Regarding Drow

[jasonpauldegraaf]

For all you players who are 1) playing a Drow character or 2) interacting with a Drow character, you may wish to read this lovely article regarding the basics of Drow society.

Here is the full article:
www.moonlightandshadows.com/portal/viewtopic.php?t=731

*****************************************

Of the various elven subraces, none are more notorious than the drow. Descended from the original dark-skinned elven subrace called the Ssri'tel'quessir, the drow were cursed into their present appearance by the good elven deities for following the goddess Lolth down the path to evil and corruption.
Also called dark elves, the drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian, hair of stark-white hue, and eyes the shade of blood. While they tend to be smaller and slimmer than the rest of the elven subraces, they are most certainly no less dangerous; moreso, even, by most accounts. Drow are, on the whole, sadistic, destructive, and treacherous. They view themselves as the rightful heirs to Faerun, and their hatred of all others is only outshined by their hatred of themselves.

Though divided by endless feuds and schisms, not to mention diverse religious doctrines, the drow are united in one terrible desire: they seethe with hatred for the surface elves. By their way of reckoning, they proved themselves the superior race in the Fourth Crown War, and the fact that the Seldarine punished them for their success is a poison that churns in their hearts and minds eternally. They burn with hatred for the Seldarine and their coddled children, and want nothing more than to return to the surface and bring to the elves there suffering a thousand times greater than that which the drow have been forced to endure over the past ten thousand years.

Drow are, on the whole, sadistic, arrogant, cruel, destructive, hedonistic, and treacherous. Their eternal game of advancement at the expense of others, which is encouraged by the spider goddess herself, has transformed the dark elves into a race of scheming backstabbers eager to increase their own stations by pulling down those ahead of them and crushing their inferiors underfoot. Drow trust no one and nothing, and most are incapable of compassion, kindness, or love (or at the very least, because of the aforementioned rampant distrust, incapable of bringing themselves to express such emotions). In a drow’s mindset, there is little room for friendship, for while they may secretly value other family members or acquaintances, their overly suspicious (paranoid, by some standards) natures taint any strong relations they may otherwise form. Many dark elves go so far as to be actively murderous and delight in the giving of pain.

While most dark elves neither honor their promises nor maintain personal loyalties once it becomes inconvenient to do so, their pride lends them a certain sense of style and an appreciation of subtlety. Drow can be courteous and urbane, even to deadly rivals. They enjoy surrounding themselves with things of beauty, giving hardly a thought to the cost. This fascination with beauty extends to the physical body as well, with drow of both sexes often displaying their physiques to degrees that other societies may find vulgar. Such is the strength of this fascination, that most drow children who exhibit physical deformities or deficiencies are slain.

The above personality traits categorize the majority of drow as evil, where outlook (alignment) is concerned. In addition, most drow tend to lean towards the chaotic end of the lawful-chaotic spectrum. In general, drow believe in doing what they want to do, when they want to do it--so long as they are capable of doing so in present company and conditions.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. A rare few learn to look and grow beyond the above strictures that drow society has ingrained into the race as a whole. Some even go so far as to atone for any evils they may have committed, most often fleeing for a society that may be more nurturing or accepting of such personal “weaknesses” , or simply leaving their cities to eek out what sort of solitary existence they may. These rare drow are often still overly suspicious of other folk, but with the proper encouragement can eventually become trusted (and trusting) allies and friends, as well as stalwart champions for good.

Attitudes Toward Other Races

The drow do not interact well with the various other races of Faerun. At best, the drow think of other races as merely laughable or contemptible. They hold low opinions of even their erstwhile allies, such as the kuo-toa. Drow maintain a grudging respect for duergar and mind flayers, since the gray dwarves and illithids also build powerful cities and have demonstrated the strength to stand up to repeated assaults from the dark elves, but all the same, they are not considered equals.

Against most other races, the only way the drow know how to act is with hatred and outright war. They have built up powerful city-states based on the notion that the path to power lies in the subjugation of lesser races and the eradication of those who pose a threat to their homes.
The true focus of drow hatred, though, is reserved for the surface elves. They act quickly and cruelly to seize any chance to bring pain, suffering, and death to other elves they encounter. Even evil-aligned surface elves that they come across are seen as enemies.

Prisoners captured in drow raids and battles are usually brought back to the cities to serve out the remainder of their lives as slaves. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, and other savage humanoids are common slaves. Most drow households have two to three such slaves for every drow in the house. The breeding and selling of slaves is a thriving business in drow cities, because these hapless thralls perform all menial and unskilled labor in a drow city.

