As a drow, you are infused with the magic of the Underdark, an underground realm of wonders and horrors rarely seen on the surface above. You are at home in shadows and, thanks to your innate magic, learn to conjure forth both light and darkness. Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues.
OK - this is fluff to partialy describe my origins and abilities.
The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has corrupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence—for now.
What?
How can Lolth "corrupt" some of the oldest drow cities when she is the reason the drow exist in the first place? If you mean that Lolth corrupted some of the earliest "proto-elves" into siding with her then yes - she has "corrupted some of the oldest drow cities" by virtue of being built by her followers in the first place ...
Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.
I'm sorry what the f***?!? According to the PHB the primary religion is now relegated to "a lurking cult"?!?
This new text replaces a description that confused the culture of Menzoberranzan—a city in the grip of Lolth’s cult in the Forgotten Realms—with drow themselves.
.... I am pretty sure that people shape a cities culture, but that a peoples culture is not confined to only one city ....
The new text more accurately describes the place of drow in the D&D multiverse and correctly situates them among the other branches of the elf family, each of which was shaped by an environment in the earliest days of the multiverse: forests (wood elves), places of ancient magic on the Material Plane (high elves), oceans (sea elves), the Feywild (eladrin), the Shadowfell (shadar-kai), and the Underdark (drow).
So the new origin that we have is that we grew up in dark places .... all the drow in the multiverse are just mole people now.
Drow are united by an ancestral connection to the Underdark,
"We have an Underdark in our Setting because we have Drow!" and "We have Drow in our Setting because we have an Underdark!"
not by worship of Lolth—a god some of them have never heard of.
Nahhh - its just the secondary reason they exist in the first place AND their primary Godess in pretty much every setting. Unless you are gonna tell us that all Elves worship Corellon next - Including on Eberron?
Like .... what?
.......
This requires further investigation .....
I don't mind that there are non-lolthite societies out there, but it bugs the hell out of me how they decided to go about it. There were already lots of drow cities, enclaves, tribes etc above and below ground-Vhaeraunites and Eilistraeens in particular, but you also had entire cities that worshipped other members of the Dark Seldarine like Ghaunadaur, had multiple members of the pantheon observed, or even were nonreligious (Sshamath). There was even an entire surface nation of humans, drow and half drow who followed Loviatar (and Lolth to a lesser extent) Those are effectively erased now Menzoberranzan is the first (only?) drow/udadrow city founded by Lolth
These new changes basically boil down everything into three flavors of drow centered around three city states. It basically does the exact opposite of it's advertised intent of adding subtlety and diversity to drow depictions. All the members of the Dark Seldarine here suffer from this, but honestly, the familiar Lolthite 'udadrow' seem to be set to suffer the biggest case of flanderization from this.
By centering all things Lolth around Menzo and erasing/marginalizing all the other cities you can't have somewhere where every noble house expresses their faith in a different way with different practices and dogma (Guallidurth), a city where the priestesses kowtow to the male magocracy to cling to what little power they have left after a revolution (Sshamath), where an order of warrior lolthite monks have supplanted the usual military structure and were the true power behind the throne (Undrek'Thoz). etc. Basically this turns drow as we knew them into even more of a monoculture by erasing all of the previously marginalized drow lore instead of emphasizing it and instead just presenting us with this image of drow 'as we knew them'=Menzoberranzan.
The new origin for the drow seems to throw out the old origins. Menzo is no longer a third generation city, but the first udadrow city where Lolth lured some drow to the underdark to found. This throws into question stuff like the history of the Great Rift and the Crown wars, and the nature of the descent itself, in turn throwing up into the air dwarven history and much of elven history.
Lolth is also basically just a minor cult goddess now. Her biggest accomplishment now is luring a small group of drow (while the majority turned their nose up at her, apparently) into isolating themselves (as opposed to being banished/driven underground) and forming a cult. It massively takes the wind out of the sails of one of D&D's most iconic antagonists IMO, and it also makes the other Dark Seldarine who struggled against her look downright-dare I say it- pathetic due to their inability to overthrow a minor cult goddess whose claim to fame is founding a cult in an underground city.
The problem people are having is not that the Drow aren't evil anymore - because the evil Drow are still there - but because it's a retcon that's awkward, unnecessarily tramples previously established lore, and because it lacks nuance.
The new Drow have problems on the face of it. Literally. First of all, good Drow have existed almost as long as the concept of Drow have in the cult of Eilistraee, but the problem was that as an outsider there was no way to tell a good one from an evil one especially since the Lolth-worshipping culture lent itself to deceit. With no way to distinguish beyond RPing it out the introduction of a party of Drow immediately shifted the tone to one of intrigue as you tried to figure out whether you were going to get shanked.
nuDrow have magic tattooes informing anyone who cares to look what their allegiance is. In what was presumably an attempt to add nuance they've ended up making them a one-note binary of "bad guy looks like this, good guy looks like that, stab appropriately". Evil Drow aren't evil because they're descendants of a messy civil war raised in a culture that forces them to develop their worst traits just to survive, they're evil because they're bad guys. Good drow are good because they have a signpost telling you so, not because they've struggled to leave behind wickedness and redeem themselves. It feels like an unwarranted move to appease people who've created a problem out of their own lack of knowledge on the subject and damaged the setting in doing so.
It also introduces the new Jungle Drow who have absolutely no basis in the near half-century now of writing Forgotten Realms can boast (which the new Good/Evil Drow also walks all over) and are an entirely unnecessary addition. The fact that they are essentially discount Eberron Drow in the latest example of homogenisation and setting theft isn't helping soften the blow.
She did in some past versions of the lore, but is it a given that she did in current versions?
Even if past versions are considered canon, couldn't they turn out to be lies spread by her and her followers? She is a Demon Lord, after all.
