Okay, hear me out first, I am not intending to dredge up the ol' 'hey, look, I've had enough of the drow already,' discussion, but I do wish to pose a question about a drow race I came across in the D20 accessory, The Seafarer's Handbook.
Deep drow. The aquatic drow version of the sea elf. It basically gave a brief, general description, then left things wide open for development. I am curious if anyone has ever tried to place such a group of drow anywhere in the seas of Oerth. Or if anyone has done any development of such a society. The book gives mention that they are pretty much the same as their land dwelling cousins, though they worship some sort of drow female/crab combo instead of the lovely Spider Queen.
My players have gone through the U series to which I connected the Evil Tide series. Now they're lying about in Saltmarsh getting fat. They need some excercise. They also happen to be completely blind to the Seafarer's Handbook and the possibility of an aquatic version of drow.
Touching on that delicate done-to-death drow syndrome, my players still enjoy dark elves, so they would be rather surprised to find a branch of the nasty critters in the ocean.
Just a thought I figured I would toss out to see if anyone has tried this hypothesis in any Greyhawk seas. _________________ Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.
Nope, sorry, but the drow female/crab combo you mentioned sure sounds to me like Blib-dool-poolp (kuo-toan goddess). I'm very interested in aquatic campaign ideas, so please be sure to share whatever you develop! _________________ ~basiliv
I didn't design the world,
I merely facilitated its creation
Afraid I haven't done so. However, the idea of an evil acquatic elven race is interesting. I don't know that cloning the drow is the best way to do it, though. That would result in a quick flash of surprise, but then the PCs would have the 'drow problem' of overfamiliarity quite quickly. Also, much of the drow 'stuff' is not really well suited for acquatic use.
If you have the time, I think it would be better to give some serious thought to how the acquatic elves differ from the surface elves culturally and then make the 'deep drow' a twisted version of the acquatic elf.
My theory on the possiblility of an evil elven race in the seas is that there is some kind of aquatic elf/sahuagin connection. The sahuagin and the malenti represent the drow of the undersea. This theory makes sense if you consider how weird it is to have the shark related sahuagin that can breed beings that to all appearances are aquatic elves.
I suggest using this method for only one good reason - by adding another race to the seas you end up with a really crowded ocean, with aquatic elves, mermen, tritons, sahuagin, ixithithitl (or however you spell it), all vying for empires in a limited area.
Perhaps using some kind of outcast aquatic elf/malenti society could form into a version of the drow. Outcasts from sahaugin society for being too elflike and chaotic and hated by the elves for still being evil, these wretched things may drift into the deepest depths of the sea, beyond the realms of both and over time become a new kind of creature. At any rate, perhaops these things could worship Panzuriel (from Monster Mythology). As an outcast himself, this god would welcome in even such dispised beings as these.
I did an article that barely scraped on this elf-sahuagin connection. I link it here - besides I never miss a chance to link to my own materials ;-)
Thanks for the replies and the ideas. And thank you O-D for the link to your article about sahuagin. I've researched quite a bit about about the whole correlation and interesting connections between the sahuagin, malenti, and the sea elves. And also the race of anguillians spoken of in the Sea Devils accessory and later expanded on in the Evil Tide series. I find it interesting that there is a certain percentage chance of malenti being born from any eggs laid 'x' amount of time after even one sea elf lingers near a sahuagin city.
Most like to keep the idea of drow in their campaign as some sort of fairy story, such as be good and go to bed or the drow will come and take you away. Which I tend to agree with. The deep drow are supposed to be even more unrealized than the land dwelling drow, living in near isolation in very deep and unexplored underwater caverns by even the aquatic dwelling races.
I may tinker with the idea and see if something non-cheeseballish develops. _________________ Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.
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