I think D&D drow are underwhelming, and R. A. Salvatore helped with his unfortunate choice to write about a counter-drow who never explores drow culture but only sees it as an outsider who left.
Then, even worse, drow culture is lame. It's too demonic, and flat, 1 dimensional.
It's just tedious and lazy writing to explain a villain's motivation as he does in the Drizzt series. Demons can be chaotic evil, because they are supernatural forces of anthropomorphic emotion.
Animals can be chaotic evil because they are mindless.
To think a whole city can be chaotic evil is so STUPID it's offensive.
Now you think an entire city will be built and survive on Chaotic evil?
Lazy and arbitrary, period.
And what's with the big clock tower in Menzoberranzan? Come on seriously? What the hell does a people who live in the dark, never see the stars or the sun or moon (except on passive aggressive betamale raids) need with a clock tower?
And with 24 hours.
Did some humans get transported underground? Major world building fail right there.
And the raids? Are the drow the super race they claim to be? Or some flea on my dog's arse? Raids are so kobold, or goblin.
Orcs have hordes, humans raise armies, drow just slap and tickle like tribes who never discovered gunpowder.
And the problem with the way their evil nature is captured is that it makes no sense with their own beliefs. They are the greatest race, except all the males are trash and excrement, and the females think they individually are the best and all other females are also trash and feces.
You cant be simultaneously the most superior race and no sense or racial community.
Just lazy, poorly thought out, bad writing and world building.
No wonder the drow failed so miserably to truly captivate and dominate campaigns as they were originally intended.
Being demonic, self-centered narcissists who have no reagard for anyone else; fighting for spoils like starving dogs, with no mindfulness to greater purpose; and using cruelty the way gore is used in terrible horror films; doesn't make good villainy.
Cutting down such a villain is as boring as reading about an old man trimming the hedges in his yard screaming how evil each tendril of plant is for standing higher above the rest of his otherwise flat topped shrubbery.
Drizzt as a book series doesnt show you the evil of the drow. It just tells you they are evil like an old man yelling evil at his bushes.
Drizzt as a book series doesnt show you the evil of the drow. It just tells you they are evil like an old man yelling evil at his bushes.
I haven't read that series, but if it describes the drow's evil the way you describe drow's shortcomings, then you give the books too much credit.
Thanks for the reply, I was writing from my phone so some things were, and are here also, rushed.
They are described as chaotic evil. The race has had numerous iterations of alignment since their creation so I'm just basing their nature as closely as to how they actually seem to behave in the novels.
I've been plugging through them as a comparison to my own writings.
But, I don't think it is my place to criticize a successful author's writing style, even though his writing is rather poor and I think that's an objective truth.
Lay persons only care about results. Fact is he has results, I don't.
But he has a lot of wanton use of passive voice and double negatives and nonsensical collapse of thought mid dialogue, like he got up to take the dog for a walk mid sentence and forgot where he was but didn't have enough time to care to figure it out.
But that aside, he describes the Drow as emotiveless, without inner thought and higher considerations than narcissistic murderous intent.
At least I think so, hence the thread to have a fun convo about it.
Well the Drow do worship an evil goddess, who actively punishes those who fail her. So constantly doing whatever evil thing they can manage and not expressing free will would be traits that become dominant in such a society.
Well the Drow do worship an evil goddess, who actively punishes those who fail her. So constantly doing whatever evil thing they can manage and not expressing free will would be traits that become dominant in such a society.
Except the evil goddess would conform the drow to a lawful nature, that is essentially my point about the nature of their evil. Without law and order they'd need some supernatural force to prevent their self immolation.
Chaotic evil is a theater shooter...not a nazi.
Drow consistently bicker among themselves like the former.
Also I wanted to criticize the d&d variant like the Borg. Because it fits, an evil spider queen ruling over the Borg. But the Borg are also boring as shit...their only redeeming quality being they can turn you into one. Making them as interesting as space zombies.
Well, if they are chaotic evil, that certainly explains their inability to take over the world.
I'm with you on the general idea of a 'chaotic evil society' as usually envisioned being unable to actually develop as a society. If trying to accomplish any project involves literal backstabbing, that project won't get accomplished. Imagine, to pick out of a hat, NASA's accomplishments if everyone at NASA was chaotic evil and the ability to work with anyone else collaboratively was always accompanied by the desire to kill them to advance yourself, and the fear of them doing the same.
The third reich was evil, but not chaotic. And you can make a good argument that the evil part also helped lead to their downfall.
