Watching a youtube vid on some new lore on drow, that just got released because of dark alliance.
Supposedly Lolth drow have white tattoos on there face and when they lose faith the tats fade. Put this in suggestions and feedback since this isn't how BG3 has it.
Hm, this is interesting. I saw "Sleep Sound" but I thought that this applies only for this game, which was released in June. So is this a canon or just for this game? Also I hope they are not going to make all Drow kind or "redeemed".
Yeah I'm gonna call a big old bullshit on that one.
So they're retconning Drow again. Not the first time, it's fine. I'm a little annoyed that they are leaning into this stupid fucking evil subrace racial segregation nonsense, but whatever.
At least it's not just "the mark of Lolth is the dark skin and red eyes of the Drow!" I'll give them that.
Some googling showed that a mark of Lolth isn't something new. And it's not a mark of the faith, it's mark of being personally cursed by Lolth. That fits in Malice story.
Now that is... Interesting. Especially the part with "we wanted to show that Drizzt was hardly unique." I mean... Wasn't him being more-or-less unique (or at least mega rare) kinda the entire point? Oo
EDIT: I mean, I was even under the impression that those elves that followed Lolth were the ones that BECAME drows. Aka, drows by definition are (or were) followers of Lolth and that is how they became... Drow - otherwise they'd be just elves.
Either it seems like I am really, really, really bad at researching - or some huge changes are being made lore-wise. If they want more good drows - is it not enough to just be like "And since the events of Drizzt, more and more drows were inspired by having a choice to follow, or not follow, Lolth - and as such, more drows started engaging in the struggle of breaking free from the influence of Lolth." ? O.o
Last edited by Dez; 25/06/2102:27 AM.
Hoot hoot, stranger! Fairly new to CRPGs, but I tried my best to provide some feedback regardless! <3 Read it here: My Open Letter to Larian
Weren't there already two "non-typical" drow off-shoots as it is - the followers of Eilistraee (dedicated to re-emerging to the surface and making up with the rest of Tel-quessir) and of Vhaeraun (the patron of the male drow)? And there were already quite a few more surfacer drow during the Spellplague times which weren't exactly bound to their supposed religion in any way. As far as Drizzt goes, wouldn't the only clearly stated "rarity" to him would be his purple eyes which he almost got murdered at birth for, and most of his upbringing and how he became the way he is is mostly thanks to Zaknafein's mentoring?
Weren't there already two "non-typical" drow off-shoots as it is - the followers of Eilistraee (dedicated to re-emerging to the surface and making up with the rest of Tel-quessir) and of Vhaeraun (the patron of the male drow)? And there were already quite a few more surfacer drow during the Spellplague times which weren't exactly bound to their supposed religion in any way. As far as Drizzt goes, wouldn't the only clearly stated "rarity" to him would be his purple eyes which he almost got murdered at birth for, and most of his upbringing and how he became the way he is is mostly thanks to Zaknafein's mentoring?
Yes, but the thing that several people here on the forums, and out in the real world have been trying to get across to people is that there is no racial difference between Drow who continue to worship Lolth, and Drow who have chosen to follow Eilistraee/Vhaeraun. The difference is purely cultural. But this comes with the unspoken assumption that the evilness of the Drow is also purely cultural, which it seems not everyone assumes.
Drizzt's purple eyes might have earned him a death sentence because non-red eyes were considered to be a sign that you might have surface elf blood (or even non-elf blood) in your ancestry, which was unacceptable for a Drow born to a noble house. Same goes for Drow born with hair that isn't silver or white; or Drow that have yellow eyes; or Drow that have short ears, etc... It comes back to the cultural xenophobia that is common in the underdark Drow communities.
There was a race of dark-skinned elves that were ancestors of the Drow, but their homeleand was totally destroyed in the crown wars that ended up forcing Lolth and her followers underground. And it was Corellon who "cursed" them with their current appearance due to their loyalty to Lolth. there isn't any information about survivors, but if they dodged Corellon's curse, they would just be elves, and probably just reintegrated back into wood-elf communities. If I understand correctly, there was also an event where a population of Drow were "redeemed" by being turned back into their ancestral dark elf race.
Weren't there already two "non-typical" drow off-shoots as it is - the followers of Eilistraee (dedicated to re-emerging to the surface and making up with the rest of Tel-quessir) and of Vhaeraun (the patron of the male drow)? And there were already quite a few more surfacer drow during the Spellplague times which weren't exactly bound to their supposed religion in any way. As far as Drizzt goes, wouldn't the only clearly stated "rarity" to him would be his purple eyes which he almost got murdered at birth for, and most of his upbringing and how he became the way he is is mostly thanks to Zaknafein's mentoring?
