Drow

Drow, also known as dark elves, deep elves, night elves, or sometimes "The Ones Who Went Below" on the surface, were a dark-skinned sub-race of elves that predominantly lived in the Underdark. They were hated and feared due to their cruelty, though some non-evil, or even good, drow existed.

Description
In many ways, the drow resembled eladrin and elves. Their bodies were wiry and athletic, while their faces were chiseled and attractive.

Height and Weight
Drow were shorter and thinner than other sub-races of elves. It was believed that females were generally bigger and stronger than males, but both sexes varied in height between 4′7″ (140 cm) and 5′5″ (165 cm), averaging 5′ (152 cm). Males weighed between 87 to 157 pounds (39-71 kg), averaging 109.5 pounds (50 kg); females were a bit lighter and weighed between 82 to 152 pounds (37-69 kg), averaging 104.5 pounds (47 kg).

Coloration

 * Skin
 * The skin of the drow was dark grey, jet-black or obsidian (with shades of blue).  An exception were the albino drow, the Szarkai.


 * Hair
 * Generally, the drow kept their hair long, and decorated it with pins and webbing made of precious metals. Drow hair could be stark white, pale yellow  and, more rarely, silver or copper in color.  Due to the Eilistraeen ritual of The Run, drow of other faiths would often say that silver hair was a sign of mental handicap.
 * Drow hair thinned and changed color with age, turning pale yellow in women, and silver or grey in men.


 * Beards
 * Drow were incapable of having beards, but some males managed to grow long sideburns or even tufts of wispy hair on the cheek or chin.


 * Eyes
 * Drow eyes could be of any color, with bright red being the most common. Pale shades of blue, lilac, pink, or silver (that appeared nearly white) were also frequent. Drow with green, brown, black, amber, or rose-hued eyes existed, but they were rare. Purple or blue eyes indicated surface elves and/or human ancestry.


 * It was possible to read some information in the eye color of a drow. For example, drow eyes reddened when they were angry, and turned yellow when they were sick, poisoned, or under some negative magical influence.


 * Mouths
 * Drow had white, black, or purple teeth, while their gums, tongues, and throats were pink, red or purple.

Attractive Looks
Due to a process of selective breeding that lasted for several generations, the drow (especially nobles) looked attractive even when compared to other elves Their alluring appearance, which could be used for seduction, was more often used to instill fear. Meeting the beauty standards of the surface races was considered important by the drow because it was believed that attractiveness made surface dwellers prone to turn a blind eye on the deeds of the drow, and to allow inclusion in surface communities.

Intelligence
Drow were intelligent even when compared to other sentient creatures. This was due to selective breeding over several generations and to the necessity of being analytical and observant at all times to survive in their society.

However, the drow were not wiser than other races. Their upbringing in secluded societies, with little contact with the outside, as well as the indoctrination of Lolth's dogma, made them close-minded.

Reproduction
The drow were believed to be more fertile than the rest of the elves. In truth, their fertility was the same as that of other elves, but they had a higher readiness to birth as many children as possible during their lifespan. For example, in the evil Lolthite society, on average, a female drow with an active career under her belt gave birth to about ten children before she lost the ability to birth more. However, the constant strife kept their numbers low, dropping their actual fertility rate to dwarf-like levels.

Blood-Related Races
There were a number of races and creatures that were in some ways related to the drow.


 * Elves
 * Drow were a subrace of the elves. Their ancestors, the Ilythiiri, or dark elves, were an offshoot of the green elves, also known as wild elves.


 * When different sub-races of elves intermarried, there was an equal chance for the child to inherit either of the parents' traits. However, children born of the union between a drow and elf were far more likely to inherit the drow traits, and were more likely to parent a drow themselves. Dark elves possessed this traits too.


 * Half-drow
 * The half-elf born from a drow-human couple was a half-drow.


 * As a general rule, half-drow had no different abilities than other half-elves. However, some half-drow could gain certain powers through their parentage. Regarding reproduction, the "2-generation-rule" applied to half-drow just like it did to all half-elves.


 * Szarkai
 * The Szarkai were pale-skinned drow. They were called albino drow, but had no more weaknesses to the sun than the rest of their kin. This genetic anomaly was more often found among nobles than commoners.


 * Draegloth
 * The Draegloth were a type of half-fiend that was born as a product of a ritualistic coupling between a drow and a glabrezu.


 * Draa'zekyl
 * The Draa'zekyl, also called drow-dragon, were a type of half-shadow dragon drow that managed to split their heritage in two, and thus gained the ability to change their form from dragon to drow, and vice-versa.


 * Zekyl
 * The Zekyl were a winged type of half-shadow dragons drow with a predisposition for thievery, stealth, and assassination.


 * Zar'ithra
 * A Zar'ithra was a type of shadow draconic drow with a talent for sorcery.

Related Races by Transformation
Some races were not related to the drow because they were born from them but because they were transformed from drow.


 * Chwidencha
 * Chwidencha originated from drow who failed one of Lolth's tests.


 * Drider
 * Driders were created from drow who failed the Test of Lolth.


 * Shunned
 * A shunned originated from a female drow who failed Lolth, losing her favor.


 * Vhaerath
 * A vhaerath was a type of drow petitioner of Vhaeraun.

Lifespan
The drow had lifespans far beyond those of humans, and comparable with the rest of the elven race. Provided they did not meet a premature and violent end, they could live for centuries. Generally, a drow's natural lifespan ran up to 750 years, and about 94% of natural deaths occurred before 800 years of age. However, drow who could afford a lifestyle that spared them hardships, like the matron mothers, could live more than 1000 years (though, by that point, they became withered by age). Lolth's magic could maintain a matron's life for thousands of years. This was considered a clear sign of favor from the goddess.


 * Aging Signs
 * The drow started to show signs of aging when their age neared 600. One of those signs consisted of their hair growing thin, and turning yellow in females, and silver or grey in males.

Personality
Drow, by reputation, were almost entirely evil. The teachings of Lolth represented the standard moral code for most of the race. They were overall decadent but managed to hide it under a veneer of sophistication.

Drow were arrogant, ambitious, sadistic, treacherous, and hedonistic. From birth, the drow were taught they were superior to other races, and that they should crush those beneath them.

The evil of the drow wasn't of inherent nature: influenced and indoctrinated by Lolth, they would turn their culture and society into what it became, leading to a race of emotionally stunted people, with a tenuous grasp on sanity and scarred mentalities, among which relatively undamaged minds were considered abnormal. However, the drow had no innate drive towards evil and their morality was colored by the society they lived in.

Goals
Most drow's personal goal was about increasing their station in life, as they desired the power on others that a higher station would provide. The scarcity of resources in the Underdark and the limited chances for advancement within the society forced most drow to aggressively compete with each other. However, as mentioned above, they managed to hide their traits behind of veneer of sophistication. For example, while they liked to assassinate their competiton, doing so and being exposed would bring punishment for being too overt about it, as would open murder.

Rising through the ranks too quickly was dangerous for any drow. The usual reaction was the formation of temporary alliances among those who were wronged by the quickly ascending drow to take the latter down. Such alliances were often successful.

Anger
Drow were a violent race, and violence was their favorite, if not instinctive, method for conflict resolution. The drow managed to fight this urge when waiting for a more propitious time to strike.

Arrogance
See also Relationships

Drow believed themselves to be the apex creature. They were arrogant to the point of being incapable of viewing other creatures as their equal, including their own kind. Every single drow believed themsleves to be best example of their superior species. This attitude was condoned by some of their gods: Vhaeraun, the god of arrogance. The treatment reserved by the drow to members of other races ran the entire gamut from pets, to slaves, to grudgingly respected partners when they proved themselves a military match for them, though never equals.

Cruelty
As a general rule, drow living within a Lolthite society couldn't afford to show emotions like compassion or love, for they were easy to exploit. Their environment turned them into distrustful sadists with a constant readiness to backstab people, both in the figurative and literal sense. Drow had a tendency to prefer emotional cruelty over physical one.

Cruelty was also seen as a mean of self-validation. The drow believed that any person that could not defend themselves deserved to be inflicted cruelty, and by delivering cruelty on a weaker creature the drow could prove their superiority.

Fear
The constant strife of their society led the drow to be paranoid and fear everyone and everything. They feared the potential loss of their station, the loss of Lolth's favor, the loss loyalty or outright rebellion of their underlings, and the potential of punishment from their superiors.

Hedonism
Drow were hedonists. They loved and surrounded themselves with what they considered beautiful, generally without paying attention to the cost. They generally believed to be entitled to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to do it. This also extended to partners: for example, they took and discarded lovers at their leisure and had a tendency to be lecherous.

They often partook in lavish revels, indulging in the most pleasurable of activities, including long nights of dinner and massages. Some drow were fond of dances, including the frenzied nedeirra competition or the illiyitrii, a formal dance sometimes involving costumes.

Trust
Drow were incapable of trusting other creatures, no matter their race. They were taught from an early age to be distrustful, as the drow culture expected individuals to advance at the expenses of others by any means, included treachery and even outright murder.

While the drow understood the value of forging bonds, they didn’t see a value in the virtue of honesty. Forming bonds was thus a dangerous endeavor and mostly of temporary nature. Since any alliance or cordial relationship could end in treachery, the drow went into engagements of this sort expecting the worst. Alliances were generally formed when the ally was susceptible to blackmail, considered weak enough to not be a serious threat, or when cooperation was forced by the existence of a common enemy. Alliances were always under scrutiny for signs of treachery and often ended violently. In fact, the mere inconvenience of maintaining the bond could be a reason to end it.

Even in moments of safety or relaxation, the drow were always alert and constantly expecting attacks of any kind. Therefore, they were rarely surprised when those actually happened, depriving the attacker of the advantage of surprise.

Vengefulness
Drow were vengeful people by necessity. Not answering to slights with punishment was easily perceived as weakness by other drow, and was essentially the same as inviting exploitation, abuse, or even death. For this reason, Kiaransalee, goddess of vengeance, had a significant appeal among the drow.

Good Drow
"Good drow" amounted to about 15% of the entire race. However, many of them weren't actually of good alignment, but merely chaotic neutral or lawful neutral. Within the Lolthite society, even actually good drow generally had problems to form a sense of moral for themselves. They generally acted in the same way as evil drow due to social pressure and risks. As mentioned above, being soft in any way was lethal in drow society and therefore these people often died.

It was believed that the "good drow" collectively worshipped Eilistraee, goddess of freedom, but the actual breakdown was that the good-aligned drow did indeed worship the kind goddess, while the morally neutral drow's worship was split among Ghaunadaur, Lolth, Selvetarm, and Vhaeraun.

Only truly exceptional good drow were capable of freeing themselves from Lolth's society. The majority was found out and sacrificed to Lolth. Those who managed to leave Lolthite settlements would often die to the dangerous wilderness of the Underdark. Among the actually good drow, some followers of Eilistraee lived within Lolthite settlements, either looking for an escape with their families (if any), or as infiltrators helping the other drow escape. They were known as "Secret Moondancers". However, no good drow managed to cause meaningful, lasting, or any change for the matter in a drow city.

Furthermore, even those who escaped the cruelties of the Underdark found it more difficult to form long-term friendships than most races did and had to constantly be on the lookout for pursuers who could kill them.

Abilities
Drow had a set of unique abilities.

Physical Abilities
Drow were more agile and alluring than most humanoid races. This was not a coincidence but the result of selective breeding over several generations

Like all elves, drow required no sleep. They instead entered a meditative trance while retaining full awareness of their surroundings. This state was half-again as efficient as the way most races gained rest. However, while the elves relived parts of their memories, including those of past lives, during the trance, drow normally experienced nothing save for the occasional dream (which they tried to interpret looking for signs from Lolth). The fact that drow didn't relive memories of past lives during their trances was viewed as an indication that, unlike the elves, their souls didn't reincarnate.

Senses

 * Sight
 * Drow eyes were sensitive to heat. They had infravision up to a range of 120′ (36.58 m) and learned to discern information from heat patterns and shades. Cold objects appeared grey, while heat was seen, in ascending order of intensity, as blue, purple, red, and warm yellow. The training in stealth received by the drow included blending in with the heat patterns of their surroundings, much like hiding in the shadows. Likewise, formal education or a lot of practice was needed to read heat hues, as the drow couldn't discern the meaning of the various patterns since birth.


 * They also had darkvision up to the same range, but not the low-light vision characteristic of other elves.


 * Hearing
 * Drow had excellent hearing, a trait developed by necessity. In the Underdark, the sense of hearing was paramount in foreseeing rock shifts, collapses, and other hazards, and was also the primary mean to find water through the dripping sound that it made.


 * Smell
 * Drow had a human-like sense of smell, far less keen than in the other Underdark races and than their other senses. Smells were dulled in the Underdark: the ubiquitous smell of damp rocks and the fungi-riddled air of the natural environments, and the strong incenses and the scent of slaves in the drow cities, made it difficult to develop a keen olfactory sense.


 * Stone Sense
 * The drow race's specialty was to sculpt stone (see here). About 70% of the drow had an intuitive understanding of how fortifications or waterworks were constructed and worked, and of how to circumvent and control them. Such an intuitive knowledge extended to works that were made by other races.


 * Drow were generally capable of identifying metal and rock. If given a piece of Underdark-metal, or a cut or worn gem, they could identify it.


 * When a drow found a metal or gem vein, they gained the intuitive knowledge about the direction, richness, and dimensions of said vein.


 * They could also recognize drowcraft items by holding them.


 * Touch
 * Drow had long, slender fingers and a keen tactile sense, to the point of being able to read subtle markings on stone as if they were Braille. This was used to leave secret messages.

Magical Abilities
Drow had a number of inborn unique abilities.

