Origins
More than thirteen thousand years ago, the Crown Wars raged among the Fair Folk, and for three thousand years the elven nations of Aryvandaar, Miyeritar, Shantel Othreier, Keltormir, Ilythiir, and others battled one another in a series of five great conflicts. At the end of the fourth Crown War, circa -10,000 DR, the corrupt dark elven Ilythiiri and others were transformed by Corellon's magic into drow as directed through the Protector's priests and high mages, and banished to the lightless depths of the Underdark.Physiology
Weight and Height: Females are usually bigger and stronger, averaging height from 4'11" to 5'7" and weigh from 103 - 140 lbs. Males range from 4'2" to 5'5" and weigh from 100 to 130. It's not unknown of for their to be unusually taller and broader Drow.
Eye Color: Most have different shades of red. Green, black, brown, gray, and amber are not unknown of. Shades of blue or purple shows surface elf, or human blood.
Hair Color: Snow-white for a majority. Females hair yellow with age. Male's hair grays. Silver and copper colored are rare.
Skin Color: Jet black for full blooded Drow. Dark gray to brownish gray for half-drow. There are rare cases of bone white albinos.
Mouth Etc. Colors: Teeth may be black, white, or purple, and their gums, tongues, and throats pink, red, or purple.
Automatic Feats: Drow sign language. Locate secret compartments and doors. Prowl. Recognize precious metals and stones. Blind fighting. Stalking. Concealment. Stealth. Listen.
Drow are also very alert an inquisitive, simply as survival traits in their twisted society. This mental readiness gives them an intellectual advantage over most creatures.... Note that while drow intelligence is augmented, drow wisdom is not -- the all-pervasive teachings of Lolth, and the limited exposure to other societies, beings, and surroundings, are not conducive to a wide and reasoned experience of the world.
Drow are rarely surprised... This is because drow always expect attack, whether in the “wild” Underdark or surface world. In their own cities - where rival drow may strike with a dagger, dart, or spell at any time - or even at home where rival family members may seize an unguarded moment to “prune the family tree.”
Typical drow tactics include arranging ambushes where known dangers can be used, such as loose rocks that can be knocked down atop intruders. Anti-personnel traps, such as strategically-placed phycomids, and glass bulbs filled with ascomoid spores, are also not uncommon in the Underdark. Drow who fall in combat are customarily animated as zombies (so long as their lower limbs are usable) by drow clerics, not left for others to plunder. Such zombies are often commanded to carry less-mobile dead and wounded, and are also useful as “shock troops."
Drow eyes can see heat patterns in air and rock thanks to their 120’ range infravision. Against a dim gray “cold” stone backdrop, progressively warmer hues show as subtle blue, purple, red, and warm yellow. The warmth comes from hot springs, magma, seeping water, and fissure-breezes.
Drow learn to use the “shadows” of these varying hues for concealment when stalking, in much the same way as a surface creature uses the shadows produced by the sun, moon, and other light sources. Like surface dwellers, drow must learn to “read” heat-hues; the meanings of various shades and patterns become known to drow only through teachings or experience “in the field.”
Near areas of drow habitation in the Underdark, the varying heat-hues of the natural Underdark are blurred by the higher ambient heat of many gathered, living beings and their activities.
Drow cities also sport magical glows, a few actual lights (notably the sharp, foreign-to-most-drow radiances of the candles of studying wizards and important rituals to Lolth), and the far more common continual faerie fire glows that highlight drow sculpture. Drow are proud of the beauty of their designs, and usually outline the most impressive works with this spell.
Drow hearing is highly developed, more than surface elves. In the Underdark, one learns to find water by timing the echoes of dripping or running water, and to detect coming rock shifts or collapses by listening for the natural grating and groaning sounds of unshaped rock.
Drow have long, slender, sensitive fingers, and a highly-developed tactile sense. In addition to their silent language of gestures, stances, and expressions, they are able to read subtle, braille-like “secret signs” left on rock walls, message stones, and other places by fellow drow. The drow sense of smell, however, is not so acute. The all-pervasive smell of the rock and damp air all around, tainted by ever-present mold and fungus spores and the scent of drow and slave bodies, is a strong background. Most drow have been exposed to strong incense and offering-burnings since infancy, which further serves to dull the olfactory sense. Drow still enjoy perfume, incense, and the like, but their smell is only about as acute as that of most humans -- far less than that of many native inhabitants of the Underdark.
