The Drow - a basic overview

The Drow (a basic overview)

The drow, also known as "dark elves", are chaotic evil elves with skin like polished obsidian. Shorter and more slender than humans and their elven cousins, they have pale (often red) eyes, pale (usually white) hair, and finely chiseled features.

Drow move silently and have superior infravision, but are adversely affected by any sort of bright light. All dark elves train in magic and have high magic resistance. They can cast dancing lights. faerie fire. and darkness once per day. More powerful drow can also cast levitate, know alignment, and detect magic. Priests and priestesses have additional granted powers as well. They learned to use faerzress (a magical radiation) as a source of spells (one of magic styles used by drow) and often settle where it is strong and disturbs usage of weave-based magic.

Driders are monstrous creatures with the head and torso of a drow and the legs and lower body of a giant spider. Lolth, the Spider Queen, creates driders from drow who fail their dark goddess's test. Outcasts from their communities, driders are usually found alone or in the company of giant spiders on the edge of drow civilization.

History:

The drow once lived in the Lands of Light alongside their fairer kindred, where they were known to elves as the Ssri-Tel'Quessir, The dark elves, a term more properly applied to drow ancestors before their transformation and banishment, were drawn from venerating the Seldarine (elven pantheon) to the worship of dark powers such as Ghaunadaur, Vhaeraun, and Lolth.
More than thirteen thousand years ago, the Crown Wars raged among the Fair Folk, and for three thousand years the elven nations of Aryvandaar, Miyeritar, Shantel Othreier, Keltormir, Ilythiir, and others battled one another in a series of five great conflicts. At the end of the fourth Crown War, circa -10,000 DR, the corrupt dark elven Ilythiiri and others were transformed by Corellon's (highest elven god and husband of Araunshee) magic into drow as directed through the Protector.s priests and High Mages, and banished to the lightless depths of the Underdark.

The first drow civilizations arose in the Underdark of southern Faerûn circa -9600 DR. The first great kingdom of the drow was Telantiwar, with its capital in the great cavern of Bhaerynden, the conquered heart the first great kingdom of the Dwarved, which was seized by the drow in -9000 DR.
The drow fought among themselves, noble against noble, priest against priest, for rule of their new realm. This war ended amid great magical explosions that brought down the roof of Bhaerynden. The ceiling collapsed entirely, burying many drow and the shattered dwarven cities they had seized. The cavern, now open to the sky, became known as the Great Rift.

Gold dwarf ancestors later resettled the chasm and surrounding caverns to form the Deep Realm In the following diaspora known as the Scattering, the surviving drow nobles and priests gathered what people, slaves, and equipment they could seize and fled into the Underdark. Since that time, countless cities and smaller settlements have risen and fallen in an increasing radius around the territory held by the empire of Telantiwar.

Drow today:

Drow are now found throughout the upper and middle Underdark of all of Faerûn and beyond. They favor areas with large ferrous ore deposits and plentiful adamantite and gems. Dark elven cities are typically located in regions with strong magnetic forces, where the rock gives off radiation akin to magical energy known as faerzress. The drow are particularly strong in the Moonsea, north and west of the Iltkazar range, from beneath Calimshan all the way up to Icewind Dale. But their pervasive influence is felt throughout the Underdark, and few races challenge the dark elves. subterranean mastery.

Due to the dogma of Lolth, the Spider Queen, most drow cities are theocratic matriarchies dominated by the clergy of one of the handful of the dark powers venerated by dark elves. In cities that follow the Way of Lolth, the dark elven populace is typically ruled by several dozen noble houses, ranked in a strict hierarchy. A small group of elite noble houses form the ruling council, led by the premier high priestess of the first house. Each noble house in turn is ruled by a coterie of high priestesses related and ranked in preeminence, with the highest-ranking priestess of each noble house bearing the title of Matron Mother. A constant, intense, treacherous, and deadly competition seethes among the various noble houses, mirrored by the constant struggle among individual priestesses to increase relative station. These battles follow rules of behavior best characterized as "If it cannot be proven, then it did not happen".