Magic Resistance
Drow had tremendous resistance to magic. During infancy, it fluctuated between almost non-existent and youth-level, and stabilized as they grew up. It increased again when they reached adulthood, and could be trained even further.

The fluctuations of resistance against magic in drow infants was a lethal danger, leading to the development of the potion of magic resistance to stabilize it.

Even when a drow's magic resistance was overcome, they could handle magical attacks quite well and had a better chance than other races at resisting them, especially spells that attempted to bend their will.

Lolthtouched Abilities
Lolthtouched powers, the result of Lolth's blessing, were the most distinctive feature of the drow. They manifested as the abilities cloud of darkness, which enshrouded the drow in darkness that was impossible for anyone but the caster to see through, and darkfire, which made creatures an easier target, encasing them in (harmless) purple flames. The use of such abilities was tiring for the drow. They seemed to be powered by the same source, and only more experienced and well-trained drow could cast both abilities separately.

Through training, drow could manifest the so-called webs of darkness that both slowed and impeded a foe, while also limiting their vision. Those who became curseborn could unlock even more power, including improvements of the aforementioned cloud of darkness and darkfire. Other ways to improve these abilities included training to cast the cloud of darkness faster in response to harm, or to turn the darkfire into a flickering protective shroud that made the beneficiary harder to hit. More mundane methods included slipping in the cover of darkness, or learning to hit the target of darkfire not just more accurately but also harder, like the drow wanderers did.

Lolth's touch gave her a hold over the drow who received it, and overcoming it was only possible by becoming a redeemed drow with Corellon's help.

Base Powers
Base poweres were abilities that the drow could cast without any schooling but simple practice. They varid slightly from person to person due to different reasons: genetics, personal talent, divine favor, etc.. Drow magical abilities were somehow tied to the faerzress, the radiation of the Underdark, and the its intensity in the birthplace of a drow could influence their base powers.

These abilities could temporarily vary in the same person depending on the personal (mental and physical) health situation, aging effects, degree of training, and so on. A dying drow could double the effectiveness of the own innate powers by super-charging them with her or his own life force.

The drow could use their base powers once every day and, once employed, they could end the spell, move it around at their whim, or downsize it. Spells like dispel magic could end a base power's effect. Normally, a drow could not continue using these abilities when they started using another one, or started to cast a spell.

Strong light (like sunlight) hampered the drow's concentration, rendering them unable to use their innate abilities, with few exceptions.


 * Dancing Lights
 * Drow could naturally cast the dancing lights spell.   The drow's innate dancing lights could create a larger number of light motes than the normal spell, and provided better control and intensity as the power of the caster increased. For example, the light spheres could be moved be further away from each other than normal.


 * Apart from its obvious use as a light source, it was used to divert attention, or create a surprise factor with the sudden appearance of a glowing figure or will-o'-wisp-like light balls. Teaming up with actual will-o'-wisps to make this more effective was a known technique, however, this was viewed as corrupted behavior.


 * Darkness
 * Drow had the ability to naturally cast darkness,   creating an area that was impervious to normal sight and infravision. Unlike the normal spell, the drow's innate darkness could also create a globe that could be moved around and grew in radius with the strength of the caster.


 * Apart from its obvious use to cancel light sources, this ability was an integral part of drow combat due to its use to limit sight or otherwise hamper enemies. Darkness looked like black stone when looked at with darkvision, allowing creative uses of the spell. For example, a drow could hide behind the "black stone" and ambush enemies from their cover, or the "black stone" could turn out to be a covered-up pitfall. An entire school of drow martial arts concerned itself with the use of darkness, the kyone veldrin style.


 * Drow could further enhance their darkness to cast it more often, but they could also learn to deepen it so that a daylight spell could not cancel it any more.


 * Faerie Fire
 * Drow had the ability to naturally cast faerie fire.   Unlike the normal spell, the drow's innate faerie fire could create a glowing field that grew wider with the strength of the caster.


 * Faerie fire could come in blue, green, or violet color. A drow could change these colors but always manifested one certain color when they were casting this spell without choosing one.


 * It was used to force enemies to pay attention to an area, or as a diversion. The possibility to change the color of the light provided by the spell was used as a handy system of color signals to convey information over long distances.


 * As mentioned above, base powers were affected by faerzress. According to Seldszar Elpragh, a drow's faerie fire worked by channeling faerzress.

Mature Powers
Upon reaching a sufficient degree of expertise, the drow gained their so called mature powers: the ability to innately cast the detect magic, know alignment, and levitate spells.

Particularly intelligent and powerful drow could maintain two inborn abilities, or one inborn ability and one normal spell, simultaneously. For example, they could levitate while casting darkness.

Casting mature powers was impossible in the presence of intense light, like for base powers.

Priestly Powers
Members of the clergy of a drow deity gained powers through divine favor. These abilities always included the clairvoyance, detect lie, dispel magic, and suggestion spells. Depending on divine favor, a cleric could gain additional powers, like the ability to cast detect undead, ESP--albeit only against other drow within 20 ft. (6.1 m)--and invisibility to undead, but also additional daily uses of their priestly powers.

Noble Powers
Some drow were born with more powers than usual, like the ability to divine a person's mental inclination, as the detect good spell, to detect magic, as detect magic, and to levitate. Such drow made up the noble class of their society. These abilities seemed to be a dominant trait.

Nobles could use their base and mature powers up to once per decade of their lives per day, instead of merely once per day. Unlike commoners, nobles could attempt to cast their inborn abilities in the presence of light, but they could only maintain one of their spells at a time in presence of light, even when they could normally do otherwise.

Learned Abilities
Drow trained in magic often became good clerics and wizards.

Clerical magic was the domain of drow women. This clear division was due to the favoritism of Lolth towards female drow.
 * Cleric

Drow clerics were special among their elven peers. Elven clerics' bodies could only handle a certain amount of magical energy, which limited their growth. The limits of a drow cleric was determined by the favor of the god they served. They could theoretically grow infinitely strong. In practice, however, there was a certain limit at which point the deity either killed or elevated the drow to demigod status.

Drow owned no inherent psionic abilities but psionic schools, especially for the arts of psions and psychic warriors, existed in some cities.
 * Psionic Abilities

Every drow with access to civilization received education in arcane magic, but not every drow was a wizard--far from it. This training had the purpose of scouting talent for magic in young drow, and of teaching all drow to maintain their innate abilities.
 * Wizard

Wizards were the most dangerous among their people, and the most likely to be found alone in the Underdark. Unlike elves, the drow body could handle any amount of arcane magic, allowing drow wizards to theoretically grow infinitely strong in power. Drow who were somehow confined in their cities had a harder time to become exceedingly strong. Drow wizards with the desire for more magic ventured out as adventurers or hired explorers.

Due to the inferior compatibility with arcane magic in drow women, the Art was the province of men. Male wizards, in particular, were often exiles due to persecution by the priestesses or other Houses. They were under general suspicion of being dissatisfied with drow society and having a desire to change it. Thus, they were abducted to undergo the Test once they reached a certain degree of power. They were often merchants (or their employees). Wizards often provided the means of protection and disguise for those who dealt with the denizens of the surface.

Among drow wizards, azmyth were the most prized familiars, but watchspiders and hunting spiders were held in high regard too. Drow also liked to choose fiendish, more precisely abyssal, familiars. Nevertheless, it was common for drow wizards to have a snake, spitting crawler, pedipalp, solifugid, or other spiders --like the hairy spider--as a familiar. Night hunters were rarely kept as familiars and aggressive pets. despite its intelligence.

Martial and Stealthy Abilities
Drow who received martial training usually became competent fighters (especially males) and rogues. Drow fighters often devoted themselves to Lolth for an easier life by becoming blackguards and/or divine champions. Even though males could become divine champions, such an achievement would bring the ire of the priestesses on them, and therefore death.

The drow had a fascination with stealth and subtlety, and specific training was available for their rogues. Bardic magic wasn’t very common, but it was appreciated and taught in bardic colleges. Rangers were valued scouts.

While being widely known was usually a sign of lack of skills for an assassin, due to the drow's fascination with stealth, (in)famous assassin schools that doubled as assassins' guilds existed. Another route for rogues was to devote themselves to Lolth and become divine seekers.

Martial Arts
Drow were frail like any other elf. They had a tendency to ambush their enemies with ranged weaponry, and retreat when melee combat was the sole other option. They favored light and quick weapons like rapiers, and would choose hand crossbows when possible, to deliver their poisons from afar. The drow had a number of combat styles:


 * Bautha z'hin: A style based on evasion, and on flanking and surrounding a single enemy (usually a monster) with superior numbers and agility, favored by rogues and clerics of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun.


 * Draa velve: Involving the use of two swords, this style could only be mastered by those with talent and luxury to enjoy formal education. It was used by Drizzt Do'Urden.


 * Jivvin golhyrr: A style used to force enemies into humiliating positions, favored by priestesses of Lolth.


 * Kyone veldrin: A style that emphasized the use of the darkness ability.


 * Kyorlin plynn: Used to capture opponents alive, this style was favored by conservative fighters and priestesses of Lolth alike, but for completely different reasons.


 * Luth alur: A ranged combat style.


 * Orb alur: This style focused on striking many opponents with one strike. Its users were valued and granted special privileges.


 * Phindar streeaka: This wasn't a style at all, but a catch-all term for mindless violence used for battle. It was "used" by drow berserkers and followers of Ghaunadaur.


 * Sargh'elgg: A style that focused on making use of the drow race's natural agility, and on the use of one single light weapon. This was the only style open for the poor who lacked education options, but was also used by clerics of Kiaransalee, Lolth and Vhaeraun.


 * Ust sreen: A style about striking first and quickly reacting at the opening of a fight.


 * Z'har thalack: Mounted combat style, used by the cavalry.


 * Z'ress a'thalak: A style that put emphasis on physical strength over accuracy. Favored by followers of Selvetarm.

Strength and Weaknesses

 * Appearence
 * As mentioned above, the drow had a very unique appearence. Combined with their reputation, this appearence made it impossible for them to replenish their resources on the surface in effective ways.


 * Mimicry
 * The whole drow race had a natural aptitude for audible mimicry. They could rather easily mimic the sound and tone of a different person in a believable manner, especially when often exposed to the language that they had to replicate.


 * Poison
 * Drow had a high tolerance to poison, for two reasons. First, they were exposed to poisons over countless generations, allowing later generations to build up resistance. Second, every drow put some individual effort in strengthening their tolerance as part of their training. This was done by intaking ever bigger doses of drow sleep poison and of spider venom, becoming more and more tolerant to such substances. The drow had a lesser resistance, in descending order, to the following kinds of toxins: non-drow sleep poisons, drugs, insect venom, and injected poisons. The drow had no special resistance against poisons delivered by contact or to poisonous gases.


 * Sunlight
 * Drow had a weakness against light in general. For example, a common or untrained drow could neither use nor maintain their innate abilities under the effect of light that was as bright as, or brighter than, sunlight. Noble drow could use up to one innate ability in bright light. However, the drow developed a method to defend themselves against light through the use of the hand of darkness spell. Before the 1360s DR, the drow had used to gradually lose their base and mature powers as well as their defenses against magic, if exposed to sunlight. However, during the 1360s DR, Liriel Baenre, guided by Eilistraee, carved her rune in the Child of the Yggdrasil with the intent of preserving her own drow magic away from the Underdark, but the act ended up allowing all drow to keep their powers on the surface. Despite Eilistraee guiding Liriel, speculations were that Lolth also had a hand in the matter.


 * It took a drow about ten years of exposure to get used to the sunlight and to use their infravision and normal vision simultaneously. Initial exposure to sunlight was dangerous for a drow and cause of heavy sunburns. Even after getting used to the sunlight, drow had a strong tendency to cover their skin and head.


 * Besides physical effects, bright light also limited drow activity, for they could not do anything effectively during daytime.

Culture/Society
Drow lived in city-states characterized by a theocratic, matriarchal, and militaristic society.

Purpose
The drow society nominally had two purposes, called "the First and Second Part of the Destiny of the People". The former was about forcing all other races of the Underdark into subservience, while the latter was about driving the entire elven population into extinction.

Lolth claimed that, in order to achieve such goals, the drow needed to be forced into perpetual infighting and violent competition, so that the constant training would make them stronger and smarter. However, the extreme, self-destructive degree to which this was taken prevented the drow from achieving either of their purposes, barring possibilities for significant growth. In fact, despite her rhetoric, Lolth merely enjoyed the infighting that she promoted.

On a personal level, each drow tried to gain and maintain the favor of Lolth, as well as to amass material goods, like wealth and slaves, and to gain status inside their society, in which the concept of inherent value of life did not exist. Depending on the station of a drow, there was a difference in the kind of plans they supported and executed. Drow of higher standing supported endeavours to boost their own prestige by increasing their own people's power and influence. Drow of lower station supported plans that dragged everybody down, for example by causing strife and violence within their communities.

City-States
Drow lived in city-states in the Underdark, built in places that had to meet sevaral criteria. For example, the caverns were huge, allowing a horizontal layout of the city; a lot of iron, adamantite, and gems needed to be nearby; the magnetic force and the faerzress needed to be particularly intense, both for practical reasons (see here) and, according to Qilué Veladorn, because the drow had a mental compulsion to be near the radiation and were drawn to it. When the faerzress collapsed for some reason, the drow-city usually collapsed too.

Drow cities could have trade agreements between each other, but were mostly at war. While called "city-states", they didn't have the organization of an actual state: they were mostly clusters of drow, with the most powerful family groups taking the best lands and resources for themselves, and forming the aristocratic class. These cities were ruled by the most powerful among the families (or Houses), and the leaders of the various Houses held the greatest influence within the community. The second power group inside a given drow city were the merchant clans. Desperation, oppression, and poverty were the general rule in such a city for anyone other than those belonging to power groups.

