on band-aids that don't need them.
Like I grew up with D&D and Drow representations. I'm 35. Never once thought them having black skin was relevant to my earthen realm.
Now they are, lol, hues of gray. Which as written, however anyone wants to believe, doesn't mean black.
Drizzt does not look as cool. He gets lighter gray every year. They're being so non-offensive that now he's getting white-washed lol!!!
Maybe Drizzt "fading to white wash" is actually a known (retcon lore) Drow condition as they age or spend time on the surface as Drizzt is want to do.
How Drow are rendered may not have been relevant to you. I didn't give it much thought either. However, I did educate myself on the arguments of things like skin tone and representation and appropriation and essentialism, and I thought the arguments that were raised in regards Drow and OrcS and colonialism and "dark othering" did in fact have a point, so the changes weren't abrasive to me. A lot of folks want to pretend their imaginative. pastimes are ideology free zones. They're not, so if I hear about someone being offended by my imaginative pastime, I pay respect and try to engage in my imaginative pastime more mindfully. TTRPGs relate to a lot of arts, particularly the narrative ones, art likes to work in extremes and can be masterfully offensive or considerate. I choose the latter.
The design change in question was discussed to death in at least thirty other threads several months ago, primarily driven by a relatively small but incredibly vocal group of die-hard ultra-conservative players who made everybody else's life a total hellscape sabotaging as many threeads as they could and wrenching them into flaming diatribes about how Wizards is Killing The True Soul of D&D Forever(C) and how all this "Woke Shit" will be the final death knell of a once-great property and it's all the fault of those damn dirty millenials who went and killed it.
People are very sensitive about any new threads on the subject, especially as some of the most vocal and vitriolic such users were banned and rumored to've tried to evade their bans with alt accounts. A brand new user starting a thread titled "Why can't I be proud to be black?" basically pushed every single red flag button people have left from that time. It's why you're getting pushback, and doubtlessly why some of us are gonna be infracted over this. Just so's ye know.
Thank you for the info. I am a dirty millennial but I never come to this forum.
I played Baldur's Gate 2, D&D from 3.5, read some Drizzt novels 10 years ago and I like the color black. I like all dark elves even WoW bright purple. I just liked that D&D had their own distinct exaggerated depiction.
I always play Dark Link in super smash brothers because he's badass.
I guess I'll just cry under my covers tonight because future generations will think D&D dark elves are like that new hasbro D&D toy. :'(
No need to be coy about it, it's because of allegations of racism; nothing recent I believe, but because of feelings that go back decades. I don't see the point in disseminating that old chestnut yet again - as with most such things it something people shouldn't necessarily take offense at, but certainly can if it comes across as such to them. Nothing really wrong with either position. If you prefer them jet black and nobody in your game will take offense, godspeed and have at it. If somebody in your game would take offense on the other hand, I'd say the proper thing to do would be to switch to greys or blues or purples or anything else that doesn't strike the wrong tone anyway - regardless of any official lore or errata to said lore.
Yeah I read up on some history about how Drow were depicted originally - like a loooooong time ago. Didn't know about the issue and don't know who actually kept pushing about Drow being offensive. Obviously nobody is offended at charcoal black Drow. They're putting band-aids on band-aids that don't need them.
Like I grew up with D&D and Drow representations. I'm 35. Never once thought them having black skin was relevant to my earthen realm.
Now they are, lol, hues of gray. Which as written, however anyone wants to believe, doesn't mean black.
Drizzt does not look as cool. He gets lighter gray every year. They're being so non-offensive that now he's getting white-washed lol!!!
Maybe Drizzt "fading to white wash" is actually a known (retcon lore) Drow condition as they age or spend time on the surface as Drizzt is want to do.
