Why Aren't the Drow of Golarion Extinct?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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Silver Crusade

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DnD Drow were expressly indicated by Salvatore (who's responsible for most of the houses of drow, thing) to not be a functional culture. They rely on Lolth coming in and basically acting like a lifestyle commissar to keep things operational (do not kill those children today, we need them! Yes I told you to kill all the kids you came across, that was then, this is now!)

That goes a long way towards the explanation of why a society that is so rigidly structured was still CE. The entire society existed a the ever changing, unpredictable whims of a deific despot. Dungeons and Dragons drow basically live in magical North Korea, albeit with better economy.

Pathfinder drow have this sort of ridiculously malicious thing designed around making them seem horrible.

They're honestly more like 40k's Dark Eldar then anything else. The dark eldar though get around the birth-rate issue by making assloads of vat-bred children, and everyone is still viewed as disposable meat for the consumption for pleasure of everyone else.

Mr. Jacobs is going for the Doylist explanation when we were asking for the Watsonian one. We know the drow stick around because they're baddies and we want them to, but in a society where roasting your own children alive for fun or having children poison knife fight spiders for your cruel amusement while you rearrange grandma's internal organs for giggles, a low birth-rate spells destruction.

There's only one other species I can think of similar to the drow in mindset and that's the dire corbies. And the corbies literally are slowly dying out because the males are driven to eat their own young.
Honestly, I can see the drow of golarian being a sort of interesting thing, a hedonistic society, drunk on its own advancement, slowly burning out like a flickering torch light in dark caverns. You just need to survive their gyrations or attempt to reform their society away from one driven by selfish hedonism, perversity and sadism.

In summary, I'd argue the drow should be portrayed as if they were dying out, but it takes a while for a civilization of creatures so long-lived to perish.

Liberty's Edge

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A Shadow, 2260 AD (Earthforce reckoning) wrote:
As always, chaos is the way to strength[...] Chaos is the engine powering life. The spread of chaos is our triumph. And the greatest joy is the ecstasy of victory.
First Principles of the Shadows wrote:
Chaos through warfare; evolution through bloodshed; perfection through victory.


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Spook205 wrote:

DnD Drow were expressly indicated by Salvatore (who's responsible for most of the houses of drow, thing) to not be a functional culture. They rely on Lolth coming in and basically acting like a lifestyle commissar to keep things operational (do not kill those children today, we need them! Yes I told you to kill all the kids you came across, that was then, this is now!)

That goes a long way towards the explanation of why a society that is so rigidly structured was still CE. The entire society existed a the ever changing, unpredictable whims of a deific despot. Dungeons and Dragons drow basically live in magical North Korea, albeit with better economy.

Pathfinder drow have this sort of ridiculously malicious thing designed around making them seem horrible.

And yet the drow's demoniacal patrons are still capable of providing them with all the support they need, for their own twisted amusements. Whether you call that patron Lolth, Abraxas, Mazmezz, or Snugglebunniefoofoo is rather beside the point.


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The drow are getting old and tired and need something to mix them up. For the race as a storytelling engine, the best part of 5th edition is the return of Elistraee. Nothing like a little dancing naked under the stars as opposed to hideous sacrifices to put a little schism in the way things are done.

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Dwarves have nae Scottish accents.

Scots be having dwarvish accents.

That aside, there are several subcultures of dwarves in PF that are definitely not Tolkienesque.
--

If you're going to use duergar, the best way to use them as a dominant race is LE Imperial racist, with a higher level of tech then their enemies which they are totally willing to use.

Magic use on top of that should really grit teeth.

They would, however, have to have something that trumps the rampant magical use of their enemies, the ability to call in demonic reinforcements by drow, and similar extreme things, so they could use their superior organization and strength on the battlefield to win.

You'd have to play them as scarily intelligent, tireless workers, lethally patient, and deadly competent. That's not how they are played now.

==Aelryinth


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Aelryinth wrote:

Dwarves have not Scottish accents.