The noble Houses were located in the close proximity to each other, and a public temple to Lolth was often built within the strongest family's territory. Commoners lived either in caves or in walled houses with cellars, mostly made of adobe-like materials. A good indicator of the residents' power was the grandeur of the house; the bigger the more powerful.

Drow cities usually included farmlands, where slaves worked to produce and harvest meat and crops. Those lands were usually found inside the main cavern but sometimes, usually due to space limits, they could be found outside the main cavern of the city. As a rule of thumb, half to two-thirds of a given drow settlement's population consisted of slaves or non-drow without rights. The borders and landmarks of a given city-state, as well as the working places for slaves outside of the city, were marked with continual faerie fire.

When faced with overpopulation, drow ate their elders to combat the problem.

Lighting within a drow city was created both through magic and mundane means, with the former being far more common.

Defenses
The gates of a city, as well as its important buildings, were usually protected by jade spider guardians.

The faerzress radiation near most drow cities provided protection from magical spying via divination, and also made it difficult, or even dangerous, to teleport within the area. Furthermore, the faerzress allowed cheap and easy creation of magic, drowcraft items, as well as other ways to use the radiation for defensive purposes. The over-reliance on farzress meant that drow settlements were often stationary, and therefore relatively easy to locate and attack. Drow often used shriekers, a type of fungi that grew in faerzress-rich places, to warn them of incoming danger.

The radiation had the unique capability to cause mutations in creatures. For example, a flying roper could be born in a faerzress-rich environment. If the product of such mutations was powerful, drow tried to avoid fighting it and tried to contain it in a certain area so that would-be-intruders had to face it instead. If the creature had a spider-like appearance, the drow's reaction was to praise it as the work of Lolth and sometimes fed it with their captives, or with intruders whom they lured into the monster's lair.

The drow were mostly met in the Upperdark, but the majority of their cities were found in the Middledark as a protection against aggressions from the surface. In fact, traveling all the distance down to the Middledark with an army from the surface wasn't a feasible undertaking.

Power Groups within a City
There were two power groups within a drow city; the noble houses and the merchant clans.

Noble Houses
Drow were ruled by their aristocracy, made up by the families that had the strength to violently occupy the best lands. Such Houses were founded by powerful drow individuals with special powers, who then passed their traits to their offspring (see under Noble Powers). Nobles also further augmented their abilities with magic items.

Noble Houses constantly fought each other but were also characterized by internal strife, as it was actually expected in a society that followed the Way of Lolth. Even though the power of the many Houses changed often, the few at the top usually remained stable. Within a family, noble drow parents viewed their children as vehicles for their own advancement, including sacrificing them for some potential gain. Noble drow stayed with their family as children as a protection from outside violence, and as adults because Houses proved to be good tools for societal advancement.

Noble drow families banded together for mutual protection and not out of affection. The head of a noble House was a matron mother, a powerful priestess of Lolth. Below her, in descending order of influence, were the female members--also priestesses, ranked according to age-- the male officers (weapon master, House wizard, and patron--the matron's consort), and the other male members of the House (war-leaders, who answered to the weapon master, and House mages, subservient to the House wizard), who were also ranked according to age. Below the non-officer males were servants and slaves. None of the ranks held by male drow or non-blood-related members had any job security. All it took was the matron's whim for their position to be changed. Females had absolute power within their household, and owned all the governmental and militaristic power within the city. However, they held no authority until after puberty. Males never held any authority unless they managed to become an officer. In most cases a matron only lost her position if murdered by her eldest daughter. This usually marked a new direction for the House, sometimes even its destruction, because the murder of a matron was seen as a sign of disfavor from Lolth.

While the nobles took the best lands and resources for themselves, the rest of the population was forced to care for themselves. Priestesses were bad rulers who tossed their cities into a haphazard organization. Not only did their infighting paralyze the growth of their own cities, but they actively undermined opportunities and chances for any form of development, in order to ensure that those below them didn't gain power (and with it, the option to turn away from Lolth).

Merchant Clans
The success of the merchant clans was important for the survival of the drow race. Their connections with the outside world was the only thing keeping the decadent noble families alive. The clans were among the primary mercantile organizations in the Underdark, and their presence was common along the trade routes. Contrary to the Houses, merchant clans were run by male drow, because females considered interaction with outsiders to be too demeaning and dangerous for them.

The organization of a merchant clan varied, but some general statements could be made. They were run by a council of male wizards, called "inner ring". Male drow had no inhibition when it came to interaction with other races, including surface-dwellers, because they knew that there was no chance of advancement within their society for them. In fact, many of the "second ring", as the managers of a merchant clans were called, were non-drow. The lowest ranking members, almost exclusively non-drow, called "assets", made up the labor and military force of the organization. Outside the environment of the drow cities, merchant clans and noble Houses openly fought each other.

Within the drow society, merchants with a particularly rich experience and worldly mindset were the only individuals capable of forming genuine friendships with the so-called lesser races, like mind flayers or duergars.

Justice
Within the Lolthite drow society, "might makes right" was the only "law". In fact, the priestesses of the Spider Queen--the rulers of the various cities--violently forced others to comply with Lolth's dogma, which in turn became the main law.

In practice, however, something akin to an actual body of laws existed within the drow society, and the priestesses fulfilled the judicial functions. They saw it as their right to arrest and punish people for assumed offenses in ways made up on the spot. Concepts such as the presumption of innocence didn't exist, and the only possibility to lessen a punishment was for the presumed criminal to have connections that the punishing priestesses considered a threat.

Way of Lolth
The Way of Lolth was the basis for the drow laws. The most important points were the following.

See also Relationship with Eilistraee
 * Monotheism


 * Only Lolth was considered a true deity and worship of others was forbidden. This included her servant deities, like Kiaransalee, who was prayed to in secret, and Selvetarm, who could be socially acceptably invoked as a non-divine servant of Lolth. First-time offenders of this command were fined and temporarily exiled, while second-time offenders were killed.


 * An exception was the faith of Vhaeraun. The church of Lolth considered the church of Vhaeraun as a serious enemy. The followers of the Masked Lord outright called for the destruction of Lolth's established order, therefore his followers were killed even as first-time offenders.


 * However, since the Second Sundering, there were three ways to openly pray Vhaeraun in a Lolthite society. First, invoking the god of thieves when embarking on raids was a normal, accepted practice. Second, in the 1490s DR, the majority of the church of Vhaeraun were not revolutionaries, but simply people who wanted to improve their lot in life and worked towards that end. This was tacitly tolerated by the matriarchy but such people still hid their identities, for they passively resisted the established order and that remained dangerous. Third, there were true Lolth-loyalists who believed a legend that painted the Masked God of Night as a god who hid the scars that his mother inflicted him under a mask, and who lost his tongue to her. These loyalists scarred and silenced themselves, and acted as bodyguards for the very matron mothers that their faith was supposed to overthrow.


 * Hierarchy
 * According to the Way of Lolth, the violation of a given hierarchy could be met with various punishments. Anyone who killed a spider had to be killed, a slave was to be killed for disobedience, commoners could be punished in any way if they objected to a high priestess, students who refused the "courting" of a matron or female teacher could be punished in any way (including death), and so on.


 * Identification
 * The drow society had a strict fashion code (which included rules about hairstyles) meant to allow easy identification of a drow's social station and House (if any). Any drow who committed identification litigations by wearing the wrong hair style, clothes, and/or drow house insignia was killed, as was a non-drow who tried to pass as a drow.


 * Infighting
 * See Internal Wars

Gender Roles
Lolth’s dogma mandated to recognize female drow as more valuable than males, who were considered worthless. This gave female drow absolute power, and they were also less likely to be sacrificed than males. Males who hoped to find any place of power often resorted to ends as treacherous as the women that ruled the drow, hoping to perhaps win a coveted place as the mate of a powerful matron mother.

Arcane magic was a route for power for male drow, though open only to a few. While they were still socially inferior to female drow, they weren’t in real danger of being killed by a priestess, while even accomplished male war commanders were in danger of being executed for perceived insults. Generally, men tried currying favors with women and advance their station by attaching themselves to them (for example, by gaining high officer positions, or becoming consorts). Other ways of gaining station as a male were to become an arcane devotee (but it didn't grant complete safety), or an arachnomancer, taking advantage of the reverence of spiders that came with the worship of Lolth.

It would be easy to imagine that drow females, by comparison, had it much easier. However, this was an illusion, and their prestigious position came at a high cost. In fact, the teachings of Lolth and the drive to gain more power made the competition between female drow, particularly those who belonged to powerful houses, violent, aggressive and lethal in a way that males didn't have to deal with. It was even worse for those women who sought power outside of Lolth's church, where they had to compete not only with other females, but with resentful and oppressed males as well.

Male clerics existed among the drow. In Lolth-dominated cities, however, they were targets of her female followers, and Lolth barred them from achieving power beyond a certain threshold. They served in low-ranking positions under lethal risks. While they could even become divine disciples, it often caused the priestesses to kill them.
 * Male Clergy

The faith of Ghaunadaur didn't have a gender barriers. Vhaeraun's faith had a gender barrier that made it harder for women to become his clerics. Eilistraee accepted clergy of all genders and races but, before the 1370s DR, her clerics had used to be only female, because, due to the goddess' nature, "One could not truly feel the Divine Dance of Eilistraee PROPERLY except as a female". However, during the 1370s DR, Eilistraee started working towards opening up to male priesthood: for a time, males still had a harder time becoming clerics (see also here), but after the Second Sundering, Eilistraee's clergy could be accessed by people of any gender with equal ease.

Courting and Love
Courting was the domain of women in drow society. Trying to initiate a relationship was a reason for execution by torture and sacrifice for a male drow. In general, drow women chose their partners as animals would be chosen for breeding purposes.

Furthermore, once a relationship started, the male partner had no say on how long the relationship would last, or whether it should even start. The woman, on the other hand, could change partners as she desired.

When a drow man was desired by more than one female, the latter competed over him. The male wasn’t safe from damage: in fact, for drow women, as a sign to clarify the loss of interest in the rivalry was to skin the male and drop the corpse before the room of her rival. The death of a male drow was the usual way in which a relationship ended. In non-Lolthite culture and among commoners, matters weren't that extreme. The concept of marriage existed but it was not for eternity. The contract lasted for a decade or so at longest, but renewal was possible. One exception were the merchant clans: marriage wasn't everlasting, but marrying someone from a merchant clan meant becoming part of it for life. Trying to leave could be the same as inviting death.

The secret of a working long-term relationship between drow was not love but tangible reasons, like the male having a history of fathering many female offspring. The best "normal" romantic relationship between two drow was similar to the one between a spoiled brat and her well trained, obedient dog, with the owner having the right to put the dog down for any reason.

Military
In drow society, the priestesses formally occupied the positions of leadership among the military. However, in practice, male commanders led the military forces because the priestesses commonly hid away in the face of danger, while resorting to the use of corporal threats and magical domination to ensure loyalty.

When a military squad was formally led by a male drow, it was either a streeakh, a suicide squad, or a dobluth, a group of outcasts. Patrols were outfitted with protection from earth and stone against cave-ins, while surface raiders or underground furtive attackers used an orb of duo-dimension to allow stealthy attacks.

Internal Wars
When nobles warred against each other, the attacking side had to eradicate the entire enemy family within one single attack. If even one member of the defending family survived, they could apply for "justice", and the entire city would turn on the attackers. Alliances were not allowed in this kind of attacks, and there was a minimum interim time between two assaults against a house that had already been attacked. Prolonged covert warfare between two houses, by means like assassination, was not exactly forbidden. However, it was only tolerated for a time counted in years. After that, the drow city's ruling council forced the two houses to enter open war. This was the reason why drow society was in a perpetual state of very small-scale battle of underhandedness, instead of a series of bloody frontal battles.

War against external Threats
War in the Underdark was far different from conflicts fought on the surface. Underground warfare heavily involved the use of natural environment as a weapon through the creation of tunnels to flank enemies, cause cave-ins, change the flow of magma, and so on. This kind of conflict, with the enlistment of slaves and allies, could drag on for years. Furthermore, the cramped space of the Underdark made it hard or ineffectual to amass giant armies, and most battles were actually skirmishes between small units or patrols.

In war situations, the drow schemed against each other so that their rivals would take the heaviest losses, or carry the responsibility for any failure. They were literally incapable of forming a united front against their enemies-

While the exact equipment and size of drow warbands varied from place to place, it was possible to make some general assumptions about the composition, for some typical traits existed.


 * Patrols
 * A drow patrol usually consisted of seven to a dozen soldiers led by a commander, who could have up to three bodyguards and apprentices, or acolytes. These warbands normally included a mix of both male and female drow and, while this was a good rule of thumb rather than a certainty, a patrol that was all-male or all-female denoted that the tension between the sexes in their city was reaching a critical point. Less than a third of drow patrols included one to eight non-drow like bugbears, goblins, or orcs as allied forces. Mind flayers were never a part of such groups, except when being escorted to a destination.


 * Drow warbands were the field of trained personnel, and included only up to six drow with normal training, while the rest were elites. These warriors were usually equipped with short swords, daggers, up to three javelins and an atlatl to extend their reach, a hand crossbow with ten poisoned darts, and a buckler for protection. As a from cave-ins, each group was provided with a scroll of protection from earth and stone.


 * Patrol leaders were normally male drow with superior fighting skills, or clerics trained in the use of weapons. They were equipped with a hand crossbow, javelins with an atlatl, and with at least a +3 mace to clarify their claim as authority holders. Larger patrols were generally led by female drow, who and normally had one or two powerful warriors as lieutenants.


