Drow of Apostae and the Pact Worlds


General Discussion

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Per the Starfinder corebook, we know that drow are seemingly thriving on Apostae. Their society is still evil, demon-worshipping, elf-haters, but now they apparently run their Houses like corporations and specialize in weapons/arms sales.

Any ideas or speculation of what else you might hope to see revealed about the Starfinder drow? Any specific things you hope break even further from ingrained TSR/WotC lore, or even diverges from pre-Gap Golarion lore/flavor?


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'd like to see drow males having started to break the 'glass ceiling', but still have some sort of social stigma that clings to them until they prove themselves, but a definite 'dialing back' of the 'evilwimenrulerz' aspect of the society?

Perhaps even some sort of epiphany moment where males 'proved their worth' to the demons the drow worship, and they were given the 'chance' to become full partners?

EDIT: Perhaps during the Silent War, when the Vesk (clever brutal military forces that they are) came calling, they specifically targeted Command and Control structures (to reduce the capability of opposing forces) and this reduced the number of matriarchs in Apostae, LLC to the point where they needed to bring in 'new talent'?

Acquisitives

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

#1 - I'm interested in what happened to the ilee, who were one of the most intriguing parts of DISTANT WORLDS... are there more ships like Apostae, floating betwixt the stars?

#2 - I wonder if elves can still turn into drow? Or has that stopped happening?

#3 - Dark Elf space pirates. Never been done before. ;-)

#4 - I'd like to see them in a Third Darkness AP.

#5 - PACT WORLDS. NEED NOW. Seriously... I have this completely amazing character concept, but he's got to be Triaxian, and the fact that my technomancer almost died on his first outing and I can't build this guaranteed* hit backup character is just the pits.

* not guaranteed


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For now I'll just say—I have only seen the "reverse gender discrimination" bit done well once. That one special instance was in the webcomic Digger, with a single throwaway character; it was an extremely tactically-directed piece of satire that only worked because it was being applied with anthropomorphic hyenas who had completely reversed gender roles (women as warriors and leaders; men as caretakers, cooks, and artists), rather than the roles of "the males are the sexy wannabe doms and the females are the sexy doms", which is what drow have always had. It is completely different. The drow as they are now were created, as were so many Evil Matriarchies, as a combination of "dude anxieties about suffrage" and "sexual fantasy". It was almost never even a little bit about satirizing misogyny.

As such, as fun as a "gender discrimination in the workplace" satire might seem in theory, I'm highly skeptical it can work with the drow. Mainly because they are and always have been a terrible race, but also because it would quickly turn into Every Other Female-Dominated Dystopia In The History Of Pulpy Sci-Fi. Complete with hypersexualized women, because let's be f!#%ing real here, the drow are still gonna be pretty sexual. It's half the reason people like them, in my opinion.

So I say scrap it. Scrap the gender gap. Drow are a corporate dystopia now, and everyone gets screwed equally in the corporate dystopia. Then again, that does send the message that "capitalism purges gender/racial inequality", and not to get political, but we all know that's not exactly true. Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses.

So we'll need another reason for the "evil matriarchy" to just...go away. But I haven't got any ideas at the moment.

Did I mention I'm probably not the right person to ask about this? I hate Pathfinder's drow almost as much as I hate FR's drow. I think they represent basically everything wrong with 70s Nerd Culture. I was sad to see that the only thing Pathfinder changed was the skin tone problem. It makes Starfinder's climb, let's say, decidedly uphill.


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Perhaps a move away from "always chaotic evil". Not to full on "Drizzt clones everywhere"(please no!), but Drow as amoral arms dealers, willing to sell anything to anyone at any time, as long as the check clears. Perhaps something akin to Destro of GI Joe fame. The society could even remain matriarchal (I'd prefer that, honestly), but have the capable males traveling off world and acting as intermediaries with less matriarchal societies; women running the homeworld, men as traveling salesmen, essentially. Neither would be absolute, but that general paradigm.


Also, seriously? Drow get to be a corporation? How did this Chaotic Evil race of backstabbing dumbasses even make it into space without deliberately rupturing each other's oxygen tanks mid-coitus?


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^Going by Earth examples, if they are corporate arms dealers, they have probably evolved to be Neutral Evil instead of Chaotic Evil.

Liberty's Edge

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UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Going by Earth examples, if they are corporate arms dealers, they have probably evolved to be Neutral Evil instead of Chaotic Evil.

If so, that at least makes a bit of sense. Just a shame we lost all the Ilee in the process of drow learning not to backstab each other all the time.

But if they're still demon worshippers, I don't see how they can be predominantly NE. Seems like at least one of the houses would've picked up a daemonic patron. And what about the urdefhans' niche in that case . . .


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Also, seriously? Drow get to be a corporation? How did this Chaotic Evil race of backstabbing dumbasses even make it into space without deliberately rupturing each other's oxygen tanks mid-coitus?

As it turns out, drow spaceships are powered by sex. Who knew?

