Why don't you explain why having a common mythology (and common rules) is not important to D&D?
If I have to explain the difference between the rules of the game and story-telling devices like subverting tropes or retconning, then we might as well be speaking different languages.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
. Why don't you explain why having a common mythology (and common rules) is not important to D&D?
Why must mythology/lore and rules be unified? D&D seems to be doing very well successfully encouraging the play of a unified mechanical ruleset. But the DMG provides examples and "default" mythology while also explicitly encouraging or at least granting license for DMs to go it their own way. And while the Forgotten Realms are the "default" setting for D&D (though quite a few books set in FR have guidance on landing the adventure somewhere else), WotC still feels comfortable enough to put out four hardbacks supporting worlds that take significant deviations to outright abandonments of established lore. So I'd say is it really necessary to explain why it's not important when we can still point at D&D as incredibly commercially successful property in its present incarnation, an incarnation that doesn't really work too hard to maintain a canonical fidelity, especially if they think a break from tradition may either (and ideally both) make for a good story or encourage a new way to play. Canon/lore codification is now more the work of fan wikis and YouTube channels than anything else.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
. Why don't you explain why having a common mythology (and common rules) is not important to D&D?
Canon/lore codification is now more the work of fan wikis and YouTube channels than anything else.
Well, I have to say this is definitely not true, but I kind of wish it was. For example, I would love to play a Cleric of Eilistraee, but I keep running into DMs who follow AL rules or simply do not want to accept it. Fortunately, I found one who was liberal enough to let me play it and it is great from an RP perspective. In my extensive experience, people only look at WotC materials as allowable and anything else as not. So back to the Drow Question, I predict that when WotC publishes a new set of good drow who worship some new god they invent, most DMs will default to "if you want to play a good drow, here are the canonical rules and that's what you must follow." Canon does matter as everything else is homebrew and not usually looked upon favorably. IMHO.
. Why don't you explain why having a common mythology (and common rules) is not important to D&D?
Canon/lore codification is now more the work of fan wikis and YouTube channels than anything else.
Well, I have to say this is definitely not true, but I kind of wish it was. For example, I would love to play a Cleric of Eilistraee, but I keep running into DMs who follow AL rules or simply do not want to accept it. Fortunately, I found one who was liberal enough to let me play it and it is great from an RP perspective. In my extensive experience, people only look at WotC materials as allowable and anything else as not. So back to the Drow Question, I predict that when WotC publishes a new set of good drow who worship some new god they invent, most DMs will default to "if you want to play a good drow, here are the canonical rules and that's what you must follow." Canon does matter as everything else is homebrew and not usually looked upon favorably. IMHO.
I'm confused. So you're saying Ellistraee can't be played because of canon or because of AL? Ellistrae isn't canon? Or is AL not canon? Sounds like your experience finding a DM who allowed you to play exactly what you wanted doesn't really go to the argument either way. Not to get into an extensive experience measuring contest but I don't see AL or the extensive strictures you're describing in the LFP section of this forum, nor was AL really a thing at the game nights of the two stores I frequented prior to public play being shut down. Those streamers popularizing the game ... I don't see a lot of hardcore "official lore" players out there aside from folks doing playthroughs of published work ... and I'd say the distribution between homebrew worlds and lore live players skews toward the creatives, especially in audience count. As far as the Drow lore expansion, what official product are those coming in? There isn't one, they're showing up in novels.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
In my limited experience, DM (playing in the Forgotten Realms) who are either new or don't know a lot about the lore tend to stick to what's in the DMG and other official sourcebook for what God you can pick and such. While DM who are more familiar with the lore will often feel more comfortable with picking from older editions.
I don't see how the fact that many people - especially from popular game on youtube or twitch - are playing in homebrew world has anything to do with the subject of canon in the forgotten realms. The point of having a setting is to have already establishe rules and lore, either so DMs can have (most) of their work done for them or having a large field from which to pick from. But if the setting is just "here's a 1000 things you can pick from but most don't work together" it's kinda pointless. Sure its work for the latter kind of DMs who just want inspiration for their world, but for those who want to have something already built it sucks (not everyone likes to a homebrew). And not to mention players, or even just people outside of the game, who love the setting and want to know more about it's lore.
