Why Aren't the Drow of Golarion Extinct?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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If we don't know what it required to animate the CR 20 construct, how do we know it requires so much more of an investment in infrastructure and time? More yes, because constructs are permanent once built (until destroyed) and don't need to be Gated in and bargained with for every fight. Remember you can't control the outsider, unless you have a higher caster level - or at least the scroll is written at a higher caster level. I don't know how many 20th level casters the drow have. Are they all making Gate scrolls full time?

I'm assuming, btw, that we're discussing magical constructs here, not sci-fi tech robots. I don't think there's any indication Golarion's Duergar have that kind of tech.

The Exchange

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

In my version of Golarion, I use the drow as the demented and twisted slaves of a master race of deep goblins. The drow are their master-slaves, used as their face to the rest of the darklands (and the surface world when necessary, although they have other servitors better suited for the sun-lit realms). These goblinoids are the fleshcrafters underneath, and driders are the remnants of their disobedient slaves.

But that is precisely why they don't die out. Their sociopathic tendencies are encouraged and bred into them, but held in check by their true masters.They can only kill each other when done cleverly enough to where they can't even be suspected of it, so not often. But other races...lesser slaves and prisoners of war...these they get to unleash their frustration and pent up savagery on.

The duergar empire has seized Highhelm and many of the other Sky Citadels (including Dongun Hold and the Gunworks; giving the duergar alone ready access to firearms). The normal dwarves only have Janderhoff and few hold-outs around the Five-King Mountains. Most dwarves are refugees in human lands. The duergar seem to be satisfied with taking the homes of their kindred, and have established themselves as an economic powerhouse in the production, sales, and delivery of arms, armor, and warmachines.

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thejeff wrote:

If we don't know what it required to animate the CR 20 construct, how do we know it requires so much more of an investment in infrastructure and time? More yes, because constructs are permanent once built (until destroyed) and don't need to be Gated in and bargained with for every fight. Remember you can't control the outsider, unless you have a higher caster level - or at least the scroll is written at a higher caster level. I don't know how many 20th level casters the drow have. Are they all making Gate scrolls full time?

I'm assuming, btw, that we're discussing magical constructs here, not sci-fi tech robots. I don't think there's any indication Golarion's Duergar have that kind of tech.

Warmachines take time and materials to build.

Constructs take time and materials to build.

We know that both those numbers are way higher then the time and materials needed to make scrolls. Alternatively, the same amount of time and materials could make a LOT of scrolls.

Engineering and developing technology takes time and materials to make it, to set it up, and to maintain it. Sure, once it gets going, it's awesome.
it's also frightfully easy to bring down if you know what you are doing.

==Aelryinth

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Nathan Nasif wrote:

In my version of Golarion, I use the drow as the demented and twisted slaves of a master race of deep goblins. The drow are their master-slaves, used as their face to the rest of the darklands (and the surface world when necessary, although they have other servitors better suited for the sun-lit realms). These goblinoids are the fleshcrafters underneath, and driders are the remnants of their disobedient slaves.

But that is precisely why they don't die out. Their sociopathic tendencies are encouraged and bred into them, but held in check by their true masters.They can only kill each other when done cleverly enough to where they can't even be suspected of it, so not often. But other races...lesser slaves and prisoners of war...these they get to unleash their frustration and pent up savagery on.

The duergar empire has seized Highhelm and many of the other Sky Citadels (including Dongun Hold and the Gunworks; giving the duergar alone ready access to firearms). The normal dwarves only have Janderhoff and few hold-outs around the Five-King Mountains. Most dwarves are refugees in human lands. The duergar seem to be satisfied with taking the homes of their kindred, and have established themselves as an economic powerhouse in the production, sales, and delivery of arms, armor, and warmachines.

Those most be some Dresden-level goblins!

==Aelryinth


@ Aelryinth - and I'm baffled you're apparently insisting the duergar don't have magic of their own. When they most certainly do.

If your scenario depends on the duergar having a handicap (no spellcasters), then of course they'll lose.

But they don't actually have that handicap.

Also, drow stockpiling scrolls to combat invasions instead of using them against each other is really pushing it =P

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They have a RELATIVE handicap.

