Dungeons and Dragons Lore : Drow Elves

hello thus Arthur katawa of the world of monsters Channel today AJ is going to take you on an in-depth journey into the past into the deep deep places into the world of the drow also known as the Dark Elves first we need to leave behind the world of sunshine and moonlight go down into the deeper under dark and beyond where no light above has ever reached beyond the realm of the dwarves to places where sunlight and rainbows are stuff of myth and legend were the ancient vaults of the Giants imprisoned titanic terrors of the dawn wars and vast chambers the size of islands and continents with their own lakes mountains valleys forests and seas stretch for mile after twisted mile this is the realm of the drone along a gutter back thousands of years and the dandy world the elves were one people they were created by the elven gods basically from well myth says they were created from the blood of Karelin larathen and they were the natural enemies of his enemy groups and the orcish people and at one point in ancient history the elves were all slaves first of the huge global conflict of the mind flayers in the Eveleth and later they were heavily involved and trodden under foot and the war between the Giants and the Dragons but after that time they rose to preeminence themselves and had a world-spanning empire but this fell to ruin in a massive conflict called the the crown wars or the throne wars where they warned amongst themselves for various reasons and it was during this time that they split and their elbows were basically divided between those who believed in justice and fairness and those who believed that they had a right to rule they were created by deities to have dominance over other species because they were created perfect this idea of the right to be mighty is a characteristic of the the Dark Elves or the night elves or the elves that were then Don is the illa theory and the illa theory were driven underground and this was mainly spurred on by one of the lesser gods of the drow sorry gods of the elves called love and love the the Spider Queen is that characteristically had the portfolio of intrigue and plots and treachery and she manipulated the the illa theory into your position where they were absolutely at odds with all other drove an elven society and they were driven out as Karelian Carolyn Laura then himself came down and joined the the elves of light and and sunlight and and moonlight and drove the dark house' theory into the deep places of world down into the pets of the earth where they would never rise again and there they stayed forevermore and gradually over the thousands of years they came to having their own pantheon very much dominates boil off and they came to not regard themselves as elves of the surface world in exile but elves who owned the underworld who were this was their domain and their mastery and they had no desire to return to the surface in fact their only desire was to take revenge upon the surface elves and destroy we all who had abandoned them or turned against them because it was their right and it is their right to be mighty now the old founding philosophy is that evil lingers that their the the way they have persevered over the many many years in an exile is to to be more evil than everything around them basically to be the most ruthless to be the most cunning and cruel and get ahead any way they can there it's an interesting facet of their language that sayings are kind of reversed a little bit so instead of saying only the strong survive they would say those who survive are strong so it adds a little bit of wiggle room there for the weakest but the most intelligent and conniving to be the winner by basically taking out those who are stronger than their so those who survive who are strong those who are most evil persevere and linger is that it's great it's great hits it's revenge that dooms and drives the heart further then the feelings of goodness or kindness or cooperation those are fleeting objectives that are only good for the group the individual thrives on revenge and cruelty and the quest to be the best to be dominant and this is a privileged feature of all dragons of drol Society so they had their own kin thean of course we know it's dominated by the Spider Queen the demon queen of the spider at the demon web pets and their versus love and loss is interesting because she uh she actually does jaunt her way into the prime aterial to take personal revenge on those who failed here so for the drow it's not a matter of faith they know that lot force watching and so it has made her very prevalent in their society so much so that it has shaped their entire society they have more female deities and their Pantheon than male two males and there's four females however love has done her best to derive the the other female deities out of the Pantheon but they are still present in the certain aspects of dress Society so there is originally is Islam that's those who became more originally was originally a consort of Carolyn but yeah she became love and there is a eyeless trade who is depicted as a naked happy friendly dark elf and she's the goddess of a natural instinct song music dancing hunting and it is a nod to that ancient worship of her that the growl would not commonly practice sword arts and the fine martial arts of sword work nude so that they would do this like ancient Olympians used to compete nude it made sense that the drought would do this also and it's just a nod towards that and it's an interesting facet you can put into their society there is Guan a Guan Adar is an interesting individual God it's a male and he's the elder elemental I he's that which looks and also the god of oozes and groupers and aberrations and evil crap he's a very interesting multifaceted God that deserves his own entry for sure but for the drow its he represents that which looks so being the Masters have done as being the Masters of domain which is inimical to life so they they are capable of working their way it would their way out from the bottom and and feeding on anything they need to to survive so they would call upon him when they're I'm at in an environment where it's very hostile to them and they need to do anything to survive a Veyron