Social Relationships
Most of the surface world knows little about the society of the dark elves except for a few stereotypes: Dominated by the female clerics of Lloth the Spider Queen, males are subservient, and slaves and magic are everywhere. For most of the surface world, that information is more than sufficient, but while these stereotypes are based in fact, they only scratch the surface of what life is like among the dark elves. Drow, like humans and other civilized beings, eat, fall in love, marry, raise children, and have families. In fact, because dark elves have long lifespans and drow society is frequented by upheavals, relations among the drow are usually more complex than a typical human family.
Drow Life
From very young drow are brought up learning new ways to hate. These incarnations of hate range from jealousy to betrayal. In a world where you can't even trust your own blood what else is left. Male drow, when they are born, have the chance not living at all. This is due to every third boy-child is given to Lolth via sacrifice. If they are chosen to live, they are forced down one of two roads. The first, they can become a fighter and are trained from the moment they can hold a weapon. The second, they can become a mage and then again they are trained as soon as they can make coherent speech. Either road drow male go down is not of there choosing. The choosing is left up to the ruling matron mother of the house in which they belong.Gender Roles
Lloth is the patron goddess of the drow, and they owe their existence in (or, to be precise, their banishment to) the Underdark to her. Given such an involvement in the origin of the dark elves, it is unsurprising that the majority of drow cities, and thus the majority of all drow, pay homage to the Spider Queen. With her patronage comes her rigid dogma of female superiority and male inferiority. In these societies, females control almost all of the power, leaving males to pick at the scraps. Traditionally, females enter the clergy and serve Lolth as her priestesses, while males enter the military or (rarely) study wizardry. Priestesses are trained in the arts of war, and often squadrons and armies are led directly by the foul clerics of the Spider Queen, but normally they keep themselves out of harm's way and give orders to experienced male officers, some of which are kept in check by physical or magical threats or even outright magical domination.Nobility
Most drow societies have some sort of noble class. Unlike in human and other societies, drow nobles are significantly different than commoners, at least in terms of magical ability. For example, most drow nobles develop the ability to detect magic, levitate, or sense the nature of other beings through sheer force of will. This difference probably stems from the origins of most drow cities, which are founded by exceptional dark elf individuals or families, who then pass on their exceptional traits to their offspring, which become the noble class of the growing city. These abilities usually breed true, so commoners taken into the noble families to improve the bloodlines or expand the familiy can be parents to nobles with powers even though they themselves lack those abilities. Those rare nobles whose bloodlines are so thin as to not manifest the noble traits often carry magical tokens to make up for this lack; more common among the nobles are magic items that expand their abilities, such as in frequency, power, or versatility.Work
Like the people on the surface, most dark elves have some sort of work that keeps them busy, whether farming, crafting items, working in a shop, or other similarly mundane tasks. Most go about their work day in a similar fashion to surface folk, maintaining old feuds, engaging in gossip, and trying to support themselves and their families. Hovering above this mundane façade are the shadows of the Spider Queen's clerics, who nominally are expected to compensate merchants for their goods, but are fully within their rights to claim whatever they want in the name of the Spider Queen. Many times has a jeweler or gemsmith been reduced to poverty because his works are so greatly desired by clerics unwilling to pay; after mortgaging their homes and selling off their possessions to stay in business, these poor souls are often consigned to work in the temples or noble houses as little more than talented slaves to pay off their debts. Such cruel irony is a delicious form of humor to the spider-priestesses.Courting
Llothian drow have a matriarchal society where inheritance of property, titles, and birthright pass from mother to daughter. Bearing children is a sign of the power of femininity and an ability that men can never have. Because of these factors, drow women normally want to have as many children as their slow elven birthrate allows. Because the females have all the control, relationships between men and women have few protocols, and it is the women who decide who their lovers are and how long the relationship lasts. The concept of courting as understood by humans and other surface races is almost unknown to the drow; in a society where males are valueless and life is worth little, having a lengthy process of becoming involved with another person is inefficient.Love
Among the cruel and self-centered dark elves, love is practically unheard of. Long-standing mates live together for practical reasons, not romantic ones, such as complementary careers, physical attractiveness, a legacy of producing many female heirs, political influence, and so on. Families remain together only because it provides a shield against enemies from outside the family (even though intra-family rivalries can be just as deadly as outside threats). Parents see children as a means to more power and are willing to sacrifice those children (males moreso than females) if it proves the key to greater power. Children quickly lose their innocent naivety and learn the horrible truths of drow society, thereafter seeing their parents as strict tormenters who nonetheless keep the world's predators at bay until the children can fend for themselves. In the rare cases where mated drow develop some affection for each other, it is usually when the male is an excellent physical specimen, has provided excellent service, and has never caused embarrassment to the female.Marriage