The thing about evil is that it doesn't have to be what RPGers tend to think of. Adolf Eichmann was evil, but by accounts not a ranting, hate-filled demon. His particular evil was just that he didn't care about those people at all. They were numbers to him--numbers to crunch in order to advance himself politically and professionally. So why not treat drow like that? An 'evil' drow on this account own't stab you in the street just for not being a drow. They'll just not care about you at all, not help you if you need help, not treat you like an equal, and will quickly and easily use you to get what they want. But that same drow might not treat another drow the same--that other drow is important, as a drow. That's still 'evil'. And that's a society that could work together to achieve things. (EDIT TO BE CLEAR: the 3rd reich was evil, horrible, no redeeming values, and there is no attempt to justify anything about them here.)
The slave owner who's killing and whipping and brutalizing his slaves is evil. But the neighbor who doesn't own slaves and has never whipped anyone but sees it happen and shrugs and goes back to his dinner is also evil.
A whole society filled with Hannibal Lechters could never hold itself together. But a society filled with massive racists who respect each other (the drow) could.
Well, if they are chaotic evil, that certainly explains their inability to take over the world.
I'm with you on the general idea of a 'chaotic evil society' as usually envisioned being unable to actually develop as a society. If trying to accomplish any project involves literal backstabbing, that project won't get accomplished. Imagine, to pick out of a hat, NASA's accomplishments if everyone at NASA was chaotic evil and the ability to work with anyone else collaboratively was always accompanied by the desire to kill them to advance yourself, and the fear of them doing the same.
The third reich was evil, but not chaotic. And you can make a good argument that the evil part also helped lead to their downfall.
The thing about evil is that it doesn't have to be what RPGers tend to think of. Adolf Eichmann was evil, but by accounts not a ranting, hate-filled demon. His particular evil was just that he didn't care about those people at all. They were numbers to him--numbers to crunch in order to advance himself politically and professionally. So why not treat drow like that? An 'evil' drow on this account own't stab you in the street just for not being a drow. They'll just not care about you at all, not help you if you need help, not treat you like an equal, and will quickly and easily use you to get what they want. But that same drow might not treat another drow the same--that other drow is important, as a drow. That's still 'evil'. And that's a society that could work together to achieve things. (EDIT TO BE CLEAR: the 3rd reich was evil, horrible, no redeeming values, and there is no attempt to justify anything about them here.)
The slave owner who's killing and whipping and brutalizing his slaves is evil. But the neighbor who doesn't own slaves and has never whipped anyone but sees it happen and shrugs and goes back to his dinner is also evil.
A whole society filled with Hannibal Lechters could never hold itself together. But a society filled with massive racists who respect each other (the drow) could.
Lol I just had the image of Buzz Aldrin back stabbing niel Armstrong to be the first man on the moon. But realizing he especially failed as he has to first throw niel out the hatch to get to the surface.
But Mike Collins dont care, he pops out of his hiding spot and kills Buzz.
I think you'll love the Drow I'm working on. They do conform to better logic. For instance a family member paying a gang to kill a bunch of their own family just to prove to them the gang is competent enough to pull off a bigger assassination and to obscure any suspicion they were behind it.
"Wasnt us. They also killed our guys remember?"
It also serves the purpose of laundering weapons into the gangs hands so they can be better equipped for the bigger assassination.
Lol I just had the image of Buzz Aldrin back stabbing niel Armstrong to be the first man on the moon. But realizing he especially failed as he has to first throw niel out the hatch to get to the surface.
But Mike Collins dont care, he pops out of his hiding spot and kills Buzz.
And then as Collins reaches for the hatch, the whole lander decompresses and he dies too, because the engineers who designed the thing were just racing to see who could lie about their designs to get them approved first, and didn't really care if the astronauts all died later, because you can blame that on another engineer.
But we don't feel bad about Armstrong because he shoved a few guys out of the spinny acceleration testing pod to their death back in training, and murdered the head of NASA to get him replaced by another guy he'd been bribing the whole time. And that guy had a degree in history and knew nothing about aerospace engineering in the first place.
Lol I just had the image of Buzz Aldrin back stabbing niel Armstrong to be the first man on the moon. But realizing he especially failed as he has to first throw niel out the hatch to get to the surface.
But Mike Collins dont care, he pops out of his hiding spot and kills Buzz.
And then as Collins reaches for the hatch, the whole lander decompresses and he dies too, because the engineers who designed the thing were just racing to see who could lie about their designs to get them approved first, and didn't really care if the astronauts all died later, because you can blame that on another engineer.