How Drow are rendered may not have been relevant to you. I didn't give it much thought either. However, I did educate myself on the arguments of things like skin tone and representation and appropriation and essentialism, and I thought the arguments that were raised in regards Drow and OrcS and colonialism and "dark othering" did in fact have a point, so the changes weren't abrasive to me. A lot of folks want to pretend their imaginative. pastimes are ideology free zones. They're not, so if I hear about someone being offended by my imaginative pastime, I pay respect and try to engage in my imaginative pastime more mindfully. TTRPGs relate to a lot of arts, particularly the narrative ones, art likes to work in extremes and can be masterfully offensive or considerate. I choose the latter.
Now they are, lol, hues of gray. Which as written, however anyone wants to believe, doesn't mean black.
It includes everything you have ever thought was black; typical albedo of black acrylic paint or fresh asphalt is around 0.05, which is in fact grey. I'm pretty sure the reason for grey is so people don't decide 'black' means 'dark brown'.
Point is, none of us gets to decide what someone else is or is not offended by.
True true. Good words.
Maybe I got offended today because I like some consistency in my world building. I remember going to Menzoberranzan and all the Drow as I imagined were deadly creepy and black like my headphones, water bottle, whatever.
Not like carebear WoW elves.
Or this abomination:
I must've missed the book where he got bitten by a vampire.
I was kinda being facetious. Hue is never used to describe gray, black or white. There are no hues of gray. It's nonsensical.
People do talk about 'warm' and 'cool' grey. Which are basically 'hint of red' and 'hint of blue'. But yes, greys are mostly about saturation, not hue.
The Drow were (originally and for a very long time) both black skinned and always evil with the sole exception of Drizzt and maybe two or three other individuals also written by Salvatore. On one hand the black skin does make perfect sense for natural camouflaged for a race that lives in there underdark where it is generally, you know, dark. On the other hand you run into the presentation issue that appears either racist or at least inconsiderately executed by having an entire race of evil black people. The coloration part (including the idiotic use of words intended to sound cool while not using said words properly, I hate that shit) is a backpedal from appearing racist, and if you ask me they're overdoing it just to make sure they're being "inoffensive".
There's also another entirely different theme coinciding with the very much political one of skin color. That is the entire race being evil in the first place. The Drow were intended from their creation to be bad guys. Villains. Scary enemies for heroes to fight. Then RA Salvatore made a character that broke that mold and contrasted against his entire race to be a hero and every uncreative fanboy/fangirl in the D&D community wants to play a cool good guy rebel. I'm now specifically recalling an old Order of the Stick comic where a drow character (who actually is evil) explains that his entire race was errata'd into being chaotic good rebels, prompting the response of "But then what are you all rebelling against?" It was a funny sarcastic joke a good decade ago, but now with the latest errata it appears WotC has gone official with it. Because Racial tendencies are restrictive, just like all members of the same race having similar physical or mental advantages (ie stat bonuses), so now they're changing the rules to basically say "make your character have whatever abilities, tendencies, background, height weight, etc, and call your three foot tall, two hundred fifty pound, bright orange, horned, winged charismatic virtuoso an elf because we're progressive and race doesn't matter."
When you try too hard to be non-offensive you end up doing things like changing a race of evil black people into a race of good not-quite-white-but-definitely-not black-people. I know it isn't what the hyper-sensitive placative motivations intended, but it could just as easily be seen as "Oh, so now that they're not evil they can't be black anymore." It's a case of overcorrecting multiple things and ending up with a double negative type effect where it still looks bad because the process was poorly thought out.
And seriously, that above image looks like Drizzt's been rolling around in chalk dust. It's absurd.
I want to point out Gunmetal, Jet, Onyx and as a last example Dark Charcoal for the people who are afraid that Drow will not be able to have a dark skin complexion any more. Oh, I forgot Rich Gray, my bad. It also opens up other parts of the spectrum, like Silver Pink, Xanadu and Glaucous. Thank you for reading this public service announcement.