Scots be having dwarvish accents.

That aside, there are several subcultures of dwarves in PF that are definitely not Tolkienesque.
--

If you're going to use duergar, the best way to use them as a dominant race is LE Imperial racist, with a higher level of tech then their enemies which they are totally willing to use.

Magic use on top of that should really grit teeth.

They would, however, have to have something that trumps the rampant magical use of their enemies, the ability to call in demonic reinforcements by drow, and similar extreme things, so they could use their superior organization and strength on the battlefield to win.

You'd have to play them as scarily intelligent, tireless workers, lethally patient, and deadly competent. That's not how they are played now.

==Aelryinth

Remember, their idea of a vacation is working in a different mine for a few weeks. When you know the dark dwarves are out for you, don't assume you won just because they haven't come after you for six months. Building a CR 20 engine of destruction takes time, and if you assume they're not going to follow through with their threats, the only way you'd be right is if they went ahead and made it CR 21 instead.

Silver Crusade

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Orfamay Quest wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

DnD Drow were expressly indicated by Salvatore (who's responsible for most of the houses of drow, thing) to not be a functional culture. They rely on Lolth coming in and basically acting like a lifestyle commissar to keep things operational (do not kill those children today, we need them! Yes I told you to kill all the kids you came across, that was then, this is now!)

That goes a long way towards the explanation of why a society that is so rigidly structured was still CE. The entire society existed a the ever changing, unpredictable whims of a deific despot. Dungeons and Dragons drow basically live in magical North Korea, albeit with better economy.

Pathfinder drow have this sort of ridiculously malicious thing designed around making them seem horrible.

And yet the drow's demoniacal patrons are still capable of providing them with all the support they need, for their own twisted amusements. Whether you call that patron Lolth, Abraxas, Mazmezz, or Snugglebunniefoofoo is rather beside the point.

Yeah but in DnD, the drow were basically Lolth's belongings. Society followed the theocratic aims of Lolth. There was one cook stirring that pot.

Put in a bunch of different houses worshipping different CE demons and all of a sudden that ability to administrate and control the cat's nest would seem to logically start having trouble.

If your house worships multiple demonic patrons, it just gets odder. Mazmezz might demand you have a moratorium on male child murder for a year, meanwhile Baphomet might be demanding it. And the demon lord of fire ants might be demanding the house next to yours go on a random 'arson for fun' spree.


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Spook205 wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

DnD Drow were expressly indicated by Salvatore (who's responsible for most of the houses of drow, thing) to not be a functional culture. They rely on Lolth coming in and basically acting like a lifestyle commissar to keep things operational (do not kill those children today, we need them! Yes I told you to kill all the kids you came across, that was then, this is now!)

That goes a long way towards the explanation of why a society that is so rigidly structured was still CE. The entire society existed a the ever changing, unpredictable whims of a deific despot. Dungeons and Dragons drow basically live in magical North Korea, albeit with better economy.

Pathfinder drow have this sort of ridiculously malicious thing designed around making them seem horrible.

And yet the drow's demoniacal patrons are still capable of providing them with all the support they need, for their own twisted amusements. Whether you call that patron Lolth, Abraxas, Mazmezz, or Snugglebunniefoofoo is rather beside the point.

Yeah but in DnD, the drow were basically Lolth's belongings. Society followed the theocratic aims of Lolth. There was one cook stirring that pot.

Put in a bunch of different houses worshipping different CE demons and all of a sudden that ability to administrate and control the cat's nest would seem to logically start having trouble.

If your house worships multiple demonic patrons, it just gets odder. Mazmezz might demand you have a moratorium on male child murder for a year, meanwhile Baphomet might be demanding it. And the demon lord of fire ants might be demanding the house next to yours go on a random 'arson for fun' spree.

To be fair, there are multiple gods, but those who dared to try to change the recipe became part of the soup. At least one got better :P

The only logical conclusion to this example is a cage fight between Mazmezz and Baphomet.


Aelryinth wrote:

Dwarves have nae Scottish accents.

