I have been playing a Drow Noble in a campaign, being the lore-whore that I am I like to flesh out my characters fully and have a few questions about Drow in general for the Pathfinder setting.
1. What is the average Drow’s knowledge of the surface? Drow are obviously aware of races that are enslaved and brought back to their cities but what about information regarding their kingdoms, religion, and other cultural artifacts?
2. I assume Drow are very aware of chaos vs. law because of their alliances with demons and their diabolical foes. Since most of the Darklands inhabitants are evil aligned do Drow understand good vs. evil?
3. Is there a special order or group of Drow that protects nobles like a Thayan Knight or Hell Knights, or do the houses and individual nobles have their own specialized protectors?
4. Under the Drow Noble entry in the Bestiary I am assuming that it is the Drow noble mothers have a 1/20 chance of producing a Drow noble offspring. Where a commoner mother has a significantly lower chance. What steps are done to engineer a Drow Noble birth? I assume sacrifices or something on those lines. How does one tell the difference between a Drow noble and a Drow?
5. Are Drow more fertile than Elves and is their gestation period as long? Can a Drow and a human union produce a half Drow? What would the off spring of a Drow and Elf be?
6. Do Drow keep any common pets like surface races do dogs or cats? Reading the Second Darkness series I saw a few illustrations of Drow having guard spiders.
7. Drow seem to be obsessed with racial purity are sorcerers (other than arcane) looked down upon because they would have impure blood?
8. What is a Drow-Tiefling’s standing in Drow society?
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1. What is the average Drow’s knowledge of the surface? Drow are obviously aware of races that are enslaved and brought back to their cities but what about information regarding their kingdoms, religion, and other cultural artifacts?
The average drow is aware of the surface, mostly by learning about it from their slaves and prisoners, or speaking to the odd traveler. Very few drow actual go to the surface in Golarion, and as a whole, the race does not WANT to be on the surface. They're built for the Darklands and like being one of the primary powers there. As a whole, though, the drow know more about the surface than surface dwellers know about drow.
2. I assume Drow are very aware of chaos vs. law because of their alliances with demons and their diabolical foes. Since most of the Darklands inhabitants are evil aligned do Drow understand good vs. evil?
Absolutely. Anything with an intelligence of above 3 has at least a basic understanding of good vs. evil, and anything with an intelligence of 10 or higher will know as much about it as humanity does. Drow are generally smarter than humans, so they're QUITE well aware of the difference between good and evil.
3. Is there a special order or group of Drow that protects nobles like a Thayan Knight or Hell Knights, or do the houses and individual nobles have their own specialized protectors?
Nope. Each drow house has its own methods of protecting their nobles, and their own resources. They don't trust the other houses OR a non-partisan third party with their own defense at all.
4. Under the Drow Noble entry in the Bestiary I am assuming that it is the Drow noble mothers have a 1/20 chance of producing a Drow noble offspring. Where a commoner mother has a significantly lower chance. What steps are done to engineer a Drow Noble birth? I assume sacrifices or something on those lines. How does one tell the difference between a Drow noble and a Drow?
"Good breeding," basically; drow seek mates who have good standing and are themselves obviously nobles in order to ensure that their offspring are also nobles, while commoner drows might go out of their way to try to seduce a noble if they have the chance (although they'd have to be pretty compelling to convince most nobles to take part). As for differences between them, since drow nobles have better stats than commoners, nobles are generally faster, more fit, stronger, more handsome/beautiful, more well spoken, smarter, and wiser. It's possible for a commoner with amazing stats to pull off being like a noble, I suppose, but not easy. Likewise, a noble who "rolled really terrible" on their ability scores might be mistaken for a commoner. Apart from that, being able to use the spell-like abilities granted to nobles is a good way to know the truth. There's not a single physical method to tell them apart, though.
5. Are Drow more fertile than Elves and is their gestation period as long? Can a Drow and a human union produce a half Drow? What would the off spring of a Drow and Elf be?
Drow are still elves, biologically speaking, and are just as fertile and have equal gestation periods. A drow and a human would produce a half-drow, who would likely have red eyes, silver hair, and dusky skin, but stat-wise would be identical to any other half-elf.
6. Do Drow keep any common pets like surface races do dogs or cats? Reading the Second Darkness series I saw a few illustrations of Drow having guard spiders.
Drow pets tend to be creatures that can be found in the Darklands. Vermin are common pets, but so are things like giant lizards or fungus monsters or giant bats or the like. They don't normally have any dogs or cats. Riding lizards are the most common drow pets.
7. Drow seem to be obsessed with racial purity are sorcerers (other than arcane) looked down upon because they would have impure blood?
That greatly depends on the city, the bloodline, the house, and the specific drow in question, but mostly they don't look down on sorcerers because drow understand that magic is power. Certain bloodlines, such as celestial or infernal, might be cause for prejudice, but that's more because of the nature of the bloodline than the "impurity."
8. What is a Drow-Tiefling’s standing in Drow society?
Tieflings are part human and part fiend. Technically, there's no such thing as a drow-tiefling. That said, there's no reason why a tiefling can't be part drow. A tiefling of demonic descent would probably be regarded as a valuable ally, but a tiefling of any other fiendish descent would likely be regarded as an enemy and be executed.
Thank you for clarifying Mr. Jacobs.