is a male God and he's an interesting God that comes more into play along the line of male liberation or and also thievery and and trickery on the part of particularly in male society of the drill then you have Zhen Zarina who is the goddess of chaos and assassins who is banished by love and you've got kiran sally who is the goddess of slavery undead and vengeance now so when the drill went down deep underground they had to travel beyond the realm of the dwarves and beyond the realm of beyond the reach of any of the surface people so you have what is known as the division called the upper underdark this is an area which is kind of like the middle ground so those who think that they're venturing very deep underground are really usually just in the upper under dark the lower under dark is where the dwarves sort of delve deeply and you're getting into the territory that the the drow call home and also the you're going down deep enough that you're going to start to see remnants of the ancient in pyres and also even deeper still you'll get into the really weird places of the world where you find the remnants of the Eveleth and the the illicit of the mind flayer empires and it's around that's on the ruins of these and in huge underground chasms that just have just boggles the mind and size that in the growl call home and it's it's not a matter of but you these are environments that are so huge that the vault of stone above you is like the sky it's huge it's it's so large that you can actually travel by airship between growl cities and in some places and the pillars of stalagmites and stalactites are so enormous that the highways spiral their way up around them to higher reaches in these caverns and things and to other chambers and there'll be ropes which strips for thousands of feet there are huge hundreds of feet thick and specialized ships and things will travel by crawling the way along them and there's oceans and channels and rivers and fungal forests and all sorts of fantastical terrain that is untrained off by the people on the surface they have no idea that this is there and for many of the inhabitants down here there will be many that which the surface world has never seen never heard of never interacted with there be Noth nothing on the monster listings so you can come up with small relatively benign races down there that that you don't need to explain this it's a truly exotic environment so there'll be little mushroom people they'll be flying dragon winged things snakes will be little fairy creatures sprites Spriggans that sort of thing there'll be all sorts of stuff down there that justify imagination and here things like the the flumps and the mike innards and the for me ins the ant people all sorts of stuff and the drow are dominant over all of this they have unlike most other intelligent races they have a understanding with them and the mind flayers that there there's a live and let live sort of attitude there that the mind flail is realize that in their current ever visible location at the lower state with a civilization that they're in right now that the drow if they put their mind to total warfare could possibly destroy them and they know that this isn't going to happen and they know that the way that they do this is to basically hand off the trail they don't feed upon the drill unless they absolutely have to and of course the drought they don't have much to benefit from wiping out the elephant they're much more useful to them as allies at best so the drow live in places of the world where natural energies are unusual if you could say that the far realm is scratching the at the surface of these deep places of the world where the crossing over unto the elemental plane of Earth is as sometimes as simple as turning a corner it's very strong and the geomagnetic energies of the world and it is through this that the the drill channel additional power and they are truly masters of this underworld and it is represented by the fact that the equipment that they carry is quite often magically attuned and magically charged to these energies they quite often use adamantine metals that they they find themselves or they steal from this nibblin or have their slave races take for them and they fashion fine very fine chainmail armor their swords are thin and regular and they they have filigrees style decorations of this dark metal which is laced all throughout their clothing and it's almost chonus and the so they don't have huge big thick swords and things like that they have fine dexterous agile weapons that are very deadly very sharp and you won't see them coming the first thing you'll know as it's passed through you there's a stinging pain you look down and your legs been cut off these weapons have magically empowered and attuned to the Underdark realm and when they are taken to the surface they no longer have this natural strength flowing through them they're out of tune with a surface world and they quickly degrade they'll still be very strong very handy weapons but they won't be magically sharp the raw materials of the drow use the leathers and things like that have never felt the touch of sunlight and they just don't have to have any immunity to it it's like plastic that you leave out in the Sun degrades very quickly so to drill equipment it shrivels in shreds in the sunlight like tissue paper the unusual materials that they have it's through every facet of their lives such as if you were to sit down to the meal in a drought home where the husband would would serve you up food there is very very unusual you have small spider egg caviar you'd have a pasty sort of vellum of the sheath of the inside of a giant mushroom you'd have strips of preserved spicy lizard steak you'd have a gland of a giant insect or other such thing which is fried up and then served up with some sort of other plant matter on the surface I mean it's it's basically a normal sort of meal the constituent proteins and the carbohydrates and things are all there but the sources of all these things are very unusual in its flavors would be very exotic and probably not very palatable and of course you'll inevitably be poisoned the growl of poison they are masters of the underground environment and the the wizardry classes of of drower society