KYPW: Drow - Dungeons and Dragons 5e
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2018
- Let's talk about the evil and wicked Drow. This is a classic fantasy race from Dungeons and Dragons 5e, and one we've cherished for years in our monster manuals. But how can we as Dungeon Masters and Game Masters continue keeping these dark elves fresh? Let's dive in and talk about the Drow.
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Enter into the giveaway contest right here:
gleam.io/T1RyM/deck-of-many-giveaway-contest
Check out what decks we're giving away right here: bit.ly/DeckOfMany
Learn more about the drow with this book (trust me):
Homeland - amzn.to/2NMkeLu
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 :(
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.
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."
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 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!
Please give us more KYPW. It is by far my favorite series.
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.
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.
You could say you'd kill your party with...
*drow*ning
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
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 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
"I'm sure Auntie Cutthroat's gang is behind it all!"
"uh... the Hag is dead!"
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.
For the next epsode can you stay in the Underdark and talk about the Duergar?
Tarrasque
Cody!!! I love the fact that this came out while im listining to Homeland!!!! Great job :)
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!
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
A new KYPW? I am so happy.
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
i have a character who is wood elf but 1/4th drow and hes basically the most hated being in our worlds underdark
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.
This is honestly my favorite series to watch of yours. It astounds me every time you make another how tpk video
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
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.
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.
Great video!
I'm running Out of the Abyss for two groups at the moment. Making the drow as ruthless and merciless as can be has worked greatly as a motivator to get out of the Underdark as fast as possible.
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!
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.
I was completely enthralled with your vigor in sharing this wondrous race. I honestly was hoping for more information or experiences. Definitely going to have to check out more of this series. You have me contemplating creating one... maybe a biracial. lol
I love the KYPW series so much! Could you do Giants next?
I recently started my homebrew game, in my world there are these massive teleportation gates called Runegates that are set up in the capitals cities of all the major surface countries. My premise is that the drow of the underdark have been plotting to hijack the power of the runegates to summon hundreds of demons and funnel them through the gates to lay waste to the surface so the drow can take it over and bring an age of darkness on the surface
I love this channel!! Every week I look forward to your videos!!
Once I was in an Out of the Abyss campaign. My character was an artificer who lived in a town built atop the haunted ruins of an elven kingdom (that was destroyed by the Drow). He had a robot companion containing the soul of an elven warrior.
What's funny is that my character got recaptured a couple times and during one of these times he entered into a conversation with the junior priestess, Asha Vandree, trying to learn more about the Drow. The DM had me roll a persuasion check and I nat 20'd it. So my character became pseudo-friends with a Drow priestess...which in turn led to a big subplot revolving around my character's loyalties being in question.
I'm playing a drow rogue at the moment. Absolute beast of a character. Super dexterous, dark vision, darkness as a free cantrip and as an assassin get bonuses for attacking a surprised creatures or advange on a creature that hasnt acted.
We really need more of these right now!
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.
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).
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
I also wanna mention that one single sentence in the Drizzt series where they mention an outpost city that allows men to become priests of lolth, it was mentioned by one of the matrons in the mid range books (like 7-12 I think?) and was literally like a sentence or two. I also believe it called him the high priest of the city which is interesting
Best drow video I’ve seen so far good job
"Congrats you're blind and hunted." lmfao
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.
I love the Drizzt books but has anyone else noticed that Drizzt is often sneaking in the shadows among creatures that have infravision. He and they would all glow with warmth.
I'm actually building a Drow rogue PC who's inspiration came from "What's this?" from Nightmare Before Christmas. She's fascinated by the surface and more believes in the Dark Maiden due to her backstory.
I'm now playing as a drow horizon walker, who is basically an alien from a dying planet (imagine something in between 6" dwarfs, a space station survives, and a modern Far-East), and who is legitimately freaked out by high-elven underground (basically cyberpunk/biopunk, not even manapunk in traditional meaning). It's what happens when you have found complete synergy with your DM in the intention to subvert every trope.
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
Been building my own Drow City State in the Underdark for my own evil campaign, and this video is a great resource
I Love the Drow. They’re by far my favorite race to play.
Wow! You are REALLY good at this!
awesome outlook on the Drow!
Awesome. Keep up the great videos man!
Glad you dig them!
Sweet! I've been waiting for this video for weeks!
Woot!
Loved the video! Keep up the good work!
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.
Our GM on Storium actually set up a really interesting game with drow. In the world he set up the surface was taken over by these insanely powerful creatures called endworlders that forced all the races to seek sanctuary underground. As such the old power structures of the races fell and they were all forced to live together to keep the common threat at bay, though there is still some racial tension present. The power structure is comprised of a drow warlord and a council of all races though it's still mostly drow. Our quest was to be parts of the warlord's campaign to reclaim the surface from the endworlders and the way our party ended up interacting was hilarious. I played a Male drow rogue who had a wood elf battle brother when he was younger and stupider and his battle brother ended up dead when they were ambushed by endworlders which led him to join the campaign for revenge. If that wasn't off the cuff enough my character blatantly disobeyed his female drow captain but after she died listened fine to the human captain that replaced her, somehow ended up getting along best with our human alchemist who is his polar opposite, hated the half elf mage, and was completely indifferent towards the only wood elf in our party. XDD
My favorite was playing around as a drow in a monster as hero styled campaign.
I watched once how the DM created encounter with the drow, who were forced to go up on surface, by the styrges. So it was drow with the darkness hiding inside from the styrges, adventurers came to the warning signal, and styrges.
