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Originally posted by capnvan

Ever been at a party when a conversation started that you knew was never going to end well? And you just took one long step away?

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Originally posted by Ardashir

If the 'good' drow got their skins lightened, then why does Drizzt-whatever still have black skin and white hair?

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Originally posted by Knight of the Gate

I don't recall the source, but IIRC, there is a reference somewhere to Eilistraee being (when she was first 'born') the goddess of those elves who 'shared her dark beauty', or somesuch. In other words, that the Illithyrii were ebon-skinned before 'the Descent'.

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Originally posted by Zanan

Well ... it is all a bit strange.

First, we had some dark elven (mind the way I use dark elves and drow please) empires or nations ten thousand+ years ago. Of them we only got told in sourcebooks relating history or some novels. No player was supposed to play such a dark elf. They were later on “cursed” by their kin and the prime deity of the Elven pantheon to live down below the surface. Some of them “correctly” (i.e. most of the dark elves of Ilythiir), some of them not (essentially most dark elves who were not Ilythiiri). I leave the comments on the justifications of this aside here.
Now we had an inbuilt problem of people getting punished for other people’s “crimes”. This could not go to rest easily, couldn’t it? Obviously, such knowledge only appeared in mid- to late - 3E material.

Anyway, all dark elves who were sent below during “The Descent” in –10,000 D.R. became drow. Throughout the history of D&D, drow was more or less synonymous with “dark elf”, only in the Realms we had a history of “former” dark elves of pre-Descent times. Still, that did not bother many or anyone at all, since they were essentially of no concern to the actual gaming world (i.e. 1250 to 1375 D.R.). Enter the renegade, our much-loved scimitar-wielder. Here we have a drow (!) character renouncing the ways of his kin and going up to the surface.
Now that struck a chord with the readers of heroic fantasy literature, since he did not only belong to one of if not the coolest race within Realmspace and became a fighter for good as well. The designers would have been plain mad if they hadn’t taken this chance and dwell on it. Hence, a goddess of the dark elves (!) made their entrance into the world, one that came from the shady ages of pre-Descent, one that wilfully joined their evil family to get the drow (!) back into the sunlit lands – at least those who weren’t evil in their hearts (i.e., essentially those who were wrongfully sent into the Underdark aeons ago). So at the end of 3RE we had a number of things piling up for the drow, one being the trimming of the pantheon, the other being the saving of the “good” drow before it happens. Various novels took up that plotline, WotSQ, LP and Blackstaff. An old Miyeritar city (the capital of the realm of the formerly non-evil dark elves, that is) was brought back to the Realms, a safe haven so to speak. Next, a game and ritual was devised to undo the curse and ritual which turned the dark elves into drow all those years back. And right at the eve of 4E, it all came to pass! The good drow were saved via the sacrifice of their goddess and turned back into dark elves (essentially 4E elves or 4E “eladrin” with dark skin) - so two things off the table in one stroke!
So what we were left with were the evil drow still populating the Underdark, essentially the archetypical drow (still commonly known as “dark elves” to the world) of the Monster Manual. Then we had “dark elves” who have not yet (AFAIK) been picked up in any sourcebook, but who are there in this High Moor city of theirs. And we have no goddess left catering for the “good” drow or the surface “dark elves”, since Eilistraee, well is now a half-crescent moon on the sky of Arvandor.
Enter the 4E FRPG which gives you the drow (not the surface dark elves!) as a player race, with all the vile grace of the evil people, Lolthite and spidery stuff and all that, yet no mentioning that essentially the whole world will hate you because of what you are. For the new Realms have no problem with a group of adventurers consisting of real-flame-headed genasi, horn-headed and much-like-a-fiend-looking tieflings and vile drow. People just take it in the stride in the years after the Spellplague. Point of light and all. An open invitation for juvenile gamers to play a cool drow much like the scimitar-wielder with nigh to no restriction of canon and lore. Huzzah!

Somewhere, close to the start of that line of thought, something got horribly wrong. But what do you expect of a designer crew headed by someone who managed to get Orcus on the cover of a Dungeon & DRAGONS Monster Manual?

