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Originally posted by HighOne

Personally, it makes no difference to me if there are populations of good-aligned drow in the world. Drow are elves, after all, and there have always been good-aligned elves in Faerun.

The problem for me is that drow already get way too much focus in the Forgotten Realms books and adventures. Giving them yet more spotlight time is not what the setting needs. It also raises the question: Is Wizards going to do this with duergar too? And orcs? And every other race that people have (ridiculously, in my opinion) decided is an analog for something in the real-world?

Because that would get very tiresome very quickly and might actually end up doing more harm to the Forgotten Realms than the misbegotten Spellplague ever did.

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Originally posted by sno4wy

(No) thanks to Dark Alliance and other things:

https://dnd.wizards.com/story/legend-of-drizzt

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The subterranean City of Spiders is the bastion of the Udadrow: drow elves who became tainted by Lolth’s insidious teachings. Udadrow society values ruthlessness, obedience, and a burning hatred of surface dwellers.

Even as some of their kin followed Lolth down to the Underdark, many drow elves rejected her, remaining true to their innate integrity. One band ventured north, vanishing from history behind curtains of snow, aurora, and illusion. They became the Aevendrow—or Starlight Elves—a highly secretive clan steeped in powerful magic.

The Aevendrow remain untainted by Lolth’s influence, and life in Callidae is radically different from that of oppressive Menzoberranzan. Yet, though many would rejoice to see it, almost no one—including the longest-lived elves—can quite remember its existence.

Head far enough south and one enters the territory of the Lorendrow, or “Greenshadow Elves.” Far from the Spider Queen and her terrors, the Lorendrow draw their wisdom from their environment: the generosity of earth; the mystery of sky; and the complex harmony of forest.

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So basically, Udadrow = Lolthites, Aevendrow = Eilistraeens, Lorendrow = dark elves? Except with the total erasure of Eilistraee. Thanks, I hate it.

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Originally posted by Gyor
I don't why your blaming Dark Alliance, when DA is set in the past. Its RA's next upcoming novel, Starlight Enclave (clearly related to Starlight Elves, who will undoubtedly cause confusion with Star Elves), that is the source of this. Or more accurately WotC freaking out about the woke calling Drow and Orcs racist last year, they are making a push for none evil Drow civiluzations outside the Underdark.

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Originally posted by HighOne

Personally, it makes no difference to me if there are populations of good-aligned drow in the world. Drow are elves, after all, and there have always been good-aligned elves in Faerun.

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Originally posted by TKU

Reading through some other interesting lore bits on the website:

"The Spider Queen is fueled by sacrifices performed by her priestesses, whose word is law in her city of Menzoberranzan. Those in her capricious favor bear the markings of Lolth’s embrace across their skin, and wield her divine powers. But woe to anyone whose marks begin to fade…"

Interestingly, Malice Do'Urden's picture has her with a bunch of white tattoos on her skin. I'm guessing these are supposed to be her markings? So you can tell who's a priestess now by white tattoos on their skin. Wonder if Baldur's Gate IIIs thing about Lolth blessing her followers with red eyes (while purple like Drizzt otherwise) is connected somehow-seems like Lolth marking her followers might be an idea WoTC is playing around with right now.

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Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

So is this move instigated by RAS? Rather than acknowledging Eilistraee (because how dare drow be good thanks to the tireless work of a goddess!) he's creating a whole new subrace?

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Originally posted by sno4wy

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Originally posted by TKU
Reading through some other interesting lore bits on the website:

"The Spider Queen is fueled by sacrifices performed by her priestesses, whose word is law in her city of Menzoberranzan. Those in her capricious favor bear the markings of Lolth’s embrace across their skin, and wield her divine powers. But woe to anyone whose marks begin to fade…"

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Here's the thing, if whether a priestess is in favor with Lolth is basically literally written on their faces, what's the point of all the scheming and the guessing about who's in favor and who's not? It'd be obvious for all to see?

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Originally posted by sno4wy
Here's the thing, if whether a priestess is in favor with Lolth is basically literally written on their faces, what's the point of all the scheming and the guessing about who's in favor and who's not? It'd be obvious for all to see?

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Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

So is this move instigated by RAS? Rather than acknowledging Eilistraee (because how dare drow be good thanks to the tireless work of a goddess!) he's creating a whole new subrace?

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Originally posted by TKU

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Originally posted by sno4wy
Here's the thing, if whether a priestess is in favor with Lolth is basically literally written on their faces, what's the point of all the scheming and the guessing about who's in favor and who's not? It'd be obvious for all to see?

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This is very stupid, I agree. I don't know why WoTC keeps coming back to this idea of distinguishing Lolth's followers from other Drow physically.

Multiple hidden cities of good aligned drow, of which one at least seems to date back to the Descent, and without seemingly any connection to Eilistraee seems just about right given WoTC seemingly ongoing policy of pointedly ignoring her at every possibility.

At any rate, with the reveal of these two cities, the whole 'Starlight Drow/Starlight Enclave' connection with the upcoming book, and the whole white tattoos and red vs purple eyes thing I think we are seeing some jigsaw pieces finally fall into place on how WoTC is planning to tackle the 'Drow problem'. Not that I care for it, but it is illuminating to a degree.