Dataphiles

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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Also, seriously? Drow get to be a corporation? How did this Chaotic Evil race of backstabbing dumbasses even make it into space without deliberately rupturing each other's oxygen tanks mid-coitus?

"Um, ah, if you're rupturing oxygen tanks while, um, doing the ah, nasty, you're doing it *wrong*."


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I agree with yakman- what intrigues me more about Apostae is all of the mystery behind it that was introduced pre-Drow, and it seems a shame and a waste that the Ilee are apparently all dead.

That said, I could see some interesting possibilities:

On Golarion, the drow were known for their fleshcrafting. The Ilee themselves were basically fleshcrafted by Apostae for unknown reasons. Could one of the reasons the Ilee were destroyed/abandoned/allowed to die off be because Apostae found a more efficient means of creating life in its new drow renters?

Is Apostae (or whatever intelligence that pilots it) in contact with Triune? It seems unlikely that the triple-AI intelligence is unaware or unconcerned with another powerful AI out there (albeit one that is difficult to reach by divine power due to the protections around it).

Given that Apostae is notoriously difficult for even the gods to reach, what effect might that have had on the drow matriarchy and its demonic patrons? (I, too, would like to see some kind of evolution of drow society beyond the traditional- and somewhat one-dimensional- depictions of it, particularly now that they have expanded to a much larger demesne than just a few underground cities in a relatively small region of one planet to presumably many cities spread across an entire planetoid.)

Have the drow encountered the sleeping figures deep beneath Apostae yet, and if so, what was the outcome of that encounter?

It would also be interesting to know how the drow have reacted to being able to see the surface again. Yes, the surface of Apostae has no atmosphere, but one would presume that the drow are working on that, and hopefully there has been some small scale terraforming, as the sunlight on Apostae should be sufficiently weak that they could live on the surface. If there really is just the one enclosed city aboveground, that would be kind of a shame.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:

...It is completely different. The drow as they are now were created, as were so many Evil Matriarchies, as a combination of "dude anxieties about suffrage" and "sexual fantasy". It was almost never even a little bit about satirizing misogyny.

...So I say scrap it. Scrap the gender gap. Drow are a corporate dystopia now, and everyone gets screwed equally in the corporate dystopia. Then again, that does send the message that "capitalism purges gender/racial inequality", and not to get political, but we all know that's not exactly true. Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses.

Why do we need a separate reason for the "evil matriarchy" cliche to go away? An entire society structured and run like a corporate dystopia shouldn't give a crap about individuals' sex, or gender, or skin color, or whatever. Those at the top have nearly all the power. Those just below that have a little power, and everyone else on down is varying degrees of exploitable, expendable, and f*cked. But they're all sold the same dream of moving to the top of the layer cake:

Layer Cake (2004) wrote:
"You're born, you take sh!t. You get out in the world, you take more sh!t. You climb a little higher, you take less sh!t. Till one day you're up in the rarefied atmosphere and you've forgotten what sh!t even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake son." -- Eddie Temple

Those desperately scrambling and viciously stabbing to climb higher have fully bought into The Dream. They aren't peons or poor or downtrodden; they're simply temporarily-inconvenienced millionaires competing against their fellows. But even the wisest at the very top, the VIPs in the boardroom, know that their positions are never completely safe from someone hungrier, meaner, and more ruthless on the way up. And they're ultimately all answerable to the Demon Lords who own the controlling percentage of shares in the corporation.


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^Whoa, that sounds awfully familiar . . . .

Liberty's Edge

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Layer Cake is a great movie.


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Sir RicHunt Attenwampi wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

...It is completely different. The drow as they are now were created, as were so many Evil Matriarchies, as a combination of "dude anxieties about suffrage" and "sexual fantasy". It was almost never even a little bit about satirizing misogyny.

...So I say scrap it. Scrap the gender gap. Drow are a corporate dystopia now, and everyone gets screwed equally in the corporate dystopia. Then again, that does send the message that "capitalism purges gender/racial inequality", and not to get political, but we all know that's not exactly true. Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses.

Why do we need a separate reason for the "evil matriarchy" cliche to go away? An entire society structured and run like a corporate dystopia shouldn't give a crap about individuals' sex, or gender, or skin color, or whatever. Those at the top have nearly all the power. Those just below that have a little power, and everyone else on down is varying degrees of exploitable, expendable, and f*cked. But they're all sold the same dream of moving to the top of the layer cake:

Because, as KC said and as we clearly see in the real world: "Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses."

Acquisitives

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Cthulhudrew wrote:

I agree with yakman- what intrigues me more about Apostae is all of the mystery behind it that was introduced pre-Drow, and it seems a shame and a waste that the Ilee are apparently all dead.

That said, I could see some interesting possibilities:

On Golarion, the drow were known for their fleshcrafting. The Ilee themselves were basically fleshcrafted by Apostae for unknown reasons. Could one of the reasons the Ilee were destroyed/abandoned/allowed to die off be because Apostae found a more efficient means of creating life in its new drow renters?

that could definitely be fun.

the Ilee were a really cool add-in. It's a shame they are gone, but the things that made them cool might start happening to the Drow on Apostae.

