I had known that "Dungeons and dragons" existed as a concept since i was very young due to the Cartoon and action figures which i really loved from a young age.
What really got me into the lore and universe were the Drzzt books which i randomly picked up from a thrift store while on the road with my band, books were what got you through all the down time and drives.
ANYWAY, As i learned it the Drow had black skin, not in a melanistic way but there skin was like Ebony stone. Which made sense to "evil" or "Dark" drow had black skin, they lived underground so an Ebony stone...this all tracked for me. It also leant weight to the difficulties Drzzt, the main character, had when he made his way to the surface and had to interact with other races, it was difficult to hide sans magic means and he would even be scary to people who had no idea what a Drow was.
As an artist i know its difficult to add depth and stuff to characters who are solid negative space black but over time i see Drow drawn as grey, blue green etc and i hate it. Its my opinion i know and i always feel everyone should put their personal mark on every DND character or race they create. It just seemed to me that it made the character more interesting to play and write for in the way a "friendly" bugbear or Gnoll might be when interacting with non monstrous races.
In my personal canon and writing i tend to stick to the connection to Lolth, and over time ive started sort of handling things as the more time a Drow spends on the surface the skin sort of lightens up into grey or mottled grey with black specks or markings.
They can at any time however make their skin go fully black, but more so than my original thinking. "My" Drow can make their skin almost negative space black if they wish and ive toyed with the idea of them being able to actually have this black silhouette envelope there if its "Drow made" from Underdark materials. for the purposes of stealth and general sneakyness. This has actually become my standard Drow mechanic/ aesthetic and i enjoy it. I love race specific powers and really making each race special and i look to do that whenever i can.
Just wondering what everyone else thought of Drow and how they handle things are how they land in your personal story worlds.
The drow of my homebrew world have pale grey skin, since they don't need as much melanin underground. This pale color also helps them blend in with the grey stone of the Underdark.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I've always imagined them as the darkest hour of night in color.
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"A rightful place awaits you in the Realms Above, in the Land of the Great Light. Come in peace, and live beneath the sun again, where trees and flowers grow."
— The message of Eilistraee to all decent drow.
"Run thy sword across my chains, Silver Lady, that I may join your dance.”
Thats actually pretty cool, for me the reason they are so black is because they were forced out of the light of the sun and moon and stars, (all stuff the regular elves worship) and so their color is now the absence of those lights.
I’m not a big fan of the concept. Evil elves I can believe but the dark elf doesn’t have to mean they have to have dark skin and skulk around underground. I know that’s the lore, I’ve just never found the whole lolth cataclysm thing compelling. Felt like a lazy pretext. It would make more sense if the elves more mundanely divided along religious, political or moral lines.
I mean isnt that what the Lolth cult is? a division along religious lines? I mean making a sub-race that follows an evil goddess and then having them evolve black skin because they are mostly stealthy sneaky warriors who attack in the dark kind of tracks for me.
I can understand that if the black skin was a natural occurrence and then for whatever reason you made that group evil, than yeah thats kinda heavy handed trash to me as well.
Lyxen, you make a lot of good points. I'm warming to the idea of a separate sub-species of Elf, just as their are high elves, hill dwarves, etc. I'm not wild about the phenotype distinction. I think it would be more interesting if they went underground metaphorically, or in the normal definition of that, where a dissident or criminal goes "underground". More like a secret organization of evil minded elves that mix and pass in regular society and use that cover to further their plots?
Somewhat separate question- weren't the Orcs supposed to be the "anti-elf"?
In my world, Lolth gains power for each postmortal soul trapped in her "web," or her domain (The Underdark and her layer of the Abyss). So it would make sense for her to try to lure an entire subrace into the Underdark. I agree that it would not make sense for drow to have black skin since they live away from the sun, but maybe it's just genetics and not environmental pigmentation.
