IMO that makes them even more likely to be rare rather than less or equally. Don't even have their own good aligned god in golarion.
IMO that makes them even more likely to be rare rather than less or equally. Don't even have their own good aligned god in golarion.
Neither do they have a Chaotic Evil racial goddess that considers every good drow to be a personal insult.
Demon Lords want drow to be evil, but they want everyone to be evil. They don't care about drow in particular, so if some drow leave, it doesn't bother them any more than some humans leaving their cults.
Arguing what influence the existence or absence of a particular deity has on racial alignment is a moot point, it's not like we have real life reference points. Neither for deities with obvious visible influence on the world, nor for objective alignments.
I think it's more telling that the Lantern Lighters writeup mentions success stories, in an tone of "this happens on a regular basis".
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What I gathered from reading this thread:
Yes, a good Drow might be a cliché at first sight - for most people that is. But in my opinion that "fault" lies by the people for their narrow-mindedness. If you let your prejudices interfere while meeting a character/player than that is... pretty sad actually.
Sure, if s/he comes along as a "Hey I have this awesome character who is a dual-wielding drow fighter/ranger, and totally not evil!" then yes, that is an obvious rip-off and not very creative as a concept.
But if it is an actually interesting, detailed and clever character idea, then just dismissing it as a "Drizzt-rip-off" because of your own prejudices is just pretty bad style.
Just my two coppers.
--Malthus
PS: Big Drizzt fan here, read about a bazillion books and most of them more than once. That dude was kind of an inspiration as a personality and always an awesome read. Even made a dual wielding character after that, because i really liked the description of the fighting style (no he wasn't some kind of outcast from an evil society).
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With the new write up about the Lantern Lighters, cannon is basically in transition to saying that there can be, and are, non-evil Drow.
Drizzt and such are completely Forgotten Realms. It provides no base to use either of these concepts as arguments as they mean nothing to the world of Golarion. To use these as arguments merely shows a crotchety, close-mindedness. Make Golarion cannon arguments with Golarion cannon...please. Sufficiently redundant.
Getting back...to the way I see it..
Though still admittedly rare, canonically non-evil Drow can now be played with an interesting interaction with the people of Golarion. Drow have little known history to the majority of the rest of Gilarion, therefore would be as alien to the normal person as an Akitonian would be. If striving for a sense of realism, a GM would likely have a Drow character treated suspiciously due to their foreign nature ( a " What is that?" mentality). Any elves born in/around humans would unlikely have any alternative feelings to this except maybe a little extra suspicion because they look so much like themselves. Knowledgeable people on the other hand might know varying degrees about Drow, thus treating them them with suspicion appropriate to the extent their knowledge. Though any intense academics/scholars would likely be more overcome with curiosity than suspicion.
Because of the specific cannon change, non-evil Drow are no longer the Drizzt cliche'.
Speaking of that cliche'...
Drizzt is not the only one that is in the trope of 'a good member of an evil group'. How many 'good vampires' are out there? 'Good werewolves'? 'Good zombies'? My point is that the specific good Drow trope is viewed as a cliche' because our stereotyping, categorizing minds tend to shut down the idea that such tropes can be unique only because they often aren't.
So why not encourage creativity out of excitement of the possibility of uniqueness instead of just being resigned that it can't be unique? What kind of group player do you want to be? A "Yes, but"/"Yes, however" or a "No that's dumb"/"No that's overused"?
I got a bit stream of consciousness, for that I apologize. I hope I shared complete thoughts.
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Drizzt and such are completely Forgotten Realms. It provides no base to use either of these concepts as arguments as they mean nothing to the world of Golarion. To use these as arguments merely shows a crotchety, close-mindedness. Make Golarion cannon arguments with Golarion cannon...please. Sufficiently redundant.
R. A. Salvator's novels specifically and the Forgotten Realms in general have been so fundamental in defining the drow, their image, and their culture that it's always relevant, in the same way Tolkein is always relevant to talk of elves, dwarves, and halflings (and really, every depiction is relevant when discussing dwarves, because Our Dwarves Are All The Same), and Lovecraft is always relevant when discussing the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods. Pretty much every current depiction of drow is playing to or against the specific depiction of drow laid out in the Drizz't novels.