But we don't feel bad about Armstrong because he shoved a few guys out of the spinny acceleration testing pod to their death back in training, and murdered the head of NASA to get him replaced by another guy he'd been bribing the whole time. And that guy had a degree in history and knew nothing about aerospace engineering in the first place.
I like where this is going.
Drow space force
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Not many books featuring Drizzt really delve into drow politics and society. War of the Spider Queen did, and from those books I learned that drow society has pretty much every problem you described. In fact Menzoberranzan is one of the few surviving drow settlements, and it has endless problems with infighting, slave revolts, economy issues, etc. The weirder thing is that many of the drow in charge acknowledge these problems and some outright admit they'll likely lead to Menzoberranzan's downfall. Despite this they carry on largely unchanged.
Now that doesn't mean R.A. Salvatore and Lisa Smedman and other prominent drow authors didn't address a few of the more glaring issues. For instance, the reason why Lolth doesn't just smite Drizzt is because he's protected by Mielikki. Small consolation, I know, but there it is.
Not many books featuring Drizzt really delve into drow politics and society. War of the Spider Queen did, and from those books I learned that drow society has pretty much every problem you described. In fact Menzoberranzan is one of the few surviving drow settlements, and it has endless problems with infighting, slave revolts, economy issues, etc. The weirder thing is that many of the drow in charge acknowledge these problems and some outright admit they'll likely lead to Menzoberranzan's downfall. Despite this they carry on largely unchanged.
Now that doesn't mean R.A. Salvatore and Lisa Smedman and other prominent drow authors didn't address a few of the more glaring issues. For instance, the reason why Lolth doesn't just smite Drizzt is because he's protected by Mielikki. Small consolation, I know, but there it is.
I think that's terribly lazy. "My hero is protected by another goddess..."
If it's that easy then why doesn't Mielikki just do that for them all. Etc.
I realize that's always the problem with developing a theology but that's very well addressed and mocked in conan the barbarian 1982.
"I pray to Crom, when I die I have to give him the answer to the riddle of steel or he will cast me out of Valhalla."
"Hah. My gods laugh at your god."
"Crom is mighty in his mountain."
"I pray to the four winds. My God is the ever lasting sky. Your God lives beneath my god."
Conan just glares silently at Subetai.
The point is, if you have to pull some elementary school role play shenanigans then I just consider it underwhelming.
Why box your world into such a situation as was mocked by Conan?
I'll definitely have to go in depth into War of the Spider Queen though. I want to make R A Salvatore my benchmark for what to be better than.
I dont think hes terrible. I think he was overworked, theres a difference. The guy pumped out what....34 books in the Drizzt series? All by contract.
That's not the effort of a bad author thats an author stretched too thin. It sadly seems to show in the world of the drow and the story at large as well as the aforementioned writing mistakes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
While I see where you're coming from, I don't think it's fair to expect every author that comes after some seminal series to have an intimate knowledge of said series and write their books following those same beats. They stand apart, as well they should, or else our literary culture would be even more derivative than it already is.
I have yet to meet more than a handful of novels set in RPG worlds where I couldn't hear the dice rolling as I read. I liked a few Dark Sun novels when that world first started, and I liked the original Dragonlance and DL Twins trilogies back when I was a kid, but the little I read of the FR stuff was enough. I think that's part of the problem that someone like Salvatore faces--you are constrained to writing in a world, and with mechanics, that you aren't free as an author to play around with. There's a base level of 'derivative' built into the concept of writing in someone else's world (or a shared world).
I think D&D drow are underwhelming, and R. A. Salvatore helped with his unfortunate choice to write about a counter-drow who never explores drow culture but only sees it as an outsider who left.
Then, even worse, drow culture is lame. It's too demonic, and flat, 1 dimensional.
It's just tedious and lazy writing to explain a villain's motivation as he does in the Drizzt series. Demons can be chaotic evil, because they are supernatural forces of anthropomorphic emotion.
Animals can be chaotic evil because they are mindless.
To think a whole city can be chaotic evil is so STUPID it's offensive.
Now you think an entire city will be built and survive on Chaotic evil?
Lazy and arbitrary, period.
And what's with the big clock tower in Menzoberranzan? Come on seriously? What the hell does a people who live in the dark, never see the stars or the sun or moon (except on passive aggressive betamale raids) need with a clock tower?
And with 24 hours.
Did some humans get transported underground? Major world building fail right there.
And the raids? Are the drow the super race they claim to be? Or some flea on my dog's arse? Raids are so kobold, or goblin.
Orcs have hordes, humans raise armies, drow just slap and tickle like tribes who never discovered gunpowder.
