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Originally posted by Faraer

Well, Liriel's a protagonist, and commercial fantasy novels require protagonists to have a comprehensible internality so the reader can 'identify' with them. That's fine -- though limiting -- but as an antagonist, no published drow character is half as menacing and intriguing as Eclavdra. Psychology and detailed fictional societies are relatively superficial characteristics layered on top of what the character's really about in the story.

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Originally posted by Mournblade

I pretty much agree with Yasraena here. The drow have always been perceived as a matriarchial society since its inception in D1-3, and Q1. BUT I have to agree with Bran that the Drow female is a fantasy of male creators (in this case I think it was Gygax that created the concept of Drow, I can't remember the author of those modules and don't feel like digging them out). Malice I thought was a bit more three dimensional than MOST other matrons, but I have to say that QUENTHEL BAENRE, Is well developed (also well developed as a character )

I am such an idiot...

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Originally posted by branmakmuffin

I am replying to this from the "Have you noticed" topic in the Novel forum.

Mikayla:

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<snip> Once I learned that the women ruled the drow, I was hooked! Girls had a place in D&D - even if it was as the villains, at least they were among the coolest villains. <snip>

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But until what's her name in the Elaine Cunningham books, have there been any Drow women with any depth? I can't think of any except maybe one of Drizzt's sisters.

Until Cunningham wrote her book, in my opinion, Drow women were the one dimensional adolescent fantasies (of shall we say a darker nature) of WotC's male authors. Most Drow women are no more well developed (no pun intended) than any damsel in distress. The fact that they are the ones causing the distress doesn't make much of a difference to me. It simply continues one of the common stereotypes about women: that women can be vicious and cruel in ways beyond what men can do. That is as used up a fantasy archetype as the "brawny barbarian/quick witted city-bred rogue team-up" is.

Being an evil b***h is nothing to be proud of any more than being an evil bastard is.

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I'd have to disagree Bran. Salvatore was really the one who started the development of the female Drow characters in his Dark Elf Trilogy. He also unshrouded the mystery of what day to day life was like in Drow society (and that usually entailed the cruel and vicious actions of the females of the race. But hey, that's just the Drow way of things).
I really liked Malice and Matron Baenre as characters. I thought they truly epitomized the females of the race, because that's exactly what the females of the race are... cruel, vicious and vile. What else can you say about a race who generally worships a demon spider as their god?
Now Cunningham, she expanded on what Salvatore began with drow character development, but she also took it to a new level. Liriel is a great example of that. She is by far my favorite Drow character next to Drizzt.

Now if you want to get ahold of some serious development of female Drow, look no further that the War of the Spider Queen series. It has two of the coolest female drow characters that I've read about since Liriel. The authors of those books have taken the development to still a higher level than the two before them (at least so far. I'm in the middle of Condemnation as I write this).
I'm really looking forward to reading Cunningham's latest, Windwalker. The first two in the series were pretty cool, so my hopes are high for this one.

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<snip> Once I learned that the women ruled the drow, I was hooked! Girls had a place in D&D - even if it was as the villains, at least they were among the coolest villains. <snip>

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Kinda gives new meaning to the phrase "shoot first and ask questions later", huh?

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The group that I normally play in, in both my town and the next one over, we normally kill them all and then look around ... its not hard to find clues about things nore spare treasure if you actually take the time to look around after you kill

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I would think it bad role-playing to not at least give a lone Drow the benefit of the doubt, even if that benefit is "Drop your weapons you white-haired bastard or we'll fill you so full of arrows your new name will be 'quiver'!"

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Hahahaha! Just don't call me quiver!

But it's so hard to keep from thinking that way, Bran, especially with Drow (or Thayans for that matter). Stereotypes are mainly the result of people exagerating and/or expanding the actions of the targeted group. With the example you gave (Thayans and Drow) their actions are not exagerated, at least for the most part. They are truly evil and heinous acts, ergo the general perception that the entire race/nationality is evil, because they normally don't do 'good' things. When they do happen to do a good act, it's either by happenstance or not by design, but either way, it's not the norm.

I think that with the growing knowledge of Eilistraee by the surface races, and the growing number of Drow that follow her (Yasraena being one of them), the tales of what Drow do might start to include some good and righteous things, and hopefully, the general perception of them will change accordingly.

But, as it was said previously in this topic - realistically, just how many good drow are there in the Realms? They are still very few and far between, although their number are growing every day. That number has to increase dramatically for the tales of evil to turn to tales of good, and until that happens, the perception will stay as it is.

