Drow Soceity/misconceptions

[frigidmagi]

I've been bopping about the web and I seem to running into a number of things.

Questions on how Drow Soceity works and is set up. What their economic like. Etc, etc, etc.

Another thing is a number of misconceptions, like drow solve all their problems via murder, drow have low birthrates and so on. Since Cat is an estblished Writer of Drow and Nitram and CT are experts in a number of fantasy settings with drow running about and I'm not excaltly a moron either, I figure this would be the place.

First off birthrates. Drow do not breed like elves, they breed like humans. Consider this, Matron Malice(from the Homeland series of a certain drow ranger, whose name I won't mention to keep from being hung) had something along the lines of 4 daugthers and 2 sons, these fair readers weren't the only childern she had, these were just the surviving children, we know of one son who was killed in the opening moments of Homeland for example. It does seem to far fetched to me to suppose at least one other child of Malice didn't quite measure up to snuff. This is entirely theory however.

So we have one breeding female who has produced at least 6 children. More then most women in the 1st world today produce. She will conutine to be of breeding age for another couple centuries (700 or so years) meanwhile her children are phyiscal able to breed after a couple of decades. Think this through, make a chart. It boils down to the percentage of breeding drow in the population being a hell of a alot larger then in a human population of the same number.

So what keeps them in line? Well the underdark is full of things that think Drow are tasty, all the other races hate their guts at varying degrees of hate and most importently of all... The Drow have a huge inclination to kill each other in their sleep. They don't solve all their problems through murder however, there are rules even in Mezoberran, which may be the worst run of all the Drow megapolius. The biggest rule is, you can't get caught. Leave enough damning evidence and you're screwed. Another thing even among drow family members and allies will get annoyed if you kill one of theirs. It reflects on the family standing if they let their heirs get butchered and don't do anything about it, and the lost of an ally is something that is a bit annoying. Killing a drow means you just gave a indeterminate number of other drow a reason to kill you.

This means that any Drow considering murder is running a complex risk vs reward ratio in his/her head, unless the reward is alot higher then the risk, no one is going to die from a dagger in their sleep. This is assuming that our murderer can get close enough to even plant the dagger in the first place.

There are other ways Drow compete with each other, attempts to humilate your enemy are perfectly acceptable, subverting his allies, messing up his plans or even sleeping with your enemies siblings will work. Two Drow are perfectly capable of hating and competeing against each other for several human livetimes instead of killing each other. Keep in mind this isn't because of some moral issue, it because it's to fucking risky to try at the moment!

Given that your average Drow is noticable smarter then the average human, the odds are good that they'll try to make it as risky as possible to kill them. Really smart Drow are likely to have spent centuries worth of effort making the risk as high possible for anyone including their first born daugthers (prehaps especially for their 1st born daugthers).

Drow econmics, the average Drow city state (as much as there is one, there are some wild levels of difference) is a slave economy much like Rome. If there's a dirty dangerous task, it get's throw onto a slave. That doesn't mean slaves do all the work. Alot of the Drow traditional slave races (goblinoids and such) just aren't bright or strong enough for it. Humans seem to be of limited supply and man do they die fast. Elves are for killing and dwarves are boring and hard to catch. So who does that leave for those task that are to sentitive or difficult for the average slave? Other Drow. So you have the dirty, smelly, dangerous simple task being handled by slaves and more complex, importent jobs handled by commoner Drow. Trade is importent to the Drow as well, they're known to trade with grey dwarves, mindflayers and other races of the underdark, for foodstuff, metals, slaves and other goods.

Drow societies are mostly pyramid in sturcture. At the bottom is your average slave, above him may be exotic or especially useful slaves (some of these may even rank above common drow) Above thoses are commoner drow. At the top of the commoner pile are those who learned a useful skill, say silversmiths or so on. Above these guys? Drow with character levels, the warriors, the lower level wizards and so on. Sitting on top of everyone is the ruling class, be it the noble families led by a high priestess or the members of a wizard counsil. The head of the pyramid tends to be a group of spellcasters of one sort or another, at least I've never heard of a drow city ruled by a bunch of warrior nobles, but there could be one out there. There is also a lack of kings, queens or other single rulers, mostly Drow seem to prefer to at least look like there's some kinda of group rule in place, even when one person is yanking all the strings.

I'll open the floor for comments now.

[Ra]

This all sounds about right, as far as my own (albeit limited) knowledge of the drow goes. Definitely better thought out than 99.9% + of the fan-made stuff I've read on the dark elves. They appear to be all about intrigue and politics, rather than endless hordes of dual-wielding warriors of doom.

An aside, the idea of two drow competing with each other for centuries sounds like an awesome fanfic plot.

[Cynical Cat]

Generally frigid hit the head on the nail. A few points of my own:

1) It helps if you think of the average drow living within a series of concentric circles. At the center is him, then his friends and allies, then the rest of his organization (priesthood, noble house, mage school, whatever), then his society. Loyalty is strongest at the center, but all of these are related to keeping him alive. He can reasonably expect his guild to present a united front against outsiders, his allies against rivals, based on self interest and self preservation.

2) They're elves. Even though they are evil and impulsive, they still tend to take the long view. Those prone to short sighted, stupid impulse treacheries are unlikely to survive adolescence.

3) Drow and humans aren't their best source of slave labour for grunt work. Considering that a lot of their slave stock includes bugbears, hobgoblins, and orcs, all more suited for brute strength work, drow and human slaves will tend to be in situations where skill, intelligence, and presentability are important. Assuming an adequate supply of slaves, of course.

4) Like other elves, they're long lived and value craftmanship. Drow commoners (and there's a lot of them) are going to be best off learning a skilled trade, whether its swordsmithing, arms, or magic. They live in a highly competative, dangerous enviroment and have a lot of time to pick up skills. Comparatively high skill scores and character levels are common among them.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Wow.. pretty much everything has been covered. Remember though. It is also a matriachal elven society, and the social gradients are also split along gender lines, with females of the same class ranked above males, and males prohibited from being clergy.

[Cynical Cat]

Wow.. pretty much everything has been covered. Remember though. It is also a matriachal elven society, and the social gradients are also split along gender lines, with females of the same class ranked above males, and males prohibited from being clergy.

Mainstream Lolthite drow society is matriarchal. Considering the existence of followers of the gods Eilistraee, Ghaunaduar, Kiaransalee, and Vhaerun who don't have strict matriarchal practices and the existence of nonstandard Lolthite followers such as the city of Sshameth, the matriarchial practices should be understood as to be the most common practice of the followers of the most popular goddess, not descriptive of the drow as a whole.