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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
 Posted - 09 Jul 2006 : 20:40:14
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I know these are fairly old products, but I got Plot and Poison a while ago, but I only recently got a chance to look at the companion piece, Dezzavold, which ostensibly details a Drow city, but also has more drow background material that builds on the information presented in Plot and Poison.
There are a couple of reasons that I have been looking through these. One is that there is a little information on "aquatic drow" that might be adaptable to Marel in the Realms (although I'm still not sold on Vupdrax . . . essentially drow avariels presented in the book). The drey idea is interesting. Basically they are a race of drow that is more "tainted" and still have all of the old 1st edition abilities of drow (such as levitation, etc) but they have to sleep.
I was thinking that the drey might be an interesting "mutation" born to existing drow in the Realms, instead of a separate race. I already wrote up the "dreaming drow" flaw in another thread to explain the drow that still dream as non-elves do, but this could work as an alternative to that.
One of the concepts that I thought was interesting was that in the section of the book that goes into religion, the Spider Queen (since its a d20 book they never call her Lolth), has eight demi-goddesses that represent her different aspects. This immediately reminded me of the yor'thae in the WOTSQ books, as well as the comment in the Magehound that Lolth absorbed an Ilythiiri called the Spider Queen into herself. So that would mean we have the Spider Queen, Danifae (Seduction), and Zinzerena (Assasins) as various aspects of Lolth . . . I don't know, I just found it interesting.
I liked some of the "experiment" monsters in the book as well, as we have some indications from Ed's novels that the drow do indeed perform some twisted experiments on the surface dwellers that they manage to capture.
When I read some of Dezzavold, I noticed that the book also had a map of a region that almost reminded me of the High Forest and environs, although a few things might need to be juggled around to make it completely line up. But Dezzavold also had some more interesting information in it.
In Dezzavold, they mention that the Spider Queen was cast out of the Elven Pantheon (again, not called the Seldarine because of the d20 thing) by the Elf Lord (Corellon), loosing her portfolio of fate. But according to this book, a goddess of magic called the Mother of Mysteries was actually the mother of the Spider Queen, and she is interested in bringing the drow back into the light. I'm not sure if I could work this legend into the Realms, but so much of it seemed to be suggested by Realmslore, I wanted to see if I could connect the dots.
As far as Dark Elf socieity, there was some interesting role playing tips on the personality of dark elves, and I had my step son read this section when he made up his drow hexblade.
At any rate, does anyone else have these books, and have you used them in the Realms?
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warlockco
Master of Realmslore
USA
1695 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2006 : 22:59:54
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Another really good 3rd party Drow Sourcebook is The Tome of Drow Lore put out by Mongoose Publishing.
They introduce 4 Drow Subraces also, including an Aquatice Subrace.
They are descendants of a group during the descent that got enslaved and modified by Aboleths.
I have looked at several 3rd party Drow Sourcebooks, and the two by Green Ronin and this one by Mongoose are the only ones that I have cared for so far.
There is a really good PrC called Webmistress of the Dark Mother, that just screams to be used for Lolth, and I consider it to be a much better PrC than the Arachne for Clerics of Lolth. |
News of the Weird
D20 System Reference Document
D20 Modern System Reference Document
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Green Ronin's Plot and Poison and Dezzavold
