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Cody, I was wondering if you had some advice about this character concept I had? I'm still new to the game and I'd appreciate someone more experienced giving me their input.
Actually, not being able to get away with it is the crime. Not being caught is just one of the ways to achieve that. Another is being strong enough to withstand an assault of the major houses. It might even serve as a means to dominate others: "Look here at me openly breaking a rule that you all have to obey! And now all of you will approve of it and declare it as legit, even though it's blatantly obvious that it isn't."
@@Venefica82 reminds me of the line in Legend of Drizzt: Homeland lmao "He died of natural causes, as the heart being stopped by a dagger is quite natural."
My drow character was part of a hunting group that failed their mission. She survived and doesn’t want to return to the underdark because she will be killed. But she also wants to find a magical healing artifact that can bring her group back and finish the job. She is almost always hooded and uses illusions and trickery to lead others to think she’s just a normal elf. She convinced her party that she’s good by pretending that she has a relationship with the other elf in the party. She’s basically using someone’s affection for her to her advantage. Over time she started to get attached to the party and by the end of the campaign she realized her love for the wood elf and they got married after the campaign was over.
Heh. Did a game once where the Drow engineered sinkholes under major elven settlements. They brought the fight straight down into their home turf. The players were taken so aback that they took a half an hour for their own council of war. Maybe you had to be there, but it was cool. Great vid, man! Good times!
@@godzillagamer6942 That's a terrible idea. The Tarrasque is less of an enemy and more of a force of nature. It's like trying to stop a meteor, just with teeth and spell resistance. Use that guy sparingly. Now, TARRASQUE SPAWN are the new hotness: baby Tarrasques that aren't as powerful, but have to be killed quick before they mature into unkillable behemoths.
Hey I'm doing something similar right now and I would really like to know more details about the sinkholes and how they were formed, do you mind sharing? :)
In the old 1st edition AD&D, Drow were introduced in a campaign module called "Against the Giants." The party had to go up against three separate tribes of giants who suddenly became far too organized, equipped, and aggressive. Eventually, they find out that these giants were puppets of Drow. So in terms of challenge it went from giants, to giants with class levels, to Drow. Yes, Drow are deadlier than elite Fire Giants with class levels. Mind you, every Drow had many class levels. That said, I prefer the image of Drow as high level enemy PCs who are puppet masters first and foremost. You don't see the Drow... you almost _never_ see the Drow... no, you see those manipulated by the Drow. Raiders, armies, bandits, monsters. Maybe if you look behind the curtain, you might meet the puppet masters... and good luck to you. My GM ran Drow as elite tactical geniuses. They made heavy use of levitate, darkness + faerie fire, and knockout poison. Mages were armed with wands of some evocation (mm, fb, lb) so they can spam between their personal spells. Mostly they used disposable slaves to handle melee (Orcs, Ogres, etc.) and hid, waiting for opportunities to surprise-kill with overwhelming force and fall back. They were shrewd, cruel, deadly and cowardly. Extremely frustrating to fight and they often got away, only to return weeks later, but smarter and better armed.
I changed the black spider in Lost Mines of Phandelver into a Drider warlock of Orcus who wanted revenge on Lolth for turning him into a drider, so he constructed a huge cult of orcus, getting basically any bandit camp, orc hoard or goblin hideout under his command through promises of gold and glory, and was going to use the forge of spells to create a magical item that could summon an undead army that would wipeout any one that wasn't under his command. Needless to say he was much more intimidating then the 4th level wizard with 27 hp in the book
Alex Emms Our DM made him a man who lost his lover in the hands of the racist above-world townsfolk, and he's trying to get revenge on Phandalin because of that now. We never had a face-to-face encounter with Nezz'nar(except one time he disguised himself to approach us at the start of the campaign and we didn't know it was him)so all we know about him, we learnt it in bits and pieces aka from Reidoth the Druid, an NPC the DM created when we went to Neverwinter, called Lucid Mirror whom had a mirror that showed the people what they wanted, and last session from the talking portrait of Nezz'nar's dead lover whom apparentaly was created by Nezz'nar putting the painting a bit of his soul(??). I get the sense that the DM has been trying to make Nezz'nar a mirror image of my PC who lost her family in the hands of the Redbrands, which were under the command of Glassstaff whom served Black Spider, and trying to get revenge on him. He'll probably be leading this into a moral conflict. I love what our DM has done with him because Vanilla Black Spider is such a boring and one-layered villain. PS: We're 6th level now and just cleared out Cragmaw Castle.
I will probably go somewhere along that way for my next run of LMoP, as my first run (first ever DM experience) highlighted some issues there. I got how the Black Spider was just supposed to be a "brain" for a criminal organization, but having him be a drow just fell short of expectations. Either I'm making the black spider human and flesh out his "criminal overlord" status (i.e. he's still a scrawny wizard, but he acts more during the adventure and has failsafes in place to not die like a bitch) or I'm fleshing out his Drow status like you did.
@@Galf506 I know I'm 2 years too late, but for those of you digging down in search of Nezznar stuff... try making him a Drow Mage and see how difficult things can get!
Additionally the Drow Goddess, Elistraee is a great option to make Drow Freedom Fighters. Elistraee is the goddess daughter of Lloth. Look her up. She's awesome.
We both mentioned Elistraee but some edition removed her, but she seems to be active again. But I think her followers can be much more than freedom fighters. :) When you "manage" to prevent an organized political marriage because the young lord decides to marry a priestess of Eilistraee instead that seems to be the start of a dangerous campaign.
I completely agree regarding your point to making just more than Freedom Fighters. In Salvatore's latest novel, Timeless, there are quite a few points and characters pointing to an affiliation to Elistraee. I'm hoping it eventuates in the next book. Will have to wait and see.
I've loved the drow lore ever since I read Salvatore's The Dark Elf trilogy in middle school. Drizz't is easily one of my top 5 favorite fantasy characters.
Drizz't and Jarlaxle are top tier fantasy characters. And the likes of Malice are so entertaining as badguys. And Salvatore even gave us nuance with Drizzt's sister Vierna being not unlike her younger brother, but the culture she was born into robbed her of any real opportunity at redemption; a tragic villain that one can sympathize with.
I love your take on how drow are played, i seldom see anyone ever capture their cruelty or efficiency. Please do more KYPW, i was worried you weren't making any more.
The group I DM'd made it to the base of a world tree after a vision granted the barbarian the sight of his tribes murderers being here. Looking up into the tree one couldn't see through the dense limbs, but even with no light shining through you could still see the strange giant fruit was hanging from the lower limbs of the tree and on the other side of the base was a camp of goliaths. Upon seeing the Shaman leader in the distance that killed the players wife and child he proceeded to rage and bolt into battle without thought or plan, to which the party decided to follow and give back up. A few rounds into battle things were going well for the group. The goliaths were disorganized and not expecting to be found as Loria'drasil the world tree for this continent was hidden in a valley behind a tall mountain range. Things change however when a poisoned bolts rained down from above. The goliaths were conspiring with a group of drow. It wasn't that the branches were to thick going up this ungodly massive tree, the drow there hiding further up in globes of darkness. the battle now even and the players growing weary quickly gave way to despair as one more trick was up the sleeve of their enemies. The fruit burst. and falling with a thud was a large, spiderlike being with a goliaths upper body. The drow priestess had been using the slain tribes to create a goliath styled drider and this would be the first test. To kill the once "Chief to be" and his party. Things only got worse emotionally as Auken the Barbarian was forced to put back to rest the mutated body of his wife, child, and father. The group survived the battle, but only just. With enemies slain, Auken still beating a lifeless shamans body to a pulp, the rest of the group noticed a dark beauty watching with a smile from above. A dark elf woman in a sheer gown of spider silk. She slips off of the lowest branch (Still a good 40 feet up from the ground mind you) but vanishes as she falls, only to fade back into existence a few inches from the ground. The avatar of Lloth greets and congratulates the party for cleaning up the mess of a fallen priestess. Explaining the priestess decided to try and dethrone the goddess, much to Lloths amusement, she used the goliaths and the shamans greed to collect bodies for her experiments and to attempt to steal the life energies and empower herself. When that didn't work quite how she wanted she discovered the world tree and it's potential for limitless power, if only the poor lady had the time to try and put it to use. However the party has caught her attention, doubly so with the fact that chaos seems to follow them wherever they go. And to that end she offers a gift. The road ahead being long and deadly there is still much entertainment to be had, so to provide her with some giggles, she offers information on a blade that can harm their enemy and protect them for the shadows to come. Auken however is neither amused nor listening. Seeing a dark elf still alive he rushes to attack still covered in the red pudding that was once a goliath shaman. As he scores a hit that would cleave the elven goddess from shoulder to hip, she instead bursts into small spiders with every inch of the blade passing through. Reforming behind the barbarian she places a hand on his shoulder and he freezes in place, numb but very much conscious. Lloth floats up to his face, "I like you little creature. You're ability to act and never think, changing what's around you for better or for worse and all tied to your glorious rage. I special gift for you I have." And with a kiss on his left check a black spider web tattoo grows, decorating and marking Auken with a blessing from Lloth and no idea what that means. Fast for a year IRL, no sign or mention of drow or Lloth the time finally comes. I had been asked a few times over the year what the blessing would do. As the group was forced into the Tomb of Horrors and die there. The moment their souls enter the mists of the afterlife the barbarians face burns and they all awake in a forest somewhere, 3 months after their deaths. The blessing reconstituted their bodies and the webs of her blessing reeled their souls back to the material plane. But the tattoo was gone. Realizing this was a once in a lifetime second chance they began to try and find out where they were.... but only then did they notice that that bard wasn't talking, in fact he was missing. Frantically they started to search.... until they heard a light chuckle coming from behind them. They turned to see the Spider Queen reclined lazily on a stump oddly shaped like a large chair, watching them with that same amused expression she had the last time they met. This started as a birthday gift so one of my players to include his backstory and I only had about 12 hours to figure out how i could do something that would leave that mark a story can leave on a person. I was just glad he unexpectedly attacked a goddess RP'ing his characters rage and it gave me a chance to add more creepy suspense later on hahaha
I love your kill your party videos they give me such great ideas. Also looking forward to Legendary Dragons that you talked about in your last video I have already pledged and I'm ready to get this book.