Prisoners of certain merit, namely those such as surface elves (who are usually killed rather than captured) sometimes receive a special place upon the altars of deities such as Lolth. Such sacrifices are reserved only for these higher status prisoners in most cases.

Despite all this, drow do keep trade open with various other races, mostly due to the necessity of such ventures in a land like the Underdark where resources are oft times hard to come by. Drow sometimes even enter into truces and military alliegances with other races when the need arises, but these affairs are by nature temporary, as it's only a matter of time until the drow turn on their allies.

Drow on the surface, as a whole, have yet to form anything resembling a true society, for the most part living in small semi-nomadic bands or as singular outcasts and hermits. There are those who are well on their way to forming such, however, notably in areas such as Cormanthor where followers of Vhaeraun are carving themselves homes in the old elven haunts and ruins.

[Thief Of Navarre]

You might wanna check the post I left in the 'Racism in the realms' topic, its enlightened reading if your prepared to scroll down a bit!

Paladin's particularly, or any lawfully aligned characters will put any UD races before trial with the proper authorities, killing them on sight is an evil act... but then again if your evil it doesnt really matter

The lowest I would go for unaggravated killing is Chaotic neutral really, they would really have to be asking for it if I was true-neutral or above. A chaotic good character may even stoop to planting evidence to get an arrest... but mindless slaughter is normally above even the lowest INT, WIS characters

*edit* You'd have to be low WIS to attack a character with huge stats and spell resistance

[jasonpauldegraaf]

Hmm,

Thanks so much for the tips, TofN. Good thing Amber didn't attack that drow or tiefling on sight.

Oh, and what does it say about LG people aligning themselves with drow and half-demons?

[whenwizardswar]

It depends, at least the way I look at it.

The average joe smoe would be very afraid of Drow or tieflings, but the average joe smoe isnt an adventueror and will probably flee at first sign of one.

Adventuerors would probably have similiar bias's and might be more prone to assulting them.

LG characters, murder is murder, they may hate and distrust drow or alien races but the way I look at it, they have enough dignity that they would show contempt for them but not out right slaying until the drow/tiefling/what ever proves they really are an evil being.

Paladins, are (Again this is the way I think of it) not really and different.

A paladin sees a drow, gets angry and is instantly suspicious of the drow, but if he is smart he will keep his guard up until the drow proves his evil intent, and then act accordingly.

Most LG chars (Again -I- think) would not openly kill someone unless they prove to be hostile, but aye, could be very racist against them.

Just me.

[shawnystyle77]

Aug 6, 2008 16:41:36 GMT -5 whenwizardswar said:

It depends, at least the way I look at it.

The average joe smoe would be very afraid of Drow or tieflings, but the average joe smoe isnt an adventueror and will probably flee at first sign of one.

Adventuerors would probably have similiar bias's and might be more prone to assulting them.

LG characters, murder is murder, they may hate and distrust drow or alien races but the way I look at it, they have enough dignity that they would show contempt for them but not out right slaying until the drow/tiefling/what ever proves they really are an evil being.

Paladins, are (Again this is the way I think of it) not really and different.

A paladin sees a drow, gets angry and is instantly suspicious of the drow, but if he is smart he will keep his guard up until the drow proves his evil intent, and then act accordingly.

Most LG chars (Again -I- think) would not openly kill someone unless they prove to be hostile, but aye, could be very racist against them.

Just me.

think of it like this..

Two paladins from warring nations meet on the battlefield. One paladin kills the other. Neither is acting evil. It is enemy/ally.

Surfacers/drow are considered to be openly hostile to another. If a good char kills a Drow regardless of alignment, he is not being evil, he is killing the enemy.

[whenwizardswar]

The question i was answering was what would a LG char do.

Most other alignmetns yes would kill drow on sight.

[shawnystyle77]

Aug 6, 2008 17:15:36 GMT -5 whenwizardswar said:

The question i was answering was what would a LG char do.

Most other alignmetns yes would kill drow on sight.

Right, I think a LG char would still kill them on sight unless they begged for their life or possibly if they were unarmed. My point being if two LG paladins can kill each other on the field of battle beacause their nations are enemies, how much more so with Drow who are seen as evil and as enemies. Whether or not a char sees Drow as an enemy is probably the real issue. That's in the RP of the character and where I find fault. I liken it to debating the alignment and personal experiences of every gnoll you encounter...
.....who cares, IT'S A GNOLL, KILL IT!!!

