Post by DM Leverage on Apr 15, 2017 17:31:09 GMT -5
The Drow
The drow are a paradox among the races of the Dungeons & Dragons game. They are elves, but dark and cruel. They are infamous, known far and wide by players and characters alike, yet they are mysterious and subtle beings. Because everyone knows of the drow, they assume they understand the drow.
They could not be more wrong.
For all their infamy, for all their prominence as the most insidious of D&D villains, the drow remain largely unknown. Those who would claim to understand them and their ways have been misled by the foolish myths and deliberate propaganda of surface elves, by incomplete tales brought back by delving adventurers, or by cultural treatises specific to a particular world or setting, but not to the drow nation as a whole. Come, now, and see for the first time who the drow are, how they truly live - and why the surface-dwellers, grown complacent in their false and incomplete knowledge, would do well to fear them once more.
Society and Culture
It is one of the aforementioned paradoxes of the drow that their culture, while encouraging selfish ambition and advancement through deception and murder, is still one that focuses - almost in spite of itself - on the good of the community over the good of the individual. Drow society, as a whole, lacks any concept of personal worth. An individual’s abilities or accomplishments are not, in and of themselves, of any importance whatsoever. The culture does not reward skill for skill’s sake, or celebrate individual success or ability. It’s not that the drow choose to downplay these factors; rather, they literally have no notion that they should matter. It is as foreign an idea to them as judging a person’s worth based on shoe size would be to most surface-dwelling races.
The only true measure of importance in drow society is how thoroughly and effectively an individual can direct, shape, and change that society- in other words, by how much authority an individual has over other drow and the community’s needed resources. Although personal ability and accomplishment, or birth into a powerful bloodline, often leads to such control, it is the influence itself that determines a drow’s station and status.
Like many other sentient beings, the drow think in terms of dichotomies: If something is not good, it must be bad; if it is not strong, it must be weak. Thus, if a drow with authority over others is worthwhile, a drow with little or no authority is worthless. When nothing but status and influence determine individual value, and life itself is of no intrinsic worth, a weak drow is nothing but a commodity to be traded, abused, and eventually exhausted by those more powerful. Enslavement, torture, and even murder are not crimes, when the perpetrator is a drow of high stature and the victim is not. Drow do avoid randomly slaughtering others who offend them, but this is due to a concern that they might accidentally slay the relative, servant, or slave of someone more powerful, not out of any sense of the value of life.
This core belief in power has developed the drow culture as it exists today: a society in which every interaction is determined by a dominant/submissive hierarchy. A drow divides everyone—drow or otherwise—into only three categories: someone with more power, who must be appeased and placated (at least until she can be replaced); someone who is a useful tool to one’s own advancement, who must be exploited in all possible ways; and the weak, who are worthless except as labor or disposable troops. From a general giving orders to her soldiers to a shopkeeper bargaining with a customer, everything is about who holds the most power. Haggling, for instance, is all but unheard of. If a client is of higher station than a vendor, she pays what she chooses; if she is lower, she pays what the vendor demands or receives no goods. Only when it comes to trade with non-drow is bargaining an option, and even then vendors must take care, for fear of accidentally offending the slave of a powerful drow. A drow who refuses the orders of one with more power has earned whatever tortures that act brings down upon her, and can expect no pity or aid from by others.
The drow are experts in the application of pain and death; they are considered cruel by other races. This, too, is an outward sign of the beliefs at the heart of their cultural development. Pain caused to a superior or a rival is a necessary means to an end; pain caused to a subordinate is unimportant because the subordinate is unimportant. The drow are cruel, in part, because they literally see no difference between torturing an underling, whipping a horse, or even repairing an old garden tool. It cannot be stressed enough that societal authority is the only measure of worth the drow understand.
These philosophical underpinnings result in a culture of constant scheming, in which every member of a community is perpetually conspiring to gain greater power over her neighbors while struggling to keep others from gaining power over her. Paranoia is rampant, with every word and deed carefully examined to ensure that it does not contain a hidden danger. Although visitors certainly expect to find back-room deals and constant betrayals among the ruling castes of the drow, such as the priestesses of Lolth and the matriarchs of the great houses, they are often surprised to find them equally as prevalent among less powerful drow. A shopkeeper conspires to destroy a rival’s supply of goods, or frame him for some offense against Lolth. A soldier weakens another soldier’s armor with carefully applied acid, hoping that her death in battle will open a path to promotion. A favored servant conspires with slaves to poison the mistress of the house so that she can take over, only to later poison the slaves as well rather than provide the freedom she had promised. When every interaction is a challenge for dominance, no drow can afford to drop her guard or cease her constant plotting to get ahead.