Drow suck to play against. Your party is constantly shot with poisoned bolts and their spellcasters have insane abilities. Compounded with the fact that they all can cast darkness, and it makes combat with them really sucky. But that doesn't stop Cody from terrorizing his patreon campaign... Big oof.
I've found by accident that a cleric that has the Daylight spell on standby is a great equalizer against the drow. Since drown take disadvantage on attacks in daylight/sunlight it depends if you count the light made by daylight spell as sunlight
Since the 6th level Sunbeam spell exists and explicitly refers to the light radiating from your hand as sunlight, no I would not consider Daylight (which doesn't say that) to be sunlight. Giving a [much] lower level spell the same property as a higher level spell typically isn't a great idea (there's also 8th level Sunburst, but that's an instantaneous effect). You'll just have to make due with negating the Darkness spell and leveling the playing field back down.
Spoilers Storm King’s Thunder featured drow as an accomplice to one of the giant lords, I found that vaguely underwhelming as I didn’t think they would lower themselves to taking orders from a fumbling fire giant. I took the opportunity to elaborate on their Gauntlgrym heist as the early phase of a larger incursion, I hope to make this subplot into a continuation of the campaign at level 10+.
I wanna say here just how much I enjoy your channel because of the energy you show. Lots and lots and lots xD. I *really* enjoy your videos and you get me so pumped to DM. Your positive energy is contagious and I love listening to the passion you have for what you do. Thank you!
I still remember how I felt years ago, when at the end of G3 Against the Giants, we stumbled upon a small group of evil, black-skinned elves. It was surreal. It was enigmatic. And it was absolutely incredible.
I like your videos. I basically had the players sold into Drow slavery by the goblins that defeated them. After they broke out of the prison, they escaped to the surface, but this was seen as an opportunity for a lower house to raise in ranking. They eradicated the house bar one. One Drow noble escaped, going to the surface tracking the party. Now an Oathbreaker Paladin/Shadow Sorcerer, she relentlessly tracks the party.
Thank you so much for this. My party have spent the first arc of my campaign fighting a Drow army, attacking a Dwarf city. The next few sessions will be my final battles with them, and now I know how to use them and flesh them out, before the final battle!
Hi Cody, I love this and your other content and I know you've done it elsewhere, but I'm disappointed that you haven't made an acknowledgement to R.A.Salvatore who was the mind behind Menzoberranzan and the ideas behind what has shaped the understanding of what makes up the Drow in the FG. A point in the direction of his books would also be essential in any guide to the Drow in my opinion.
i never thought much Drows except from....'oh poor misunderstood elfs of the deep' but after this explanation i came to realise how much of a bunch of assholes they are like...as a whole, quite the perfect punching bag really...the kind you can make nice challenging fights and not having any regrets from murdering the crap out of :3 My group and i, we have a LOT of fun with the mechanics of combat, it is exciting and exilirating to make action scenes coming through, do cool stuff and let the dices roll, but we also try to keep a moral upstanding group that is NOT filled with murder hobos, and more of people 'who try to do the right thing', every fight averted is both a win and a defeat because we feel accomplished for managing to resolve situations without wanton violence and having rp rich segments feels really good and fullfilling, but we also can't deny how much fun the combat aspect of the game is and sometimes we just want to punch a jerk in the face so losing the opportunity to do so is a bit of a pity...seems like the whole society of these douchebags is the perfect target! they're powerful and they're very much scumbags with very little redeeming qualities making the perfect fodder to kill the shit out of and have no second thoughts later, specially because they fight dirty and there are no depths they won't sink to *ba dum tsh!*
Drow in my homebrew world divided into two groups basically. The ones who live in the underdark and then the refugees who escaped centuries ago and inhabit a large desert continent and have built a relatively stable society, also interbreeding with some of the “wood” elves who assisted their escape.
Noble Drow campaign, inspired by the intrigue of GOT. Amazing campaign. I loved my Noble Drow rogue... the entire party feared me... yes, the party feared a rogue (the weakest class), because my skill at disguise, lying and stealth was unmatched. That goes very, very far in a political arena. No "detect magic" can thwart it, no "dispel magic" can defeat it... and in the high-magic society of Drow that's truly an edge. Having the skill to impersonate your rivals, bypassing magical countermeasures, is ... delicious. Shout out to my GM, who was brilliant in designing the backstory to prevent party infighting. By the time the game went on permanent hiatus, we had assassinated a senior priestess (who was a barrier to our priestess' ascension into the ranks), infiltrated a trading company, established relations within the old capital, Ust Natha, usurped control of Ust Natha through deception and murder, crushed an uprising of the Ust Natha local houses, and declared independence from our old Menzo houses. There was plenty of combat, (assassinations, duels in the streets, trade caravan encounters, all-out war, etc.) but also a whole lot of diplomacy, political maneuvering, deception and betrayal. Very social-skill focused. The one question left unanswered was: Why was the stage set so well for our conquest of Ust Natha? Substantial groundwork was already done, taking years and careful planning, all from Matron Mother Baenre's manservant... supposedly without MMB's knowledge (which I doubt). Guess I'll never know.
When you described the ranked house system, it reminded me of my first DM ever. He told me that if the Drow weren't so busy backstabbing each other, they'd rule the world.
an Idea I have for the Drow is to have a house fail Lolith to such a degree that they flee Drow society all together and fall into the service of a Demon Lord (what one IDK) and the head of the house would essentially become something akin to a Daemon Prince [or in this case Princess? it doesn't sound quite as cool though :( ] then have that house go around slaughtering any Drow they find, then have the party put into a sort of "greater of two evils" moment while the situation is slightly morally grey, just enough so that the party is left unsure of which side to choose. Just I'm not a very good DM/GM having never DM/GM-ed a group before.
This is actually very interesting. It would be cool to maybe have your party captured by the Drow who follow Lolth only to have those Drow ask them for help defeating this new house.
@@Immopimmo I wouldn't put it past her to appear like that to make the person she was approaching drop their guard only to meet a grousm end all while she was laughing an innocent childlike laugh.
I greatly appreciate this. My players have just started "Second Darkness," which is very drow-centtic. I've been trying to find ways to beef up and RP the Drow more. Great advice. Again, thank you
I've avoided featuring Drow in my campaigns because there was always a Drizzt wannabe. But my two current parties are not only Drow-free but also incredibly RP-driven so I am aiming to have one of them face off against Drow eventually. I have had one group face off against driders and one priestess of Lolth. That took them by surprise as they had no clue what kind of creatures they were. But they all recognised the Drow from legend and they RPed mixed reactions of fear and hatred. It was great.
Marc Choronzey pfft, Drizzt? I’d rather play something more akin to Viconia. The bad girl trying to overcome her Drow upbringing to be accepted and fit in.
@@davfree9732 Emulating Liriel Baenre somewhat could also be a fun thing to do as well, a Wizard/Cleric who *wants* to serve a good deity and simply wants to be with the people she cares about, but Lolth refuses to "let them go", which could serve as a plot hook much later on where the party may travel to confront Lolth *in person* for the sake of forcing her to leave their friend alone for good....otherwise the party would try to kill Lolth. I always enjoyed Liriel's interactions with Fyodor, particularly with how Liriel was both innocent and naive while also being cunning and devious at the same time. Hell, Liriel herself never killed anyone who didn't try to harm or attack her or her friends first. She always acted mostly out of self-defense and the defense of the people she cared about. About the only story I'd like to see involving Drizzt would be for him to someday meet Liriel, and how he would react to her and the knowledge that he wasn't the only good-hearted Drow to turn his back on his people and try to be a good person.
Rylan Cromer Makes sense, but I'd particularly like to see his reaction to learning that not only was Liriel a Baenre, but she was the daughter of Gromph, and she was capable of wielding both Arcane and Divine magic. I think he'd even find her mischievous (albeit harmlessly so) personality amusing. This is one reason why I'm a bit disappointed that Drizzt doesn't have any unique dialogue concerning Neverwinter characters who are either Drow or a Menzoberranzan Renegade during the Rage of Demons campaign. Hell, I could even see Drizzt inviting Liriel to travel with him and the other Companions (though I expect she would decline unless given an incentive to do so).
I created an interesting magic item called "Obsul Stones" they're strange purple rocks with arcane marking on them. You throw the stone on the ground and it opens up a dimension door. The Drow raiding parties all had a pouch with three of them in. I liked the idea of giving them, and then eventually the players, the option to cast a neat spell with no spellcasting ability required.
I have a player as a drow warlock whose family was caught worshipping surface gods and escaped to a remote village in the mountains. She grew up on the surface, negating several of her special drow abilities, and ended up living around dwarves most of her life because of proximity. Her house has a massive bounty of money and glory on their heads, and drow raiding parties are always on the lookout for signs of the traitors. She's charismatic and tries to negotiate her way out of everything, so I'm excited to throw other drow at her and see her struggle. As a character, she's very unaware of just how much trouble her family is in...
Had a whole campaign around Sschyndylryn with my GF, we had nearly a dozen houses fully made on what used to be a crudely described Ziggurat city, we even made it more elongated with interesting views.