 * The members of a patrol coordinated themselves by using the drow infravision and counting what they called "handfades", a unit of time based on how long it took a rock to lose all heat after being touched by a hand.


 * Elite patrols
 * An elite patrol was usually led by a female cleric with female bodyguards, and her "acolytes" were also female clerics from the same church.


 * These patrols were special for they had a further cleric with healing duties, who also worked as a spy for the church of Lolth.


 * Pincers
 * "Pincer" was the name given to a collection of several patrols (two to four) led by one commander, usually some kind of spellcaster, called an "overleader" or "battlecaptain", who had up to four lieutenants, called "webmasters".


 * Battle-lord or warmistress ranked higher than battlecaptains in the chain of command, and had an entire patrol force as their bodyguards and carriers of magic items.


 * Wartime
 * During wartime, the patrols doubled their numbers of poisoned darts, and every warrior was equipped with up to three potions of healing in steel vials that didn't rust.


 * Tactics
 * The drow avoided large sieges and pitched battles, and focused on skirmishes, hit-and-run tactics, and harrying strikes. They were aggressive, if not outright impatient, and one way to gain an advantage on them was to taunt their warriors long enough for them to make a fatal mistake.


 * Drow used ambush tactics that took advantage of existing dangers like loose rocks. They had a knack for responding to their enemies' actions, including spellcasting, and for using traps, like deliberately placed phycomids or glasses full of ascomoid-spores, to gain an advantage in combat.


 * When a drow died in battle, they were reanimated as a zombie if the lower half of the body was still functional. It was done to prevent the corpse from getting plundered, to provide the corpses a mean of self-transportation, and to gain useful shock troops to use in battle.


 * House Armies
 * Each House had a standing army of drow soldiers, priestesses, and wizards. They included contingents consisting solely of non-drow slaves, usually bugbears, ogres, and minotaurs.

Childcare
As mentioned above, the drow had to compete for limited resources and chances for advancement in society. For this reason, they tried to instill tenacity, cruelty, ambition, self-reliance, and independence in their children. Physical imperfection wasn't tolerated (due to the obsession with physical beauty), and children born with physical malformations were killed shortly after birth. Traits like kindness or compassion were dangerous in the Lolthite society, as they made an individual prone to exploitation, and children who showed such weakness were punished. The punishment ranged from beatings to neglect, like ceasing to provide food to the kid, and could prove lethal. This abusive treatment was supposed to prepare the children for the cruelty of their future lives, and eventual child deaths due to punishment were justified with the assumption that they had been "saved" from an even worse end as adults. Drow children learned cruelty and bloodthirst both as a survival mechanism and as a defensive mechanism to escape punishment. As a general rule, these lessons scarred a drow and stuck with them for their entire life.

Noble drow weren't raised by their parents, whom they only rarely saw, but by elder siblings and private caretakers, resulting in thin bonds between parents and children. Merchant clans and commoners (who lacked the resources to hire tutors) considered raising their children as the entire family's duty.

Commoner
Most members of the Lolthite drow society lived under oppression, in perpetual desperation and poverty. Normally, commoners learned a craft or entered military training, while talented individuals could hope to enter one of the magic schools. Commoners who gained enough expertise in a certain area, like Zaknafein Do'Urden as a warrior, could be adopted into a noble family. From time to time, artists were adopted by one of the Houses for their skill.

Commoners could also rise to a higher social station by becoming the consort of a noble, gaining the latter's last name for the duration of the marriage. These bonds were generally of temporary nature, however, due to accidents, or to the noble growing tired of the commoner, or using the latter merely as a figure. The outcome was either a painful death or expulsion - usually the former. Nonetheless, noble drow valued commoners drow more than slaves, and commonly sacrificed them only when a slave wasn’t at hand.

In general, commoners had a higher chance to live a long life than nobles, resulting in families who had many living generations of members. This was because there wasn't much to gain from killing an elder, who actually represented a valuable source of historical and general knowledge with realistic accessibility.

Artisans
Due to the drow's love of beautiful things, the demand for art and skilled craft (especially exquisitely forged weapons) was high. Good artisans, especially innovative artists (about 0,1 to 0,4% of the population), were highly sought after by the noble Houses, and families that didn't produce artistic talent on their own acquired it from the outside (be it by adoption into the family, a rare occurrence, simple hiring, or forceful coercion). About a fifth of the entire drow race was capable of complex works, while only about one-tenth could create items fine enough to be enchanted or turned into drowcraft through the absorption of faerzress. Even though capable artisans weren't few among the drow, there was a great shortage of such talents compared to the demand, and both nobles and merchant clans tried to have at least six on their payroll. Overall, artisans were among the most intrigant and paranoid drow. They used tricky devices, like clothes with built-in items, body weapons like gas-powered needle-throwers, extensile mechanical hands, wire-saws, and more to break out of cages and prisons, but also as weapons against people.

Relationships
As mentioned before, drow expected betrayal from each other and acted accordingly.

The drow's view on other races ran the entire gamut from potential slaves or the targets of extermination. They held some respect towards races capable of resisting their aggressions, and could perceive certain races as possible equals with whom they had mutual gain or non-aggression pacts. However, contracts with "lesser races" were not seen as actually binding: they were readily broken as soon as they stopped being beneficial to the drow party. As a result, the other races learned to anticipate betrayal and always had counters to the treachery prepared.

The drow believed that all "lesser races" had to be subjugated, or driven to extinction when representing a threat. This view resulted in an extreme thought process regarding other races. The drow's first idea on making new encounters generally was to wage war to subjugate or eradicate the others. Prisoners of such violent activities were the source of slaves in their cities.


 * Beholders
 * Beholders were often sought out by the drow as allies for the extra protection these aberrations could offer to their communities.


 * Chitines
 * Chitines were created by the drow of Ched Nasad as part of breeding experiments led on dwarves and elves. Drow and chitines fought against each other just as Lolth wanted.


 * Deep Dragons
 * Deep dragons were often sought out by the drow as allies for protection.


 * Demons
 * On one hand, demons were feared by the drow, on the other hand, they felt no anxiety towards the Tanar'ri due to Lolth being a denizen of the Abyss. For example, drow regularly formed contracts with summoned demons, benefiting both the drow and the demons and usually fulfilled without any problems to the two parties. Having a demon as a guest at an event increased its prestige and that of the host. Drow also mated with, and produced offspring from, demons. The other races considered it one of their most perverse fetish.


 * Disir
 * The drow were a potential threat to the survival of the disir: if the drow had reached unity, the resulting power gap would have been such that the disir society would have had no chance of survival.


 * Driders
 * Drow feared driders, physically changed drow who failed Lolth or the Test, and drove them out of their cities. Another way to deal with driders was to confine them in certain areas where they could serve as a line of defense against intruders.


 * Duergars
 * Duergars were a military match to the drow, and therefore somewhat respected and considered potential allies and trade partners (when it coame to weapon trade).


 * Dwarves
 * Drow and dwarves had a comparable effective birth rate, and both were quite wealthy as a whole. They competed for the same resources, which frequently led to the Underdark equivalent of open wars between the two races.


 * Elves
 * While most drow shared a hatred of all other races, especially surface races, the object of their deepest hatred was the Seldarine and the surface elves (especially moon and sun elves), "Darthiir" in Drow language, which also meant traitors. Their mainstream culture had the annihilation of the surface elves' as one of its goals, based on the idea, that the drow were unjustly punished by the elven gods, especially by Corellon Larethian (even though many drow thought this way, some had become so used to life in the Underdark that they would prefer to make the best of it, and had no interest in the surface). The hatred was reciprocated, to the point that, for an elf, tolerating an objectively good drow whose goodness could be objectively proven by magic, was a very high bar.


 * Humans
 * Humans were among the drow's traditional enemies.


 * Jermlaine
 * The drow were potential threat to the survival of the Jermlaine.


 * Kuo-toa
 * For unclear reasons, the relationship between the drow and the kuo-toa was peaceful and friendly, allowing for close trade agreements and even the existence of mixed communities. At some point around 1372 DR, however, the drow started viewing the kuo-toa as inferior creatures and their alliance ended, making the drow a potential threat to the survival of the amphibious race.


 * Illithids
 * Illithids were a military match to the drow, and therefore respected (to a degree) and feared for their abilities to enslave and eat brains. The drow often allied with Illithids, and sought their service to read the minds of enemies.


 * Night Hunters
 * Night hunters were used as aggressive pets but also as familiars.


 * Svirfneblin
 * Drow found killing deep gnomes a fun activity, while deep gnomes harbored a visceral hatred for the drow, and put a lot of effort into hiding their settlements from their sworn enemies. The deep gnomes ally with drow under no circumstances.

Reputation
As a general rule, the inhabitants of Toril's surface knew very little about the drow. To the average person, the drow were such a distant problem that they were considered more like myth than reality. As a rule of thumb, only 5% of surface inhabitants had the superficial knowledge that the drow were "inhabitants of the Underdark who conducted raids on the surface", not including elves and eladrin, who had close historical connections. This made it easier for individual drow to enter surface communities without meeting hostility, as long as they didn't do or say something that could catch attention and lead people who had real knowledge about the drow to cleanse their community of the threat the drow represented. That said, surface cities didn't generally allow drow into their cities because of their reputation, even though followers of Eilistraee sometimes managed to gain a place within surface communities.

Composition of the faiths
The drow mainly worshiped a pantheon of gods called the Dark Seldarine (a name intended as a mockery of the original Seldarine), even though, as said above, within Lolthite settlements, continued worship of any deity but Lolth (and, under certain conditions, Vhaeraun) was punishable by death. Some drow living in Waterdeep, however, followed the gods of the Seldarine.

Differently from the elves, who venerated one member of their pantheon above the rest while still paying homage to each of their deities, the drow chose one god or goddess (or sometimes two) from their pantheon and ignored the rest (even though exceptions, like praying to Vhaeraun--the god of thieves--when embarking on raids, existed). For this reason, while deities like Bane, Cyric, or Shar, who had millions of worshipers but 135.000, 250.000, 100.000 dedicated followers respectively, in the case of the Dark Seldarine, the number of worshipers of a certain deity was mostly equal to the size of their church. Aside from Eilistraee, whose worship wasn't far in nature and choice of sacred places from that practiced by surface elves, the drow gods weren't venerated out of true piety, but out of fear, respect, or ambition.

Major Faiths
There were two major faiths among the drow:


 * Church of Lolth
 * The church of Lolth was the primary drow faith. Its goal was to strengthen Lolth and her authority by bringing all drow under the church's wing, while killing those who were in any way a challenge to the authority of the Spider Queen and her clergy.


 * Though religion played a large part in drow society, the caste system and other seemingly lawful aspects of the culture clashed with Lolth's intent and directives as a chaotic evil goddess. As a result, much of the tension between the clergy of Lolth and more secular drow came from this very different perspective.


 * Church of Vhaeraun
 * See also Relationship between Vhaeraun and Lolth
 * See also Relationship between the churches of Vhaeraun and Lolth


 * The faith of Vhaeraun was the biggest among surface drow, and the second biggest overall among the whole race. Its goal was to re-elevate the Ilythiiri to the position of power they once held, in a society where equality between the sexes reigned. They intended to gain a foothold on the surface, crush Lolth's version of society, stop the infighting, and unify their people for dominion. The Masked Lord was primarily worshiped by surface drow,  male drow, because of his goal of gender equality, and by those people who dealt in the acquisition of wealth by illegal means, because he approved of greed as the god of thieves.


 * To the church of Lolth, the followers of Vhaeraun represented a serious enemy, and the two faiths clearly had no common ground. That said, openly invoking him was tolerated as long as it respected certain boundaries (see above) There were also clerics of Lolth who were in fact specialty priests of Vhaeraun called masked traitors, spies whom Lolth believed to be her clerics.

Minor Faiths
The following faiths were of minor importance:


 * Church of Eilistraee
 * The church of Eilistraee, followers of the goddess of beauty, song, and freedom, strove to free the drow from Lolth's web and build a place for their people on the surface world. They reached to the drow in the Underdark, while on the surface they offered help to the needy and nurtured arts, working to build peaceful relationships with the other races. Most drow weren't aware of Eilistraee, as the matron mothers suppressed all records about her, and what little information existed painted her as a surface elf deity aiming to drive the drow into extinction. Due to the nature of their goal, except when performing redemption missions, the faith was mainly active on the surface and had little presence in the Underdark.


 * Church of Ghaunadaur
 * The church of Ghaunadaur believed that everybody capable of strength was allowed to wield power, an idea that actually devolved into an extreme form of "might makes right". The Ghaunadans' goal was to promote the faith of their deity and to ensure that he was fed with sacrifices, by killing followers of other deities and pillaging their temples.


 * Every drow had used to be more or less aware of That Which Lurks, but after the Spellplague, knowledge about the Elder Eye was forgotten by the drow due to suppression from Lolth's clergy.


 * Church of Kiaransalee
 * The church of Kiaransalee was a fatalistic cult that concerned itself with vengeance and necromancy. They believed that, through loyal service to the Revenancer, they would be reborn as undead and live forever. Said service consisted of killing and re-animating people, while at the same time avenging every slight.


 * Kiaransalee was a rather unknown goddess, and most of those who knew about her thought her to be a delusional lich who saw herself as a deity. However, during the Silence of Lolth, the church grew enough in size to allow the deity to become a lesser power, rather than a demigoddess.


 * Church of Selvetarm
 * The church of Selvetarm, followers of the drow god of war, were mostly warriors or guards who constantly honed their fighting skills and reveled in battle. Due to its emphasis on individual battle prowess instead of strategy, adhering to this faith blocked a drow from obtaining high positions in the military. Calling out to the Spider That Waits was mostly done by lower-class drow. Selvetarm wasn't recognized as a god by most of his followers, who worshiped him as a powerful servant of Lolth (the only form of veneration of this deity that was accepted in the mainstream drow society). Venerating him as an individual deity wasn't tolerated within Lolthite settlements.

