This has been an idea that has been plaguing me for a few weeks now and now i am finally giving in and sharing my thoughts on the Drow.
So, i have a soft spot for the drow, as i know many others do as well. They, like a few other species in D&D, hae been given the short end of the stick and have been labeled as a "naturally evil" species due to their worship of a "evil" spider goddess and their aversion to light and preferences for dark places. but i digress, let me get to the meat of my post. So, it is common knowledge that spiders are well known for their webs and spinning, less common knowledge is that spider silk is one of the strongest naturally produced substances in the world. now, the mythology of spiders is prevalent in many ancient cultures, the one i would like to focus on today is the story of Arachne, (as i know the most about her story). Arachne is known, in greek/roman mythology as the mother of all spiders. The story goes that she claimed that she was the greatest weaver/spiner in the world, better than even Athena. Athena did not take kindly to this, (as it is very much frowned upon in greek/roman society to compare yourself to the gods) and so challenged Arachne to a weaving competition. Arachne wove a beautiful tapestry depicting all the wrongs the gods had done to humans. Athena, wove a tapestry of all the great deeds of the gods, showing them caring for the people.
Athena was furious at how Arachne portrayed the gods, not only that, but the people preferred Arachne's tapestry to the goddesses. Enraged, athena turned Arachne into a spider, crying out "if you want to spin, go ahead and spin". and so the first spider was created.
Now, what does this have to do with the Drow you might ask, and my take on them. well, i don't know if you noticed, but spiders have a long history in association with spinning and more specifically, textiles. My hot take on the drow is that thanks to their worship and association with spiders, they became a species known for their weaving and textiles. their clothes made entirely of spider silk, both strong and delicate, intricately woven together with the greatest of care. not only that, but if you'll remember, drow have this unique racial trait of "Drow Magic", which consists of both "dancing lights" and "Faerie fire", two spells which emit a light effect. My thoughts are that the drow are not only known for their amazing textiles, but also for weaving light into their fabrics, giving every garment they make a beautiful, soft, ethereal glow as they traverse the underdark they call their home.
just some thoughts you know? what do y'all think? is this a good hot take or is it reaching too much?
It's not the Lloth-sworn Drow familiar to me, but it reminds me of Eilistraee-sworn Drow.
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If you're going to work real world mythology into Lolth.. how about a little Anansi the spider or some jorogumo? Just two additions to ponder.
One thing I like to do with drow is to treat them like the Grey aliens. Dancing Lights instead of flying saucer lights, leading people to places where they're abducted.
i like it - except your statement that drow in general get the short end of the stick...they earned their reputation, no short end there. i still feel that drow, when viewed as a species, are evil. individuals may not be.
but sure, a group could have splintered from the main cities and spent a few generations (drow generations that is) turning to other activities.
Arachne is just the mythos i was most familiar with, and i didnt want to misinterpret any other cultures myths, that's why i didn't mention them. plus, Arachne holds a special place in my heart so i kind of wanted to kind of give her a little bit of a spot light
in response to Heatsmith, my thoughts are that perhaps history is written by the victors, and besides, when creating your campaign, you can change the history of the world you have created, and i wanted to share my idea with the community so that others can maybe incorporate it into their world/lore. and besides, no one is inherently evil, its very short sighted to think that an entire race of people are just born bad or that a whole society is bad just because you might not understand it.
It's an original take on the talents that Drow might be expected to have since their main (or exclusive) deity is called The Spider Queen. Sure, why not? You could also go one step further and say that their version of Elven Chainmail is made of spidersilk and that their nets are far more difficult to break for the same reason.
i'm not saying an entire race of people are born bad. pretty sure I didn't even imply that. If anything, the novels show that's certainly not the case. I think the society was written, in general, as evil. It was their culture and there's, what, 30ish novels just on drow backing that idea. Sure, history is written by the victor but dwarves and surface elves didn't actually write the novels. They were intentionally designed, developed, and written as an evil race.