"Nope. Each drow house has its own methods of protecting their nobles, and their own resources. They don't trust the other houses OR a non-partisan third party with their own defense at all.
Is this detailed in any of the source material aside from the Second Darkness series?
"Good breeding," basically; drow seek mates who have good standing and are themselves obviously nobles in order to ensure that their offspring are also nobles, while commoner drows might go out of their way to try to seduce a noble if they have the chance (although they'd have to be pretty compelling to convince most nobles to take part). As for differences between them, since drow nobles have better stats than commoners, nobles are generally faster, more fit, stronger, more handsome/beautiful, more well spoken, smarter, and wiser. It's possible for a commoner with amazing stats to pull off being like a noble, I suppose, but not easy. Likewise, a noble who "rolled really terrible" on their ability scores might be mistaken for a commoner. Apart from that, being able to use the spell-like abilities granted to nobles is a good way to know the truth. There's not a single physical method to tell them apart, though.
I am still a bit confused on the noble birth concept. Under their Bestiary entry continued onto page 115 states that “… the status of the father seems not to increase or decrease the chances of a child being born a drow noble”.
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"Nope. Each drow house has its own methods of protecting their nobles, and their own resources. They don't trust the other houses OR a non-partisan third party with their own defense at all.Is this detailed in any of the source material aside from the Second Darkness series?
There might be a little bit more in "Into the Darklands," but for the most part everything we've had to say about drow has been said in Second Darkness's adventures and support articles. So far.
I am still a bit confused on the noble birth concept. Under their Bestiary entry continued onto page 115 states that “… the status of the father seems not to increase or decrease the chances of a child being born a drow noble”.
That implies that male parentage doesn't matter, and that it's from the female that nobility comes. That ties into the matriarchal society of the drow, basically. Think of noble drow, if you will, as drow that are especially blessed by the demon lords the drow worship, or perhaps more accurately, drow born with a "purer" dose of chaos and evil that makes them more powerful.
Demon Lords?
So Lolth is not SRD, I take it?
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Demon Lords?
So Lolth is not SRD, I take it?
Lolth is owned by Wizards of the Coast; we can't touch her.
So for our drow, we decided to have them worship a pantheon of demon lords; this is more or less the original concept for the drow, because in 1st and 2nd edition, Lolth was a demon lord herself. In Golarion, the various drow houses each have their own patron demon lord; we go through the houses and which demons they worship in the various Second Darkness installments, primarily in Pathfinder AP #15, #16, and #18.
Ok, thanks James.
The only thing is, then you lose the aspect of spiders being very much part of the drow society. I assume not all of the Demon Lords are spider related, if any at all?
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Ok, thanks James.
The only thing is, then you lose the aspect of spiders being very much part of the drow society. I assume not all of the Demon Lords are spider related, if any at all?
That's on purpose. WotC's take on Drow is VERY spider related. We don't want to step on their toes. We want our drow to feel different. There IS a demon lord of vermin (named Mazzmez) so there still can be some spider or bug themes in drow areas, but the move away from spider themes is by design.
I have found that the drow without Lolth gives rise to more unique flavors of drow culture. Lolth was either the only or dominate deity for the drow race in other settings and it made encounters somewhat predictable. “The female dark elf cleric screams out for Lolth to aid her and summons a demon spider to aid her. Common guys at least act surprised”. In Golarion there exists both female and male clerics (how progressive) of twelve major demon lords that are roughly of equal importance and probable cults of the various of demon lords with lesser influence.
This fall when the second Book of the Damned is published will also make following a demon lord somewhat easier as I am just making up Zura as I go along at this point.
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Tieflings are part human and part fiend. Technically, there's no such thing as a drow-tiefling.What is the official term for someone part elf and part fiend (or part gnome/part fiend; part dwarf/part fiend; etc.)?
There is no official term for that. Not yet, at least. In 3.5, there were tiefling analogues for most of the PC races, but they filtered into books later on.
In 3.5 Faerun there were the tannerukks orc-demon and fey'ri elf-succubi. There is a dwarf-fiend floating about but the name escapes me.
Also sprach Ed Greenwood, creator of the fey'ri if I get my Realms-products-chronolgy right,(through the Hooded One)
love,
THO
Golarion drow don't have the spider fetish, at least most of them. Some follow the demon lord of vermin, Mazzmez - those might be into creepy little archanids.
Hi Gorbacz and all others,
there must be a connection between Drow and Spiders because there are Drider.
The connection might be Rovagug as he/it created the monsters AND the Drow.
there must be a connection between Drow and Spiders because there are Drider.
Driders are the result of drow fleshwarping. Their fleshwarping magics have different effects on different races (offhand, the ones I recall there being stats for in addition to driders in various places are: elves, goblins, troglodytes, gnomes, orcs.)
There's an entry on fleshwarped in Bestiary 4 with a couple of the fleshwarped statted out. There's more on fleshwarping in one of the volumes of Second Darkness (3 or 4? 5 maybe?)
Weren't tiefings(and aasimar for the celestial counterparts) originally envisioned as the catch-all name for people of all mortal races that exhibited traces of fiendish ancestry in 2nd Edition? Did that change with 3rd, or was it always that way?
Both the Pathfinder Books 'Blood of Fiends' and 'Blood of Angels' say that aasimars and tieflings exist among the other mortal races.