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Krinkle posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QRP9EzaL_I The followup video that came up for me seems like a reference to that old Jack Chick? thing about overreacting to a character's death.
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Jun 20, 2017 02:24
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What is irritating about drow is that they are way more interesting once you strip away the dumb shittiness. Like, you want them to continue being hyper cutthroat and backstabby without making them weirdly biologically evil or w/e? That's incredibly easy: change it so their big number one cultural ideal is ambition. They aren't born evil - they're born into a culture that values ambition and "victory" at all costs. And to be frank, their spider goddess is quite possibly the most boring deity in D&D. "She's like, EVIL, right? And she...uh...is EVIL. And also, she kills a lot of things because...she's EVIL!" Fuckin' we got it, you know? Hey, let's make her more interesting and add a fun touch. So hey, how about this - let's stop doing the whole "spiders are evil because of arachnophobia" and instead lean into Lolth as a mostly absent goddess (because, well, she kinda is) and instead play up the actual "is a spider" bit. Change her from a generic evil bad guy goddess of the drow to a goddess of secrets. Drow deal with demons and illithids and beholders and all these other hosed up monster types not because they're just generically evil, but because those hosed up monster types know a lot of poo poo. They know a lot of poo poo nobody else knows. And by god, the drow are gonna learn those secrets, and then SHARE IT WITH NOBODY, because then it's no longer a secret. And hey, drow are big on assassinations and spying and poo poo. And they love to do horrible things to each other and themselves. And we've already covered that the drow don't make sense without being vaguely biologically generically evil, so let's actually explain that poo poo away, by stealing from somewhere else, no points if you guess where. Lolth is a goddess of secrets, so what do drow do? They give Her their secrets. All of them. But it's not a secret if too many people know, so when a drow gives up their secrets, they lose them. As in, they forget what they've just confessed to. Now you have a culture founded on ambition, on winning at any cost, and then spilling your most guilty and foul secrets to your lady of webs, and then forgetting what you did and losing the guilt connected to it. Now, their culture is still super hosed up and most people will want to stay away, but now that a) have way more viable backgrounds and reasons to interact with the setting as more then just generic baddies, b) their goddess is way more interesting and, again, can interact with stuff as more then just "the generically evil drow goddess," c) their whole spider thing has an actual cultural attachment beyond "spiders are creepy" because it turns out when you idealize keeping secrets and making plans and working out of the shadows and laying traps and ambushes, spiders are suddenly way more iconic, and d) they've gone from being generic baddies to almost tragic ones. This turns the drow into a culture that is, essentially, constantly traumatizing themselves. You have to be the best - not just "good," THE BEST, so you do horrible poo poo to get there, and then wipe away your own guilt, so you never realize just how many horrible things you're doing. Or maybe you aren't even that high class and key, you're juts someone who did a terrible thing once to get ahead, except again, you gave up the fact that you knew it, so now you'll never learn from your own mistakes. The drow are doing terrible things, but most of all they're hurting each other, and it's not even because of some eeeevul goddess having them do all this for chuckles, it's because of their distant goddess who doesn't give a poo poo. Drow aren't evil because they're born evil because their spider lady goddess is evil. Drow DO evil, because they're lashed to a mostly absantee landlord who's only requests that come in end up being "tell me something you did that you shouldn't have done." And you need a new answer every time. And you can even keep them as a matriarchy and still abandon the over the top hyper-sexual racist and sexist poo poo going on, too.
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Jun 20, 2017 03:15
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all yall are awfully worked up about drow why don't you just play black humans
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Jun 20, 2017 03:30
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mastershakeman posted:all yall are awfully worked up about
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Jun 20, 2017 03:33
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mastershakeman posted:all yall are awfully worked up about drow Or a high elf who is also a Black Dude
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Jun 20, 2017 03:34
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mastershakeman posted:all yall are awfully worked up about drow I do but there's also interesting poo poo to be salvaged out of drow if you filter out the yuck, for those occasions when I want to play someone with pointy ears and a lot of pathos instead
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Jun 20, 2017 03:45
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Yeah this rules.