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Originally posted by Markustay

Hopefully I won't be crossing any lines here. Also, please forgive the length of this - it is a touchy subject, and one I had to 'handle' in the Elven netbbok project (although this version has been updated with the 4e retcons).

'Dark' Elves were a group of Sylvan Elves (now just plain 'Elves' in 4e) that were even darker then most other groups of Wood Elves. Weather they were created that way, or they evolved that way from living in a tropical climate on the Elven Homeworld (which may have been Faerie... or may not), is unknown. Either way, they were dark in the same way some humans here on Earth are dark - regular Sylvan Elves tend to be 'tan' looking to human eyes, and range from very light brown through shades of Umber. The Dark Elves were the darkest in skin tone, a skin-tone that would be called 'black' by human standards... although like RW, it is far from 'true black'. It overlapped the darker colorings of some tribes of non-Dark Elves in the 'brown' ranges', on through the very dark (and very normal) mahogany skin-tones. All of these skin-tones fell within human ranges, EXCEPT some tribes also had a bit of green pigmentation as well. It is canon that Elves DO photosynthesize somewhat - they take-in nourishment from sunlight - so it stands to reason that they have a property within them akin to chlorophyll, and some clans may be given to have more of this then others.

Furthermore, The Sylvan (Green) Elves were divided along three lines - the more peace-loving (typical) Wood Elves that are similar in many ways to the Amer-Indian cultures of Northeastern America, and the Dark Elves who were more violent and behaved more like the 'Plains Indians' of the American West, given to inter-tribal warfare and risking their lives for their honor (which was easily offended).

Then there are the Gru'agach (which means 'feral tribe', or 'wild Sept'), who looked very much like typical Wood Elves, but culturally they were closer in out-look to the Dark Elves, with tribal tattooing and skin ranging toward the darker end of the 'Brown' spectrum in coloration. I would go so far as to say that the Gruagach were a crossbreed of the other two, except that Elves do not 'crossbreed' - they bred true to either one subrace or another. However, we are talking about three variants of a single sub-race - the Sylvan Elves - the Dark Elves hadn't become their own off-shoot yet, so it is entirely possibly that the Gruagach were a mix of the other two (I'm thinking of those Green Elves that sided with the dark Elves in the canon Lore). If I had to label them along the lines I did the others, then I would say they were closest to Mohawk Indians, being similar to the other wood Elves, but also more xenophobic - and warlike - like the Dark Elves.

I am not saying Elves are Indians - I'm just trying to give you a rough idea of their cultural differences - at this time, before the descent, they were considered all one group of people, but with cultural differences from tribe to tribe. Although primitive Elven tribes are known today to use both feathers and tattooing, it is not known if this originated with the Elves, or if it was 'picked-up' from tribal humans along the way.

So, Wood Elves, Gruagach, and Dark Elves all fell under the racial heading of 'Sylvan' Elves (which probably translates to something like "people who are one with the land"). Sub-races did NOT exist at this time at all, because the 'High' Elves (Moon, Sun, and Star) were not even considered Elves - they were Eladrin (a retcon, I know, but bear with me). The High Elves had this 'racial stratification' FIRST, which may have been something that came about through natural breeding in a culture that had a strict caste system, or if you prefer, it was made so when they were magically created. Either way you want to look at it, their DNA is hard-coded and cannot be over-written - they now breed true to one of the parents sub-races.

Such a thing NEVER existed amongst the early Sylvan Elves, and it was only when the Eladrin arrived from Tintageer that these strange concepts of 'racial differences' emerge amongst the Elven people - before that they were all just Sylvan tribes. The first REAL difference appeared when the Ilythiiri - a single (and VERY large) tribe of Dark Sylvan Elves were cursed, and turned into Drow. Every single Elf with Ilythiiri blood, including several sub-tribes (septs) like the Miyeritar and Sethomiir, was branded "Dhaerow" (traitor) and transformed, cursing them with Jet-black skin (thereby depriving them of the ability to absorb sunlight), and causing them to be blinded by bright light. This skin tone has no RW existence - it is an unnatural hue the color of emptiness. Whereas their former coloration may be described as 'Africanesque', this was no longer true post-descent - they had become something monstrous and unnatural.