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Originally posted by LordofBones

The idea of non-evil drow who really just don't care about Eilistraee is kind of amusing though. Maybe she just doesn't jive with them.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I don't get the point of this. Drow are drow, whether they live in Menzoberranzan and worship Lolth or dance under the stars and worship Eilistraee.

I've also never gotten over the promotion of Menzoberranzan. It was originally stated to be of "middling" size and importance, and now it's described as being the center of the world for drow and all other drow cities have been forgotten.

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Originally posted by Gyor
We don't actually know if there is an Eilistraee connection to these too new Goodly Drow cities or not, we don't even know for certain their locations on Faerun!

I suspect the Starlight Elves are located in the Coldlands, around Damara perhaps or Sossal. The Lorendrow Chult or nearby Jungle Kingdoms like Samarach, although outside possiblity of the Continent of Katashaka.

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Originally posted by TKU:<br>
It would be rather odd I think if Eilistraee had this booming city in her back pocket all this time and it was never relevant. Certainly Qilue could have really used some reinforcement at various times, so it feels very wrong that the center of their religion was struggling along with such a (comparatively) small manpower base all this time.

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Originally posted by HighOne

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Originally posted by TKU:<br>
It would be rather odd I think if Eilistraee had this booming city in her back pocket all this time and it was never relevant. Certainly Qilue could have really used some reinforcement at various times, so it feels very wrong that the center of their religion was struggling along with such a (comparatively) small manpower base all this time.

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The way I think it will work is that the drow of the Underdark are the only ones who worship the Dark Seldarine. The other drow probably worship Corellon, Hanali, etc. I imagine their stance toward their evil, Underdark-dwelling cousins is something along the lines of, "It was your choice to follow an evil goddess. You got yourselves into this mess, now get yourselves out." Why would they care about redeeming the evil drow or coming to their aid?

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Originally posted by Gyor


No, he's creating 2 new subraces (or subsubraces given Drow already are a subrace in 5e). And to be fair to RA Salvatore he's likely getting his marching orders from WotC, so he can't be blamed for this.

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Originally posted by Zeromaru X

Knowing RAS, I can't rule out he is to blame for this. It won't be the first time he changes something just because he don't like it...

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Originally posted by LordofBones

The sudden appearance of a thriving good drow civilization kind of undermines the kind of sacrifice and struggle drow face in turning away from evil. Let's face it, for all that WotC tries to sanitize and retcon stuff, drow ARE synonymous with evil, and it undermines people like Drizz't and Liriel who have to willingly, willfully turn their back to everything they know.

It also makes drow racism come off nonsensical, because suspicion and hatred of the drow is a perfectly valid and reasonable opinion to have of them. Rebellious drow have to struggle against those stereotypes for good reason, because they are 100% true.

Amusingly enough, Eilistraee herself is pretty undermined in canon D&D; the Forgotten Realms are the only place she has a presence outside of the other spheres where the Dark Seldarine are worshipped - Lolth's top priestess isn't even from the Realms, she's from Oerth. It would be interesting to have Eilistraee grappling with the other evil powers happy to accept the drow into their fold, prime among theme being Kanchelsis.

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Originally posted by LordofBones

The sudden appearance of a thriving good drow civilization kind of undermines the kind of sacrifice and struggle drow face in turning away from evil. Let's face it, for all that WotC tries to sanitize and retcon stuff, drow ARE synonymous with evil, and it undermines people like Drizz't and Liriel who have to willingly, willfully turn their back to everything they know.

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It also makes drow racism come off nonsensical, because suspicion and hatred of the drow is a perfectly valid and reasonable opinion to have of them. Rebellious drow have to struggle against those stereotypes for good reason, because they are 100% true.

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Lolth, as written, should have already lost her position as main drow deity millennia ago, but author bias/plot armor have prevented the premise of the worldbuilding behind the drow to be explored. I'll explain.

2e Menzoberranzan: "A drow given the taste of freedom will never look back". The main factor that would lead the drow to spurn Lolth is the simple desire to improve their own conditions. It's related to wanting to fulfil oneself and not be miserable, which everyone wants.

In 2e, the drow commoners were described as unhappy with Lolth; in other sources they're also portrayed as perpetually miserable and trapped in a system that intentionally prevents their development and growth, from a personal, economic, and social standpoint. There's a difference between meritocracy (which is what Lolth should be about but totally isn't--nepotism and stagnation are a staple of her society), and making most people live like sh*t and waste all their strength in randomly backstabbing each other, because "muh powah...". However, the further we go with the editions, the more uniform the Lolthite society is depicted. Which leads to my next point.

Lolth doesn't care for the drow and that's evident; she only cares that they remain bound to her, and she has actively hampered them for millennia. This has been canon since 2e: the the drow would be 100x better w/o Lolth. With that premise, they should have never gone through more than 12000 years of total misery without one meaningful change--heck, with 0 attempts at a change. Without splinter movements (Eilistraee and Vhaeraun aren't splinter movements, because their societies didn't form within Lolthite society; they're external cultures), without disillusion and resentment towards Lolth forming among the drow. They should have formed splinter movements fighting for different ideas; schisms should have happened and deepened; the society should have changed, fractured, and evolved. Not having any of that with a premise as ridiculous as Lolth's is a narrative failure.