Even if she did make Drow, so? Did she make golems or did she make sentient beings?
If she made golems, does this mean all Drow PC's are really just pre-programmed automations that their players do not actually get to play?
If she made sentient beings, doesn't that mean they have free will, including the free will to choose not to follow Lolth?
As far as the surface is concerned, the Drow have always been a lurking cult, right from their first mention. They have had no meaningful surface holdings, nor any direct power but rather manipulated things from behind the scenes.
In Q1, at the end of the Giants and Drow series of modules way back in 1e, the party actually engages against Lolth herself and, assuming victory, they can drive her back to the Abyss where she belongs. If they fail, of course they are simply dead and that is the end of the heroes' adventures, but if they succeed, then what? How do the Drow react to their leader, their actual Goddess failing them? Going back to the free will aspect, wouldn't that have caused some doubts and likely at least some rebellious thoughts?
2) Cultures confined to one city are historically common. Europe used to be entirely city states for much of its history. Some such city-states (or nigh city-states) still exist. Luxembourg or Lichtenstein are tiny,
The Underdark is not the same as the surface world. It is a maze of tunnels and caverns and likely not easy to march armies through. This is also likely the reason they have not tried to attack the surface directly.
Numbers are the other reason for not attacking the surface directly. As stated earlier, even in the earliest appearances, Drow had no surface presence other than a couple agents here and there
A few rebel.escapees were mentioned later
3) "The" mole people? There are deep gnomes and dwarves (all varieties technically) and other subterranean races too. But again, Drow were always subterranean, right from their first introduction. Debating how they got there is fine, but don't then turn around and insist that it is somehow untrue to lore that they are there.
4) Again, check your D&D history. There was no mention of the Underdark at all until the Drow modules D1 through D3.
5) Lolth has always been just a Lesser Goddess, never a Greater. The PC's are expected to fight and defeat her in Q1, so again, insisting she is more than that is true revisionist history.
6) Drow are all actually Greyhawk lore originally. It does not even necessarily impact on the Forgotten Realms (although they seem to have been paralleled there when FR became the main setting. NONE of this automatically applies outside Forgotten Realms and since Greyhawk is pretty much ignored these days, technically its lore remains intact.
Why would Corellon be the only other alternative for Elves? Again, sentient beings.
You can run any lore you want for any race. Even if you do your best to run Forgotten Realms or even Greyhawk by the book, it is still your campaign. What happened in other campaigns, including lore based off any official campaign(s) is not binding on your campaign just as official lore is not going to be written based on what happens in your campaign.
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TL:DR? - What, if anything, about the changes actually make for worse campaigns?
1) No. At least not from scratch. Correllan made the Elves. Lolth stole/corrupted some Elves away from Correllan. Those Elves became the Drow.
- Yes. If there are versions of the Lore that predate (or postdate these days I suppose) the version you want to be true; those versions can be lies in-universe that Drow mistakenly believe is true.
-She wishes she could've made golems, but found herself stuck with sentient beings, whom she has worked long and hard to make as golem-like as possible (bit of an oversimplification, but close enough)
----No, it doesn't mean that about the PC's; it largely means that about NPC's. When a PC Drow encounters NPC Drow, they should NOT generally/reasonably expect to be able to persuade those Drow to 'see the light and change their ways,' and otherwise break from the will of their goddess. A PC of a typically evil race who is not themselves evil should always be the exception. They should not be a ...is the word mguffin? to try and change the lore and say "Oh, no; that all Drow are evil thing is just a myth spread by bigots, most of us are actually alright really." No. Drow ARE typically evil; but that doesn't mean the PC needs to be evil.
----This goes back to Lolth, not really having made the Drow, but merely taken them from Correllan who made all the Elves in the first place. Drow do have free will, including the free will not to follow Lolth, because Elves have free will and Drow are Elves. This doesn't mean a persons will can't be broken and subjugated; and Lolth created an entire culture around growing up in a social environment specifically designed to break and crush their will and so make them maleable and obedient.
--1e was before my time. Perhaps Lolth's defeat gave some of her followers pause; but she would still have had those followers who did not pause, kill anyone who expressed signs of disloyalty -or she would turn them in dryders?. Anti-Lolth would remain an underground no-pun-intended movement in Drow civilizations.
5. Lolth being only a lesser god rather than a greater one is why she can't actually create her own race and has to settle for having claimed some of Corellans people instead.
6 Sentient beings don't just go around forsaking their own creator-gods all wily-nily; particularly ones that are near/active inthe setting and clearly granting cleric spells and paladinhoods, etc. What motivation would an elf have to seek an alternative patron or pantheon?
----
People keep asking that. Why is hard to understand that removing the simple dualist nature of D&D and replacing it with a nuanced nature full of shades of gray, is, in and of itself, worse for making campaigns. At the very least, it forces us to work harder, as someone mentioned in the other thread, and this is just a game for fun. I don't want to have to work too hard to make it happen as though it were a job.
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People keep asking that. Why is hard to understand that removing the simple dualist nature of D&D and replacing it with a nuanced nature full of shades of gray, is, in and of itself, worse for making campaigns. At the very least, it forces us to work harder, as someone mentioned in the other thread, and this is just a game for fun. I don't want to have to work too hard to make it happen as though it were a job.
Because the majority of the player base (at least on this website) doesn't actually think that this is true. The poll numbers prove this.
Why is hard to understand that removing the simple dualist nature of D&D and replacing it with a nuanced nature full of shades of gray, is, in and of itself, worse for making campaigns. At the very least, it forces us to work harder, as someone mentioned in the other thread, and this is just a game for fun. I don't want to have to work too hard to make it happen as though it were a job.