And the problem with the way their evil nature is captured is that it makes no sense with their own beliefs. They are the greatest race, except all the males are trash and excrement, and the females think they individually are the best and all other females are also trash and feces.
You cant be simultaneously the most superior race and no sense or racial community.
Just lazy, poorly thought out, bad writing and world building.
No wonder the drow failed so miserably to truly captivate and dominate campaigns as they were originally intended.
Being demonic, self-centered narcissists who have no reagard for anyone else; fighting for spoils like starving dogs, with no mindfulness to greater purpose; and using cruelty the way gore is used in terrible horror films; doesn't make good villainy.
Cutting down such a villain is as boring as reading about an old man trimming the hedges in his yard screaming how evil each tendril of plant is for standing higher above the rest of his otherwise flat topped shrubbery.
Drizzt as a book series doesnt show you the evil of the drow. It just tells you they are evil like an old man yelling evil at his bushes.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
You go on a lot about how a chaotic evil culture wouldn't work. You are probably right, but Drow are neutral evil.
I haven't read that series, but if it describes the drow's evil the way you describe drow's shortcomings, then you give the books too much credit.
Thanks for the reply, I was writing from my phone so some things were, and are here also, rushed.
They are described as chaotic evil. The race has had numerous iterations of alignment since their creation so I'm just basing their nature as closely as to how they actually seem to behave in the novels.
I've been plugging through them as a comparison to my own writings.
But, I don't think it is my place to criticize a successful author's writing style, even though his writing is rather poor and I think that's an objective truth.
Lay persons only care about results. Fact is he has results, I don't.
But he has a lot of wanton use of passive voice and double negatives and nonsensical collapse of thought mid dialogue, like he got up to take the dog for a walk mid sentence and forgot where he was but didn't have enough time to care to figure it out.
But that aside, he describes the Drow as emotiveless, without inner thought and higher considerations than narcissistic murderous intent.
At least I think so, hence the thread to have a fun convo about it.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Well the Drow do worship an evil goddess, who actively punishes those who fail her. So constantly doing whatever evil thing they can manage and not expressing free will would be traits that become dominant in such a society.
Except the evil goddess would conform the drow to a lawful nature, that is essentially my point about the nature of their evil. Without law and order they'd need some supernatural force to prevent their self immolation.
Chaotic evil is a theater shooter...not a nazi.
Drow consistently bicker among themselves like the former.
Also I wanted to criticize the d&d variant like the Borg. Because it fits, an evil spider queen ruling over the Borg. But the Borg are also boring as shit...their only redeeming quality being they can turn you into one. Making them as interesting as space zombies.
The d&d drow have none of that going for them.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Also if lolth cant just turn Drizzt into a drider for his dissent then what power does she actually have? None.
Drizzt is stronger than the goddess who enslaves his whole race?
More pathetic trash writing. Lazy plot.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Lol.
"Somebody help, get the defector." -Lolth
"Get him yourself b***** queen." -neutral evil character
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Well, if they are chaotic evil, that certainly explains their inability to take over the world.
I'm with you on the general idea of a 'chaotic evil society' as usually envisioned being unable to actually develop as a society. If trying to accomplish any project involves literal backstabbing, that project won't get accomplished. Imagine, to pick out of a hat, NASA's accomplishments if everyone at NASA was chaotic evil and the ability to work with anyone else collaboratively was always accompanied by the desire to kill them to advance yourself, and the fear of them doing the same.
The third reich was evil, but not chaotic. And you can make a good argument that the evil part also helped lead to their downfall.
The thing about evil is that it doesn't have to be what RPGers tend to think of. Adolf Eichmann was evil, but by accounts not a ranting, hate-filled demon. His particular evil was just that he didn't care about those people at all. They were numbers to him--numbers to crunch in order to advance himself politically and professionally. So why not treat drow like that? An 'evil' drow on this account own't stab you in the street just for not being a drow. They'll just not care about you at all, not help you if you need help, not treat you like an equal, and will quickly and easily use you to get what they want. But that same drow might not treat another drow the same--that other drow is important, as a drow. That's still 'evil'. And that's a society that could work together to achieve things. (EDIT TO BE CLEAR: the 3rd reich was evil, horrible, no redeeming values, and there is no attempt to justify anything about them here.)
The slave owner who's killing and whipping and brutalizing his slaves is evil. But the neighbor who doesn't own slaves and has never whipped anyone but sees it happen and shrugs and goes back to his dinner is also evil.