[whenwizardswar]

You war example while a good point isnt really applicible if you ask me.

Two paladins on the battle field "KNOW" the other is going to try and kill them.

Two paladins comeing across each other on the road arnt going to know suddenly "This other paladin is going to kill me".

[derf]

Aug 6, 2008 0:40:20 GMT -5 jasonpauldegraaf said:

For all you players who are 1) playing a Drow character or 2) interacting with a Drow character, you may wish to read this lovely article regarding the basics of Drow society.

Here is the full article:
www.moonlightandshadows.com/portal/viewtopic.php?t=731

*****************************************

Of the various elven subraces, none are more notorious than the drow. Descended from the original dark-skinned elven subrace called the Ssri'tel'quessir, the drow were cursed into their present appearance by the good elven deities for following the goddess Lolth down the path to evil and corruption.
Also called dark elves, the drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian, hair of stark-white hue, and eyes the shade of blood. While they tend to be smaller and slimmer than the rest of the elven subraces, they are most certainly no less dangerous; moreso, even, by most accounts. Drow are, on the whole, sadistic, destructive, and treacherous. They view themselves as the rightful heirs to Faerun, and their hatred of all others is only outshined by their hatred of themselves.

Though divided by endless feuds and schisms, not to mention diverse religious doctrines, the drow are united in one terrible desire: they seethe with hatred for the surface elves. By their way of reckoning, they proved themselves the superior race in the Fourth Crown War, and the fact that the Seldarine punished them for their success is a poison that churns in their hearts and minds eternally. They burn with hatred for the Seldarine and their coddled children, and want nothing more than to return to the surface and bring to the elves there suffering a thousand times greater than that which the drow have been forced to endure over the past ten thousand years.

Drow are, on the whole, sadistic, arrogant, cruel, destructive, hedonistic, and treacherous. Their eternal game of advancement at the expense of others, which is encouraged by the spider goddess herself, has transformed the dark elves into a race of scheming backstabbers eager to increase their own stations by pulling down those ahead of them and crushing their inferiors underfoot. Drow trust no one and nothing, and most are incapable of compassion, kindness, or love (or at the very least, because of the aforementioned rampant distrust, incapable of bringing themselves to express such emotions). In a drow’s mindset, there is little room for friendship, for while they may secretly value other family members or acquaintances, their overly suspicious (paranoid, by some standards) natures taint any strong relations they may otherwise form. Many dark elves go so far as to be actively murderous and delight in the giving of pain.

While most dark elves neither honor their promises nor maintain personal loyalties once it becomes inconvenient to do so, their pride lends them a certain sense of style and an appreciation of subtlety. Drow can be courteous and urbane, even to deadly rivals. They enjoy surrounding themselves with things of beauty, giving hardly a thought to the cost. This fascination with beauty extends to the physical body as well, with drow of both sexes often displaying their physiques to degrees that other societies may find vulgar. Such is the strength of this fascination, that most drow children who exhibit physical deformities or deficiencies are slain.

The above personality traits categorize the majority of drow as evil, where outlook (alignment) is concerned. In addition, most drow tend to lean towards the chaotic end of the lawful-chaotic spectrum. In general, drow believe in doing what they want to do, when they want to do it--so long as they are capable of doing so in present company and conditions.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. A rare few learn to look and grow beyond the above strictures that drow society has ingrained into the race as a whole. Some even go so far as to atone for any evils they may have committed, most often fleeing for a society that may be more nurturing or accepting of such personal “weaknesses” , or simply leaving their cities to eek out what sort of solitary existence they may. These rare drow are often still overly suspicious of other folk, but with the proper encouragement can eventually become trusted (and trusting) allies and friends, as well as stalwart champions for good.

Attitudes Toward Other Races

The drow do not interact well with the various other races of Faerun. At best, the drow think of other races as merely laughable or contemptible. They hold low opinions of even their erstwhile allies, such as the kuo-toa. Drow maintain a grudging respect for duergar and mind flayers, since the gray dwarves and illithids also build powerful cities and have demonstrated the strength to stand up to repeated assaults from the dark elves, but all the same, they are not considered equals.

Against most other races, the only way the drow know how to act is with hatred and outright war. They have built up powerful city-states based on the notion that the path to power lies in the subjugation of lesser races and the eradication of those who pose a threat to their homes.
The true focus of drow hatred, though, is reserved for the surface elves. They act quickly and cruelly to seize any chance to bring pain, suffering, and death to other elves they encounter. Even evil-aligned surface elves that they come across are seen as enemies.