The drow are awash in high level spellcasters of all types.

Duergar are typically portrayed as having a single strong clergy, and in PF would have a sprinkling of arcane casters.

Not quite the same.

Furthermore, the efforts of those spellcasters are being directed towards making constructs and animated war machines. Not particularly efficient use of time, unless you are a low level caster and this is the best way you can make dangerous threats.

==Aelryinth


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OTOH, as has been discussed, the Duergar are far more unified and organized, while the Drow spend most of their time and effort feuding among themselves.

And, since they do have more lower level casters than crazy high level ones, directing their efforts towards constructs and animated war machines does make sense.

Sure, if the Duergar mounted an all out assault on the Drow, the Drow would likely suspend most of the internal strife long enough to fight them off, but the Drow aren't going to do that for anything less than an existential threat - What does my House gain from your plan to attack the Duergar? How can I trust you?

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the drow spend time plotting against everyone, including one another, because there's no outside overthreat to unify their efforts.

yet nobody makes concentrated attacks on the disunified drow, simply because they WOULD unify to put down the threat.

Yes, it's a good use of their time as low level casters. But the drow, using the same amount of time and resources, get relatively much more done.

And when you rephrase the question to "What does my House gain from your plan to defend against the Duergar?" the question is its own answer. Having other drow fighting and dying for your House is a wonderful thing.

==Aelryinth


Aelryinth wrote:

the drow spend time plotting against everyone, including one another, because there's no outside overthreat to unify their efforts.

yet nobody makes concentrated attacks on the disunified drow, simply because they WOULD unify to put down the threat.

Yes, it's a good use of their time as low level casters. But the drow, using the same amount of time and resources, get relatively much more done.

And when you rephrase the question to "What does my House gain from your plan to defend against the Duergar?" the question is its own answer. Having other drow fighting and dying for your House is a wonderful thing.

==Aelryinth

Right. So both races continue to coexist in the Darklands.

Even though in an all out war, the Drow would win. Until, once victory seemed nearly assured, they started to turn on each other to seize the spoils and keep the others from doing the same.


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These are a lot of really awesome ideas for how to keep the drow in check or fix the gaping holes in their society, but there's still a pretty big disconnect between what's stated in the material and how they actually act in lore.

In lore, nearly 99% of the time the drow are crazy backstabbers who never, EVER honor a single deal they make. In Salvatore's books they murder with impunity, somehow surprising every black market contact or spy or smuggler or whatever they're meeting with by murdering them because they want to keep things hush-hush (so death is always their first choice when dealing with anyone not themselves). In the more recent "War for the Spider Queen" series, every single priestess of Lolth failed or refused to honor their bargains - whether it was with a poisoned jungle elf one priestess promised to cure if he guided her to a temple, demons summoned for protection and/or transport, or even bargains made with each other (amongst the priesthood) in order to try and reach the end goal. This isn't even like, limited to one author or anything either. 100% of the time, every single drow priestess of Lolth deliberately stabbed every creature she made a bargain with in the back for no other reason than that she felt like it.

For me, it's really hard to believe that anyone would bother to do anything other than just kill a drow on sight. Based on the way they're depicted, they're not like orcs where you can reasonably expect that they might be satisfied with a fine bargain, or like goblins where they're easily corralled, or the duergar who do have their own sort of honor. Keeping in mind that there are many outsiders, survivors, and escaped slaves who can spread the word of how drow betray everyone and everything at whim, how could the drow ever be considered even remotely trustworthy? And I don't just mean to honor the bargain, but I mean trustworthy enough to not do some crazy scheme that involves murder of everyone and everything "because they can"?

Granted, a lot of this comes from stuff that's not pathfinder material, but of the pathfinder material we've seen, drow don't seem to be all that different. I think that these are easy holes to fix, I'd just like something tangible.

Shadow Lodge

As a player, that's my take on it. Kill on sight, unless there is a dang good reason not to. The DM saying something to the effect of "you don't think they are evil" or "you have no reason to suspect anything is wrong" do not count as a good reason, much less a dang good one. Take the Atonement if needed, but I'll be alive to do it.