It's hard to understand because this is clearly not true. If you want the absolute black and white alignments, all you have to do is say so to your players. Saying, "by the way, we're keeping evil races evil for this campaign" is not work. It's 2 seconds during session zero and you're all set.
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People keep asking that. Why is hard to understand that removing the simple dualist nature of D&D and replacing it with a nuanced nature full of shades of gray, is, in and of itself, worse for making campaigns. At the very least, it forces us to work harder, as someone mentioned in the other thread, and this is just a game for fun. I don't want to have to work too hard to make it happen as though it were a job.
As others have said - removing moral absolutism, stark black-and-white capital-G Good and capital-E Evil, from D&D is worse for your games. Many other tables, many other players, went out of their way and did a lot of extra work to put those shades of grey into their games in the first place. For me and my table, that sort of moral absolutism is flat, boring, and makes it very difficult to take a story seriously. It's the realm of children's bedtime tales, easy problems with easy answers that fail to hold the imagination anymore. There's no tension to it, no thrill, none of the meaty shit that gets us engaged. If that was all there was to D&D, and all there ever could be? We've long since abandoned the game and moved on to the next hobby.
For you and yours? That simplicity is refreshing. It's nice and easy, and it's encouraging and bolstering to not have to deal with making tough decisions or agonizing over whether you made the right call, because 'the right call' is immediate and obvious at all times. That's the kind of world a lot of people wish they could live in, and so taking a vacation there on game night is great. That's awesome, good on you. Enjoy your games, and I absolutely mean that. Please, enjoy your games. My best wishes on your game night.
We're gonna be over here, on our game night, wallowing in the grit and mud and shit and blood and making the best decisions we can in a grey, nasty world, regretting our ****-ups and lamenting our weakness and loving every god damned minute of it. Even when we hate it, we love it, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
nods, that's true too. For a while I did abandon the game (during 4e mostly) and played OWBN: Vampaire-The Masquerade. That's fun too, but different than D&D. It was LARP though and required traveling, so I stopped going with the first set of lockdowns from Covid. I still do some forum stuff, but only intermittently. I presume I will go back at some point, if and when the pandemic is ever over.
1) This implies that Drow most definitely have free will. That they had the will to choose Lolth. Lolth is just a Lesser Goddess. It makes far more sense on every level that a faction of Elves were tempted enough by her to start worshipping her instead. Sentience. Citation needed on making her followers golem like. There are advantages to free will. Proof of this is the fact that there are no AI's that can adapt as well as RL humans. "Broken and subjugated" people are nowhere near as productive as fully intact people who want to do what you want them to do. If they were so malleable and obedient, they would be easy fodder for any PC with alter self and a passible persuasion check. To the contrary, they are consistently portrayed as arrogant and strong willed.
Other than meta level PCism, what, exactly, is the difference on any level between a PC Drow and an NPC drow?
1e was not before my time. However answer me this: If Lolth has such absolute control over her people, how, exactly, did the PC"s have any chance? How would she not instantly know of intruders and rally her entire forces against them en masse if need be? She is never portrayed as being so all omniscient. Her followers, themselves, are most certainly not.
2), (3) and (4) - I take it you are conceding these points?
5) This was a response to 'cult status' rather than 'major religion."
6) Who said anything about 'willy-nilly?' But she lured them away from Correllan somehow. How did she manage it? If she could, why couldn't some other deity, particularly a Greater deity? But how about simply not liking attempts to break and subjugate them? How about simple wanderlust? How about being sent to the surface as an agent and discovering things are different up there... and preferring that? You act as if people never change faith IRL. Don't want to get into details but several major real world religions are all derived from the same sources. It is a thing that happens and sometimes they can end up seeming very different in the end.
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Those who want simpler campaigns with no shades of grey can still run them. Again, this was originally Greyhawk lore, adapted later for Forgotten Realms and changed several times over along the way. Run whatever version of any race makes the most sense for you and whatever campaign you run. It really is that simple.
Yes. I'm stating it explicitley, Drow have free will.
Well, I don't think Lolth actually told her first set of followers "and I'm going to have you torture your children, etc". or even knew she would. Lolth wasn' t Lolth at first either. I forget the details of her story, but she was known by another name at first and was a consort of Corellan who attempted a power grab and/or tried to assasinate him; twice I think; and may or may not have had dealings with Gruumsh and/or some of Corellans other rivals. Once she was punishehed/banished from his Pantheon along with some other lesser gods who had broke faith with Corellan, she became Lolth, took up residence in the Demonweb pits of the abyss , where I presume over the course of time she became more and more evil then she innitially was when she began. If the ancestral proto-drow could see into the future, I don't think they would as readily have joined her ranks.
I read the book about Drizzit's childhood. Drow, at the very least the males, are beaten and whipped regularly whenever they step a toe out of line, and sometimes even when they haven't just for good measure.
Ah, there are no AI's who can do that YET. Wait for it.
It's true that broken and subjagated people are less productive - and yet, the bad guys keep doing it anyway. Apparently, they are productive enough. Evil enjoys breaking and subjugating in and of itself. Malleable to lolth, not to a 1st level PC. Let that PC develope into a 14th level Bard and then we'll see.
Yes, the women at least, but even otherwise, it's after their youtful malleableness has been taken advantage of. They've been forged to be that way towards non-drow. You'll find a common theme in many of the evil races is the idea that they are actually better that the other races and therefore often scornful of the other races.
...The PC Drow is being played by a player, and therefore typically thrust into the role of being a hero while the NPC drow is being played by the DM and therefore typically thrust into the role of being a villain. I'm not sure what other difference you are looking for.