Again, you're arguing semantics and committing a fallacy of equivocation while failing to recognize or comprehend the difference between archetypes, cliches, and stereotypes. The issue lies with collective perception and novelty of non-evil drow characters, which have frequently become seen as uncreative and overused to the point of undermining that made them appealing concepts in the first place. Calling other character concepts cliche fails to further your argument that drow aren't cliche.That's actually not true. There are distinct differences between cliches, stereotypes, and archetypes. Just because they have overlap doesn't mean they have "superficial" differences. The major difference with cliche is directly relevant to the conversation. Cliches largely have to do with the level of creativity and novelty of a concept.
The concept of "lone rebel turns against the evil and injustice of his people" is a cliché that is about as old as literature itself. Drizzt is a stereotypical "loner outcast with a dark and troubled past" and the archetype of the "good drow".
See? These three terms have slightly different meaning, but can be used almost interchangeably.
As I said, the stereotype of the "lone rebel against injustice" is a very old literary motive. There is not much uniqueness to Drizzt on a fundamental conceptual level. Figuratively speaking every second book and movie that has an evil race/faction in it features a deserter that turns away from said evil race/faction.
And formerly unique ideas becoming mainstream in literature is not necessarily a bad thing. Before Tolkien wrote his books, elves were akin to fairies - little pranksters with butterfly wings, but I don't think anybody is complaining that his vision of elves entered the mainstream and has lost its uniqueness.
What I was trying to tell you this whole time is: What someone regards as a cliché is highly subjective. The literary topos of "lone rebel who struggles against fate" (in this case the fate would be "being born into an evil and unjust society") is as old als literary history. If you want to view a literary topos that is as generic as this one as a cliché, then all topoi are by extension clichés, no matter if it is the "knight in shining armour who sets out to rescue the fair maiden", or the "cursed hero who only brings death and suffering to those close to him", or any other topos. And by implying each topos to be a cliché, each and every story and character is going to be full of clichés, because you can't avoid having topoi in a story.
All I am saying is that it is irrational that many people lash out at the stereotype of the 'good drow', instantly assuming that the character will be a cliché that is styled after the archetypical good drow, Drizzt, while other stereotypes, like 'the knight in shining armour' are commonly accepted, with considerably less people automatically assuming such a character to be a cliché that is styled after one of the archetypes, like Roland, Siegfried, or Sir Galahad.
Yes, a good Drow might be a cliché at first sight - for most people that is. But in my opinion that "fault" lies by the people for their narrow-mindedness. If you let your prejudices interfere while meeting a character/player than that is... pretty sad actually.
Sure, if s/he comes along as a "Hey I have this awesome character who is a dual-wielding drow fighter/ranger, and totally not evil!" then yes, that is an obvious rip-off and not very creative as a concept.
But if it is an actually interesting, detailed and clever character idea, then just dismissing it as a "Drizzt-rip-off" because of your own prejudices is just pretty bad style.
Drizzt is not the only one that is in the trope of 'a good member of an evil group'. How many 'good vampires' are out there? 'Good werewolves'? 'Good zombies'? My point is that the specific good Drow trope is viewed as a cliche' because our stereotyping, categorizing minds tend to shut down the idea that such tropes can be unique only because they often aren't.
So why not encourage creativity out of excitement of the possibility of uniqueness instead of just being resigned that it can't be unique? What kind of group player do you want to be? A "Yes, but"/"Yes, however" or a "No that's dumb"/"No that's overused"?
Thank you, you two said it better than me.
The Drow entry on Archive of Nethys says:There even is an official favoured class bonus for drow paladins in pathfinder. (Yes, real paladins, not antipaladins.)Source? Didn't find it under the Drow or Paladin pages on d20pfsrd, but I'm intrigued.
Paladin: Add a +1/2 sacred bonus to saving throws against spells of the shadow subschool or that have the darkness or shadowUM descriptor
It's even marked as PFS-legal!