If a drow dark secret is "WE ARE MUTATING!" that could be pretty fun, and create some memorable adventures and villains.

It might also not be that the all Ilee are dead, but some of them, the greatest, most terrible of their number, figured out what was at the bottom of their world and are even now lurking down there.


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thejeff wrote:
Sir RicHunt Attenwampi wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

...It is completely different. The drow as they are now were created, as were so many Evil Matriarchies, as a combination of "dude anxieties about suffrage" and "sexual fantasy". It was almost never even a little bit about satirizing misogyny.

...So I say scrap it. Scrap the gender gap. Drow are a corporate dystopia now, and everyone gets screwed equally in the corporate dystopia. Then again, that does send the message that "capitalism purges gender/racial inequality", and not to get political, but we all know that's not exactly true. Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses.

Why do we need a separate reason for the "evil matriarchy" cliche to go away? An entire society structured and run like a corporate dystopia shouldn't give a crap about individuals' sex, or gender, or skin color, or whatever. Those at the top have nearly all the power. Those just below that have a little power, and everyone else on down is varying degrees of exploitable, expendable, and f*cked. But they're all sold the same dream of moving to the top of the layer cake:

Because, as KC said and as we clearly see in the real world: "Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses."

Yeah, the idea that corporate and capitalist structures are inherently toxic to bigotry is, like, Cold War-era nonsense. As long as the structures are run by the "ruling caste", be it men, women, white people, gnomes, or giant space hamsters, those structures are going to remain biased in favor of that ruling caste. Giant space hamsters will hire—and mentor, and promote—other giant space hamsters, and never even think about why only the gnomes and giant space guinea pigs hardly ever seem to "deserve" advancement.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Yeah, the idea that corporate and capitalist structures are inherently toxic to bigotry is, like, Cold War-era nonsense. As long as the structures are run by the "ruling caste", be it men, women, white people, gnomes, or giant space hamsters, those structures are going to remain biased in favor of that ruling caste. Giant space hamsters will hire—and mentor, and promote—other giant space hamsters, and never even think about why only the gnomes and giant space guinea pigs hardly ever seem to "deserve" advancement.

"Ruling caste" is probably misleading, since in theory that could just be "rich people who own things" with no racial or gender discrimination between them, as distinct from everyone else who, whatever their race or gender are just workers.

In practice, of course, there are two things going on: That initial population at the top is never mixed evenly and the feedback hiring and promotion process reinforces that. And active measures are often taken to divide the workers and set them against themselves to keep them from using their numbers against ownership - this obviously includes racism and sexism.


Yeah, hence my putting it in quotes. "Privileged demographic" would probably have been more precise. That said, corporate structures definitely do also favor those who are already from rich environs. ;P


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Sir RicHunt Attenwampi wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

...It is completely different. The drow as they are now were created, as were so many Evil Matriarchies, as a combination of "dude anxieties about suffrage" and "sexual fantasy". It was almost never even a little bit about satirizing misogyny.

...So I say scrap it. Scrap the gender gap. Drow are a corporate dystopia now, and everyone gets screwed equally in the corporate dystopia. Then again, that does send the message that "capitalism purges gender/racial inequality", and not to get political, but we all know that's not exactly true. Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses.

Why do we need a separate reason for the "evil matriarchy" cliche to go away? An entire society structured and run like a corporate dystopia shouldn't give a crap about individuals' sex, or gender, or skin color, or whatever. Those at the top have nearly all the power. Those just below that have a little power, and everyone else on down is varying degrees of exploitable, expendable, and f*cked. But they're all sold the same dream of moving to the top of the layer cake:

Because, as KC said and as we clearly see in the real world: "Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses."

Yeah, the idea that corporate and capitalist structures are inherently toxic to bigotry is, like, Cold War-era nonsense. As long as the structures are run by the "ruling caste", be it men, women, white people, gnomes, or giant space hamsters, those structures are going to remain biased in favor of that ruling caste. Giant space hamsters will hire—and mentor, and promote—other giant space hamsters, and never even think about why only the gnomes and giant space guinea pigs hardly ever seem to "deserve" advancement.

Odd, that's the exact argument that Simon Kuper makes in Soccernomics (2009) about the integration of European football leagues; for a long time, conventional wisdom was that black players didn't have the toughness to play in England (for example). Once an enterprising GM or two took a chance and proved that they did, indeed, have what it took, pretty soon every front office in the league was signing black players, and even the most old-fashioned GMs realized they were going to need to tap this 'new' talent pool if they wanted to keep up. Ultimately, success and the money that came with it overcame their prejudice.


