Brief Overview of Drowen Culture

Drow have black skin. Their hair is usually white, silver, or very pale. They are, of course, slender, as they are elven in descent. Drow are tiny creatures, around 5 feet in height. Males weigh between 130 and 170 pounds, while females come in between 110 and 150. They have finely chiseled features, and their fingers and toes are long and delicate.

Drow rarely live past their seventh century, and 94% of them die of natural causes before age 800. Rare individuals (usually those who are subjected to the least hardship, such as the matron mothers of powerful Houses) may live more than a thousand years, becoming withered and worn. Drow do not show their age until after their six hundredth year.

Drow usually wear black, functional, and most of the time magical clothing. Drow cloaks are not easy to cut and are fire resistant, due to the material they are made out of. Any attempt to alter a drow cloak, for whatever purpose (ex: so it fits a human being) has a 75% chance of unravelling the material, which in effect makes it quite useless.

The drow have learned the languages of many of the intelligent species of creatures in the Underdark. Besides their own tongue, drow speak both common, and the trade language used by many of the races of the Underdark. They speak gnome and other elvish languages quite fluently. They also have their own silent language composed of hand movements and body language. These signs give out information but have no subtle meaning or emotional content. Within a certain range of another drow (30 feet), they can also use complex facial expression, body movements and postures to convey their meaning. Using this with their hand signs, they give the drow's silent language a potential for expression equal to most spoken languages.

Drow armor is non-encumbering, finely crafted, black mesh. This mail is made witha special alloy of steel containing adamantite. Drow also carry small shields, called bucklers, fashioned of adamantite. Most carry a long dagger and a short sword of adamantite alloy. Some also carry tiny crossbows that can be held in one hand and will shoot darts up to 60 yards. These darts are usually coated with a poison that renders a victim unconscious. Very few drow carry adamantite maces, and about the same number carry small javelins coated witht he same poison as the darts. These javelins have a range of 90 yards.

Drow are silent by nature. The silence helps in various situations in the Underdark, where being heard is not a good thing, and also for those assassination attempts that do happen on a daily basis. They have infravision of 120 feet. They can detect secret doors as well as any other elf, and they have the same intuitive sense about their underground world as a dwarf. They are rarely surprised. All drow are trained in magic, faerie fire, dancing lights, and darkness are just a few of the spells they can use. Drow priests have more powerful spells such as, detect lie, clairvoyance, suggestion, and dispel magic. Drow are approximately 50% resistant to magic. A drow's greatest weakness is bright light. They are not bothered by a torch, lantern, the lighting given off from magical weapons, and faerie fire.

Since drow are a truly matriarchal society, female children of the drow are given a little choice in the directions their lives will lead. They are destined from birth into the service of Lloth (or Lolth) and are sent learn how to communicate her will. If the child is not seen fit to serve the Lloth, the Spider Queen, then she is given some, although not much, choice in what she is to become. These women unually rare in that most anybody can do the treacherous work of the Spider Queen.

Among Lolth-worshipping drow nobles, females can choose and discard mates freely (sometimes merely leaving them, but usually slaying them). Among drow commoners and drow of other faiths, marriage is still a transient thing. Marriages usually last from summer to summer, or for a decade, always with possibility for renewal.

Child-rearing is the responsibility of the whole family (House, or clan), not merely of the direct parents. A long-lived female drow, choosing to have children only after an active career, normally gives birth to ten children before her fertility wanes.

Male drow are born into a life that may very well be ended at birth because every thrid boy-child is given as sacrifice for Lloth. If they 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 his choosing. The choosing is left up to the ruling matron mother of the house in which they belong.

Males are effective fighters, and can become priests and wizards of minor power. Outside drow communities, they are rarely encountered without female commanders. Male-commanded drow groups are generally either streeakh, “suicide squads”, or are dobluth (outcasts) who have rejected the traditional authority-structure of the drow.

There are two classes in drow society: the Noble Houses, and the Merchants. The Houses hold the real power in the Underdark, plotting and scheming against each other, while the Merchants deal with the surface dwellers. Drow from both classes, however, are cunning and will not hesitate to break oaths or alliances should another path arise that would give them more "station."

Noble Houses are led by a matron mother, the senior female priestess. In Lolth-worshipping drow communities, her rule is absolute, enforced by the priestesses beneath her (usually her daughters). All females of the mother’s blood, in order of their age, follow in rank, although they wield no authority until they are trained and of age (past puberty).

Below the daughters come the male officers of the House; the weapons master (leader of the fighters), (chief) House wizard, and the patron (current consort of the matron mother). These ranks may be combined, and even held by the traditional next rank down in the hierarchy: the male heirs of the House.