What I was trying to tell you this whole time is: What someone regards as a cliché is highly subjective. The literary topos of "lone rebel who struggles against fate" (in this case the fate would be "being born into an evil and unjust society") is as old als literary history. If you want to view a literary topos that is as generic as this one as a cliché, then all topoi are by extension clichés, no matter if it is the "knight in shining armour who sets out to rescue the fair maiden", or the "cursed hero who only brings death and suffering to those close to him", or any other topos. And by implying each topos to be a cliché, each and every story and character is going to be full of clichés, because you can't avoid having topoi in a story.
Non-evil drow and Drizzt clones are much more specific, narrow concepts than "rebel against his own culture." As I already explained, they have been overused to the point of significantly undermining what made these concepts interesting, especially considering that rarity of non-evil drow is crucial to what made the concept novel in the first place. It is not irrational for people to perceive such concepts as cliche because this is quintessential to what that perception stands for.
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You know that I've literally never seen a Drizzt clone in play? I know the jokes about them, and that's it.
Whether they're overused or not depends on you and your surrounding. It's not universal.
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Your comparison is flawed - in the first part you set up a very specific backstory akin to Luke Skywalker and in the second part you just write a generic "you are a drow and not evil - you want to play Drizzt". And that is exactly the problem with the expectations of many people. If your comparisons were actually equal, they would be along the lines of:
"I am the son of a fallen paladin." - "You are a copy of Luke Skywalker."
"I have been terribly wronged and am seeking revenge." - "You are a copy of the Count of Monte Christo."
"I have formed a bond of blood brotherhood with a wild elf." - "You are a copy of Old Shatterhand."
"I have made a deal with a devil." - "You are a copy of Faust."
"I have escaped from an evil society and are working on my redemption." - "You are a copy of Drizzt."Yes, a player that wants to play a good drow that wields two daggers and has a tiger companion sounds like he wants to play a Drizzt clone, but just generically announcing that you'd like to play a good drow provides on its own not enough reason to assume it is going to be such a clone.
eh... yeah. dunno.
see the thing is that if you are going canon FR/Golarion, there just aren't drow on the surface. 100 % of them are psychopaths in the underdark living in pure EVILS.
so... there's only one redemption story for the pc if you want to stay in canon. which is Drizzt's - he decided not to be evil and rebelled against his house, deity, and society, fleeing to the surface. It's a great story.
but because drow society in canon is circumscribed in such a tight circle - SPIDERS! EVILS! WHIPS! - there's just no other real story to tell that's worth telling while keeping the canon intact.
so yeah, you can do all those other stories, b/c the canon in the surface world of FR / Golarion is so broad. Lotsa devil stories, lotsa bad paladin stories, lotsa wronged noble stories... not so much room for more than one GOOD GUY DARK ELF story.
You wanna run it in, say, Eberron or Starfinder? GO FOR IT. The lore gives you that kind of space. But in FR / Golarion? Nope.
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@Yakman
That is simply not true. As others in this thread already pointed out, there are even factions, prestige classes, etc for good Drow/ Drow on their way to redemption in Golarion Canon.
In Faerûn you even have a whole goddes that just has the focus of "good Drow/ Drow being redempted" and groups of good Drow living in the light. "Eilistraee" if the description doesn't ring any bells. She even pops up in several Faerun books with groups of good Drow and all that. (War of the Spiderqueen or somesuch if I am not mistaken)
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I don't really see why it would matter if people wants to play a good drow. Our group is kind of fond of the race and we have several drow characters of varying alignments. The "lone rebel seeking redemption" sounds boring if you just boil it down to that, but it can be decorated with little quirks and character traits that the character itself isn't boring.
Any character, whether they be drow, human, aasimar or whatever can be dull as cardboard depending on the player. Or they can be interesting too. Give the player a chance to show what they can do with their concept.
I wouldn't even mind if someone brought a dual-wielding drow ranger to the party, maybe raise an eyebrow, but we'd definitely let the character speak for themselves in game. And even if it did turn out to be Drizz't with another name, who cares? chances are they'd still be able to contribute to the party in a meaningful way.
I mean, they're not paladins!
(jokes aside though, I'd personally like to see how a Drizz't would do alongside my Vhaeraunite rogue/cleric,)
see the thing is that if you are going canon FR/Golarion, there just aren't drow on the surface. 100 % of them are psychopaths in the underdark living in pure EVILS.