Customs
The drow had a number of customs, gestures, and rituals. For example, it was custom to kill all children with physical deficiencies; a commonly accepted gesture was dropping a knee and held weapons as a sign of surrender. There were many rituals as well, like the graduation ceremony for the graduates of the mage, priest, and warrior schools. Some known drow rituals and customs were the following:
 * The Blooding
 * A coming of age event that consisted of killing a dangerous or sentient surface creature.


 * The Running
 * An annual ritual where the drow went out to commit a massacre against a surface community. It was only held where the surface was easily accessible.


 * The Test and the Test of Lolth
 * Rites of passage and tests of loyalty to Lolth for those Lolthite drow (especially wizards) who reached a certain degree of power and knowledge. When a priestess succeeded at it, she gained a promotion. Those who failed were turned into driders.


 * Spider Hunting
 * A game of hide-and-seek played by young drow as a kind of courting ritual during festivals.


 * Meeting Customs
 * When participating in a meeting, due to their weakness to light, the creation of an intense light source was seen as a hostile act by the drow, that led them to attack.

Languages
When the drow spoke, they were quite eloquent and their speech was musical, as was common among elves. Barring the most primitive, drow were generally literate. Most drow only knew two languages (Deep Drow and the Sign language) because they usually stayed in their cities and therefore exposure to other languages and the need to learn them was limited. However, drow adventurers, outcasts, and slave-traders learned more languages, as did their warriors.


 * Deep Drow
 * The spoken everyday language, commonly called "Deep Drow", but also "Low Drow" or "Drowic", was similar in structure to Common and Undercommon, with a lot of borrowed words from other languages like the orcish, dwarven, human languages. Simply put, it was an elven dialect.


 * Drow Sign language
 * The Sign language was also commonly known among drow. It could convey information as well as any spoken language within sight range of 120 ft (36 m), and had no written form. The language was not part of the drow's compulsory education, but they had an easy time learning it.


 * High Drow
 * High Drow was an archaic dialect, which priestesses of Lolth learned in order to be able to speak without fear of others understanding them. It was not only spoken but conveyed information by certain gestures too.


 * Undercommon
 * It was quite common for drow to be proficient in this trade language.


 * Other languages
 * Drow warriors had a tendency to learn the languages of creatures that lived physically close to the drow like Abyssal, Common, Draconic, and Goblin, as well as those languages that were spoken in the nearest surface area.

Names
Drow names often included double letters and were designed to be pleasant to the ear.


 * First names
 * The drow believed that having first names that were similar to one of their gods was a guarantee for misfortune, when it came to names resembling their own patron, it was considered blasphemy. Nobles had a strong tendency to not choose names that were similar in sound to the common tongue of Deep Drow.


 * Last names
 * Drow last names never started with a "L"-sound that was similar to the one in the name "Lolth" or one of its variations, like "Lloth" or "Loethe",as this was reserved for the Spider Queen's avatar. Holding a last name, in general, meant that the holder was either born into a noble family, or had a rank and role (like weapon master) in a household. Drow that didn't meet those criteria weren't allowed to have a surname.

Variant cultures
Not all drow became a part of the violent mainstream culture that most of the race were forced to endure. Those few who escaped the life of the Underdark might break away entirely from their dark past, while some fortunate drow were actually born and raised outside of the world below. Some drow found virtue within themselves in spite of all the terrors they witnessed, or perhaps because of it, others turned to better ways either out of guilt, or simply because no longer under obligation of adhering to Lolth's dogma, while yet others were dangerously insane, broken by the horrors that shook their psyches.

The drow who chose to live on the surface, outside of the churches of Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, did not form any kind of organized society and instead lived as hermits and outcasts. They would interact with other societies when needed, but not because of choice.

Economy
Drow had craftsmen, farmers and so on like any other culture and they engaged life and business mostly in the same manner as in any other culture. Unlike other cultures, these businesses had to face an additional economic risk, that doubled as the society’s chronic economic liability of the worst sort, the priestesses of Lolth. The concept of give and take, of buying and paying, did exist in drow culture, priestesses were just exempt from this duty in practice. They just took stuff and did it from time to time so often until a business went bankrupt. The destitute owners or craftsman were then forced into a contract of adhesion and were that point onwards practically slaves.

Drow society in general didn’t have an unemployment or homeless issue, those who fell in either or both categories were killed. As a general rule, drow signed up into one of their cities’ military because the risk of a violent death there was lower than as an unemployed homeless, the big demand for soldiers, no matter the level of skill, allowed such course of action.

The reason, why the priestesses were an economic risk on the macro level, was that they purposefully undermined opportunities and chances for any form of growth, in order to ensure that those below them didn't gain power and with it the option to turn away from Lolth.

Slavery
Slavery played a large part in drow society, and drow households usually had two or more slaves for each member. Half to two-third of a normal drow city's population consisted of slaves. All unskilled labor in drow cities was carried out by slaves, this caused the slave trade to become a booming business. Slaves were not only captured but also bred. Some slaves were also bought from humans from Calimshan, Thay, and the Plain of Horses. Others sellers were orcs from the North.

Drow slavery was special in that it did not view slaves as a valuable commodity. To them, it was easy and cheap to find replacement should one got hurt or died. This attitude led to cruel treatment of the slaves.

Slaves in general were not allowed to look into the eyes of a drow. They were also not allowed to carry weapons without permission, which normally happened when the slave was in some kind of gladiatorial environment.


 * Bugbears
 * Bugbears were common slavestock in drow cities and common part of noble families' slave soldiers.


 * Demons
 * Having demonic slaves was a prestigious affair for the drow. It served both as a demonstration of a house's power and tool for intimidation towards its enemies.


 * Dwarves
 * Dwarves were one of the most desired slaves of the drow.


 * Elves
 * Elves were not one of but the most desired slaves of the drow.


 * Giants
 * Giants like trolls were not considered good slaves in general due to their large bodies and strength. However, ogres were common slaves and common part of noble families' slave soldiers.


 * Gloamings
 * Gloamings hated the drow. It was believed that the cloak of dark power spell, a common spell used by all drow faiths, was developed after torturing and experimenting on the gloamings.


 * Goblins
 * Goblins were one of the races from which the drow commonly acquired their slaves.


 * Hobgoblins
 * Hobgoblins were one of the races from which the drow commonly acquired their slaves.


 * Humans
 * Humans were valuable and treasured slaves, unless the ones in question owned combat abilities, be they mundane or magical, in which case they were viewed as dangerous. Especially the crafters among them were valued but they could not survive long in the Underdark environment and under such cruel masters.


 * Kobolds
 * Kobolds were not considered good slaves due to their agility and independence.


 * Jermlaine
 * Jermlaine were not considered good slaves due to their agility and independence.


 * Minotaur
 * Minotaurs were a common part of noble families' slave soldiers, but they were not particularly numerous.


 * Orc
 * Orcs were one of the races from which the drow commonly acquired their slaves.


 * Quaggoths
 * Quaggoths were often slaves in drow cities.


 * Sinisters
 * Sinisters were sometimes magically enslaved by the drow to serve as a kind of early warning mechanism with their telepathic abilities. Their other abilities to cause a hold person effect or protective abilities and offensive abilities made them desired bodyguards for drow spellcasters of particular cowardice.

A drow in such servitude was usually either a debtor or noble whose ransom nobody paid, who were captured in battle. In some cities, such people were executed instead of enslaved.

Surface Raids
Surface raids were vital for the economy of the drow. The reason for this was the aforementioned fact that their economy was built upon slavery and those slaves they considered the best were surface dwellers.

Hence, these raids, no matter the size, had the primary objective to capture people and loot only as a secondary one.

Such raids had two categories, the big rare ones that constituted hundreds of members that sacked entire cities and the far more frequent small ones. The latter ones started with scouting, then striking at the objective, either by open bloodshed or by silently sneaking inside and then kidnapping the potential slaves. Sometimes, these modi were combined. One drow group caught the attention of the residents, for example through arson, while another force fulfilled the actual objective of kidnapping people while undisturbed. Those small raids were usually one-night affairs. This was due to the drow race's weakness against sunlight.

To take advantage of even the smallest cracks that constituted an opening to the surface, 'orbs of duo-dimension were used by these surface raid troops.

Drow usually prayed to their god of surface raids and thievery when they launched raids.

Crafts
The drow's technological level regarding craftwork was at least the equal of and in certain areas surpassed that of humans, it was far inferior to that of dwarves. The reason for this was the drow race's collective short-sightedness. They generally relied on magic and slavery to get things done and put an emphasis on beauty over steadiness. Added to this came their tendency to kill the artisans, the ones with the know-how, when their work collapsed, only to do something similar again with the same problems. Overall, the drow race's strength did not lie in being skilled artisans and engineers, which they were to some degrees, but in their ability to oversee slaves and to be jack-of-all-trades.


 * Architecture
 * Drow architecture put an emphasis on beauty. The most impressive ones were highlighted with the continual faerie fire spell. However, drow cities tended to provide a chaotic and messy sight because they did not care to have a uniform architecture style. Still, their architecture had some common motives, that of spider webs in passages and layouts of buildings, obsidian, called spiderstone by drow, was used fort spider motifs. Their architecture was reminiscient of the elven one. The architecture was considered something to marvel at and more wealthy holdings got faerie fire decoration and those of particular beauty received highlights with the continual faerie fire spell. Crucial architecture was often supported by magic instead of mundane methods and therefore collapsed when the magic somehow wore off. Manpower provided by slavery cleaned the resulting mess, only for the drow to use magic like stone shape and only the barest minimum of handiwork for reconstruction, therefore causing the instability problem to persist. Nevertheless, when it came to shaping and hollowing out stalactites, stalagmites, and cave columns, the best architects for such endeavors were the drow. Their architects were also known for their designs for stone bridges, balconies, and buttresses as well as their intricate spiral tunnels. Suspension bridges were the norm, for those could withstand earthquakes. Cave fishers were trained for the purpose of slinging their lines.


 * Another way of shaping stone was taking advantage of growing sedimentary stone structures and shaping that one. A stone the drow found interesting was clear black stone, because creatures with darkvision could see through it.


 * Commoners lived either in walled houses with cellars or in small caves.


 * In some cities, clay was used by the poor in a similar fashion to Kara-Tur and the Shaar to create dwellings. The same technology was used by the rich to create temporary furniture and sculptures, which was then decorated with gems, glowing fungi, etc. for their parties.


 * Medicine
 * It was common for injured drow to make use of a prothesis. Drow craftsmanship in artificial limbs was advanced and commonly available. They were made from adamantine and worked as good as the original limbs. They could also be weaponized and exchanging parts with specialized tools for a specific occasions was possible. For example, exchanging a hand with a claw or sword for combat was possible. Non-injured drow used from time to time similar technology for their body-extensions like toe-claws to kick-stab people.


 * Mining
 * Drow did not own the same insight and connection to stone dwarves or gnomes enjoyed. Added to this came their distaste for dirty work. Combined with their still-existing desire for pure subterranean resources that were won through mining, the drow method of mining was to first let other races like duergars or dwarves build their mines and then take them over by force. In the case of deep gnomes, they fled in the face of such attacks, but dwarvenkind stayed and fought leading to year-long wars over these resources, wich could well have an effect on the surface on the form of shortage of goods made by dwarves and increased demand and prices for food, weapons, and other goods of war.


 * Another drow method of mining was to use dig spells. In this case, dwarves assaulted the drow under the pretense of "liberating treasure". Another spell used to aid mining efforts was the skyhook spell.


 * Stoneworks
 * A specialty of the drow was their ability to cut and shape stone. The results were smooth-flowing walls (magic was also used), gates, put simply fortification buildings. Another field where this ability was applied to was the construction of waterworks (see below).


 * Waterworks
 * One part about drow craftmanship that received universal acclaim was their skill at constructing waterworks. The act of collecting and diverting water for their purposes, be it for dietary or industrial needs and for waste disposal, was done by pipes fitted with shut-off valves and these systems were outfitted with side-channels and pumps. The pipes were intricately curved and bored through solid rocks, their valves were big, hollow stone spheres closely fitted into a basin, which both had both inlet and outlet channels or holes, and were attached to a lever. Said lever was big and counterweighted, when it was turned, It worked by lining up the inlet and outlet channels and holes of the valve and basin so that water came through. The flow was regulated by turning the valve, by opening a sliding panel, which filled the hollow valve and allowed access to the water via side-channels it was diverted to. The aforementioned pumps had two varieties, one corkscrew-type worked by water pressure and one piston type worked by slave-work. These were not entirely wonders of the mundane though for constant application of magic was needed to make the water seals perfectly work.


 * Armors and Weapons
 * Weapons and armors of the drow were made of a substance called adamantine, an alloy of adamantite, and then turned into drowcraft items. These items could not withstand sunlight, but were cheap and easy to make. It used to be that every drow warrior down to the lowest level was equipped with a chain mail that was treated that way and most had also a drowcraft buckler with them. However, at some point around 1372 DR, these items fell out of favor and drow started to wear mithral armor when it was affordable, but would always wear non-restrictive armors that would not hamper their natural dexterity.


 * Famous weapons included the bolts of power, death lance, whip of fangs, drow mission blade, hand spinneret, queen's scourge. A famous armor was the death armor, that obtained legendary status in the Underdark.


 * Drow created some weapons with the expressed purpose to fight their own kind in the form of flash globes and light pellets.