And it's not because WotC expends on other settings that canon isn't important. Those other setting have a canon as well, be it close to FR or widely different.
WotC has a lot of worlds. Just cause they changed canon on FR doesn’t mean it’s changed for every world. The drow of Oerth can still be old school (complete with corny mustaches 😊) if people want.
For that matter the drow of Menzo are NOT being changed. They just added two new enclaves with a different culture. I still think this is much ado about nothing, but I also think people should wait for a sourcebook or at least a novel to come out before they flip out over this.
I know this is a little late, but here's my thoughts on the new drow lore: I really don't get it. The drow have been pretty much the same since they were first released, and when they suddenly decide to change them, they release it in a magazine article? They should have done it in a sourcebook at the least. I feel like this is just because they want more "good" drow, and R. A. Salvatore has wrote the drow to death and finally run out of plots. Course, anyone can run their campaigns how they like, and I will personally not be using this new lore.
I know this is a little late, but here's my thoughts on the new drow lore: I really don't get it. The drow have been pretty much the same since they were first released, and when they suddenly decide to change them, they release it in a magazine article? They should have done it in a sourcebook at the least. I feel like this is just because they want more "good" drow, and R. A. Salvatore has wrote the drow to death and finally run out of plots. Course, anyone can run their campaigns how they like, and I will personally not be using this new lore.
To be fair, the Dragon+ article is only a preview of what's to come. I don't know if everything will feature in the upcoming Salvatore's book or if it's going to be split with other official content.
I do agree that two hidden "Drow" societies could be pulled off. But beside them staying out of everyone's sight for thousands of year, you'd also have to explain how can they be "Drow" when Drow are specifically the elves that followed Lolth and went into the Underdark. Other kind of Dark Elves sure, but Drow :/
Also by "staying out of everyone's sight" I mean everyone, Lolth included. Because I don't see her taking kindly to large bunch of Drow leaving their own life outside her influence. At the very least you'd think she'd notice her Priestesses and put them on top of the To Kill Elf list.
Perhaps Lolth left them alone on purpose. She is an evil sadistic goddess, who takes great pleasure in torturing and corrupting her people, as well as causing misery, emotional and psychological pain and death.
Imagine the carnage she could revel in by allowing two entirely separate societies of Drow to grow up free of her control, and then unleashing her “children” upon them when the time was right.
The death, suffering, torment, torture, pain and carnage that would be unleashed by such a “civil” war, seems to be right up her alley, and perhaps could serve as some kind of grand ritual to empower her further, or even to summon her forth into the material plane, to bathe in the blood and bask in the glory of her creations.
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I do agree that two hidden "Drow" societies could be pulled off. But beside them staying out of everyone's sight for thousands of year, you'd also have to explain how can they be "Drow" when Drow are specifically the elves that followed Lolth and went into the Underdark. Other kind of Dark Elves sure, but Drow :/
Also by "staying out of everyone's sight" I mean everyone, Lolth included. Because I don't see her taking kindly to large bunch of Drow leaving their own life outside her influence. At the very least you'd think she'd notice her Priestesses and put them on top of the To Kill Elf list.
Perhaps Lolth left them alone on purpose. She is an evil sadistic goddess, who takes great pleasure in torturing and corrupting her people, as well as causing misery, emotional and psychological pain and death.
Imagine the carnage she could revel in by allowing two entirely separate societies of Drow to grow up free of her control, and then unleashing her “children” upon them when the time was right.
The death, suffering, torment, torture, pain and carnage that would be unleashed by such a “civil” war, seems to be right up her alley, and perhaps could serve as some kind of grand ritual to empower her further, or even to summon her forth into the material plane, to bathe in the blood and bask in the glory of her creations.
All y'all lore heads really ought to go back to the most extensive Drow lore treatment in 5e in MToF. Specifically the side bar about "holes in Lloth's web" that begins "Lloth is far from omniscient, despite what her priestesses say." If you read the whole paragraph you'll see that Drow have always been set up since that book as to be open to the possibility of communities out of Lloth's web.