Scots be having dwarvish accents.

That aside, there are several subcultures of dwarves in PF that are definitely not Tolkienesque.

Of course Scottish accents aren't Tolkienesque either, movies aside. I think the Scots thing may actually have come from D&D fiction to the movies actually.

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The problem is making a cr 20 engine of destruction takes a lot of time and money.

Gating in a CR 20 creature of destruction takes ONE SPELL...and you can make scrolls of that spell.

So, without something to stop the stockpiled, overpowered magical attacks, a duergar empire is going to be hard to portray.

==Aelryinth


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Aelryinth wrote:

The problem is making a cr 20 engine of destruction takes a lot of time and money.

Gating in a CR 20 creature of destruction takes ONE SPELL...and you can make scrolls of that spell.

So, without something to stop the stockpiled, overpowered magical attacks, a duergar empire is going to be hard to portray.

==Aelryinth

I'm amused that we jumped from "The Drow should be extinct" to "The Duergar can't possibly survive against them."


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thejeff wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

The problem is making a cr 20 engine of destruction takes a lot of time and money.

Gating in a CR 20 creature of destruction takes ONE SPELL...and you can make scrolls of that spell.

So, without something to stop the stockpiled, overpowered magical attacks, a duergar empire is going to be hard to portray.

I'm amused that we jumped from "The Drow should be extinct" to "The Duergar can't possibly survive against them."

Yeah. And I think a solution is pretty obvious: the drow are sufficiently tangled up with their own little reindeer games and sufficiently oblivious that they don't often go out and squish the duergar.


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^Well, it looks like we have our explanation of how the Drow don't go extinct -- they're up against the Duergar.


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Spook205 wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:

And yet the drow's demoniacal patrons are still capable of providing them with all the support they need, for their own twisted amusements. Whether you call that patron Lolth, Abraxas, Mazmezz, or Snugglebunniefoofoo is rather beside the point.

Yeah but in DnD, the drow were basically Lolth's belongings. Society followed the theocratic aims of Lolth. There was one cook stirring that pot.

Put in a bunch of different houses worshipping different CE demons and all of a sudden that ability to administrate and control the cat's nest would seem to logically start having trouble.

Who said anything about administration and control? If you-the-demon-lord want your playthings to do well in the game, you have to make sure they've got everything they need. Even if they're rebellious unreliable playthings, the alternative is that they're no one's playthings, and then you don't have anything to play with.

Liberty's Edge

Spook205 wrote:
Orfamay Quest wrote:
Spook205 wrote:

DnD Drow were expressly indicated by Salvatore (who's responsible for most of the houses of drow, thing) to not be a functional culture. They rely on Lolth coming in and basically acting like a lifestyle commissar to keep things operational (do not kill those children today, we need them! Yes I told you to kill all the kids you came across, that was then, this is now!)

That goes a long way towards the explanation of why a society that is so rigidly structured was still CE. The entire society existed a the ever changing, unpredictable whims of a deific despot. Dungeons and Dragons drow basically live in magical North Korea, albeit with better economy.

Pathfinder drow have this sort of ridiculously malicious thing designed around making them seem horrible.

And yet the drow's demoniacal patrons are still capable of providing them with all the support they need, for their own twisted amusements. Whether you call that patron Lolth, Abraxas, Mazmezz, or Snugglebunniefoofoo is rather beside the point.

Yeah but in DnD, the drow were basically Lolth's belongings. Society followed the theocratic aims of Lolth. There was one cook stirring that pot.

Put in a bunch of different houses worshipping different CE demons and all of a sudden that ability to administrate and control the cat's nest would seem to logically start having trouble.

If your house worships multiple demonic patrons, it just gets odder. Mazmezz might demand you have a moratorium on male child murder for a year, meanwhile Baphomet might be demanding it. And the demon lord of fire ants might be demanding the house next to yours go on a random 'arson for fun' spree.