Another thing as well, even tweaking things up with the race as a whole can be pretty cool. In the campaign I'm in the drow are changed up a good bit to give a different feel than in the "by the book" version. Honestly it's the only reason I play as a drow character. Plus the disadvantage with light makes for funny bits
My recommendation for immersion into drow lore is the War of the Spider Queen series. Pharaun Mizzrym is one of my favorite wizards, and is a great example of creative wizardry. Dude figured out how to cast spells with his *feet*. HIS FEET.
I am so glad that you talking about making the Drow more intelligent rather than just stronger. They are devious and use every trick in the book. A common drow casting elemental spells? I'm not so sure, but I would have Drow aware of party balance, so even a small party might have a wizard, warlock of minor cleric in there, perhaps some rogue/fighter multiclasses so that they can sneak attack, uncanny dodge and evasion, especially if you have a rogue who uses that to their own advantage (a piece of their own medicine).
Plot problem for the drow gang: the rogue uses Theive's Cant and gets the party out of trouble. Then again, what if the rogue's criminal contact turns up poisoned with a note in his mouth reading: 'Nice try, iblith.'
My players interrupted a draegloth conception ritual resulting in the death of the current matron mother and the fall of her entire house. The Glabrezu involved is part of our tiefling rogue's backstory so they're going back into the Drow city to find the information demon's true name and alter their summoning circle into a planar teleportation circle. The new high matron mother of the first house hasn't yet reached her full potential so I nerfed the cr 20 boss creature to something more akin to cr 13-15
To clarify, infravision isn't actually heat sense. You don't see a creature that's hidden behind a rock. If the creature is within range and you could see it normally, it just lets you see the light given off by its thermal energy. One of the major complaints people have is that it shouldn't have a limited range, whether it's 60 feet (which is what dwarves had back in the day), or the drow's 120 ft. But, this is why the invisibility spell still works against drow, otherwise with the "heat vision", which infravision is not, you'd see a creature easily, cloaked or otherwise. There are a few posts on Reddit that discuss it. EDIT: Regarding what drow I've ran, I highly recommend AAW's Rise of the Drow adventure module. Very old school, and the drow are really mean and malicious. It's a must for 5e or Pathfinder 1e parties to experience.
My entire party is Drow, 3 of them made good Drow, one made a chaotic neutral tipping-to-evil Drow and the 5th guy had a tragic "Drow murdered my village i will kill them all" backstory, he got killed when attacking the Drow players, made a Drow character, they converted the chaotic neutral to chaotic good and now they're all Drowing and Drizzting every corner of Faerun. Tried killing them with Drow, didn't work, tried Kobolds, Goblins, Undead, Dragons, Necromancers, nope, nothing, in fact, the chaotic Drow managed to take control of almost half the undeads i threw at them.
Late to the party on this one. But since I am here... We are several months into our campaign and the party is level 7. They got a bit greedy while delving into a dungeon and found their way into the Underdark. They had their first loss in a battle against some drow but rather than kill them I decided to take them captive and work their newfound situation into the story. The party is looking for one of their fathers who has turned evil and raised a dark tower, this tower creates a dome of permanent night around it which spreads very slowly. This drow enclave, not a full city has been infiltrated by a vampire who has found the Underdark perfect, and the slave reserves the drow produce quite adequate for feeding. So now they have discovered this vampire wants the relic that the one player's father has, to move this new drow/vamp society to the surface. It is now a race to escape and find this wizard first! (This setting has a portion of the continent that was laid to waste and no civilized races rule, that is where this tower is. This drow/vamp problem could grow exponentially before anyone else finds out.)
I once used Drow in a campaign, where the players were on the run from them. The players belonged to a town that was destroyed by the Drow and they were captured as slaves. The players spent months in the Underdark, trying to find some way to get back to the surface. It was an interesting campaign all things considered, unfortunately it ended with a TPK because the players were too prideful to runaway the one time it really mattered.
*Sweats nervously as I'm new to d&d and made the back story of my level 1 half elf sorcerer (with 20 charisma by pure luck) involve him being hunted by a group of half drows and is an escaped slave so he also has drows hunting him as well
I haven't used Drow in awhile but the Loth aspect makes me think of a custom race wanting to use again. Spider Goblins. They look similar to normal goblins but have four spider legs coming off their back. They have a climb speed and racially know how to use nets which are generally spider silk. They also ride spiders and specialty ones have a venom bite. they have a vermin empathy for spiders only
house wars sound very akin to how the dimir operate on Ravenika. i ran drow in the campaign i ran a while back, but i didn't really touch on the house politics much, and lolth never was mentioned. the group was helped by a small pocket of neutral/good drow in the region(i added pockets of neutral and good drow that acted as a mirror for their larger evil counterparts, so drow, while still evil, were not necessarily safe to kill on sight, as it could reasonably be an ally.) i tended to run drow with male warriors, mixed gender assassins(ranged and melee), and female casters. the group found themselves nervous when sleeping outside town, because those assassins could be so extremely deadly to anyone that got caught offguard, and they knew it. they were jumping at shadows sometimes. they tended to find a one-entrance cave, and plant their drow member near the door while resting so they would have a better shot of detecting attackers before they landed a shot. the leader of the zone was a brutal fight for the party, bringing down multiple party members before dying. based on how you describe the drider here, i misused them - i thought the drider were considered to be evolved, not abominations. i thought that, aside from being a matriarch or priestess of lolth, that was a pinacle to be achieved, so i used them as shock troopers to get in close while other drow were helping them.
A Drow outcast runs the Alchemist's Shop in the Capitol city. She has a side business of luring adventurers to extremely dangerous dungeons and holds a betting pool on who will survive, or run away first.... She is a friendly and an ecentric edition to the game. Due to past mistakes, she has been told by her Matron that if she returns to the underdark, she will be captured and tuned into a Drider just before being teleported to the northern frozen wastelands... She was originally intended as a PC, but the DM loved Her so much, the DM begged me to give her over as an NPC to use to spice up the Capitol city.
Greetings, I took several ideas from menzoberranzan (FR) about drows. Importing, the basic matriarchy and the Loth as their spider goddess, actually many ideas are basic meta from forgotten. I did some twitches tho: 1. Matriarchs don't keep all their male sons within the house, most of them are thrown into 'The Pit' a place were males are used as slaves to mine very rare metals. There the males gather in Guilds, that are lead by a 'Blacksmith' a handyman that knows how to smelt and forge blades with special properties and other tools needed for survival. 2. Guilds are the lowest rank in the deep, still they are master of their art and pieces in the master chess game of the houses. 3. Males are forbidden to learn magic, when a sorcerer is born the Matriarch offers him to the Spider Queen. Therefore, the most powerful Guild Masters are Wizards working their arcane arts under the Matriarch radar. 4. Female are the only officers in military ranks, male drows are always privates or sergeants but not officers of any kind. Thus, all drow patrols are lead by a female and many males as cannon fodder.
I might talk about how my first tpk happend This is the story of a small kobold clan who was very, very unlucky They set their basement into a montain channel where leaved a dragon. The drake protected them and the kobold served him and everything was fine. Then the dwarven kingdoms start to expand, they find the dragon and killed it using siedge weapons. The kobolds panicked and run away, going into another mountain. They build their little new home and it was fine ( And full of traps because of kobolds ). But eventually, this mountain became the frontline of a war between the dwarves and the orcs. The kobolds had to run away and find another mountain ( Again ! ). But, as there were digging and mining, they eventually just find a passage to the underdark who was locked centuries ago. The drow started to rise up and enslave them. The party was a level 7 party of 5 adventurers who were hired by a local dwarven lord to investigate on carnage that happend into a mine. The party goes and find evidences it was because of kobolds who came into the mine and killed everyone inside. But they feel that was too easy and decide to investigate into the tunnel that lead the kobold into the mine. They find themself into the ancient kobold complex that openend the way to the underdark, which was turned into a drow fortress. They meet Skirkit, the clan leader, and start to work with him to take the fortress back. They freed the kobold slaves and even succed to make an ally out of a Drider who was use at meetshield during the drow's raids at the mines and dwarven cities. During a freaking epic final battle, they manage to make their way to the final boss room, but after some unlucky nat 1 and nat 20 on the boss ( Who was an homebrew slave master drow ), they aller falled down. The session end by à description of the battle between the kobold forces and the drow of the fortress and the drows forced to give up and run. Even if they died and had to roll up new characters, my players did loved the session and that made me really proud. Fun fact : Because I tpk them, I asked them what they would like to play to continue, and turned out they asked if it was possible to play as the remaining drow of that fortress.
In 3.5 there was a player that always played a drow cleric to a good drow goddess I can't remember the name of. She would have been better, but she notoriously rolled low. Ah... I miss that game.
"there is no more dangerous enemy than the Drow" My first ever character, a drow left at the doorstep of a church when he was born who grew up to have a warm heart of gold and became a Paladin to protect his loved ones: ...wait a sec- I just found that too funny, don't mind me xD He really dodged a bullet when he was taken from that sort of society ig, he really wouldn't have survived
In good old 2nd edition, before they decided to remove Eilistraee with some setting changes she was one of my favorite FR deity, so I used her followers in some campaigns. Of course she both drow and non-drow priestesses. In such campaigns the party knew this religion, they were allies. But still they knew: if they see a drow priestess that is very bad news. Mostly because the drow often dealt with bigger problems and it meant harder adventures for the characters. A friend of mine who is a fan of 5e wanted me to play more 5e game, so ran a looong campaign focused on Eilistraee and her followers as well. And half of the party has regular "near death experiences" because they tried to impress some priestess. Well in faith of Eilistraee marriages are temporary, but can be extended... And there is strong reason in lore for it. Some rituals involve dancing and singing naked, and if you check she is the "goddess of song, dance, swordwork, hunting, moonlight, goodness, and beauty" so most male characters decided, their most important duty is to impress some of these priestesses. And it never ends well.