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Jun 20, 2017 03:49
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ProfessorCirno posted:What is irritating about drow is that they are way more interesting once you strip away the dumb shittiness. This is the part where I decry the tired trope of "Humans dominate the setting because they're the most ambitious of all!" Also, adaptable. Gotta be adaptable.
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Jun 20, 2017 03:49
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AlphaDog posted:You're saying that drow are not "normally" evil? That the average drow is not evil? You know what I meant, all I was saying is that they are not born evil. You don't even turn every comment I make into a stupid word game.
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Jun 20, 2017 04:47
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MonsterEnvy posted:You know what I meant, all I was saying is that they are not born evil. You don't even turn every comment I make into a stupid word game. OK bro. In future, instead of responding to what you write, I'll respond to what I think you meant, is that cool with you? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 04:54
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AlphaDog posted:OK bro. In future, instead of respoinding to what you write, I'll respond to what I think you meant, is that coll with you? Yes.
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Jun 20, 2017 04:57
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kingcom posted:Eberron Drow on the other hand are good poo poo with a strong slave uprising background and Half Scorpion men are better than Half Spiders. With the unfortunate result that the black-skinny poison-using tribal elves are native to the continent that Baker originally pitched as a fantasy adaptation of Kipling-esque "darkest Africa."
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Jun 20, 2017 05:07
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The designers of 4e and 5e were smart to move tieflings to core so you could easily scratch the nice guy/evil race thing without being super sketchy
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Jun 20, 2017 05:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:What is irritating about drow is that they are way more interesting once you strip away the dumb shittiness. That was pretty awesome. Have you done any other such treatments of the D&D races?
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Jun 20, 2017 05:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:This is the part where I decry the tired trope of "Humans dominate the setting because they're the most ambitious of all!" Honestly, the four best takes on humans I've seen were: 1) It's humans, not dwarves, that are obsessed with wealth. Not in the same way dwarves are, ether; dwarves are very materialistic, but it isn't about money as a concept for them, it's about materialism. Dwarves don't keep treasure - they treasure it. Keith Baker wrote a lot about the Eberron dwarves (which own own own) here. No, what humans do is USE their wealth. Elves are too busy acting intensely unconcerned over money, and dwarves are too busy hoarding it. Humans spend it. They innovate. They create new things. "What I got" is never enough - there's always more to have. Elves make magical communes, and dwarves make deep fortresses, but humans make trade empires. It's why the most populous language is the human language, and is simply called "common" - because they went goddamn everywhere spreading the language, and if you wanna trade, sooner or later, you gotta deal with humans. It's also why humans keep going to war. Dwarves understand that aching need to have something, but would never understand why humans, unable to have something, would simply destroy it out of spite. Elves understand the need for resources, but where they view a lack of resources as something to be managed, humans see it as a problem to be solved immediately. A dwarf sees treasure and thinks about how much it's worth, where in the vault it will go, how to best show it off, how to care for it. An elf sees treasure and thinks about it's history, where it came from, what can be learned from it. A human sees treasure and wants more, right now. 2) Humans are risk takers. For a human, if you gently caress up and die, well, everyone dies eventually, right? Who wants to live forever, and all that jazz. Elves don't even have that concept. Elves don't say "everyone dies eventually" because, frankly, no, we don't. An elf who stays the gently caress out of danger is gonna live a long-rear end time. A human who stays the gently caress out of danger...is still gonna eat it long before most of the other races will even notice they exist. There is no dwarven version of Jackass, because