Probably a good thing tbh. I like what drow can be in the right GM's hands, but their origin and established lore and everything is cringe city. No reason not to throw the whole thing out
They fall under the ‘heavy metal’ category of dnd now that I think of it
I can already hear the anime 'iyaaaah' of female drow taken captive to the surface as their clothes disintegrate (I sadly watch too many anime that has basically the same fan service sound effects).
Surprised those weren't already banned under the old OGL along with mind flayers and beholders tbh.
D&D elves, including dark elves, are borrowed from Norse folklore and Tolkien's interpretations of it. Mind flayers and beholders were specifically created for D&D, so the reason for their exclusion is legal.
Tolkien's "dark elves" weren't black-skinned, nor did they live underground, worship spiders or take slaves. They were called "dark" elves (Moriquendi) because they never saw any light before the sun and moon (i.e. the sacred light of the Two Trees).
Tolkien had a big thing about light. And its opposite, darkness.
yeah even in pathfinder its a little different. drow are elves that went underground during earthfall while the good elves went back to their planet (yes, elves are aliens). the drow went insane because rovagug, the eater of worlds, is imprisoned in the core of golarion and has a greater influence the deeper down you go. earthfall itself was a bunch of asteroids being flung at the planet by tentacle space fish, the asteroids themselves physically killed a couple of gods
fun fact, golarion means god cage in some random language
According to Wikipedia:
The word "drow" is from the Orcadian and Shetland dialects of Scots, an alternative form of "trow", which is a cognate with "troll".
Also please forgive the mansplaining. I'm especially bad at it when it comes to D&D/PF.
Huh, for some reason I always just assumed it was a Gygaxism. Also don't worry about it lol. Is it even still mansplaining when you're talking to another guy?
Drizzt is from D&D, not Pathfinder. We will continue to be subjected to R.A. Salvatore garbage.
I used to be a giant fan of Drizzt because I got the impression that he didn't just kill his enemies, but instead thought about morality and such; but it was hard to continue feeling that way when you realized actually Drizzt liked killing beings from the 'evil' races.
Nice, now that's my kind of campaign.
I'm a terrible DM but I also don't do the whole 'evil races' thing either when I do actually DM; the only such beings when it does occur being fiendish beings who come from hell or the abyss, or the undead (except for one 'undead' lich who only became a (plant based) lich because he feared death greatly).
I remember reading a forum post by Gygax (so relatively recent post, as in within the last twenty years) where he justified the killing of the children of evil races saying that a certain general's observation of 'nits make lice' (in reference to the general pushing his troops to kill the women and children of native Americans) was an observable fact.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/dtpgim/gygax_on_lawful_good/
It is for the best, there are plenty of cool things to do with the idea. Not one single DnD media has done any of them. Just start fresh. Naked mole rat elves. Just blind hairless and pooping on each other the way a cave species was ment to.
As entertaining as the Drow are (I like s&m and spiders, not the fascism and slavery), this makes more than enough sense.