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Unfortunately, that anecdote doesn't represent corporate structure as a whole. Additionally, the "conventional wisdom" in that case was actually running counter to common stereotypes at the time—as such, breaking the wisdom was easier than normal. And being a black player still generally put you under a white manager. Contrast with, say, the number of women in computer science, which has actually gone down over the last fifty years due to active discrimination. There are many other examples, of course, all easily found—look at how "women's work" is devalued, as that very link alludes to. According to the tenants of the Egalitarian Corporate Structure, labor would be valued fairly, but we have seen time and time again that if work is associated with women, it pays less. Next, look at how few women or POC are in STEM careers, even after all these years. Look at how few women or POC are Hollywood producers, or CEOs.

Capitalism is not a magical meritocracy. It is driven by the interests of a select number of powerful business leaders. As a strange coincidence, most of those business leaders happen to be white men, and that pattern is self-maintaining. It does not self-remedy—external pressures must emerge to force it to remedy. Segregation didn't end because a CEO realized it made business sense—it, and the hiring discrimination linked to it, had to be tackled through deliberate, aberrant political protest.

History.com wrote:

Initially, the demands did not include changing the segregation laws; rather, the group demanded courtesy, the hiring of black drivers, and a first-come, first-seated policy, with whites entering and filling seats from the front and African Americans from the rear. Ultimately, however, a group of five Montgomery women, represented by attorney Fred D. Gray (1932-) and the NAACP, sued the city in U.S. District Court, seeking to have the busing segregation laws invalidated.

Although African Americans represented at least 75 percent of Montgomery’s bus ridership, the city resisted complying with the MIA’s demands. To ensure the boycott could be sustained, black leaders organized carpools, and the city’s African-American taxi drivers charged only 10 cents–the same price as bus fare–for African-American riders. Many black residents chose simply to walk to work and other destinations. Black leaders organized regular mass meetings to keep African-American residents mobilized around the boycott.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Sir RicHunt Attenwampi wrote:
Why do we need a separate reason for the "evil matriarchy" cliche to go away? An entire society structured and run like a corporate dystopia shouldn't give a crap about individuals' sex, or gender, or skin color, or whatever.

Because, as KC said and as we clearly see in the real world: "Inequality doesn't go away because of a corporate structure—corporate structures feed off of nepotism and existing unfairnesses."

Yeah, the idea that corporate and capitalist structures are inherently toxic to bigotry is, like, Cold War-era nonsense. As long as the structures are run by the "ruling caste", be it men, women, white people, gnomes, or giant space hamsters, those structures are going to remain biased in favor of that ruling caste. Giant space hamsters will hire—and mentor, and promote—other giant space hamsters, and never even think about why only the gnomes and giant space guinea pigs hardly ever seem to "deserve" advancement.

Oh, I completely agree that's how humans on Earth have done it. I was just wondering why drow would do it the same way, and why they couldn't have a corporate social structure that drops the discrimination on the basis of sex and gender (and other discriminatory bullsh!t) for a more "pure" still-horribly-evil nearly/completely unfettered capitalism. Everyone gains/retains social status based solely on their productivity to the family corp (or their ability to bullsh!t and fake it). Unshackled exhausting never-have-enough capitalism.


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Sir RicHunt Attenwampi wrote:
Oh, I completely agree that's how humans on Earth have done it. I was just wondering why drow would do it the same way, and why they couldn't have a corporate social structure that drops the discrimination on the basis of sex and gender (and other discriminatory bullsh!t) for a more "pure" still-horribly-evil nearly/completely unfettered capitalism. Everyone gains/retains social status based solely on their productivity to the family corp (or their ability to bullsh!t and fake it). Unshackled exhausting never-have-enough capitalism.

In theory they could. Likely with a no longer technically enslaved worker caste of non-drow (who can reach the middle management ranks, just often enough to keep hope going). Or have they dropped that too and accept other races as equals - as long as they're productive?

But I'd want there to be some other reason in the transition for the change in discrimination, beyond what you originally presented: because as KC said to start with corporate dystopia's don't do away with sexism or racism or any other prejudices. They do give a crap, because those are useful tools for manipulating people and keeping yourself on top of the pile.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
For now I'll just say—I have only seen the "reverse gender discrimination" bit done well once. That one special instance was in the webcomic Digger, with a single throwaway character; it was an extremely tactically-directed piece of satire that only worked because it was being applied with anthropomorphic hyenas who had completely reversed gender roles (women as warriors and leaders; men as caretakers, cooks, and artists), rather than the roles of "the males are the sexy wannabe doms and the females are the sexy doms", which is what drow have always had. It is completely different.

Oh hey. The Digger post was here, not deleted in the other thread.

I loved the bits with Herne and Grim-Eyes and the hyenas in general.


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Are the Ilee officially extinct, or are just people assuming so do to Drow being on Apostae? Curious as someone who doesn't have the rulebook so just going off what is said here.

Personally I have a bigger problem with Drow just not going extinct or getting shuffled off with the rest of Golarion. Drow culture is so dysfunctional that the mind boggles how such a society could persist and stay competitive thousands of years later.