In a culture where females rule and males are little more than slaves, the idea of a female legally attaching herself to a single male for the rest of her life is an absurd concept. Marriage does not exist in Lloth's cities. Females take whatever consorts they wish and choose a new one when they grow bored with the old. If the dark elves could more easily fall in love, things might be different, but such concepts are ground out of the drow very early in life by the teachings of the Spider Queen.Child-Rearing
The drow are hardly doting parents. Among the noble class, a young drow is raised by tutors and elder siblings, and he or she normally sees his or her parents only a few times a year. Noble males are sent to the city's military or wizard academy depending upon their talents, while noble females enter the church and study the teachings of the Spider Queen, in each case seeing less and less of their families. (Because of the long lifespan of the drow and the number of years needed to reach maturity, these academies are like boarding schools and train the children for ten years or more, usually only letting them come home once a year for important family or religious meetings.) This practice only reinforces the drow's lack of affection for their own blood kin, for strong parent-child bonds cannot form when the parents are nearly absent from the child's life.Family
Dark elves live for several hundred years, and females have the capability to bear children at least every hundred years. Because of this, drow families tend to be larger than those of surface elves, who breed more slowly (either as a function of their greater lifespan as compared to the drow or in some interest in not overpopulating their lands). For example, Drizzt Do'Urden had five siblings, although one brother was killed on the night he was born (by Drizzt's other brother, oddly enough). These large families help relieve the parents of the responsibility of raising the younger children (which is put upon the elder siblings). Rivalries between siblings can be competitive and deadly (as Drizzt's brothers prove), for just as females are superior to males, firstborn children are superior to those born later.The Test
On the fringes of the Spider Queen's cities are abandoned caves and old monster lairs. Some of these are inhabited by horrible creatures that are half-drow and half-spider. These tortured things, known as driders, are the outcasts of drow society, for they have failed the test of the Spider Queen. All promising drow who reach a certain level of power are tested by Lolth. She tests their loyalty, their wits, and their power. Those who succeed in the tests are allowed to continue living in drow society. Those who fail are cursed to grow spider legs from their lower half and also become bloated and unrecognizable in their upper half. No longer beautiful, but still feeling the need to be near other drow, these hateful evil creatures lurk in the fringes of drow civilizations, hunting lost drow and any other creature that crosses their path. The Test of Lloth, as it is known (the only test described as such in drow society), is whispered of among the common folk and used as a threat by the priestesses against the more willful nobles. The existence of driders is more evidence that the Spider Queen is absolutely evil, cruel, and possibly insane, for while other deities are known to test their followers from time to time, even among the evil ones, Lolth is the only one who deliberately disfigures them in such a horrible way and leaves them alive (most evil deities are content to simply blast those who fail into oblivion).Craft, Artistry, And Entertainment
Dark elves see the artistic spirit and entertainment as tools. They don’t create art or entertain an audience for its own sake or for personal satisfaction. Making simple, useful items is a task left to slaves, but drow take great pride in crafting exquisite and deadly things. Are always has a purpose beyond mere enjoyment, but dark elves find many reasons to create and to entertain, and skilled artisans, crafters, and performers are highly prized.Alchemy
Along with items common to the surface world, dark elves use the ingredients they find in the Underdark to create unique alchemical tools. The pursuit of the alchemist has always had less prestige than that of the poisoner, but the relatively new skill of creating verminous items has diminished the alchemist’s value even more. Fortunately, a knowledgeable alchemist often finds it easy to take up that craft.Arenas
Combat is an art, and drow find deadly battle entertaining to watch. Thus, most drow cities have several arenas. Arenas come in all shapes and sizes. Some are the standard fighting pits or coliseums familiar to the surface-world gladiators. Others are formed of great stalactites or stalagmites, to make huge “lord of the pillar” battles. Open-ceiling, dungeon like mazes are common, as are magical enclosures in the air outside of cities. Hundreds to thousands of drow come to watch battles and place bets on the competitors.Cooking