Why is the errata making Drow grey? For practical purposes, when passing phosphorescent fungus, the deepest of black skin would not reflect light as much light as grayish hues would. I believe that the hunters, scouts and assassins would have the deepest of black skin by evolution and cultural designation.
Going to set aside the rest of the discussion and just call this out as stupid. A black figure passing in front of grayish rock walls will stand out much more than a grayish figure. That said, clothes will have a much greater impact than skin color.
The Drow were (originally and for a very long time) both black skinned and always evil with the sole exception of Drizzt and maybe two or three other individuals also written by Salvatore. On one hand the black skin does make perfect sense for natural camouflaged for a race that lives in there underdark where it is generally, you know, dark. On the other hand you run into the presentation issue that appears either racist or at least inconsiderately executed by having an entire race of evil black people. The coloration part (including the idiotic use of words intended to sound cool while not using said words properly, I hate that shit) is a backpedal from appearing racist, and if you ask me they're overdoing it just to make sure they're being "inoffensive".
There's also another entirely different theme coinciding with the very much political one of skin color. That is the entire race being evil in the first place. The Drow were intended from their creation to be bad guys. Villains. Scary enemies for heroes to fight. Then RA Salvatore made a character that broke that mold and contrasted against his entire race to be a hero and every uncreative fanboy/fangirl in the D&D community wants to play a cool good guy rebel. I'm now specifically recalling an old Order of the Stick comic where a drow character (who actually is evil) explains that his entire race was errata'd into being chaotic good rebels, prompting the response of "But then what are you all rebelling against?" It was a funny sarcastic joke a good decade ago, but now with the latest errata it appears WotC has gone official with it. Because Racial tendencies are restrictive, just like all members of the same race having similar physical or mental advantages (ie stat bonuses), so now they're changing the rules to basically say "make your character have whatever abilities, tendencies, background, height weight, etc, and call your three foot tall, two hundred fifty pound, bright orange, horned, winged charismatic virtuoso an elf because we're progressive and race doesn't matter."
When you try too hard to be non-offensive you end up doing things like changing a race of evil black people into a race of good not-quite-white-but-definitely-not black-people. I know it isn't what the hyper-sensitive placative motivations intended, but it could just as easily be seen as "Oh, so now that they're not evil they can't be black anymore." It's a case of overcorrecting multiple things and ending up with a double negative type effect where it still looks bad because the process was poorly thought out.
And seriously, that above image looks like Drizzt's been rolling around in chalk dust. It's absurd.
This is not true. When we look at the Q1 module Queen of the Demonweb Pits, the adventurers go to the Drow City of Erelhei-Cinlu. In the description of the city, there is mention of rebellious young Drow who roam the streets, dissatisfied with Lolth and her Evil ways. So in one of the defining early works on Drow, placed in the original DnD world there was already a certain ambiguity around how all Drow were Evil. Then we got Drizzt, Eilistraee(1991) and others in FR, but then as early as 1992 we got a mention of a Drow Goddess called Zinzerena again in Greyhawk with a CN alignment. So even way back when there have been numerous exceptions. It's just that the focus has always been on the evil part in other words the followers of the Dark Seldarine .
Why is the errata making Drow grey? For practical purposes, when passing phosphorescent fungus, the deepest of black skin would not reflect light as much light as grayish hues would. I believe that the hunters, scouts and assassins would have the deepest of black skin by evolution and cultural designation.
Going to set aside the rest of the discussion and just call this out as stupid. A black figure passing in front of grayish rock walls will stand out much more than a grayish figure. That said, clothes will have a much greater impact than skin color.
Not to mention that it is literally a magical world, so evolution is not normally any conventional factor.
Or that Drow started out as surface elves, with brown and tan skin and black hair, and their complexion change came about through a ritual and losing Corellon Larethian's grace as a consequence in the first place.