Yes, but the thing that several people here on the forums, and out in the real world have been trying to get across to people is that there is no racial difference between Drow who continue to worship Lolth, and Drow who have chosen to follow Eilistraee/Vhaeraun. The difference is purely cultural. But this comes with the unspoken assumption that the evilness of the Drow is also purely cultural, which it seems not everyone assumes.
Drizzt's purple eyes might have earned him a death sentence because non-red eyes were considered to be a sign that you might have surface elf blood (or even non-elf blood) in your ancestry, which was unacceptable for a Drow born to a noble house. Same goes for Drow born with hair that isn't silver or white; or Drow that have yellow eyes; or Drow that have short ears, etc... It comes back to the cultural xenophobia that is common in the underdark Drow communities.
There was a race of dark-skinned elves that were ancestors of the Drow, but their homeleand was totally destroyed in the crown wars that ended up forcing Lolth and her followers underground. And it was Corellon who "cursed" them with their current appearance due to their loyalty to Lolth. there isn't any information about survivors, but if they dodged Corellon's curse, they would just be elves, and probably just reintegrated back into wood-elf communities. If I understand correctly, there was also an event where a population of Drow were "redeemed" by being turned back into their ancestral dark elf race.
Hm, but in this video says that red eyes and tattoos are an exceptional feature of the Drow Lolth. Is this something new? It is interesting in new lore there is not a word about Eilistraee. But there are some Drow who are hidden by the magic of illusions.
Now that is... Interesting. Especially the part with "we wanted to show that Drizzt was hardly unique." I mean... Wasn't him being more-or-less unique (or at least mega rare) kinda the entire point? Oo
EDIT: I mean, I was even under the impression that those elves that followed Lolth were the ones that BECAME drows. Aka, drows by definition are (or were) followers of Lolth and that is how they became... Drow - otherwise they'd be just elves.
Either it seems like I am really, really, really bad at researching - or some huge changes are being made lore-wise. If they want more good drows - is it not enough to just be like "And since the events of Drizzt, more and more drows were inspired by having a choice to follow, or not follow, Lolth - and as such, more drows started engaging in the struggle of breaking free from the influence of Lolth." ? O.o
This, from what I remember they got black skin from lolth, originally they were brown elves. I could be remembering wrong, wouldn't be the first time.
Hm, but in this video says that red eyes and tattoos are an exceptional feature of the Drow Lolth. Is this something new? It is interesting in new lore there is not a word about Eilistraee. But there are some Drow who are hidden by the magic of illusions.
That is something new indeed.
I am torn about the illusion argument, because I've read that it is near impossible that something as big as settlements in the UD should have managed to remain hidden when much more narrow and difficult areas have been revealed in the meta lore - AND, the illusionary magic should have been disrupted during the spell plague - as far as I've heard. Someone may correct me if I misunderstood something...
Hoot hoot, stranger! Fairly new to CRPGs, but I tried my best to provide some feedback regardless! <3 Read it here: My Open Letter to Larian
No Drow character I make for a DnD game is going to include this nonsense. There was nothing wrong with the way things were before. Plus, the white tattoos make them look terrible. No thank you, Wizards. Gonna pass on that.
I don't mind more variations of Drow offshoots personally. Not everyone wants to play a Lolth drow, or a drizzit clone. I much prefer making my own story and would rather not be from Menzoberranzan, but from somewhere else. This just gives me more options to create my own story playing a drow character. But being from somewhere else... we might also need to have different weapon proficiency and innate abilities. Which could also give more flexibility and color in creating your drow character.
I think a more comprehensive retcon would be required to make drow make sense. Their society seems to be self destructive on an unsustainable scale. But i suppose that isn't the the point here.
Last edited by TomReneth; 02/07/2111:33 AM.
Don't you just hate it when people with dumb opinions have nice avatars?
I think a more comprehensive retcon would be required to make drow make sense. Their society seems to be self destructive on an unsustainable scale. But i suppose that isn't the the point here.
That's actually on brand for an unfortunately large amount of D&D worldbuilding. Few things make sense when you actually sit down to think about it in a real functioning sense. That's why we have stories about the D&D group that went on one adventure then stopped and became salt mining barons when they realised that salt mining is far safer and about as lucrative as adventuring. The entire "economy" of adventuring doesn't really make sense. Magical weapons are theoretically worth more gold than the average person can make in their entire lifetime, so the only people that can support this whole industry are adventurers, some of whom carry around enough gold to theoretically buy an entire city, except they can't because prices are all inflated for adventurer salaries. If a standard keelboat is worth 3000 gold, then how does any normal person ever actually afford one?