Roleplaying Application: React to others based primarily on their perceived value to you. Your adventuring companions are vital to your survival, so you won’t want to alienate them. In other cases, though, react with anger when someone you perceive as inferior disagrees with or disobeys you. Judge all individuals by how much power they wield, and offer them respect accordingly. You do not revere life for its own sake, and are puzzled by those who speak about the inherent value or dignity of living beings. This doesn’t make you a wanton murderer; it simply means that you have no compunctions about killing if doing so is the most expedient or convenient means of handling a situation (and you feel you can get away with it with minimal repercussions).
Law, Tradition, and Government
Perhaps one of the strangest dichotomies of drow culture is that they are both heavily tradition-bound and highly innovative, a bizarre combination found rarely among the other races.
Drow innovation is, as with so much else in their lives, driven by the constant drive to achieve dominance over other drow. A creative battle plan, a brand-new spell, a shorter method of production for manufactured goods—none of these have any value to the drow in and of themselves. Creation for creation’s sake is yet another virtue foreign to their way of thinking. When such innovations are put to use to increase the creator’s station, however, then they have proven their worth.
Thus, the very same traditions that keep the drow at one another’s throats also encourage innovative thinking. The most powerful drow have lived for centuries, and as a race they have been competing with one another for millennia. They are far too wary, and too well prepared, for traditional schemes to work against them. A drow who seeks to get ahead must be creative in her approach—and they all seek to get ahead.
These traditions, although binding, are rarely codified into law. The drow are an innately chaotic people, both in terms of individual temperament and religious doctrine. They bow to tradition due to social pressure and the efforts of those in power, but they react poorly to formalization of those traditions. Most of these conventions, as they apply to governance, religion, gender roles, and other cultural mores, are discussed in the following sections.
The lack of formal codes of law in drow society also equates to a lack of formal law enforcement. A drow community has no watch or police force per se. Rather, each aspect or segment of the community is responsible for enforcing its own power as far as its authority extends. An offense against a major house is answered by members of that house. The Church of Lolth punishes those who transgress against the Queen of Spiders and her faith. Individual drow react to slights and offenses as their own abilities and status permit. If a lone drow or an institution lacks the capacity to strike back against someone who has wronged her or it, then that individual or institution is clearly not entitled to retribution - and that failure to retaliate might mark the wronged party as weak enough to be overthrown by rivals.
On rare occasions, a drow institution might request the aid of another organization in seeking justice or vengeance against an adversary. A priestess might ask that one of the houses send soldiers to deal with a troublemaker, rather than making use of her own resources. Alternatively, the reverse might happen, wherein a powerful drow in a community requests that the priesthood punish a wrongdoer. Such temporary agreements normally occur when an individual wishes to keep her own faction out of direct involvement in a conflict. For instance, if a member of House Eilservs insults or attacks a member of House Inlindl, and Inlindl responds in kind, the result could be a feud that envelops both houses in protracted conflict. If Inlindl wishes to avoid that result - likely, since it holds far less power than Eilservs - it might instead request that the Church of Lolth punish the transgressor. Doing so, of course, puts the house in debt to the priestesses, so it would take such an action only if the offense was dire.
Drow punishment, regardless of whose hands deliver the sentence, is brutal and effi cient. In some instances, the punishing force simply strips the transgressor of power and property. More frequently, the individual becomes a bound slave to the house or church. Torture and execution are common as well. The drow do not believe in imprisonment as a punishment in and of itself, nor do they believe in second chances.
Roleplaying Application: You find the notion of a communitywide police force or city guard a foreign one, as well as the notion that certain activities are “illegal.” You think in terms of whether a particular individual has the power to seek vengeance if you wrong him, and you often forget (at least at first) that a community itself might seek to punish you for
transgressions against a specific person.
