The Drow!

Dark Elves so the drow are the elves who in the ancient days listened to lulls call as all elves did but they were the elves who remained faithful to her right as wolf’s betrayal of coral on the creator of elves right as that betrayal was almost complete the other elves listening to the call of the other elf gods pulled back and they realized that even though coral on was a distant God still coral on was their parent and they decided we will be faithful and so they then turned their back on wolf the drow were the ones who stayed with her and they along with their God were cast even further away from the grace of Arvin door than the rest of the else were they were cast literally into darkness and they became a people wholly dedicated to wolf and her scheming and from many many centuries were viewed in the multiverse as a people of evil and in fact the society influenced by law is indeed evil I mean it is it is a wretched thing filled with slavery and very dark magic involving demons it’s highly gendered society where in contrast to some of the darkly gendered societies on the surface which I’ve often been patriarchal there it’s matriarchal and where the male drow have a subservient role that said as we know from our most famous drow Drizzt it is possible for that one of the Dark Elves and and even many of the Dark Elves to break free of lulz influence they still free well many of the drow keep going because they have power because within that society a society that in some ways gathers together elven magic better than many other elven societies do they are able to marshal great might and build these these mighty houses with soldiers of various species monsters at their beck and call and they are able to rule over vast portions of the Underdark and so like any mortal many drow are drawn by power and their God feeds it to them and they many of them are tangled up in this web of deceit and betrayal where the whisper of loathe is constantly encouraging them to backstab each other to get just a bit more powerful I often think of one of the best portrayals I’ve ever seen of what I imagine drow society to be like was the old miniseries I Claudius showing a lot of the terrible scheming that went on in the Roman Empire of all the people poisoning each other and lying to each other and committing adultery with each other it’s sort of like that that series is sort of like a snapshot of what drow society is like but there are drow like Drizzt who walk their own paths who even if they don’t know it intellectually know that like all other elves they are descended from coral on and like other elves have the opportunity to start getting hints that maybe coral on isn’t quite as mad at them all as it always seems and so some of them they begin to respond to the call of the light within themselves and not that often for me is one of the most interesting stories you can tell with the drow is the story of a person who is raised up in a totally corrupt culture that that proudly tramples the downtrodden that enslaves other people’s yet you are a person who stands up against it who says no more and so I think I think the drow actually have a lot of great storytelling potential when you start going down that path and I think that’s also part of why Drizzt has so much appeal that then in a way and it’s far more heroic when a person stands up against their society that is doing so much that is wrong and says I will not be a part of this and that’s really his story and I think that could be the story of a lot of really interesting drow player characters now Morton Canaan’s toma foes also introduces in its bestiary section a number of new drow stat blocks they’re also a ladrón stat blocks they’re also shadow Chi stat blocks so that the DM gets to have some new elf toys to play with just as players get some new elf toys to play with the new drow stat blocks hope flush out the spectrum of drow options that we introduced in the monster manual and specifically focusing on higher challenge ratings so like we have the really powerful stat block for a drow matron mother watch out if you go up against her we have a drow Iraq no man sir we have a drow favored consort which is a really powerful mage who is dedicated to a matron mother we have drown quiz’ ters not a whole lot more about dry ters but they’re there the book goes to a lot of depth about the drought Pantheon as well as going into greater depth about all of the other elf gods it goes into detail on you know the fact that drought Society has this various houses that vie against each other the book also talks about the fact that drow society has developed differently in some D&D world so we talked a little bit about the drow and ember on there a mention of the fact that the Dark Elves of crin actually looked different from drow and other parts of the multiverse they do not have the charcoal or purplish skin that many drow have in other worlds again none of this should be a surprise once a person reads all of the elf storytelling and Morton Kane and some of those because a big part of the elf story is originally they were mutable originally there were a people who could assume almost any form and that helps explain why there are so many different ways that elves look you know from not only these variances among Dark Elves but even think about variances among high elves some some high elves in D&D worlds are very pale others like the Sun elves can have a golden cast to their skin the moon elves can almost have a violet quality to it yet they’re all they’re all high elves wood elves have a variety of different appearances and so again even drow can have various appearances and so the book the book touches on that a bit that this the elf story is a fascinating one and it extends through the DND cosmos in a variety of really fascinating ways we also talked a bit about the fact that on some world’s wealth the name of wealth is not even known it’s just as the name Corwin is not known yet there are sort of it’s almost like echoes in the blood where even if even if and this is true in our world too even if you don’t know the name of your parents you still bear your ancestry with in your blood and so even you know even those Dark Elves who might not know the name of wolf they they still have been shaped by her influence and all just as all elves including drow are originally descended from coral on now one of the neat twists to that we talk about in in Morton Canaan stoma phos is the going back to this notion of changeability is we talk a bit more about something that was discussed in the players handbook and that is there are certain elves who are blessed by coral on because one thing we also hint at is that even though coral on was upset with the elves for turning on him there is also some love in coral on for his children and some of these children are seen to be particularly blessed and one of the signs of this blessing is they are able to change their sex and so when when these elves awaken from their trance at the end of the long rest they can decide whether they are male or female or neither depending on the elves choice now one thing we talk about in the book is this blessing is horrific to the drow it is viewed as it is viewed as a blessing of coral on if it appears in one of the drow it is considered to be extremely subversive because unlike other elves their entire society is gendered and so the ability for a person each day to act will be male or female to drow is considered to be an amazing form of resistance and and of potential anarchy and so the elves who have this blessing are often ones who will then become heroes who will seek out peace with other types of elves and will despite the animosity that other elves have for the drow these blessed drow will often then be permitted to seek sanctuary in the temples of coral on because the other elves cannot deny that if if a drow bears this blessing they cannot deny that the blessing of coral on is upon them and so this is another neat storytelling twist that the book introduces that I think could lead to some really interesting storytelling in people’s campaigns you can learn a whole lot more about the drow

Later today we are talking with @JeremyECrawford about the Dark Elves in D&D. pic.twitter.com/Jo8LyhsapY

— D&D Beyond (@DnDBeyond) March 13, 2018

In our latest D&D video, @ToddKenreck and I chat about the story of the drow in "Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes," out this May: https://t.co/Rs9bb3kzvq via @YouTube @DnDBeyond @Wizards_DnD

— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) March 13, 2018

D&D Sage Advice

Questions on Dungeons & Dragons answered by game designers

Widgets

The Drow!

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Share this:

Leave a ReplyCancel reply