 * Poison
 * Not only were poisons and toxins were favored by the drow, they were also the principal poisoners of the Underdark. Especially famous was the powerful drow knockout poison made from a slippery black fungus growing in certain Underdark caverns, but other poisons like the ones from purple worms, scorpions, and spiders were also in use. Another poison, actually a drug, was ziran, highly addictive the tablet temporarily augmented the agility of their users. The most popular poison on the drow hand crossbow was the aforementioned drow knockout poison that put the target to sleep. Other poisons included the calling, eyeburn paste, and skullrot. A weapon to enhance poison like virulent weapons were also of drow make.


 * Naturally, drow had some counter measures against poison like the ring of antivenom.


 * Art
 * Artwork and craftwork of the drow often had spider motifs. Houses had curtains that was put on to emulate spider webs. A noble house of the drow had exclusive sculpture artisans as they had their exclusive gemcutters. The material out of which drow crafted their garments, furniture, and beautiful decorative goods were metal, cloth, and other stuff.


 * One art form unique to the drow was the use of continual faerie fire to create murals or highlight temples.


 * Gems
 * As a general rule, drow had a preference for smooth or cabochon cuts over faceted ones and black ones over those of other colors&mdash;blue and red hues were also preferred. Those of silver hues were used as contrast when said contrast could not be provided by metal settings. Gems were usually worked in rings, wristlets, gorgets, belts, pendants, or collars. Drow of average wealth wore banded agate, blue quartz, crown of silver, eye agate, hematite, malachite, obsidian, jasper, moonstone, onyx, rock crystal, smoky quartz, zircon, aquamarine, garnet, jade, jet, pearl, spinel, and tourmaline, while nobles, powerful wizards, officers, and priestesses wore other, more prized stones. When it came to the priestesses, the amount, rarity, and variety they wore was on a higher level than the others did. Prized gems included amethyst, beljuril, black opal, black sapphire, diamond, emerald, fire opal, jacinth, opal, oriental amethyst, orl, ravenar, red tear, ruby, sapphire, star ruby, star sapphire, water opal, and zendalure.


 * Other gems were usually currency for trade with non-drow.


 * Storage technology
 * A field of technology in which the drow were particularly good at was the one that concerned itself with storing and moving goods. This went from designing trade-containers to harnesses for beasts of burden and mounts. The reason for this was that drow demand for goods from afar was very high. This started with goods found in the Underdark like crabs or fish, which their patrols carried so-called "wet basins" made of clay to bring such food back to their cities, to fruits and other surface-only goods, which they obtained by means of trade and raid.


 * Magic items made by drow that helped transportation of both people and goods were for example the driftdisc, floatchest, and the walking chest.

Dress
The majority of drow wore a piwafwi, a fire-resistant protective cloak, boots that worked in a similar fashion to boots of elvenkind, and a drow house insignia. The latter showed to which noble House or merchant clan the drow in question was attached to&mdash; be it as a member or servant of that House or clan. 

An insignia was, with the exception of the First House's, not openly displayed but usually only inside or on their power bases.

Noble drow wore in clothes and equipment of superior quality compared to those of commoners, except of course when they wanted to be incognito. An example for superior quality was that the house insignia of a noble did not just show house allegiance but also carried magic, which could be used on command.

A web choker was considered fashionable by drow priestesses, who also often used powdered Ormu, an Underdark-moss, as eye shadow.

Magic
Magic of the drow was on par with the one found on the surface.


 * Spells
 * There were a number of spells that were associated with the drow. This did not necessarily mean that they were all developed by drow. While they were known for their ability to develop spells, and some spells known on the surface were independently developed by the drow, fact was that drow stole quite a lot of magical know-how from the surface by means of kidnapping during their raids. For example, the vipergout spell was originally developed by the scalykind, but was still considered a drow spell.


 * Drow developed a number of spells that dealt with spiders like giant spider, spidereyes or summon spider. There were also spells that dealt with webs like passweb or spellweb or those spell that imitated in some way spiders like death spider, spider bite, or spider climb.


 * Path magic
 * Practicioners of path magic organized them to what was variously called the Path of the Drow, Lolth's Road, or the Spider Road. It was considered a lost path, i.e. generally unknown to other races.


 * Drow runes
 * Drow had an aptitude for runes, which were elegant and always limned in black paste, ink, or inlay. The richest and most powerful of their race used them to defend their houses and treasures. When they were enchanted, they were done so with a glyph of warding spell or their runecasters created unique ones for locations of importance. There were a total of three categories of runes and glyphs. The aforementioned house defense glyphs, the way-marker runes. and the sacred glyphs, the former to guard places with drow traffic but no permanent population, the latter were special runes for sacred sites of Lolth.


 * Magic items
 * Drow were not just avid inventors of magic items, but also the principal crafters of magic items in the Underdark. There were a number of items that were associated with the drow. This did not necessarily mean that they were all developed by drow. Drow were known for stealing magic item and magical know-how like that of the creation of magic item by means of kidnapping during their surface raids. Some were self-made, others were stolen, and other items were based on magic from before the Descent.


 * Their paranoia made them create magic items that were only usable by drow.


 * The drow loved magical items of all kinds and all powerful families gave some enchanted items to those who served them. The piwafwi was a particularly special drow item, although drow house insignias were also important to the drow houses and granted special powers, sometimes levitation. Many drow items were crafted in such a way that they could only be used by the drow.


 * Scrolls
 * Drow priestesses and wizards often created magical scrolls. This was done to provide their minions an edge during their patrols. Overall, drow used scrolls more often than surface races and were also known to create unique ones.

Animals
Drow generally didn't keep animals as pets, as animals could not fully comprehend their dependence on their owners. Instead, many drow took a favored slave as a personal servant or thrall, and treated these people as little more than pets.

Domesticated Animals
Drow liked to eat animals that were still living because they believed the meat had a better flavor. Drow domesticated a number of animals for their purposes.


 * Cavvekans
 * Cavvekans' senses were superior to the drow's with the exception of sight. While they were quite happy to live near drow communities their rarity made it rare for them to be pets and were used as guard and hunting animals instead. However, this was quite rare.


 * Lizards
 * Subterranean lizards were one of the type of animals domesticated by the drow. Pack lizards were used as beasts of burden, while riding lizards were used as steeds, the latter only by notable people like particularly good warriors or nobles but also by mercenaries. They could climb and walk on walls without leaving obvious heat prints that could be read.


 * The spitting crawler was often used as familiars by drow wizards and was a favorite among them.


 * Dire Bats
 * Dire bat fights were organised like chicken or dog fights on the surface and were the object of gambling by the drow.


 * Another rarer use was as steeds. Using them in this way was dangerous and commoners, including children, were the usual victims to be forced into such flights as riders. Such flights were used to scout and harry the enemies with poisoned darts. Training for the bat consisted of learning how to be reigned with bit and bridle, while the rider primarily had to learn how not to fall.


 * Rothe
 * Another domesticated animal was the rothe, to be more precise the deep rothe, which was a common food source and were also trained as beasts of burden for merchants or animals used for agriculture like ploughing or hauling.


 * Shriekers
 * To be precise, shriekers were not animals but fungi, but they were kept like pets nevertheless by particularly weird drow communities that worshiped demons instead of a divine figure.


 * They were used like a warning system for certain areas within their houses, because of their ability to recognize certain types of creatures and emitting sounds on perceiving them.


 * There was a plethora of varieties of them and each variety gave off different sounds, the drow chose different sounds for different sorts of information. They could also be eaten and this happened to those too unruly or big.


 * Eating them while still alive was the preferred method of some drow for it allowed them to simulate the shrieking of a tortured surface elf.


 * Spiders
 * The animal most associated with the drow was the spider, since it was the symbol of the deity Lolth. Spiders roamed the streets in drow cities, acting as pest controllers, and larger ones were used to guard houses or as mounts for transportation. These spiders were often specially bred for the purpose and were more intelligent than their regular counterparts, especially the sword spider, which was specifically brought to the Underdark from the surface. Sword spiders were often commanded by priestesses of Lolth. A drow city was not full of spiders because of the faith. Drow simply had an affinity for them and they came of their own accords to the drow. This led communities to be abundant with spiders despite holding up other faiths than Lolth.


 * In drow society, it was forbidden to hurt spiders by Lolth's dogma and it was punished with death accompanied by torture.


 * The task a spider was assigned to depended on its size. Very small ones were kept by children in lairs made of metal and glass as pets, those who were big enough to kill mice served as familiars, those of dog-size were temple guards, and sometimes revitalized by binding a spider-demon in the case an old one died, while those of horse-size were steeds.


 * Despite the tabu of killing a spider, some drow families ate spiders in the belief they did make a show out of their devotion to the Spider Queen.

Pets
Drow generally didn't keep animals as pets, as animals could not fully comprehend their dependence on their owners. Instead, many drow took a favored slave as a personal servant or thrall, and treated these people as little more than pets.


 * Bats
 * Bats were kept by the drow. It was one of the normal pets kept by the drow. No matter whether of the carnivore or herbivore varieties, drow were fond of them. A bat that ate fruits was only affordable for rich drow with the necessary connections to the surface, while carnivorous varieties were limited to those that ate insects and the likes except spiders. Varieties that ate spiders were driven into extinction by Lolth-following communities.


 * Calling them back from flight was done with the drow's innate ability to invoke faerie fire, despite bats being fully well capable of navigating subterranean terrain by themselves.


 * Bigger varieties were kept in an entire room, which slaves cleaned up to prevent it from smelling, while smaller ones were kept in cages.


 * Drow were capable of forming genuine affection to their pet bats and therefore these pets were often killed. The reasons ranging from teaching children how bad affection was to simple cruelty of relatives or rivals.


 * Slaves
 * Rich children were given, easy to replace, physically small creatures with perceived low intelligence like goblins or kobolds as pets. The common causes of death of these were either tortured to death by the children after losing interest in them or due to neglect after the children forgot about them. It was also common for drow to choose a slave as a favored one. These were nothing short of pets.


 * Snakes
 * Drow had a fondness for both the constrictor and venomous varieties of snakes. Torturers used the latter's venom to make their sessions more painful, while the former were often the pets of priestesses in training that were fed flesh carved from living slaves. Venomous snakes were a favorite among Lolth, because they were venomous like spiders. Favored ones that died while protecting a temple to Lolth were used as ingredients for a whip of fangs.


 * Spiders
 * The animal most associated with the drow was the spider, since it was the symbol of the deity Lolth. Spiders roamed the streets in drow cities, acting as pest controllers, and larger ones were used to guard houses or as mounts for transportation. These spiders were often specially bred for the purpose and were more intelligent than their regular counterparts, especially the sword spider, which was specifically brought to the Underdark from the surface. Sword spiders were often commanded by priestesses of Lolth.


 * A drow city was not full of spiders because of the faith though. Drow simply had an affinity with them and they came of their own accord to them. This led communities to be abundant with spiders despite these communities holding other faiths than Lolth.

Other types of working creatures included riding lizards, bats, and cavvekans, and also spider-like outsiders such as bebiliths, myrlochar, and retrievers. They also used molds, fungi ioe shriekers and oozes for traps of sanitation.

Drow View on History
The drow view on history did not accommodate the concept of accuracy. Every faction of the drow, be it religious or otherwise, told lies and fabrications about their own history to serve their own ends.

For example, when a masked traitor, a specialty priest of Vhaeraun who served as spy in his mother's church, was found out, drow took pains to prevent any information about the traitor against Lolth to be available or remembered. Such traitors were literally extinguished from historical records and drow pretended like that person never existed in the first place. This method actually worked and by four generations the fabrication was accepted as "fact".

View on their Historical Heritage
The drow descended from the dark elves of Ilythiir, the first and one of the most powerful elven nations. One might imagine that the drow would constantly boast about this heritage, but the truth was that the drow did not like being reminded of their historic origins for it also reminded them of the fact that they fell very deep from their position of power. An exception was the church of Vhaeraun whose goal was to restore the Ilythiiri to their former position of power.

The drow did not try to forget their origins because their hatred against elves and the justification to kill them was also based on history. The exact history will be expanded below. In short, the drow race's ancestors fought a war called the Fourth Crown War against other elves and used the powers granted by Ghaunadaur, Kiaransalee, Lolth, and Vhaeraun in these wars. They were very successful and the drow took this success of their ancestors as evidence that they were indeed a superior race to other elves. The other elves prayed for salvation and this was granted to them in the form of the dark elves' transformation into drow and with it the race was driven into the Underdark and with it into the hardships they had to endure there. The drow believed that they were punished for being too successful and used this as their justification for feeling entitled to exact vengeance on the other elves and their gods for it.

The Beginning
According to the drow and elves of Toril, the first connection between Lolth and the drow, at that time dark elves, started with Corellon Larethian decreeing that Araushnee, his wife and later known as Lolth, should call the fate of the dark elves her own. However, unsatisfied with her position, counting on the help of her son (Vhaeraun), and devising a plan to frame her daughter (Eilistraee) for her actions, Araushnee would attempt to overthrow Corellon, starting what was known as the War of the Seldarine. The conflict ended with Araushnee being banished into the Abyss and her name changing into Lolth: from there, it would take her millennia in order to regain influence on the drow. Vhaeraun was exiled from Arvandor, and he would deeply shape the future of the dark elves, while Eilistraee chose exile to bring her light to the drow in the time of need.

The wizard Mordenkainen recorded a different version of this story. The elves who later became drow chose Lolth on their own. Elves were an accidental product who emerged from the blood that Corellon lost in a fight against Gruumsh. Like Corellon, the first elves had shapechanging powers, and, with them, freedom. The Protector took some favorites, who were made deities: among them, Lolth was the most privileged. She saw that other races made something out of their lives, and made the argument that the elves should do the same by casting off their shapechanging powers in exchange of a fixed form, that would allow them to gain dominion over everything. Every single elf agreed and chose a fixed form, but Corellon was revolted by their decision and railed against Lolth. The god was stopped with the argument that nobody of his blood should be attacked, and, while he was thinking about it, Lolth used the opportunity to attempt to murder him. Realizing the extent of Lolth's betrayal, many elves intervened to stop her, but some remained loyal to the Spider Queen: the latter became the dark elves, and Lolth became a demon lord of the Abyss.