Again Lloth's dominion over all Drow is a _story_ told by both the network of Drow cities in the under dark that worship her, the elven communities that bore witness to the Lloth/Corellon schism, and it's been basically accepted by fact by the various entities who've come into contact with those elves and Drow. The import of those stories is still important, since so many relationships among much larger entities are held to it, yet you can also have revelations that challenge that story, which is what is happening here, to what effect isn't clear, but it's really unlikely the traditional dynamic the vast majority of Drow that have contact with other surface and under dark entities in the realms is going to change.
In my limited experience, DM (playing in the Forgotten Realms) who are either new or don't know a lot about the lore tend to stick to what's in the DMG and other official sourcebook for what God you can pick and such. While DM who are more familiar with the lore will often feel more comfortable with picking from older editions.
I don't see how the fact that many people - especially from popular game on youtube or twitch - are playing in homebrew world has anything to do with the subject of canon in the forgotten realms. The point of having a setting is to have already establishe rules and lore, either so DMs can have (most) of their work done for them or having a large field from which to pick from. But if the setting is just "here's a 1000 things you can pick from but most don't work together" it's kinda pointless. Sure its work for the latter kind of DMs who just want inspiration for their world, but for those who want to have something already built it sucks (not everyone likes to a homebrew). And not to mention players, or even just people outside of the game, who love the setting and want to know more about it's lore.
And it's not because WotC expends on other settings that canon isn't important. Those other setting have a canon as well, be it close to FR or widely different.
There are a couple of different trajectories in this discussion. Someone was holding that lore is integral to D&D, however if you pay attention to how much fidelity WotC has actually had toward lore or even world building that's just not the case. For every AL "purist" out there, there are many many more players who play "lo fidelity" in established settings (the one's I've described as simply needing someone to draw then a map) as well as homebrew folks, taking the guidance in the DMG to "do what you want".
And the FR is 1000 things that don't work together. It's a kitchen sink with the water running and the garbage disposal on. Where's the continuity? Most of the 5e hardback with the exception of Saltmarsh (which isn't really in the FR, but could be because "it doesn't matter to the adventure") or Candlekeep (is stated to in the FR, but doesn't have to be because of same principle) deal with world affecting events. Only Storm King's Thunder makes some effort to speak to other adventures, and in a sort of "well, if they're bored here or there, they can change up adventures" way for the most part. Otherwise "lore" is basically Easter eggs. It doesn't matter if the players know it, because it's hard to maintain D&D's player numbers if mastery of esoterica was essential to play. What does maintain players, arguably, is throwing things at them that sound cool, despite however it may chafe canon, things like "find the lost colonies of the "good Drow").
I've seen the FR maintained as an actually living game world in prior editions. It's present iteration, I'd say is more successful because the game world is largely besides the point ... to the point that transplanting the adventure into another game world is included as guidance far more often than any effort to tie a product into existing lore.
Earlier heavily elaborated editions of the FR taught me how to ... basically not design a game world, unless I wanted to design a world that was basically made out of rubber and would always bounce back into shape no matter what the PCs did. FR thrives because it's that elastic, inertly so. It's a world for folks who need someone to draw them a map, literally.
Well, Drow have always worshiped other entities (and Demons) than Lolth. That's been true since their inception. There was a reason why the Eilservs/Tormtor faction switched to worshiping The Elder Elemental God, since they wanted to bring all the Drow of the Vault under their purview instead of the usual in-fighting amongst the various houses. And there has always been a tiny percentage (which is higher among half-castes and Drow half-elves) that weren't Evil and/or degenerate. I just think its dumb to have new Drow and/or to claim they were always Evil in the older editions (let alone the absolutely asinine claim their inky-black skin was the result of a curse from Correllon Larethian).
These new "Drow" aren't Drow. They either never fled the surface (in which case, they're not Drow) or they never worshipped Lolth or other Demons/Entities (so again, NOT DROW). They're just Elf variants.
Perhaps Lolth left them alone on purpose. She is an evil sadistic goddess, who takes great pleasure in torturing and corrupting her people, as well as causing misery, emotional and psychological pain and death.
Imagine the carnage she could revel in by allowing two entirely separate societies of Drow to grow up free of her control, and then unleashing her “children” upon them when the time was right.