Love the video, I am currently running my players through a campaign in which the drow have United under lolth and are planning on taking over the surface world and shrouding it in darkness. The players are starting to realize what is going on and that the drow are behind it but they have never (and won't for a while) run into a drow because the drow primarily use their armies of slaves. Drow may be super racist but they love them some slave armies. It's 12 sessions in now and it'll be another 12 before they probably run into the drow at all. Hope y'all are having a good one!
Personally I don't like the Drow of Forgotten Realms, so in my setting I instead use the culture and organization of the Dark Elves from Warhammer lore, I find them much more vicious and interesting from a roleplay perspective and it enables me to weave them better in the highly political setting I run.
That dracolich got my gears turning...After all, a dracolich is smart. And just because these puny humanoids are forcing it to obey them under threat of the destruction of its phylactery, doesn't mean it can't recognize the power of the party and try and talk them into sneaking into the drow stronghold and taking that phylactery back. And then, of course, the question becomes what the party will do with the phylactery. Do they destroy it, incurring the dracolich's wrath if they fail? Do they return it, unleashing a more terrible foe than the one they destroyed? Or do they try and control the dracolich with it, leading it to form basically the same plot? This is a cool idea and I need to use it at some point.
I like scaling the drow by age. The older the stronger. With the basic drow stat block I usually increase the hit points by 5 and that would be a 20-100 year-old drow. 100-200 I give levitate and increase the max hit points by 22. 200-400 I would give specific attributes and titles. A drow with maybe a feat and afew player levels. Maybe a fighter drow with plate. 400-500 and they are either a champion fighter, a cleric or a wizard. 600 or more and they will be similar to a specific player in the party with the only difference being having more hit points and higher stats.
How to successfully fend off an attempt of conquest and enslavement by The Drow. Step 1: Make sure that any really large incredibly handsome flying acid spitting creatures who love to feast on venomus creatures such as Giant Spiders are not welcome anywhere near your settlement because their jokes hurt your little feelings.
I run a game with a slight twist on drow at the moment: My players demanded a mafiosi story, and I found the idea of combining racism, mystery and politics to revolve around the drow very exiting. In a homebrew adventure, we explore Staroy, an Island with pine forests so thick that drow have surfaced. The "dark days" of drow are over, many embarassed by their racist past, and the west coast is full with cities with mixed races. Still there are many drow families fighting their wars and their planning their deceptions in secret, calling for the "golden days of the drow". My players are in the middle of tracking down an illegal slave trade circle - and making some powerful enemies...
I had an idea about a town that was friendly to drow and drider... well sorta you see the idea was that a drow noble is letting drow and drider up to the surface secretly that way the weaker drow and those that wouldn't usually survive would be indebted to him after he fakes there deaths. They are forced to make silk cloth and other textiles and sell them to a local city then pay him a cut of the money. They aren't exactly slaves, but he is willing to kill any that are out of line. So the city tolerates the drow and won't openly attack them both becouse of the amount of money they get by selling the spider silk cloth and becouse they are drow a fight with them would end badly.
DDO's got both the much more chill Eberron drow (who worship the scorpion god Vulkoor, live in tribes that vary from murderous to surprisingly chill, and also are much better in the sun) and, when you cross a rift between Eberron and the Realms, the Forgotten Realms drow, who you find throwing slave collars on villagers to force them to obey Slavers. One thing I was bummed about was that they never contrasted these two very much and missed some awesome plot hooks. Having a bunch of Scorrow (think "Drider, but scorpion, and also borderline-worshiped instead of hated) show up to help you fight a big battle against the Realms drow would've been awesome, and not unprecedented after The Red Fens. (Of course, I also wanted to bombard Lolth's smug face with an airship and destroy the entire demonweb while shouting "WELCOME TO EBERRON, FOOL!" So maybe my advice is not always good...) If your campaign does NOT have a giant rift between two campaign settings, one idea I had was having the players walk into a Drow city during a house war, presenting a perfect chance to sneak into Drow territory and absolutely _mess them up._ While everyone is out fighting and the place is in chaos, your party could tear down the local Temple of Lolth, or free the slaves inside the city, or find a few Matron Mothers and take them down, or lure a few native critters (and by critters I mean Purple Worms) in to add to the chaos. Finally, one more idea. Drunk drow. Drow society is crappy. Have a drow far from the city drunk off his rocker and loudly complaining about what "that **** ***** of a Matron mother ****** thinks it's so **** fun to do all the **** time" (possibly paraphrased). If nothing else, it'd be funny.
The prismatic dragon and Cronus and the Hekatoncheires and the Tarrasque: all more dangerous than Drow. Saying that Drow are the most dangerous monster is a bold claim. And really, as elves they are technically people not monsters. Otherwise I like this video
Acidic Web. It sticks to one's armor and will destroy light armor in 1 round, medium armor in 2 rounds, heavy armor in 3 rounds, magical light armor in 4 rounds, etc. It can be dispelled or burned off but in doing the latter the player will suffer burns. After the armor is destroyed it will stun the PC if they didn't quickly remove the armor or burn the web off. Shields will be destroyed after 3 rounds or 5 if magical. That is a nasty spell Drow of higher level should be using.
Uhm... to spice things up? Give some of your Drow three levels of Rogue. Let them set (poison) traps where needed. Let them use logic and tactics to dispatch allies of the players. And of course, set fire to their favourite shop or inn...
Yeah, Drow are no joke. Half of our party nearly got killed in a fight against 9 Drow. To make it worse, one of our party members is a Drow with amnesia...Who may or may not be the last of his household.
Out of curiosity, can you do an undead type of KYPW? I'm trying to start a game with a group but it's difficult because I've got a war type of campaign planned where the city they start in gets attacked by an extremely powerful necromancer/warrior and his army of skeletons. I was hoping for some of your interested insights in video form
Menzoberranzan did not allow males in males to become priests but other Drow cities do. Rai-guy Bondalek was a high priest from Ched Nsad until his house was ousted in a coup and "rescued" by Bregan D'aerthe.
I rolled a drow fighter who's house was wiped out because he committed blasphemy by indirectly killing a cleric of lolth. He fled the underdark, and is now traveling with surface world party in order to raise money to hire the Bregan D'earthe for protection, so that he can wipe out the house that destroyed his. He is favored by Selvatarrm for his rage and ferocity in battle and his tenacious survival instincts. He met his party as he was competing with them in a dungeon and with cunning and guile he orchestrated the death of a wood elf companion in their party and replaced her after he was forced to join them in killing a mindflayer that lived there. Claiming he was under the mind flayer's influence, he agrees to join them and regularly clashes with my group's paladin. He's sarcastic, witty and very quick to anger, which makes playing as him very challenging. He has yet to enter a surface settlement during the day and despite his fighter background he is akin to a ghost with most people not even noticing he's there. He's building an odd friendship with a half orc, that will often travel in the woods with him and talk with him while the other party members take the beaten path.
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What about us non-us residents? Wr love your channel too 😀😀😀
Make a lizard folk vid plz
Cody, I was wondering if you had some advice about this character concept I had? I'm still new to the game and I'd appreciate someone more experienced giving me their input.
Not going to touch on the history of how and why the surface elves "betrayed" the Drow?
im kinda bummed out that the giveaway is US only :(
violent crime is super rare in drow society.... cuz it isn't a crime, getting caught is
Actually, not being able to get away with it is the crime. Not being caught is just one of the ways to achieve that. Another is being strong enough to withstand an assault of the major houses. It might even serve as a means to dominate others: "Look here at me openly breaking a rule that you all have to obey! And now all of you will approve of it and declare it as legit, even though it's blatantly obvious that it isn't."
He died of natural causes.
He fell from a tower balcony.
Gravity is natural.
@@Venefica82 "how many times did he fall out the window?"
"I lost count..."
@@ssgoko88 Well I mean if gravity don't do the job the first time...he can all naturally fall out of the window again...by accident off course.
@@Venefica82 reminds me of the line in Legend of Drizzt: Homeland lmao
"He died of natural causes, as the heart being stopped by a dagger is quite natural."
My drow character was part of a hunting group that failed their mission. She survived and doesn’t want to return to the underdark because she will be killed. But she also wants to find a magical healing artifact that can bring her group back and finish the job. She is almost always hooded and uses illusions and trickery to lead others to think she’s just a normal elf. She convinced her party that she’s good by pretending that she has a relationship with the other elf in the party. She’s basically using someone’s affection for her to her advantage. Over time she started to get attached to the party and by the end of the campaign she realized her love for the wood elf and they got married after the campaign was over.
Well, you can't spell drow without "ow"
I almost fell ow of my chair lolth.
Tarrasque
Dr
Or dark elf
Ive only said DROW like how you say row.
Heh. Did a game once where the Drow engineered sinkholes under major elven settlements. They brought the fight straight down into their home turf. The players were taken so aback that they took a half an hour for their own council of war. Maybe you had to be there, but it was cool. Great vid, man! Good times!
DUDE I DID THE SAME THING , BUT THE DROW TEAMED UP WOTH THE DUERGAR
Good but you need a Tarrasque no what just replace them whit the Tarrasque
@@godzillagamer6942 That's a terrible idea. The Tarrasque is less of an enemy and more of a force of nature. It's like trying to stop a meteor, just with teeth and spell resistance. Use that guy sparingly. Now, TARRASQUE SPAWN are the new hotness: baby Tarrasques that aren't as powerful, but have to be killed quick before they mature into unkillable behemoths.
Soooooo you played gears of war in d&d!
Hey I'm doing something similar right now and I would really like to know more details about the sinkholes and how they were formed, do you mind sharing? :)
In the old 1st edition AD&D, Drow were introduced in a campaign module called "Against the Giants."