Good cooking is appreciated by all drow, but few understand the heights of culinary delight that surface dwellers enjoy. Living in the depths relegates drow to using the meats of other Underdark dwellers for main courses and various lichens and fungi as spices. Salt is often available, but sugar, pepper, flour, and other cooking ingredients common on the surface are nearly unknown to the drow. Spice and foodstuffs from the surface are highly prized, but only the most wealthy and decadent can afford such commodities. Most drow dishes are meaty, musky, and hot to the tongue because of certain fungi ingredients.Dance
Dark elves excel at dance. They dance in battle, in worship, in coupling, and at times even in death. Dance expresses the dark elven gift of natural grace, and drow often subconsciously fall into its motions. Those who are particularly good dancers are envied for their artistry but for a talent greater than the norm. Dance is most appreciated when it tantalizes the libido or slays enemies, and drow believe the best dances do both.Glass
It seems odd to surface dwellers, but drow have little use for glass and less knowledge of how to craft anything from it. Temperatures in the Underdark remain fairly constant, and wind or other air flow is common only near swiftly moving water: Even if drow put windows in their buildings, glass panes wouldn’t be needed to keep out the elements. Glass finery, like bottles or vials are viewed as impractical. What others keep in glass, drow store in pottery or metal. In any event, drow have little access to the kind of sand needed for glassblowing.Jewelry
Jewelry is one of the few areas of craft and art in which drow come close to appreciating beautify for its own sake. Most dark elves value and item’s monetary worth, or recognize the power and prestige a beautiful piece of jewelry represents, but this appreciation is something more. In any event, when not interested in stealth, dark elves of both sexes often adorn themselves with necklaces, rings, earrings, nose rings, lip rings, bracelets, bangles, pins, headbands, and even crowns. Most of these pieces are intricately designed, contain many gems, or both; dark elves see no reason to wear plain jewelry. Such intricate and well-crafted items often fetch a fine price on the surface world.Music
Few drow would admit to having much feeling for music, but it is a part of even the darkest elven soul. All drow music has an alien quality to it. Over the ages, drow have come to understand the acoustics of caverns and cavern formations better than most Underdark creatures, and they have allowed the unique musical elements and instruments of slaver races and of other Underdark dwellers, such as mind flayers, to influence their style. Their music frequently takes advantage of the vibrations of stone and the echoing quality of caverns.Painting
Painting or other flat representations of color as an art form has little significance to drow. Unable to see color with darkvision, they perceive all paintings as tableaus as grays. Although drow are able to appreciate such works of art, most prefer sculpture. Thus, few bother to paint anything unless it will achieve some goal. Every few hundred years or so, they concept of color comes into vague, and there is a resurgence of interest in painting, but the few dark elves who have mastered the art or gained any real proficiency do not have skill with colors. Pigments are extremely rare in the Underdark, and during the times when color is favored, these and other colorful objects from the surface would fetch a high price.Poison
Poisoners have had a niche in drow civilization since its founding millennia ago. Drow admire and fear a skilled poisoner with good reason: The best of them can craft toxins that magic cannot fend off or cure.Prostitution
Prostitution is inevitable in most cultures, but its role in drow society has evolved over centuries into its current bizarre form: Prostitutes are also bodyguards. Drow engaging in sexual act6ivity must let their guards down, by both relaxing their wariness and removing protections, such as armor, that might otherwise limit their enjoyment. Ages ago, drow brothels promised protection and privacy, and individual prostitutes trained in both self-defense and the defense of their clients to preserve a whorehouse’s reputation for safety. Now prostitutes, male and female, can be hired as actual guards. They serve as ornaments on their clients’ arms, pleasure toys for dalliance, and loyal protectors. Houses often hire them for children they send away to academies; the prostitutes protects the child from harm and is there when she becomes curious about sex and the needs a different kind of education.Scars
Tattoos are known to the drow, but the dark elve's obsidian skin and lack of color vision without light make them impractical. Instead, drow create designs of beauty on their flesh with scars. Drow save brands for slaves. They make scar designs by cutting the flesh with delicate scalpels and they applying a mix of Underdark fungus to the wounds to help form raised scar tissue.Sculpture
Like music, most drow sculpture is religious in nature, and the temples certainly hold the best work of their sculptors. In temples and when making any representations of their gods, drow prefer to work in very dark stone. Sculptors go to great lengths to procure black marble and other stone that can be carved into smooth skin and shapely forms.Textiles
Dark slaves have slaves weave cloth from the silk of spiders and other vermin. This fabric is very similar to the silk found in some places on the surface world. Drow favor this light, strong material and are always bemused by the coarse clothing worn by other races. Drow make all manner or garments from silk, with the noted exception of clothing intended for warmth. Deep in the Underdark, they are ignorant of the passage of seasons. When raiding parties come to the surface in winter, they often turn back unless they can quickly find enough surface dwellers to provide them with warm clothing. Some dark elves have made an effort to keep such equipment, to craft similar garments from silk, or to create magic items that provide warmth and protection from the cold, but it is usually easier to simply wait and raid at a more congenial time.Torture