they can carry a grudge over a dumb joke for actual centuries. Elves don't go out and do crazy dumb poo poo that could end horribly because even if they don't die, they have to live with those injuries for multiple human lifetimes. But humans? Not only do humans die faster, they breed fast, too. Oh, they'll mourn the loss of a child, but there's a big difference when a city of hundreds of humans loses a child, and when a village of a handful of elves looses their singular child. That human is going to be surrounded by OTHER humans, all of them egging her on. 3) Humans are parents. Like, yes. Everyone is a parent. But an elf is going to spend centuries with their children. And they've had eons of guidelines on how to raise an elf. Humans don't have that, so they gotta work with what they got. It goes beyond that, though. A dwarf who conquers a sizable space of land is going to own that space of land as long as they live. So will a human, but there's a real big difference between how long a dwarf lives and how long a human does. So humans DO plan for the future: just not their own. That human makes the empire for their dynasty, which is something longer lived races might not even have. By the time your dwarf son is ready to move out, he's had years to fully grow up and make connections and learn all the various trades, but for humans, all you got is what was given from the generation previous. You could play this into other cultural facets, too. Maybe everyone gives humans the weirdest loving look when they talk about pets. Like, you took in an entirely useless animal and baby it for no reason other then it makes you happy? What a fuckin' weirdo! They might even find it adorable. Awww, look at the humans and their lovely dogs that they bred into pointlessness. But then, humans would also be the first species to actually figure out domestication. Dwarves understand using animals to accomplish tasks, but you don't have to be all weird about it and give them names and make them part of your family. Dwarves don't have dogs, because they'd never give that early evolutionary wolf bits of their own meat. Elves didn't do it either, until they learned it from humans, and even then, they need to use magic to do what humans can do all on their own. But humans love animals, because humans love just about anything that lets themselves be trained and treated nicely. They love just about anything that lets them act a parent. 4) Humans are social. Three elves is an argument, three dwarves is a grudge, but three humans is a drinking game. This doesn't mean humans are ALWAYS social, or that they're master diplomats. It's more that humans are curious, and express their curiosity vocally. To their credit, they have lots of practice at it; humans breed at what is, to the longer lived species, a downright unnatural rate. Humans grow up alongside other humans their age, and a plethora of them at that. Even a family living alone is going to have at least half a dozen people to talk to. What about their favored past times? Dwarves mine, they forge, and they drink, and happily do all of the above in small groups at most. Elves lock themselves away to meditate, practice their obsession, or read books written by other elves about how the world works. Humans leave wherever they are and go to FIND something or someone, and they take all their friends, too. This isn't even always a good thing. A dwarf with a grudge might challenge you to a life or death duel, but most of the time, dwarves with problems are gonna bury themselves underground until the problem goes away. Elves are planners, but sometimes they're only planners, and by the time they can unleash their revenge, their human foe has been dead for generations. Or maybe it's just that - dwarves and elves can, very literally, wait their problems out. But when a human is angry, he's gonna talk to OTHER humans, and get THEM angry. Anger a dwarf, and one dwarf will make your life miserable. Anger a human, and their entire clan is going to invade. Of course, PLEASE a human, and his clan will invite you in and honor you, and his rival clan is going to show up and try to strike a better deal. And honestly? You could easily use all four at once if you wanted, or any combo thereof. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 05:32
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I like the idea of Humans being the Chaotic species, to put it neatly.
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Jun 20, 2017 05:41
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Cease to Hope posted:With the unfortunate result that the black-skinny poison-using tribal elves are native to the continent that Baker originally pitched as a fantasy adaptation of Kipling-esque "darkest Africa." Yeah, some of the artwork in Dragon leaned on that part a little too hard. 