Yes, 2,3,&4, are all true. Except perhaps re 3: It's true as far as encountered Drow in Modules vs first enounters with Dwarves, etc. but Lorewise, I think Dwarves are also a native subterrainian race and hill dwarves represent ones who migrated up and became a more surface style subrace rather than that mountain dwarves etc. being ones to have migrated down from a surface origin. re: drow, similarly, being elves, their ancestors to my mind would have gotten their start in a forest, most probably a forest in the feywylde; they wouln't actually be native denizens of the subterranian realms. They were just banished there long enough ago to be considered native, relatively speaking, by the younger or more shorter lived races.
Well, IRL, faith is all we have. It's not like we actually get superpowers from it to prove said faith is actually well placed or the other end of a transaction in a bargain for power. In game, aside from allignment disagreements an individual might have with their patron; I don't think fantasy folk will as often or as likely change faith so long as their patron is keeping their end of the bargain and granting spells, etc. in exchange for that faith.
Similarly when it comes to Evil patrons and subjugated followers vs. followers bound by bargain or what not; it's not as easy to escape your subugation as you are making it out to be. You can't just be like "I'm feeling a bit of wanderlust today, I think I shall leave this place and go on an adventure." or " Gee, stars are pretty and a breeze is nice; I think I'll stay up here".: If it was that easy, noone would live in North Korea; let alone meza whatever bardan? A subjugated person is effectively trapped in their situation, by varius means -including psycological manipulation on top of physical abuse for waivering from theirr directives. Yes, occasionally someone will find themselves jarred out of it somehow and make it to freedom, but again, its a rare thing. Usually, to free an entire society in that situation, you have to remove the Evil Overlord TM from power at the very least.
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Then that should settle it with regards to absolute alignment, no? Can't have free will if everyone must needs be have an evil alignment.
My pureblood Sith in SWTOR has Free Will. She also has a racial affinity for the dark side of the force. Is alignment a factor of Will?
As per all the rest of my post, having something is a different matter than using it. If I know that taking action X is going to earn me 40 lashes, then I will excersize my free will by choosing to avoid whatever it is that is going earn me 40 lashes. If the thing that is going to earn me 40 lashes is showing mercy to an enemy, then over time I learn not to do that. Similarly, if I'm rewarded for a certain behavior, I am going excersise my free will to choose to do whatever it is that gets me a reward. If the thing that is going to get me a reward is chopping the heards off of an enemy, than over time I learn to that as often as I can. This combined with not knowing, at least innitially, of any other, better ways; i.e being kept ignorant of them. This is conditioning. The society churns out evil characters by only reinforcing those social behaviors and not even teaching what 'good' behaviors are.
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The Force is a lousy example, since dark or light 'sides' are all how you use the same powers, at least based on what we have seen in the films. May as well say that they have genetics based anger management issues. Remember that the official line is that even positive emotions such as love lead to the dark side.
Indeed. The Dualist conflict there is Passion vs. Serenity. The underlying lesson though I think again is balance in all things is actually the best way; (although not mechanically unfortunately as far as the game is concerned.)
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Then that should settle it with regards to absolute alignment, no? Can't have free will if everyone must needs be have an evil alignment.
My pureblood Sith in SWTOR has Free Will. She also has a racial affinity for the dark side of the force. Is alignment a factor of Will?
As per all the rest of my post, having something is a different matter than using it. If I know that taking action X is going to earn me 40 lashes, then I will excersize my free will by choosing to avoid whatever it is that is going earn me 40 lashes. If the thing that is going to earn me 40 lashes is showing mercy to an enemy, then over time I learn not to do that. Similarly, if I'm rewarded for a certain behavior, I am going excersise my free will to choose to do whatever it is that gets me a reward. If the thing that is going to get me a reward is chopping the heards off of an enemy, than over time I learn to that as often as I can. This combined with not knowing, at least innitially, of any other, better ways; i.e being kept ignorant of them. This is conditioning. The society churns out evil characters by only reinforcing those social behaviors and not even teaching what 'good' behaviors are.
But learned behaviour is not innate and is a matter of circumstance. Any character not part of this society, for whatever reason, will not be subjected to this conditioning. Any character with a grievance against this society might be predisposed to rebel against it. Any character victimized by this society might feel a need to buck the system, since adhering to it has resulted in their suffering. None of these may be common outcomes, but free will guarantees they can't be ruled out. And that's the whole point of changing absolute alignments to normative ones that can be deviated from.
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But learned behaviour is not innate and is a matter of circumstance. Any character not part of this society, for whatever reason, will not be subjected to this conditioning. Any character with a grievance against this society might be predisposed to rebel against it. Any character victimized by this society might feel a need to buck the system, since adhering to it has resulted in their suffering. None of these may be common outcomes, but free will guarantees they can't be ruled out. And that's the whole point of changing absolute alignments to normative ones that can be deviated from.
Correct, the behavior is not innate in Drow as I was arguing it is in Orcs, the behavior is learned, and specifically learned by Drow who are still ruled by Lolth. Correct, Drow from beyond Lolths reach are not necessarily subject to this conditioning, presuming they didn't purposefully bring it with them rather than escape from; it or be born where it just isn't practiced. Yes; the PC's actually should be predisposed towards trying to unmake such a society. Perhaps, but agian it's easier said than done to buck such a system even if you want to. Drizzit's father for example was going to try to buck the system, by murdering Drizzit, when he thought Drizzit had been successfully indocrtinated by said system. Drizzit's father never did try to escape the system himself though. Correct, free will is the reason why there can be PC's moddled after Drizzit, a rare and exceptional representetive of his race. ...Perhaps; but all of this still applies specifically to the Drow. It doesnt necessarily mean that just because Drow have free will and can deviate from their typical alignment of that setting, that it should necessarily follow that so can Orcs, or Mind Flayers, or Beholders, etc. It's a case by case thing I think and still should not be a sweeping across the board errata for every creature type.
