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
The Gygaxian take on drow was always :kombucha-disgust: and was loaded with misogynistic baggage from the start, written right into the text, that amounted to "these straw feminists with the whips deserve to have a lesson dealt to them and they're born evil so they're fair game! Also their weapons, armor, and clothing disintegrate in sunlight if you get the implications!" :awooga: :hypersus:
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).
Gygax knew what he was doing, as did pretty much every D&D writer who continued to expand upon the whip-waving straw feminists that are born evil and are just waiting for "heroes" to "defeat" them.
Without even having to check to know for sure I'm certain there's plenty of anime hogfeed for weebs that start with that premise, too.
:awooga: :hypersus:
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
while the good elves went back to their planet
They must go. Their planet needs them. :posad:
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?
"The article DOES leave a "back door" open for us some day in the future to still have some sort of "cruel demon-worshiping elves"
So there's a chance for localized Dunmer? :SusOrdinator:
Drizzt is from D&D, not Pathfinder. We will continue to be subjected to R.A. Salvatore garbage.
We will continue to be subjected to R.A. Salvatore garbage.
"X fell apart"
:soypoint-1: SO DEEP AND MOVING :soypoint-2:
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.
"Born evil" is a horrible Gygaxian legacy concept that should be driven entirely out of tabletop RPGs.
I reject it entirely in my own campaigns; sometimes cultures have tendencies toward alignments, but apart from colonialist expectations and the oppression of poverty pressed upon them, my players figured out pretty quick that the goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, and ogres out in the fringes weren't just driven to precarity and desperation, but were also pitted against one another to keep them divided and weak.
I was so. Fucking. Proud. Of my party coming not as slayers of them, not even as "saviors," but as intermediaries that got the tribal leaders to begin to agree who their real enemies were and joined the native people's vanguard to help drive the governor and his trading company right off of the island. They made lasting friends that helped them out much later in the campaign as a show of solidarity. :mao-clap:
A little trick I do to keep the D&D "treasure table" vibes going without making it all about looting "evil" people's homes and temples and the like is that they received gifts from the people they helped out of gratitude. It worked great; no one minded. :sicko-wholesome:
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/
Gygax and his chud writings are one of the primary reasons I outright reject "The Thermian Argument" when it comes to how things must be just because that was how the fiction (emphasis: FICTION) was written previously. I don't just apply it to D&D, but D&D is certainly where I actively reject it in my own campaigns.
I've had to deal with some Thermian Argumenters in the past, online but also occasionally in person, saying that anything in the lore or the story's narration that has horrid ideology and/or political messaging in a piece of fiction isn't necessarily "condoning" it, yet it can not be changed or rewritten or retconned because that was how the fiction was already written. Fuck that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk
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.