My whole beef was to your statement that drow, as a race, were given the short end of stick. That, imo, is not the case. Who got the good end...the deep gnomes? They earned their reputation through murder, thievery, slavery, brain washing, and suppression (both within their own society and of pretty much every other race except mindflayers). Sure, parts of their society and offshoot communities may have gone through a renaissance and you can look back however far you want and find plenty of exceptions, but I'm firmly in the camp that the drow, as a collective concept, earned every inch of their reputation as an evil society. Which, btw, is a lookback statement, not forward.
Most spiders don't really spin their webs, only using it for secure lines, ling out lairs ans simple tripwire-sensors. Most spiders are ambush predators, not web-spinners, and Drow in DnD are clearly inspired more by aggressive lean wolf-spiders jumping out of hiding, finishing the quarry in seconds and darting back to hiding rather than patient fat web-spinner spiders waiting for the quarry to get bogged in their traps.
From D3: Vault of the Drow, under the Drow entry at the back of the book
The usual Drow fighting/traveling garb includes a pair of black boots and a hooded black cloak which comes to the ankles of the wearer. The boots are simply black boots of elvenkind manufactured of a different sort of material. The cloaks are woven of spider silkand some unknown fiber which combined with the silk makes them very strong, slippery, supple, and nearly impossible to detect in dungeon-like surroundings.
While this is just the cloak, its more than likely all their clothing and textiles are made from spider's silk.
I like to play with the idea of "monster" races and try to extrapolate nuance from their established lore and reputation, rather than just homebrew it to say that , actually, they're super nice people who are just misunderstood.
For Drow I generally lean toward the idea that the government of Drow society is evil, and the individual citizens are just as often the victims of the upperclass as the other races. DM'ing my group through Lost Mines of Phandelver, the drow villain, The Black Spider, isn't really given much of a motivation in the story. Considering his ability to hire a small army of goons, he clearly has money... so I rewrote him to be the son of a noble family. However, for male drow, even being a noble just means that he's destined to be married off as nothing more than an asset his family members can use to further their own connections... kind of an inverse of what was common in real life, albeit with the genders swapped. His motivation is to gather weaponry to stage an attack against his own people in an attempt to change their society.
The main lore about Drow was written in the 80s during the height of RL feminist activism. While I can't say for sure, it's interesting how one of the main anti-regular-Elf factions in the AD&D universe (the Drow) was written to basically be the worst stereotype of a possible matriarchal society imaginable: all the men automatically supposed to be subservient to the women, there is only 1 goddess to the Drow and she demands sacrifices of life of both Drow and other creatures, they enslave other sentient creatures as part of everyday life, and that 1 goddess uses the spider as her symbol, spiders having a strong association in Greek culture (where much of where Gygax and company got inspiration for monsters) with women because of Ariadne. I don't know about you, but I don't see why Lolth could not have been a male god and been just as evil or why the Drow could not at least have had some redeeming qualities included that would make them at least somewhat relatable.
The main lore about Drow was written in the 80s during the height of RL feminist activism.
Try the 1970s. And the reason they were written like they were is because they're basically an Elf version of the citizens of the City of Imyr (Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series was a large influence on D&D in the early days). Its just they were made into inky-black skinned Elves (basically the Svartálfar from Norse mythology) instead of albino near-humans. It had nothing to do with feminism or being a critique of feminism. However, Lolth is basically D&D's version of Shelob, only one elevated to the status of a lesser goddess and capable of shapechanging. And the implication is Lolth was basically a female black widow spider, which are known for eating the males of their species after mating. Reading more than that into the creation of the Drow and their lore is baseless at best....
I most closely liken Lolth-sworn Drow society to Orlesian society from Dragon Age; specifically their Game. The masks also make me think of Waterdeep's Masked Lords, so I also like to pit the two cities as not that different from one another. They're just each too stuck up to admit they have more in common.
The main lore about Drow was written in the 80s during the height of RL feminist activism.