In recent times in the timeline (of my world), however, Lolth has been sealed into a divinely strengthened burial spell, so her power and influence is decimated. The drow are now free from her "religious" onslaught, and can do whatever they like, though few have yet gone to the surface.
Somewhat separate question- weren't the Orcs supposed to be the "anti-elf"?
I don't play them that way in my campaigns. I mean, they don't have a perfect relationship with each other, but they mind their own business and keep to their own portion of the forest they share.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
In my world, Lolth gains power for each postmortal soul trapped in her "web," or her domain (The Underdark and her layer of the Abyss). So it would make sense for her to try to lure an entire subrace into the Underdark. I agree that it would not make sense for drow to have black skin since they live away from the sun, but maybe it's just genetics and not environmental pigmentation.
In recent times in the timeline (of my world), however, Lolth has been sealed into a divinely strengthened burial spell, so her power and influence is decimated. The drow are now free from her "religious" onslaught, and can do whatever they like, though few have yet gone to the surface.
Interesting. In my world, the Abyss (and all communications from it) was sealed off 106 years ago. Because of this, every cleric suddenly lost their power, and ever summoned demon just disappeared. The drow would have fallen apart if not for the High Priestess of Lolth taking decisive action and claiming that this sudden silence from their goddess was merely a test of their faith. However, under the leadership of a former House Captain, hundreds of drow broke off from worship of Lolth and their matriarchal society, becoming citizens of the Independent City of Valstraed, a semi-democracy where all drow are equal. The High Priestess declared war on them, and they've been fighting for most of the hundred years, a fact that keeps most drow distracted from the High Priestess' lies.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I love drow and I’ve played drow characters more than any other race thus far. Initially when I was designing and drawing drow, years ago, I would do very dark grey skin (mostly because I was inexperienced in digital art at the time and didn’t want to use pure black ink). But I’ve altered how I draw drow, and now I use skin colours that range from ebony to medium grey and include purple or blue undertones. Basically my logic is that the darker their skin, the purer their bloodline, purely genetic and not related to light exposure.
To me the association of evil to dark skin has always been problematic along the lines of racial connotation, though that's probably highlighted by the fact that I learned to play the game with my family, who are racially mixed.
And though I don't know where it tracks in this conversation, but the Svartálfar of Norse myth weren't specifically dark-skinned, they were dwarves. The Alfar were elves, but they came in a thousand varieties, such that they could probably cover D&D elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings. 'Svart' is translated as dark in the name, though linguistically it means something more like 'hidden' or 'subterranean'. It think it might have been Marvel Comics, with the Thor line, who first made dark elves look like the Tolkien-esc elves of D&D.
To me the association of evil to dark skin has always been problematic along the lines of racial connotation, though that's probably highlighted by the fact that I learned to play the game with my family, who are racially mixed.
And, on the other hand, it has never, ever been a problem to us who have been playing with various and mixed ethnicities since before 1980.
Yes, but that describes how we've made progress since then.
As to "Some scholars think that they might refer to the same concept, but some only." and "I'm sorry but Svart means black, in and of itself, or may be translated as swarthy in the concept of ethnics.", please cite a reference.
You seem to be getting rather defensive rather quickly here. I'd advise taking a step back if this issue has some sort personal investment for you.
You mentioned not being aware that there were issues. Being aware of the issues is progress over being unaware of them.
That article doesn't list any references that disagree with what I said, and lists nothing that even hints at what you said except to mention the word 'swarthy'. Tolkien himself disagreed with that, according to the epilogue of his translation of Sigurd and Gudrun.
Frankly, it's not really possible for me to see you as doing something here other than trolling, and I'm starting to realize you've done this before. No one can read the article you linked to as selectively as you did and do so unintentionally. It's barely a page of information. Am I really supposed to believe you innocently missed sentences directly before and after the ones you quoted? And as to not citing a source, I cited your sources. Am I really supposed to believe you didn't get that? Please.