The death, suffering, torment, torture, pain and carnage that would be unleashed by such a “civil” war, seems to be right up her alley, and perhaps could serve as some kind of grand ritual to empower her further, or even to summon her forth into the material plane, to bathe in the blood and bask in the glory of her creations.
I don't think Lolth is able to plan that far ahead xD
Well, Drow have always worshiped other entities (and Demons) than Lolth. That's been true since their inception. There was a reason why the Eilservs/Tormtor faction switched to worshiping The Elder Elemental God, since they wanted to bring all the Drow of the Vault under their purview instead of the usual in-fighting amongst the various houses. And there has always been a tiny percentage (which is higher among half-castes and Drow half-elves) that weren't Evil and/or degenerate. I just think its dumb to have new Drow and/or to claim they were always Evil in the older editions (let alone the absolutely asinine claim their inky-black skin was the result of a curse from Correllon Larethian).
These new "Drow" aren't Drow. They either never fled the surface (in which case, they're not Drow) or they never worshipped Lolth or other Demons/Entities (so again, NOT DROW). They're just Elf variants.
"It is believed that in the years following Lolth’s schism, some of the drow elves who remained abovegroundfollowed their moral compasses north, vanishing from history behind curtains of snow, aurora, and illusion."
"Another band of uncorrupted drow which remained aboveground are believed to have sought a new homeland within the towering forests to the south."
For sure, according to what's said in the Dragon+ article, the Aevendrow & Lorendrow did not go underground. I also understand it as they never worshipped Lolth, but that's a bit more up for debate.
And I agree, they probably shouldn't be called "Drow", Dark Elves would be better. And I don't think it would be that much more confusing to distinguish Drow ("corrupted" dark elves) to those Starlight Dark Elves and Wood Dark Elves.
Well, Drow have always worshiped other entities (and Demons) than Lolth. That's been true since their inception. There was a reason why the Eilservs/Tormtor faction switched to worshiping The Elder Elemental God, since they wanted to bring all the Drow of the Vault under their purview instead of the usual in-fighting amongst the various houses. And there has always been a tiny percentage (which is higher among half-castes and Drow half-elves) that weren't Evil and/or degenerate. I just think its dumb to have new Drow and/or to claim they were always Evil in the older editions (let alone the absolutely asinine claim their inky-black skin was the result of a curse from Correllon Larethian).
These new "Drow" aren't Drow. They either never fled the surface (in which case, they're not Drow) or they never worshipped Lolth or other Demons/Entities (so again, NOT DROW). They're just Elf variants.
"It is believed that in the years following Lolth’s schism, some of the drow elves who remained abovegroundfollowed their moral compasses north, vanishing from history behind curtains of snow, aurora, and illusion."
"Another band of uncorrupted drow which remained aboveground are believed to have sought a new homeland within the towering forests to the south."
For sure, according to what's said in the Dragon+ article, the Aevendrow & Lorendrow did not go underground. I also understand it as they never worshipped Lolth, but that's a bit more up for debate.
And I agree, they probably shouldn't be called "Drow", Dark Elves would be better. And I don't think it would be that much more confusing to distinguish Drow ("corrupted" dark elves) to those Starlight Dark Elves and Wood Dark Elves.
Well, it seems pretty evident from the product announcements that these "dark elves" have more to do with the Drow (notice the new triumvirate of presumably Drow language names for the three groups) than the broader world of elves. Actually in Faerun most of the Drow lore is pretty insular and the rest of elfdom is pretty much lumped in with the surface. These dark elves Drow are going to be part of a story focusing on a long standing Drow protagonist, the bulk of whose lore is actually built on said protagonist coming to terms with their Drow identity and what it could mean. It's pretty clear these communities will have a potential impact on Drow more than any other species in FR, again to expand the story of Drow beyond whatever boundary fans of prior Drow lore want to keep. And it can be as impactful or inconsequential as players want it to be, especially since there's not D&D rules product on the immediate horizon addressing this. So, for the time being, it's literally just a story. Of course, that's what all lore is in the first place.