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Herne's and Grim-Eyes's interactions were wonderful. I feel like Digger kinda got how to satirize misogyny, and when I first read it, it helped me understand why all the old sci-fi/D&D attempts fell flat. The writers for the drow, and for all those evil matriarchal societies we saw in fiction, didn't really care about critiquing sexism; they just wanted a narrative where they were the victims. They were really just fretting about, "What if the feminists take over?" The depiction of the hyenas, meanwhile, actually critiqued sexism by showing how insufferable it can be for women to deal with.

For those that don't know: In Digger (which is a fantastic webcomic, by the way), one of the main characters is a hyena named Grim-Eyes, who comes from a species where females are usually larger and stronger, and by default are expected to by the hunters and warriors. She ends up traveling with, among others, a human (sort of) man named Herne, who is a hunter and tracker. She pretty much spends the entire chapter with him patronizingly giving him advice, dismissing his complaints as "just being touchy", and kind of hitting on him. At one point, he rants to her about his experience, capping it off with how he started his first campfire when he was extremely young. She responds, after a pause, "I'm sure it was a very nice campfire!"

When Digger calls her out on this, she doesn't even really sees the problem, and jokes that, "Male hunters always feel like they have to put on this real 'tough' act so they'll be taken seriously." She never realizes that Herne is genuinely infuriated, even when he pretty much threatens violence.

I mean, she could've kicked his ass anyways, but that's beside the point. The point is, it's an actual reversal, which is why it works as a deconstruction. The drow were never that.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Herne's and Grim-Eyes's interactions were wonderful. I feel like Digger kinda got how to satirize misogyny, and when I first read it, it helped me understand why all the old sci-fi/D&D attempts fell flat. The writers for the drow, and for all those evil matriarchal societies we saw in fiction, didn't really care about critiquing sexism; they just wanted a narrative where they were the victims. They were really just fretting about, "What if the feminists take over?" The depiction of the hyenas, meanwhile, actually critiqued sexism by showing how insufferable it can be for women to deal with.

For those that don't know: In Digger (which is a fantastic webcomic, by the way), one of the main characters is a hyena named Grim-Eyes, who comes from a species where females are usually larger and stronger, and by default are expected to by the hunters and warriors. She ends up traveling with, among others, a human (sort of) man named Herne, who is a hunter and tracker. She pretty much spends the entire chapter with him patronizingly giving him advice, dismissing his complaints as "just being touchy", and kind of hitting on him. At one point, he rants to her about his experience, capping it off with how he started his first campfire when he was extremely young. She responds, after a pause, "I'm sure it was a very nice campfire!"

When Digger calls her out on this, she doesn't even really sees the problem, and jokes that, "Male hunters always feel like they have to put on this real 'tough' act so they'll be taken seriously." She never realizes that Herne is genuinely infuriated, even when he pretty much threatens violence.

I mean, she could've kicked his ass anyways, but that's beside the point. The point is, it's an actual reversal, which is why it works as a deconstruction. The drow were never that.

IIRC (and as I think Erik Mona has brought up and confirmed), DnD Drow were basically expies of the Black Martians. I am not sure how much the nature of that race gender wise was created by Gygax and other early folks, and how much was basically Burroughs invention (I still haven't read the Barsoom series, so not sure).

I have never heard of the digger comics before, but it sounds like they took Spotted Hyena behavior and ran with it. Hyenas are really cool and I always try to model gnoll society after real Hyena social structure.


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MMCJawa wrote:
Are the Ilee officially extinct, or are just people assuming so do to Drow being on Apostae? Curious as someone who doesn't have the rulebook so just going off what is said here.

They are noted to be extinct in the admittedly brief overview of Apostae in the HC, suggesting it is so. It could turn out to be an overstatement or generalization, though (hopefully) that will get more clarification when Apostae is given a more detailed treatment in Pact Worlds.


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MMCJawa wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Herne's and Grim-Eyes's interactions were wonderful. I feel like Digger kinda got how to satirize misogyny, and when I first read it, it helped me understand why all the old sci-fi/D&D attempts fell flat. The writers for the drow, and for all those evil matriarchal societies we saw in fiction, didn't really care about critiquing sexism; they just wanted a narrative where they were the victims. They were really just fretting about, "What if the feminists take over?" The depiction of the hyenas, meanwhile, actually critiqued sexism by showing how insufferable it can be for women to deal with.

For those that don't know: In Digger (which is a fantastic webcomic, by the way), one of the main characters is a hyena named Grim-Eyes, who comes from a species where females are usually larger and stronger, and by default are expected to by the hunters and warriors. She ends up traveling with, among others, a human (sort of) man named Herne, who is a hunter and tracker. She pretty much spends the entire chapter with him patronizingly giving him advice, dismissing his complaints as "just being touchy", and kind of hitting on him. At one point, he rants to her about his experience, capping it off with how he started his first campfire when he was extremely young. She responds, after a pause, "I'm sure it was a very nice campfire!"

When Digger calls her out on this, she doesn't even really sees the problem, and jokes that, "Male hunters always feel like they have to put on this real 'tough' act so they'll be taken seriously." She never realizes that Herne is genuinely infuriated, even when he pretty much threatens violence.