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I didn't want to name names, but there are people who have little if any connection to the D&D community but large platforms otherwise who have joined in the anti "woke" faction. Such people may have existed in the past, but they weren't the sort who would ever willingly call themselves geeks.
Correllan bled and his blood became primal elves, they were shapeshifters. Loth convinced the primal elves to give up their mutable forms for more powerful a form, becoming elves. Correllan saw this as a betrayal and banished them to the material plane from the eleven heaven. Some elves realized their mistake and some were unrepentant choosing to worship Loth instead. The Loth worshiping elves were turned into Drow and forced underground by the Correllan worshiping elves.
Correllan bled and his blood became primal elves, they were shapeshifters. Loth convinced the primal elves to give up their mutable forms for more powerful a form, becoming elves. Correllan saw this as a betrayal and banished them to the material plane from the eleven heaven. Some elves realized their mistake and some were unrepentant choosing to worship Loth instead. The Loth worshiping elves were turned into Drow and forced underground by the Correllan worshiping elves.
Yes that was the old FR lore. But they originated on Greyhawk as far as I know, not on FR. So the FR lore is already a reinterpretation. Not that there's anything bad with that.
Luckily for you, you have them! And on a wiki, no less - I'm impressed it wasn't homebrew garbage. Nevertheless, there you go - all the rich lore details you could ever need for your A.C.E.F. slavemongering spider-worshipping drow. Bangin'. The base books can now remain clean of Faerunian lore nobodsy else needs, ne?
I have them now; thank you FinalKingdomHearts! Yeah, this'll do me nicely.
Perhaps. Again though, the base books being a new players first exposure to the game and possibly to it's lore means that they arrive at session 0 with only the knowledge from those books. I can't neccesarily count on them having researched up links like this berforehand, or even that they will after I give it to them. It's not too big a problem really, but it still does change that dynamic by meaning a player will arrive at my table expecting to be able to play a certain kind of character by default, and then maybe be disapointed when I tell them I have more restrictive rules than the RAW, rather than knowing what to expect in the first place and being pleasantly surprised, when I tell them not to worry about it because my rules aren't quite as restrictive as the RAW. They've flipped who has to be Ogre, around on me. It's alright I suppose; I think I've got a handle on it.
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Unfortunately that's simply part of being a DM. It's the DM's job to make calls and impose reasonable limits on a given game. If you're working with straight-up brand new players who've never been exposed to D&D before, I would find it difficult to believe they've gone over the books without your input - almost no one "gets into" D&D on the player side without either being introduced by an existing DM or being at a table where somebody gets voted DM right off and everybody goes over the options together. I'm sure it has happened before that a completely random DM has caught someone who's gotten just enough into the books to lock onto what they want to play and then had to wrestle them into a game where their lock-on didn't work, but that's an edge case and also, like I said, part of being a DM.
Plus, look at it this way: if someone shows up at your table and refuses to read/listen/talk to you about your game's lore, demands to be allowed to play their special-snowflake thing even if it doesn't fit, and is querrulous and intransigent over it? Congratulations: you're well forewarned over who the Problem Player at your table is, and if they're rotten enough over it you're free as a DM to tell them that your table seems a poor fit for them and wish them luck finding another one. You don't have to put up with bad behavior because Faerunian lore isn't the default anymore; if someone's being a dickfairy about working with you on fitting into your game, give 'em the boot. They did it to thesself and they'll know it.
Again though, the base books being a new players first exposure to the game and possibly to it's lore means that they arrive at session 0 with only the knowledge from those books.
Or not even that. I've played with plenty of new players, and the far greater majority weren't all that interested in lore starting out. Things like creation mythology and the like have little or no value for people just starting out, playing straightforward adventures that almost never touch on deep lore. None of the official campaigns rely on more than the absolute minimum of setting knowledge, whatever more specific setting lore is relevant (if any) will be covered during the adventuring. If I'd expect new players to read more than a simple primer about whatever stuff is pertinent for their character, I'd probably lose half of them before we get to the first session. That sort of stuff doesn't need to take up space in the PHB, for most people it'd just be filler they'll never read.
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I am confused.
OK - this is fluff to partialy describe my origins and abilities.
What?
How can Lolth "corrupt" some of the oldest drow cities when she is the reason the drow exist in the first place? If you mean that Lolth corrupted some of the earliest "proto-elves" into siding with her then yes - she has "corrupted some of the oldest drow cities" by virtue of being built by her followers in the first place ...
I'm sorry what the f***?!? According to the PHB the primary religion is now relegated to "a lurking cult"?!?
.... I am pretty sure that people shape a cities culture, but that a peoples culture is not confined to only one city ....
So the new origin that we have is that we grew up in dark places .... all the drow in the multiverse are just mole people now.
"We have an Underdark in our Setting because we have Drow!" and "We have Drow in our Setting because we have an Underdark!"
Nahhh - its just the secondary reason they exist in the first place AND their primary Godess in pretty much every setting. Unless you are gonna tell us that all Elves worship Corellon next - Including on Eberron?
Like .... what?
.......
This requires further investigation .....
I don't mind that there are non-lolthite societies out there, but it bugs the hell out of me how they decided to go about it. There were already lots of drow cities, enclaves, tribes etc above and below ground-Vhaeraunites and Eilistraeens in particular, but you also had entire cities that worshipped other members of the Dark Seldarine like Ghaunadaur, had multiple members of the pantheon observed, or even were nonreligious (Sshamath). There was even an entire surface nation of humans, drow and half drow who followed Loviatar (and Lolth to a lesser extent) Those are effectively erased now Menzoberranzan is the first (only?) drow/udadrow city founded by Lolth
These new changes basically boil down everything into three flavors of drow centered around three city states. It basically does the exact opposite of it's advertised intent of adding subtlety and diversity to drow depictions. All the members of the Dark Seldarine here suffer from this, but honestly, the familiar Lolthite 'udadrow' seem to be set to suffer the biggest case of flanderization from this.
