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. The beauty of a creature living underground with skin so black that it absorbs light because of natural selection or cultural demand is far more an interesting role-playing element than "grayish skin tone of many hues". The symbolism of the power, awe and mystery that the deepest of blacks conjure can't be erased from a human mind.
It is a good thing. Black is a beautiful color. The alignment of a Drow character is irrelevant in this matter.
There is no shame in coming from a genetically black-skinned background and inheriting black skin as a result.
Please bring jet/ink/obsidian/midnight/ebony/onyx/charcoal black Drow back to canon. Being black is cool. Being black is sexy.
Thank you for reading and replying, whatever your thoughts.
Dark skinned drow haven’t been removed from “canon,” so as far as I can tell, you created an account an hour ago to complain about a problem that doesn’t actually exist?
If you want a jet black drow, make a jet black drow. Literally no one is stopping you. If tiffles and genasi can be every color of the rainbow, drow can be every color of the greynbow. Do it up.
The Little Regarded Wars continue. I was wondering how long it would take for a member of the Retro Drow Conservationist Society to make a whole new account for this forum, exclusively to address yesterday's errata document. Don't get me wrong, occasionally I whip out the photonegative black, white aggressive widow's peaked and powerstached rockers for the party, but like those KISS coverband champions of the Underdark on their last Spelljammer expedition to Burger King, I learned the TTRPG doctrine of Have it Your Way and rest content to make Whoppers of games anyway I want. Relatedly I thought the blue and orange Hobgoblin coloration in lore didn't work for me, so they all sorta look like grey Klingons in my game ... and I have no angst that my aesthetic choices haven't been "supported" by the published game. It's cool. You can be too, if you try. To riff on Yurei, the only person stopping you is actually you.
Legit question: what errata document? If there's gonna be a brand new flood of "BUT MUH LORES!" threads from folks of a more conservative bent, it'd be nice to know where the original text they're decrying came from.
Legit question: what errata document? If there's gonna be a brand new flood of "BUT MUH LORES!" threads from folks of a more conservative bent, it'd be nice to know where the original text they're decrying came from.
I don't see anything about drow changing skin color, but there is a new errata release, and it has made some changes to the lore in Volo's Guide to Monsters that has some grognards all outraged.
I don't know how WotC usually publishes errata, but you can't get to the article through the regular Sage Advice menu option on Articles (at least not yesterday).
Anyway, you'll see they dropped some alignments from races in Volos I believe, but they particularly highlight changes to the Drow description, my guess is because they wanted a bunch of Bell of Lost Souls readers to collectively lose it (I got nothing against Bell of Lost Souls in general, but it seems their publicity of something leads to outrage among some of their readers).
I"m guessing these errata will be up and in DDB by the end of the week or so, if not already.
Legit question: what errata document? If there's gonna be a brand new flood of "BUT MUH LORES!" threads from folks of a more conservative bent, it'd be nice to know where the original text they're decrying came from.
I don't see anything about drow changing skin color, but there is a new errata release, and it has made some changes to the lore in Volo's Guide to Monsters that has some grognards all outraged.
It says it in your article. Underneath the bulletpoint summary of the changes, there is a colour box containing the new description for the Drow. At the end of the first paragraph, it mentions them being of many hues of grey.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
"Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues."
Nothing in that sentence says "you can't be black". All those synonyms for black in your first post are part of the broad category "grayish". That category simple includes shades other than black, as well. Like I said - every color of the greynbow.
As well, you may want to rely on primary sources rather than sensationalist clickbait media websites like Bell of Lost Souls if you're going to try and goad people into forum fights. Tends to be more effective.
I will just keep running all my encounters as I have always have, any race can be of any alignment with a few exceptions (non PC races usually) is that group of Drow you just met evil, or is that group of Gnomes evil choose wisely.
Legit question: what errata document? If there's gonna be a brand new flood of "BUT MUH LORES!" threads from folks of a more conservative bent, it'd be nice to know where the original text they're decrying came from.