Although it is not commonly viewed by most races as an art, dark elves highly prize torture as an important element of their culture. Master torturers command high fees to view their sessions, and they attract many would-be students. To the drow, torture isn’t just about causing pain: It is an intimate physical and psychological act of domination. To break a victim’s will and control their every action through fear is an experience that rivals the most hedonistic orgies.Weapons and Armor
All weapons and armor made by dark elves are masterwork items; they leave the creation of mundane equipment to slaves. Drow battle artisans commonly work in adamntine and mithral, materials that are relatively common in the Underdark. Every piece of dark elven metalwork is a masterpiece. Weapons are light, keen, and perfectly balanced. Armor is quiet, limber, and strong.The Written Word
Poetry, story, novel, play—dark elves see little value in these works. Histories are prized for the information they impart, and drow commonly record the dogma of a deity in religious texts, but most other written work is neglected. Sometimes dark elves find it amusing to read the works of surface dwellers. They have few chances to really understand the world above, and a particularly curious intriguing text might be copied and circulated widely.Drow Psyche
The dark elven psyche is both similar to and vastly different from that of other intelligent beings. Adrift in darkness and treachery, drow have developed a tortured psychology as a survival mechanism. Before you can understand their culture and history, you must understand the strange forces and emotions that drive drow.
Constant striving is a cornerstone of drow culture and shows itself in nearly every aspect of their life. Servants try to outdo their fellows in the services they provide, students learn to subtly undermine the work and understanding of other pupils, and merchants struggle to undercut their competition while maintaining the highest possible profits. This aspect of drow psyche explains a great deal about how their society is structured and about how they advance in their chosen role.
Greed
Drow hunger for wealth and power, but this hunger is greater than simple avarice. They see wealth as a means to power, and power as a means of control. Dark elves need control. They need to feel like they are the manipulators rather than the manipulated. Throughout their lives, dark elves are trapped in a web of falsehood and treachery where each step could be their last. The strong rule over the weak and use to kill them at a whim. In such a turbulent and abusive environment, drow see power and control as security. This is illusion, though, perpetuated by the fact that even those who have gained some measure of control are insecure but are not admit it—and with good reason: Fear is viewed as weakness, and showing it turns erstwhile allies into deadly foes and loyal servants into power-hungry murderers. Security is forever out of reach so long as drow culture does not change.
Hate
All drow hate all other drow. This hatred stems in many cases from envy. A drow who sees someone more powerful, more intelligent, or more secure sees an enemy. Each believes that he should be the most important and powerful--in effect, every drow desires godhood. But each fears that others with prove to be better. A drow's level of insecurity is roughly related to his place in society. When a drow's sefl-hatred and self-doubt outweigh his hatred of others, he fails to take risks and can no longer seize what should be his.
Gluttony
There are very few obese drow (though note that some do exist). This is not to say that drow do not engage in binge eating. They do so with great frequency, often holding or being privvy to grand parties (at least the nobles). But being overweight or too obsessed with food is a weakness, and weakness is deadly. The same is true of alcohol consumption: It's simply too dangerous. This problem is skirted around by practices such as vomitoriums, various drugs or herbs to waylay the effects of alcohol consumption and liquid clarity. Vomitoriums are exactly what they sound like, places to regurgitate food and liquids. They are as common in drow settlements as privies, and often slaves are tasked to clean both and collect wastes to be food for other slaves. Liquid clarity is an alchemical draught that reduces the effects of inebriation. Those few drow who blatantly live life as obese are in positions of great authority and power, which manages to keep most predators at bay, at least for a time.
Sloth
Drow must constantly struggle and forever be on their guard. Laziness often results in defeat. At the same time, they tire of always being watchful. The desire for power is also a desire for the opportunity to rest. Although all drow meditate and most participate in leisure pursuits, few understand what it means to truly relax. Even so, some do become slothful and listless. These drow usually fall by the wayside as their fellows gain power.
Wrath
Anger is a drow's constant companion. The emotion is considered both normal and inevitable, but a drow's reaction to it falls in one of two camps. Some believe that anger itself is a tool: red-hot rage gives you strength to persevere over your foes. Others believe that anger should be cool and calculating: Hiding it will give you more opportunities to take vengeance. Most drow borrow from both schools of thought as the situation demands, but none would argue about the outcome: revenge.