The war among drow nobility allows other groups to also achieve some power and influence. Drow wizards, who are usually male, often ally with a noble house. Merchant trading companies receive noble backing. Mercenaries sell their blades, all shifting the balance of power. In a drow city where other powers check Lolth's priestesses, they may even assume rule of the city. But the constant struggle for Astation does not stop.

In cities where Lolth's worship is unknown or marginal, different power structures emerge. But these too are festering pools of intrigue and treachery.
The only absolute appears to be that if more than one divine power is openly venerated, civil war and societal collapse are inevitable.

Drow deitys:

The primary goddess of the drow is Llolth the Spider Queen, goddess of spiders, evil, darkness, chaos, and assassins. Other powerful deities include Ghaunadaur the Elder Eye (the one that lurks), the god of oozes, slimes, jellies, outcasts, ropers, rebels, and all things subterranean, and Vhaeraun the Masked Lord, the god of thievery, drow males, territory, and evil activity on the surface world. Lesser powers include Kiaransalee the Revenancer, goddess of the undead and vengeance, and Selvetarm the Champion of Lolth, god of drow warriors. Finally, although she is rarely venerated in the Underdark, Eilistraee the Dark Maiden is the goodaligned goddess of song, beauty, swordwork, hunting, and moonlight who seeks to redeem the drow and lead them back to the Lands of Light.

Drow skills:

Drow wizards and priests are known throughout the Underdark and surface world for mass-producing unusual weapons and clothing with quasi-magical properties. Such properties are partially the result of exposure to faerzress, a powerful and strange radiation found only in the Underdark. Drow societies live and die by the proximity of faerzress to their cities. Though the enchantments fade in sunlight, they are terrors in the Underdark.

Aside from items, drow spellcasters have also developed countless new spells. Many are even adopted by other wizard schools and clergies of other faiths.

Drow towns:

Drow cities are similar to surface cities in that they are laid out horizontally and consist of buildings clustered into districts, intertwined with wide avenues, narrow alleys, and plazas. They differ in the absence of wood (although petrified mushroom stalks often serve the same purpose), the use of modified cave structures instead of freestanding buildings, and the general lack of ramps and stairs within many upper class habitations. (Elite drow usually have quasi-magical clothing that allows them to levitate.)
Drow architecture betrays ancient elven origins in its artistry. Dark elves favor soaring, sculpted structures whose strength stems as much from magic as the natural strength of the stone. Drow cities are notable for their intricate spiral tunnels, boldly flying stone bridges, balconies, and buttresses. Dark elven engineers hollow out and shape stalactites, stalagmites, and cave columns for habitation. Rock is always cut and shaped, never left unworked. Drow city environs are a maze of well-patrolled tunnels that serve both as a training ground for drow warriors and a defensive fortification as they fall back through a warren of deceptions and traps.

The most obvious signs of drow activity outside a city proper include guarded caverns where quasi-magical items are fabricated, heavily warded channels through which water is diverted to the city, and ore and gem mines worked by dwarven and svirfneblin slaves and overseen by dark elf taskmasters. Often a small region of caverns and tunnels is given over to drider outcasts and used as a means of dispensing of prisoners unsuitable for sacrifice. While fungi fields and herds of rothé are typically kept within each city's central cavern, some drow caverns are too small and are forced to locate their food supplies outside the city. Farther afield, drow patrols are infrequent but regular.

Trade:

As dark elves are the great merchants of the Underdark, the various merchant consortiums are a regular presence along established trade routes of the Realms Below. Giant subterranean lizards act as beasts of burden with drow warriors mounted on riding lizards as outriders. Dark elves extend their own caste- and gender-based prejudices to other races as well. While the dark elves willingly trade with nearly any race (even good-aligned races such as dwarves and svirfneblin), if a willingness to trade is reciprocated, the dark elves consider themselves inherently superior and will destroy their trading partners without compunction.

Final word:

Dark elves reserve their greatest hatred for their surface kin, and even conduct surface raids expressly for the purpose of killing and enslaving elves. Because many other races loathe the drow, the dark elves are never without potential enemies.

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