I agree with these thoughts whole-heartedly, and I totally forgot to bring it up in the original discussion. Thanks for reminding me, Spook205.

It would be one thing if the Drow were united in the worship of a single Demonic patron; Nocticula would probably make the most sense, if only because she is one of the least outwardly destructive and matches a lot of the classical characteristics of the Drow. But on Golarion, the Drow basically worship ALL of the demon lords without any notable exception, when these Lords of the Abyss are all constantly warring, plotting against and back-stabbing one another. It makes little to no sense and would almost certainly lead to horrific sectarianism the likes of which the surface world has rarely seen as clerics of the various demon lords engage in proxy battles in order to maintain the powers granted by their cruel patrons.

And that is to say nothing of the fact that a lot of the Demon Lords look at their worshippers as a source of food or bloody amusement.This really only compounds the already-existing problems the Drow have.


My understanding of drow based on the forgotten realms granted, is that they are different to surface elves.

They are particularly sexually active and fecund, with most noble females having lovers and several children - Matron Malice had five or six - maybe more. In addition they don't take hundreds of years to mature. Drizzt was a fighter by 16 and was accepted into the military academy at 20 where he trained for 10 years. During this they went on several exercises into the underdark with other classmates and were seen as the apex of the food chain.

The intrigue and infighting windows out the weak, while their massive array of abilities and intelligence means they can develop very quickly (gain levels as one poster described). They are very territorial and have multiple outposts and defences around their cities.

They survive by being the nastiest, most powerful force in the underdark - while mind flayers my have 50+ in a community, drow cities can number 10's of thousands with many high ranking nobles. In addition the structure of noble houses means that there are always ladders to climb to power, unlike other kingdoms that might have a ruling family or relatively flat beurocracy.

However it is worth noting that several cities do fall to fighting or invaders but generally there are other drow families in the wings ready to pick up the pieces.

To summarise all this means that while the demographics of a surface town might be that there are a couple of dozen exceptional individuals in the population a drow town would have many many more exceptional classed NPCs ready to fight.

Just a few thoughts.


I didn't read everyone's posts, but I think the biggest problem here is assumptions.

You're original assumptions, perhaps everyone's assumptions, may be very wrong.

As far as I know we don't have an official companion guide about Drow of Golarion. What sources do we actually have that elucidate on greater Drow society? To my knowledge none.

I saw Second Darkness mentioned, but that was written for 3.5. It may or may not have any validity in the revised annals of Golarion.

James Jacobs has already visited this thread once, perhaps he can enlighten further since he is the creative director. Perhaps someone here knows of better sources than I and can point to distinctive passages about Drow (from Pathfinder RPG) that elucidates the assumptions made.

But maybe the reality is that this incarnation of Drow isn't quite like the old one. They're evil, terrible bastards. But maybe not the same evil bastard they used to be.


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Drow don't plot and scheme to kill each other just to kill each other.. they plot and scheme to kill each other to get ahead in Drow society. They pick someone above them who has exposed an opening, and they strike.. sometimes planning for years for the opportunity. Survival of the Drow still trumps that personal ambition, owing to their origin as the 'abandoned' Elves forced to survive in the hostile, lightness Darklands.

At this point, Second Darkness contains the definitive canonical information on Drow (in the support article "Drow of Golarion"). There is some additional information in "Into the Darklands".

Some minor detaila may have changd from 3.5 to Pathfinder (Elves in 3.5 did not sleep; Pathfinder Elves do, for example), but for the most part the 3.5-era content remains the core. Some mechanics have been re-visited and expanded (Fleshwarps and Fleshcrafts in Inner Sea Magic, and the Pain Taster class in Occult Mysteries, as examples).

The Second Darkness AP used some mechanical materials from Green Ronin's "Plot & Poison" (a sourcebook on Drow), which was revised to be the "Advanced Race Codex: Drow" for 3.5 (PDF only as far as I know), but I don't think any cultural material was used.

Wayfinder #9 has some interesting material on Drow and Duergar.