Prisoners captured in drow raids and battles are usually brought back to the cities to serve out the remainder of their lives as slaves. Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, ogres, and other savage humanoids are common slaves. Most drow households have two to three such slaves for every drow in the house. The breeding and selling of slaves is a thriving business in drow cities, because these hapless thralls perform all menial and unskilled labor in a drow city.

Prisoners of certain merit, namely those such as surface elves (who are usually killed rather than captured) sometimes receive a special place upon the altars of deities such as Lolth. Such sacrifices are reserved only for these higher status prisoners in most cases.

Despite all this, drow do keep trade open with various other races, mostly due to the necessity of such ventures in a land like the Underdark where resources are oft times hard to come by. Drow sometimes even enter into truces and military alliegances with other races when the need arises, but these affairs are by nature temporary, as it's only a matter of time until the drow turn on their allies.

Drow on the surface, as a whole, have yet to form anything resembling a true society, for the most part living in small semi-nomadic bands or as singular outcasts and hermits. There are those who are well on their way to forming such, however, notably in areas such as Cormanthor where followers of Vhaeraun are carving themselves homes in the old elven haunts and ruins.

While this is what you will find in a lot of Forgotten Realms source material in regards to the Drow Elves, you must understand that 90% of the people of Faerun will never, ever see a Drow; let alone a large number of monsters in the monster manual. Plus not everyone has heard about them to the degree we have because of what has been written about the Forgotten Realms (source books, novels, game modules, etc.).

The vast majority of the people of Faerun, including Dwarves and elves as well, have very little to go on when it comes to the truth about Drow and their abilities and powers.

Even than, most of what people hear is mostly hear-say from travelling merchants and veteran adventurers who may also be re-telling what they heard, which leads to embellishing the truth or out right lying.

Truth is most of the information about Drow (and to a stronger degree, Mind Flayers, Dueregar, Deep Gnomes, etc.), is provided mostly for the DM to run their campaigns, not an example of what will be found in the local scholars social studies book. So while you as a player may know a lot of material about Faerun, your character does not!

Has your character ever seen a Drow before, or for that matter any under dark race before? Has your character heard stories or fire side tales about them? Does he know anyone who has encountered any of them and survived?

More then likely, no.

What should be happening is your character sees a dark skinned elf with albino hair and if he/she has heard tales his/her first response is not to draw his/her sword and charge into battle screaming "Die Drow!". The first response is to be on his/her guard and quickly attempt to vacate the area or risk unimaginable death at the hands of the Drow Elves. Notice I used the plural form of elf, because for all your character knows, this is one Drow, his thirty buddies are nearby watching for the fools whom try and take one lone drow elf to either capture or kill them.

The reality of this server is that players will PvP ANY underdark race soley because they know:

A. They are alone, because this is all to easy to know ahead of time (they are a player character after all).
B. That they can take him or her because of the level difference (say as much as 10 levels most of the time).
C. Because they can; since this is a PvP server, which amounts to plain ole' griefing in my opinion.

There's no chance once so ever of Role-Playing out the encounter and seeing if they form a lasting friendship with this dark elf, or if this dark elf is truly an evil being who decides to engage you in mortal combat, within the next 6 seconds.

Granted this is a "lite" RP server, but even being classified as lite does not translate into slay on sight and quote source book material to defend your actions later, that is no different than the griefers who slay other players and say they RP'd it by first saying "Die evil doer!"

[jasonpauldegraaf]

Untrue,

Those who have been on the server for a while will know much about drow.

Why?

Because they launched a massive attack on the city of Baldur's Gate not long ago.

Welcome to the server. -JPD

[Zealote]

*Looks to Jason*
That is true......
But either way i do not agree with all the ''KILL THE DROW!!'' Thing. At least not for LG good char with high wisdom like mine.
But again if you're a crazy halfling or a drunken dwarf dancer, i believe its ok to do crazy stuff....
But please WARN the player that you're about to slay him/her because he/she is a drow. There is great deal of new players, and that may be his/her first char. We dont want to scare the new people with
''welcome to the server!!!''
*cuts of his/her head*
They might get the wrong impression....
Also i would like to add that the most recommended action when facing a drow is to RUN for your life, unless you're a paladin of course, cause if you are you do not run, you ''strategically retreat''. Or stay an act like DM Wiz said.
I hate to say, but that CR that appears when you click examine on a char or creature, has a big influence on the attackers. I have already spoken to a DM friend about change that so the CR wont appear, but im not sure if this is possible. If it is, the attacks will be greatly reduced i believe.