Your Golgarion canon is outdated, and your Faerûn canon is just plain wrong.
Black Markets had a Chaotic Neutral drow back in 2015. Blood of Shadows from 2016 gives drow paladins a favorite class option. Adventurer's Guide from May makes multiple references to redeemed drow."All drow are evil and in the underdark" hasn't been true for years.
And in Faerûn, there was an outright metaplot of drow redemption. The concept essentially had its own goddess.
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You know that I've literally never seen a Drizzt clone in play? I know the jokes about them, and that's it.
Whether they're overused or not depends on you and your surrounding. It's not universal.
I think contempt for Drizzt clones has reduced the number of Drizzt clones.
That said, someone mentioned "good" vampires, good werewolves etc and it is a perfectly reasonable to dislike those concepts. If I mention Sparkly Vampires, I'm sure some of you shutter.
It is not prejudice, it is not racist, or wrong, it's simply a matter of taste. I, for example, ignore many of the revised Pathfinder lore like good drow or Erastil
no longer believing in gender roles because of my taste.
I've also been on the other side of this when someone at a PFS table tried to insist that my Kitsume's human form must be Tien ethnically. I frankly thought he was utterly full of bull droppings.
But some one else may feel the same way about my opinion on the various revisions in Golarion, So I think no one should vilify anyone over this.
What is the reality of the situation is that,if you're going to go against a negitively associated trope like with good drow, you had better realise you're going to have to work extra hard and put some real thinking into your character and if all you can come up with as to why your not evil is tru wuv, you may not be the person for that character.
@Yakman, @Cyrad: Ah, I see now what caused the misunderstanding between us. You think that since the drow are given such a blanket description, that the path of Drizzt is literally the only way to go for a good drow.
But here is where I disagree: It is by far the only way, these stories can be as different as the stories of humans, the imagination is the only limit. Since it is a fantasy realm, whenever you read something like "all drow are evil spider-worshippers", it means "all commonly known drow, until a writer changes it", but nothing stops you from saying "in a pocket of the underdark, there is a heretical cult that idolizes Nocticula as a deity of passion and artists, omitting the nastier parts". You don't need an official writer from Paizo to do it for you and it doesn't go against lore, not today and not five years ago. Just because back then Paizo had only provided stats for evil drow didn't have to mean that there were no non-evil ones.
Or "during a raid in the underdark, a group of paladins slay some drow and find a baby. Not having the heart and stomach to kill it, they take it with them to raise it." Yes, these backstories can be considered clichés in their own right, but they are vastly different from Drizzt. But even if your backstory is "he rebelled against his house, deity and society to flee to the surface" it doesn't automatically mean that it is a Drizzt clone - two characters can have smiliar backgrounds without being clones of each other, since they can have their own personality, goals, motivations and a different future. Otherwise most siblings would be clones of each other.
On the first page are a few story concepts that are quite good and vastly different than the story of Drizzt. Of those I especially like:
Magical mishap
If you’re playing a caster perhaps you master, who is a teleportation expert, used you for an experiment. The experiment went sideways and now you are on the surface. You have no way home and there is little chance your mistress is spending any effort to find a lowly apprentice.
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Another thing that is often overlooked is that "good" and "non-evil" are not quite the same thing. It is much easier to come up with a background for a drow who is neither good nor evil than for one who is actually good. Such drow work best in a campaign where the drow as a whole are not the main enemy.
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It is not prejudice, it is not racist, or wrong, it's simply a matter of taste. I, for example, ignore many of the revised Pathfinder lore like good drow [...] because of my taste.
Of course it is not racist and of course you can't be prejudiced about a fantasy race. Accusing someone of that would be utterly absurd. But you can be biased against players that play that fantasy race.
Nothing wrong with having different tastes, as long as people acknowledge that it is only their taste and that including those things in your story doesn't automatically make the story bad from an objective point of view. But whenever that topic crops up, so do the people that say: "Just don't play a drow, you'll be a copy of Drizzt anyway."
(Yes, I am aware that you personally didn't write that, but some people do.)