EDIT: Fixed name of Green Ronin product, and added reference to Wayfinder #9

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thejeff wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

The problem is making a cr 20 engine of destruction takes a lot of time and money.

Gating in a CR 20 creature of destruction takes ONE SPELL...and you can make scrolls of that spell.

So, without something to stop the stockpiled, overpowered magical attacks, a duergar empire is going to be hard to portray.

==Aelryinth

I'm amused that we jumped from "The Drow should be extinct" to "The Duergar can't possibly survive against them."

Well, we're on the subject of 'realistically, why aren't drow extinct', which extends to 'realistically, a people using a lot of high level magic against a people who don't are going to curbstomp them.'

Ergo, you aren't going to have a duergar Empire looming in the Underdark when ceaseless high level magical assaults they don't have the ability to deal with will destroy it. Unless you do something about that magic, of course.

==Aelryinth


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What's preventing the duergar from having their own magic? They are what they are because they made a pact with an evil god, after all. Droskar has a vested interest in their success and survival.


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Zhangar wrote:
What's preventing the duergar from having their own magic? They are what they are because they made a pact with an evil god, after all. Droskar has a vested interest in their success and survival.

Yeah, I think that's a lot it. The Drow may have more, but it's not like any of those cultures don't have high level magic of their own. The emphasis is different, but magic certainly isn't absent.


Aelryinth wrote:

The problem is making a cr 20 engine of destruction takes a lot of time and money.

Gating in a CR 20 creature of destruction takes ONE SPELL...and you can make scrolls of that spell.

So, without something to stop the stockpiled, overpowered magical attacks, a duergar empire is going to be hard to portray.

==Aelryinth

Dueregar are practical folks. Find a beastie with spell resistance. Kill the beastie. Go all Silence of the Lamps with the beastie's skin and put it on your CR 21 death machine. Incidentally, the granted SR probably makes it a CR 22 death machine now.

For those who may be wondering, yes, this did happen in a home game, and, yes, it was a CR 21 war machine with accompaniment against a level 5 party. The party dropped half the Subterrane on it. So proud.


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Part of the problem is that while the drow are different than 3.5 (as stated above), there hasn't been anything to show how they are any different in Golarion. I know it's said that "they unite in the face of enemies" but the entire Second Darkness campaign was about drow who gleefully stabbed each other in the backs even in the face of the party wiping all their plans out. At one point, an overseer orders all surviving members of the household executed for "allowing" the PCs to escape (when in fact she was the source of this in the first place). If this happens even once a decade, that's a huge number of a slow-to-mature race being destroyed. The callousness of the action (as portrayed in the AP at least) makes it sound like such actions are fairly routine, however, and it's very hard to reconcile how the whole "they unite in the face of danger" actually unites them when all the evidence we see seems to be the continuous "drow stab each other in the back and dance on the corpse even as they're about to be slain themselves".

I mean, I'm not arguing for or against it, or for not having them as villains, just that I've thought about it too and would like some greater explanation as well.

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In my campaign, most of the most cruel drow got wiped out. Most of the surviving drow's cruelty is aimed at elves and see them as traitors that abandoned the world in its most dire time of need.

In addition, beholders don't exist in my Golarion because their in-fighting eventually led to one individual, living in a dungeon full of dragons, to hire powerful wizards of the coast of his domain to cast a wish spell that eradicated the name of his race from the history of all lands but his own.


Race themes arent allways as HUGE as they sound. The whole "drow hate everything and kill everyone, including drow" basically means that drow are MORE LIKELY to backstab each other then, say, humans, but that doesnt mean everyone does it.

For the same reason not EVERY person in the pathfinder universe takes levels in player classes (because taking levels in commoner is stupid duh, why would you go through life as a commoner when you can level up as an Inquisitor or something!?) not every drow is a murdering sociopath. Drow just have a healthy bit MORE sociopaths then humans do, not all of them are.


Yes but it doesn't do all that much to make the race compelling when the only members that are portrayed are the remorseless killer subset.