I mean, she could've kicked his ass anyways, but that's beside the point. The point is, it's an actual reversal, which is why it works as a deconstruction. The drow were never that.

IIRC (and as I think Erik Mona has brought up and confirmed), DnD Drow were basically expies of the Black Martians. I am not sure how much the nature of that race gender wise was created by Gygax and other early folks, and how much was basically Burroughs invention (I still haven't read the Barsoom series, so not sure).

I have never heard of the digger comics before, but it sounds like they took Spotted Hyena behavior and ran with it. Hyenas are really cool and I always try to model gnoll society after real Hyena social structure.

It's been a little while since I read that bit of Burroughs, but I don't really see it. I mean, I guess, sort of. There was a Black Martian woman pretending to be a goddess and manipulating the rest of the religion on Mars, so a hint at the matriarchy is there.

This looks like the Mona quote: “As an aside, I recently re-read Edgar Rice Burroughs’s The Gods of Mars and was taken by how similar Gary Gygax’s Drow were to the black Martians in the John Carter story. Both races are obsessed with torture, are more of less ‘pure evil’, and both races live in fantastic hidden subterranean cities.”
Suggests something he'd noticed, not something he knew.

I always connected them with Moorcock's Melniboneans - not black and not underground dwelling or matriarchal, but decadent, evil elves wielding great magics and worshipping demonic gods.


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My other big issue with the old drow (and probably the Black Martians, though I never read that pulpy sci-fi stuff) was the "black skin is a sign of evil" trope they stuck to up until Pathfinder, so, yeah.

Liberty's Edge

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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
My other big issue with the old drow (and probably the Black Martians, though I never read that pulpy sci-fi stuff) was the "black skin is a sign of evil" trope they stuck to up until Pathfinder, so, yeah.

In fairness to Burroughs, White Martians are also pretty bad. It's the Red Martians that are associated with the protagonist (he marries one).


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Here's how I see it going. Drow social structure has evolved. Rather than the always chaotic evil shenanigans, they are socially closer to neutral evil. They're selfish but can at least function in a corporate structure, albeit a very toxic one. They still worship demons, but much like modern folks they aren't super devout. There are distinct minorities that are lawful evil and chaotic neutral respectively. The corporate hierarchy is still matriarchal. Noble women make up the uppermost ranks, followed by commoner women, noble men, commoner men, and finally "contractors". I imagine a lot of disgruntled drow guys stuck in office jobs.

Acquisitives

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
My other big issue with the old drow (and probably the Black Martians, though I never read that pulpy sci-fi stuff) was the "black skin is a sign of evil" trope they stuck to up until Pathfinder, so, yeah.
In fairness to Burroughs, White Martians are also pretty bad. It's the Red Martians that are associated with the protagonist (he marries one).

yeah, the White Martians are much worse than the Black ones. The Black ones get redeemed - the White ones, not so much.

and the original "dark elves" of early D&D were just evil, not dark skinned, iirc.


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Yakman wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
My other big issue with the old drow (and probably the Black Martians, though I never read that pulpy sci-fi stuff) was the "black skin is a sign of evil" trope they stuck to up until Pathfinder, so, yeah.
In fairness to Burroughs, White Martians are also pretty bad. It's the Red Martians that are associated with the protagonist (he marries one).

yeah, the White Martians are much worse than the Black ones. The Black ones get redeemed - the White ones, not so much.

and the original "dark elves" of early D&D were just evil, not dark skinned, iirc.

Were there "dark elves" in D&D before the Drow? The Drow were evil - and in broad strokes basically the modern version, since they were introduced in the last of the Giants modules and fleshed out in the D-Series.

I don't think there was anything published in AD&D before then, though I could have forgotten a casual mention. And there was stuff in OD&D and Dragon I could easily have missed.

Acquisitives

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thejeff wrote:
Yakman wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
My other big issue with the old drow (and probably the Black Martians, though I never read that pulpy sci-fi stuff) was the "black skin is a sign of evil" trope they stuck to up until Pathfinder, so, yeah.
In fairness to Burroughs, White Martians are also pretty bad. It's the Red Martians that are associated with the protagonist (he marries one).

yeah, the White Martians are much worse than the Black ones. The Black ones get redeemed - the White ones, not so much.

and the original "dark elves" of early D&D were just evil, not dark skinned, iirc.

Were there "dark elves" in D&D before the Drow? The Drow were evil - and in broad strokes basically the modern version, since they were introduced in the last of the Giants modules and fleshed out in the D-Series.

I don't think there was anything published in AD&D before then, though I could have forgotten a casual mention. And there was stuff in OD&D and Dragon I could easily have missed.

yeah... you might be right.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
My other big issue with the old drow (and probably the Black Martians, though I never read that pulpy sci-fi stuff) was the "black skin is a sign of evil" trope they stuck to up until Pathfinder, so, yeah.

Yeah, that's problematic. Not sure what to do about it though. That one goes back deeper and farther than racism, probably to associations between "black" and the dangers of night. Dark and light/black and white, rather than skin colors.