Time of Dragons
The first elves came to Toril around –27,000 DR. They came in three racially distinct immigration waves and the dark elves, or tribe Ilythiiri, came as part of the second wave and were the most succesful.

By this point, some elves forgot about Corellon, the dark elves were among them. In fact, they forgot about the fact that something like an elven pantheon existed. They worshiped fey gods instead. In fact, the whole reason why elves managed to come to Toril at all was that the fey opened gates with the declared goal toToril erode the power of the dragons who ruled the world at the time. The dark elves differed from the other elves, they wanted to found a nation and negotiated with the dragons and gained a piece of land and founded Ilythiir.

The era at that time was called the Time of Dragons because the dragons were the hegemons of the world. During those times, dragons acted like tyrants who viewed other races as something inferior to them and even the metallic dragons could not be called good during those times.

In this environment, the Ilythiiri picked up the faith of Vhaeraun, the god of territory, and made it their main faith. Under the careful leadership of the church of Vhaeraun, Ilythiir grew in territory and power and manged to keep its independence and the dragons at bay. It became a basstion of elven civilization but not of good. For example, the nation institutionalized slavery.

The faith of Ghaunadaur, the god of oozes, was also picked up to a lesser extent and fulfilled a role that was smaller but similar to the church of Vhaeraun's. An even smaller faith was that of Eilistraee, the goddess of dance. Her church opposed the evil machinations of her brother's church.

Ilythiir was founded by dark elves. At latest by –25,400 DR, it was a polyethnic nation, to be precise a dark elf-moon elf-nation. According to Ka'Narlist, the proportion of dark elves was increasing due to their traits' genetic dominance.

The moon elf Kethryllia Amarillis, a devout follower of Corellon Larethian, drew Lolth’s interest to Toril in –24,400 DR, which led to the subsequent introduction of her faith in Ilythiir. This was the first contact between Lolth and the dark elves.

First Flowering
After the Time of Dragons, a period of time called the First Flowering, the golden time of the elves started.

After the Time of Dragons, several elven states were founded. Ilythiir expanded its territory over the east and south and the relationships between the dark elves and the newer states were of peaceful nature. The influence of the church of Lolth changed this over time. By –20,000 DR, the first skirmishes between Orishaar, a moon elf nation, and Ilythiir started.
 * First Flowering - Ilythiir

The Seldarine-following elves came up with the idea to create a dark elf-free haven. They decided to ignore historical warnings and cast the First Sundering in –17,600 DR, the intervention of their gods managed to drop the scope of collateral damage to "ripping apart the continent" of Faerûn. These casualties destroyed most of the church of Vhaeraun's membership.

Vhaeraun's salvage efforts to bring Ilythiir's citizens into his church were undermined by the church of Eilistraee. According to Szorak Auzkovyn, what Eilistraee did was to start expelling males and favoring females thus breaking the unity of her brother's church through making herself more attractive to Vhaeruan's female followers. This granted Lolth and Ghaunadaur the opportunity to rise to prominence in Ilythiir and Eilistraee's influence among the Ilythiiri diminished with the rise of the spider and ooze deity.

Around –17,500 DR, Eiellur, Syorpiir, and Thearnytaar, three different wild elf-realms, started to discuss whether they should unify. Ilythiir poisoned the three nations' relationship by assassinating their leaders and framing their heirs for the assassinations. It caused the War of Three Leaves between –17,100 DR and –16,800 DR. By the end of this war, the Ilythiiri reached their goal and the three nations remained seperate and so hostile to each other that they skirmished each other. However, their hand in the matter was by this point uncovered and the three nations also skirmished with Ilythiir.

Miyeritar was a dark elf-wood elf realm founded by those who did not agree with the sun elves from Aryvandaar in –18,800 DR, located what was later known as the High Moor and Misty Forest. Eilistraee's faith took a strong hold there. The dark elven followers of Eilistraee supported and wanted a part in the casting of the First Sundering but weren't seen as equals by the others, especially by sun elves, and the other subraces joined in barring them from the casting the magic. Miyeritar would grow into a flourishing center of art and magic, reaching its peak in –13,900 DR over a renaissance period.
 * First Flowering - Miyeritar

Crown Wars
Main article: Crown Wars

The Crown Wars were a series of wars between elven nations and resulted in the end of the golden time of the elves.

The basis for the First Crown War was laid during the First Flowering era, in –14,700 DR, when Aryvandaar found out that the rulers of the sun elves, the Vyshaan and Miyeritar's rulers, the Olrythii, were in fact blood relatives. Using this as their bases, they tried to peacecfully annex Miyeritar. The Miyeritari wanted nothing of it. By –13,200 DR, skirmishes and trade interferences, startd by the sun elves, between these nations became commonplace.
 * First Crown War - Miyeritar

The conflict degenerated into a violent invasion of Aryvandaar against the weaker nation in –12,000 DR, which ended with Miyeritar's defeat in –11,800 DR, even though resistance movements persisted, which were quelled by –11,300 DR. Aryvandaar had occupied the entirety of Miyeritar, and the nation was no more.

Illefarn, a moon elf-wild elf nation, declared neutrality regarding the conflict but accepted refugees from Miyeritar. However, while it wasn't clear whether these happened during the actual war or during the resistance movements, factions from Illefarn joined forces with Aryvandaar to subjugate Miyeritar and factions in Miyeritar accepted aid from those from Ilythiir under the pretense of "dark elf kinship".

The Second Crown War started before the first ended in –11,700 DR. It was kickstarted by Ilythiir, which was enraged over the occupation of Miyeritar that was the only other place dark elves existed. The Ilythiiri started retaliatory attacks against Aryvandaar's allies, starting with Orishaar, an ally and major trade partner of Aryvandaar, then Syorpiir. Ilythiiri military made extensive use of fire to fight Syorpiir after excluding them from their allies.
 * Second Crown War - Ilythiir

At some point around –11,500 DR, Aryvandaar started what Ilythiir's leadership believed to be a genocidal campaign against Ilythiir's citizens. In their plight, Geirildin Sethomiir, llythiir’s coronal, made a decision. He summoned Wendonai, a balor under Lolth’s employment, and bought power from the demon and with it from Lolth. The nation’s nobility followed their royalty’s example and bought power from other fiendish patrons. Until the Fourth Crown War, apart from Lolth, Ghaunadaur, Kiaransalee, and Vhaeraun provided the dark elves similar help in the form of magic and servants, Eilistraee didn't.

The arrangement proved itself effective. Apart from surviving, Ilythiir had enough power to launch attacks against Aryvandaar’s supporters. By –11,450 DR, Thearnytaar and Eiellur, who allied themselves and invaded Ilythiir with help from Keltomir and Shantel Othreier.

By –11,400 DR, Eiellur was destroyed not only by fire like Syorpiir but also through treachery. In an act of appeasement, wild elves joined forces with the Ilythiiri to destroy their nation. These wild elves were given the land of the Misty Vale, a jungle that was not just untamed but dangerous because of living products of Ilythiiri magical experiments that were let loose there. The jungle became a hiding spot for those elves who managed to escape Ilythiir's slave farms. Those who survived the war were enslaved. Due to the genetic dominance of the dark elves, these slaves' descendants were by one or two generations all dark elves.

By –11,200 DR, Thearnytaar was destroyed. The Ilythiiri used enslaved monsters and undead to accomplish it. Keltomir became scared of what the Ilythiiri were capable of and equipped themselves for war. The two nations started to skirmish along their eastern and southern borders.

During this time, peace with other nations was not really possible due to the adherents of Ghaunadaur and Lolth acting like warmongers. In fact, even internal peace in Ilythiir was not fully achievable for the Ghaunadans fought constantly internal wars against other faiths. Ilythiir’s course of action earned the dark elves the title dhaerow, traitor in elven, though it was not clear to what. This term, dhaerow, became "drow", the word later commonly used to describe the descendants of the dark elves.

During these days, the Ilythiiri were refining their worship of their gods. The early Ilythiiri temples were often decorated with grossly wrong depictions of the Dark Seldarine, portraying them as spider deities subservient to Lolth. For example, in one of such temples, Eilistraee, goddess of song, was depicted as spider singing praises to Lolth; Ghaunadaur, god of slime, as a spider with an oozy face; Kiaransalee, goddess of undeath, as an undead spider, and Vhaeraun, whose titles included the Masked Lord, as a masked spider. With the exception of Eilistraee, it was known for sure that the offended gods killed their high priests who depicted them in such a way.

The Third Crown War was a war between Aryvandaar and Shantel Othreier between –10,900 DR and –10,600 DR. 100 years after the war ended, the Dark Disaster struck Miyeritar, destroying the part that became the High Moor and killing the citizens there.
 * Dark Disaster - Miyeritar

Miyeritar had already been annexed by Aryvandaar at that time, and many citizens of Miyeritar had already fled towards Illefarn beforehand for safety, although countless innocent lives were lost to the cataclysm. The culprit was Aryvandaar. However, they did it without leaving any evidence that could be found. According to the spirits in House Melarn's lorestone, Aryvandaar's intentions regarding the dark elves were of practically genocidial nature and caused the killing storm towards that end.

The victors were the one to write history, and the Vyshaan therefore pointed at the high mages sympathizers of Miyeritar as the real culprits, accusing them of having tried to harness corrupt magic for resistance sake, accidentally destroying their country in the process. Reality was that such elven high mages fell mostly months before victim to an assassination campaign of the sun elves. Kraanfhaor's Door was the last remnant of Miyeritar.

Among those who remained in Miyeritar was a large part of the church of Eilistraee. The Dark Disaster killed them, and that, alongside the rise of Lolth and Ghaundadur, caused Eilistraee's influence to virtually collapse for millennia.

Ilythiir was enraged and correctly accused Aryvandaar of the Dark Disaster and the Fourth Crown War started as a retaliatory assault on Aryvandaar.

As mentioned above, the Fourth Crown War started as a retaliatory assault on Aryvandaar in –10,450 DR. While the scope was not clear, survivors from Miyeritar joined forces with Ilythiir. By –10,100 DR, they destroyed Shantel Othreier, by that point conquered by Aryvandaar, with enslaved dragons. They were so successful that the elves started to pray towards their gods for the destruction of Ilythiir, the prayers were answered.
 * Fourth Crown War - Ilythiir

The Seldarine's, to be more precise, Corellon Larethian's magic, channeled through his clerics, turned all dark elves into drow. According to Wendonai, Corellon agreed to letting his magic channel by the clerics because he considred the dark elves too dangerous. By that point some dark elves had modified their bodies, and were thus not changed. The entire subrace of dark elves was turned into drow, including the survivors from Miyeritar. Elves believed it was done as collateral damage due to the elves not properly understanding elven high magic. In truth, it was all Aryvandaar's plan. The ritual itself had at its goal to tie the dark elves of Ilythiir and Miyeritar with faerzress without discrimination. This created a mental compulsion within the dark elves to enter the Underdark and remain there. Corellon's curse caused two things. First, the forceful modification of the dark elves' bodies into that of drow's and with it a weakness against sunlight.

The drow then were forced to leave the surface into the Underdark, the event was called the "Descent of the drow". This took about two months. After the "Descent", drow lived for a time as nomads and scavengers, more precisely like animals. Through the call of Lolth, they managed to gather themselves and founded in –9,600 DR the cities Telantiwar and Guallidurth. It proved a blessing for Keltomir for the drow attacked Aryvandaar and prevented them from conquering that nation.

Founding Time
The drow in Telantiwar also seized the gold dwarf cavern of Bhaerynden for themselves around –9,000 DR. While the drow of Guallidurth warred with the dwarves of Alatorin in the First Spider War between –8,170 DR and –8,150 DR and destroyed the dwarven nation. The Second Spider War was only five years later between –8,145 DR and &amp;ndash8,137 DR. In this war, the forces of Guallidurth were driven back from Alatorin by the other eight nations of Shanatar.

Around –7,600 DR, Telantiwar's drow's infighting reached a critical level and they destroyed their own cavern in a great magical explosion. The Great Rift was formed. After destroying their and home therefore becoming homeless, the drow entered a phase called the Scattering. They scattered in every direction but south and spread around the Underdark and founded most drow cities in the process like Llurth Dreier in –7,600 DR, Sshamath beneath the Far Hills in –4,973 DR, Menzoberranzan, in –3,917 DR, and Ched Nasad, in –3,843 DR.

Other important events in this period were Third Spider War between –6,150 DR and –6,120 DR, which Guallidurth fought against the dwarved, where they succesfully retook Alatorin, the Webfire War between Ghaunadaur's and Lolth's followers in Llurth Dreier between –5,112 DR and –4,835 DR, and the Dark Court Slaughter in –4,400 DR. The latter was a massacre against a gathering in the Elven Court of dwarven and elven leaders committed by Lolth's drow and duergars. One of the survivors was Shevarash. In a fit of rage, he vowed to drive the drow into extinction. He ultimately died in –4,070 DR while being at it and became a deity and started to hunt the mightiest deities of the drow Lolth and Vhaeraun, interestingly the latter a god who promoted cooperation between drow and various elven subraces. However, by this point, he managed to dilute his initial vow and exclude Eilistreean drow from his list of enemies.

Age of Humanity
Lolth's clergy claimed that their goal was to go to the surface and eradicate surface elves. This was a sham of the Spider Queen. She did not want them to go to the surface as did her clergy for that would open up new avenues of power different from Lolth and with it a way away from her. Nonetheless, important cities during this time were influenced by their dealings with the surface.