Try the 1970s. And the reason they were written like they were is because they're basically an Elf version of the citizens of the City of Imyr (Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series was a large influence on D&D in the early days). Its just they were made into inky-black skinned Elves (basically the Svartálfar from Norse mythology) instead of albino near-humans. It had nothing to do with feminism or being a critique of feminism. However, Lolth is basically D&D's version of Shelob, only one elevated to the status of a lesser goddess and capable of shapechanging. And the implication is Lolth was basically a female black widow spider, which are known for eating the males of their species after mating. Reading more than that into the creation of the Drow and their lore is baseless at best....
It's curious that the Drow society was the Only one written into AD&D lore where the social structure was ruled by women and this did not change for a long time. Most other societies had either exclusively male gods or a mix of male and female avatars of gods or no gods at all. So the one society they canonically picked to both governed exclusively by women and to have exclusively female deity or deities is the one most known for cruelty (except perhaps for Mind Flayers who at least don't ritually sacrifice other Mind Flayers regularly and intentionally). Purely coincidental??
So the one society they canonically picked to both governed exclusively by women and to have exclusively female deity or deities is the one most known for cruelty. Purely coincidental??
Pretty logical. In male groups competition and aggression is mostly focused outwards against other groups, while in female it's inwards against other members of the same group. Makes total sense that a society totally devoid of masculine touch in its leadership would evolve into backstabbing mess Drow society is.
Well, Mind Flayers are aberrations that have some Cthulu mythos flavor to them. From the lmited amount i have read about them, they don't have sexual reproduction, so they wouldn't have sexes or genders. Do people use masculine pronouns for them? Probably. A lot of players just use "he," "him," or "his" when referring to an unknown PC or NPC because that's what they are used to doing, but that isn't actually supported by the lore itself.
It's curious that the Drow society was the Only one written into AD&D lore where the social structure was ruled by women and this did not change for a long time. Most other societies had either exclusively male gods or a mix of male and female avatars of gods or no gods at all. So the one society they canonically picked to both governed exclusively by women and to have exclusively female deity or deities is the one most known for cruelty (except perhaps for Mind Flayers who at least don't ritually sacrifice other Mind Flayers regularly and intentionally). Purely coincidental??
I'm fairly sure mind flayers do ritually kill each other. Or at least experiment on each other, given their pseudo-scientific, anti-religious, psychic hive-mind culture. Can't ritually kill if there's no one to offer the kill to.
As for drow being the original and only prominent Matriarchal society... I'm going to say it wasn't intentional. Not coincidental - unconscious bias is a thing - but no one planned it that way.
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This has been an idea that has been plaguing me for a few weeks now and now i am finally giving in and sharing my thoughts on the Drow.
So, i have a soft spot for the drow, as i know many others do as well. They, like a few other species in D&D, hae been given the short end of the stick and have been labeled as a "naturally evil" species due to their worship of a "evil" spider goddess and their aversion to light and preferences for dark places. but i digress, let me get to the meat of my post. So, it is common knowledge that spiders are well known for their webs and spinning, less common knowledge is that spider silk is one of the strongest naturally produced substances in the world. now, the mythology of spiders is prevalent in many ancient cultures, the one i would like to focus on today is the story of Arachne, (as i know the most about her story). Arachne is known, in greek/roman mythology as the mother of all spiders. The story goes that she claimed that she was the greatest weaver/spiner in the world, better than even Athena. Athena did not take kindly to this, (as it is very much frowned upon in greek/roman society to compare yourself to the gods) and so challenged Arachne to a weaving competition. Arachne wove a beautiful tapestry depicting all the wrongs the gods had done to humans. Athena, wove a tapestry of all the great deeds of the gods, showing them caring for the people.
Athena was furious at how Arachne portrayed the gods, not only that, but the people preferred Arachne's tapestry to the goddesses. Enraged, athena turned Arachne into a spider, crying out "if you want to spin, go ahead and spin". and so the first spider was created.