That aside, humanoids camouflage themselves all the time. No need to evolve on a genetic level when you can wear dark clothing and rub any colour you want on your skin - magic doesn't even have to enter into it (though it can, and certainly is a factor). The 'practical purposes' of dark skin are a non-issue. These are elves, not animals that depend on growing fangs and claws to fight with, fur to keep warm, scales for defense or, indeed, low visibility skin patterns to be better stalkers. They have metal weapons, clothing, armor, tools and if push comes to shove magic for that.
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Beyond the ethical ramifications of "This species of sapient, self-aware humanoids, ostensibly gifted with free will and the spark of true intelligence, is 100% irredeemably Chaotic Evil and must be expunged from the Realms forever even though you can make PCs of this species"...drow are simply incredibly popular as a player option. People love them, both playing for and against type, and giving the incredibly popular player option the same range of freedom as most any other PC species just kinda makes sense. DMs can always reimpose restrictions, especially if they've been playing with the older lore for decades. If your drow are purely black-skinned Always Chaotic Evil Lolth-worshipping slavers that cannot be redeemed, reasoned with, or anything-but-murdered, then so long as your players are on board, go for it.
And frankly even I'm willing to admit that plastic figurine just looks off. But that often tends to happen with plastic toys; his face looks like it's made of plastic there, and not because it actually is. It's bizarre - they did a great job on his armor and gear, but man they dropped the ball on his face.
Just as an aside, and because we're all here anyways - what's everybody's favorite drow character/concept? I ran into an Internet meme a while back I've wanted to play really badly ever since, some 4chan thing of "you see a drow rogue, dressed in dark leathers with her hood drawn up over her head, idly toying with a dagger while keeping to herself in a shadowy corner of the tavern. Upon further inspection, and daring a conversation with the brooding young antiheroine, you discover...
She's actually very friendly! She's hopiong to find work but has been having just the worst luck, and is so glad you came over to talk to her.
She's 'brooding' because she's painfully shy, and all the loud, boisterous mead-chugging and rabble-rousing is kinda overwhelming to somebody used to long stretches of silence and solitude on the roads.
She's dressed in dark leathers because bright, colorfully dyed leathers are way more expensive and she just can't afford them. Plus in her line of work, your working clothes are dull and dark and your for-fun clothes are brightly colored...if you could afford for-fun clothes, anyways...
Her hood is up and she's lurking in the shadows because all the bright firelight from the rest of the tavern hurts her eyes, and she's trying to give them some rest.
The dagger she's playing with is actually a keepsake from her mother, who gave it to her when she helped her daughter escape the [cruelty of the Spider's web/rigid soul-recycling 'destiny' of the Krynn Dynasty]. It's got her family's crest embossed on the pommel, and it's one of her dearest treasures.
She's keeping to herself because she knows her people's reputation outside the Underdark/Dynasty and she's already had some real bad trouble just trying to get by. She's learned that it's better to survey the situation first, second, and possibly even third before stepping a foot out of place and starting another riot just because she's a drow...
I've wanted to play that rogue for forever, but the chance just never comes up. It's maddening. I love it to death and would dive wholeheartedly into the role, but it turns out that chances to play a fish-outta-water drow rogue Nice Girl who's just trying to get by and find her way in strange lands are far fewer than one might assume. Glugh.
I've wanted to play that rogue for forever, but the chance just never comes up. It's maddening. I love it to death and would dive wholeheartedly into the role, but it turns out that chances to play a fish-outta-water drow rogue Nice Girl who's just trying to get by and find her way in strange lands are far fewer than one might assume. Glugh.
I mean, if the campaign you're playing in isn't set in the Forgotten Realms all this assumed baggage potentially goes out the window. And I'm not saying the Realms aren't popular, but outside official adventures set there I don't see a ton of campaigns picking them for a setting.
I'm personally not the biggest fan of playing drow or warlocks, but the drow + warlock combo creates instant tension (if, again, looking at it through a Realmsian lens).