You're also privileging the lore quotes from Dragon, where as there's a big quote that actually gives those quotes license and shifts the argument more to the "lore isn't necessarily the whole story" perspective I've been advocating:
“The spider-inspired ‘udadrow’ expression of the drow elves that D&D fans currently know is based on Lolth’s influence over a pocket of elves who became isolationist, cutting themselves off from the rest of drow culture,” explains Franchise Creative Director Jeremy Jarvis. “There are whole societies of drow that did not follow Lolth into the Underdark. Two such groups are the ‘aevendrow’ and the ‘lorendrow’, or the starlight elves and the greenshadow elves respectively.”
So the Drow and all other elf schism is evidently something more than simply following Lolth in pending FR contributions to lore. Folks can and will take it or leave it or adapt it to their own use. If you want to fit them into some hitherto unknown variants of elf, you could, but FR seems pretty intent on making them part of the Drow story, not the elf story.
The other thing hard to ignore about that quote is the "Two such groups" part -- as in, they're leaving the door open for more.
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
The other thing hard to ignore about that quote is the "Two such groups" part -- as in, they're leaving the door open for more.
Which is actually sort of interesting. These other hitherto unknown to the rest of Faerun Drow are isolationist in bent post schism with elves. The Lloth Drow on the other hand are sort of conquerors. Or at least raiders and slavers.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
You're also privileging the lore quotes from Dragon, where as there's a big quote that actually gives those quotes license and shifts the argument more to the "lore isn't necessarily the whole story" perspective I've been advocating:
“The spider-inspired ‘udadrow’ expression of the drow elves that D&D fans currently know is based on Lolth’s influence over a pocket of elves who became isolationist, cutting themselves off from the rest of drow culture,” explains Franchise Creative Director Jeremy Jarvis. “There are whole societies of drow that did not follow Lolth into the Underdark. Two such groups are the ‘aevendrow’ and the ‘lorendrow’, or the starlight elves and the greenshadow elves respectively.”
So the Drow and all other elf schism is evidently something more than simply following Lolth in pending FR contributions to lore. Folks can and will take it or leave it or adapt it to their own use. If you want to fit them into some hitherto unknown variants of elf, you could, but FR seems pretty intent on making them part of the Drow story, not the elf story.
I left that out because 1) I was responding to interrogations regarding the two new "Drow" we are introduced too, and 2) because they've decided to name what was always just Drow as 'Udadrow'. It makes sense if you now have 'aevendrow' and 'lorendrow' to rename the OG Drow, but I'm still of the mind that Drow are a specific subset of what Dark Elves became during the Crown Wars, and that it should be applied to either those Dark Elves who were forced (or went according to which origin who prefer) into the Underdark, or Lolth follower, or both. If other Dark Elves remained above ground and didn't even follow Lolth and went to do their own things, then in my eyes they're either still Dark Elves or become something, but it doesn't make sense to call them Drow. I mean, originally all elves were the same, then they changed and become the myriad of elf sub-races we know now, so saying every elves that come from the original Dark Elves are Drow regardless of what path they took doesn't make much sense.
The other thing hard to ignore about that quote is the "Two such groups" part -- as in, they're leaving the door open for more.
I haven't brought that par much because we have absolutely no idea where they're going with that (and I've already got enough flack for speculating with what we have). But yeah, it hints of being even more "Drow" which just reinforce my feelings above to 2 new "Drow" cultures. I mean at this point, Drow are becoming a full fledge race outside of the elves.
You guys are arguing over semantics. Drow is just another word for dark elves.
Yes and No. We're used to Dark Elves = Drow because the lore was, all Dark Elves became the Drow, meaning they went into the Underdark and basically all followed Lolth (it's a bit more complicated to be thorough, but as far as I know there never were large groups of dark elves who just didn't do that and did they own things like the Aeven & Loren seem to have done). So from that perspective it's basically to same things if you refer to a Drow as a Dark Elves.
But if other Dark Elves chose a different path to what the Drow (as we know them so far), it stands to reason that they wouldn't be called drow. If I want to be generous, because I believe in some lore the Dark Elves become known as Drow before their exiled to the Underdark, from that perspective it might make some sense that even if they chose a different path they kept the use of Drow.
As I see, it's like saying Puma or Cougar, it's basically the same because Cougar is the only species in the Puma genus. But is there were others, than it becomes more confusing and technically less correct.