I don't see anything about drow changing skin color, but there is a new errata release, and it has made some changes to the lore in Volo's Guide to Monsters that has some grognards all outraged.
It says it in your article. Underneath the bulletpoint summary of the changes, there is a colour box containing the new description for the Drow. At the end of the first paragraph, it mentions them being of many hues of grey.
"Your kin tend to have stark white hair and greyish skin of many hues." By the way this is a massive writing and copyediting fail. Hue means color not shade, gradation, tone or any of the proper words. It's false poetic ear vocabulary grab bagging, and a little embarassing. Haeck and Todd would word choice this way in their banter sometimes when they were doing WotC product hype videos on DDB, I'm wondering who in the WotC stable committeed that text through without anyone checking a dictionary, confident that their artistic sensibilities were infallible against the word's actual lexicon meaning.
I'm guessing the subtext is D&D will never get Drow color right, not because words fail them but they fail at words. It's one of those design team in jokes that will be shared with us in some future product in a format we've never seen before.
People seem to be projecting their own thoughts and opinions about me from my post. MidnightPlat thinks he's being cool or funny. I don't quite get it.
Anyways, I like that Drow are getting an expansion in lore.
I just find it ridiculous that the errata writers found "the Drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian" to be offensive language that needed to be changed.
I'm not outraged because it's my game. I know I can play however I'd like. Progress and evolution. I like it.
I'm just saying being black is not offensive. It's a powerful color. Why should it be changed? It's counter-intuitive to what they are trying to accomplish.
Legit question: what errata document? If there's gonna be a brand new flood of "BUT MUH LORES!" threads from folks of a more conservative bent, it'd be nice to know where the original text they're decrying came from.
I don't see anything about drow changing skin color, but there is a new errata release, and it has made some changes to the lore in Volo's Guide to Monsters that has some grognards all outraged.
It says it in your article. Underneath the bulletpoint summary of the changes, there is a colour box containing the new description for the Drow. At the end of the first paragraph, it mentions them being of many hues of grey.
"Your kin tend to have stark white hair and greyish skin of many hues." By the way this is a massive writing and copyediting fail. Hue means color not shade, gradation, tone or any of the proper words. It's false poetic ear vocabulary grab bagging, and a little embarassing. Haeck and Todd would word choice this way in their banter sometimes when they were doing WotC product hype videos on DDB, I'm wondering who in the WotC stable committeed that text through without anyone checking a dictionary, confident that their artistic sensibilities were infallible against the words actually lexicon meaning.
I'm guessing the subtext is D&D will never get Drow color right, not because words fail them but they fail at words. It's one of those design team in jokes that will be shared with us in some future product in a format we've never seen before.
Yes, I agree with this! Hue mean a purplish gray, orange-ish gray, etc!
Then I did a search for the actual new Drizzt toy and there he was... purplish gray. It doesn't make sense.
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.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
"Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues."
Nothing in that sentence says "you can't be black". All those synonyms for black in your first post are part of the broad category "grayish". That category simple includes shades other than black, as well. Like I said - every color of the greynbow.
As well, you may want to rely on primary sources rather than sensationalist clickbait media websites like Bell of Lost Souls if you're going to try and goad people into forum fights. Tends to be more effective.
I'm not goading anyone into a fight. This is a general discussion forum. I'm discussing a design change that was deemed as "inappropriate language". It's laughable. Silly.
I'm finding this forum to be a bit aggressive and snarky. Ya'll do you. It's all good.
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 [REDACTED]
Notes: Please refrain from discussing moderation and/or moderator-based actions.
People seem to be projecting their own thoughts and opinions about me from my post. MidnightPlat thinks he's being cool or funny. I don't quite get it.
Anyways, I like that Drow are getting an expansion in lore.
I just find it ridiculous that the errata writers found "the Drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian" to be offensive language that needed to be changed.