A whole society filled with Hannibal Lechters could never hold itself together. But a society filled with massive racists who respect each other (the drow) could.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Lol I just had the image of Buzz Aldrin back stabbing niel Armstrong to be the first man on the moon. But realizing he especially failed as he has to first throw niel out the hatch to get to the surface.
But Mike Collins dont care, he pops out of his hiding spot and kills Buzz.
I think you'll love the Drow I'm working on. They do conform to better logic. For instance a family member paying a gang to kill a bunch of their own family just to prove to them the gang is competent enough to pull off a bigger assassination and to obscure any suspicion they were behind it.
"Wasnt us. They also killed our guys remember?"
It also serves the purpose of laundering weapons into the gangs hands so they can be better equipped for the bigger assassination.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
IDNeon357, you're such an iconoclast :)
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I'm not sure if by that you mean I'm a purist and zealot, or if I like breaking things. 🤔 :p
I just want some better drow. So I'm doing it myself lol.
I'm writing the 5th chapter of Heart of the Drow now.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
And then as Collins reaches for the hatch, the whole lander decompresses and he dies too, because the engineers who designed the thing were just racing to see who could lie about their designs to get them approved first, and didn't really care if the astronauts all died later, because you can blame that on another engineer.
But we don't feel bad about Armstrong because he shoved a few guys out of the spinny acceleration testing pod to their death back in training, and murdered the head of NASA to get him replaced by another guy he'd been bribing the whole time. And that guy had a degree in history and knew nothing about aerospace engineering in the first place.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
I like where this is going.
Drow space force
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
Totally. I'm going to go roll up a Drow Archer.
By that I mean
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Not many books featuring Drizzt really delve into drow politics and society. War of the Spider Queen did, and from those books I learned that drow society has pretty much every problem you described. In fact Menzoberranzan is one of the few surviving drow settlements, and it has endless problems with infighting, slave revolts, economy issues, etc. The weirder thing is that many of the drow in charge acknowledge these problems and some outright admit they'll likely lead to Menzoberranzan's downfall. Despite this they carry on largely unchanged.
Now that doesn't mean R.A. Salvatore and Lisa Smedman and other prominent drow authors didn't address a few of the more glaring issues. For instance, the reason why Lolth doesn't just smite Drizzt is because he's protected by Mielikki. Small consolation, I know, but there it is.
"The Epic Level Handbook wasn't that bad, guys.
Guys, pls."
I think that's terribly lazy. "My hero is protected by another goddess..."
If it's that easy then why doesn't Mielikki just do that for them all. Etc.
I realize that's always the problem with developing a theology but that's very well addressed and mocked in conan the barbarian 1982.
"I pray to Crom, when I die I have to give him the answer to the riddle of steel or he will cast me out of Valhalla."
"Hah. My gods laugh at your god."
"Crom is mighty in his mountain."
"I pray to the four winds. My God is the ever lasting sky. Your God lives beneath my god."
Conan just glares silently at Subetai.
The point is, if you have to pull some elementary school role play shenanigans then I just consider it underwhelming.
Why box your world into such a situation as was mocked by Conan?
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
I'll definitely have to go in depth into War of the Spider Queen though. I want to make R A Salvatore my benchmark for what to be better than.
I dont think hes terrible. I think he was overworked, theres a difference. The guy pumped out what....34 books in the Drizzt series? All by contract.
That's not the effort of a bad author thats an author stretched too thin. It sadly seems to show in the world of the drow and the story at large as well as the aforementioned writing mistakes.
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
While I see where you're coming from, I don't think it's fair to expect every author that comes after some seminal series to have an intimate knowledge of said series and write their books following those same beats. They stand apart, as well they should, or else our literary culture would be even more derivative than it already is.
"The Epic Level Handbook wasn't that bad, guys.
Guys, pls."
Epic
Read the first chapters. Feel free to critique. Will link the next chapters at the end of the first. Two stories running so far.
Simeon Tor:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/34598-simeon-tor-chapter-1-the-heat-of-battle
The Heart of the Drow:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/36014-heart-of-the-drow-chapter-1
I have yet to meet more than a handful of novels set in RPG worlds where I couldn't hear the dice rolling as I read. I liked a few Dark Sun novels when that world first started, and I liked the original Dragonlance and DL Twins trilogies back when I was a kid, but the little I read of the FR stuff was enough. I think that's part of the problem that someone like Salvatore faces--you are constrained to writing in a world, and with mechanics, that you aren't free as an author to play around with. There's a base level of 'derivative' built into the concept of writing in someone else's world (or a shared world).
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)