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These are my own ideas and may contradict things Paizo has published, but perhaps they'll be of use to someone.
Time
The Underdark drow long ago lost the concepts of days, seasons, and years. The one meaningful measure of time is the spell-cycle; the amount of time that must pass before you can renew your spells. A tenth-cycle is the common unit of daily time (about 2.4 hours). A hundred cycles is about a season; a thousand cycles is about three years; Zirnakaynin has existed for around three hundred thousand cycles.
No one has the *same* spell cycle, though. There is no active/inactive pattern in the city; it's always more or less active. (After all, drow don't sleep, and there is nothing to gain from having everyone meditate at the same time--it just makes the group vulnerable.)
Even otherwise polite drow are not at all punctual, with a few exceptions in the wizarding subculture. If they arrive during the right tenth-cycle that's close enough. People have servants to deal with too-early guests or business contacts, after all.
Drow are very aware of events in their history, but often extremely fuzzy on how long ago those events happened. Whether something is ten thousand or twenty thousand cycles ago doesn't matter much, especially when that's outside a particular drow's lifespan.
This is a good place for small PC slip-ups.
Drow Males
The Underdark sourcebook says that males are little better than slaves, but Zirnakaynin doesn't support this--there are way too many males in positions of power. (Starting with the head of one House and the acting head of another, but also chief arcanists, guard commanders, etc. Almost everything but priests.)
I think female drow grasp that males can be very capable. But there's a stereotype of male drow as frivolous, relatively unambitious, and not good at grasping the big picture or making long-term plans. They need female direction to be at their best. On the other hand, they are less ambitious than females, therefore safer in some respects, and a good choice for dull mid-level positions.
None of this is necessarily true, but it's widely believed by both males and females--and ambitious males use it to conceal their ambition, which is how I think the Patron of Caldrana got where he is.
Neighborhood Structure
There are no power vacuums in drow society. The Great Houses exert direct control over some parts of Zirnakaynin (for example, Vexidyre over the Pale Market) but everywhere else the role is taken by neighborhood bosses of various kinds, often with overlapping domains. These people enforce the basic order necessary to allow a dense city to function, though they are more like the crimelords of Riddleport than like conventional authorities.
Many of these are organized as little Houses. If one of the Great Houses were to fall, these would jockey to take its place. Chayt Gardens is perhaps the most logical current candidate. Banking is an unfilled niche at the moment.
The House structure comes naturally to drow, as they are marginally more able to trust their relatives than to trust anyone else. (There's a sense of "You may betray me, but you're not going to do it in a way that will ruin the House" and this gives a little predictability that smooths business relationships.)
"Relatives" always involves a lot of adoption as well as birth. No drow House of any size is composed mainly of blood relatives. But House membership *matters* to drow emotionally, even if they are adopted. This is as true of tiny organizations like street gangs as it is of the Great Houses--though most drow would betray their birth organization if it got them Great House status.
Up and Down
It's clear from looking at Zirnakaynin that up is the direction of high status and down of low status. The image of "clawing up from the streets" is a powerful one in drow thinking, and it's a literal climb, from the hell-pit of Rosgirnan to the heights of Eirdresseir. Even House Vonnarc is organized with the top people unequivocally on top. (Does this help keep them away from burrowing monsters?)
This is a significant part of why people who may never have seen a surface elf, or the surface, in their entire lives still hate them so much. Just by existing where they do, the surface elves are staking a claim to being higher status than drow! Most drow have never really thought about this, but it flavors their feelings.
Fertility
Drow are much more fertile than surface elves, perhaps comparable to humans. This hasn't always been the case, and one root of the matriarchy is the extreme value of fertile females during the early years--males were expendable, females were not. (Hence the "Council of Widows". Most drow today couldn't tell you what "widow" means, other than "councillor", as they don't marry. But the name stands.)
A creature as long-lived as an elf and as fertile as a human will overpopulate without high mortality, but that's not a problem in the given environment. Drow children are valued, but not in anything like the obsessive way that elf children are. Drow adolescents are preliminary adults, and treated as such. They can be rather dangerous, as they're as aggressive as their elders and have less common sense. More easily manipulated, though.