I, for example, do ignore some things of Pathfinder too, no matter if it is revised or original content and I also strongly dislike some concepts, like mixing fantasy and science fiction (yes, I am looking at you, Android players ;) ), or including anything from Lovecraft's horror stories, but showing up in a thread that asks for advice on how to best run "Strange Aeons" and then writing "Just don't do it, it'll be a copy of Call of Chtulu anyway." would be, at best, rude.
Black Markets had a Chaotic Neutral drow back in 2015.
Are you sure that it was in Black Markets? I checked and couldn't find one.
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Months ago I posted here asking how a player of mine could be a drow in RotR.
I have not read Second Darkness but I got just enough info to make it work for her.
Valora was about to be sacrificed as a baby in the surface from some really gruesome ritual to bring favor to that drow House but the elves crashed their party (details on the ritual are obviously left as a mystery). Hannah Velerin was part of the healer/support group for those elves and found the baby. She was adamant they shouldn't kill her. There were protests, debates and threats that went on for some years but they finally came to the understanding that the child would be allowed to live only under supervision of an agent and if she ever showed the tendencies of her kin, she would be dispatched on the spot. Hannah swore it would never come that. So far, she has been right.
Valora doesn't remember much from her younger years. She wasn't allowed to go outside and they moved around a lot. She was convinced she was sick since birth... a skin and eye condition, you see. She's an elf after all. Ma-ma had adopted her. When she asked about her biological parents, Hannah would turn distressed and try to avoid the question. When she was old enough she told her this: "I do not want to lie to you. Please, my love, know that I wanted you, and I wanted you to have a good life." Valora understood that whoever their parents were, they hadn't kept her because of "her condition". Whatever. She loved her ma-ma and that was it.
During those days she vaguely remembered that sometimes other elves (scary elves) would visit her and looked at her ugly. She didn't like those. Most other elves just found her weird or strange. Those were ok, she guessed, but she would never stick around too much. Yes... they moved around a lot without settling down... until eventually Hannah announced their journey had ended. They had come to help build Sandpoint with the first settlers. They would have a home to call their own. The scary elves stopped visiting and instead, Shalelu would come check on her every chance her duties allowed her. She would ask her tons of questions and while, at first, her ma-ma would get tense during these visits, Valora would love the attention. She would also ask Shalelu about her travels and the troubles in the road, and Shalelu would warn her of the Sandpoint Devil that comes at night to grab the misbehaving children away... just to laugh a second later and mess with her hair. She quickly became "Aunt Shalelu".
Life was relatively good in Sandpoint but still she had her own problems. Even though people didn't know she was a drow that didn't stop them from discriminating her. Other children thought that whatever she had on her skin was really contagious so for a long time she was also avoided and shunned. She would see Nualia from afar and be a little jealous about the attention she was getting... everyone loved her, she was so perfect. Secretly, she wanted to be her friend but never got the courage to approach her. She craved for friends her age... but it seemed like only some adults and animals didn't judge her for the way she looked. She ended up dying her hair black and also wearing protective lenses for her sensitive "eye condition". She learned to fight and defend herself from any bullies and Daviren Hosk taught her to ride... in that moment Valora had discovered her true passion. Riding gave her a sense of freedom she hadn't really discovered until then. She felt she could ride forever into the horizon and vanquish all foes in her path, even the Sandpoint Devil from the tales of Aunt Shalelu. She discovered she had the heart of a cavalier!
One day, a client at the Pixie's Kitten was making a scene at their door and Valora decided to put a stop to it while the town guards arrived. She knew many of Kaye's "girls and boys" as they would visit Hannah's shop a lot and they had always been kind to her... so she wouldn't let this stand! After dealing with the problem she was offered a job as a guard/bouncer and she accepted in a heartbeat... specially because with the Swallowtail Festival approaching she knew the staff would have their hands full (in more ways than one).
So, there. xD
Are you sure that it was in Black Markets? I checked and couldn't find one.
Black Markets had a Chaotic Neutral drow back in 2015.
Huh. I'll check again (much) later - I know she was a trader, so I assumed Black Markets, but apparently that was off the mark.