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Interjection Games wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

The problem is making a cr 20 engine of destruction takes a lot of time and money.

Gating in a CR 20 creature of destruction takes ONE SPELL...and you can make scrolls of that spell.

So, without something to stop the stockpiled, overpowered magical attacks, a duergar empire is going to be hard to portray.

==Aelryinth

Dueregar are practical folks. Find a beastie with spell resistance. Kill the beastie. Go all Silence of the Lamps with the beastie's skin and put it on your CR 21 death machine. Incidentally, the granted SR probably makes it a CR 22 death machine now.

For those who may be wondering, yes, this did happen in a home game, and, yes, it was a CR 21 war machine with accompaniment against a level 5 party. The party dropped half the Subterrane on it. So proud.

And that one action took a CR 22 construct that probably took months to build out of the game permanently.

Whereas a Gate spell just summons up another one tomorrow.
The two things are not equal.

Duergar have some magic as a part of their deal, and one god. The drow have multiple gods and multiple demons, who are more then willing to mess with things, AND arcane magic is a huge part of their culture.

Unless you graphically change the duergar race from hard-working engineers with machines of war and supporting clerics to a race of construct-making spellcasters of all types and professions united in a truly formidable common cause, you aren't going to have an Empire.

I.e. you'd have to make them like the drow, except organized and unified, and thus REALLY hard to deal with.

martial-caster disparity is REALLY hard to deal with at the macro level.

==Aelryinth


Aelryinth wrote:


Whereas a Gate spell just summons up another one tomorrow.
The two things are not equal.

Duergar have some magic as a part of their deal, and one god. The drow have multiple gods and multiple demons, ...

... who are spending most of their time and energy on fighting with other drow-gods, other drow-demons, and other drow.

It doesn't matter how big the gun is if it's pointed in completely the wrong direction.


I kind of imagine Drow, in my own homebrew version of Golarion, as having a society not that dissimilar to that exhibited in The Purge movies. Drow day to day bottle up all their pathologies that would prevent them from functioning as a society. They then periodically let all those emotions out in quasi-regulated murderfests against their own kind.

Although I hate the "all members of a race are chaotic evil" trope, so it's really the nobles who are bad, and the commoners tend to suffer the most.


Perhaps the nobility of the drow control the underclass with tales of how utterly horrific the upper world is and that their way of life is only thing keeping the world from ending.

Like "Better join in our ritualized murder orgies, or the sky will collapse and the madness of humans and dwarves will devour us all!"

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Orfamay Quest wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:


Whereas a Gate spell just summons up another one tomorrow.
The two things are not equal.

Duergar have some magic as a part of their deal, and one god. The drow have multiple gods and multiple demons, ...

... who are spending most of their time and energy on fighting with other drow-gods, other drow-demons, and other drow.

It doesn't matter how big the gun is if it's pointed in completely the wrong direction.

And there's nothing like a zillion vicious enemies headed your way to get all those guns pointing the same way.

==Aelryinth

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Icyshadow wrote:

Vikings without ships and raiding are like dwarves without beards. Something of a paradox.

Scottish? Yes. Angry? Yes. Short? Depends on who you ask from. Boring? Not if they are played right.

Dwarves are from German and Nordic myths. So you get a little bit of the Viking-ness, but mostly it's industry, work ethic, and weird food. (And Oktoberfest.)

No idea where the Scottish bit comes from. Probably the same reason Romans and Russians inexplicably talk like they're British in film.


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Cyrad wrote:

{. . .}

In addition, beholders don't exist in my Golarion because their in-fighting eventually led to one individual, living in a dungeon full of dragons, to hire powerful wizards of the coast of his domain to cast a wish spell that eradicated the name of his race from the history of all lands but his own.

I see what you did there . . . :-)

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That's a good question, actually. Exactly where did it first start that dwarves talked like Scots, and why did it stick?