The Elves were a people who 'basked in the glory of the natural world in the sunlight' - that was their nature - and by stripping them of this most basic desire - to feel the sun of their face and the breeze in their hair, was considered the worst punishment one Elf could inflict upon another. And remember... it wasn't their fellow Elves who did this to them... it was the High-Magic wielding Eladrin.

So by saying that those who have received atonement "got their skin lightened" is an understatement. What happened there is that the curse had been lifted for a select few, and their coloration has fallen back into the normal (human) color-ranges. It has nothing at all to do with dark=Evil, it has to do with them looking very unnatural - because a color so purely Black does not exist (amongst Elves, Humanoids, and demi-humans). They have simply been transformed back into a more naturally-looking creature, and can now tolerate sunlight again (and probably receive its benefits as well, like they once did).

The appelation 'Dark' was first applied to them, AFAIK, by Eladrin, not their fellow Sylvan Elves. The Eladrin arriving from Faerie had a need to 'codify' everything, which only lead to racial identification and then racial animosities. Also, 'dark' was merely an identifier as to skin-tone, not their nature. Eleves are NOT humans - they have two seperate words for 'dark' - the kind of dark that has to do with hue, shadows, and a lack of light, and the kind of dark that has to do with evil intent (darknessof the heart). Only humans identify 'black' and 'dark' with evil... the Eladrin were not calling them 'Dark' (at first) out of any dread of them, but rather merely referring to there skin tones.

The word Dhaerow - which later became 'Drow' IS identified with evil intent, so all drow are considered evil. It is only because of thousands upon thousands of years of Elven history and rhetoric have the words 'Dark Elf' been given an evil conotation (the winners get to write the history books).

Technically, any Dark Elves that had NO Illythir blood should NOT have been transformed by the curse, and there should have been at least a few minor tribes that avoided the transformation. I have a feeling they mixed with Wood Elves who 'hid them away', and THAT is where we get our modern Grugach tribes.

So thats the right of it - considering 'Dark' to equal 'Evil' is purely a human convention (Heck... dwarves probably consider dark=Good). Elves have alweays felt just as 'at peace' beneath the Stars as they do beneath the sun, and it wasn't until after the Descent of the Drow that 'Dark' took on a menacing form to them.

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Originally posted by Zanan

Well, I sort of forgot to mention that the ritual which cast down all drow was simply another Epic level Elven High Magic (failure), much like the Sundering which split Evermeet from the rest of Faerûn, possibly the large-scale drowning of Jhaamdath (sp?) and the obliteration of Miyeritar by the Dark Disaster. But hey, half a handful of such mistakes in thousands of years of history are essentially not that bad. You see, it could have been much worse ... or maybe not.

*cynical mode off*

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Originally posted by George Krashos



A

Oh, and one of my many pet hates about adventurers in the Realms is what I call the NROR party ("No rhyme or reason"). I think it plainly ridiculous to have drow elves as dime a dozen adventurers. Similarly with genasi and tieflings. Of course this applies more to the pre-4E Realms but I can't imagine that 100 years has changed the attitude of the general Realms population toward drow all that much - it would still be kill on sight in about 98% of places, Faerûn-wide. Well, that's my view at least.
-- George Krashos

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Originally posted by George Krashos

...I think it plainly ridiculous to have drow elves as dime a dozen adventurers. Similarly with genasi and tieflings. <snip>

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Originally posted by sfdragon
But out of curiosty, how many players have you gamed with or talked with that wanted to play nothing but non evil drow, aasimars and tieflings, and gensai, and or anything else but whats in the core race sections??

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Originally posted by George Krashos

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Originally posted by sfdragon
But out of curiosty, how many players have you gamed with or talked with that wanted to play nothing but non evil drow, aasimars and tieflings, and gensai, and or anything else but whats in the core race sections??

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All of them. That's why I stopped playing.

-- George Krashos

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