turn their attention to alchemy quite often and one of the strongest weapons they have in their arsenal is the poison that they spread upon their blades and use in arrows and things like that and the poison is used to paralyze and and knock out opponents so that they can easily take them back for torture and tara Gatien and slavery for them a living slave vessel or a mighty foe that there is that who's been taken into their society and driven into slavery is as delicious it's it's excellent for you to turn that strength to their advantage killing somebody is too easy it's much easier much more satisfying to turn their strength in to terminate rate and to that lingering evil which persevere is it's much better to have a slave who works tirelessly and the slim shred of hope of escape and possible vengeance on you but knowing that they don't have a chance so the drought society has driven is divided up into houses families bloodlines so the the appearance of the drought you can actually pick out if you know the society very well individuals from different houses they look slightly different so one will have quite bushy eyebrows one will have a slight tilt to the ears or very long ears others will be quite tall and frailes and will be slightly stockier but still quite than computer surface elves others will favor certain fashions some will be very strong and the priestess hood and others will be famous for their arcane arts some will be known to be highly politically motivated and a force to be reckoned with an assassination and manipulation of Crowl society the society is matriarchal as this is driven mainly through their worship of both but it's always been present and it's physically manifest and that the women of drower society are larger and stronger than the males it's it's the exact opposite of the surface world where males are have extra physical strength females have an extra physical strength from the trowel Society drow males are quite often warriors and very often wizards whereas the females pay less attention to the arcane arts because they know that the attention of the goddess is so much more accessible to them as females love favors her female subjects and grants them power far more from that she does males so males and drill society are are submissive to the females and this is fairly natural for them and it's it's not like they're it's an exact trust role reversal but it would be more typical for women to choose the mates that they would that they would possibly marry it's their choice and they have the place in society they have the landowners they are the ones who call the shots in society males although they may be in charge of a group of fighters who come to the surface to take we'll always answer to a female superior as just the way it is and although they are on the god of thievery and trickery and also male liberation is around it's it's not really prevalent it's a secretive sort of thing and male would be probably killed if it seemed to be openly worshiping they ruined Oh too much so the listing that we have for the drought and the monster manual gives us a typical drill baseline drought without any specialized training and things they have a short sword they have a hand crossbow and they have the PHA ends history of the drought from way back at the start of the game they've always been fairly strong as a humanoid because they have a natural resistance to magic this has watered down somewhat over the years so that they have advantage on all saving throws against being charmed and they cannot be put to sleep magically it possibly would strengthen the somewhat so that they have an extra bit of resistance or maybe even a saving will throw advantage on all sorts of crows mattock magic that is turned against them not just being charmed and will put to sleep but also persuasion and illusion that sort of thing because they just don't trust anybody they have the very Pacific very stealthy the +2 perception +4 stealth they are not physically very strong they have a high dexterity though so the average across the board they are generally more intelligent and they turn that to intelligence to strategy mostly strategy plots and and working out how to have an advantage in any situation they do not trust others like ever and they are the hedonists really when left to their own devices they devices they acquire things which is very fine pleasurable so narcotics slaves sex objects fine at the best food anything that I can still use lounging around on cushions having fed peeled spider eggs by their by their slaves is drow luxury and no one in their society would resent them for the fact because they've end it probably on a pile of bodies so the drow elite warrior is typically a male and they have a nun class of 1871 head points which was pretty high they've got a speed of 30 feet they have a dexterity way up in the eighteen range and again the Constitution and charisma wisdom and intelligence are fairly high and they're strong the strength of 13 they have a pretty good saving throws for dexterity Constitution and wisdom this Delta is plus 10 so these are ninjas basically ninjas sword masters who are very capable of making multi attacks with his short swords they +7 to here to hit little reach of ten feet and they have also along with a slicing piercing attack of the short sword they do extra poisoned image and this is not just the they don't actually mention anything about this this oh well the poison that they sleep they they put on their plate isn't Lee paralyzing knockout poison that's typically was it for the crossbows so here the hand crossbow which they find kind of famous for range their custom to hit 30 foot close range 120 feet in a stretch which is a little bit less than your average Old West handgun and they do separate points of damage on a hit and the target needs to make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw will be poisoned for one hour if the saving throw fails by five or more and this is very important the target is also unconscious well poisoned this way now note poisoned for an hour unconscious for an hour so they can easily kill you the tablet wakes up if it takes damage or if another creature takes an action to shake it awake so the drought can gently pick