The party had to go up against three separate tribes of giants who suddenly became far too organized, equipped, and aggressive. Eventually, they find out that these giants were puppets of Drow.
So in terms of challenge it went from giants, to giants with class levels, to Drow.
Yes, Drow are deadlier than elite Fire Giants with class levels.
Mind you, every Drow had many class levels.
That said, I prefer the image of Drow as high level enemy PCs who are puppet masters first and foremost.
You don't see the Drow... you almost _never_ see the Drow... no, you see those manipulated by the Drow. Raiders, armies, bandits, monsters. Maybe if you look behind the curtain, you might meet the puppet masters... and good luck to you.
My GM ran Drow as elite tactical geniuses. They made heavy use of levitate, darkness + faerie fire, and knockout poison. Mages were armed with wands of some evocation (mm, fb, lb) so they can spam between their personal spells. Mostly they used disposable slaves to handle melee (Orcs, Ogres, etc.) and hid, waiting for opportunities to surprise-kill with overwhelming force and fall back. They were shrewd, cruel, deadly and cowardly. Extremely frustrating to fight and they often got away, only to return weeks later, but smarter and better armed.
Against The Giants is a lot of fun! The Drow encounters were tough but the illithid was harder.
drow can also communicate via sign language.
Damn it!
I wrote this down as something I wanted to talk about and left it off... Absolutely yes!
The most deadly ability in their arsenal
@@Taking20 Didn't they switched infavision with "darkvision" in 5e?
Maybe if they have very acute infravision, otherwise, how's that signing in the dark going for you?
Tletna I’m not sure what you mean? Even dark vision would allow them to still sign D.S.L
I would play the hell out of a witcher-3-like-game with Drizzt as the main character. Surviving and escaping Menzoberranzan and the underdark.
I've dreamed about that, but the problem is dnd is a co-op storytelling game, so it's hard to play 1 on 1
I would love a Drizzt anime or HBO series
I changed the black spider in Lost Mines of Phandelver into a Drider warlock of Orcus who wanted revenge on Lolth for turning him into a drider, so he constructed a huge cult of orcus, getting basically any bandit camp, orc hoard or goblin hideout under his command through promises of gold and glory, and was going to use the forge of spells to create a magical item that could summon an undead army that would wipeout any one that wasn't under his command.
Needless to say he was much more intimidating then the 4th level wizard with 27 hp in the book
Alex Emms Our DM made him a man who lost his lover in the hands of the racist above-world townsfolk, and he's trying to get revenge on Phandalin because of that now. We never had a face-to-face encounter with Nezz'nar(except one time he disguised himself to approach us at the start of the campaign and we didn't know it was him)so all we know about him, we learnt it in bits and pieces aka from Reidoth the Druid, an NPC the DM created when we went to Neverwinter, called Lucid Mirror whom had a mirror that showed the people what they wanted, and last session from the talking portrait of Nezz'nar's dead lover whom apparentaly was created by Nezz'nar putting the painting a bit of his soul(??).
I get the sense that the DM has been trying to make Nezz'nar a mirror image of my PC who lost her family in the hands of the Redbrands, which were under the command of Glassstaff whom served Black Spider, and trying to get revenge on him. He'll probably be leading this into a moral conflict.
I love what our DM has done with him because Vanilla Black Spider is such a boring and one-layered villain.
PS: We're 6th level now and just cleared out Cragmaw Castle.
WOW great idea, i am about to start the LMOP and that Drider idea sounds good.
I will probably go somewhere along that way for my next run of LMoP, as my first run (first ever DM experience) highlighted some issues there. I got how the Black Spider was just supposed to be a "brain" for a criminal organization, but having him be a drow just fell short of expectations. Either I'm making the black spider human and flesh out his "criminal overlord" status (i.e. he's still a scrawny wizard, but he acts more during the adventure and has failsafes in place to not die like a bitch) or I'm fleshing out his Drow status like you did.
@@Galf506 I know I'm 2 years too late, but for those of you digging down in search of Nezznar stuff... try making him a Drow Mage and see how difficult things can get!
Additionally the Drow Goddess, Elistraee is a great option to make Drow Freedom Fighters.
Elistraee is the goddess daughter of Lloth. Look her up. She's awesome.
We both mentioned Elistraee but some edition removed her, but she seems to be active again. But I think her followers can be much more than freedom fighters. :)
When you "manage" to prevent an organized political marriage because the young lord decides to marry a priestess of Eilistraee instead that seems to be the start of a dangerous campaign.
Same with Vhaeraun for any Drow rogues! 😉
I believe she was killed in a dispute with Lloth and then came back in the second sundering.
@@cdr0915
She's been making a small comeback with some of the d&d devs speaking about her. No god is truly dead.
I completely agree regarding your point to making just more than Freedom Fighters.
In Salvatore's latest novel, Timeless, there are quite a few points and characters pointing to an affiliation to Elistraee. I'm hoping it eventuates in the next book.
Will have to wait and see.
I've loved the drow lore ever since I read Salvatore's The Dark Elf trilogy in middle school. Drizz't is easily one of my top 5 favorite fantasy characters.
Drizz't and Jarlaxle are top tier fantasy characters. And the likes of Malice are so entertaining as badguys. And Salvatore even gave us nuance with Drizzt's sister Vierna being not unlike her younger brother, but the culture she was born into robbed her of any real opportunity at redemption; a tragic villain that one can sympathize with.
Same. I try to make a Drizzt like character every single dnd video game. Without fail. I haven't done it in bg3 yet, but I certainly will
I love your take on how drow are played, i seldom see anyone ever capture their cruelty or efficiency. Please do more KYPW, i was worried you weren't making any more.
The group I DM'd made it to the base of a world tree after a vision granted the barbarian the sight of his tribes murderers being here. Looking up into the tree one couldn't see through the dense limbs, but even with no light shining through you could still see the strange giant fruit was hanging from the lower limbs of the tree and on the other side of the base was a camp of goliaths. Upon seeing the Shaman leader in the distance that killed the players wife and child he proceeded to rage and bolt into battle without thought or plan, to which the party decided to follow and give back up. A few rounds into battle things were going well for the group. The goliaths were disorganized and not expecting to be found as Loria'drasil the world tree for this continent was hidden in a valley behind a tall mountain range. Things change however when a poisoned bolts rained down from above. The goliaths were conspiring with a group of drow. It wasn't that the branches were to thick going up this ungodly massive tree, the drow there hiding further up in globes of darkness. the battle now even and the players growing weary quickly gave way to despair as one more trick was up the sleeve of their enemies. The fruit burst. and falling with a thud was a large, spiderlike being with a goliaths upper body. The drow priestess had been using the slain tribes to create a goliath styled drider and this would be the first test. To kill the once "Chief to be" and his party. Things only got worse emotionally as Auken the Barbarian was forced to put back to rest the mutated body of his wife, child, and father.
The group survived the battle, but only just. With enemies slain, Auken still beating a lifeless shamans body to a pulp, the rest of the group noticed a dark beauty watching with a smile from above. A dark elf woman in a sheer gown of spider silk. She slips off of the lowest branch (Still a good 40 feet up from the ground mind you) but vanishes as she falls, only to fade back into existence a few inches from the ground. The avatar of Lloth greets and congratulates the party for cleaning up the mess of a fallen priestess. Explaining the priestess decided to try and dethrone the goddess, much to Lloths amusement, she used the goliaths and the shamans greed to collect bodies for her experiments and to attempt to steal the life energies and empower herself. When that didn't work quite how she wanted she discovered the world tree and it's potential for limitless power, if only the poor lady had the time to try and put it to use. However the party has caught her attention, doubly so with the fact that chaos seems to follow them wherever they go. And to that end she offers a gift. The road ahead being long and deadly there is still much entertainment to be had, so to provide her with some giggles, she offers information on a blade that can harm their enemy and protect them for the shadows to come.
Auken however is neither amused nor listening. Seeing a dark elf still alive he rushes to attack still covered in the red pudding that was once a goliath shaman. As he scores a hit that would cleave the elven goddess from shoulder to hip, she instead bursts into small spiders with every inch of the blade passing through. Reforming behind the barbarian she places a hand on his shoulder and he freezes in place, numb but very much conscious. Lloth floats up to his face, "I like you little creature. You're ability to act and never think, changing what's around you for better or for worse and all tied to your glorious rage. I special gift for you I have." And with a kiss on his left check a black spider web tattoo grows, decorating and marking Auken with a blessing from Lloth and no idea what that means.
Fast for a year IRL, no sign or mention of drow or Lloth the time finally comes. I had been asked a few times over the year what the blessing would do. As the group was forced into the Tomb of Horrors and die there. The moment their souls enter the mists of the afterlife the barbarians face burns and they all awake in a forest somewhere, 3 months after their deaths. The blessing reconstituted their bodies and the webs of her blessing reeled their souls back to the material plane. But the tattoo was gone. Realizing this was a once in a lifetime second chance they began to try and find out where they were.... but only then did they notice that that bard wasn't talking, in fact he was missing. Frantically they started to search.... until they heard a light chuckle coming from behind them. They turned to see the Spider Queen reclined lazily on a stump oddly shaped like a large chair, watching them with that same amused expression she had the last time they met.
This started as a birthday gift so one of my players to include his backstory and I only had about 12 hours to figure out how i could do something that would leave that mark a story can leave on a person. I was just glad he unexpectedly attacked a goddess RP'ing his characters rage and it gave me a chance to add more creepy suspense later on hahaha
For the next epsode can you stay in the Underdark and talk about the Duergar?
Tarrasque
I love your kill your party videos they give me such great ideas. Also looking forward to Legendary Dragons that you talked about in your last video I have already pledged and I'm ready to get this book.