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Jun 20, 2017 05:46
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Cease to Hope posted:With the unfortunate result that the black-skinny poison-using tribal elves are native to the continent that Baker originally pitched as a fantasy adaptation of Kipling-esque "darkest Africa." Fuuuck I never knew that, they've always been show as middle eastern nomadic than africa (also holy poo poo that artwork lightwarden)
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Jun 20, 2017 05:48
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Hello Sailor posted:Have you done any other such treatments of the D&D races? I'm probably misremembering parts of this and I have no idea where it's originally from, but the dot-point version goes something like: Dwarves are genderless undergound miners and explorers. Dwarves are "born" fully formed from geodes. The rest of what they dig out of the ground is byproducts - most of the collective effort of the dwarves is spent finding and carefully opening said geodes. This is not exactly a secret, but it's not common knowledge and it's not regularly discussed outside of those directly involved in it. After a long time, different for every dwarf, they will start to slow down and go grey. Not just their hair, either. Their skin greys and hardens, too. They will find a deep, secluded mine or cave when this happens, and sit down, and slow down, and harden, and graaaadually stop moving. If you explored deeply enough (and since you're not a dwarf, you probably won't), you'd find rooms full of "statues", some detailed, some now vaguely dwarf-shaped lumps, far below the "bottom" of old mines. Thousands of years later, a dwarf exploration team finds a bunch of geodes deep in the earth.... but in the mean time, there's plenty of valuable stuff that comes out of the ground while they're searching. The dwarves hold on to almost all of the stuff they dig up, because who knows who it used to be? Again, not exactly a secret, it's just... when you hear them talk about it, if you're not a dwarf, it sounds like they're talking about religion rather than describing an ongoing real-world process. Lots of stuff about returning to the earth and being born again and so on*. It also causes some... misunderstandings... with others about who exactly should be holding certain valuable stuff from under the ground. Dwarves aren't exactly xenophobic, but most of their society deosn't interact with surface races because a) it's isolated, in that it's very deep down underground, b) it's physically difficult for (eg) humans or elves to negotiate dwarf-sized architecture that's built by and for dwarves, and c) even if you know a lot about dwarves, it's improbable that you'll understand just how many are down there, searching, not interacting with the surface world, and generally not digging up anything that any non-dwarf will ever see. In summary: Dwarves are a weird race of living stone, there are more of them than you think, and their "religion" is a literal description of their "lifecycle". *My personal take on this is that non-dwarfish languages don't have words that fit the concepts involved, so stuff gets lost in translation, and nobody really wonders about it anyway because most of dwarf society is "hidden". Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 05:58
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rumble in the bunghole posted:I like the idea of Humans being the Chaotic species, to put it neatly. Yeah, same. The ones with the anger issues. The impatient fuckers, the destructive ones. The Wookies of the setting is us.
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Jun 20, 2017 06:36
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The Orks in Earthdawn are basically this but moreso, with some uncontrollable emotion and cultural hatred of slavery thrown in. Earthdawn humans are 'the boring ones'. They don't even get to be the dominant society culturally.
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Jun 20, 2017 07:00
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Hello Sailor posted:That was pretty awesome. Have you done any other such treatments of the D&D races? While I'm no Cirno I did this treatment because I was tired of there being little daylight between your standard Halfling PC and your standard Gnome so I did this. Gnomes are Magical Treasure. When Garl Glittergold brought the Gnomes into this world he also brought three treasures. A Silver Chalice, A Bejeweled Lantern and a Golden Sextant. Each treasure has been pilfered, stolen, lost, rediscovered, locked away, and stolen again more times than can be counted. Nobody's quite sure why, but wherever the treasure end Gnomes tend to show up. Eventually the other races found out that if someone physically possesses one of the Three Gnomish Wonders then the children of that treasure will eventually come to serve that person. Chalice Gnomes are closest to the 4e mini-Eladrin guys in appearance. Their hair is a luminous silver and their voices are inherently musical. Their skin comes in a variety of tones but they almost all cover it in intricate displace of body paint/makeup. They love nothing more than to host lavish parties for their masters. Cities that hold the Chalice often become known as social hubs of their kingdoms/nations. Chalice Gnomes are masters of herbalism and alchemy, but prefer to use these trades to create wines that change color and flavor, liquors that invoke specific emotions, and other such novelties. At first glance Chalice Gnomes have no concept of money. Any trade or item that they have to offer is given freely to the master, their subjects, and any guests of the city. However, there is no shortage of young nobles and merchants that wander into a town of Chalice Gnomes for a night of free drinks only to find out later that all of their trade secrets and