-Rafael

[whenwizardswar]

Aug 7, 2008 12:30:26 GMT -5 Zealote said:

*Looks to Jason*
That is true......
But either way i do not agree with all the ''KILL THE DROW!!'' Thing. At least not for LG good char with high wisdom like mine.
But again if you're a crazy halfling or a drunken dwarf dancer, i believe its ok to do crazy stuff....
But please WARN the player that you're about to slay him/her because he/she is a drow. There is great deal of new players, and that may be his/her first char. We dont want to scare the new people with
''welcome to the server!!!''
*cuts of his/her head*
They might get the wrong impression....
Also i would like to add that the most recommended action when facing a drow is to RUN for your life, unless you're a paladin of course, cause if you are you do not run, you ''strategically retreat''. Or stay an act like DM Wiz said.
I hate to say, but that CR that appears when you click examine on a char or creature, has a big influence on the attackers. I have already spoken to a DM friend about change that so the CR wont appear, but im not sure if this is possible. If it is, the attacks will be greatly reduced i believe.

-Rafael

Quoted for emphasis

[shawnystyle77]

Aug 7, 2008 12:30:26 GMT -5 Zealote said:

*Looks to Jason*
That is true......
But either way i do not agree with all the ''KILL THE DROW!!'' Thing. At least not for LG good char with high wisdom like mine.
But again if you're a crazy halfling or a drunken dwarf dancer, i believe its ok to do crazy stuff....
But please WARN the player that you're about to slay him/her because he/she is a drow. There is great deal of new players, and that may be his/her first char. We dont want to scare the new people with
''welcome to the server!!!''
*cuts of his/her head*
They might get the wrong impression....
Also i would like to add that the most recommended action when facing a drow is to RUN for your life, unless you're a paladin of course, cause if you are you do not run, you ''strategically retreat''. Or stay an act like DM Wiz said.
I hate to say, but that CR that appears when you click examine on a char or creature, has a big influence on the attackers. I have already spoken to a DM friend about change that so the CR wont appear, but im not sure if this is possible. If it is, the attacks will be greatly reduced i believe.

-Rafael

When haydel met his first drow, he did "run for his life". The thing about levels is, a level 18 char has seen a lot and being a halfing +save fear means he's even less likely to run now.

A low level char should run as they are an inexperienced adventurer. Haydel has been slapped around by giants, ogres, undead, wyrms and Drow. What's one more?

I know the whole drow arrogant attitude thing and i love when players RP it. But yer not gonna scare off an experienced adventurer, at least not without an intimidate check. The other thing to keep in mind when playing a drow is they will switch from arrogant to groveling in a heartbeat if they think things have turned against them. This means begging for your life or running like hell "you have darkness use it" when you encounter a obviously more dangerous foe. A drow loves his own life and nothing else, so they will do whatever it takes to save it. So when insults and threats do not work, try plan B.

I say this because a few of the new Drow who are playing the race well IMO and being degrading to other races, still need to know when enoughs enough. WEAR A HELM!!! Lolth revels in deceit and cunning and you walking the surface casting insults and threats when you lack the power to carry them out is foolish, and the spider queen will weed out the weak and foolish.

If you are a good drow.... BIG IF, but hey it's your call, you still would be wise to hide your face. It is still your nature to mistrust and it is wise to fear death by lynching on the surface. Even if you have lots of friends who know yer a drow, all it would take is one scared peasant who doesn't know you and BOOM lynch mob.

[kjiflrf]

plz ansver for 1 simple question... im plaing for drow and call my character Viconia De'Vir... I know that she's Lore character... but why cant i play for her? is it mega-criminal or what? yu think i wont RolePlay with her? w/o RP i wouldnt took this name... can i play for her? please...

sry for my englis =)

[shawnystyle77]

Aug 7, 2008 16:54:16 GMT -5 kjiflrf said:

plz ansver for 1 simple question... im plaing for drow and call my character Viconia De'Vir... I know that she's Lore character... but why cant i play for her? is it mega-criminal or what? yu think i wont RolePlay with her? w/o RP i wouldnt took this name... can i play for her? please...

sry for my englis =)

Not my call, but I think the problem would be taken a well known name like that, and a House that has been destroyed. We have already seen 2 "De'vir's" on this server. On a side note I loved the interaction with you today, very well done. Making Haydel think that human was your consort was very "drow".