HYPE
Please give us more KYPW. It is by far my favorite series.
Drow suck to play against. Your party is constantly shot with poisoned bolts and their spellcasters have insane abilities. Compounded with the fact that they all can cast darkness, and it makes combat with them really sucky. But that doesn't stop Cody from terrorizing his patreon campaign... Big oof.
MWAHAHAHA
"You work for us now"
I've found by accident that a cleric that has the Daylight spell on standby is a great equalizer against the drow. Since drown take disadvantage on attacks in daylight/sunlight it depends if you count the light made by daylight spell as sunlight
Since the 6th level Sunbeam spell exists and explicitly refers to the light radiating from your hand as sunlight, no I would not consider Daylight (which doesn't say that) to be sunlight. Giving a [much] lower level spell the same property as a higher level spell typically isn't a great idea (there's also 8th level Sunburst, but that's an instantaneous effect). You'll just have to make due with negating the Darkness spell and leveling the playing field back down.
Taylor Norris doesn’t seem like I had to be there. That sounds like an incredible campaign dude
Spoilers
Storm King’s Thunder featured drow as an accomplice to one of the giant lords, I found that vaguely underwhelming as I didn’t think they would lower themselves to taking orders from a fumbling fire giant. I took the opportunity to elaborate on their Gauntlgrym heist as the early phase of a larger incursion, I hope to make this subplot into a continuation of the campaign at level 10+.
spoiler? just in case?
how about making the drow having some sort of mind control over the fire giant just feigning that there taking command?
I wanna say here just how much I enjoy your channel because of the energy you show. Lots and lots and lots xD. I *really* enjoy your videos and you get me so pumped to DM. Your positive energy is contagious and I love listening to the passion you have for what you do. Thank you!
You're too kind Toria!
A new KYPW? I am so happy.
How to kill your party with goblins
Like c’mon how come you haven’t done this yet
Goblin slayer, watch the anime or read the manga. They kill a lot of adventurers
"I'm sure Auntie Cutthroat's gang is behind it all!"
"uh... the Hag is dead!"
I still remember how I felt years ago, when at the end of G3 Against the Giants, we stumbled upon a small group of evil, black-skinned elves. It was surreal. It was enigmatic. And it was absolutely incredible.
I like your videos. I basically had the players sold into Drow slavery by the goblins that defeated them. After they broke out of the prison, they escaped to the surface, but this was seen as an opportunity for a lower house to raise in ranking. They eradicated the house bar one. One Drow noble escaped, going to the surface tracking the party. Now an Oathbreaker Paladin/Shadow Sorcerer, she relentlessly tracks the party.
For any adventure in the underdark: Visiting a real-world cave system helps immensely by understanding environment.
Thank you so much for this. My party have spent the first arc of my campaign fighting a Drow army, attacking a Dwarf city. The next few sessions will be my final battles with them, and now I know how to use them and flesh them out, before the final battle!
You could say you'd kill your party with...
*drow*ning
Hi Cody, I love this and your other content and I know you've done it elsewhere, but I'm disappointed that you haven't made an acknowledgement to R.A.Salvatore who was the mind behind Menzoberranzan and the ideas behind what has shaped the understanding of what makes up the Drow in the FG. A point in the direction of his books would also be essential in any guide to the Drow in my opinion.
I love the KYPW series so much! Could you do Giants next?
i never thought much Drows except from....'oh poor misunderstood elfs of the deep' but after this explanation i came to realise how much of a bunch of assholes they are like...as a whole, quite the perfect punching bag really...the kind you can make nice challenging fights and not having any regrets from murdering the crap out of :3
My group and i, we have a LOT of fun with the mechanics of combat, it is exciting and exilirating to make action scenes coming through, do cool stuff and let the dices roll, but we also try to keep a moral upstanding group that is NOT filled with murder hobos, and more of people 'who try to do the right thing', every fight averted is both a win and a defeat because we feel accomplished for managing to resolve situations without wanton violence and having rp rich segments feels really good and fullfilling, but we also can't deny how much fun the combat aspect of the game is and sometimes we just want to punch a jerk in the face so losing the opportunity to do so is a bit of a pity...seems like the whole society of these douchebags is the perfect target! they're powerful and they're very much scumbags with very little redeeming qualities making the perfect fodder to kill the shit out of and have no second thoughts later, specially because they fight dirty and there are no depths they won't sink to *ba dum tsh!*
You have regrets murderering foes? You need to go back to murderhobo school my friend. XD
Soooo.... I'm starting to look forward to "Sponsor Time". You make it fun and funny.
hehe... glad it's entertaining. I certainly try to balance paying my bills and keeping it fun.
Drow in my homebrew world divided into two groups basically. The ones who live in the underdark and then the refugees who escaped centuries ago and inhabit a large desert continent and have built a relatively stable society, also interbreeding with some of the “wood” elves who assisted their escape.
Noble Drow campaign, inspired by the intrigue of GOT.
Amazing campaign. I loved my Noble Drow rogue... the entire party feared me... yes, the party feared a rogue (the weakest class), because my skill at disguise, lying and stealth was unmatched. That goes very, very far in a political arena. No "detect magic" can thwart it, no "dispel magic" can defeat it... and in the high-magic society of Drow that's truly an edge. Having the skill to impersonate your rivals, bypassing magical countermeasures, is ... delicious.
Shout out to my GM, who was brilliant in designing the backstory to prevent party infighting.
By the time the game went on permanent hiatus, we had assassinated a senior priestess (who was a barrier to our priestess' ascension into the ranks), infiltrated a trading company, established relations within the old capital, Ust Natha, usurped control of Ust Natha through deception and murder, crushed an uprising of the Ust Natha local houses, and declared independence from our old Menzo houses. There was plenty of combat, (assassinations, duels in the streets, trade caravan encounters, all-out war, etc.) but also a whole lot of diplomacy, political maneuvering, deception and betrayal. Very social-skill focused.
The one question left unanswered was: Why was the stage set so well for our conquest of Ust Natha? Substantial groundwork was already done, taking years and careful planning, all from Matron Mother Baenre's manservant... supposedly without MMB's knowledge (which I doubt). Guess I'll never know.
Sweet! I've been waiting for this video for weeks!
Woot!
When you described the ranked house system, it reminded me of my first DM ever.
He told me that if the Drow weren't so busy backstabbing each other, they'd rule the world.
"Congrats you're blind and hunted." lmfao
We really need more of these right now!
i have a character who is wood elf but 1/4th drow and hes basically the most hated being in our worlds underdark
an Idea I have for the Drow is to have a house fail Lolith to such a degree that they flee Drow society all together and fall into the service of a Demon Lord (what one IDK) and the head of the house would essentially become something akin to a Daemon Prince [or in this case Princess? it doesn't sound quite as cool though :( ] then have that house go around slaughtering any Drow they find, then have the party put into a sort of "greater of two evils" moment while the situation is slightly morally grey, just enough so that the party is left unsure of which side to choose.
Just I'm not a very good DM/GM having never DM/GM-ed a group before.
This is actually very interesting. It would be cool to maybe have your party captured by the Drow who follow Lolth only to have those Drow ask them for help defeating this new house.
Lolith? The jailbait version of the spider queen? :P
@@Immopimmo I wouldn't put it past her to appear like that to make the person she was approaching drop their guard only to meet a grousm end all while she was laughing an innocent childlike laugh.
The only arcane pursuits that aren't considered vulgar and beneath a drowess is being a warlock, actually.
I greatly appreciate this. My players have just started "Second Darkness," which is very drow-centtic. I've been trying to find ways to beef up and RP the Drow more. Great advice. Again, thank you
I've avoided featuring Drow in my campaigns because there was always a Drizzt wannabe. But my two current parties are not only Drow-free but also incredibly RP-driven so I am aiming to have one of them face off against Drow eventually. I have had one group face off against driders and one priestess of Lolth. That took them by surprise as they had no clue what kind of creatures they were. But they all recognised the Drow from legend and they RPed mixed reactions of fear and hatred. It was great.
Marc Choronzey pfft, Drizzt? I’d rather play something more akin to Viconia. The bad girl trying to overcome her Drow upbringing to be accepted and fit in.
It's all about that Zaknafein life, y'all
@@davfree9732 Emulating Liriel Baenre somewhat could also be a fun thing to do as well, a Wizard/Cleric who *wants* to serve a good deity and simply wants to be with the people she cares about, but Lolth refuses to "let them go", which could serve as a plot hook much later on where the party may travel to confront Lolth *in person* for the sake of forcing her to leave their friend alone for good....otherwise the party would try to kill Lolth. I always enjoyed Liriel's interactions with Fyodor, particularly with how Liriel was both innocent and naive while also being cunning and devious at the same time.
Hell, Liriel herself never killed anyone who didn't try to harm or attack her or her friends first. She always acted mostly out of self-defense and the defense of the people she cared about.
About the only story I'd like to see involving Drizzt would be for him to someday meet Liriel, and how he would react to her and the knowledge that he wasn't the only good-hearted Drow to turn his back on his people and try to be a good person.
Rylan Cromer Makes sense, but I'd particularly like to see his reaction to learning that not only was Liriel a Baenre, but she was the daughter of Gromph, and she was capable of wielding both Arcane and Divine magic. I think he'd even find her mischievous (albeit harmlessly so) personality amusing. This is one reason why I'm a bit disappointed that Drizzt doesn't have any unique dialogue concerning Neverwinter characters who are either Drow or a Menzoberranzan Renegade during the Rage of Demons campaign. Hell, I could even see Drizzt inviting Liriel to travel with him and the other Companions (though I expect she would decline unless given an incentive to do so).
I created an interesting magic item called "Obsul Stones" they're strange purple rocks with arcane marking on them. You throw the stone on the ground and it opens up a dimension door.