shady business deals have been leaked to the Chalice Holder. Lantern Gnomes are the tiny old people sort of Gnomes. If you hold the Lantern eventually they will start showing up and demanding to know where the library/their office is. Lantern Gnomes are curmudgeonly little assholes that love artificing the way Dwarves love Treasure. A Lantern City might not start as a magical library, but the presence of Lantern Gnomes means that it eventually will be. If there is blank parchment anywhere in town it will shortly be commandeered for scrolls and tomes. If there is no parchment Lantern Gnomes will find an alternative. If you know where to look there are ruins where every surface, walkways, ceilings, everything, is covered in some kind of magical writing. The longer Lantern Gnomes hang out somewhere the more pervasive magic becomes. At first it's little things, magical lamps replace candles and torches, Waterproof cloaks and other minor enchantments become the stuff you can get in a general store, and wondrous items like Bags of Holding become purchasable in town. If Lantern Gnomes have been in an area for a long time you start seeing the kind of stuff from Eberron. Crystalline Pillars provide both light and a sense of time by shifting between 6 different colors 4 times. A network of Speaking Stones allow the Lantern master to speak to the entire city at once. Eventually Lantern Gnomes get super bored and start building airships and golem servants. Sextant Gnomes are obsessed with mapmaking, exploration, and making new friends. If one holds onto the Sextant for long enough little people in worn travelling clothes(the only universal is a pointed red hat) will eventually show up asking to be outfitted for their next expedition. While mundane items tend to go missing around Sextant Gnomes real treasures are mostly left alone unless a particular Gnome is on a mission. Sextant Gnomes will travel almost anywhere, and will find new ways to go between the two points. Sextant Gnomes typically come back from their expeditions days/months/weeks before their expected to arrive, simply stating that they "took the short way 'round". The real power of Sextant Gnomes is in their secret gardens. These magical creations hold plants and small animals from several places in the world. By using these gardens Sextant Gnomes can teleport from one garden to another. While it's common practice for them Sextant Gnomes are loathe to share this practice with outsiders that aren't holding the Sextant. The better taken care of Sextant Gnomes are the more Gardens they can take care of. When they first arrive the Gnomes have 6ish gardens spread about the world. If they serve a single master/dynasty long enough the network becomes enough for Sextant Gnomes and their masters to show up nearly anywhere within a matter of hours. While Gnomes are on some level compelled to serve their Treasures, and therefore their masters, they do have free will from moment to moment. A Good Sextant Gnome serving an Evil Orc will find a lot of reasons to stay on expeditions. An Evil Chalice Gnome will give you a wicked hangover and laugh about it. But if they serve a Good person they may be ordered not to kill anyone that wanders into the Tavern District. Gnomes are also among the most long-lived of the races, leading to the rumor that there are a constant number of Gnomes in the world and should one die a new Gnome magically poofs into existence near their Treasure. Because of their long lifespan Gnomes tend to serve a lot of different masters, and have a fondness for keeping a name from everyone they serve. A Gnome named Kuya Glimmerleaf Bloodaxe Ironblood Westwalker Draconis Renaldi isn't just old, he's seen multiple empires fall. The party Rogue was a Chalice Rogue but unfortunately the group died before he realized his lifelong vision of being the first Gnome to steal his own Wonder.
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Jun 20, 2017 07:24
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Oh jeeze. I didn't think of this. Halfling nimbleness says YOU can move through a medium or larger sized creature's space. I've been telling people "go ahead and step on my square, I'm just a little guy, I don't mind, we can share" I was wondering why halflings and humans can share a space but gnomes and humans cannot. And I guess the way I was doing it was wrong because the ability is a halfling just kind of pokes his head through your legs and says pardon me, coming through. The human would trip over both halfling and gnome alike because he doesn't got the nimbleness. Do I got this right now?
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Jun 20, 2017 07:34
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Krinkle posted:Oh jeeze. I didn't think of this. Halfling nimbleness says YOU can move through a medium or larger sized creature's space. I've been telling people "go ahead and step on my square, I'm just a little guy, I don't mind, we can share" Halfling Nimbleness specifies that halflings can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than them. Per page 191 of the PHB, anyone can move through a nonhostile creature's space, or a hostile creature's space if the hostile creature is 2+ sizes larger or smaller than them. So: Allies can move freely through the halfling's space. The halfling can move freely though allies' spaces. The halfling can move freely though the space of a hostile that is M or larger. - Allies can move freely through the gnome's space. The gnome can move freely through allies' spaces. The gnome can move freely through the space of a hostile that is L or larger. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 08:24
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AlphaDog posted:Halfling Nimbleness specifies that halflings can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than them. Stopped cold by a pixie vengeance paladin tho.