One issue with addressing how drow are written, and really, how any race is written, is that while you can make any 'evil' connotation the result of culture rather than in innate trait, that kind of inclines you to give each race a specific culture, which leads you back to the implication of their culture being innate. You end up not solving that 'innate evil' issue. In a setting book you can kinda do it, because any culture you're relating is specific to the setting, so you're not automatically implying 'this is how they are everywhere'.
I swear, I'm tired of having to continually repost this, so please, for the love of St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel:
From D3: Vault of the Drow Rakes roaming the streets in Erelhei-Cinlu are bands of bitter youths, often outcasts. The band will be composed of either Drow, Drow-elves, and half-Drow (human cross) or Drow, half-Drow, and (1-2) half-orcs. The former sort of group is 40% likely, the latter 60%. Drow crosses will have magic resistance equal to their Dark Elven heritage but no spell ability. The bands withelven-Drow members will be hostile to all they perceive as part of the system which prevails in their world, and the Dark Elves with them are of the few who are neither totally degenerate nor wholly evil—they are haters of the society around them and see no good in it.
If the party manages a friendly meeting with a group ofDrow/Drow-elves/half-Drow rakes the youths will tell them about the worship of the Demoness Lolth and the way to her "Egg." The rakes will accompany the party to the area in question if a plan which seems reasonable to them is put forth. They will also leave the Vault-Egg areas in the course of adventuring.
Drow's are Evil not by something inherent to them but to their CULTURE. They're basically an inky-black skinned version of the citizens of The City of Imrryr from Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series. They're effete and debauched, spending their days drinking strong wines, ingesting all manner of drugs and engaging in (likely) equal amounts of carnal and violent "pleasure".
As to their skin-color, it was likely an adaptation to the "strange radiations of their Dark Fairy homeland". IOW, they don't conform to natural species (where living underground would reduce the amount of melanin). Otherwise, I suggest you check out the other "debauched underground civilization" from D&D's past: Cynidecia in B4: The Lost City. Cynideceans are Chaotic, to use their BECMI alignments (which broadly conforms to Evil in AD&D and later editions). Only the Brotherhood of Gorm are Lawful, while the Magi of Usamigaras and Warrior Maidens of Madarua are Neutral. Cynideceans are pale skinned, unlike the Drow, but are very much in the same vein as they are heavily inspired by Elric and the citizens of Imrryr.
Just wondering where everyone else lands on this.
I had known that "Dungeons and dragons" existed as a concept since i was very young due to the Cartoon and action figures which i really loved from a young age.
What really got me into the lore and universe were the Drzzt books which i randomly picked up from a thrift store while on the road with my band, books were what got you through all the down time and drives.
ANYWAY, As i learned it the Drow had black skin, not in a melanistic way but there skin was like Ebony stone. Which made sense to "evil" or "Dark" drow had black skin, they lived underground so an Ebony stone...this all tracked for me. It also leant weight to the difficulties Drzzt, the main character, had when he made his way to the surface and had to interact with other races, it was difficult to hide sans magic means and he would even be scary to people who had no idea what a Drow was.
As an artist i know its difficult to add depth and stuff to characters who are solid negative space black but over time i see Drow drawn as grey, blue green etc and i hate it. Its my opinion i know and i always feel everyone should put their personal mark on every DND character or race they create. It just seemed to me that it made the character more interesting to play and write for in the way a "friendly" bugbear or Gnoll might be when interacting with non monstrous races.
In my personal canon and writing i tend to stick to the connection to Lolth, and over time ive started sort of handling things as the more time a Drow spends on the surface the skin sort of lightens up into grey or mottled grey with black specks or markings.
They can at any time however make their skin go fully black, but more so than my original thinking. "My" Drow can make their skin almost negative space black if they wish and ive toyed with the idea of them being able to actually have this black silhouette envelope there if its "Drow made" from Underdark materials. for the purposes of stealth and general sneakyness. This has actually become my standard Drow mechanic/ aesthetic and i enjoy it. I love race specific powers and really making each race special and i look to do that whenever i can.