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Beyond the ethical ramifications of "This species of sapient, self-aware humanoids, ostensibly gifted with free will and the spark of true intelligence, is 100% irredeemably Chaotic Evil and must be expunged from the Realms forever even though you can make PCs of this species"...drow are simply incredibly popular as a player option. People love them, both playing for and against type, and giving the incredibly popular player option the same range of freedom as most any other PC species just kinda makes sense. DMs can always reimpose restrictions, especially if they've been playing with the older lore for decades. If your drow are purely black-skinned Always Chaotic Evil Lolth-worshipping slavers that cannot be redeemed, reasoned with, or anything-but-murdered, then so long as your players are on board, go for it.
And frankly even I'm willing to admit that plastic figurine just looks off. But that often tends to happen with plastic toys; his face looks like it's made of plastic there, and not because it actually is. It's bizarre - they did a great job on his armor and gear, but man they dropped the ball on his face.
Just as an aside, and because we're all here anyways - what's everybody's favorite drow character/concept? I ran into an Internet meme a while back I've wanted to play really badly ever since, some 4chan thing of "you see a drow rogue, dressed in dark leathers with her hood drawn up over her head, idly toying with a dagger while keeping to herself in a shadowy corner of the tavern. Upon further inspection, and daring a conversation with the brooding young antiheroine, you discover...
She's actually very friendly! She's hopiong to find work but has been having just the worst luck, and is so glad you came over to talk to her.
She's 'brooding' because she's painfully shy, and all the loud, boisterous mead-chugging and rabble-rousing is kinda overwhelming to somebody used to long stretches of silence and solitude on the roads.
She's dressed in dark leathers because bright, colorfully dyed leathers are way more expensive and she just can't afford them. Plus in her line of work, your working clothes are dull and dark and your for-fun clothes are brightly colored...if you could afford for-fun clothes, anyways...
Her hood is up and she's lurking in the shadows because all the bright firelight from the rest of the tavern hurts her eyes, and she's trying to give them some rest.
The dagger she's playing with is actually a keepsake from her mother, who gave it to her when she helped her daughter escape the [cruelty of the Spider's web/rigid soul-recycling 'destiny' of the Krynn Dynasty]. It's got her family's crest embossed on the pommel, and it's one of her dearest treasures.
She's keeping to herself because she knows her people's reputation outside the Underdark/Dynasty and she's already had some real bad trouble just trying to get by. She's learned that it's better to survey the situation first, second, and possibly even third before stepping a foot out of place and starting another riot just because she's a drow...
I've wanted to play that rogue for forever, but the chance just never comes up. It's maddening. I love it to death and would dive wholeheartedly into the role, but it turns out that chances to play a fish-outta-water drow rogue Nice Girl who's just trying to get by and find her way in strange lands are far fewer than one might assume. Glugh.
After playing Queen of the Demonweb Pits in the early Nineties and killing Lolth (yeah seems that shouldn't have been possible canon wise) I played a Drow Cavalier/Wizard. He was a kind but just person, not interested in petty crimes, only in combatting the larger enemies of good. We used a mixture of 1st and 2nd edition rules. He was LG was one of three adventurers who survived a Ravenloft campaign, were able to leave it and arrived on an unknown world. Alas, soon after the campaign ended as the DM and on the other survivors got into an ugly divorce. I found the character creation sheet a while back when I was going through some old stuff.
Beyond the ethical ramifications of "This species of sapient, self-aware humanoids, ostensibly gifted with free will and the spark of true intelligence, is 100% irredeemably Chaotic Evil and must be expunged from the Realms forever even though you can make PCs of this species"...drow are simply incredibly popular as a player option.
The drow weren't originally irredeemably evil. There were a variety of canonically documented drow of good persuasion. as far back as at /least/ 2e. My 1e lore isn't as solid, I'd have to defer to someone like Ed Greenwood, but I am pretty sure that he has Eilistraee around as early as 1e. I just don't know how canon her and her followers are in the 1e time period.