Mary
Hey Mary, this is great!
Just wanted to let you know that someone is enjoying your posts a great deal. As a matter of fact, your posts about your Winter Council PCs inspired me to start my own Second Darkness in that fashion as well. Keep up the good work!
A few more drow thoughts:
Friendship
Female drow have something that could be called "friendship" or "sisterhood"--long-term relationships among relative peers, like Alicavness and the old Matron, or Depora and Shindiira. These are not entirely stable but they're among the most stable things in the society. They can cut across House lines, as with Alicavness, and this helps stabilize the House system.
There is no male equivalent, or at least it's not recognized in art or common thinking. There are female-dominant sexual relationships, which can be somewhat lasting and begin to resemble alliances, but they aren't considered friendships. The occasional male-dominant sexual relationship, such as Depora/Shindiira with Novelniss, isn't a friendship either--these are very unstable, being "contrary to nature" and thus expected by all parties not to last. Males have no relationship with their offspring, though they may have a tenuous one with their sisters' offspring. Beyond that, male alliances are shifting and pragmatic, lasting only long enough to get the males, or at least one of them, some advantage. This is part of why female drow see male drow as flighty.
(This is a hybrid of social structures existing in chimpanzees and in vervet monkeys. Real-world models are fun.)
If two males did become friends, they would be well advised to hide it.
House Azrinae
Each House does something for Zirnakaynin society as a whole. What did Azrinae do, before falling into its current state of complete dysfunction?
I suggest that the House of Dark Secrets brokered information among the Great Houses, and also, in subtle ways, worked to stabilize them by exerting pressure on Houses that become too powerful and supporting ones that become too weak (because if too many Houses become weak, one will end up on top--and it won't be Azrinae, it will be Vonnarc or Rasverein. This is of course intolerable.)
If Azrinae falls, Misraria is therefore its natural successor. And Chayt Gardens will then step in to fill the number back to 12.
Another Azrinae thought: The intro to _Endless Night_ said that "some Azrinae scions fled after the coup." If you want rich roleplaying in Zirnakaynin, those people are incredible resources! They hate the current Matron, they know a lot about the House, they're motivated to work with the PCs because they have little to lose. I invented a Second Daughter Miralwe Azrinae, an 11th level priest of Abraxas, who is plotting to take the House back from her idiot brother just as soon as she can figure out how to deal with Allevrah. But lower-level people could also be very interesting.
Drow art
Drow paintings are often mainly black and white with splashes of intense color for emphasis, since this is how the world looks to them much of the time--darkvision filling in most of the image, color only where there's adequate light. They are displayed in lighted locations, however, so that the full range will be visible.
Drow love art and even lower-class drow tend to have some--if not actual paintings, then useful decorated objects such as clothing, curtains, door hangings, gargoyles on buildings, personal tattoos, etc.
The value of a piece of art is enhanced by an unusual, violent, or otherwise striking story attached to it. Stolen art can be quite prestigious. The last artwork of a given artist is particularly valued, sometimes to the point that drow nobles will kill the artist to enhance the value of their masterwork.
Drow theater
Compared to US audiences, drow enjoy a much wider variation in mood and tone within a single work--think Hong Kong cinema, with comedy, drama, and bloodsoaked violence in close proximity.
An observer familiar with elven culture will recognize many shared motifs and storylines in drow theater and music, but generally recast to be darker and bloodier, with more spectacle. (Compare _King Lear_ with _Ran_.) The drow would not appreciate comments on this, however.
A lot of socializing goes on during performances at the Cyclic Sublime, and the performances are paced accordingly, with quasi-breaks during which the onstage action is muted--a dance, singing, acrobatics, torture--and the audience is expected to chat and mingle. Assassinations do happen here from time to time, but large-scale combat is frowned upon. A stylish assassination should not interrupt the progress of the play.
Actor is one of the better outlets for an ambitious male drow; a popular male actor can accumulate a good deal of prestige and matronage, especially if he is beautiful as well as charismatic. Male actors tend to be pushed into supporting roles (much as in human ballet) but the occasional exceptions are among the best-known males in drow society.