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Huh. I'll check again (much) later - I know she was a trader, so I assumed Black Markets, but apparently that was off the mark.Are you sure that it was in Black Markets? I checked and couldn't find one.
Black Markets had a Chaotic Neutral drow back in 2015.
And Second Darkness (where Drow first showed up) back in 2008 had a CN Drow (which is probably the one you're thinking of).
So, we have always had non-Evil Drow in Golarion since the very beginning.
Second Darkness part 4, Endless Night, from November 2008, has Jhondron Hois (CN male drow bard 4/fighter 6). Not who I meant, but yeah, non-evil drow have obviously been around for a while.
And I really can't find the one I thought I remembered. I thought there was a chaotic neutral female drow trader somewhere, but...
Ah! Nelaxria Lirium from Magical Marketplace (2013). She doesn't actually have a listed alignment, but she's willing to trade goods with anyone, and "only" thinks she's obviously superior to any non-drow and charges non-drow 20% extra until she starts liking them. And it's implied that whatever darklands town she lives in has a sizable drow population (her main customers), but she still gets regular business from other darklands races and even some surface traders.
Who knows, she might still be CE, but at worst it's "only" an "I'm a racist opportunist" CE, not "I'm card-carrying evil and eat babies" CE.
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Drizzt and such are completely Forgotten Realms. It provides no base to use either of these concepts as arguments as they mean nothing to the world of Golarion. To use these as arguments merely shows a crotchety, close-mindedness. Make Golarion cannon arguments with Golarion cannon...please. Sufficiently redundant.R. A. Salvator's novels specifically and the Forgotten Realms in general have been so fundamental in defining the drow, their image, and their culture that it's always relevant, in the same way Tolkein is always relevant to talk of elves, dwarves, and halflings (and really, every depiction is relevant when discussing dwarves, because Our Dwarves Are All The Same), and Lovecraft is always relevant when discussing the Great Old Ones and the Outer Gods. Pretty much every current depiction of drow is playing to or against the specific depiction of drow laid out in the Drizz't novels.
After some thought and talking with friends, you make an exceptional point. The original existence of Drow was FR and to completely ignore its contribution to the construction of who Drow are would be wrong. Origins are always relevant. When I think of a dwarf, I often think of depictions of them throughout the years and that helps me construct a bit of their mannerisms for those that I play or NPCs.
However...
My main point behind my comment still remains in that canonical discussions must be mostly isolated. For example, there are plenty people out there that are personally offended by sparkling vampires. One cannot make a broad statement that "all vampires should burn under sunlight", when (whether we like it or not) in Twilight they do not. If some author/creator were to create a world where dwarves were a plucky race that loved to fly and swim and have high pitched voices, then it would be so in that world/universe.
Point being....
It is important to be able to distinctualize different wolds/universes/canons because though they may be similar that doesn't mean they are the same. Though Forgotten Realms Drow may be 100% evil (though yes there are points to the contrary), that doesn't mean that all Drow in every other writing must be 100% evil as well. Please allow storytellers the ability to tell their own stories.
Side note:
One cannot make a broad statement that "all vampires should burn under sunlight", when (whether we like it or not) in Twilight they do not.
And neither did Dracula. Sunlight (or rather, the day) left him powerless, but it didn't kill him.
Twilight just added the disco ball effect.
The original existence of drow was Greyhawk, not FR. FR bastardized the greyhawk drow into "and sometimes they're good"
Who knows, she might still be CE, but at worst it's "only" an "I'm a racist opportunist" CE, not "I'm card-carrying evil and eat babies" CE.
I'd say "opportunist" pretty much sums up CN in one word. Or at the least one prominent facet of CN.
I'd say "opportunist" pretty much sums up CN in one word. Or at the least one prominent facet of CN.
Yeah, but she's also still mentioned to have the common drow opinion of "I am better than you stupid non-drow, but maybe you can be useful to me."
The only other clearly confirmed part of her racism is that drow always have to pay market prices for her wares (well, except drow nobles, who get 10% off from the start), while non-drow start with 20% extra on their prices and have to "earn" their price reductions.Otherwise, we just know that she is pragmatic enough to trade with anyone who has coins (or other items of value). She might kick puppies in her time off, it's not elaborated upon.