That didn't happen until 4e, when for some reason WotC made the decision that /all/ drow should be evil so that Drizzt would feel more unique. I seem to recall an interview with Perkins where that was admitted, but it was so long ago I can't source it properly any more. That's why Salvatore had to kill off Tos'un Armgo (he was no longer allowed to be good) and Cattibrie went down the path of orcs are all irredeemably evil in the books. It was all because WotC made some really stupid choices in 4e lore-wise that removed racial agency from intelligent races. That choice really hasn't aged well, and here we are, with more ham fisted retcons to fix what they shouldn't have broken in the first place...and rather than try to use a scalpel to adjust things, they use a sledge hammer for their surgery.
Honestly WotC isn't very good at lore. They're very good at crunch and mechanics, but they are utter hogwash at lore. I wish they would stop trying and let DMs and 3rd party people write that.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
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As an aside, black skin (as well as most other black surfaces) is rarely actual black in art - the image or rendering loses detail if you do that. Typically very dark blues or purples are used and shading suggests (or tries to) the idea that it's meant to be black. Good miniature paint jobs never use solid black other than for details or washes or some such, and even for those things painters will usually avoid it. Black and white images are the obvious exception, naturally.
See, now you're essentially saying people can't be offended by something. I've tried explaining why some not necessarily shouldn't be, not even that they can't be, and that blew up in my face already (maybe deservedly so, if I failed to make the distinction clear). Point is, none of us gets to decide what someone else is or is not offended by.
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Maybe Drizzt "fading to white wash" is actually a known (retcon lore) Drow condition as they age or spend time on the surface as Drizzt is want to do.
How Drow are rendered may not have been relevant to you. I didn't give it much thought either. However, I did educate myself on the arguments of things like skin tone and representation and appropriation and essentialism, and I thought the arguments that were raised in regards Drow and OrcS and colonialism and "dark othering" did in fact have a point, so the changes weren't abrasive to me. A lot of folks want to pretend their imaginative. pastimes are ideology free zones. They're not, so if I hear about someone being offended by my imaginative pastime, I pay respect and try to engage in my imaginative pastime more mindfully. TTRPGs relate to a lot of arts, particularly the narrative ones, art likes to work in extremes and can be masterfully offensive or considerate. I choose the latter.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Thank you for the info. I am a dirty millennial but I never come to this forum.
I played Baldur's Gate 2, D&D from 3.5, read some Drizzt novels 10 years ago and I like the color black. I like all dark elves even WoW bright purple. I just liked that D&D had their own distinct exaggerated depiction.
I always play Dark Link in super smash brothers because he's badass.
I guess I'll just cry under my covers tonight because future generations will think D&D dark elves are like that new hasbro D&D toy. :'(
Oh he does have a heart!
<3
It includes everything you have ever thought was black; typical albedo of black acrylic paint or fresh asphalt is around 0.05, which is in fact grey. I'm pretty sure the reason for grey is so people don't decide 'black' means 'dark brown'.
True true. Good words.
Maybe I got offended today because I like some consistency in my world building. I remember going to Menzoberranzan and all the Drow as I imagined were deadly creepy and black like my headphones, water bottle, whatever.
Not like carebear WoW elves.
Or this abomination:
I must've missed the book where he got bitten by a vampire.
Well let's hug it out everyone.
Thanks for chatting.
I guess everything in reality is technically just a different hue of gray... I guess. Visually or metaphorically.
Ya'll are all right though.
I got scared at the start but it's great to see this come to a very nice conclusion.
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I was kinda being facetious. Hue is never used to describe gray, black or white. There are no hues of gray. It's nonsensical.
I still think it's way overkill for the Drow to no longer be able to be described as "black".
It's a good color!
People do talk about 'warm' and 'cool' grey. Which are basically 'hint of red' and 'hint of blue'. But yes, greys are mostly about saturation, not hue.