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Spartan-level slavery enhanced with magic. For every one drow in the city, there are over 10 slaves, mostly warriors who fight battles for the drow. Before they can get close enough to a drow to slay them, other races must first fight through an army of mind-controlled bodyguards, oftentimes of the same race as those trying to kill the drow. Magical compulsion prevents the slaves from revolting or otherwise putting the drow in danger. While drow can and do kill each other, they first have to get through their defenses, so unless killing their neighbors is the only acceptable solution, they mostly kill each other's servants to express displeasure. And when slave armies aren't enough, they are aided by the powers of demons, who back up the drow because their wickedness makes the demons really happy, so they are willing to provide a lot more power and support to the drow than they do any other race.

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Drow souls make demon babies. Since the entire reason for the existence of the Worldwound is to make more demon babies, it stands to reason a mortal society willingly devoted to demons would be much appreciated by them.

As Asmodeus is a competing god to the patron of the duergar, I doubt they get along with devils as well, and definitely not inevitables.

==Aelryinth

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thejeff wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

the drow spend time plotting against everyone, including one another, because there's no outside overthreat to unify their efforts.

yet nobody makes concentrated attacks on the disunified drow, simply because they WOULD unify to put down the threat.

Yes, it's a good use of their time as low level casters. But the drow, using the same amount of time and resources, get relatively much more done.

And when you rephrase the question to "What does my House gain from your plan to defend against the Duergar?" the question is its own answer. Having other drow fighting and dying for your House is a wonderful thing.

==Aelryinth

Right. So both races continue to coexist in the Darklands.

Even though in an all out war, the Drow would win. Until, once victory seemed nearly assured, they started to turn on each other to seize the spoils and keep the others from doing the same.

Just so. The reason for making the counter arguments I've been is you have to justify why a Duergar Empire could overcome the drow with just war machines and constructs, given what they are facing. Unless you really depower the drow, it's just not that feasible.

==Aelryinth


DM Beckett wrote:
As a player, that's my take on it. Kill on sight, unless there is a dang good reason not to. The DM saying something to the effect of "you don't think they are evil" or "you have no reason to suspect anything is wrong" do not count as a good reason, much less a dang good one. Take the Atonement if needed, but I'll be alive to do it.

Knowledge Check [unless contact with a Drow Raid or a history as a Drow Slave or something is part of your backstory] or its metagaming.


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Aelryinth wrote:


yet nobody makes concentrated attacks on the disunified drow, simply because they WOULD unify to put down the threat.

That rarely works in real life and probably wouldn't work here, unless the duergar were dumb enough to outright say, "Right, we're here to eliminate your entire species."

The trouble is, drow are too Chaotic and Evil to even unify on a "We have to protect our values from these godless heathens" level. Plenty of drow would gladly ally with the duergar short-term if the duergar said, "Hi, we're here to wipe out that house over there, don't mind us."

Of course, my real problem with the drow running things is much less "Their city isn't even all that powerful" and much more "How did they get a huge uber city when they can't even agree with each other long enough to order a pizza?"


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Aelryinth wrote:

{. . .}

Just so. The reason for making the counter arguments I've been is you have to justify why a Duergar Empire could overcome the drow with just war machines and constructs, given what they are facing. Unless you really depower the drow, it's just not that feasible.

But that's the thing -- going back to the original post, the Drow effectively depower themselves. Although their power if they quit doing that (even temporarily) is potentially enough to give pause to anyone (even those idiots in the Winter Council) who would try to wipe them out. This even includes other Drow, so instead of wiping themselves out, the Drow houses coexist in a situation like the three major powers George Orwell portrayed in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

{. . .}

The trouble is, drow are too Chaotic and Evil to even unify on a "We have to protect our values from these godless heathens" level. Plenty of drow would gladly ally with the duergar short-term if the duergar said, "Hi, we're here to wipe out that house over there, don't mind us."

I sure wouldn't trust them to let me destroy a rival house without molestation -- they might let me attack the other house, but likely stab me in the back just as I was finishing the job.

Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Of course, my real problem with the drow running things is much less "Their city isn't even all that powerful" and much more "How did they get a huge uber city when they can't even agree with each other long enough to order a pizza?"

Now not being able to agree enough to order a pizza -- THAT'S a problem . . .