Drow Alignment
The drow are a highly chaotic, individualistic people, a fact addressed multiple times throughout this chapter. They worship a deity who dwells in the Abyss and is a paragon of chaotic evil. Yet for all that, the Monster Manual gives drow alignment as “usually neutral evil.”
The truth is, the drow are at least somewhat cooperative with one another, almost in spite of their own nature. Their ambitions and desires require that their society remain at least somewhat stable. They employ few true laws, but they are tightly bound by traditions and codes, and even if they follow them primarily out of fear, they follow them nonetheless. It is ironic that a lone drow is likely to drift toward chaos, but that despite their rivalry with one another, the presence of multiple drow in a given community literally forces them into a level of cooperation beyond what truly chaotic individuals would maintain.
The drow are a highly chaotic, individualistic people, a fact addressed multiple times throughout this chapter. They worship a deity who dwells in the Abyss and is a paragon of chaotic evil. Yet for all that, the Monster Manual gives drow alignment as “usually neutral evil.”
The truth is, the drow are at least somewhat cooperative with one another, almost in spite of their own nature. Their ambitions and desires require that their society remain at least somewhat stable. They employ few true laws, but they are tightly bound by traditions and codes, and even if they follow them primarily out of fear, they follow them nonetheless. It is ironic that a lone drow is likely to drift toward chaos, but that despite their rivalry with one another, the presence of multiple drow in a given community literally forces them into a level of cooperation beyond what truly chaotic individuals would maintain.
Drow Government and Rule
To say that the drow are governed by a matriarchal theocracy is both accurate and misleading. It is certainly true that the ruling members of drow society are the priestesses of Lolth and the matrons (and other matriarchs of the great houses), but calling them a “government” is a misnomer. Just as the drow are guided by tradition but have no formal law, they are overseen by these influential personages but have no formal government. A drow city has no duchess, reeve, or mayor; a drow nation has no empress or queen.
A drow community is governed, so to speak, through the unsteady cooperation of its three most powerful institutions. The Church of Lolth is the most influential faction among the drow. The priestesses of this church interpret and disseminate the will of Lolth, conduct rites and rituals to honor the dark goddess, and technically have the authority to demand anything in her name. If the drow were to have a formal government, it would be made up of these individuals. On a practical level, however, although the priestesses are indeed the social leaders of the drow, the church often lacks the power to take drastic action without the support of the great houses. Powerful matriarchs frequently hold power in both the church and a house- thus, what is self-interest for one must often be self-interest for the other. It is also important to understand that the church is not a monolithic entity, guided by a single voice or a single goal. It is made up of individual priestesses, all of whom are loyal to Lolth, but all of whom have the same drive to dominate the weak and advance their own cause as any other drow. Thus, although a drow priestess can bring substantial might to bear against a lone individual or small family who offends her, she cannot muster the resources of the church against an entire house, unless the house has blatantly and conspicuously turned against Lolth as a whole.
The houses of the drow hold the bulk of the community’s economic and military power in their hands. In some communities, a specific house might be a greater power even than the priestesses of Lolth, directing the activities of religious leaders with behind-the-scenes threats or open shows of force. The high priestess of a community might also be a highly ranked matriarch of a great house, using one to advance the schemes of the other. No single house has ever managed to rise to dominance across multiple drow cities, however, and few maintain a permanent position of authority even in individual communities. Each house is tied to the other houses in a complex web of treaties and conflicts, alliances and betrayals. Should one house become too powerful, others ally to bring it down (even while appearing, on the surface, to support them, playing both sides against the middle). Further, although the church usually lacks the power to single-handedly destroy a house, neither can a house afford to make an enemy of the church. Too much of the power in a community is held by Lolth’s priestesses, and a house that fails to work with those priestesses loses access to those channels of influence. Although such an occurrence is rare, the church can decree that a house has earned the disfavor of Lolth, essentially giving all other houses blanket permission and encouragement to openly turn against it. Some houses are strong enough to withstand even this sort of assault, which invariably leads to a dilution of the church’s position in the community. But more often, such a decree results in the house being weakened sufficiently for another to rise and take its place. When one adds to this already volatile mix the constant scheming of house members against one another, in the hope of gaining higher status within the house, it’s quite understandable that no single house has ever managed to hold widespread power for long.
