Drow by any other name...

[Merkholz]

I posted a question at Dragonsfoot a while back with less than enthusiastic discussion regarding other enclaves of drow not fortunate enough to find large chunks of tumkeoite or lacofcite in livable underground areas.

I'm planning on setting up a drow community quite a long way away from Erelhei-Cinlu - what would it be like. Since drow worship more than one demon lord, perhaps Graz'zt, Juiblex or Zuggtmoy, I decided that Lolth was not their deity which means that the entire spider motif is lost. I also decided that there's probably a very small chance for another grop of evil elves fleeing beneath the ground from fanatic good elves to stumble upon a large cavern with strange, magical emanations that result in the items and magic of the more well-known drow.

In D3 can be found the following note. “Special Note Regarding Drow Cloaks, Armor, and Weapons: All of these items have special properties, although none of them radiate any magic. The items are made under the conditions particular to the strange homeland of the Drow, for this place has unknown radiations which impart special properties to these cloaks, armor and weapons... Items not spoiled by sunlight will eventually lose their special properties if not exposed to the special radiation, but they will remain serviceable as normal cloaks, armor, shields, swords, maces, etc.”

This coupled with the description of the Vault “When properly viewed, the radiation from certain unique minerals give the visual effect of a starry heaven, while near the zenith of this black stone bowl is a huge mass of tumkeoite — which in its slow decay and transformation to lacofcite sheds a lurid gleam “ leads me to believe that the special properties of drow are specific to the Vault and unless a large mass of tumkeoite (or whatever causes the radiations that affect the drow weaponry) attracts other groups of drow they will be vastly different from the standard drow.

IMO the physical appearance of drow should be the same, i.e. that is not dependent on the strange radiations. What about spell powers? What about magic resistance?

So, any ideas how to develop a new drow society?

[geneweigel]

Redo it. I redid it in the early 80's I still have the character sheet for their demon lord master and they had there own weird weapons, spells and sacred animals. I didn't get this from nowhere though. The concept of drow outside Erelhei-Cinlu I initially got from playing my pre-UA "big, bad barbarian" (DRA#63 JUL 1982) with my friend Taylor as DM around 1983 or 1984 in the adventure A4 IN THE DUNGEONS OF THE SLAVELORDS (1980) and fighting a drow at the end:

The Drow fightehleric, Edralve, will try to silence opponent
spell-casters. She will then try to cast levitate on the enemy’s
best fighter and raise him or her 20’ into the air. She will then
join the melee. Edralve is AC 5, MV 12“, LVL 5 fighter/4 cleric,
hp 20, #AT 1, D 3-t0 (d8+2), SD 60% magic resistance, and save
vs. spellsat +2, S9,I17, W 11, D 16, C 10, Ch 15, alchaoticevil
She wields a +2 long sword and wears black leather armor, a
black shield, and a ring of warmth. Her natural Drowic spells
are dancing lights, faerie fire, darkness, detect magic, know
alignment, levitate, clairvoyance, detect lie, suggestion, and
dispel magic. Her remaining clerical spell is silence, 15‘ radius.
Edralve is an exile from Erelhei Cinlu, from which she barely
escaped after an abortive coup. The other Slave Lords both
respect her abilities and fear her devious cruelty. She devised
the morale-breaking fear tactics employed by the slavers in
their raids. In a pocket she has 5 Drow brooches, each worth
500 gp.

While I had introduced drows before as various NPCs they had really were assumed to be summoned, teleported or gated in unknown ways.

It was after playing A4 that I came up with a drow that came from a separate colony that was directly under the big city (which in 1987-1988 I had a slow painful transition to turn all that into Greyhawk city because it started to get branded as Greyhawk by players eager to be associated with official TSR WOG around 1984 and up..).

I scribbled a picture of a monstrous god on his NPC character sheet gave him regular style magic equipment.

I kept reintroducing the character and his minions and as the years went eventually transformed his minions into more and more monstrous forms. By the time 3e came around these guys I didn't even refer to as drow anymore.

[Scott]

This is based on some ideas I have been kicking around about the drow for a while.
The drow are descendants of a kingdom of evil high elves that warred continually with the other elves. Originally they lived on the surface, but one by one their strongholds fell. The remaining evil elves were scattered and living in small bands. Those that would eventually become the drow built a hiiden stronghold in a cave complex close to the surface. For a while they dwelled in their caverns, making small forays onto the surface and exploring the tunnels that went much deeper into the earth. It was at this time that Lolth became aware of the drow. The demoness seduced the already wicked elves with promises of power and revenge if they would swear allegiance to her. Those that agreed were transformed into the drow that we know by their new goddess. Those that did not were swiftly killed. She instructed them in the dark arts of magic and gave to them demonic allies to bolster their ranks. They quickly increased in power and it seemed that their choice to submit to Lolth would pay off. They began raiding the surface in greater force, but only on the darkest nights, and now transformed into the inky black drow. Eventually the location of the drow stronghold was discovered, and an army of good elves was assembled to assault it. The siege was long and brutal, but eventually the good elves prevailed. It seemed that the drow had been totally annihilated in the assault.
To be continued.

