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Female tanukis wouldn't necessarily lack those.
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After seeing the sacred nagaji, I'm still waiting on Merfolk
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Female tanukis wouldn't necessarily lack those.They have a blog post up ;)
but no sign on how Tanukis can use their big... sacks as natural weapons XD
Nor any alternate abilities for female Tanukis. Or maybe they have unusually sized natural weapons that can be dual wielded? Not sure since I have never seen a picture of a female Tanuki.
That may well be, especially since Paizo has been moving away from dexual dimorphism being represented in their game mechanics. Take the lashunta for example. They used to have different mechanics based on sex in 1st Edition. Later, in Starfinder, they removed sex from the equation altogether and made them "naturally divided into two specialized subraces with different abilities and societal roles." This removal of restrictions greatly expanded player options and, for some, removed what they perceived to be a potential negative influence on the game. If lashunta returned in 2nd Edition, I imagine those subrace mechanics would be done away with entirely, especially since the new +2/+2 ability score array paradigm was introduced. This, again, would greatly expand variety of player options.
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That may well be, especially since Paizo has been moving away from dexual dimorphism being represented in their game mechanics. Take the lashunta for example. They used to have different mechanics based on sex in 1st Edition. Later, in Starfinder, they removed sex from the equation altogether and made them "naturally divided into two specialized subraces with different abilities and societal roles." This removal of restrictions greatly expanded player options and, for some, removed what they perceived to be a potential negative influence on the game. If lashunta returned in 2nd Edition, I imagine those subrace mechanics would be done away with entirely, especially since the new +2/+2 ability score array paradigm was introduced. This, again, would greatly expand variety of player options.Female tanukis wouldn't necessarily lack those.They have a blog post up ;)
but no sign on how Tanukis can use their big... sacks as natural weapons XD
Nor any alternate abilities for female Tanukis. Or maybe they have unusually sized natural weapons that can be dual wielded? Not sure since I have never seen a picture of a female Tanuki.
It's actually a lot simpler than that, though you are correct.
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I hope the two Lashunta subtypes stick around. The bit about it being a societal effort to decouple them from sex and gender is one of my favorite pieces of lore.
I hope the two Lashunta subtypes stick around. The bit about it being a societal effort to decouple them from sex and gender is one of my favorite pieces of lore.
I mean, they'll have to come up with at least 5 heritages, including Korasha (male) and Damaya (female). The issue is that... which one of the two is the standard one? If you have a versatile heritage, you cannot have your primary ancestry's heritages.
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I think the only thing that would work is making the korasha/damaya dismorphism not an heritage, but a part of the "core" ancestry. The biggest problem being that what separated the two was solely ability modifier, which aren't really a thing anymore in 2e when anyone can chose to pick "2 free one" and roll with it in any ancestry, but paizo can still include .
I think that in 2e they'd have the "limited telepathy" ability right from the start (with improvement to it throught ancestry feats), and also the "dismorphic" one, which would end up setting different ability boost/flaw for each subspecie, but also some minor additional details. Something like giving the korasha more starting life and damaya one more starting language, just to give them each a special stuff even if the player decide to play by the "2 free boost" rule.
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You could also just leave the dimorphism as something flavor-based, with a feat/heritage for "your dimorphism is especially prominent". Might not be what people want, though!
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You could also just leave the dimorphism as something flavor-based, with a feat/heritage for "your dimorphism is especially prominent". Might not be what people want, though!
That idea does have merit, and the design space for such already exists with lineage feats.
With Samsarans on the way, I’m now truly running low on 1e options to beg for - Wyrwoods for Arcadia are a big one, and I dearly want Minotaurs, but everybody else I can think to clamor for (Kuru, Lashunta, Sekmin) is just so niche.
Yeah, I was thinking a lineage feat might be the ticket.
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With Samsarans on the way, I’m now truly running low on 1e options to beg for - Wyrwoods for Arcadia are a big one, and I dearly want Minotaurs, but everybody else I can think to clamor for (Kuru, Lashunta, Sekmin) is just so niche.
You forgot Wyvarans.
I still want a someone with a snake tail that they can actually grapple with. Sacred Nagaji were so close. They just needed one more feat. It's not even a balance thing - the Kashrishi can get grapple on their horns at level 5. Why no love for the snake-grappling?