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Jun 20, 2017 08:27
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Reclaimer posted:Stopped cold by a pixie vengeance paladin tho. No matter how quick you think you are, tiny motherfucker gets in your face every time. 
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Jun 20, 2017 08:30
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ProfessorCirno posted:
One thing I thought about the relationship between humans and other races, especially elves, is that everyone does have the same mindset of make things better for the next genration, but humans shorter lives mean that the next generation is stepping up sooner than anyone else. If you wanted to make an alliance with elves to fight against the local evil overlord, you'll get a lot of "young" elves who don't want to spend forever dealing with guy and "old" elves who realize that their time is nearly up. It's a little less extreme with other races, but I once thought about having the mythology be that humans were made by a few gods working together and one or two of the gods decided to give humans shorter lives and a knowledge of their short lives to be a motivating factor and help drive them to greatness. Hello Sailor posted:That was pretty awesome. Have you done any other such treatments of the D&D races? No Cirno, but I once came up with a few bits about the Kobold and Dragonborn creation myths. Dragonborn were actually made by Tiamat, and are so huge because of her pride and vanity. On the other hand, Bahamut thought that you don't need to waste so many resources, and that's why Kobolds are smaller.
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Jun 20, 2017 15:47
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about humans.
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So at no point can someone stand on top of a halfling, attack, hang out or end their turn there? It's exclusively moving through to another unoccupied square. What about two halflings, can they stand in the same square together?
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Jun 20, 2017 16:24
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No. A creature's space represents how much space that creature effectively controls in combat, not their actual physical size. While it's definitely possible to have more than one person standing in a 5'x5' square, D&D logic dictates that doing so makes it basically impossible to actually fight without constantly bumping into each other, so it doesn't work. Basically imagine that everyone is fighting using the most cinematic kung fu styles with huge, sweeping arm movements and kicks.
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Jun 20, 2017 16:37
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LightWarden posted:Yeah, some of the artwork in Dragon leaned on that part a little too hard. They were specifically bred by an to be assassins and spies, therefore the dark skin for sneaking on top of darkness and whatever else they get that I forgot about. Still, I can understand why people might be less than happy with that. sleepy.eyes fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jun 20, 2017 |
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Jun 20, 2017 16:46
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ProfessorCirno posted:Honestly, the four best takes on humans I've seen were: As a spin on this in a game with a quite different cosmology than base D&D, I quite liked Shadow of the Demon Lord's setting conceit that humans (and other related mortal races) are a Big Deal and scare the older ostensibly immortal races because while an elf lives forever they only live once, while humans live short lives but do so repeatedly- if left to their own devices they will serially reincarnate with knowledge of their past lives. Which they don't get to do since the fae are huge dicks and set up massive magical engineering projects to create a classical Underworld and Hell that drain human souls of almost all their memories before they can reincarnate, but it does create a fairly strong point of differentiation and reason for distrust between the two races.
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Jun 20, 2017 18:28
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My elf-canon is that elven adventurers are basically idiot teenagers. They age physical adulthood at about the same rate as humans, then spend a hundred years or so in the outside world. Most of them eventually calm the gently caress down and go off to be wise and mysterious in hidden elven cities.
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Jun 20, 2017 18:43
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ProfessorCirno posted:What is irritating about drow is that they are way more interesting once you strip away the dumb shittiness. Sometimes there's little gems like this post that make this thread worth wading through.
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Jun 20, 2017 19:59
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I think I read a blogpost or something that made a case for humans to be the "durable" species in a fantasy (or maybe scifi?) setting, based on our history as endurance hunters.
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Jun 20, 2017 21:17
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Nihilarian posted:I think I read a blogpost or something that made a case for humans to be the "durable" species in a fantasy (or maybe scifi?) setting, based on our history as endurance hunters. Yeah I've read a decent number of write-ups on why humans themselves would actually be the brute Orc/Klingon race in comparison to the more timid and brainy races.