Male heirs are also ranked by age: elderboy, secondboy, thirdboy, and so on. They are not allowed to look at the faces of other drow, or speak unless spoken to or bidden. This treatment teaches them their subordinate place in drow society.

Below them are the “war-leaders” of the House (veteran warriors, who lead House patrols, attack squads, and guards, under the command of the weapons master), and the House mages (under the command of the House wizard).

Beneath these “blood” members and officials of the House rank its common warriors, its craftspeople, its servants, and its slaves. All ranks are decreed, and can be changed at the whim of, the matron mother. Her position changes at death - often at the hands of her eldest daughter.

Merchant clans vary in organization. They are usually headed by an “inner ring” or council of the most experienced and/or wealthy merchant members, and hence are usually led by males (the “demeaning” and dangerous occupation of trading with outsiders is an almost exclusively male one).

The membership of an inner ring of a given merchant clan consists primarily of male wizards who have either passed or evaded The Test. Removed as they are from drow society at large, the merchant clans have no compunction about dealing with the surface world. In fact, a great number of the “second ring”, or managers, are non-drow of various races.

The lowest rank in the merchant clan, the “assets”, are nearly all non-drow. These are the laborers and soldiery of the merchant house. Together, the merchant clans form the trade links with the outside world that enable the Noble Houses to survive.

In a Lolth-worshipping drow community, it is a deadly thing to slay a matron mother who holds Lolth’s favor, so mothers may reign for hundreds of years, kept alive by the magic of Lolth and the diligent service they perform to get and keep it. The assassination of a matron mother is often a punishment for losing Lolth’s good will, and marks either a new direction for the House, or - if it is weak, and has strong rivals - the beginning of its extinction.

If one House in the city openly wars on another, and fails to eradicate it entirely in a single attack, the survivors of the ruined House can call down the city’s justice on the attacking House. When this occurs, all Houses combine forces to wipe out the offending House. Houses who send assassins and saboteurs against each other for years will be forced into an open battle by the city’s ruling council, with the same results as above.

This type of no-win scenario allows the internal strife of drow to be strictly controlled, so that drow communities are not torn apart by continual, bloody warfare. Most internal combat therefore takes the form of eternal maneuvering for small advantages. Underhanded intrigue, poisoned knives in dark alleys, vicious trade rivalries, and dirty dealings are all a part of normal drow life.

These are magnificently dark and gloomy. Few humans or demihumans ever see these cities. Their buildings are built entirely out of stone and minerals, carved into weird, fantastic shapes. The drow believe that the strongest should rule, their rigid class system, with a long and complicated list of titles and prerogatives, is based on the ideas.

She is their goddess. The "Spider Queen" is a dark goddess and her priestesses hold very high positions in society. Because of their matriarchal society, drow females tend to hold the highest positions.

Slaves: Drow use giant lizards as pack animals and frequently take bugbears and/or troglodytes as servants. Drow cities are havens for evil beings, including mind flayers and drow are allied with many of the Underdark's evil beings. However, they are also constantly at war with the svifneblin(dark gnomes) and the dwarves, who settle too closely to drow cities. Slaves are frequently kept, of all types, including past allies who have failed to live up to the expectations of the drow.

The drow produce unusual weapons and clothing with quasi-magical properties. Direct sunlight utterly destroys drow cloth, boots, weapons and armor. When any item produced by them is exposed to the light of the sun, irreversible decay begins. Soon the items lose their magical properties and rot, becoming totally worthles. Drow artifacts, protected from the sun, retain their special properties for a few days before becoming normal items. If a drow item is protected from direct sunlight and exposed to the radiations of the Underdark for one week out of every four, it will retain it's properties indefinitely. Drow sleep poison is highly prized by those on the surface. If exposed to sunlight, it loses it's potency instantly, and once exposed to air it is only good for 60 days. The poison remains potent for a year if kept in an unopened packet.

Driders have the head and torso of a drow, and the legs and lower body of a giant spider. Driders are created by Lloth. This is done as a punishment for failure. Driders are able to cast all spells a normal drow can use. They also retain any magical or clerical skills they had before transformation. These creatures often use swords or axes, though many carry bows. Their bite is one of poison, which causes paralysis for a short time. Driders are failures, thus outcasts. They tend to be alone or with giant spiders. They are violent, aggresive beings which favor blood over everything else. They stalk their victims, waiting for the right chance to strike.

**Note: Most of the drow information on this page has been collected from various other websites (which you should be able to find in the "Links" sections of this site). The information here is not much, but if you have any questions, comments, etc, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. I will try to help the best I can.