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If I have to explain the difference between the rules of the game and story-telling devices like subverting tropes or retconning, then we might as well be speaking different languages.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Why must mythology/lore and rules be unified? D&D seems to be doing very well successfully encouraging the play of a unified mechanical ruleset. But the DMG provides examples and "default" mythology while also explicitly encouraging or at least granting license for DMs to go it their own way. And while the Forgotten Realms are the "default" setting for D&D (though quite a few books set in FR have guidance on landing the adventure somewhere else), WotC still feels comfortable enough to put out four hardbacks supporting worlds that take significant deviations to outright abandonments of established lore. So I'd say is it really necessary to explain why it's not important when we can still point at D&D as incredibly commercially successful property in its present incarnation, an incarnation that doesn't really work too hard to maintain a canonical fidelity, especially if they think a break from tradition may either (and ideally both) make for a good story or encourage a new way to play. Canon/lore codification is now more the work of fan wikis and YouTube channels than anything else.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, I have to say this is definitely not true, but I kind of wish it was. For example, I would love to play a Cleric of Eilistraee, but I keep running into DMs who follow AL rules or simply do not want to accept it. Fortunately, I found one who was liberal enough to let me play it and it is great from an RP perspective. In my extensive experience, people only look at WotC materials as allowable and anything else as not. So back to the Drow Question, I predict that when WotC publishes a new set of good drow who worship some new god they invent, most DMs will default to "if you want to play a good drow, here are the canonical rules and that's what you must follow." Canon does matter as everything else is homebrew and not usually looked upon favorably. IMHO.
I'm confused. So you're saying Ellistraee can't be played because of canon or because of AL? Ellistrae isn't canon? Or is AL not canon? Sounds like your experience finding a DM who allowed you to play exactly what you wanted doesn't really go to the argument either way. Not to get into an extensive experience measuring contest but I don't see AL or the extensive strictures you're describing in the LFP section of this forum, nor was AL really a thing at the game nights of the two stores I frequented prior to public play being shut down. Those streamers popularizing the game ... I don't see a lot of hardcore "official lore" players out there aside from folks doing playthroughs of published work ... and I'd say the distribution between homebrew worlds and lore live players skews toward the creatives, especially in audience count. As far as the Drow lore expansion, what official product are those coming in? There isn't one, they're showing up in novels.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
In my limited experience, DM (playing in the Forgotten Realms) who are either new or don't know a lot about the lore tend to stick to what's in the DMG and other official sourcebook for what God you can pick and such. While DM who are more familiar with the lore will often feel more comfortable with picking from older editions.
I don't see how the fact that many people - especially from popular game on youtube or twitch - are playing in homebrew world has anything to do with the subject of canon in the forgotten realms. The point of having a setting is to have already establishe rules and lore, either so DMs can have (most) of their work done for them or having a large field from which to pick from. But if the setting is just "here's a 1000 things you can pick from but most don't work together" it's kinda pointless. Sure its work for the latter kind of DMs who just want inspiration for their world, but for those who want to have something already built it sucks (not everyone likes to a homebrew). And not to mention players, or even just people outside of the game, who love the setting and want to know more about it's lore.
And it's not because WotC expends on other settings that canon isn't important. Those other setting have a canon as well, be it close to FR or widely different.
WotC has a lot of worlds. Just cause they changed canon on FR doesn’t mean it’s changed for every world. The drow of Oerth can still be old school (complete with corny mustaches 😊) if people want.
For that matter the drow of Menzo are NOT being changed. They just added two new enclaves with a different culture. I still think this is much ado about nothing, but I also think people should wait for a sourcebook or at least a novel to come out before they flip out over this.
I know this is a little late, but here's my thoughts on the new drow lore: I really don't get it. The drow have been pretty much the same since they were first released, and when they suddenly decide to change them, they release it in a magazine article? They should have done it in a sourcebook at the least. I feel like this is just because they want more "good" drow, and R. A. Salvatore has wrote the drow to death and finally run out of plots. Course, anyone can run their campaigns how they like, and I will personally not be using this new lore.
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To be fair, the Dragon+ article is only a preview of what's to come. I don't know if everything will feature in the upcoming Salvatore's book or if it's going to be split with other official content.