[Scott]

A few drow did survive, and they fled into the depths of the earth by way of the mazes of tunnels they had been exploring. The wandered the underground world for a time until discovering the vault and its secrets Here they founded their city, Erelhei-Cinlu.
But being chaotic and evil, the drow often fractured and fought amongst themselves. Usually the losers in these power struggles were eliminated completely. Occasionally, a few losers would manage to escape from the vault.
It would be from these survivors that your alternate drow communities would be founded. Certainly some eventually found similar ‘vaults’ that granted similar benefits, but most probably would not. I would use the UA as a guide for determining what would be stripped away from the latter. A good number of these smaller communities probably still follow Lolth, but not all of them. A number of other demons or chaotic evil gods would be appropriate. I’d say some of those older, non Lolth following drow might have a different level limit structure.

[Scott]

I have been tossing around an idea for an all drow/underdark campaign I would like to run if I ever get to complete running the GD series.

[geneweigel]

I think that my approach was through a slow osmosis rather than who, what, where, when, etc.

My alternate drow god (that I mentioned above from 1984 around) was my first attempt at a god's statistics in DEI&DEM style. I still have it laying around somewhere.

Other "out of game artifacts" is that at the time of the rise of Greyhawk into player feeding frenzy I tried to compete and make my own world "treasure map" which was inspired by the Hyborian age and Expert set sample map rather than the giant WOG maps. One of the locations on the map was the far away back entrance to this new drow colony which as I said was located under "the city" locale. I drew it in school during class then at home I slowly traced and made a color version. Its dumb as sin and I cant even look at it sometimes. But the mark on the looseleaf map was supposed to be the mountainous back entrance to the other drow realm under the city. However, the colorized redo I (artistically) drew plains looped about it making it into another human city.

Anyway, I think that I have a full sketch of the alternate drow leader that I did for the alliance of all evil characters. Many were dusted off but everyone was aware of this guy's evil elves showing up from time to time. So after not seeing him in years I think I had him in a loincloth and robe which believe me aroused plenty of bad comments!

Just prior to him I came up with a guy that was super ancient that was awakened from a tomb that was weird and alien in appearance. They wanted to fight him but they took him on in the party instead when he seemed confused and needing help. Of course, he betrays them at the first chance he got unleashing a room of sleeping monsters on them to block his escape. So they found that this was an outpost that was long forgotten, blah, blah, blah etc and when the great old one they worshipped was revealed the creature type was a lot like the god of the alternate drow elves. it was post-game that it clicked when someone mentioned the alternate drow god being similiar that it started my line of thinking: How could a god not know of a god that was similar in many ways? After this was the first major appearance of my new versions of these dark elves inspired by this super ancient tomb guy in the mid-90's.

A few years ago, around 2004, I tried to associate my new dark elves in an adventure with that village (the one that I eventually used for a public campaign of new players) but then I realized that these elves had gotten too big for a small locale and reduced their presence to an individual. The individual was not even drow-like at all except being an evil elf with weird servitors.


.

[Merkholz]

Thanks for the interesting campaign notes. I've found it hard to imagine a drow enclave without falling into the powerful vision Gary presented and while I want to make it fresh I don't want it bo be so radically different that the drow won't be drow!

So far, I've decided that the drow spell powers are a leftover from the original elvish/sidhe heritage rather than the result of radiation exposure. MR remains, since elves have a limited resistance as well, but is altered/decreased. The elements of stealth is common to the underground environment so that stays. I might use Juiblex as their demonic patron unless it turns too weird/messy/sick.

[GRWelsh]

I think Juiblex, Zuggtmoy and Graz'zt are all appropriate alternate patrons for offshoot Drow enclaves. They might have their own distinctive spell-like powers and items, a la the tentacle rods of the Elder Elemental God worshippers. The wand of viscid globs would be a good fit for the Juiblex-worshippers.

[geneweigel]

I was doing some research into where I started this dark elf variant.

The mid-80's had a bit of dark elf run in THOR comics with Walt Simonson writing drawing (1983 to 1986) and I think that had a profound effect on making a different bunch of dark elves.

Looking back Simonson's dark elves had definitely been influenced by THE SHADOW PEOPLE novel and the leader looked like half-his face resembled the blank-eyed drow from the FIEND FOLIO.

The thing that made me notice was that the god of the dark elves that I created looked very Simonson-like. So I started this investigation. I didn't realize that it was that much of an influence. I knew Kirby stories influenced my demi-humans but I forgot about this.

[geneweigel]

I wanted to do an underworld map in the style of the DUNGEONEER'S SURVIVAL GUIDE during that 1987-1988 transition period of my old campaign to Greyhawk but I never got a chance to get it started.

When I went to read the back of my assassin a few minutes ago I saw this laying in the front of a character folder:



Its scribbled on the back of a drawing of an undead city entrance. I was going to show the highways that led to Greyhawk city from this city in this survival guide form. This start was going to integrate the tunnel that led to the undead city with the drow realm. However the new drow tunnels and realm I had previously drew in crude 3d but I can't find that image. (Stolen?).

At the time, this line of thinking was probably influenced by the Greyhawk/Gord novels implying there was a vast network underground in Oerth in addition to the mumbo jumbo of the then new DUNGEONEERS SURVIVAL GUIDE.

[GRWelsh]

You have a lot of artistic talent. You should draw more.

[geneweigel]

I just found a 1982 picture of my first character "Thor", he was about a year old and I was 13 when I drew this with a Bic pen:

Now there's a carnivorous white ape for ya!

[Falconer]

Nice! So… is your name really E. Gene Weigel?

[geneweigel]

Sept 25, 2012 10:48:48 GMT -5 Falconer said:

Nice! So… is your name really E. Gene Weigel?

Heh, actually its Eugene Joseph John Weigel so it can technically be "E.J.J." but the E. Joey Weigel or E. Johnny doesn't sound too cool!