	Drow Haven Home back to Web Site Title Rules of the Channel \| Houses of K'hal \| K'hal Employees \| The Bad Guys \| The Kingdom of Alexandria \| Setting and Character Information \| Brief Overview of Drowen Culture \| Links to the Drow \| Approved and Banned Nicks \| The Fallen Brief Overview of Drowen Culture The Drow Appearance Drow have black skin. Their hair is usually white, silver, or very pale. They are, of course, slender, as they are elven in descent. Drow are tiny creatures, around 5 feet in height. Males weigh between 130 and 170 pounds, while females come in between 110 and 150. They have finely chiseled features, and their fingers and toes are long and delicate. Drow Lifespans Drow rarely live past their seventh century, and 94% of them die of natural causes before age 800. Rare individuals (usually those who are subjected to the least hardship, such as the matron mothers of powerful Houses) may live more than a thousand years, becoming withered and worn. Drow do not show their age until after their six hundredth year. Clothing Drow usually wear black, functional, and most of the time magical clothing. Drow cloaks are not easy to cut and are fire resistant, due to the material they are made out of. Any attempt to alter a drow cloak, for whatever purpose (ex: so it fits a human being) has a 75% chance of unravelling the material, which in effect makes it quite useless. Language The drow have learned the languages of many of the intelligent species of creatures in the Underdark. Besides their own tongue, drow speak both common, and the trade language used by many of the races of the Underdark. They speak gnome and other elvish languages quite fluently. They also have their own silent language composed of hand movements and body language. These signs give out information but have no subtle meaning or emotional content. Within a certain range of another drow (30 feet), they can also use complex facial expression, body movements and postures to convey their meaning. Using this with their hand signs, they give the drow's silent language a potential for expression equal to most spoken languages. Armor and Weapons Drow armor is non-encumbering, finely crafted, black mesh. This mail is made witha special alloy of steel containing adamantite. Drow also carry small shields, called bucklers, fashioned of adamantite. Most carry a long dagger and a short sword of adamantite alloy. Some also carry tiny crossbows that can be held in one hand and will shoot darts up to 60 yards. These darts are usually coated with a poison that renders a victim unconscious. Very few drow carry adamantite maces, and about the same number carry small javelins coated witht he same poison as the darts. These javelins have a range of 90 yards. Miscellaneous Drow are silent by nature. The silence helps in various situations in the Underdark, where being heard is not a good thing, and also for those assassination attempts that do happen on a daily basis. They have infravision of 120 feet. They can detect secret doors as well as any other elf, and they have the same intuitive sense about their underground world as a dwarf. They are rarely surprised. All drow are trained in magic, faerie fire, dancing lights, and darkness are just a few of the spells they can use. Drow priests have more powerful spells such as, detect lie, clairvoyance, suggestion, and dispel magic. Drow are approximately 50% resistant to magic. A drow's greatest weakness is bright light. They are not bothered by a torch, lantern, the lighting given off from magical weapons, and faerie fire. Drow Females Since drow are a truly matriarchal society, female children of the drow are given a little choice in the directions their lives will lead. They are destined from birth into the service of Lloth (or Lolth) and are sent learn how to communicate her will. If the child is not seen fit to serve the Lloth, the Spider Queen, then she is given some, although not much, choice in what she is to become. These women unually rare in that most anybody can do the treacherous work of the Spider Queen. Among Lolth-worshipping drow nobles, females can choose and discard mates freely (sometimes merely leaving them, but usually slaying them). Among drow commoners and drow of other faiths, marriage is still a transient thing. Marriages usually last from summer to summer, or for a decade, always with possibility for renewal. Child-rearing is the responsibility of the whole family (House, or clan), not merely of the direct parents. A long-lived female drow, choosing to have children only after an active career, normally gives birth to ten children before her fertility wanes. Drow Males Male drow are born into a life that may very well be ended at birth because every thrid boy-child is given as sacrifice for Lloth. If they 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 his choosing. The choosing is left up to the ruling matron mother of the house in which they belong. Males are effective fighters, and can become priests and wizards of minor power. Outside drow communities, they are rarely encountered without female commanders. Male-commanded drow groups are generally either streeakh, “suicide squads”, or are dobluth (outcasts) who have rejected the traditional authority-structure of the drow. The Noble Houses There are two classes in drow society: the Noble Houses, and the Merchants. The Houses hold the real power in the Underdark, plotting and scheming against each other, while the Merchants deal with the surface dwellers. Drow from both classes, however, are cunning and will not hesitate to break oaths or alliances should another path arise that would give them more "station." Noble Houses are led by a matron mother, the senior female priestess. In Lolth-worshipping drow communities, her rule is absolute, enforced by the priestesses beneath her (usually her daughters). All females of the mother’s blood, in order of their age, follow in rank, although they wield no authority until they are trained and of age (past puberty). Below the daughters come the male officers of the House; the weapons master (leader of the fighters), (chief) House wizard, and the patron (current