I'm not outraged because it's my game. I know I can play however I'd like. Progress and evolution. I like it.
I'm just saying being black is not offensive. It's a powerful color. Why should it be changed? It's counter-intuitive to what they are trying to accomplish.
What printing is your PHB? Mine's the 10th (2018) and it reads "the drow have skin that resembles charcoal or obsidian, as well as stark white or pale yellow hair." Nothing polished about it. Maybe you slipped in your waxing and mispoke.
I'm not the only one who thinks I'm funny or cool, so I'll keep doing me, but thanks for noticing.
I think the new language is more reflective of Drow art direction seen throughout fifth edition, I don't know if it was done to mete off controversy, at least exclusively. Looking back to Drizzt's first rendering on the cover of the Crystal Shard in 1988 ... kinda purple. I haven't seen "polished obsidian" on the original photo negative Drow as the paper and print quality didn't allow for polished glossy effects. But it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't some renderings out there on that theme eventually. There are discussions of past representations of Drow which has opened WotC awareness to some sensitivities about representation. Some folks very passionately disagree on any changes in lore and art direction to avoid harm.
Regardless beyond "have it your way" I don't see what you want in Drow being excluded, but if you feel it is, again have it your way.
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!!!
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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. The beauty of a creature living underground with skin so black that it absorbs light because of natural selection or cultural demand is far more an interesting role-playing element than "grayish skin tone of many hues". The symbolism of the power, awe and mystery that the deepest of blacks conjure can't be erased from a human mind.
It is a good thing. Black is a beautiful color. The alignment of a Drow character is irrelevant in this matter.
There is no shame in coming from a genetically black-skinned background and inheriting black skin as a result.
Please bring jet/ink/obsidian/midnight/ebony/onyx/charcoal black Drow back to canon. Being black is cool. Being black is sexy.
Thank you for reading and replying, whatever your thoughts.
Dark skinned drow haven’t been removed from “canon,” so as far as I can tell, you created an account an hour ago to complain about a problem that doesn’t actually exist?
If you want a jet black drow, make a jet black drow. Literally no one is stopping you. If tiffles and genasi can be every color of the rainbow, drow can be every color of the greynbow. Do it up.
Please do not contact or message me.
The Little Regarded Wars continue. I was wondering how long it would take for a member of the Retro Drow Conservationist Society to make a whole new account for this forum, exclusively to address yesterday's errata document. Don't get me wrong, occasionally I whip out the photonegative black, white aggressive widow's peaked and powerstached rockers for the party, but like those KISS coverband champions of the Underdark on their last Spelljammer expedition to Burger King, I learned the TTRPG doctrine of Have it Your Way and rest content to make Whoppers of games anyway I want. Relatedly I thought the blue and orange Hobgoblin coloration in lore didn't work for me, so they all sorta look like grey Klingons in my game ... and I have no angst that my aesthetic choices haven't been "supported" by the published game. It's cool. You can be too, if you try. To riff on Yurei, the only person stopping you is actually you.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Yes, I totally get that and my Drow will of course remain pitch black.
It just bugs me that Drizzt was always depicted as Ebony skin in the books.
Most recent action figure model produced of him, has him with light gray skin.
Drow are all gray now? It makes no sense.
Legit question: what errata document? If there's gonna be a brand new flood of "BUT MUH LORES!" threads from folks of a more conservative bent, it'd be nice to know where the original text they're decrying came from.
Please do not contact or message me.
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2021/12/dd-wotc-removes-racial-alignments-retcons-drow-in-new-batch-of-errata.html
This is all I read.
I don't see anything about drow changing skin color, but there is a new errata release, and it has made some changes to the lore in Volo's Guide to Monsters that has some grognards all outraged.
Source: https://www.enworld.org/threads/latest-d-d-errata-drow-alignment-more.684696/
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Here's the actual article from WotC/Crawford:
https://dnd.wizards.com/dndstudioblog/sage-advice-book-updates
I don't know how WotC usually publishes errata, but you can't get to the article through the regular Sage Advice menu option on Articles (at least not yesterday).