The Drow raiding parties all had a pouch with three of them in. I liked the idea of giving them, and then eventually the players, the option to cast a neat spell with no spellcasting ability required.
I have a player as a drow warlock whose family was caught worshipping surface gods and escaped to a remote village in the mountains. She grew up on the surface, negating several of her special drow abilities, and ended up living around dwarves most of her life because of proximity.
Her house has a massive bounty of money and glory on their heads, and drow raiding parties are always on the lookout for signs of the traitors. She's charismatic and tries to negotiate her way out of everything, so I'm excited to throw other drow at her and see her struggle. As a character, she's very unaware of just how much trouble her family is in...
Had a whole campaign around Sschyndylryn with my GF, we had nearly a dozen houses fully made on what used to be a crudely described Ziggurat city, we even made it more elongated with interesting views.
I Love the Drow. They’re by far my favorite race to play.
Another thing as well, even tweaking things up with the race as a whole can be pretty cool. In the campaign I'm in the drow are changed up a good bit to give a different feel than in the "by the book" version. Honestly it's the only reason I play as a drow character. Plus the disadvantage with light makes for funny bits
My recommendation for immersion into drow lore is the War of the Spider Queen series.
Pharaun Mizzrym is one of my favorite wizards, and is a great example of creative wizardry. Dude figured out how to cast spells with his *feet*. HIS FEET.
I lost it at the Under Armor part 😂😂😂😂
:-)
I am so glad that you talking about making the Drow more intelligent rather than just stronger. They are devious and use every trick in the book. A common drow casting elemental spells? I'm not so sure, but I would have Drow aware of party balance, so even a small party might have a wizard, warlock of minor cleric in there, perhaps some rogue/fighter multiclasses so that they can sneak attack, uncanny dodge and evasion, especially if you have a rogue who uses that to their own advantage (a piece of their own medicine).
Plot problem for the drow gang: the rogue uses Theive's Cant and gets the party out of trouble.
Then again, what if the rogue's criminal contact turns up poisoned with a note in his mouth reading: 'Nice try, iblith.'
My players interrupted a draegloth conception ritual resulting in the death of the current matron mother and the fall of her entire house. The Glabrezu involved is part of our tiefling rogue's backstory so they're going back into the Drow city to find the information demon's true name and alter their summoning circle into a planar teleportation circle. The new high matron mother of the first house hasn't yet reached her full potential so I nerfed the cr 20 boss creature to something more akin to cr 13-15
To clarify, infravision isn't actually heat sense. You don't see a creature that's hidden behind a rock. If the creature is within range and you could see it normally, it just lets you see the light given off by its thermal energy. One of the major complaints people have is that it shouldn't have a limited range, whether it's 60 feet (which is what dwarves had back in the day), or the drow's 120 ft. But, this is why the invisibility spell still works against drow, otherwise with the "heat vision", which infravision is not, you'd see a creature easily, cloaked or otherwise. There are a few posts on Reddit that discuss it.
EDIT: Regarding what drow I've ran, I highly recommend AAW's Rise of the Drow adventure module. Very old school, and the drow are really mean and malicious. It's a must for 5e or Pathfinder 1e parties to experience.
Awesome. Keep up the great videos man!
Glad you dig them!
My entire party is Drow, 3 of them made good Drow, one made a chaotic neutral tipping-to-evil Drow and the 5th guy had a tragic "Drow murdered my village i will kill them all" backstory, he got killed when attacking the Drow players, made a Drow character, they converted the chaotic neutral to chaotic good and now they're all Drowing and Drizzting every corner of Faerun.
Tried killing them with Drow, didn't work, tried Kobolds, Goblins, Undead, Dragons, Necromancers, nope, nothing, in fact, the chaotic Drow managed to take control of almost half the undeads i threw at them.
Cody!!! I love the fact that this came out while im listining to Homeland!!!! Great job :)
Late to the party on this one. But since I am here... We are several months into our campaign and the party is level 7. They got a bit greedy while delving into a dungeon and found their way into the Underdark. They had their first loss in a battle against some drow but rather than kill them I decided to take them captive and work their newfound situation into the story. The party is looking for one of their fathers who has turned evil and raised a dark tower, this tower creates a dome of permanent night around it which spreads very slowly. This drow enclave, not a full city has been infiltrated by a vampire who has found the Underdark perfect, and the slave reserves the drow produce quite adequate for feeding. So now they have discovered this vampire wants the relic that the one player's father has, to move this new drow/vamp society to the surface. It is now a race to escape and find this wizard first! (This setting has a portion of the continent that was laid to waste and no civilized races rule, that is where this tower is. This drow/vamp problem could grow exponentially before anyone else finds out.)
I once used Drow in a campaign, where the players were on the run from them. The players belonged to a town that was destroyed by the Drow and they were captured as slaves. The players spent months in the Underdark, trying to find some way to get back to the surface. It was an interesting campaign all things considered, unfortunately it ended with a TPK because the players were too prideful to runaway the one time it really mattered.
If I was not a 14 year old boy with 0 money I wouod donate so much money to this guy, he helps so much with EVERYTHING
*Sweats nervously as I'm new to d&d and made the back story of my level 1 half elf sorcerer (with 20 charisma by pure luck) involve him being hunted by a group of half drows and is an escaped slave so he also has drows hunting him as well
I haven't used Drow in awhile but the Loth aspect makes me think of a custom race wanting to use again. Spider Goblins. They look similar to normal goblins but have four spider legs coming off their back. They have a climb speed and racially know how to use nets which are generally spider silk. They also ride spiders and specialty ones have a venom bite. they have a vermin empathy for spiders only
house wars sound very akin to how the dimir operate on Ravenika. i ran drow in the campaign i ran a while back, but i didn't really touch on the house politics much, and lolth never was mentioned. the group was helped by a small pocket of neutral/good drow in the region(i added pockets of neutral and good drow that acted as a mirror for their larger evil counterparts, so drow, while still evil, were not necessarily safe to kill on sight, as it could reasonably be an ally.) i tended to run drow with male warriors, mixed gender assassins(ranged and melee), and female casters. the group found themselves nervous when sleeping outside town, because those assassins could be so extremely deadly to anyone that got caught offguard, and they knew it. they were jumping at shadows sometimes. they tended to find a one-entrance cave, and plant their drow member near the door while resting so they would have a better shot of detecting attackers before they landed a shot. the leader of the zone was a brutal fight for the party, bringing down multiple party members before dying. based on how you describe the drider here, i misused them - i thought the drider were considered to be evolved, not abominations. i thought that, aside from being a matriarch or priestess of lolth, that was a pinacle to be achieved, so i used them as shock troopers to get in close while other drow were helping them.
A Drow outcast runs the Alchemist's Shop in the Capitol city. She has a side business of luring adventurers to extremely dangerous dungeons and holds a betting pool on who will survive, or run away first.... She is a friendly and an ecentric edition to the game. Due to past mistakes, she has been told by her Matron that if she returns to the underdark, she will be captured and tuned into a Drider just before being teleported to the northern frozen wastelands... She was originally intended as a PC, but the DM loved Her so much, the DM begged me to give her over as an NPC to use to spice up the Capitol city.
Greetings, I took several ideas from menzoberranzan (FR) about drows. Importing, the basic matriarchy and the Loth as their spider goddess, actually many ideas are basic meta from forgotten. I did some twitches tho:
1. Matriarchs don't keep all their male sons within the house, most of them are thrown into 'The Pit' a place were males are used as slaves to mine very rare metals. There the males gather in Guilds, that are lead by a 'Blacksmith' a handyman that knows how to smelt and forge blades with special properties and other tools needed for survival.
2. Guilds are the lowest rank in the deep, still they are master of their art and pieces in the master chess game of the houses.
3. Males are forbidden to learn magic, when a sorcerer is born the Matriarch offers him to the Spider Queen. Therefore, the most powerful Guild Masters are Wizards working their arcane arts under the Matriarch radar.
4. Female are the only officers in military ranks, male drows are always privates or sergeants but not officers of any kind. Thus, all drow patrols are lead by a female and many males as cannon fodder.
YES I NEEDED THIS
The main foe in my campaign are drows controlling gnolls and orcs
I might talk about how my first tpk happend
This is the story of a small kobold clan who was very, very unlucky
They set their basement into a montain channel where leaved a dragon. The drake protected them and the kobold served him and everything was fine.
Then the dwarven kingdoms start to expand, they find the dragon and killed it using siedge weapons.
The kobolds panicked and run away, going into another mountain.
They build their little new home and it was fine ( And full of traps because of kobolds ). But eventually, this mountain became the frontline of a war between the dwarves and the orcs. The kobolds had to run away and find another mountain ( Again ! ). But, as there were digging and mining, they eventually just find a passage to the underdark who was locked centuries ago. The drow started to rise up and enslave them.
The party was a level 7 party of 5 adventurers who were hired by a local dwarven lord to investigate on carnage that happend into a mine. The party goes and find evidences it was because of kobolds who came into the mine and killed everyone inside. But they feel that was too easy and decide to investigate into the tunnel that lead the kobold into the mine. They find themself into the ancient kobold complex that openend the way to the underdark, which was turned into a drow fortress. They meet Skirkit, the clan leader, and start to work with him to take the fortress back. They freed the kobold slaves and even succed to make an ally out of a Drider who was use at meetshield during the drow's raids at the mines and dwarven cities.
During a freaking epic final battle, they manage to make their way to the final boss room, but after some unlucky nat 1 and nat 20 on the boss ( Who was an homebrew slave master drow ), they aller falled down. The session end by à description of the battle between the kobold forces and the drow of the fortress and the drows forced to give up and run.
Even if they died and had to roll up new characters, my players did loved the session and that made me really proud.