Just wondering what everyone else thought of Drow and how they handle things are how they land in your personal story worlds.
The drow of my homebrew world have pale grey skin, since they don't need as much melanin underground. This pale color also helps them blend in with the grey stone of the Underdark.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Drow in my homebrew world are just normal elves. They live in deep woods that are almost as dark as the Underdark, not underground.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
I've always imagined them as the darkest hour of night in color.
Thats actually pretty cool, for me the reason they are so black is because they were forced out of the light of the sun and moon and stars, (all stuff the regular elves worship) and so their color is now the absence of those lights.
I’m not a big fan of the concept. Evil elves I can believe but the dark elf doesn’t have to mean they have to have dark skin and skulk around underground. I know that’s the lore, I’ve just never found the whole lolth cataclysm thing compelling. Felt like a lazy pretext. It would make more sense if the elves more mundanely divided along religious, political or moral lines.
I mean isnt that what the Lolth cult is? a division along religious lines? I mean making a sub-race that follows an evil goddess and then having them evolve black skin because they are mostly stealthy sneaky warriors who attack in the dark kind of tracks for me.
I can understand that if the black skin was a natural occurrence and then for whatever reason you made that group evil, than yeah thats kinda heavy handed trash to me as well.
Lyxen, you make a lot of good points. I'm warming to the idea of a separate sub-species of Elf, just as their are high elves, hill dwarves, etc. I'm not wild about the phenotype distinction. I think it would be more interesting if they went underground metaphorically, or in the normal definition of that, where a dissident or criminal goes "underground". More like a secret organization of evil minded elves that mix and pass in regular society and use that cover to further their plots?
Somewhat separate question- weren't the Orcs supposed to be the "anti-elf"?
In my world, Lolth gains power for each postmortal soul trapped in her "web," or her domain (The Underdark and her layer of the Abyss). So it would make sense for her to try to lure an entire subrace into the Underdark. I agree that it would not make sense for drow to have black skin since they live away from the sun, but maybe it's just genetics and not environmental pigmentation.
In recent times in the timeline (of my world), however, Lolth has been sealed into a divinely strengthened burial spell, so her power and influence is decimated. The drow are now free from her "religious" onslaught, and can do whatever they like, though few have yet gone to the surface.
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXVIII?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
I don't play them that way in my campaigns. I mean, they don't have a perfect relationship with each other, but they mind their own business and keep to their own portion of the forest they share.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Interesting. In my world, the Abyss (and all communications from it) was sealed off 106 years ago. Because of this, every cleric suddenly lost their power, and ever summoned demon just disappeared. The drow would have fallen apart if not for the High Priestess of Lolth taking decisive action and claiming that this sudden silence from their goddess was merely a test of their faith. However, under the leadership of a former House Captain, hundreds of drow broke off from worship of Lolth and their matriarchal society, becoming citizens of the Independent City of Valstraed, a semi-democracy where all drow are equal. The High Priestess declared war on them, and they've been fighting for most of the hundred years, a fact that keeps most drow distracted from the High Priestess' lies.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I love drow and I’ve played drow characters more than any other race thus far. Initially when I was designing and drawing drow, years ago, I would do very dark grey skin (mostly because I was inexperienced in digital art at the time and didn’t want to use pure black ink). But I’ve altered how I draw drow, and now I use skin colours that range from ebony to medium grey and include purple or blue undertones. Basically my logic is that the darker their skin, the purer their bloodline, purely genetic and not related to light exposure.
To me the association of evil to dark skin has always been problematic along the lines of racial connotation, though that's probably highlighted by the fact that I learned to play the game with my family, who are racially mixed.