By centering all things Lolth around Menzo and erasing/marginalizing all the other cities you can't have somewhere where every noble house expresses their faith in a different way with different practices and dogma (Guallidurth), a city where the priestesses kowtow to the male magocracy to cling to what little power they have left after a revolution (Sshamath), where an order of warrior lolthite monks have supplanted the usual military structure and were the true power behind the throne (Undrek'Thoz). etc. Basically this turns drow as we knew them into even more of a monoculture by erasing all of the previously marginalized drow lore instead of emphasizing it and instead just presenting us with this image of drow 'as we knew them'=Menzoberranzan.
The new origin for the drow seems to throw out the old origins. Menzo is no longer a third generation city, but the first udadrow city where Lolth lured some drow to the underdark to found. This throws into question stuff like the history of the Great Rift and the Crown wars, and the nature of the descent itself, in turn throwing up into the air dwarven history and much of elven history.
Lolth is also basically just a minor cult goddess now. Her biggest accomplishment now is luring a small group of drow (while the majority turned their nose up at her, apparently) into isolating themselves (as opposed to being banished/driven underground) and forming a cult. It massively takes the wind out of the sails of one of D&D's most iconic antagonists IMO, and it also makes the other Dark Seldarine who struggled against her look downright-dare I say it- pathetic due to their inability to overthrow a minor cult goddess whose claim to fame is founding a cult in an underground city.
The problem people are having is not that the Drow aren't evil anymore - because the evil Drow are still there - but because it's a retcon that's awkward, unnecessarily tramples previously established lore, and because it lacks nuance.
The new Drow have problems on the face of it. Literally. First of all, good Drow have existed almost as long as the concept of Drow have in the cult of Eilistraee, but the problem was that as an outsider there was no way to tell a good one from an evil one especially since the Lolth-worshipping culture lent itself to deceit. With no way to distinguish beyond RPing it out the introduction of a party of Drow immediately shifted the tone to one of intrigue as you tried to figure out whether you were going to get shanked.
nuDrow have magic tattooes informing anyone who cares to look what their allegiance is. In what was presumably an attempt to add nuance they've ended up making them a one-note binary of "bad guy looks like this, good guy looks like that, stab appropriately". Evil Drow aren't evil because they're descendants of a messy civil war raised in a culture that forces them to develop their worst traits just to survive, they're evil because they're bad guys. Good drow are good because they have a signpost telling you so, not because they've struggled to leave behind wickedness and redeem themselves. It feels like an unwarranted move to appease people who've created a problem out of their own lack of knowledge on the subject and damaged the setting in doing so.
It also introduces the new Jungle Drow who have absolutely no basis in the near half-century now of writing Forgotten Realms can boast (which the new Good/Evil Drow also walks all over) and are an entirely unnecessary addition. The fact that they are essentially discount Eberron Drow in the latest example of homogenisation and setting theft isn't helping soften the blow.
..... wow. Just wow.
#OpenDnD
1) No. At least not from scratch. Correllan made the Elves. Lolth stole/corrupted some Elves away from Correllan. Those Elves became the Drow.
- Yes. If there are versions of the Lore that predate (or postdate these days I suppose) the version you want to be true; those versions can be lies in-universe that Drow mistakenly believe is true.
-She wishes she could've made golems, but found herself stuck with sentient beings, whom she has worked long and hard to make as golem-like as possible (bit of an oversimplification, but close enough)
----No, it doesn't mean that about the PC's; it largely means that about NPC's. When a PC Drow encounters NPC Drow, they should NOT generally/reasonably expect to be able to persuade those Drow to 'see the light and change their ways,' and otherwise break from the will of their goddess. A PC of a typically evil race who is not themselves evil should always be the exception. They should not be a ...is the word mguffin? to try and change the lore and say "Oh, no; that all Drow are evil thing is just a myth spread by bigots, most of us are actually alright really." No. Drow ARE typically evil; but that doesn't mean the PC needs to be evil.
----This goes back to Lolth, not really having made the Drow, but merely taken them from Correllan who made all the Elves in the first place. Drow do have free will, including the free will not to follow Lolth, because Elves have free will and Drow are Elves. This doesn't mean a persons will can't be broken and subjugated; and Lolth created an entire culture around growing up in a social environment specifically designed to break and crush their will and so make them maleable and obedient.
--1e was before my time. Perhaps Lolth's defeat gave some of her followers pause; but she would still have had those followers who did not pause, kill anyone who expressed signs of disloyalty -or she would turn them in dryders?. Anti-Lolth would remain an underground no-pun-intended movement in Drow civilizations.
5. Lolth being only a lesser god rather than a greater one is why she can't actually create her own race and has to settle for having claimed some of Corellans people instead.
6 Sentient beings don't just go around forsaking their own creator-gods all wily-nily; particularly ones that are near/active inthe setting and clearly granting cleric spells and paladinhoods, etc. What motivation would an elf have to seek an alternative patron or pantheon?
----
People keep asking that. Why is hard to understand that removing the simple dualist nature of D&D and replacing it with a nuanced nature full of shades of gray, is, in and of itself, worse for making campaigns. At the very least, it forces us to work harder, as someone mentioned in the other thread, and this is just a game for fun. I don't want to have to work too hard to make it happen as though it were a job.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Because the majority of the player base (at least on this website) doesn't actually think that this is true. The poll numbers prove this.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
It's hard to understand because this is clearly not true. If you want the absolute black and white alignments, all you have to do is say so to your players. Saying, "by the way, we're keeping evil races evil for this campaign" is not work. It's 2 seconds during session zero and you're all set.
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As others have said - removing moral absolutism, stark black-and-white capital-G Good and capital-E Evil, from D&D is worse for your games. Many other tables, many other players, went out of their way and did a lot of extra work to put those shades of grey into their games in the first place. For me and my table, that sort of moral absolutism is flat, boring, and makes it very difficult to take a story seriously. It's the realm of children's bedtime tales, easy problems with easy answers that fail to hold the imagination anymore. There's no tension to it, no thrill, none of the meaty shit that gets us engaged. If that was all there was to D&D, and all there ever could be? We've long since abandoned the game and moved on to the next hobby.
For you and yours? That simplicity is refreshing. It's nice and easy, and it's encouraging and bolstering to not have to deal with making tough decisions or agonizing over whether you made the right call, because 'the right call' is immediate and obvious at all times. That's the kind of world a lot of people wish they could live in, and so taking a vacation there on game night is great. That's awesome, good on you. Enjoy your games, and I absolutely mean that. Please, enjoy your games. My best wishes on your game night.
We're gonna be over here, on our game night, wallowing in the grit and mud and shit and blood and making the best decisions we can in a grey, nasty world, regretting our ****-ups and lamenting our weakness and loving every god damned minute of it. Even when we hate it, we love it, and we wouldn't have it any other way.
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nods, that's true too. For a while I did abandon the game (during 4e mostly) and played OWBN: Vampaire-The Masquerade. That's fun too, but different than D&D. It was LARP though and required traveling, so I stopped going with the first set of lockdowns from Covid. I still do some forum stuff, but only intermittently. I presume I will go back at some point, if and when the pandemic is ever over.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Yes. I'm stating it explicitley, Drow have free will.
Well, I don't think Lolth actually told her first set of followers "and I'm going to have you torture your children, etc". or even knew she would. Lolth wasn' t Lolth at first either. I forget the details of her story, but she was known by another name at first and was a consort of Corellan who attempted a power grab and/or tried to assasinate him; twice I think; and may or may not have had dealings with Gruumsh and/or some of Corellans other rivals. Once she was punishehed/banished from his Pantheon along with some other lesser gods who had broke faith with Corellan, she became Lolth, took up residence in the Demonweb pits of the abyss , where I presume over the course of time she became more and more evil then she innitially was when she began. If the ancestral proto-drow could see into the future, I don't think they would as readily have joined her ranks.
I read the book about Drizzit's childhood. Drow, at the very least the males, are beaten and whipped regularly whenever they step a toe out of line, and sometimes even when they haven't just for good measure.
Ah, there are no AI's who can do that YET. Wait for it.
It's true that broken and subjagated people are less productive - and yet, the bad guys keep doing it anyway. Apparently, they are productive enough. Evil enjoys breaking and subjugating in and of itself. Malleable to lolth, not to a 1st level PC. Let that PC develope into a 14th level Bard and then we'll see.
Yes, the women at least, but even otherwise, it's after their youtful malleableness has been taken advantage of. They've been forged to be that way towards non-drow. You'll find a common theme in many of the evil races is the idea that they are actually better that the other races and therefore often scornful of the other races.
...The PC Drow is being played by a player, and therefore typically thrust into the role of being a hero while the NPC drow is being played by the DM and therefore typically thrust into the role of being a villain. I'm not sure what other difference you are looking for.
Yes, 2,3,&4, are all true. Except perhaps re 3: It's true as far as encountered Drow in Modules vs first enounters with Dwarves, etc. but Lorewise, I think Dwarves are also a native subterrainian race and hill dwarves represent ones who migrated up and became a more surface style subrace rather than that mountain dwarves etc. being ones to have migrated down from a surface origin. re: drow, similarly, being elves, their ancestors to my mind would have gotten their start in a forest, most probably a forest in the feywylde; they wouln't actually be native denizens of the subterranian realms. They were just banished there long enough ago to be considered native, relatively speaking, by the younger or more shorter lived races.
Well, IRL, faith is all we have. It's not like we actually get superpowers from it to prove said faith is actually well placed or the other end of a transaction in a bargain for power. In game, aside from allignment disagreements an individual might have with their patron; I don't think fantasy folk will as often or as likely change faith so long as their patron is keeping their end of the bargain and granting spells, etc. in exchange for that faith.
Similarly when it comes to Evil patrons and subjugated followers vs. followers bound by bargain or what not; it's not as easy to escape your subugation as you are making it out to be. You can't just be like "I'm feeling a bit of wanderlust today, I think I shall leave this place and go on an adventure." or " Gee, stars are pretty and a breeze is nice; I think I'll stay up here".: If it was that easy, noone would live in North Korea; let alone meza whatever bardan? A subjugated person is effectively trapped in their situation, by varius means -including psycological manipulation on top of physical abuse for waivering from theirr directives. Yes, occasionally someone will find themselves jarred out of it somehow and make it to freedom, but again, its a rare thing. Usually, to free an entire society in that situation, you have to remove the Evil Overlord TM from power at the very least.
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Then that should settle it with regards to absolute alignment, no? Can't have free will if everyone must needs be have an evil alignment.
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My pureblood Sith in SWTOR has Free Will. She also has a racial affinity for the dark side of the force. Is alignment a factor of Will?
As per all the rest of my post, having something is a different matter than using it. If I know that taking action X is going to earn me 40 lashes, then I will excersize my free will by choosing to avoid whatever it is that is going earn me 40 lashes. If the thing that is going to earn me 40 lashes is showing mercy to an enemy, then over time I learn not to do that. Similarly, if I'm rewarded for a certain behavior, I am going excersise my free will to choose to do whatever it is that gets me a reward. If the thing that is going to get me a reward is chopping the heards off of an enemy, than over time I learn to that as often as I can. This combined with not knowing, at least innitially, of any other, better ways; i.e being kept ignorant of them. This is conditioning. The society churns out evil characters by only reinforcing those social behaviors and not even teaching what 'good' behaviors are.