Fun fact : Because I tpk them, I asked them what they would like to play to continue, and turned out they asked if it was possible to play as the remaining drow of that fortress.
In 3.5 there was a player that always played a drow cleric to a good drow goddess I can't remember the name of. She would have been better, but she notoriously rolled low.
Ah... I miss that game.
Wow! You are REALLY good at this!
"there is no more dangerous enemy than the Drow"
My first ever character, a drow left at the doorstep of a church when he was born who grew up to have a warm heart of gold and became a Paladin to protect his loved ones: ...wait a sec-
I just found that too funny, don't mind me xD He really dodged a bullet when he was taken from that sort of society ig, he really wouldn't have survived
In good old 2nd edition, before they decided to remove Eilistraee with some setting changes she was one of my favorite FR deity, so I used her followers in some campaigns. Of course she both drow and non-drow priestesses. In such campaigns the party knew this religion, they were allies. But still they knew: if they see a drow priestess that is very bad news. Mostly because the drow often dealt with bigger problems and it meant harder adventures for the characters.
A friend of mine who is a fan of 5e wanted me to play more 5e game, so ran a looong campaign focused on Eilistraee and her followers as well. And half of the party has regular "near death experiences" because they tried to impress some priestess.
Well in faith of Eilistraee marriages are temporary, but can be extended... And there is strong reason in lore for it. Some rituals involve dancing and singing naked, and if you check she is the "goddess of song, dance, swordwork, hunting, moonlight, goodness, and beauty" so most male characters decided, their most important duty is to impress some of these priestesses. And it never ends well.
Love the video, I am currently running my players through a campaign in which the drow have United under lolth and are planning on taking over the surface world and shrouding it in darkness. The players are starting to realize what is going on and that the drow are behind it but they have never (and won't for a while) run into a drow because the drow primarily use their armies of slaves. Drow may be super racist but they love them some slave armies. It's 12 sessions in now and it'll be another 12 before they probably run into the drow at all. Hope y'all are having a good one!
Personally I don't like the Drow of Forgotten Realms, so in my setting I instead use the culture and organization of the Dark Elves from Warhammer lore, I find them much more vicious and interesting from a roleplay perspective and it enables me to weave them better in the highly political setting I run.
"There is no beings more dangerous than the Drow. No dragon, no demon, no devil compares"
*45 seconds later...*
"Femdom"
Y'know I still prefer the interpretation that becoming a drider is a form of blessing, as you've been remade in the image Lolth prefers for you.
"Under Armour!" cracked me up
So happy that I read the Drizzt books, I know all the names you are saying.
That dracolich got my gears turning...After all, a dracolich is smart. And just because these puny humanoids are forcing it to obey them under threat of the destruction of its phylactery, doesn't mean it can't recognize the power of the party and try and talk them into sneaking into the drow stronghold and taking that phylactery back. And then, of course, the question becomes what the party will do with the phylactery. Do they destroy it, incurring the dracolich's wrath if they fail? Do they return it, unleashing a more terrible foe than the one they destroyed? Or do they try and control the dracolich with it, leading it to form basically the same plot? This is a cool idea and I need to use it at some point.
I made a drow assasin that can shape shift and is immune to sunlight disadvantage, and slavers with burning/paralyzing whips and praralisys spiders
I remember our large party being slaughtered in the module Vault of the Drow (D3).
awesome outlook on the Drow!
"You work for us now."
Me : Yeah sure
I like scaling the drow by age. The older the stronger. With the basic drow stat block I usually increase the hit points by 5 and that would be a 20-100 year-old drow. 100-200 I give levitate and increase the max hit points by 22. 200-400 I would give specific attributes and titles. A drow with maybe a feat and afew player levels. Maybe a fighter drow with plate. 400-500 and they are either a champion fighter, a cleric or a wizard. 600 or more and they will be similar to a specific player in the party with the only difference being having more hit points and higher stats.
How to successfully fend off an attempt of conquest and enslavement by The Drow.
Step 1: Make sure that any really large incredibly handsome flying acid spitting creatures who love to feast on venomus creatures such as Giant Spiders are not welcome anywhere near your settlement because their jokes hurt your little feelings.
I run a game with a slight twist on drow at the moment: My players demanded a mafiosi story, and I found the idea of combining racism, mystery and politics to revolve around the drow very exiting. In a homebrew adventure, we explore Staroy, an Island with pine forests so thick that drow have surfaced. The "dark days" of drow are over, many embarassed by their racist past, and the west coast is full with cities with mixed races. Still there are many drow families fighting their wars and their planning their deceptions in secret, calling for the "golden days of the drow". My players are in the middle of tracking down an illegal slave trade circle - and making some powerful enemies...
I had an idea about a town that was friendly to drow and drider... well sorta you see the idea was that a drow noble is letting drow and drider up to the surface secretly that way the weaker drow and those that wouldn't usually survive would be indebted to him after he fakes there deaths. They are forced to make silk cloth and other textiles and sell them to a local city then pay him a cut of the money. They aren't exactly slaves, but he is willing to kill any that are out of line. So the city tolerates the drow and won't openly attack them both becouse of the amount of money they get by selling the spider silk cloth and becouse they are drow a fight with them would end badly.
DDO's got both the much more chill Eberron drow (who worship the scorpion god Vulkoor, live in tribes that vary from murderous to surprisingly chill, and also are much better in the sun) and, when you cross a rift between Eberron and the Realms, the Forgotten Realms drow, who you find throwing slave collars on villagers to force them to obey Slavers.
One thing I was bummed about was that they never contrasted these two very much and missed some awesome plot hooks. Having a bunch of Scorrow (think "Drider, but scorpion, and also borderline-worshiped instead of hated) show up to help you fight a big battle against the Realms drow would've been awesome, and not unprecedented after The Red Fens. (Of course, I also wanted to bombard Lolth's smug face with an airship and destroy the entire demonweb while shouting "WELCOME TO EBERRON, FOOL!" So maybe my advice is not always good...)
If your campaign does NOT have a giant rift between two campaign settings, one idea I had was having the players walk into a Drow city during a house war, presenting a perfect chance to sneak into Drow territory and absolutely _mess them up._ While everyone is out fighting and the place is in chaos, your party could tear down the local Temple of Lolth, or free the slaves inside the city, or find a few Matron Mothers and take them down, or lure a few native critters (and by critters I mean Purple Worms) in to add to the chaos.
Finally, one more idea. Drunk drow. Drow society is crappy. Have a drow far from the city drunk off his rocker and loudly complaining about what "that **** ***** of a Matron mother ****** thinks it's so **** fun to do all the **** time" (possibly paraphrased). If nothing else, it'd be funny.
The prismatic dragon and Cronus and the Hekatoncheires and the Tarrasque: all more dangerous than Drow. Saying that Drow are the most dangerous monster is a bold claim. And really, as elves they are technically people not monsters. Otherwise I like this video
Acidic Web. It sticks to one's armor and will destroy light armor in 1 round, medium armor in 2 rounds, heavy armor in 3 rounds, magical light armor in 4 rounds, etc. It can be dispelled or burned off but in doing the latter the player will suffer burns. After the armor is destroyed it will stun the PC if they didn't quickly remove the armor or burn the web off.
Shields will be destroyed after 3 rounds or 5 if magical.
That is a nasty spell Drow of higher level should be using.
I tend to have my drow use traps, especially of the poison cloud or dart variety.
Uhm... to spice things up?
Give some of your Drow three levels of Rogue.
Let them set (poison) traps where needed.
Let them use logic and tactics to dispatch allies of the players.
And of course, set fire to their favourite shop or inn...
Well, I guess I'm now glad that my GM talked me out of making a Drow character when I was playing my first ever game.
Yeah, Drow are no joke. Half of our party nearly got killed in a fight against 9 Drow. To make it worse, one of our party members is a Drow with amnesia...Who may or may not be the last of his household.
8:22 iblith = shizno
Out of curiosity, can you do an undead type of KYPW? I'm trying to start a game with a group but it's difficult because I've got a war type of campaign planned where the city they start in gets attacked by an extremely powerful necromancer/warrior and his army of skeletons. I was hoping for some of your interested insights in video form
Menzoberranzan did not allow males in males to become priests but other Drow cities do.
Rai-guy Bondalek was a high priest from Ched Nsad until his house was ousted in a coup and "rescued" by Bregan D'aerthe.
Jarlaxle actually secures male house survivors from when houses destroy each other
I absolutely make drow stronger! Players in their head always imagine drow as bad asses. So they expect that in game!
I love your Video, they really help me as a first time DnD GM.
Do you plan to do a Video on Liches?
I rolled a drow fighter who's house was wiped out because he committed blasphemy by indirectly killing a cleric of lolth. He fled the underdark, and is now traveling with surface world party in order to raise money to hire the Bregan D'earthe for protection, so that he can wipe out the house that destroyed his. He is favored by Selvatarrm for his rage and ferocity in battle and his tenacious survival instincts.
He met his party as he was competing with them in a dungeon and with cunning and guile he orchestrated the death of a wood elf companion in their party and replaced her after he was forced to join them in killing a mindflayer that lived there. Claiming he was under the mind flayer's influence, he agrees to join them and regularly clashes with my group's paladin.
He's sarcastic, witty and very quick to anger, which makes playing as him very challenging. He has yet to enter a surface settlement during the day and despite his fighter background he is akin to a ghost with most people not even noticing he's there. He's building an odd friendship with a half orc, that will often travel in the woods with him and talk with him while the other party members take the beaten path.
My 1st game as a DM now is Out of the Abyss and it's awesome. I love that dark elves and the Underdark itself
Drow have captured a litch and they are making him cover the land in a thicc fog so the drow can envade because of a plague below