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I think that's less a question of new ancestries and more a question of "nagaji need some more feats". ;P
For what it's worth, I totally agree with you.
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Centaurs.
I would like to see them as a playable ancestry.
With Samsarans on the way, I’m now truly running low on 1e options to beg for - Wyrwoods for Arcadia are a big one, and I dearly want Minotaurs, but everybody else I can think to clamor for (Kuru, Lashunta, Sekmin) is just so niche.
Which mean that now's the time to beg not for new ancestry, but for extended feat tree of existing ancestry. Or, in other words :
Were's my level 17 anadi feats paizo? When will I be able to throw atual webs in my spider forms paizo (not cast the web spells, just trow a web I crafted myself)? Where's my self made web house and my web snares to go with it?
(Actually, I do have an ancestry I'm craving, and that would be those shadow plane ant people, the D'ziriaks. I mean, actual non antropomorphic insect ancestry would be even better, but D'ziriaks seems far more likely, and they'd be pretty cool too)
Which mean that now's the time to beg not for new ancestry,
Every day is a good day to beg for Wyrwoods back!
With Samsarans on the way, I’m now truly running low on 1e options to beg for - Wyrwoods for Arcadia are a big one, and I dearly want Minotaurs, but everybody else I can think to clamor for (Kuru, Lashunta, Sekmin) is just so niche.
Lashunta would be high on my wishlist, and I think you could get a pretty solid hardcover "Distant Worlds" for Pathfinder 2E as a setting book, especially if you encountered tech rules.
That said, given that Starfinder exists, I am not certain they want to double-dip into that well. They might consider that the folks most interested in that sort of book already play Starfinder, and might not want a book that kind of repeats at least some elements of that.
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With Samsarans on the way, I’m now truly running low on 1e options to beg for - Wyrwoods for Arcadia are a big one, and I dearly want Minotaurs, but everybody else I can think to clamor for (Kuru, Lashunta, Sekmin) is just so niche.Lashunta would be high on my wishlist, and I think you could get a pretty solid hardcover "Distant Worlds" for Pathfinder 2E as a setting book, especially if you encountered tech rules.
That said, given that Starfinder exists, I am not certain they want to double-dip into that well. They might consider that the folks most interested in that sort of book already play Starfinder, and might not want a book that kind of repeats at least some elements of that.
I think the struggle is less "this steps on Starfinder's toes" and more "most games will be set on Golarion, so detailing other planets and associated options is 'wasted' compared to other uses of effort." A 2e Distant Worlds feels very unlikely to me - but a Lost Omens: Broken Lands may well give us a few alien Ancestries via Numeria, which I imagine has a better shot of happening.
I think the struggle is less "this steps on Starfinder's toes" and more "most games will be set on Golarion, so detailing other planets and associated options is 'wasted' compared to other uses of effort." A 2e Distant Worlds feels very unlikely to me - but a Lost Omens: Broken Lands may well give us a few alien Ancestries via Numeria, which I imagine has a better shot of happening.With Samsarans on the way, I’m now truly running low on 1e options to beg for - Wyrwoods for Arcadia are a big one, and I dearly want Minotaurs, but everybody else I can think to clamor for (Kuru, Lashunta, Sekmin) is just so niche.Lashunta would be high on my wishlist, and I think you could get a pretty solid hardcover "Distant Worlds" for Pathfinder 2E as a setting book, especially if you encountered tech rules.
That said, given that Starfinder exists, I am not certain they want to double-dip into that well. They might consider that the folks most interested in that sort of book already play Starfinder, and might not want a book that kind of repeats at least some elements of that.
Not sure I would make that assumption...we've seen AP's go offworld, and that argument could also be made for Tian Xia, Arcadia, the Planes, etc. Lost Omens is very Inner Sea centric in general, and I remember back in the 1E days the idea of Tian Xia hardcover was considered a pipe-dream by many.
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Not sure I would make that assumption...we've seen AP's go offworld, and that argument could also be made for Tian Xia, Arcadia, the Planes, etc. Lost Omens is very Inner Sea centric in general, and I remember back in the 1E days the idea of Tian Xia hardcover was considered a pipe-dream by many.