Anyway, you'll see they dropped some alignments from races in Volos I believe, but they particularly highlight changes to the Drow description, my guess is because they wanted a bunch of Bell of Lost Souls readers to collectively lose it (I got nothing against Bell of Lost Souls in general, but it seems their publicity of something leads to outrage among some of their readers).
I"m guessing these errata will be up and in DDB by the end of the week or so, if not already.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
It says it in your article. Underneath the bulletpoint summary of the changes, there is a colour box containing the new description for the Drow. At the end of the first paragraph, it mentions them being of many hues of grey.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Siiiiigh.
"Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues."
Nothing in that sentence says "you can't be black". All those synonyms for black in your first post are part of the broad category "grayish". That category simple includes shades other than black, as well. Like I said - every color of the greynbow.
As well, you may want to rely on primary sources rather than sensationalist clickbait media websites like Bell of Lost Souls if you're going to try and goad people into forum fights. Tends to be more effective.
Please do not contact or message me.
I will just keep running all my encounters as I have always have, any race can be of any alignment with a few exceptions (non PC races usually) is that group of Drow you just met evil, or is that group of Gnomes evil choose wisely.
"Your kin tend to have stark white hair and greyish skin of many hues." By the way this is a massive writing and copyediting fail. Hue means color not shade, gradation, tone or any of the proper words. It's false poetic ear vocabulary grab bagging, and a little embarassing. Haeck and Todd would word choice this way in their banter sometimes when they were doing WotC product hype videos on DDB, I'm wondering who in the WotC stable committeed that text through without anyone checking a dictionary, confident that their artistic sensibilities were infallible against the word's actual lexicon meaning.
I'm guessing the subtext is D&D will never get Drow color right, not because words fail them but they fail at words. It's one of those design team in jokes that will be shared with us in some future product in a format we've never seen before.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
People seem to be projecting their own thoughts and opinions about me from my post. MidnightPlat thinks he's being cool or funny. I don't quite get it.
Anyways, I like that Drow are getting an expansion in lore.
I just find it ridiculous that the errata writers found "the Drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian" to be offensive language that needed to be changed.
I'm not outraged because it's my game. I know I can play however I'd like. Progress and evolution. I like it.
I'm just saying being black is not offensive. It's a powerful color. Why should it be changed? It's counter-intuitive to what they are trying to accomplish.
Yes, I agree with this! Hue mean a purplish gray, orange-ish gray, etc!
Then I did a search for the actual new Drizzt toy and there he was... purplish gray. It doesn't make sense.
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.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I'm not goading anyone into a fight. This is a general discussion forum. I'm discussing a design change that was deemed as "inappropriate language". It's laughable. Silly.
I'm finding this forum to be a bit aggressive and snarky. Ya'll do you. It's all good.
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 [REDACTED]
Please do not contact or message me.
What printing is your PHB? Mine's the 10th (2018) and it reads "the drow have skin that resembles charcoal or obsidian, as well as stark white or pale yellow hair." Nothing polished about it. Maybe you slipped in your waxing and mispoke.
I'm not the only one who thinks I'm funny or cool, so I'll keep doing me, but thanks for noticing.
I think the new language is more reflective of Drow art direction seen throughout fifth edition, I don't know if it was done to mete off controversy, at least exclusively. Looking back to Drizzt's first rendering on the cover of the Crystal Shard in 1988 ... kinda purple. I haven't seen "polished obsidian" on the original photo negative Drow as the paper and print quality didn't allow for polished glossy effects. But it wouldn't surprise me if there weren't some renderings out there on that theme eventually. There are discussions of past representations of Drow which has opened WotC awareness to some sensitivities about representation. Some folks very passionately disagree on any changes in lore and art direction to avoid harm.
Regardless beyond "have it your way" I don't see what you want in Drow being excluded, but if you feel it is, again have it your way.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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!!!