Heya,
Your comment piqued my curiosity so I did some reading up on the Fandom Forgotten Realms wiki. According to the page for Drow on there, it does state that approximately 15% of drow were not evil but of that 15%, most were neutral, not good. It does mention Ellistraee being worshipped by the ones that were actually good but "the morally neutral drow's worship was split among Ghaunadaur, Lolth, Selvetarm, and Vhaeraun." I would be interested to learn what other notable good drow you are aware of besides the ones I mentioned earlier because the entry doesn't really mention any individuals in that category.
I also looked up Ched Nesad on there:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ched_Nasad since I knew that is where Rai-guy that I mentioned earlier is from.
According to that entry, and it's footnoted pretty well, Lloth is or (I guess was) indeed the primary deity there and the city was actually founded with Lloth's blessing by exiles from House Nasadra of Menzoberranzan. The article mentions no other deities besides Lloth and additionally states that the prevailing alignment of the city was NE and CE. It also mentions that while it was a matriarchal society, it wasn't as strict a matriarchy as Menzoberranzan so it concurs with you on that.
I think you missed the post spellplague this:
The council was considered an abomination by the one in Menzoberranzan, because House Teh'Kinrellz's male members held power that equaled and sometimes exceeded the one owned by the female clerics of Lolth.
It might be just that one house, though. Not sure how that would work if the other houses didn't like/want it to be like that... so who knows.
Also, not all good drow worship Eilistraee. The main two I can think of is Drizzt (who worshps Meilikki) and Liriel Baenre (who worships Mystra). But as I said in my original post, no group of people are a monolith.
So in my comments above I capitalized the word 'allegedly' precisely because that is just what I have been hearing on forums pertaining to this game. I haven't been involved in following lore changes from Wizards in quite some time so I don't have first hand knowledge of how the drow have evolved from strictly evil NPCs to what they are portrayed as today. I've seen it mentioned several times, had it just been a single instance I would have discounted the validity of it but it seems to be at least a somewhat widely held belief.
Anyway, I appreciate the discussion as it is interesting. Last night I didn't even play the game, just sat on here and discussed it which I also enjoy so thanks for indulging me.
I have been listening to the latest Drizzt trilogy recently (audiobooks are great). Spoilers for the most recent trilogy.
Drizzt has been pondering the very glacial change in the Drow people. He, being the SJW that he is (;)), is optimistic that the drow might eventually discard Lolth and become a more benevolent people overall. I am also interested in the behaviours of certain Drow in the books, like Yvonnel Baenre II, who definitely seems to be becoming more compassionate and kind, despite her memories of the original Yvonnel and Lolth's apparent favour. (She's doing good acts, using her divine granted powers to do good things, and Lolth is still granting her spells.)... We also have the return of Zaknafein, who was neutral tending towards good drow, and still seems to have that sense of justice with him (his bloodlust/thirst regarding priestesses of Lolth is quite understandable, which is probably what keeps him from being properly considered good).
Other examples of good drow are Qilue Velardorn, who is now a weave ghost. But her followers in the Promenade temple to Eilistraee in the Undermountain, are mostly good and mostly drow. Liriel Baenre is a good drow mystic theurge (cleric/mage) who follows Mystra, who I think is still wandering around the surface somewhere. I am also most certain that there are a number of more good than evil drow within the organisation of Bregan D'arth.
It's always good to have a civil discussion.
Z.