it up put a cloth over its face and keep it Clyde with an al-qaeda guess and keep it in a a slumber whilst slinging it over the back of a riding lizard and taking it back home easily so a hail of hand crossbows from a small squad of drow fighters can take down the mightiest foes particularly if they've also employed a magic which reduces the Constitution saving throw ability or they've run them to exhaustion so they're getting disadvantaged on saving throws they are brutally efficient at this and famous for it for a very good reason because of the primary tactic and it works and once they have you it's very hard to get out of their clutches so they have an eight spell casting from living underground so long and they channel this disability they can cast dancing lights darkness fairy fire and they can levitate themselves this is fairly common to most drow the precesses of course have additional spell casting abilities guidance poison spray resistance spend the dying thaumaturgy of course animal friendship for underground creatures cure wounds detect poisons and disease shooting array of sickness restoring the injured protection from poison casting web of course conjuring underground animals such as two giant spiders to the deck and call to spell in magic casting divination on looking pools or into translucent spider eggs freedom of movement to travel through all sorts of undergrowth and fungal forests and cooling clouds of fungal filaments insect plague spread across the land and mass curing of wounds of all of their followers all drail have sunlight sensitivity so that they have founded on all attack roles as well as was the perception checks while in bright sunlight they can wear thick lenses and things to predict themselves but they're going to burn to a crisp if they're exposed to sunlight for any length of time they're just not used to it they very very rarely would willingly go out in the sunlight to them it's like walking out into it's like walking across the Hawks and of a very bright and hot Sun Beach it just burns they don't like it so when they do do the raids on the surface world to take slaves if they need to they will only come up at nighttime and they will never venture out willingly during the day the drown mages of course typically have battle style magic at their disposal when if you're encountering them their arms teeth for for conflict so they'll have major major and minor illusions poison spray razor frost magic missile shield which bolt they can ultra self misty step and cast web to hamper and and have a tactical advantage on the battlefield they can shoot lots of lightning they can fly they can clue you within ins black tentacles they can use greater invisibility and of course cloud kill so yeah and they typically a tenth level spell caster with the DC 14 on their seven throws yeah and plus x-two hook with this ability so they're very capable they spend in life dedicated to the study of magic because for them males males and drowse society it's basically either be a warrior be the consort of a high rent priestess or be mhm that's that's really it other than that you're going to be a shopkeeper or street sweeper or whatever so it's in their best interest to ally with a strong female a strong matriarch a strong female line a strong family and strive to be the best that they can be and kill anybody in their way growl society is built upon assassination and free cunning double-crosses they involve themselves like the most vicious soap opera you've ever seen and their cities are kind of like gated walled communities where each houses controls estates and they have various business interests and things like that but they keep themselves to themselves they keep everything pretty quiet and all of the families and houses operate like Mafia families it's like imagine a society which is built upon female lead mafias and not only that but each one of these heads of the matriarchy are answerable to a god that is palpably evil and is very much present in their lives so it is extremely treacherous and oppressive but within that society is that strength of the individual and that that's that constant striving to survive through treachery and treek and cleverness is what has ensured that the drill have a very dominant role in the underdog because they just are not to be messed with and as a playable race of course this comes across as being a very strong personal code of vengeance being always aware of the potential of anyone around you to assassinate you or stab you in the back for any sort of selfish personal reasons so if there's money involved if there's any sort of personal advantage if there's the the chance of getting a head above everyone else a drow even a fairly good Alliant drought will always have it on their mind their first impulse will be why don't I stab everybody else in the back hell would this would this benefit me in the long run to have these people as my friends or do I really need them I mean these short lived races do we really need them so yeah drow Dark Elves the first playable race and also monster race that I've covered and in this series I hope you've enjoyed it thank you very much Arthur for the great introduction and I'm looking for to any of your comments down below so your most memorable drought character that you've ever played and by the way if you tell me all about Drizzt Do'Urden I've heard it all before really I have I think we all have is great character and I really do like all the books from Forgotten Realms that feature but he's unusual drought for sure not the norm thanks for listening everybody and I'll catch you next time

Channel: AJ Pickett

Views: 175,668

Keywords: Drow, drow lore, dungeons and dragons drow, drow elves, drow history, drow culture, drow society, dnd drow, Monsterology, The Mighty Gluestick, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, D&D 5E, Dungeon Mastery, Tabletop, D20, Dark Elf, Crown Wars, forgotten realms lore, Evil, AJ Pickett, RPG's, TMG, role playing, dark elves, dungeon & dragons, Lolth, monster ecology, far realm, player race, 5th edition, mind flayer, dnd lore, Ecology, Forgotten Realms, drizzt, Role Playing Game

Id: soOX8pB8KB8

Length: 31min 43sec (1903 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2016