Just look at the Tiefling exponential. If Tiefs always breed true, even with other races, like the lore alleges they do, doesn't that mean there is an ever-expanding population of Tieflings that will eventually become the most populous, and then only, race? Except they won't because WoTC didn't think about that when they retconned Tief lore.
The question of whether or not these hidden Drow communities would have survived the spellplague is one that simply won't get answered, because not only are WoTC trying to pretend they didn't do that (because everybody hated it), but it simply wasn't something they took into consideration when writing the new lore.
I think a more comprehensive retcon would be required to make drow make sense. Their society seems to be self destructive on an unsustainable scale. But i suppose that isn't the the point here.
That's actually on brand for an unfortunately large amount of D&D worldbuilding. Few things make sense when you actually sit down to think about it in a real functioning sense. That's why we have stories about the D&D group that went on one adventure then stopped and became salt mining barons when they realised that salt mining is far safer and about as lucrative as adventuring. The entire "economy" of adventuring doesn't really make sense. Magical weapons are theoretically worth more gold than the average person can make in their entire lifetime, so the only people that can support this whole industry are adventurers, some of whom carry around enough gold to theoretically buy an entire city, except they can't because prices are all inflated for adventurer salaries. If a standard keelboat is worth 3000 gold, then how does any normal person ever actually afford one?
Just look at the Tiefling exponential. If Tiefs always breed true, even with other races, like the lore alleges they do, doesn't that mean there is an ever-expanding population of Tieflings that will eventually become the most populous, and then only, race? Except they won't because WoTC didn't think about that when they retconned Tief lore.
The question of whether or not these hidden Drow communities would have survived the spellplague is one that simply won't get answered, because not only are WoTC trying to pretend they didn't do that (because everybody hated it), but it simply wasn't something they took into consideration when writing the new lore.
Not necessarily with Tieflings. They would have an expanding population but they won't be the most populous cause it isn't like they are going around to every race and making more Tieflings, often times Tieflings face stigmatization and in fact cause of events they are experience a mass eviction from one city, hence the refugees. Because of that stigma, they aren't exactly making many more tieflings and despite Descent into Avernus, they are not exactly populous compared to other races, we just experience many in this game because the refugees are the first friendlies we are exposed to.
With Spellplague, hell if I know. Its kinda a glossed over lore...
Just look at the Tiefling exponential. If Tiefs always breed true, even with other races, like the lore alleges they do, doesn't that mean there is an ever-expanding population of Tieflings that will eventually become the most populous, and then only, race? Except they won't because WoTC didn't think about that when they retconned Tief lore.
I hate what they did with tieflings. I mean, I like their default look in 5e; the problem is that it's also pretty much their only look. Before the retcon they were really diverse and it was one of their coolest features. One could look like a cambion and another just have eyes of unnatural colour hinting at his fiendish heritage. It also made sense, because a quater-devil usually looked more like the former and sixth or so generation likely retained only subtle traits.
I've never actually played in a game that has tieflings, where people stuck to the 5e appearances. No one I've played with enforces the tief retcon.
Also, as much as the books say the tiefs are treated with suspicion and even stigmatised, the only places where I have actually found that to be the case is in one of my friend's homebrew worlds (where it was non-human prejudice, not just tiefling), and in BG3. Never actually seen it in an official adventure book.
I think a more comprehensive retcon would be required to make drow make sense. Their society seems to be self destructive on an unsustainable scale. But i suppose that isn't the the point here.
That's actually on brand for an unfortunately large amount of D&D worldbuilding. Few things make sense when you actually sit down to think about it in a real functioning sense. That's why we have stories about the D&D group that went on one adventure then stopped and became salt mining barons when they realised that salt mining is far safer and about as lucrative as adventuring. The entire "economy" of adventuring doesn't really make sense. Magical weapons are theoretically worth more gold than the average person can make in their entire lifetime, so the only people that can support this whole industry are adventurers, some of whom carry around enough gold to theoretically buy an entire city, except they can't because prices are all inflated for adventurer salaries. If a standard keelboat is worth 3000 gold, then how does any normal person ever actually afford one?
Just look at the Tiefling exponential. If Tiefs always breed true, even with other races, like the lore alleges they do, doesn't that mean there is an ever-expanding population of Tieflings that will eventually become the most populous, and then only, race? Except they won't because WoTC didn't think about that when they retconned Tief lore.
The question of whether or not these hidden Drow communities would have survived the spellplague is one that simply won't get answered, because not only are WoTC trying to pretend they didn't do that (because everybody hated it), but it simply wasn't something they took into consideration when writing the new lore.
There is probably some info on where the cave-ins are located that was caused by the spell plague, if that's what your are talking about. There are also a series of books that came out that came out around the time 4e did (book wise i dont know what you'll find in them though, pretty sure several of them were neverwinter based).