We've seen APs spend less than one book on other planets, and both times in 2e have been paired with pretty comprehensive gazetteers of those settings - which signals to me that they aren't planning on covering them in detail again any time soon. The crowd that dislikes any hint of sci-fi in their fantasy is a very vocal one, and it's a niche enough flavor that most tables probably won't pick it up.
I say this as someone who would be the first in line for a Lost Omens: Castrovel - there's much more likely things to hope for. A Broken Lands book doesn't have two many other Ancestry options begging for print, so at the very least playable Lashunta might sneak in there.
Tian Xia got two setting books, a major part of the pitch for a six-volume AP, a standalone Adventure, and a ton of representation in Pathfinder Society (a Faction, a Year, many scenarios) across 1e. It's not really comparable to the level of support Numeria and other planets have gotten if you count them together (less than 5 Society scenarios, IIRC).
I desperately wish it weren't so, but the average fantasy table is more welcoming to a samurai (or an Indigenous gunslinger) than they are to an alien.
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I will quite like Underdark ancestries. I love the Duergar, who remind me of WoW's Dark Iron Dwarves, and in typical fashion I do like Drow, as I am a fan of Elves in general. I think the underdark gnomes whose name I can't spell are neat too, snveblin or something. I like the Underdark overall, it's a cool little made up underground evil fey/fairy world from my impressions and also you know Mindflayers are dope.
Not sure how much claim Paizo has on any of the above and if they have none at all it may be that we never see such a book.
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I will quite like Underdark ancestries. I love the Duergar, who remind me of WoW's Dark Iron Dwarves, and in typical fashion I do like Drow, as I am a fan of Elves in general. I think the underdark gnomes whose name I can't spell are neat too, snveblin or something. I like the Underdark overall, it's a cool little made up underground evil fey/fairy world from my impressions and also you know Mindflayers are dope.Not sure how much claim Paizo has on any of the above and if they have none at all it may be that we never see such a book.
The duergar remind you of the Dark Iron Dwarves because the Dark Iron Dwarves were modeled on the D&D duergar (first published 1983 - over a decade before there was Warcraft anything) pretty directly.
The PF2 version of the Underdark is called the Darklands, and it does contain drow (though their theming and appearance have changed) and duergar (who were the dwarves who did not return to the surface, and instead sold their souls to Droskar for protection and power).
Svirfneblin also exist. (I would have gotten the spelling wrong if I hadn't looked it up.) They are generally neutral, though tend to be both xenophobic and emotionally erratic.
Pathfinder does not have mind flayers, though it does have a wide variety of other freaky aberrations.
Not sure I would make that assumption...we've seen AP's go offworld, and that argument could also be made for Tian Xia, Arcadia, the Planes, etc. Lost Omens is very Inner Sea centric in general, and I remember back in the 1E days the idea of Tian Xia hardcover was considered a pipe-dream by many.We've seen APs spend less than one book on other planets, and both times in 2e have been paired with pretty comprehensive gazetteers of those settings - which signals to me that they aren't planning on covering them in detail again any time soon. The crowd that dislikes any hint of sci-fi in their fantasy is a very vocal one, and it's a niche enough flavor that most tables probably won't pick it up.
I say this as someone who would be the first in line for a Lost Omens: Castrovel - there's much more likely things to hope for. A Broken Lands book doesn't have two many other Ancestry options begging for print, so at the very least playable Lashunta might sneak in there.
Tian Xia got two setting books, a major part of the pitch for a six-volume AP, a standalone Adventure, and a ton of representation in Pathfinder Society (a Faction, a Year, many scenarios) across 1e. It's not really comparable to the level of support Numeria and other planets have gotten if you count them together (less than 5 Society scenarios, IIRC).
I desperately wish it weren't so, but the average fantasy table is more welcoming to a samurai (or an Indigenous gunslinger) than they are to an alien.
Hey, I am not saying it's next year, just that its something I could see come out.
I am most familiar with 1E content, and I would say there was a comparable amount for Sci-fi/planetary romance as Asian fantasy. Maybe more given that Dominion of the Black and some of the Lovecraft stuff leans more towards the former than the latter. I think the biggest obstacle isn't a perceived worry about popularity...There was a time where suggesting guns could exist in a fantasy setting was inviting burning at a stake, and I definitely remember the flack people interested in "Asian" content got when Paizo released the 1E Dragon Empires book. I think people in general are just more willing to expand there ideas of what should be in fantasy than they were even a decade ago.