The military is the fi nal drow institution that, in some communities, could be a governing body. Drow communities do not have standing armies, since this would require a formal government. Multiple smaller forces make up the larger soldiery of a drow city. These consist primarily of house-loyal militias, church soldiers, and independent mercenary companies. For the most part, then, the “military” is simply the enforcement arm of a house or the church. In some rare instances, however - particularly in communities engaged in a constant war with a hostile power - the military takes on an authority of its own. Its generals, under the guise of protecting the community, usurp authority from the matriarchs who normally hold it. The house soldiers become the dominant members of the house, or at least carry suffi cient authority that the matriarchs and matrons cannot ignore their input. The army might even come to guide the Church of Lolth, directing priestesses in the defense of the city and in attacks on the enemy. The generals of differing factions, such as rival houses or a house and the church, have been known to cooperate behind the scenes, artificially extending or even creating military crises to wrest supremacy from the houses and the priesthood.
It is worth noting that rank in a military unit is the only pathway male drow have to any position of authority, so they are the military officers most likely to attempt this sort of power grab.
Roleplaying Application: You assume that, with the exception of military rank, females hold all true positions of authority. When addressing a mixed group of nobles, priests, or similar powerful individuals, you instinctively direct your words and attention to any females present, and you are always startled when a social or political leader turns out to be male. You normally assume that any military force is, if not independent, loyal to a church or a bloodline; you’re certainly aware that other cultures have armies devoted to cities or nations, but it still strikes you as odd when you encounter it.
Gender Roles
The supremacy of the female is deeply ingrained in drow culture. Females are seen as stronger, smarter, and more emotionally controlled than males, and - above all - holier and more devoted to Lolth. Males, on the other hand, are viewed as spiritually, intellectually, and physically inferior, useful primarily for physical and skilled labor and breeding purposes. A male drow is seen as superior to a member of any other race, but inferior even to female drow of lower status.
This attitude comes from a variety of separate but related sources. The fi rst and most obvious is Lolth herself. The goddess has, over the course of drow mythology and history, taken multiple consorts, all of whom have been eventually discarded. Whether this is the cause of Lolth’s opinion of males or a symptom of it, Lolth believes that only females are worthwhile servants.
Much like the spiders they revere, drow females also hold power due to biological reasons. In many spider species, the females are far larger and stronger, and males often do not survive the mating process. Drow childbirth is a physically strenuous occasion (see the Pregnancy, Birth, and Childhood quote block), and though the drow feel little if any affection for their young, they understand the importance of continuing the family and house lines. Thus, the females, who are both essential to reproduction and capable of withstanding it, are clearly both stronger and more blessed than the males. Whether the drow think as they do because of their emulation of spiders is unclear and ultimately unimportant.
Finally and perhaps most important, females are already ascendant within drow society. Matriarchs and priestesses have enough trouble clinging to power in the face of other ambitious females; the last thing they want is to double the pool of potential rivals. Thus, the tradition of female dominance continues, in large part, at the behest of the females who are already dominant.
Male drow hold little if any power, but not all of them are mere property, even if many females see them as such. Some of the most skilled crafters, warriors, and arcane casters among the drow are male. In fact, the submissive status of males in drow society actually inspires many of them to excel. Male drow can lay claim to little authority, and they are constantly at risk of being discarded by their female leaders, so only those with skills and abilities that are not easily replaceable can be relatively confident of their positions.
Denied the right to formally influence society, male drow have become masters of finding subtle and nontraditional roads to power. Many become teachers of arcane magic or military strategy, attempting to form strong bonds with their students- particularly the females who might well hold power in the next generation. Others join the soldiers of a powerful house or the priestesses of Lolth, working their way up in the ranks. At the very least, these positions grant them some measure of authority, and if they are fortunate enough to be officers during wartime (or devious enough to start a well-timed war), that authority can grow to rival that of some matriarchs. And of course, some drow males attempt to seduce powerful females, using lust - and even the rare emotion of love - to influence drow leaders behind the scenes.
In the lower echelons of drow society, away from the movers and shakers, males and females hold similar roles. A member of either gender might be a household servant, a shopkeeper, a soldier, or an artist. The males tend more toward physical labor and the females toward skilled crafts - not because females are weaker, but because they often have more opportunities to choose their own path than males do - but this is only a tendency, not a societal constant.
Source : Dungeons and Dragons - Drow of the Underdark