Revenge is an art form among drow. It comes quickly or takes centuries. It can be long and excruciatingly painful, or painless and deadly swift. All drow appreciate a well-executed vengeance, even when they are the targets. There are as many flavors of revenge as there are drow. Each drow establishes a preferred style at an early age, using this as a kind of signature and warning to others. Some prefer to use the techniques of their enemies in order to place the blame on others, but this in turn becomes their own style, and drow learn to look through such deceits to find the responsible party.
Pride
Pride is the same as self-confidence among the drow. A truly humble drow is destined to remain on the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Most drow are like bullies. They put up a haughty front, intimidating and degrading all whom they can to hide their own doubts and fears. Anything that shakes a drow's sense of pride is likely to result in a fit of pique. Pique breeds petty paybacks, small actions meant to harm without giving cause for full-blown, deadly revenge.
Deceit
Deceit is integral to the nature of drow. They deceive others to protect themselves, and they deceive themselves to protect their egos. Lying is second nature to most drow, and telling lies well is a skill fostered from childhood.
Betrayal
Once, not long ago, the drow were on the verge of extinction by their own self-destructive actions. Their god, the Spider Queen, was a mad monarch who held betrayal as the highest ideal. This period of history is known to the drow as the Fractious Wars, because infighting nearly destroyed their race. City fought city, House fought House, family fought family, and the dark elves were drowning in betrayal. They managed to survive, but the drow have not forgotten that dark time. Although they live by stricter laws and have nominally devoted themselves to the goals of conquest and domination, all drow are on the lookout for a return to those terrible days, and some secretly hope for them to return. Betrayal is no longer the virtue it once was, but many drow admire it as they do a brilliant act of revenge.
It shouldn’t be surprising that, given this history, dark elves tend to be paranoid. A certain amount of suspicion is a survival mechanism; even though a foe might not be acting against you now, one is certain to d so in the near future. Yet drow who become too defensive lose their edge, becoming victims of their own fear.
Lust
Given their tense and deadly society, it is surprising that lust plays any part in drow's lives, but lust and sex (consensual or not) are huge factors in drow psychology. Sex plays many roles. It is a release of tension, a moment of closeness, and it staves off fear of inevitable death. Despite their long life spans, few drow can expect to die of old age, so procreation is a way to establish a kind of life beyond death. Sex is also one of the rare times when drow can express a minor degree of tenderness for one another. It is not always tender, of course, but it offers pleasure in being weak or strong, and drow involved in consensual sex often reverse their normal roles in society. Slaves can be masters, and masters, slaves. In this physical release, drow come as close to happiness as most of them will ever get. Drow have no real understanding of monogamy or marriage. They have children to further their bloodline and House, and sometimes parents make an effort to protect a child, but both parents will likely have many partners and form no lasting relationship as the child grows to maturity.
Law Without Morality
Most drow adhere to the laws of their settlement, breaking them only when certain they will not be caught. Laws vary from city to city, but all those devoted to the Spider Queen follow certain core concepts. These do not present a system of morals, but rather a code of conduct that the Spider Queen put in place to keep drow society from sliding into barbarism. These laws are absolutes that most drow adhere to, and all drow legal systems have them at their core regardless of technicalities.
Do Nothing That Harms The Drow Cause
This is the dark elve’s highest law. Any drow who puts personal gain above the success of efforts that advance the drow race will rightfully face the wrath of his fellows and the Spider Queen.
Serve The Drow Race As You Serve Yourself
More than a commandment, this is a general order to ensure that even the most selfish goals of a single drow promote the drow’s plots for dominion over all the world.
Avenge Yourself In Many Ways
To take revenge is at the heart of drow existence, but it is best to temper vengeance with creativity and wisdom. Deadly revenge is acceptable only if it serves the greater cause.
Destroy Or Dominate Weakness
This ideal causes the most variance in drow legal systems. In some cities, it has produced complicated processes of trail and punishment. Drow apprehended in their plotting suffer sentences—they are weak because they were caught and so must be eliminated. Other settlements have few laws other than survival of the fittest; the drow who rule make whatever laws they wish and enforce them as they see fit.
Roleplaying Drow
Drow, no matter what alignment, share certain qualities that should come across whether you roleplay them as a DM or a player.Playing Evil Characters
The standard fantasy game is heroic, but playing an evil character can be interesting and entertaining. Still, you should consider a few things when introducing an evil character to a campaign.