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