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The Drow were (originally and for a very long time) both black skinned and always evil with the sole exception of Drizzt and maybe two or three other individuals also written by Salvatore. On one hand the black skin does make perfect sense for natural camouflaged for a race that lives in there underdark where it is generally, you know, dark. On the other hand you run into the presentation issue that appears either racist or at least inconsiderately executed by having an entire race of evil black people. The coloration part (including the idiotic use of words intended to sound cool while not using said words properly, I hate that shit) is a backpedal from appearing racist, and if you ask me they're overdoing it just to make sure they're being "inoffensive".
There's also another entirely different theme coinciding with the very much political one of skin color. That is the entire race being evil in the first place. The Drow were intended from their creation to be bad guys. Villains. Scary enemies for heroes to fight. Then RA Salvatore made a character that broke that mold and contrasted against his entire race to be a hero and every uncreative fanboy/fangirl in the D&D community wants to play a cool good guy rebel. I'm now specifically recalling an old Order of the Stick comic where a drow character (who actually is evil) explains that his entire race was errata'd into being chaotic good rebels, prompting the response of "But then what are you all rebelling against?" It was a funny sarcastic joke a good decade ago, but now with the latest errata it appears WotC has gone official with it. Because Racial tendencies are restrictive, just like all members of the same race having similar physical or mental advantages (ie stat bonuses), so now they're changing the rules to basically say "make your character have whatever abilities, tendencies, background, height weight, etc, and call your three foot tall, two hundred fifty pound, bright orange, horned, winged charismatic virtuoso an elf because we're progressive and race doesn't matter."
When you try too hard to be non-offensive you end up doing things like changing a race of evil black people into a race of good not-quite-white-but-definitely-not black-people. I know it isn't what the hyper-sensitive placative motivations intended, but it could just as easily be seen as "Oh, so now that they're not evil they can't be black anymore." It's a case of overcorrecting multiple things and ending up with a double negative type effect where it still looks bad because the process was poorly thought out.
And seriously, that above image looks like Drizzt's been rolling around in chalk dust. It's absurd.
Just a link to a page containing 136 shades of the colour Gray with their, names, Hex, RGB and CMYK codes.
https://www.color-meanings.com/shades-of-gray-color-names-html-hex-rgb-codes/
I want to point out Gunmetal, Jet, Onyx and as a last example Dark Charcoal for the people who are afraid that Drow will not be able to have a dark skin complexion any more. Oh, I forgot Rich Gray, my bad. It also opens up other parts of the spectrum, like Silver Pink, Xanadu and Glaucous. Thank you for reading this public service announcement.
Going to set aside the rest of the discussion and just call this out as stupid. A black figure passing in front of grayish rock walls will stand out much more than a grayish figure. That said, clothes will have a much greater impact than skin color.
This is not true. When we look at the Q1 module Queen of the Demonweb Pits, the adventurers go to the Drow City of Erelhei-Cinlu. In the description of the city, there is mention of rebellious young Drow who roam the streets, dissatisfied with Lolth and her Evil ways. So in one of the defining early works on Drow, placed in the original DnD world there was already a certain ambiguity around how all Drow were Evil. Then we got Drizzt, Eilistraee(1991) and others in FR, but then as early as 1992 we got a mention of a Drow Goddess called Zinzerena again in Greyhawk with a CN alignment. So even way back when there have been numerous exceptions. It's just that the focus has always been on the evil part in other words the followers of the Dark Seldarine .
Or that Drow started out as surface elves, with brown and tan skin and black hair, and their complexion change came about through a ritual and losing Corellon Larethian's grace as a consequence in the first place.