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Indeed. The Dualist conflict there is Passion vs. Serenity. The underlying lesson though I think again is balance in all things is actually the best way; (although not mechanically unfortunately as far as the game is concerned.)
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But learned behaviour is not innate and is a matter of circumstance. Any character not part of this society, for whatever reason, will not be subjected to this conditioning. Any character with a grievance against this society might be predisposed to rebel against it. Any character victimized by this society might feel a need to buck the system, since adhering to it has resulted in their suffering. None of these may be common outcomes, but free will guarantees they can't be ruled out. And that's the whole point of changing absolute alignments to normative ones that can be deviated from.
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Correct, the behavior is not innate in Drow as I was arguing it is in Orcs, the behavior is learned, and specifically learned by Drow who are still ruled by Lolth. Correct, Drow from beyond Lolths reach are not necessarily subject to this conditioning, presuming they didn't purposefully bring it with them rather than escape from; it or be born where it just isn't practiced. Yes; the PC's actually should be predisposed towards trying to unmake such a society. Perhaps, but agian it's easier said than done to buck such a system even if you want to. Drizzit's father for example was going to try to buck the system, by murdering Drizzit, when he thought Drizzit had been successfully indocrtinated by said system. Drizzit's father never did try to escape the system himself though. Correct, free will is the reason why there can be PC's moddled after Drizzit, a rare and exceptional representetive of his race. ...Perhaps; but all of this still applies specifically to the Drow. It doesnt necessarily mean that just because Drow have free will and can deviate from their typical alignment of that setting, that it should necessarily follow that so can Orcs, or Mind Flayers, or Beholders, etc. It's a case by case thing I think and still should not be a sweeping across the board errata for every creature type.
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I didn't want to name names, but there are people who have little if any connection to the D&D community but large platforms otherwise who have joined in the anti "woke" faction. Such people may have existed in the past, but they weren't the sort who would ever willingly call themselves geeks.
From what I know.
Correllan bled and his blood became primal elves, they were shapeshifters.
Loth convinced the primal elves to give up their mutable forms for more powerful a form, becoming elves.
Correllan saw this as a betrayal and banished them to the material plane from the eleven heaven.
Some elves realized their mistake and some were unrepentant choosing to worship Loth instead.
The Loth worshiping elves were turned into Drow and forced underground by the Correllan worshiping elves.
You can find out more about Drow on
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Drow
Yes that was the old FR lore. But they originated on Greyhawk as far as I know, not on FR. So the FR lore is already a reinterpretation. Not that there's anything bad with that.
nods, but mmmm, that is a terrific page of Lore thoguh. That's exactly the kind of details I like to have.
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Luckily for you, you have them! And on a wiki, no less - I'm impressed it wasn't homebrew garbage. Nevertheless, there you go - all the rich lore details you could ever need for your A.C.E.F. slavemongering spider-worshipping drow. Bangin'. The base books can now remain clean of Faerunian lore nobodsy else needs, ne?
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I have them now; thank you FinalKingdomHearts! Yeah, this'll do me nicely.
Perhaps. Again though, the base books being a new players first exposure to the game and possibly to it's lore means that they arrive at session 0 with only the knowledge from those books. I can't neccesarily count on them having researched up links like this berforehand, or even that they will after I give it to them. It's not too big a problem really, but it still does change that dynamic by meaning a player will arrive at my table expecting to be able to play a certain kind of character by default, and then maybe be disapointed when I tell them I have more restrictive rules than the RAW, rather than knowing what to expect in the first place and being pleasantly surprised, when I tell them not to worry about it because my rules aren't quite as restrictive as the RAW. They've flipped who has to be Ogre, around on me. It's alright I suppose; I think I've got a handle on it.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Unfortunately that's simply part of being a DM. It's the DM's job to make calls and impose reasonable limits on a given game. If you're working with straight-up brand new players who've never been exposed to D&D before, I would find it difficult to believe they've gone over the books without your input - almost no one "gets into" D&D on the player side without either being introduced by an existing DM or being at a table where somebody gets voted DM right off and everybody goes over the options together. I'm sure it has happened before that a completely random DM has caught someone who's gotten just enough into the books to lock onto what they want to play and then had to wrestle them into a game where their lock-on didn't work, but that's an edge case and also, like I said, part of being a DM.
Plus, look at it this way: if someone shows up at your table and refuses to read/listen/talk to you about your game's lore, demands to be allowed to play their special-snowflake thing even if it doesn't fit, and is querrulous and intransigent over it? Congratulations: you're well forewarned over who the Problem Player at your table is, and if they're rotten enough over it you're free as a DM to tell them that your table seems a poor fit for them and wish them luck finding another one. You don't have to put up with bad behavior because Faerunian lore isn't the default anymore; if someone's being a dickfairy about working with you on fitting into your game, give 'em the boot. They did it to thesself and they'll know it.
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Or not even that. I've played with plenty of new players, and the far greater majority weren't all that interested in lore starting out. Things like creation mythology and the like have little or no value for people just starting out, playing straightforward adventures that almost never touch on deep lore. None of the official campaigns rely on more than the absolute minimum of setting knowledge, whatever more specific setting lore is relevant (if any) will be covered during the adventuring. If I'd expect new players to read more than a simple primer about whatever stuff is pertinent for their character, I'd probably lose half of them before we get to the first session. That sort of stuff doesn't need to take up space in the PHB, for most people it'd just be filler they'll never read.
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