Applies to the Drow, through inspiration from the svartalfar most likely - though there's not much actual connection beyond "dark elves".

Not so much to the Black Martians, I'd suspect. If anything, Burroughs seemed to be grabbing colors for his various races at random. Like Yakman said, White Martians were also bad and probably worse. The Red were the "good" guys - though they fought among themselves, so could also be enemies. Green were savages, but Carter made an alliance with one horde. IIRC, Yellow were enemies, but became allies. I also don't recall much real difference between the races - other than the Green - that weren't more "current political situation" than even major cultural differences.

Nor do any of them seem to map onto racial stereotypes of Burroughs day. Blacks might have been bad guys, but they weren't stereotypical American or African blacks. The Red weren't American Indian noble savages. The Yellow weren't oriental caricatures.
Like I said - random colors for whatever enemy group he wanted to introduce.


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Cthulhudrew wrote:
MMCJawa wrote:
Are the Ilee officially extinct, or are just people assuming so do to Drow being on Apostae? Curious as someone who doesn't have the rulebook so just going off what is said here.
They are noted to be extinct in the admittedly brief overview of Apostae in the HC, suggesting it is so. It could turn out to be an overstatement or generalization, though (hopefully) that will get more clarification when Apostae is given a more detailed treatment in Pact Worlds.

The information given about the Ilee in Distant Worlds suggests that there was a central location where they were bred/manufactured in a wild variety of inconsistent forms -- so it is quite possible and indeed quite likely that this location was destroyed during the Gap. So I would guess that any Ilee whose appearances did not resemble those of any possible mates would have left no descendants, while those who could find compatible mates bred true and became the ancestors of new races yet to be detailed.


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Cthulhudrew wrote:
MMCJawa wrote:
Are the Ilee officially extinct, or are just people assuming so do to Drow being on Apostae? Curious as someone who doesn't have the rulebook so just going off what is said here.
They are noted to be extinct in the admittedly brief overview of Apostae in the HC, suggesting it is so. It could turn out to be an overstatement or generalization, though (hopefully) that will get more clarification when Apostae is given a more detailed treatment in Pact Worlds.

That's very disappointing. Since Starfinder is probably going forward the only main avenue they will have for developing the non-golarion worlds in the system, this was probably are best chance to get more info on the Ilee. In contrast...there is an abundance of Drow info, so extrapolating future Drow is not exactly different.

I wonder if they got cut for mechanics reasons? They would be a kind of difficult race to stat.

Dark Archive

Kobold Cleaver wrote:
So we'll need another reason for the "evil matriarchy" to just...go away. But I haven't got any ideas at the moment.

Yes to all of this.

I loved the initial notion of Golarion Drow, since they worshipped a dozen different Demon Lords, and didn't seem to have any reason at all to be matriarchal, like the Lolth-worshippers of previous settings.

And then, matriarchal anyway, 'cause women in charge is evil and unnatural. Ugh.


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Set wrote:


Yes to all of this.

I loved the initial notion of Golarion Drow, since they worshipped a dozen different Demon Lords, and didn't seem to have any reason at all to be matriarchal, like the Lolth-worshippers of previous settings.

And then, matriarchal anyway, 'cause women in charge is evil and unnatural. Ugh.

Or its just an evil matriarchy. I mean, PF Kaeshta and Lashunta are Good (or at least Neutral) matriarchies and Drow happen to have an Evil one.

This sort of thing shouldn't be any different than Good/Evil monarchies, democracies, magic user treatment, etc. Just because Cheliax happens to be a bunch of slave driving infernalists shouldn't mean MONARCHY IS LITERALLY THE DEVIL. Sometimes the simple answer is the more likely one...


MMCJawa wrote:
Cthulhudrew wrote:
MMCJawa wrote:
Are the Ilee officially extinct, or are just people assuming so do to Drow being on Apostae? Curious as someone who doesn't have the rulebook so just going off what is said here.
They are noted to be extinct in the admittedly brief overview of Apostae in the HC, suggesting it is so. It could turn out to be an overstatement or generalization, though (hopefully) that will get more clarification when Apostae is given a more detailed treatment in Pact Worlds.

That's very disappointing. Since Starfinder is probably going forward the only main avenue they will have for developing the non-golarion worlds in the system, this was probably are best chance to get more info on the Ilee. In contrast...there is an abundance of Drow info, so extrapolating future Drow is not exactly different.

I wonder if they got cut for mechanics reasons? They would be a kind of difficult race to stat.

boop


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I think that would be our answer -- convert mongrelmen to Starfinder and describe them as the descendants of heavily mixed lines of generally bipedal Ilee.


Even if they aren't bipedal, that mostly works for any Ilee you'd care to stat - see the kasatha with their multiple arms not gaining additional actions as a difference between the two.

I'd suggest, then, that non-bipedal Ilee would actually work relatively well as converted mongrelmen.

Liberty's Edge

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I always wanted to make Ilee with a revamped eidolon evolutions system.