I'm currently running a campaign where my party is in the middle of a war with a Vampire lord who has control over a great many races, including the Drow. Thanks to this video, I now have the idea to make his Drow soldiers a result of ransacking and enslaving a few Drow houses generations ago and forcing them to the surface to fight for him. I think I could make it lead to a plot where a group of elite Drow Assassins come into contact with the party, both trying to slaughter the Vampire lord and justifying the lower CR for the Drow soldiers they've previously encountered.
As a former DM myself, the drow were my favorite NPCs to run in any campaign! Well spoken sir!
Wrote a game where in a family of middle range Drow fled the city of spiders. Managed to hide, and run from Loth`s minions. They found a new Home and were Hidden By Selune from Loths spies, and anger. Several generations later they were accidentally discovered by Dwarven Miners , Which is where the adventure begins.
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.
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.
In 3.5 AD&D I have a half-drow, which is a master class. Instead of making a rouge, I made a master locksmith, Not a thief per se but really proficient in disarming traps and unlocking all types of locks. And she follows Elistraee.
Great video and ideas! Thank you.
There are many dark Elf cities and other gods too
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
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 did a campaign where my players all played drow who followed Eilistraee and fought to redeem the drow. It was very interesting to see them deal with the strong hatred other underdark and surface races had for them despite their good intentions.
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
War of the Spider Queen is a pretty great story if you want to see just regular evil Drow, and how they function, six novels. Also while Out of the Abyss is a option, another option is also Rise of the Drow. It's a mega campaign focused on the Drow for 5E, it was a kickstarter. I enjoy the Drow, I think they have fascinating stories, and I think the Underdark is a interesting location, the bigger problem I think is unless the players want to play as Drow, people get bored stuck in one location to long. Caves, Forest, Mountains, Desert, whatever, people like variety.
Haven't used it yet, but I'm working on a lolth centric campaign. Basically, lolth has decided to wage all out war on the surface elves, and the players have been asked to assist in amassing an army to fight her back. They need to acquire a core ground force, anti air troops, assassins for high profile targets, and a strike force (that one being the players themselves).
Also, this video gave me an idea for a drow pc back story.
Dark Lake from Out of the Abyss is mentioned.
*PTSD intensifies*
My group was playing the 1st edition decent into the demon web pits where we 'snuck' into an underdark city and were used by one house to attack another house since we were un connected and then that house parleyed with us (to stall so they could gate in some demons) but our rouge/bardish character negotiated us leaving with some info and some gold and gems and giving them info on who sent us. Was a very stressful and good time
got one name for you that us a great example that not all drow need Loth .... Drizzt Do'Urden he is the best example hands down. But to the rest of the video man you are spot on your knowing of the drow is vast it's gppd to see someone is still doing the homework for good play.
Love your videos, but KYPW list is by far your best! From A dungeon master stand point anyway.
You come up with very solid but still winnable combat situation and other little flavors and hints on the side that are easy to branch off! Great work, Your one on Sauhagin (spelling? lol..the shark people.) Was so eye opening , I made our next campaign an island exploration start.
In the campaign I play, Drow roam the surface freely as an event called the Cataclysm has left the sky dark, covered with clouds of ash and sulfur. Midday is about as bright as sunset
The drow in my world aligned with the duerger to overthrow the dwarf clans. Now the drow have a trade route through the duerger to the surface world. Currently it's a hanging story thread, but maybe 1 day will be resolved.
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.
Drow ambushes is the best thing I’ve did in my game that my players loves to hate. With the Drow flashing out of dark corners then dispersing, sending in their slaves and pet spiders to slow down and distract the PCs. I once did this to whittle down a group of high-level characters who were stupid enough to say “Let’s go Drow hunting!” Five deaths later, the Drow have a new batch of high-grade slaves. That’s where the new campaign started.
So in my world the drow are split between patriarchal surface desert nomads and a subterranean empire more akin to traditional drow. Super stoked to build up the racism betwixt the two :)
I am actually running a campaign where drow are the main bad guys. Now that I have watched this video I have a slightly better idea how to utilize them.
They already had a strong motive to come to the surface, but I have now thought of more ways to strengthen that, thanks!
The idea with the different visions is also cool. I hope my players will use it to their advantage haha
In a campaign im in my High elf wizard came across a drow cleric chilling in a hut that was selling healing for silver pieces, I very nearly got killed because it was a way higher level than the party but my high elf had such a vile outlook on the drow he was willing to die just to end it's dark life
One of the PC’s in my campaign screwed up bad, and as a result ended up being pursued by a Drow he had killed, brought back with Zin-Carla. He hid it from the rest of the party as long as he could, but realized he’d never survive without their help. That one undead dark elf took out half the group......good thing they were near a temple run by a high level cleric at the end of the fight!
This was perfect, my campaign is heavily focused on the drow at the moment and my players are on their way to facethe big baddie so thanks for the video :)
New species of monster.
A Mindflayer tries to turn a drow cleric.
The body reacts negatively, reduced to a brown sludge that lashes out at anything nearby.
Behold...
The Iblithid.
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!
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.
Yes!!!!!!! I need this. I have not even watched it but I need it!!
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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...
My party hasn’t reached this point yet but I created a drow elite warrior boss. The idea behind the boss was that him and his squad fights the party but when they kill the party and him, due to his failure, Loth punished him. She resurrects him twisting him into a drider to fight the party with his partners becoming giant spiders
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
*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