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Yeah, the drow should be chaotic evil, not chaotic stupid. Being too psychotic to even engage in basic trade takes them into chaotic stupid territory.

So I assume that generally, the drow aren't that psychotic.

Or if they actually are, it's a recent development that's going to cause a population crash.

re: Droskar's a weird one. I'd forgotten that he's a neutral evil god with an abyssal realm. Now I'm wondering what the hell he actually deploys in response to planar ally spells. His followers are normally lawful evil, so they can't actually get demons as planar allies.

(Also, he's functionally the god of plagiarism, which is hilarious.)

(And now I have my answer - lawful evil knockoffs of inevitables =D)

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Zhangar wrote:

re: Droskar's a weird one. I'd forgotten that he's a neutral evil god with an abyssal realm. Now I'm wondering what the hell he actually deploys in response to planar ally spells. His followers are normally lawful evil, so they can't actually get demons as planar allies.

(Also, he's functionally the god of plagiarism, which is hilarious.)

(And now I have my answer - lawful evil knockoffs of inevitables =D)

The Forge of Ashes provides a bit of an answer: Forge spurned and scanderigs are both strong contenders.

Efreet and Azers are probably also workable.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:


yet nobody makes concentrated attacks on the disunified drow, simply because they WOULD unify to put down the threat.

That rarely works in real life and probably wouldn't work here, unless the duergar were dumb enough to outright say, "Right, we're here to eliminate your entire species."

The trouble is, drow are too Chaotic and Evil to even unify on a "We have to protect our values from these godless heathens" level. Plenty of drow would gladly ally with the duergar short-term if the duergar said, "Hi, we're here to wipe out that house over there, don't mind us."

Of course, my real problem with the drow running things is much less "Their city isn't even all that powerful" and much more "How did they get a huge uber city when they can't even agree with each other long enough to order a pizza?"

They took it from Dwuergar? [Lets assume for simplicity that said Dwuergar made doors and hallways large enough that Drow could comfortably use their structures, perhaps for ease of moving medium-sized furnishings and equipment around. Moving furniature through human height doors is a b!*#@, let alone dwarf height ones, and dwarf butts are at least as wide if not wider than human ones [speaking of average examples of respective races of course.]


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:


yet nobody makes concentrated attacks on the disunified drow, simply because they WOULD unify to put down the threat.

That rarely works in real life and probably wouldn't work here, unless the duergar were dumb enough to outright say, "Right, we're here to eliminate your entire species."

The trouble is, drow are too Chaotic and Evil to even unify on a "We have to protect our values from these godless heathens" level. Plenty of drow would gladly ally with the duergar short-term if the duergar said, "Hi, we're here to wipe out that house over there, don't mind us."

Of course, my real problem with the drow running things is much less "Their city isn't even all that powerful" and much more "How did they get a huge uber city when they can't even agree with each other long enough to order a pizza?"

Precisely. The question isn't how do you topple the existing drow system. The question is how the HELL did THAT *points to the drow* make THAT *points to the metropolis* in the first place? It makes no sense.

Dark Archive

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Spook205 wrote:
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.

In the Forgotten Realms, anyway, which is what kids today think of as 'Drow.' In the original Greyhawk setting, they worshipped 'various demon lords,' of which Lolth was just the dominant one in the city of Erelhei-Cinlu (totally making up that spelling...).

Pathfinder has gone back to the multiple demon lords concept, and, IMO, that's a good thing, because Lolth was the lawfullest Chaotic Evil god-tyrant-thing that ever lawfulled.

There also seems to be some interdependence built in, with the Cyth-V'suggies controlling the water supply, House Flambeau making all the weapons in their forges, etc. Much like the situation in the Worldwound, where multiple Demon Lords are working together more or less harmoniously (perhaps even more so than the Mendevian crusaders and remmants of the native Sarkorians they are oppressing!), the Demon Lords worshipped by the Drow seem to be pretty good at working together.

Loving the side-discussion about Duergar, btw. A very under-developed race with a ton of potential. Sadly they aren't as hawt as dark elves.

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You got Erelhei-Cinlu absolutely correct. The Vault of the Drow doth beckon...