Perhaps Lolth left them alone on purpose. She is an evil sadistic goddess, who takes great pleasure in torturing and corrupting her people, as well as causing misery, emotional and psychological pain and death.
Imagine the carnage she could revel in by allowing two entirely separate societies of Drow to grow up free of her control, and then unleashing her “children” upon them when the time was right.
The death, suffering, torment, torture, pain and carnage that would be unleashed by such a “civil” war, seems to be right up her alley, and perhaps could serve as some kind of grand ritual to empower her further, or even to summon her forth into the material plane, to bathe in the blood and bask in the glory of her creations.
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
All y'all lore heads really ought to go back to the most extensive Drow lore treatment in 5e in MToF. Specifically the side bar about "holes in Lloth's web" that begins "Lloth is far from omniscient, despite what her priestesses say." If you read the whole paragraph you'll see that Drow have always been set up since that book as to be open to the possibility of communities out of Lloth's web.
Again Lloth's dominion over all Drow is a _story_ told by both the network of Drow cities in the under dark that worship her, the elven communities that bore witness to the Lloth/Corellon schism, and it's been basically accepted by fact by the various entities who've come into contact with those elves and Drow. The import of those stories is still important, since so many relationships among much larger entities are held to it, yet you can also have revelations that challenge that story, which is what is happening here, to what effect isn't clear, but it's really unlikely the traditional dynamic the vast majority of Drow that have contact with other surface and under dark entities in the realms is going to change.
There are a couple of different trajectories in this discussion. Someone was holding that lore is integral to D&D, however if you pay attention to how much fidelity WotC has actually had toward lore or even world building that's just not the case. For every AL "purist" out there, there are many many more players who play "lo fidelity" in established settings (the one's I've described as simply needing someone to draw then a map) as well as homebrew folks, taking the guidance in the DMG to "do what you want".
And the FR is 1000 things that don't work together. It's a kitchen sink with the water running and the garbage disposal on. Where's the continuity? Most of the 5e hardback with the exception of Saltmarsh (which isn't really in the FR, but could be because "it doesn't matter to the adventure") or Candlekeep (is stated to in the FR, but doesn't have to be because of same principle) deal with world affecting events. Only Storm King's Thunder makes some effort to speak to other adventures, and in a sort of "well, if they're bored here or there, they can change up adventures" way for the most part. Otherwise "lore" is basically Easter eggs. It doesn't matter if the players know it, because it's hard to maintain D&D's player numbers if mastery of esoterica was essential to play. What does maintain players, arguably, is throwing things at them that sound cool, despite however it may chafe canon, things like "find the lost colonies of the "good Drow").
I've seen the FR maintained as an actually living game world in prior editions. It's present iteration, I'd say is more successful because the game world is largely besides the point ... to the point that transplanting the adventure into another game world is included as guidance far more often than any effort to tie a product into existing lore.
Earlier heavily elaborated editions of the FR taught me how to ... basically not design a game world, unless I wanted to design a world that was basically made out of rubber and would always bounce back into shape no matter what the PCs did. FR thrives because it's that elastic, inertly so. It's a world for folks who need someone to draw them a map, literally.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, Drow have always worshiped other entities (and Demons) than Lolth. That's been true since their inception. There was a reason why the Eilservs/Tormtor faction switched to worshiping The Elder Elemental God, since they wanted to bring all the Drow of the Vault under their purview instead of the usual in-fighting amongst the various houses. And there has always been a tiny percentage (which is higher among half-castes and Drow half-elves) that weren't Evil and/or degenerate. I just think its dumb to have new Drow and/or to claim they were always Evil in the older editions (let alone the absolutely asinine claim their inky-black skin was the result of a curse from Correllon Larethian).
These new "Drow" aren't Drow. They either never fled the surface (in which case, they're not Drow) or they never worshipped Lolth or other Demons/Entities (so again, NOT DROW). They're just Elf variants.
I don't think Lolth is able to plan that far ahead xD
"It is believed that in the years following Lolth’s schism, some of the drow elves who remained aboveground followed their moral compasses north, vanishing from history behind curtains of snow, aurora, and illusion."
"Another band of uncorrupted drow which remained aboveground are believed to have sought a new homeland within the towering forests to the south."
