Naris of the Wilds

Villaintines Day, D&D Style!

Yeah, I pretty much imagine that the lower classes of Drow are perfectly sane and normal. Its just the upper classes that are batshit crazy.

I always had a bit of a headcannon of commoners being in general more chill and stuff. There is no way a society in which kids get killed as sacrifices, in which everyone can be assasinated easily, in which most of them die during school or just random shit happening, could be fucking viable. Specially when it seems like only the matrons of each house is allowed to have kids? What happens with the others if they can’t do a new house? They just seem to… stay there? Do nothing?

Yeah this. Don’t get me wrong, I really like drow society being evil, but make it neutral evil instead of chaotic evil and it seems a bit more sustainable. Maybe even lawful evil bc they have to obey Lolth. But following the story of a commoner living a normal uneventful life isn’t as much fun I guess

This is all really good, two thumbs up. I’d like to add that in my Underdark campaign I ran over the summer, that drow commoners basically lived a normal life with added in slavery, drugs, and prostitution as all normal things. They weren’t AS xenophobic as the nobles, they were more just mildly racist, and they could achieve some cushy lifestyles by becoming inportant merchants and owning their own businesses and being sponsored by nobles. Instead of murdering their competition, they would just sabotage and harass them and/or force them into a business partenership.

I’m totally jiving on all this commentary (and on analysis of good kid Drizzt and his narrative bias) and if I may I’d like to expand on this? It’s unfortunate we didn’t get to see more of common drow life in Homeland, but I do think there’s a reason for that. Drizzt isn’t just like a good guy with Teflon morals and principles innate to his sense of self, but he’s also sheltered and priveleged. I wanted to kind of explore this concept with an OC, but think about it. Drizzt as a noble, even a male, afforded some amount of protection from his title (or else he would have been killed long ago for his rebellious nature and sacrilege). He was also given the opportunity to have an education of the highest quality and became an incredibly skilled fighter. With hose tools he was able to just up and leave and actually escape the clutches of Drow society altogether, even survive long enough to make it to the surface? Something an untrained commoner would never hope to achieve. #CheckYourNobilityPrivilege

^ yes to all of this!! I love how you described it, and I think that’s a far more concise way of looking at drow society. You did way better than I did stumbling through trying to describe it lol.

That would make the whole sacrificing thing make a lot more sense. It would also explain how House Baenre in Salvatore’s novels can get away with not killing ANY of their sons (or at least so we’ve seen) and still hold Lolth’s highest favor.

Another book I would recommend for drow info is the drow of the underdark book it goes heavily into their social structure and psychology. It is a player guide so it's less fluff and more raw info, a good example from it is that drow in groups or communities tend towards neutral evil independent drow tend towards chaotic evil.

Escorting a useless NPC like,

Flame is the guide man creates for himself, when the gods’ provide no light unto his path.

@naristhewilder