And though I don't know where it tracks in this conversation, but the Svartálfar of Norse myth weren't specifically dark-skinned, they were dwarves. The Alfar were elves, but they came in a thousand varieties, such that they could probably cover D&D elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings. 'Svart' is translated as dark in the name, though linguistically it means something more like 'hidden' or 'subterranean'. It think it might have been Marvel Comics, with the Thor line, who first made dark elves look like the Tolkien-esc elves of D&D.
Yes, but that describes how we've made progress since then.
As to "Some scholars think that they might refer to the same concept, but some only." and "I'm sorry but Svart means black, in and of itself, or may be translated as swarthy in the concept of ethnics.", please cite a reference.
You seem to be getting rather defensive rather quickly here. I'd advise taking a step back if this issue has some sort personal investment for you.
You mentioned not being aware that there were issues. Being aware of the issues is progress over being unaware of them.
That article doesn't list any references that disagree with what I said, and lists nothing that even hints at what you said except to mention the word 'swarthy'. Tolkien himself disagreed with that, according to the epilogue of his translation of Sigurd and Gudrun.
Frankly, it's not really possible for me to see you as doing something here other than trolling, and I'm starting to realize you've done this before. No one can read the article you linked to as selectively as you did and do so unintentionally. It's barely a page of information. Am I really supposed to believe you innocently missed sentences directly before and after the ones you quoted? And as to not citing a source, I cited your sources. Am I really supposed to believe you didn't get that? Please.
One issue with addressing how drow are written, and really, how any race is written, is that while you can make any 'evil' connotation the result of culture rather than in innate trait, that kind of inclines you to give each race a specific culture, which leads you back to the implication of their culture being innate. You end up not solving that 'innate evil' issue. In a setting book you can kinda do it, because any culture you're relating is specific to the setting, so you're not automatically implying 'this is how they are everywhere'.
:sigh:
This, again.
I swear, I'm tired of having to continually repost this, so please, for the love of St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel:
From D3: Vault of the Drow
Rakes roaming the streets in Erelhei-Cinlu are bands of bitter youths, often outcasts. The band will be composed of either Drow, Drow-elves, and half-Drow (human cross) or Drow, half-Drow, and (1-2) half-orcs. The former sort of group is 40% likely, the latter 60%. Drow crosses will have magic resistance equal to their Dark Elven heritage but no spell ability. The bands with elven-Drow members will be hostile to all they perceive as part of the system which prevails in their world, and the Dark Elves with them are of the few who are neither totally degenerate nor wholly evil—they are haters of the society around them and see no good in it.
If the party manages a friendly meeting with a group of Drow/Drow-elves/half-Drow rakes the youths will tell them about the worship of the Demoness Lolth and the way to her "Egg." The rakes will accompany the party to the area in question if a plan which seems reasonable to them is put forth. They will also leave the Vault-Egg areas in the course of adventuring.
Drow's are Evil not by something inherent to them but to their CULTURE. They're basically an inky-black skinned version of the citizens of The City of Imrryr from Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series. They're effete and debauched, spending their days drinking strong wines, ingesting all manner of drugs and engaging in (likely) equal amounts of carnal and violent "pleasure".
As to their skin-color, it was likely an adaptation to the "strange radiations of their Dark Fairy homeland". IOW, they don't conform to natural species (where living underground would reduce the amount of melanin). Otherwise, I suggest you check out the other "debauched underground civilization" from D&D's past: Cynidecia in B4: The Lost City. Cynideceans are Chaotic, to use their BECMI alignments (which broadly conforms to Evil in AD&D and later editions). Only the Brotherhood of Gorm are Lawful, while the Magi of Usamigaras and Warrior Maidens of Madarua are Neutral. Cynideceans are pale skinned, unlike the Drow, but are very much in the same vein as they are heavily inspired by Elric and the citizens of Imrryr.
:sigh:
This, again.
No one was asking for justification in the lore. We're all aware of that. No one is arguing that there isn't an in-setting reason.
:sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: :sigh: