I liked drow best when this was all we knew about them "Drow: The "Black Elves," or drow, are only legend. They purportedly dwell deep beneath the surface in a strange subterranean realm. The drow are said to be as dark as faeries are bright and as evil as the latter are good. Tales picture them as weak fighters but strong magic-users."
Then came Module G3, Hall of the Fire Giant King and gave a page and a half of details, mostly about the properties of drow equipment, drow combat abilities and such. With Module D3 Vault of the Drow we finally got to see the drow homeland, a vast underground cavern. We got glimpses of drow society. The female Clerics seemed to be at the top of the social order. There were 16 merchant houses that spent a lot of time raiding each other. There were slaves. There were a number of monster races mingling freely on the streets of the drow city. Lolth the spider demon goddess was worshipped. Still not a lot of information to go on. Lots of room left for DM creativity. Of course it was also all set in the World of Greyhawk. We got more about Lolth in Q! Queen of the Demonweb Pits, along with a really cool map. But still drow were not overly cast as a strict matriarchal society that oppressed the males. Male drow were frequently encountered as guard patrols and soldiers.
The drow were a case of less is more. They were great when they were mysterious villains who were mostly just shadows of legend.
Thanks for this. This is a very cool insghit!
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.
Whoops, forgot about emotions. If there is no emotional attachment on either side, it makes finding a partner extremely easy.
There is nothing magical about women that makes them immune to being found unattractive.
We just have to agree to disagree because you're getting hung up on your societal baggage. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's perfectly normal.
The OP stated that he found it ridiculous that Drow women could grab some man to partner with. He is under the wrong impression that only men can and should choose a partner.
Let me restate, because I think you missed a part due to my familiarity with chickens and your apparent, though not unexpected, lack thereof.
Chickens are brutal when mating..even tearing out feathers and causing deep bleeding wounds.
What I was relating to was the absurdity of a society as "evil" as that.
In fact I promote, somewhere in this lengthy thread, the idea that women in drow society choose their mates similarly to how spartan men chose theirs in spartan society. I like the analogue. It's rough, almost a parody of misogyny in sparta, but respectful and clever.
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.
I just had a funny thought. You know what D&D society is actually chaotic evil and manages just fine? Orcs. Orcs work together perfectly well. They have little religious conflict, infrequent in-fighting, and everyone is raised with the same ideals and how best to realize them.
I wonder if drow would find the harmony of that "lesser" race offensive...
I love orcs, and I have a variant of orc as well that I will some day describe in my stories that's outside the scope of this thread.
The issue is orcs are a society that is not well characterized either.
But more than Drow it's even HARDER to describe because it's very hard to show an orc society from an orc perspective. Honestly the Warcraft movie did pretty well but only because the main orcs were dragged along by a cult and were relatable victims.
I've thought of a way to get around this in story telling, without going full Drizzt (to borrow a phrase from Tropic Thunder).
Needless to say my orcs recapture the true sense of chaotic barbarism and have a physiological reason to do so.
I would say the Drow should look at orcs as a stupid force of nature to be directed off a cliff or into your enemies, whichever is expedient at the time.
They would not regard anything about them as worthy of emulation and anything similar between them and the orc is only because the inferior god of the orcs gave them a version of strength and cunning like their own.
The Drow are superior and as long as they more strictly adhere to their goddess' ways, then nothing can come close to their dominion.
I might be seeing too much (or too little) in this thread, but it almost sounds like you would like Drow to be more akin to a matriarchal version of the Warhammer Dark Elves, to an extent.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Where do you think the Warhammer Dark Elves came from? Right down to the lizard riding mounts? The Games Workshop guys were D&D fans, most of the Fiend Folio monsters even appeared first in the Fiend Factory in White Dwarf magazine. Now I feel really old, realizing that I have been at this game for over 4o years now.
Where do you think the Warhammer Dark Elves came from? Right down to the lizard riding mounts? The Games Workshop guys were D&D fans, most of the Fiend Folio monsters even appeared first in the Fiend Factory in White Dwarf magazine. Now I feel really old, realizing that I have been at this game for over 4o years now.
Their origin might (unsurprisingly) be same, but what I was pointing at is the evolution of the idea and the different structure each one has: Drow kinda bland and difficult to actually sustain itself VS Dark Elves more structured and "believable" while still delving deep in depravity and "evilness" (at least to my understanding).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I've gone to great lengths to trace drow historical past.
Honestly it make sense sorta. Only a select few truely managed to gain loths true favor, Drizzt being the first overall along with a Mage female i forgot her name atm and a few select priestesses. Beyond that she's truely mad but not insane for a damn good reason.
Society for drow is matriarchal because of a male elder elvish gods utter betrayal. Loth gave everything to the drow and gained little back, she was tired and exhausted by the time they reached their final destination in their journey. That in itself explains her mad like ramblings and oddities.
Over the centuries she's used the vail of madness to find someone worthy of her true favor. Of all the documents I've read only three drow living actually have her favor literally they all live like outcasts in regards to drow society.
Their society wasn't lazy writing it was a veiled code deeply hidden. Dizzt holds her eternal favor, she has killed everyone who discovered this truth. Drizzt he doesn't even know and would be utterly disgusted to find out the truth.
The female wizard / priestesses is aware but unconcerned. Damn i need to find that book about her. Her history is absolutely amazing. The other has his own book series as well.
All three have lived in the center of drow society at the same time three different generations basically and choose on their own to revolt against society and succeeded in doing so in their own way.
I might be seeing too much (or too little) in this thread, but it almost sounds like you would like Drow to be more akin to a matriarchal version of the Warhammer Dark Elves, to an extent.
I wouldn't know. And I've never known anything about Warhammer. I also don't want to know because I don't want it to taint my own creation.
I'm on the 11th chapter of my first book about my version of the Drow. Which is capitalized the same as you would capitalize Englishman or German.
No one goes around and says, "hello, I am from land of the black men."
Places have names and peoples have names.
Anyway.
Unfortunately the 2 chapters I posted of my Drow story are before edits and very early drafts. I've gone back since and made major edits.
Unfortunately it's too complex to copy past formatted text into this literally shyte forum format. So I havent had time to reupload refined versions of my work.
So you're all just gonna have to buy it when it's actually done I guess lol.
Almost to 40,000 words. And the series already has a plot that spans at least 4 books before other works I plan tie into it.
I'm not sure I want to at this point in my creative process, but I do want to eventually.
When I first started the thread, I wanted to really dive deep into Drow lore and be critical about it, etc.
But, as I've written more and more into my own fantasy world, I want to avoid tainting it with knowing more about what others have done. Mostly for copyright reasons.
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.
I'm not sure I want to at this point in my creative process, but I do want to eventually.
When I first started the thread, I wanted to really dive deep into Drow lore and be critical about it, etc.
But, as I've written more and more into my own fantasy world, I want to avoid tainting it with knowing more about what others have done. Mostly for copyright reasons.
If you plan an actually publishing your works, I would suggest (once you are done and satisfied might be best considering your replies on the matter) to still give it a look, right for the reason you stated at the end: possible copyright issues.
Just a friendly advice, I'd actually be curious to see what you come up with.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I was always a huge fan of how The Elder Scrolls captured the concept of Dark Elves. They did a really good job at capturing what makes Dark Elves, well, Dark Elves, while building a more cohesive culture and history around it. Misses out on the matriarchal aspect, but eh.
Not to say TES is a paragon of good lore. God no. But I think one can learn a lot from the Dunmer if they want to write a better version of Faerun's Drow.
Single words can't be copyrighted. They can be trademarked. That's something a creator has to actively register, but it's possible. 'Concepts' also can't be copyrighted.
Any society that is inherently evil could never function as a civilization. However in a world where gods can literally walk around and have direct interaction with people who knows what would happen. Lazy writing? 100% for sure. However most of the writing in D&D is lazy. It's an open ended game system first, story second. A lot of it comes across as cliche fan stories... but in the end isn't that what it is? I mean aren't the people hired to write, just literal fans of D&D that have been dreaming their whole life of working and writing for the company?
I've looked at it pretty extensively but if they caredI could just flip it to darkelf.
But as mentioned below, Drow is not trademarked or copyrighted. Also, dnd has published what they have trademarked (I believe) which they call something (sorry forgot the damned name of it) but its things like Beholder, or Forgotten Realms, etc.
Drow is not among them.
As for concepts. Mine totally diverged which is super cool
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.
