<responding to Niara>
I agree 100%. But WotC has had a profoundly bad track record in this regard both historically and within recent memory. The 3rd edition thing where Eilistraee died to 'redeem' her drow followers by lightening their skin color springs to mind. Speaking of which...
Now the art in Mordenkainen and Tasha's is great. It's perfect. Stick to that and
I read a thread on another board earlier today analyzing an art shift in how Drow were portrayed in Tashas. Specifically, they are *significantly* lighter-skinned than even prior 5e material. Across the board-In some cases basically Asterion-levels of pale, and he's a vampire-spawn moon elf! It seems like part of WoTC's strategy towards combating allegations of bigotry over the evil elves being black-skinned....is to remove the black skin of said elves. Yikes.
I don't know what it is with this obsession with changing drow's physical appearance, because it inevitably ends up making things incredibly uncomfortable because nobody seemingly thought about it for more than 5 minutes. Drow redemption being signified by changes in physical appearance is something I hope doesn't make the final cut. Like if we reach Baldur's Gate and run into some Eilistraeens and they're all violet-eyed I'll be cross.
Interesting. To my mind, the original 1st edition description of the drow -- white hair, jet black skin -- has an obvious real world analogue in a photo negative. Take a chodachrome photo of someone who seems fairy like, view the photo's photo negative and you have a drow. Ground / underground was a way of capturing the doppelgänger archetype -- these are skeksis -- this a race where the dark self and self have been split into two communities and not really an analogue for real world peoples.
(but it was intended to be comment on real world gender relations -- but I digress)
I hadn't realized that War of the Spider Queen involved Eilistraee lightening the skin of the drow. That's a problem and possibly the UR source of this problem. Might have to read that. (and if so WotC might do well to apologize for that)
When I look at Tasha's I see artists using colors that make it clear that the skin tones are not like human ones. Drow go from charcoal to coal and, were I a WotC artist, I would avoid coal as color because that could easily be confused for a human skin tone. I'd go for charcoal and I would emphasize the blues in the black colors. Which why I selected it as unproblematic. My favorite 5e drawing so far is the Matron Mother in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes -- ethereal, unworldy, timeless.
Somewhat off topic but doesn't Vhaerun want to institute a patriarchy no less oppressive than the matriarchy of Lolth?