You might say that the theocracy, totalitarianism, or what you have prevents the drow from developing those feelings and intentions, but that's baseless. When a society is so ridiculous that you have laughable stuff like "loving your kids is weakness", when commoners have no rights or anything, can be killed for fun by nobles, can be bankrupted for fun by priestesses (and subsequently enslaved)--this is all in the lore across the editions, btw--when the vast majority of drow is perpetually emotionally and materially miserable, it makes sense for them to lose faith. To be disilluded. Especially since the drow are often described as a highly intelligent race. Yes, there's resistance to change, against giving up the set of belief that ruled your life, but:

1)That can only sussist when you have something to gain (either on a psychological, or social, or economical level)

2)All goes out of the window when the premise is so ridiculous even chickens can laugh at it (and Lolth's is)

3)That can never justify the lack of whole splinter movements and major upheavals, which, in turn, would make it easier and easier for people to recognize the rality of the situation.

And this is just commoners. Miserable people, the "have nots" are usually shut down from a social perspective, and it's unlikely for change to start from them--they're in the so-called quiet desperation. Change starts from the "have some, want more", which abound among the Lolthites. Minor houses who don't like Lolth, male wizards, merchant clans, other drow cultures/churches (who are totally able to infiltrate Lolthite environments. Look: Masked Traitors, Secret Moondancers, Silverhair Knights)--they would all greatly benefit from an uprising, and have tools to achieve it. Heck, the other deities and churches could even support the wizards/merchants/dissatisfied nobles. With that in mind, channeling the anger of the drow commoners would be a totally feasible task, and should have happened plenty of times over 12000 years of misery.

You can't even use fear of death as an excuse, because 1)the drow are always risking death in the Lolthite society 2)it has never been enough to prevent formation of splinter movents, changes, etc... It hasn't been for RW societies, it isn't for the drow, who also have the support of other deities, and don't just have Lolth.

Before someone comes up with "but North Korea" to justify why the totalitarianism works, there are A LOT of North Koreans who are disillusioned with the regime and try to escape; they only put up a facade of obedience. Also, how many rebellions have oppressed people attempted over the course of human history? However, not even something as basic as this is mentioned for the D&D drow--it's always "<1% reject Lolth". Heck, in FR that disillusion alone would be even enough to hurt Lolth's power. Lolth's followers have more influence on her than she has on them. In FR, the power of a deity has always depended on the faith they get from their followers (as shown by Eilistraee being reduced into powerlessness after the Sun Elves literally magic-nuked her nation, or Auppenser being also reduced into powerlessness after the elves genocided Jhaamdath). Ever since the Times of Troubles, a god's own life has depended on the faith they get. Disillusion, even if not openly manifested (therefore this wouldn't even require the drow to actively do anything, just develop resentment or disillusion--a natural response to living like sh*t), will severely hurt Lolth.

On top of this, as mentioned, there are other deities defending change and growth. You have the followers of Eilistraee--and Eilistraee herself--who have been actively reaching for the drow, even materially helping them embrace a different path, even risking their life for them. They have whole orders dedicated to that--including infiltrating Lolthite cities to rescue drow in need. Eilistraee has also been showing all drow--including the matron mothers--what life can actually be, that an alternative exists, and has been doing so by directly contacting the drow through dreams for millennia. She's been calling them to her.

Vhaeraun is a revolutionary who has constantly carried disruptive actions against the Lolthite regimes, to the point of unleashing massive conflicts and civil wars within Lolthite cities. He appeals and offers power to the downthrodden males, which is big in a society like Lolth's, while still offering them the promises of glory and supremacy that they are so hooked on.

Yet, despite the ridiculousness of the condition of the drow commoners, the dissatisfaction of many categories of "have some, want more", despite all the basis for changes and uprising being there, of catalysts (including divine catalysts) for such uprising existing, the overall lore of the drow remains always the same: 90+% are loyal to Lolth. It's stupid, it's even illogical from a purely numerical standpoint (like, other cultures who go live elsewhere never reproduce? They have divine protection too, and of deities who actually care about them, yet their numbers never change in proportion? Wtf?). It's also definitely not "because of story". The lack of change, even just significant disillusion, not only is extremely lazy, it defeats one of the pillars of narrative: exploring the consequences of actions, conditions, and false truths, because the Lolthite drow want to be one of the most Stupid Evil (tm) societies in fantasy, without any of the consequences. It's as if the drow lack any drive to improve their condition.

Also, the drow have history and tradition before Lolth; they weren't a blank slate. They had the experience of the power reached by Ilythiir (which was without Lolth, and with Vhaeraun), and the propserity of Miyeritar (again, no Lolth, but Eilistraee). This legacy should have been influential in leading more of them to see Lolth for the fraud she is.

It's not for nothing that Ed Greenwood's division of the drow places Lolth at slightly less than 50%, not at 90%+, in his own version of the Forgotten Realms.

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