Any society that is inherently evil could never function as a civilization. However in a world where gods can literally walk around and have direct interaction with people who knows what would happen. Lazy writing? 100% for sure. However most of the writing in D&D is lazy. It's an open ended game system first, story second. A lot of it comes across as cliche fan stories... but in the end isn't that what it is? I mean aren't the people hired to write, just literal fans of D&D that have been dreaming their whole life of working and writing for the company?
Thats not true. We just live in a very sanitized society and that means our imagination of historical reality is very mild at best. Even Game of Thrones is very very very....very tame.
Read "storm of spears" to get a better view of ancient warfare and just how psychotic it was.
The Carthaginians and Phoenecians sacrificed babies to their gods by throwing them in brass cauldrons.
The Aztecs and Mayans both had "Skull racks" of sacrificial victims they captured each year. The largest found when the Spaniards came was 80,000 skulls. (Yuanti)
The Japanese were headhunters, straight-up Predator-style. They would cut off a warrior's head and make the wife of the dead warrior paint them. They required priests to bless them or remove bad "oni" if the heads they cut off made certain faces at the time of death. (Hobgoblins)
Russia, Ivan the Terrible sent out legions on black horses carrying brooms with dogheads attached to bludgeon people to death randomly to "sweep out the filth and dogs of society." (Oprichniki were their names, think Voldemort).
Thanks for this. This is a very cool insghit!
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
Let me restate, because I think you missed a part due to my familiarity with chickens and your apparent, though not unexpected, lack thereof.
Chickens are brutal when mating..even tearing out feathers and causing deep bleeding wounds.
What I was relating to was the absurdity of a society as "evil" as that.
In fact I promote, somewhere in this lengthy thread, the idea that women in drow society choose their mates similarly to how spartan men chose theirs in spartan society. I like the analogue. It's rough, almost a parody of misogyny in sparta, but respectful and clever.
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 love orcs, and I have a variant of orc as well that I will some day describe in my stories that's outside the scope of this thread.
The issue is orcs are a society that is not well characterized either.
But more than Drow it's even HARDER to describe because it's very hard to show an orc society from an orc perspective. Honestly the Warcraft movie did pretty well but only because the main orcs were dragged along by a cult and were relatable victims.
I've thought of a way to get around this in story telling, without going full Drizzt (to borrow a phrase from Tropic Thunder).
Needless to say my orcs recapture the true sense of chaotic barbarism and have a physiological reason to do so.
I would say the Drow should look at orcs as a stupid force of nature to be directed off a cliff or into your enemies, whichever is expedient at the time.
They would not regard anything about them as worthy of emulation and anything similar between them and the orc is only because the inferior god of the orcs gave them a version of strength and cunning like their own.
The Drow are superior and as long as they more strictly adhere to their goddess' ways, then nothing can come close to their dominion.
That's how I intend to write 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
I might be seeing too much (or too little) in this thread, but it almost sounds like you would like Drow to be more akin to a matriarchal version of the Warhammer Dark Elves, to an extent.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Where do you think the Warhammer Dark Elves came from? Right down to the lizard riding mounts? The Games Workshop guys were D&D fans, most of the Fiend Folio monsters even appeared first in the Fiend Factory in White Dwarf magazine. Now I feel really old, realizing that I have been at this game for over 4o years now.
Their origin might (unsurprisingly) be same, but what I was pointing at is the evolution of the idea and the different structure each one has: Drow kinda bland and difficult to actually sustain itself VS Dark Elves more structured and "believable" while still delving deep in depravity and "evilness" (at least to my understanding).
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
40 years of evolving, in the case of D&D most of that not under the original creator, will tend to do that.
I've gone to great lengths to trace drow historical past.
Honestly it make sense sorta. Only a select few truely managed to gain loths true favor, Drizzt being the first overall along with a Mage female i forgot her name atm and a few select priestesses. Beyond that she's truely mad but not insane for a damn good reason.
Society for drow is matriarchal because of a male elder elvish gods utter betrayal. Loth gave everything to the drow and gained little back, she was tired and exhausted by the time they reached their final destination in their journey. That in itself explains her mad like ramblings and oddities.
Over the centuries she's used the vail of madness to find someone worthy of her true favor. Of all the documents I've read only three drow living actually have her favor literally they all live like outcasts in regards to drow society.
Their society wasn't lazy writing it was a veiled code deeply hidden. Dizzt holds her eternal favor, she has killed everyone who discovered this truth. Drizzt he doesn't even know and would be utterly disgusted to find out the truth.