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Originally posted by Bookwyrm

Since both Yasraena and Branmakmuffin want to know what a krenshar is, and the former also doesn't know about genasai, I'll take a moment to explain both.

The first I also didn't know about when Sadon mentioned it to me, but I quickly found it in a PDF Artalis was kind enough to give me.

From the Monster Manual:

Krenshar

Medium-Size Magical Beast

Combat

Krenshars use solitary scouts to drive prey into the waiting clutches of the pack. The scout appears from hiding, uses its scareability, then chases the fleeing target to join the attack.

Scare (Ex or Su): As a standard action, a krenshar can pull the skin back from its head, revealing the musculature and bony structures of its skull. This alone is usually sufficient to scare away foes (treat as a Bluff check with a +3 bonus). Combining this scare ability with a loud screech produces an unsettling effect that works like scare cast by a 3rd-level sorcerer (save DC 12). If the save is successful, that opponent cannot be affected gain by that krenshar’s scare ability for one day. The shriek does not affect other krenshars.


[quote]From the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting:

Genasai are descended from elemental-related creatures, such as efreet, dao, djinn, jann, and marids, among others. Most of them have had no direct contact with their elemental forebears, but the signs of their heritage are apparant. Genasai take great pride in their distinctive features and abilities.

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Originally posted by Bookwyrm

Oh. Well, every post he's made starts with a whole-post quote -- meaning that even if he's only responding to one part, he'll quote the whole thing. I just skipped to the end without reading what was between the quote lines.

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Originally posted by branmakmuffin

Cult_Leader:

I think you meant to say "PCs", not "NPCs", so here we go.

I agree that a player needs a good reason to play a Drow other than their bonuses.

I'm veering off-topic now. Look in the Hall of Heroes census statistics. Fully half the characters are Elves or Half-elves. I'm sure many play Elves because they really want to RP an Elf (I know some on this site who fall into that category), but I know for certain that most people play Elves for the bonuses. In 1e days, if a class was restricted to human of Half-elf, those types of players chose Half-elf and the only reason they didn't choose Elf was because they couldn't.

As for Drow women "always being worse", nothing is always true.nis al true. However just look at the way that most drow females are. Sure they might be nice... some of them that is. But what degree of nice are they? Most of them might be nicer then a few others but to every other race they are still cruel. You can take the sister of drizzt, the one that was still alive as an example. Sure she wanted to be nice but all in all she eneded up just turning into her mother. Go figure. Lolth has a nice firm hold on drow females. Comes with all the power that she gives them ... and the fact that if they fail her they are punished. Look at the Legends and Lores book in oh what was it? 1st or second ed? And by the by.... I would rather play a human then an elf... I normally do. Most of the plays and people I play d7d with would rather play something like an human .. half orc. gnome... dwarf ... or even an orc... We do this because elves are over played, and the fact that they were made to be more like an upper class race.

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In general, life for Drow Elves anywhere, even in Drow cities, is a difficult one. On the surface they usually find themselves hunted by various bands of torch bearing villagers. They tend to attract lots of people out to kill them, even if they manage to establish a reputation of trustworthiness and honor.

Playing an evil Drow on the surface is much easier than a good Drow on the surface. Evil Drow don't have to change their ways much ont eh surface, and those bands of Lvl. 1 torch bearing commoners aren't so much a problem.

Generally speaking, as PCs it can be a nightmare int he begining, since the random bands of mercenaries tend to pop up to try and kill them at the worst times. Every after the get higher level and establish a reputation of one kind or another, they are still plagued by mercenaries, villages, guards, ect., and it can be rather annoying. As NPCs, well it really depends, largely on the outlook of my party at the time. they can be tolerent, intolerent, fearful, hateful, really any kind of reaction that fits the current party's ethos.

For the most part, they aren't really tolerated rather universally, and even when they are excepted someplace, there are always people coming out the woodwork to try and kill them anyways.

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A Drow elf is one to be feared and hated on sight, if only because of the things that the race as a whole has done in the past. This shouldn't be the case ALL of the time, because there are those individuals that judge not by looks, but by actions. But still, a feeling of mistrust, at least at first, should always be present when dealing with an unknown Drow. If the Drow in question has a reputation for good that has preceeded them, then maybe these instinctive feelings should be less, but not completely dismissed. Some of Drizzt's encounters are perfect exammples of this. Even HE gets the cold shoulder and threatened in places he's not known, and he's at least been heard of, even in some of the remotest places of Faerun.

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