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Jun 20, 2017 21:24
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Here's my  take on D&D drow. They constantly show up in modules so it might be worth fleshing their motivations out. While not literally born evil, they do have two things they are born with - a bit of that elvish pride, and a strong inclination towards family. These get twisted through their poisoned culture, making it hard to avoid an evil outcome.Pride, Exile & Isolation The drow are a people in year 10,000 of their 40 years in the wilderness. They backed the wrong god, took on the rest of the elves and lost. To them it isn't ancient history - that loss is still fresh on their minds, it gets passed on to their children like a love for the Confederacy, and it still stings their pride. Wounded pride has caused them to own their new environment, turn lemons into lemonaide, and force a strained adoption of an 'underdark is better anyway' mentality. As a result, drow are isolated both culturally and physically from anyone that might moderate their viewpoints or expose them to other ways of life or 'outs' from their current society. Their new neighbors in the dark are other misfits: illithids (literal brain-devouring aliens that are themselves isolated after the gith war), duergar (an ex-illithid slave race with a nearly opposite worldview vs drow) and various goblinoids that are regarded no better than when drow were surface elves. In short, everyone nearby is hostile. New ideas, religions and ways of thinking? That just doesn't happen for the drow. They are trapped by their pride and isolated in the dark. Family comes first. Family is the core unit of drow society in the same way that feudal allegiances are for a medieval nation. Mama knows best. She's who a drow answers to for failures and who rewards success. She's a nearly-immortal dictator, and her power and longevity are one of the few sources of stability in drow society. An individual drow's fortune rises and falls with their family, as a whole. Other social ties are less important, be it to a guild, temple, city or society as a whole. Reputation and Stigma If a drow manages to escape from exile and isolation, from the all-important ties of family, or is even raised completely separate from that culture, they will still suffer their reputation. They are the evil monster in tales told to surface children. Life for a surface drow won't be peaceful. There will be constant reminders and threats from nearly anyone they meet. That will hurt their elvish pride and drive the drow to isolation. They will seek solace in the thing most important to them: family; for a surface drow, perhaps the unofficial family of an adventuring party or guild. If all that is lost and a surface drow is alone against the world, Lloth is always there, whispering in the dark. Then you have the influence of Lloth. She's a pathetic, insane, petty, defeated goddess, and the drow are all she has. She brings out the worst in drow, nurtures their worst impulses, plays to their pride, twists their love of family into something evil, and subverts the natural leaders of drow society (the matrons) into her best servants. She sets families against each other in a constant, pointless struggle for 'power'. And she is completely unopposed. No other major religions compete for influence over the drow. No other cultures show a different, better way. She has the drow wrapped up in her web.
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Jun 20, 2017 22:39
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Angrymog posted:My elf-canon is that elven adventurers are basically idiot teenagers. They age physical adulthood at about the same rate as humans, then spend a hundred years or so in the outside world. Most of them eventually calm the gently caress down and go off to be wise and mysterious in hidden elven cities. This is basically Shadowrun elves in a nutshell.
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Jun 20, 2017 23:11
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I do remember a cool little Drizzt Short Story Dark Mirror. Where he helps a town that was attacked by Ogres and captures a Goblin that was allegedly involved in attack. Only to later find out that the Goblin is a slave to a man in the village. He later meets with the Goblin and finds out the Goblin is a pretty decent fellow. The Goblin points out that Good Drow actually has have pretty easy compared to good other Monstrous races. Because while they are feared Drow unlike Goblins are considered attractive and exotic to other races, and most surface dwellers have never suffered at the hands of the Drow as they are not common there. While Goblins are common and have caused problems for tons of people.
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Jun 20, 2017 23:12
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One of my favorite homebrew "History of the Races" stories for humans was that they were vermin, created to breed and devour and war to drive the long lived, low birth rate elves and dwarves to extinction.
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Jun 20, 2017 23:26
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| # ? May 14, 2024 08:08 |
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Created by the evil orc scientist Yakub.
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Jun 20, 2017 23:27
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