==Aelryinth


@ Aelrynth - actually, gate costs 10,000 gp a pop and brings in creatures that will probably seek revenge for getting used as cannon fodder if they survive (and if at CR 20+, aren't necessarily even controlled!).

And you've probably got maybe 2 to 4 drow in a city who can do it. (And the scrolls cost over 12,000 gp a pop to craft, so not really THAT stockpilable, especially once you look at GP limits on NPCs.)

Now, in Golarion the drow and the duergar don't actually fight that much because they're concentrating on different levels of the Underdark.

I think they're more likely to trade than they are to clash.

Hell, IIRC the drow are buying their slaves directly from the duergar - the drow don't do that much surface raiding.

Heh. I suppose that if the duergar are REALLY trying to take on a drow city (or a Vault of Orv), they shouldn't be showing up with a single super war machine - they should be showing up with dozens.

Just one machine? That's a scouting force =P


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Because drow are prettier than kobolds, ghouls and duergar.

Oh, don't act like that's not the reason.

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Zhangar, 10k gp a pop is still cheaper then making a CR 20 construct, and takes a LOT less time. And the advantage is that you don't have to haul a monstrous thing through the underdark, and can bring it out when it's best for you.

Better yet, you can get all sorts of different things to serve you for various purposes, rather then just a war machine. But you can certainly bring in something that can take out a war machine, and a whole bunch more, besides.

Dozens of war machines? Scrolls of lower level Summon Spells. Or more likely, Rock to Mud spells that will bury the machines in ooze. Again, you can stockpile them much quicker and faster then you can make war machines.

==Aelryinth


Aelryinth wrote:
Interjection Games wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

The problem is making a cr 20 engine of destruction takes a lot of time and money.

Gating in a CR 20 creature of destruction takes ONE SPELL...and you can make scrolls of that spell.

So, without something to stop the stockpiled, overpowered magical attacks, a duergar empire is going to be hard to portray.

==Aelryinth

Dueregar are practical folks. Find a beastie with spell resistance. Kill the beastie. Go all Silence of the Lamps with the beastie's skin and put it on your CR 21 death machine. Incidentally, the granted SR probably makes it a CR 22 death machine now.

For those who may be wondering, yes, this did happen in a home game, and, yes, it was a CR 21 war machine with accompaniment against a level 5 party. The party dropped half the Subterrane on it. So proud.

And that one action took a CR 22 construct that probably took months to build out of the game permanently.

Whereas a Gate spell just summons up another one tomorrow.
The two things are not equal.

Duergar have some magic as a part of their deal, and one god. The drow have multiple gods and multiple demons, who are more then willing to mess with things, AND arcane magic is a huge part of their culture.

Unless you graphically change the duergar race from hard-working engineers with machines of war and supporting clerics to a race of construct-making spellcasters of all types and professions united in a truly formidable common cause, you aren't going to have an Empire.

I.e. you'd have to make them like the drow, except organized and unified, and thus REALLY hard to deal with.

martial-caster disparity is REALLY hard to deal with at the macro level.

==Aelryinth

To be fair, the robot never demands that its builder sacrifice 100 babies to it, plus it's not like the dueregar don't have an enormous mountain of smaller deathbots sitting around in warehouses or whatnot. At a high enough level of sophistication, magic and technology become synonymous.

That and dueregar are known to be masterful thaumaturges. Anything you can gate, they can gate harder. You pull a devil, they pull an earth elemental. You pull an earth elemental, they open a gate to Dagon's bathtub and hide behind a rock all Tactical Genius style.

All that said, the issue with drow and extinction is mirrored in the dueregar. As written, they really should own the subterrane.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Because drow are prettier than kobolds, ghouls and duergar.

Oh, don't act like that's not the reason.

Words of wisdom, Lloyd. Words of wisdom. I'll be taking on the illogical nature of the subterranean world in 2016 with some really fun stuff. Looking forward to it :)


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It never fails to amaze me how a race with about as much common sense and loyalty as your typical goblin manages to become one of the most dangerous supreme powers of the Darklands. But goblins don't look good in leather. Sorry, Doodlebug, it's just the truth.