And while there's nothing to say for Duergar to say "Don't mind us, we'll just attack this house over here," the drow he's talking to will sell that information to the house being attacked in a heart beat, and THEN when the fighting is done go in, wipe the duergar out when they're exhausted from the fight, and get all the goodies from both House and attackers, and then probably go and raid the duergar so the gray dwarves don't have the idea that coming back for vengeance is going to be an easy thing.

And that's if some House doesn't consider it sporting to see how many hundreds of duergar they can go kill on a lark, oblivious to any retaliation.

Being chaotic is hard work, man.

==Aelryinth


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It doesn't make much sense, and this is another good reason to do a rewrite of Second Darkness.


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Zhangar wrote:

Yeah, the drow should be chaotic evil, not chaotic stupid. Being too psychotic to even engage in basic trade takes them into chaotic stupid territory.

So I assume that generally, the drow aren't that psychotic.

Or if they actually are, it's a recent development that's going to cause a population crash.

I could probably buy it if the drow's current stupidity is just a recent thing. Chaotic Evil "almighty empires" in general strike me as rather implausible—instability is inherently problematic—but we let Andoran get away with it, so why not?

The drow's current decadence would definitely make sense as a plateauing point, though: The height from which they'll inevitably fall.

Liberty's Edge

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Andoran isn't chaotic, that's how they get away with it. Galt is chaotic, and things don't seem to be going too well there.


While it seems to me that the current Drow society actually is maintainable (since nobody dares attack them directly), the issue of building the awesome cities does clash a bit. I wonder if the Drow have actually alternated between being mostly under one Demon Lord and split between several -- one takes over most of them for a while and gets the Drow to build awesome cities, and then the other Demon Lords gang up on the successful one and restore the split allegiance situation, sort of like the situation described by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but with a roughly cyclic instability in it.


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I could've sworn Andoran was Chaotic Good.

Anyway, it's not even just the literal city-building. It's also being able to form a society ordered enough that all the families put up with each other in the same city—and ordered enough that there's really any sort of law enforcement greater than "Your bro killed my sis, free4all now k?" I mean, sure, you could have a lone superpowerful priest/mage enforcing everything, but orcs have people like that too, and they don't have an empire. Hell, orcs don't even approach hobgoblin levels of "empire". :P

Drow society seems currently bent on converging inward. So how did they stay un-converged long enough to establish any sort of grand superpowered city with uber priests and mages all ready to fight side-by-side if the gray dwarves get frisky?


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

My personal pet theory has been that since it presumably took some time for them to be corrupted into drow, that they managed to hang on without everyone going chaotic evil until Torag told the dwarves to head towards the surface, attempting to genocide the orcs on the way up and instead driving them out into the surface world while it was still eternal darkness, this left a big power vacuum with the remaining duergar forced to consolidate their forces and unable to patrol their area, as well as the areas the orcs used to live in and whatever else the dwarves plowed through on the way up, giving the drow plenty of opportunity to expand into relatively unchallenged territory, become more corrupt, and turn on each other after they felt relatively safe from outsiders.

Silver Crusade Contributor

According to Second Darkness, most of the original drow "became" all at once at the moment of Earthfall. The impact shook Golarion all the way to the Dead Vault, and a pulse of the Rough Beast's power transformed them.


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Kalindlara wrote:
According to Second Darkness, most of the original drow "became" all at once at the moment of Earthfall. The impact shook Golarion all the way to the Dead Vault, and a pulse of the Rough Beast's power transformed them.

Ah, I see. Well, I still like the idea of the dwarves and orcs leaving a power vacuum that the drow managed to expand into...perhaps they were originally more focused on survival, but infighting grew once they grew in population and became more entrenched, enough so to worry less about other races.


First at all, I don't think the constant killing and conspiracies effects all drow. Rather it only effects only the high born families. For the "normal" drow their is no point in murdering your siblings if you can't inherit anything. Second if you want to kill somebody you don't need only to be succesfull but you must do it without letting any evidence behind and without disadvantage for your house. Your Matron wouldn't be happy if she loses a battle because you killed her commander in a critical moment. And family members who don't threaten your position are a valuable ressource. Even if you kill someone from a rival house, you can not risk a open war. So the number of murders in the society should still be low.