 * Guallidurth
 * Guallidurth started the Night Wars with Calimshan in –790 DR, which ended in –530 DR. The Night War was basically a series of surface raids on a very big scale. With exposure to the outer world and the surface, the faith of Vhaeraun, the god of evil activity on the surface and surface raids, strengthed in the temple city. Vhaeraunites then founded Allsihwann, Dallnothax, Holldaybim, Iskasshyoll, and the Vault of Cloaked Midnight.


 * Maerimydra
 * The drow of Maerimydra started to build the Twisted Tower of Ashaba in –2,600 DR and completed it in –2,549 DR against all resistance in future Shadowdale. After the drow caused the Spiderfire, numerous attacks against the Twisted Tower were conducted, but they never managed to breach it and starting with –750 DR, the fortress's size was doubled by –730 DR. In -311 DR, Rystalwood and Cormanthyr aided by the followers of Eilistraee from Cormanthor, managed to defeat the Lolthites and drive them away. The Twisted Tower was left under the protection of the Eilistraeens, who turned it into a temple called "Tower of the Dark Moon". It was taken once again by the Lolthite drow centuries later, in 190 DR, reassuming its original function.


 * T'lindet
 * T'lindhet managed to gain a foothold on the surface. It did so by fighting and conquering Dambrath between –802 DR and –831 DR. As a result, they installed the Hazm'cri Dynasty.

See also: History of the church of Eilistraee
 * The followers of Eilistraee
 * After near collapsing, the church of Eilistraee started a slow process of recovery in which their influence would ebb and flow, only regaining some prominence in the late part of the Age of Humanity. Within a century of its foundation, the Tower of the Dark Moon (see above) became Eilistraee's greatest temple in the Realms., possibly a symbol of hope. After that community fell, the dark times were ended by the efforts of Qilue Veladorn, Chosen of Mystra and Eilistraee both, with the foundation of the Promenade of the Dark Maiden (the most important community of followers of the Dark Dancer by 1355 DR; see here).


 * Elves' actions
 * Some actions of the elves affected the drow. The interaction between surface elves and drow was especially frequent in Cormanthyr (see Maerimydra above). The elves there actually opened a diplomatic channel for all elves including drow, the Tiru Tel-Quessir or the Tower of the People. None of the drow groups visited the tower, but alliances would nonetheless happen. A long-lasting example was that between the drow of Eilistraee and Cormanthyr (mentioned above), while a brief alliance&mdash;the Spider Truce&mdash;was stipulated between Maerimydra's House Dhuurniv and Cormanthyr's forces, in –712 DR and held until 713 DR for one year. When Cormanthyr finally fell in 714 DR, elves started to abandon their land for Evermeet in the face of human expansion. Drow, especially those who followed Vhaeraun, started to repopulate these lands. Their success at settling and keeping these lands was one of the reasons elves of Evermeet considered a return to the continent.


 * Chaulssin
 * In –221 DR, the Lolthite city of Chaulssin was overtaken by the shadow dragons of Clan Jaezred enslaving the drow who lived there. The drow succeeded at overthrowing their slavers. Lolth's forces tried to kill them for not worshiping her in 734 DR, the Chaulssinyr accepted the help of Vhaeraun and managed to flee into the Shadowfell where they founded Chaul'mur'ssin and House Jaezred in 792 DR, the forebear organization of the Jaezred Chaulssin, a Vhaeraunite assassins' guild, which returned to Toril in 1136 DR. They then infiltrated about fourteen drow cities.

Era of Upheavel
The most important occurences for the drow during the Era of Upheavel were the Silence of Lolth and the Reckoning.

Silence of Lolth
Main article: Silence of Lolth

In the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR, the goddess Lolth went into a state of hibernation, a period called the Silence of Lolth. She stopped granting spells to her followers and became effectively inactive.

While it only lasted for one year, a lot happened during that time. To name a few examples, in Sshamath, Lolth’s clergy was demoted and the ones of Ghaunadaur and Vhaeraun took the official clerical positions, in Eryndlyn, the church of Vhaeraun and of Ghaunadaur joined forces and destroyed the Lolth’s matriarchy in their city, in cities like Dusklyngh, Jhachalkhyn and Karsoluthiyl the assassins of the Jaezred Chaulssin shifted through a series of assassinations the power balance in favor of secular power holders like merchants, and some cities like Maerimydra, suffered complete breakdowns.

The Reckoning
See also: History of the Dark Seldarine

The Reckoning was the time after the Silence of Lolth between 1375 DR and 1385 DR during which the church of Lolth destroyed all other drow churches. It began when Eilistraee and Lolth started a divine game of sava over the fate of the drow. The doings of the various drow churches in the order of their destruction were:


 * Church of Selvetarm
 * Radical elements from the church of Selvetarm allied themselves with the church of Vhaeraun. Under the leadership of Dhairn, they duped various Lolth-worshiping groups into serving their ends. Their goal was to take over the Promenade of the Dark Maiden as their new headquarters. They almost succeeded, but their god was killed by Cavatina Xarann with the help of the Lady Penitent Halisstra Melarn and the balor Wendonai as it was the plan of Lolth and they ultimately failed. The church of Selvetarm's radical elements were then built into the church of Lolth.


 * Church of Vhaeraun
 * The church of Vhaeraun organized an elven high magic ritual that allowed Vhaeraun to assassinate Eilistraee. The plan was noticed by the church of Lolth, more precisely by Halisstra Melarn, who then relayed the intelligence to the church of Eilistraee. Being forewarned, the assassination failed and Vhaeraun was (apparently) no more. Parts of the church Vhaeraun joined Eilistraee's. Others remained with their faith because either out of stubborness or because they did not realize their god was dead and formed the skulkers of Vhaeraun.


 * Church of Kiaransalee
 * The church Kiaransalee tried to call an army of undead from Death Heart, a city on the Negative Energy Plane. To do this, they fed the faerzress with negative energy. This enhanced the faerzress and increased the drow's urge to go back to the Underdark. For the Church of Eilistraee allowing the radiation's increase was a life or death question, so they sieged the Acropolis of Thanatos, Kiaransalee's main temple and base of operations. Sages like Mordenkainen claimed that the churches of Lolth and Eilistraee teamed up to destroy the temple. Lolth did indeed move in favor of Eilistraee, but there was no alliance between the two churches. Q'arlynd Melarn cast an elven high magic ritual that erased the name from everybody's memories and the goddess was apparently no more (even though necromances kept remembering her name and invoking her ). Qilue (who had taken possess of the Crescent Blade, then a mere vessel for Wendoani, while devising a plan to kill the demon) kept fighting against the balor's influence, but his presence could be felt when the Dark Sister ordered the death of the defeated clerics of the Revenancer in the Acropolis after that goddess' disappearance.


 * Church of Eilistraee
 * By 1378 DR, under the leadership of Karas and Valdar Jaelre, Vhaeraunites organized the destruction of the Promenade of the Dark Maiden by manipulating an attack of Ghaunadaur's followers. They succeeded and the Promenade fell. In 1379 DR Eilistraee inhabited the body of Qilue Veladorn to free Halisstra Melarn from her torment and convince her to turn against Lolth. However, Wendonai tricked her into killing Qilue and, apparently, the Masked Lady. Meanwhile, Q'arlynd Melarn cast a High Magic spell aimed to change all the worshipers of Eilistraee and the drow of Miyeritari descent (who didn't worship Lolth) ) into dark elves (albeit without their consent). However, only a few hundred among the followers of Dark Dancer (who, as a lesser power, had at least a few thousands of worshippers ) and those drow not tainted by Wendonai were changed, and Corellon allowed the souls of the newly transformed dark elves into Arvandor.


 * Church of Ghaunadaur
 * After Lolth managed to get rid of the other drow deities, she attacked Ghaunadaur, but he managed to run away. The church of Lolth then succeeded at making the drow forget about the ooze god.

Post-Spellplague era
Around 1480 DR, every drow city was visited by Danifae Yauntyrr, the female who was chosen as Chosen of Lolth at the end of the Silence of Lolth. She informed the drow on Lolth's intention to create the Demon Weave, to become the deity of magic, and to be served by both clerics and wizards equally.

Towards the first and second end, the drow started to gather two things: artifacts sacred to Mystra and control over magical locations. After gathering the magical energy to Lolth, the Demon Weave was completed and drow clerics and wizards grew stronger. They used their increase in power to darken the sky on the surface to remain operative.

The third was a problem for the gendered drow society as it meant that female prietesses and male wizards would be equal. Lolth intended to solve the problem by favoring females and excluding males from arcane spellcasting. Before anything had any social implications, the Demon Weave collapsed and Lolth's plans were for naught.

While drow were primarily ruled by the church of Lolth, small scale opposition movements in the form of the skulkers of Vhaeraun or the followers of Ghaunadaur did exist.

Most drow that didn't live in the Underdark dwelt within the lands of the Dragon Coast or the East Rift. Drow who headed for the Dragon Coast typically were less apologetic about their past and simply sought a place away from Lolth's corruption where few questions were asked and skill was the only quality that mattered. Many of those who dwelled in the East Rift were refugees of the catastrophe wrought on the neighboring regions of the Underdark by the Spellplague and the draining of the Sea of Fallen Stars.

Post-Second Sundering era
Over the course of the Second Sundering, all the drow deities who had died before the Spellplague returned to life, thus causing a renaissance of their cults. Despite Q'arlynd's spell, Eilistraee and most of her followers were still drow after their re-emergence; the Promenade was stealthily retaken (see also here).

Underdark
See also List of drow cities

Drow were native creatures of the Underdark. They lived there in city states. These city states shared the characteristic of defensibility. There were about forty of them scattered around the Underdark making the drow the most wide-spread and numerous of the Underdark races. However, this did not mean that the drow were found in every part of the Underdark. Drow were found in both the Upperdark and Middledark, primarily in the Middledark. Drow in the Lowerdark were there as scouting parties as some kind of punishment for angering a matron.

Drow preferred areas that fulfilled some criteria. These criteria were particularly well fulfilled under the Moonsea, north and west of Iltkazar, from the underground of Climshan to the one of Icewind Dale. Their sphere of influence was much larger.

Notable drow cities
 * Menzoberranzan
 * Menzoberranzan was not a big city, but it a very typical drow city.
 * Menzoberranzan was not a big city, but it a very typical drow city.


 * Chaulssin
 * Chualssin stood out among the drow cities as it primarily served as the headquarters for an international assassins' guild, the Jaezred Chaulssin.


 * Ched Nasad
 * Also called the City of Shimmering Webs, the city was built on magically calcified webs.


 * Eryndlyn
 * Eryndlyn stood out among the drow cities as it had not one or two but three faiths, Ghaunadaur, Lolth, and Vhaeraun.


 * Maerimydra
 * Maerimydra was the city that was responsible for the construction of the Twisted Tower.


 * Sschindylryn
 * Sschindylryn was a city where merchant clans took over after the city's matriarchy murdred themselves out of power.


 * Sshamath
 * The City of Dark Weavings was a city where the wizards took the power from the priestresses.

Surface
The term "surface drow" was quite broad. It did not mean "drow whose life played out in the surface" but "drow who spent less than four consecutive days below surface in his regular life".

As mentioned above, most surface drow were followers of Vhaeraun and not of Lolth. Infighting was not a huge problem like in the Underdark.

Surface drow had no love for bright light, open sky, and loud noises and a preference for darkness. Mentally, surface drow could be broadly categorized into two categories, whch could be each broken down into two sub-categories. The upper categories were drow who were truly held a different morality from their bretherens and those who did not. The former had people who were anomalous in that they remained truthful to their different morality and managed to go the surface, the latter wre those whose behavior was indistinguishable from other drow while they were in the underdark and who were haunted by their own horrile actions on the surface. The other category held people who were truly unapologetic about their horrible behavior in the Underdark and pushed all responsibiltiy on the necessity to do so and those whose minds were broken by their action and went mad by the point they came to the surface. The former had a tendency to not mind using the methods of the Underdark on the surface and the latter was a danger to self and everybody in the surroundings.

Surface drow, while ignored by others, were attractive for the merchant clans for they represented a contact to the surface for trade. For example, some managed to become traders who traded with Calimshan, Chessenta, Mulhorand, Waterdeep, or the Zhentil Keep. That said, the mojority of the surface drow lived as hermits or found employment in rather unsavory areas where their heritage was an actual advantage like adventurers' companies or assassins' guilds.

Notable Members

 * Drizzt Do'Urden
 * Zaknafein Do'Urden
 * Jalynfein
 * Liriel Baenre
 * Jarlaxle
 * Qilue Veladorn

Drow-run organizations

 * Dark Dagger was a group active around the Sea of Fallen Stars. They tried to infiltrate and eventually take over the criminal milieu there.


 * Horizon Syndicate was merchant conglomerate thatorganized trade between Underdark.communities and surface ones.


 * Jaezred Chaulssin was an assassins' guild which made its objective to restructure drow society and free the drow from Lolth's tyranny. They believed that drow society was so far beyond help that only crushing it could allow restructuring.

Organizations with strong drow membership

 * Affiliated merchants of the Underdark was a protection racket that targeted merchants in the Underdark and demanded money for protection from harm that originated from them. It was also run by the drow Sofra by 1372 DR.


 * Guild of Underdark guides was, as the name suggested, a group of guides in the Underdark. Neutral and good drow with no interest in the surface made up a meaningful part of the membership.


 * Underdark anarchists' fellowship was on the front a protest movement against general Underdark society. Its true objective was the abolishment of slavery in the Underdark. An important part of its membership were chaotic and evil drow who used the organization as a platform for protest against the establishment.

Connections
Drow Drow Drow