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If we live in a matriarchy, why do we keep dressing like this?


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Aelryinth wrote:

That's a good question, actually. Exactly where did it first start that dwarves talked like Scots, and why did it stick?

==Aelryinth

This came up in a previous thread that I can't find. :)

There was a Scottish accented dwarf in Three Hearts and Three Lions, which Gygax cited as an influence on D&D. Later, apparently Bruenor from Salvatore's books used one as well. That's all I've got.


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I would wager that a certain character from a certain extremely popular and mainstream fantasy movie trilogy most likely influenced it the most. It may not be where it started, but it's assuredly why it stuck.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
I would wager that a certain character from a certain extremely popular and mainstream fantasy movie trilogy most likely influenced it the most. It may not be where it started, but it's assuredly why it stuck.

It's quite possible, but that's pretty recent. I thought it was already the trope by then.


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And he is Welsh not Scottish... Especially with that name.


The 8th Dwarf wrote:
And he is Welsh not Scottish... Especially with that name.

Who here can tell the difference?

Frankly, I can't make heads or tails of Welsh v. Scottish v. Irish.


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Interjection Games wrote:
The 8th Dwarf wrote:
And he is Welsh not Scottish... Especially with that name.

Who here can tell the difference?

Frankly, I can't make heads or tails of Welsh v. Scottish v. Irish.

I can and I am Australian.

It's saying I can't tell the difference between a Canadian, a Yank, and a Mexican... Highly insulting and a good way to get a very hostile reaction from all 3 of those nationalities.

Liberty's Edge

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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
I would wager that a certain character from a certain extremely popular and mainstream fantasy movie trilogy most likely influenced it the most. It may not be where it started, but it's assuredly why it stuck.

If you are referring to Gimli in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Dwarves with Scottish accents was deeply entrenched in the the Fantasy Genre decades before that movie.


The 8th Dwarf wrote:
Interjection Games wrote:
The 8th Dwarf wrote:
And he is Welsh not Scottish... Especially with that name.

Who here can tell the difference?

Frankly, I can't make heads or tails of Welsh v. Scottish v. Irish.

I can and I am Australian.

It's saying I can't tell the difference between a Canadian, a Yank, and a Mexican... Highly insulting and a good way to get a very hostile reaction from all 3 of those nationalities.

Not at all, actually. Texas alone is over twice the size of all three of those. Geographically speaking, the phenotype alone is a dead giveaway in your example.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Interjection Games wrote:

To be fair, the robot never demands that its builder sacrifice 100 babies to it, plus it's not like the dueregar don't have an enormous mountain of smaller deathbots sitting around in warehouses or whatnot. At a high enough level of sophistication, magic and technology become synonymous.

That and dueregar are known to be masterful thaumaturges. Anything you can gate, they can gate harder. You pull a devil, they pull an earth elemental. You pull an earth elemental, they open a gate to Dagon's bathtub and hide behind a rock all Tactical Genius style.

All that said, the issue with drow and extinction is mirrored in the dueregar. As written, they really should own the subterrane.

Again, you have a double standard here.

We don't know what is required to animate that CR 20 construct, for starters.

If the duergar have a mountain of deathbots, then the Drow have libraries of scrolls...more of them, cheaper, and spent less time and resources making, too.

To equal the power of magic you need MASSIVE investment in infrastructure and time with tech. For magic, you just need a person with levels, and money.

Duergar don't have near as many spellcasters, or high level spellcasters, as the drow. The drow can spend magic to neutralize anything the Duergar do and still have plenty magic left over to neutralize the war machines.

You are, in effect, arguing that the duergar simply have far, far more resources then the drow. That is likely far from the case, and the drow's resources are arranged far more powerfully towards the magical end of the scale.

It takes man-centuries of cooperation and labor to set up a viable techno-superior culture. It takes a good wizard one day to tear it all down.

It's an outgrowth of caster-martial disparity.

==Aelryinth

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