Now, what does this have to do with the Drow you might ask, and my take on them. well, i don't know if you noticed, but spiders have a long history in association with spinning and more specifically, textiles. My hot take on the drow is that thanks to their worship and association with spiders, they became a species known for their weaving and textiles. their clothes made entirely of spider silk, both strong and delicate, intricately woven together with the greatest of care. not only that, but if you'll remember, drow have this unique racial trait of "Drow Magic", which consists of both "dancing lights" and "Faerie fire", two spells which emit a light effect. My thoughts are that the drow are not only known for their amazing textiles, but also for weaving light into their fabrics, giving every garment they make a beautiful, soft, ethereal glow as they traverse the underdark they call their home.
just some thoughts you know? what do y'all think? is this a good hot take or is it reaching too much?
It's not the Lloth-sworn Drow familiar to me, but it reminds me of Eilistraee-sworn Drow.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
good hot takes
Naibs of Dune, I'm the supreme meowster of the cult of cats!, Head lobotomizer of the OIADSB cult, I've got a thieves guild, come join, Warlock main in D2.
Don't forget to love each other!
I play characters at taverns.
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If you're going to work real world mythology into Lolth.. how about a little Anansi the spider or some jorogumo? Just two additions to ponder.
One thing I like to do with drow is to treat them like the Grey aliens. Dancing Lights instead of flying saucer lights, leading people to places where they're abducted.
i like it - except your statement that drow in general get the short end of the stick...they earned their reputation, no short end there. i still feel that drow, when viewed as a species, are evil. individuals may not be.
but sure, a group could have splintered from the main cities and spent a few generations (drow generations that is) turning to other activities.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Arachne is just the mythos i was most familiar with, and i didnt want to misinterpret any other cultures myths, that's why i didn't mention them. plus, Arachne holds a special place in my heart so i kind of wanted to kind of give her a little bit of a spot light
in response to Heatsmith, my thoughts are that perhaps history is written by the victors, and besides, when creating your campaign, you can change the history of the world you have created, and i wanted to share my idea with the community so that others can maybe incorporate it into their world/lore. and besides, no one is inherently evil, its very short sighted to think that an entire race of people are just born bad or that a whole society is bad just because you might not understand it.
It's an original take on the talents that Drow might be expected to have since their main (or exclusive) deity is called The Spider Queen. Sure, why not? You could also go one step further and say that their version of Elven Chainmail is made of spidersilk and that their nets are far more difficult to break for the same reason.
oh!! i love that!!
i'm not saying an entire race of people are born bad. pretty sure I didn't even imply that. If anything, the novels show that's certainly not the case. I think the society was written, in general, as evil. It was their culture and there's, what, 30ish novels just on drow backing that idea. Sure, history is written by the victor but dwarves and surface elves didn't actually write the novels. They were intentionally designed, developed, and written as an evil race.
My whole beef was to your statement that drow, as a race, were given the short end of stick. That, imo, is not the case. Who got the good end...the deep gnomes? They earned their reputation through murder, thievery, slavery, brain washing, and suppression (both within their own society and of pretty much every other race except mindflayers). Sure, parts of their society and offshoot communities may have gone through a renaissance and you can look back however far you want and find plenty of exceptions, but I'm firmly in the camp that the drow, as a collective concept, earned every inch of their reputation as an evil society. Which, btw, is a lookback statement, not forward.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Most spiders don't really spin their webs, only using it for secure lines, ling out lairs ans simple tripwire-sensors. Most spiders are ambush predators, not web-spinners, and Drow in DnD are clearly inspired more by aggressive lean wolf-spiders jumping out of hiding, finishing the quarry in seconds and darting back to hiding rather than patient fat web-spinner spiders waiting for the quarry to get bogged in their traps.
From D3: Vault of the Drow, under the Drow entry at the back of the book
The usual Drow fighting/traveling garb includes a pair of black boots and a hooded black cloak which comes to the ankles of the wearer. The boots are simply black boots of elvenkind manufactured of a different sort of material. The cloaks are woven of spider silk and some unknown fiber which combined with the silk makes them very strong, slippery, supple, and nearly impossible to detect in dungeon-like surroundings.