Second they have a slave society, so most deaths in a war aren't drow.

About the brain drain in the society through the assassination i think it's like the sith. If the pupil can kill the master, than he is the master. The constant danger makes the drow better tacticans.


Kalindlara wrote:
According to Second Darkness, most of the original drow "became" all at once at the moment of Earthfall. The impact shook Golarion all the way to the Dead Vault, and a pulse of the Rough Beast's power transformed them.

Except that Earthfall is why they went underground in the first place.

There weren't elves in the Darklands until after that happened.

So timeline wise, that doesn't actually make sense.

I can certainly see Rovagug helping with the transformation (maybe Rovagug is what makes the transformation possible in the first place?), but those elves would've still been on the surface when Earthfall happened and woke Rovagug up.

I'm pretty sure the dwarves and orcs DID leave a power vacuum - the dwarves started the Quest for Sky before Earthfall happened, had abandoned Sekamina, and and were fighting the orcs in Nar'voth by that point if I understand the timeline. Though the dwarves didn't force the orcs out of the Darklands and make their own way up until a couple centuries after Earthfall. So a long, LONG war.

The drow could've easily had abandoned dwarven cities to repurpose - though with significant reconstruction, because Earthfall was pretty rough on the Darklands...


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I thought the Elves knew Earthfall was gonna happen beforehand so most packed up for Castrovel but some stayed behind to wait it out underground, so they would actually be underground when Earthfall happens, I don't have Second Darkness but that's what I gathered from other sources, I could be wrong tho :-)


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captain yesterday wrote:
I thought the Elves knew Earthfall was gonna happen beforehand so most packed up for Castrovel but some stayed behind to wait it out underground, so they would actually be underground when Earthfall happens, I don't have Second Darkness but that's what I gathered from other sources, I could be wrong tho :-)

That is correct.

The Elves knew Earthfall was coming. Most Elves fled via gates. Some decided to stay, some thought the fears were over-blown and nothing would happen, while others sought refuge in deep caves under the mountains. When Earthfall finally hit (which was more like several large meteors, rather than just one big one), it disturbed Rovagug and a surge of power warped some of the Elves underground into the Drow (note: the origin of the Elven nation Jinin in the Dragon Empires is related to this). The Elves who were warped had already shown a selfish trend by driving out those who would become the Elves of Jinin without "a fair share of the food and supplies".

Liberty's Edge

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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Zhangar wrote:

Yeah, the drow should be chaotic evil, not chaotic stupid. Being too psychotic to even engage in basic trade takes them into chaotic stupid territory.

So I assume that generally, the drow aren't that psychotic.

Or if they actually are, it's a recent development that's going to cause a population crash.

I could probably buy it if the drow's current stupidity is just a recent thing. Chaotic Evil "almighty empires" in general strike me as rather implausible—instability is inherently problematic—but we let Andoran get away with it, so why not?

The drow's current decadence would definitely make sense as a plateauing point, though: The height from which they'll inevitably fall.

I think a Chaotic Evil Empire is a possibility: It would simply require an immensely powerful unifying figure at its center who rules with fear and brutality. Of course, one can expect it to crumble the second the unifying figure is gone. One of the better and realistic examples of this is the Hold of Belkzen. The Orcs of Golarion did have an empire at one time under the warlord Belkzen, whose rule was absolute. But the moment he died/disappeared, everything descended into fractious tribalism and infighting.

Silver Crusade Contributor

Urath DM and captain yesterday nailed it. Bonus points for the Jinin reference. ^_^


Kalindlara wrote:
Urath DM and captain yesterday nailed it. Bonus points for the Jinin reference. ^_^

Well, you know, 4 ranks in "Lore (Second Darkness)" + 3 Class Skill Bonus (for my Charter Superscriber Vigilante identity) + 2 Trait Bonus (Golarion Historian) + 2 Circumstance Bonus (Put Second Darkness and Inner Sea World Guide into RealmWorks) = +11 on any Second Darkness related questions. :)


Don't I get bonus points?

I don't even have Second Darkness, and I was on my phone:-)

Edit: plus I didn't use a cheesy alias or drop any Smurfs into the mix :-)

Edit 2: D'oh!