The female wizard / priestesses is aware but unconcerned. Damn i need to find that book about her. Her history is absolutely amazing. The other has his own book series as well.
All three have lived in the center of drow society at the same time three different generations basically and choose on their own to revolt against society and succeeded in doing so in their own way.
That seems like lazy writing. How convenient that the only Drow that "get it" are a few rebels....meanwhile the Drow do heinous acts of evil.
Talk about grasping for straws.
"The Nazis are evil. But this Nazi totally gets it..." Hitler's plan all along.
Somehow that makes the story better?
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 wouldn't know. And I've never known anything about Warhammer. I also don't want to know because I don't want it to taint my own creation.
I'm on the 11th chapter of my first book about my version of the Drow. Which is capitalized the same as you would capitalize Englishman or German.
No one goes around and says, "hello, I am from land of the black men."
Places have names and peoples have names.
Anyway.
Unfortunately the 2 chapters I posted of my Drow story are before edits and very early drafts. I've gone back since and made major edits.
Unfortunately it's too complex to copy past formatted text into this literally shyte forum format. So I havent had time to reupload refined versions of my work.
So you're all just gonna have to buy it when it's actually done I guess lol.
Almost to 40,000 words. And the series already has a plot that spans at least 4 books before other works I plan tie into 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
I figured I didn't like the dnd drow so I made my own in a high fantasy world I already built long ago
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
If you don't like D&D Drow maybe you need to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Elves_(Warhammer)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I'm not sure I want to at this point in my creative process, but I do want to eventually.
When I first started the thread, I wanted to really dive deep into Drow lore and be critical about it, etc.
But, as I've written more and more into my own fantasy world, I want to avoid tainting it with knowing more about what others have done. Mostly for copyright reasons.
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
If you plan an actually publishing your works, I would suggest (once you are done and satisfied might be best considering your replies on the matter) to still give it a look, right for the reason you stated at the end: possible copyright issues.
Just a friendly advice, I'd actually be curious to see what you come up with.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Do "Drow" not fall under copyright?
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I was always a huge fan of how The Elder Scrolls captured the concept of Dark Elves. They did a really good job at capturing what makes Dark Elves, well, Dark Elves, while building a more cohesive culture and history around it. Misses out on the matriarchal aspect, but eh.
Not to say TES is a paragon of good lore. God no. But I think one can learn a lot from the Dunmer if they want to write a better version of Faerun's Drow.
PbP characters:
Allison Adrova - Reign of the Dragon King
Delilah Thorne - Eidolons of Eramyth
Melody Velias (Spy) - Power Trip
Single words can't be copyrighted. They can be trademarked. That's something a creator has to actively register, but it's possible. 'Concepts' also can't be copyrighted.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
Any society that is inherently evil could never function as a civilization. However in a world where gods can literally walk around and have direct interaction with people who knows what would happen. Lazy writing? 100% for sure. However most of the writing in D&D is lazy. It's an open ended game system first, story second. A lot of it comes across as cliche fan stories... but in the end isn't that what it is? I mean aren't the people hired to write, just literal fans of D&D that have been dreaming their whole life of working and writing for the company?
I've looked at it pretty extensively but if they caredI could just flip it to darkelf.
But as mentioned below, Drow is not trademarked or copyrighted. Also, dnd has published what they have trademarked (I believe) which they call something (sorry forgot the damned name of it) but its things like Beholder, or Forgotten Realms, etc.
Drow is not among them.
As for concepts. Mine totally diverged which is super cool
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
Thats not true. We just live in a very sanitized society and that means our imagination of historical reality is very mild at best. Even Game of Thrones is very very very....very tame.
Read "storm of spears" to get a better view of ancient warfare and just how psychotic it was.
The Carthaginians and Phoenecians sacrificed babies to their gods by throwing them in brass cauldrons.
The Aztecs and Mayans both had "Skull racks" of sacrificial victims they captured each year. The largest found when the Spaniards came was 80,000 skulls. (Yuanti)
The Japanese were headhunters, straight-up Predator-style. They would cut off a warrior's head and make the wife of the dead warrior paint them. They required priests to bless them or remove bad "oni" if the heads they cut off made certain faces at the time of death. (Hobgoblins)
Russia, Ivan the Terrible sent out legions on black horses carrying brooms with dogheads attached to bludgeon people to death randomly to "sweep out the filth and dogs of society." (Oprichniki were their names, think Voldemort).
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