consort of the matron mother). These ranks may be combined, and even held by the traditional next rank down in the hierarchy: the male heirs of the House. Male heirs are also ranked by age: elderboy, secondboy, thirdboy, and so on. They are not allowed to look at the faces of other drow, or speak unless spoken to or bidden. This treatment teaches them their subordinate place in drow society. Below them are the “war-leaders” of the House (veteran warriors, who lead House patrols, attack squads, and guards, under the command of the weapons master), and the House mages (under the command of the House wizard). Beneath these “blood” members and officials of the House rank its common warriors, its craftspeople, its servants, and its slaves. All ranks are decreed, and can be changed at the whim of, the matron mother. Her position changes at death - often at the hands of her eldest daughter. The Merchants Merchant clans vary in organization. They are usually headed by an “inner ring” or council of the most experienced and/or wealthy merchant members, and hence are usually led by males (the “demeaning” and dangerous occupation of trading with outsiders is an almost exclusively male one). The membership of an inner ring of a given merchant clan consists primarily of male wizards who have either passed or evaded The Test. Removed as they are from drow society at large, the merchant clans have no compunction about dealing with the surface world. In fact, a great number of the “second ring”, or managers, are non-drow of various races. The lowest rank in the merchant clan, the “assets”, are nearly all non-drow. These are the laborers and soldiery of the merchant house. Together, the merchant clans form the trade links with the outside world that enable the Noble Houses to survive. War and Assassination In a Lolth-worshipping drow community, it is a deadly thing to slay a matron mother who holds Lolth’s favor, so mothers may reign for hundreds of years, kept alive by the magic of Lolth and the diligent service they perform to get and keep it. The assassination of a matron mother is often a punishment for losing Lolth’s good will, and marks either a new direction for the House, or - if it is weak, and has strong rivals - the beginning of its extinction. If one House in the city openly wars on another, and fails to eradicate it entirely in a single attack, the survivors of the ruined House can call down the city’s justice on the attacking House. When this occurs, all Houses combine forces to wipe out the offending House. Houses who send assassins and saboteurs against each other for years will be forced into an open battle by the city’s ruling council, with the same results as above. This type of no-win scenario allows the internal strife of drow to be strictly controlled, so that drow communities are not torn apart by continual, bloody warfare. Most internal combat therefore takes the form of eternal maneuvering for small advantages. Underhanded intrigue, poisoned knives in dark alleys, vicious trade rivalries, and dirty dealings are all a part of normal drow life. Drow Cities These are magnificently dark and gloomy. Few humans or demihumans ever see these cities. Their buildings are built entirely out of stone and minerals, carved into weird, fantastic shapes. The drow believe that the strongest should rule, their rigid class system, with a long and complicated list of titles and prerogatives, is based on the ideas. Lloth (Lolth) She is their goddess. The "Spider Queen" is a dark goddess and her priestesses hold very high positions in society. Because of their matriarchal society, drow females tend to hold the highest positions. Fighters/Slaves Fighters: Drow who are to become fighters are put through a rigorous training program while young. If they fail to pass the required tests, they are killed. Slaves: Drow use giant lizards as pack animals and frequently take bugbears and/or troglodytes as servants. Drow cities are havens for evil beings, including mind flayers and drow are allied with many of the Underdark's evil beings. However, they are also constantly at war with the svifneblin(dark gnomes) and the dwarves, who settle too closely to drow cities. Slaves are frequently kept, of all types, including past allies who have failed to live up to the expectations of the drow. Ecology The drow produce unusual weapons and clothing with quasi-magical properties. Direct sunlight utterly destroys drow cloth, boots, weapons and armor. When any item produced by them is exposed to the light of the sun, irreversible decay begins. Soon the items lose their magical properties and rot, becoming totally worthles. Drow artifacts, protected from the sun, retain their special properties for a few days before becoming normal items. If a drow item is protected from direct sunlight and exposed to the radiations of the Underdark for one week out of every four, it will retain it's properties indefinitely. Drow sleep poison is highly prized by those on the surface. If exposed to sunlight, it loses it's potency instantly, and once exposed to air it is only good for 60 days. The poison remains potent for a year if kept in an unopened packet. Driders Driders have the head and torso of a drow, and the legs and lower body of a giant spider. Driders are created by Lloth. This is done as a punishment for failure. Driders are able to cast all spells a normal drow can use. They also retain any magical or clerical skills they had before transformation. These creatures often use swords or axes, though many carry bows. Their bite is one of poison, which causes paralysis for a short time. Driders are failures, thus outcasts. They tend to be alone or with giant spiders. They are violent, aggresive beings which favor blood over everything else. They stalk their victims, waiting for the right chance to strike. Note: Most of the drow information on this page has been collected from various other websites (which you should be able to find in the "Links" sections of this site). The information here is not much, but if you have any questions, comments, etc, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]**. I will try to help the best I can.