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The Ilee returning after being thought extinct, kicking the drow off of Apostae, and using the technology that the drow left behind to declare war on the rest of the Pact Worlds could be an interesting campaign.


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Did I mention I'm probably not the right person to ask about this? I hate Pathfinder's drow almost as much as I hate FR's drow. I think they represent basically everything wrong with...

In general, most of what many think of as "drow" now are the result of R.A. Salvatore's books in the 90s. He's the one who fully fleshed out drow society. Aside from an occasional article in Dragon Magazine here and there, they were otherwise just Gygax creations that amounted to, "They're evil elves, and so people know they're evil, we'll make their skin black and make their race subterranean, because nothing good can live underground."

To be honest, I'm surprised at this point that Salvatore hasn't pitched a not-Drizzt novel to WotC that results in a serious social upheaval for the drow such that priestesses of their spider goddess are no longer at the top of the pack. Wizards in drow society are traditionally male, and Wizards are a persnickety lot given to unpredictability; if they banded together, males in drow society might suddenly find their lot much improved.

In terms of things being run as a corporation in Starfinder, I agree with most in this thread that the gender disparities really don't make much sense in a future where you have functionally androgynous androids and lashunta who choose their gender as a matter of course. If they're selling weapons, that seems a function of their soldiers, which in drow society are also traditionally male. I'd almost figure corporations would be headed up by whoever was most qualified to meet (insert drow family/conglomerate here)'s goals, and priestesses would just be Mystics insuring they weren't doing something overtly offensive to their spider goddess.

Or, if it were me, I'd just throw issues of gender out the door altogether, and leave it to players to engage with as much as they individually want, while having them fight or deal with drow who care a lot more about what's being done than the dangly bits of who's doing it.

Grand Lodge

Yakman wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
My other big issue with the old drow (and probably the Black Martians, though I never read that pulpy sci-fi stuff) was the "black skin is a sign of evil" trope they stuck to up until Pathfinder, so, yeah.
In fairness to Burroughs, White Martians are also pretty bad. It's the Red Martians that are associated with the protagonist (he marries one).

yeah, the White Martians are much worse than the Black ones. The Black ones get redeemed - the White ones, not so much.

and the original "dark elves" of early D&D were just evil, not dark skinned, iirc.

I have the original printings of the Drow that I own, they were always black.


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Silentman73 wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Did I mention I'm probably not the right person to ask about this? I hate Pathfinder's drow almost as much as I hate FR's drow. I think they represent basically everything wrong with...
In general, most of what many think of as "drow" now are the result of R.A. Salvatore's books in the 90s. He's the one who fully fleshed out drow society. Aside from an occasional article in Dragon Magazine here and there, they were otherwise just Gygax creations that amounted to, "They're evil elves, and so people know they're evil, we'll make their skin black and make their race subterranean, because nothing good can live underground."

There was actually quite a bit on Drow in those original modules. More than most monster races. I'm sure Salvatore elaborated on it.

And I'm also pretty sure that the skin color was as much because of the tradition of "dark elves" interpreted literally and with little other connection to actual myth, than a more straightforward "black skin means evil" thought process.

Silentman73 wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:

To be honest, I'm surprised at this point that Salvatore hasn't pitched a not-Drizzt novel to WotC that results in a serious social upheaval for the drow such that priestesses of their spider goddess are no longer at the top of the pack. Wizards in drow society are traditionally male, and Wizards are a persnickety lot given to unpredictability; if they banded together, males in drow society might suddenly find their lot much improved.

In terms of things being run as a corporation in Starfinder, I agree with most in this thread that the gender disparities really don't make much sense in a future where you have functionally androgynous androids and lashunta who choose their gender as a matter of course. If they're selling weapons, that seems a function of their soldiers, which in drow society are also traditionally male. I'd almost figure corporations would be headed up by whoever was most qualified to meet (insert drow family/conglomerate here)'s goals, and priestesses would just be Mystics insuring they weren't doing something overtly offensive to their spider goddess.

Or, if it were me, I'd just throw issues of gender out the door altogether, and leave it to players to engage with as much as they individually want, while having them fight or deal with drow who care a lot more about what's being done than the dangly bits of who's doing it.

I'm perfectly happy ditching the gender aspects of Drow. I'm just unhappy with it being left as "because future" or "because capitalism".


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Silentman73 wrote:
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
Did I mention I'm probably not the right person to ask about this? I hate Pathfinder's drow almost as much as I hate FR's drow. I think they represent basically everything wrong with...
In general, most of what many think of as "drow" now are the result of R.A. Salvatore's books in the 90s. He's the one who fully fleshed out drow society. Aside from an occasional article in Dragon Magazine here and there, they were otherwise just Gygax creations that amounted to, "They're evil elves, and so people know they're evil, we'll make their skin black and make their race subterranean, because nothing good can live underground."

Or it could be that the drow were created by looking up Norse mythology, specifically Svartalfheim, to come up with a way to make evil elves since elves are almost universally regarded as good.

Sometimes a race of evil, subterranean elves is just a race of evil, subterranean elves.

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