That aside, humanoids camouflage themselves all the time. No need to evolve on a genetic level when you can wear dark clothing and rub any colour you want on your skin - magic doesn't even have to enter into it (though it can, and certainly is a factor). The 'practical purposes' of dark skin are a non-issue. These are elves, not animals that depend on growing fangs and claws to fight with, fur to keep warm, scales for defense or, indeed, low visibility skin patterns to be better stalkers. They have metal weapons, clothing, armor, tools and if push comes to shove magic for that.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Beyond the ethical ramifications of "This species of sapient, self-aware humanoids, ostensibly gifted with free will and the spark of true intelligence, is 100% irredeemably Chaotic Evil and must be expunged from the Realms forever even though you can make PCs of this species"...drow are simply incredibly popular as a player option. People love them, both playing for and against type, and giving the incredibly popular player option the same range of freedom as most any other PC species just kinda makes sense. DMs can always reimpose restrictions, especially if they've been playing with the older lore for decades. If your drow are purely black-skinned Always Chaotic Evil Lolth-worshipping slavers that cannot be redeemed, reasoned with, or anything-but-murdered, then so long as your players are on board, go for it.
And frankly even I'm willing to admit that plastic figurine just looks off. But that often tends to happen with plastic toys; his face looks like it's made of plastic there, and not because it actually is. It's bizarre - they did a great job on his armor and gear, but man they dropped the ball on his face.
Just as an aside, and because we're all here anyways - what's everybody's favorite drow character/concept? I ran into an Internet meme a while back I've wanted to play really badly ever since, some 4chan thing of "you see a drow rogue, dressed in dark leathers with her hood drawn up over her head, idly toying with a dagger while keeping to herself in a shadowy corner of the tavern. Upon further inspection, and daring a conversation with the brooding young antiheroine, you discover...
I've wanted to play that rogue for forever, but the chance just never comes up. It's maddening. I love it to death and would dive wholeheartedly into the role, but it turns out that chances to play a fish-outta-water drow rogue Nice Girl who's just trying to get by and find her way in strange lands are far fewer than one might assume. Glugh.
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I mean, if the campaign you're playing in isn't set in the Forgotten Realms all this assumed baggage potentially goes out the window. And I'm not saying the Realms aren't popular, but outside official adventures set there I don't see a ton of campaigns picking them for a setting.
I'm personally not the biggest fan of playing drow or warlocks, but the drow + warlock combo creates instant tension (if, again, looking at it through a Realmsian lens).
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
After playing Queen of the Demonweb Pits in the early Nineties and killing Lolth (yeah seems that shouldn't have been possible canon wise) I played a Drow Cavalier/Wizard. He was a kind but just person, not interested in petty crimes, only in combatting the larger enemies of good. We used a mixture of 1st and 2nd edition rules. He was LG was one of three adventurers who survived a Ravenloft campaign, were able to leave it and arrived on an unknown world. Alas, soon after the campaign ended as the DM and on the other survivors got into an ugly divorce. I found the character creation sheet a while back when I was going through some old stuff.
The drow weren't originally irredeemably evil. There were a variety of canonically documented drow of good persuasion. as far back as at /least/ 2e. My 1e lore isn't as solid, I'd have to defer to someone like Ed Greenwood, but I am pretty sure that he has Eilistraee around as early as 1e. I just don't know how canon her and her followers are in the 1e time period.
That didn't happen until 4e, when for some reason WotC made the decision that /all/ drow should be evil so that Drizzt would feel more unique. I seem to recall an interview with Perkins where that was admitted, but it was so long ago I can't source it properly any more. That's why Salvatore had to kill off Tos'un Armgo (he was no longer allowed to be good) and Cattibrie went down the path of orcs are all irredeemably evil in the books. It was all because WotC made some really stupid choices in 4e lore-wise that removed racial agency from intelligent races. That choice really hasn't aged well, and here we are, with more ham fisted retcons to fix what they shouldn't have broken in the first place...and rather than try to use a scalpel to adjust things, they use a sledge hammer for their surgery.
Honestly WotC isn't very good at lore. They're very good at crunch and mechanics, but they are utter hogwash at lore. I wish they would stop trying and let DMs and 3rd party people write that.
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Tasha