(https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2021/05/21/beyond-the-underdark-secrets-of-the-drow/content.html)
For sure, according to what's said in the Dragon+ article, the Aevendrow & Lorendrow did not go underground. I also understand it as they never worshipped Lolth, but that's a bit more up for debate.
And I agree, they probably shouldn't be called "Drow", Dark Elves would be better. And I don't think it would be that much more confusing to distinguish Drow ("corrupted" dark elves) to those Starlight Dark Elves and Wood Dark Elves.
Well, it seems pretty evident from the product announcements that these "dark elves" have more to do with the Drow (notice the new triumvirate of presumably Drow language names for the three groups) than the broader world of elves. Actually in Faerun most of the Drow lore is pretty insular and the rest of elfdom is pretty much lumped in with the surface. These
dark elvesDrow are going to be part of a story focusing on a long standing Drow protagonist, the bulk of whose lore is actually built on said protagonist coming to terms with their Drow identity and what it could mean. It's pretty clear these communities will have a potential impact on Drow more than any other species in FR, again to expand the story of Drow beyond whatever boundary fans of prior Drow lore want to keep. And it can be as impactful or inconsequential as players want it to be, especially since there's not D&D rules product on the immediate horizon addressing this. So, for the time being, it's literally just a story. Of course, that's what all lore is in the first place.You're also privileging the lore quotes from Dragon, where as there's a big quote that actually gives those quotes license and shifts the argument more to the "lore isn't necessarily the whole story" perspective I've been advocating:
So the Drow and all other elf schism is evidently something more than simply following Lolth in pending FR contributions to lore. Folks can and will take it or leave it or adapt it to their own use. If you want to fit them into some hitherto unknown variants of elf, you could, but FR seems pretty intent on making them part of the Drow story, not the elf story.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The other thing hard to ignore about that quote is the "Two such groups" part -- as in, they're leaving the door open for more.
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Which is actually sort of interesting. These other hitherto unknown to the rest of Faerun Drow are isolationist in bent post schism with elves. The Lloth Drow on the other hand are sort of conquerors. Or at least raiders and slavers.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I left that out because 1) I was responding to interrogations regarding the two new "Drow" we are introduced too, and 2) because they've decided to name what was always just Drow as 'Udadrow'. It makes sense if you now have 'aevendrow' and 'lorendrow' to rename the OG Drow, but I'm still of the mind that Drow are a specific subset of what Dark Elves became during the Crown Wars, and that it should be applied to either those Dark Elves who were forced (or went according to which origin who prefer) into the Underdark, or Lolth follower, or both. If other Dark Elves remained above ground and didn't even follow Lolth and went to do their own things, then in my eyes they're either still Dark Elves or become something, but it doesn't make sense to call them Drow. I mean, originally all elves were the same, then they changed and become the myriad of elf sub-races we know now, so saying every elves that come from the original Dark Elves are Drow regardless of what path they took doesn't make much sense.
I haven't brought that par much because we have absolutely no idea where they're going with that (and I've already got enough flack for speculating with what we have). But yeah, it hints of being even more "Drow" which just reinforce my feelings above to 2 new "Drow" cultures. I mean at this point, Drow are becoming a full fledge race outside of the elves.
I agree about the comment regarding if they're not drow why call them drow?
They're variant Dark Elves why is that so difficult to accept?
You guys are arguing over semantics. Drow is just another word for dark elves.
Yes and No. We're used to Dark Elves = Drow because the lore was, all Dark Elves became the Drow, meaning they went into the Underdark and basically all followed Lolth (it's a bit more complicated to be thorough, but as far as I know there never were large groups of dark elves who just didn't do that and did they own things like the Aeven & Loren seem to have done). So from that perspective it's basically to same things if you refer to a Drow as a Dark Elves.
But if other Dark Elves chose a different path to what the Drow (as we know them so far), it stands to reason that they wouldn't be called drow. If I want to be generous, because I believe in some lore the Dark Elves become known as Drow before their exiled to the Underdark, from that perspective it might make some sense that even if they chose a different path they kept the use of Drow.
As I see, it's like saying Puma or Cougar, it's basically the same because Cougar is the only species in the Puma genus. But is there were others, than it becomes more confusing and technically less correct.