While this is just the cloak, its more than likely all their clothing and textiles are made from spider's silk.
I like to play with the idea of "monster" races and try to extrapolate nuance from their established lore and reputation, rather than just homebrew it to say that , actually, they're super nice people who are just misunderstood.
For Drow I generally lean toward the idea that the government of Drow society is evil, and the individual citizens are just as often the victims of the upperclass as the other races. DM'ing my group through Lost Mines of Phandelver, the drow villain, The Black Spider, isn't really given much of a motivation in the story. Considering his ability to hire a small army of goons, he clearly has money... so I rewrote him to be the son of a noble family. However, for male drow, even being a noble just means that he's destined to be married off as nothing more than an asset his family members can use to further their own connections... kind of an inverse of what was common in real life, albeit with the genders swapped. His motivation is to gather weaponry to stage an attack against his own people in an attempt to change their society.
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Re: alignment changes.
The main lore about Drow was written in the 80s during the height of RL feminist activism. While I can't say for sure, it's interesting how one of the main anti-regular-Elf factions in the AD&D universe (the Drow) was written to basically be the worst stereotype of a possible matriarchal society imaginable: all the men automatically supposed to be subservient to the women, there is only 1 goddess to the Drow and she demands sacrifices of life of both Drow and other creatures, they enslave other sentient creatures as part of everyday life, and that 1 goddess uses the spider as her symbol, spiders having a strong association in Greek culture (where much of where Gygax and company got inspiration for monsters) with women because of Ariadne. I don't know about you, but I don't see why Lolth could not have been a male god and been just as evil or why the Drow could not at least have had some redeeming qualities included that would make them at least somewhat relatable.
Try the 1970s. And the reason they were written like they were is because they're basically an Elf version of the citizens of the City of Imyr (Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné series was a large influence on D&D in the early days). Its just they were made into inky-black skinned Elves (basically the Svartálfar from Norse mythology) instead of albino near-humans. It had nothing to do with feminism or being a critique of feminism. However, Lolth is basically D&D's version of Shelob, only one elevated to the status of a lesser goddess and capable of shapechanging. And the implication is Lolth was basically a female black widow spider, which are known for eating the males of their species after mating. Reading more than that into the creation of the Drow and their lore is baseless at best....
I most closely liken Lolth-sworn Drow society to Orlesian society from Dragon Age; specifically their Game. The masks also make me think of Waterdeep's Masked Lords, so I also like to pit the two cities as not that different from one another. They're just each too stuck up to admit they have more in common.
It's curious that the Drow society was the Only one written into AD&D lore where the social structure was ruled by women and this did not change for a long time. Most other societies had either exclusively male gods or a mix of male and female avatars of gods or no gods at all. So the one society they canonically picked to both governed exclusively by women and to have exclusively female deity or deities is the one most known for cruelty (except perhaps for Mind Flayers who at least don't ritually sacrifice other Mind Flayers regularly and intentionally). Purely coincidental??
Aren't they genderless and also referred to as masculine most of the times?
Pretty logical. In male groups competition and aggression is mostly focused outwards against other groups, while in female it's inwards against other members of the same group. Makes total sense that a society totally devoid of masculine touch in its leadership would evolve into backstabbing mess Drow society is.
Well, Mind Flayers are aberrations that have some Cthulu mythos flavor to them. From the lmited amount i have read about them, they don't have sexual reproduction, so they wouldn't have sexes or genders. Do people use masculine pronouns for them? Probably. A lot of players just use "he," "him," or "his" when referring to an unknown PC or NPC because that's what they are used to doing, but that isn't actually supported by the lore itself.
I'm fairly sure mind flayers do ritually kill each other. Or at least experiment on each other, given their pseudo-scientific, anti-religious, psychic hive-mind culture. Can't ritually kill if there's no one to offer the kill to.
As for drow being the original and only prominent Matriarchal society... I'm going to say it wasn't intentional. Not coincidental - unconscious bias is a thing - but no one planned it that way.