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Interjection Games wrote:


Precisely. The question isn't how do you topple the existing drow system. The question is how the HELL did THAT *points to the drow* make THAT *points to the metropolis* in the first place? It makes no sense.

Societies can change over time. There is a trope that moral decline is proportional to leisure time, and this is how we view Rome for instance; that they were very industrious and ran around building roads and conquering everybody, but once they'd become rich they became lazy, and then morally degenerate. Something similar could have happened to the Drow.

With a discussion like this there's a murky boundary between 'this society is dysfunctional' and 'this society shouldn't exist' and 'this species should be extinct'.

Take Orcs for example:

PRD wrote:
"Orc tribes are feared and reviled throughout the planes for their depravities and their penchant for destruction and mindless violence."

A parallel argument could be made that orcs should be extinct because more organised races would have done them an injury by now. The obvious response might be 'something something yada yada tribes', but I think there's a tribe/noble house equivalency.

Alternately, the city could have been built by someone else earlier, and they either died out or got overrun by the drow, who then tell everyone "oh yeah, we built this". Similar to the way that Sharn (in Eberron) was built by goblins, but humans take credit for it.

Or slavery might have taken a part in it. Louis CK has a skit about how everything that is a great human achievement was built by throwing death and suffering at it until it was done (pyramids, trans-continental railway etc.)

-------

As an aside, I wanted to message you some questions about your Tinker base class, but couldn't figure out how to do that.

Silver Crusade Contributor

Technically, the Jinin reference comes from the Dragon Empires books - it's not mentioned in Second Darkness at all. ^_^


I know, my daughter has that one, I just meant knowing that about the Drow, I do have Into the Darklands tho, but that's because it's the best underdark book out there :-)

Edit: I didn't know about the Rovagug angle tho, fascinating stuff :-)


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There's a LOT in Second Darkness.

Background about Earthfall and what it was like is part of it.

Second Darkness:

Volume 3 you get to "time travel" to see some of the lead-up to Earthfall, and how the Elves treated it.. sort of.

Volume 4 is essentially "Life of the Aspiring House Servants". If you have not read through this, you lack crucial information on the politics within a noble house.

Volume 5 presents the Dark Fate.. behold, an Elf who is wicked enough, and who acts on sufficient wickedness, can become a Drow.

Unfortunately, it needs to be fixed to really live up to its promise.

But without reading through it (and the support articles), the outsider's view is based on a few short blurbs and it is easy to dismiss all of the Drow as being rabid foaming-at-the-mouth-to-kill self-destructive morons.. but they're not.

In the end, what they do, they do for personal advancement.. they need a society in which to advance, so preserving that takes precedence over advancing (for most, anyway). And since the ones in charge like having something to be in charge of, they do their best to keep the backstabbing of the underlings... managed.


I always have disliked the 'elves take a hundred years to grow up' thing. I'd personally make the differences much smaller. Maybe humans are adults at 18-20, dwarves at 22-25, elves at 25-30 kind of thing. Not a difference of a factor of 5.

Spook205 wrote:
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.

I like this.

Yeah, the drow are going to die out... in a thousand years or so. Doesn't exactly help right now ;)


KtA wrote:
I always have disliked the 'elves take a hundred years to grow up' thing. I'd personally make the differences much smaller. Maybe humans are adults at 18-20, dwarves at 22-25, elves at 25-30 kind of thing. Not a difference of a factor of 5.

Imagine changing a single child's diapers for up to 14 years :P

Silver Crusade Contributor

I believe it's been said that most of that time is "teenage years"... I'll have to find you a quote later, though.


Maybe the duergar are way more numerous than drow and can make up the disparity that way.

Kalindlara wrote:
I believe it's been said that most of that time is "teenage years"... I'll have to find you a quote later, though.

That doesn't really make sense to me either. Adolescence is inherently transitional, stretching it out indefinitely isn't much better than ultraslow development.


I think I'd take 14 years of diapers over 80 years of teenagers

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I dunno. Adolecscence keeps getting longer in the Western world.

Silver Crusade Contributor

I believe the Creative Director is with you there. He's said that if he'd had the option, elvish and dwarven lifespans would have been brought way down - not to human, but not hundreds of years - for this and other reasons.

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