The biggest obstacle IMHO is the overlap of that content with Starfinder. Paizo might feel that devoting a hardcover book to that while producing starfinder might be "double-dipping", with folks interested in the other planets just investing in the Starfinder CS books, and not willing to buy the Pathfinder books on the same, if less technologically advanced, worlds
Anyway...speaking of Tian Xia...I'd love to see a Tikbalang ancestry, or some other creatures from Filipino folklore (Alan, Kapre, etc). After Japan, that region of Asia has probably some of the richest folklore to mine.
I will quite like Underdark ancestries. I love the Duergar, who remind me of WoW's Dark Iron Dwarves, and in typical fashion I do like Drow, as I am a fan of Elves in general. I think the underdark gnomes whose name I can't spell are neat too, snveblin or something. I like the Underdark overall, it's a cool little made up underground evil fey/fairy world from my impressions and also you know Mindflayers are dope.Not sure how much claim Paizo has on any of the above and if they have none at all it may be that we never see such a book.
Underground / Darklands variations could be simple extra heritages.
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Underground / Darklands variations could be simple extra heritages.
I will quite like Underdark ancestries. I love the Duergar, who remind me of WoW's Dark Iron Dwarves, and in typical fashion I do like Drow, as I am a fan of Elves in general. I think the underdark gnomes whose name I can't spell are neat too, snveblin or something. I like the Underdark overall, it's a cool little made up underground evil fey/fairy world from my impressions and also you know Mindflayers are dope.Not sure how much claim Paizo has on any of the above and if they have none at all it may be that we never see such a book.
I am open minded to that. However I just want I guess a Lost Omens: Darklands book that goes into the culture and the lore and just all about it. I want a full Darklands splatbook with some mechanic, probably mostly ancestries and then cool stuff the peoples who live there have. Like imagine it you know, it's like Avatar the movie or something, an alien world where like you know how do you live underground? Is it bioluminescent like the ocean? Is everything transparent and there's a bunch of microscopic food in the air? Do mushrooms grow there? Are there mushroom farmers? What kind of beasts of burden do they have? What kind of objects do they use? Does the light of the Forge burn their eyes? Do they use metals like other people above ground or do they prefer some other texture? I would love a deep look into the tale all of what it's like to live and be in the Darklands and how it's like to adventure there.
Maybe an AP tie in too. Or some PFS scenarios.
I am open minded to that. However I just want I guess a Lost Omens: Darklands book that goes into the culture and the lore and just all about it. I want a full Darklands splatbook with some mechanic, probably mostly ancestries and then cool stuff the peoples who live there have. Like imagine it you know, it's like Avatar the movie or something, an alien world where like you know how do you live underground? Is it bioluminescent like the ocean? Is everything transparent and there's a bunch of microscopic food in the air? Do mushrooms grow there? Are there mushroom farmers? What kind of beasts of burden do they have? What kind of objects do they use? Does the light of the Forge burn their eyes? Do they use metals like other people above ground or do they prefer some other texture? I would love a deep look into the tale all of what it's like to live and be in the Darklands and how it's like to adventure there.
Maybe an AP tie in too. Or some PFS scenarios.
For what it's worth, we've seen indicators that we're gong to get a solid treatment of the Drow some day. It's just that we don't necessarily expect it to be soon. When it finally does hit, I'd expect at bare minimum a full 6-book AP and associated materials, and I feel like that probably means either a LO book or an equivalent amount of text spread through other books as well. How much it goes past that is going to depend on how much interest they see in both playerbase and writers, and how much story they feel like they have to tell.
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I would love to get a version of drow that quietly does away with the "being evil turns you blue" lore, personally.
I always assumed it was because they lived underground, not because they had any kind of morality. I thought it was camouflage to not be seen. Also because, from what I understand, Darklands races almost universally have Darkvision, and some flavor text I read somewhere somehow said they see in black and white, so I guess being darker in the darkness makes it harder to see you in black and white, assuming you stand still.
Golarion elves don't actually have darker skin, just colder colors. Blue and sometimes purple, I believe. It's one of the good changes they get.
Half-Dwarves would be great
Dark Sun's muls.
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I would love to get a version of drow that quietly does away with the "being evil turns you blue" lore, personally.I always assumed it was because they lived underground, not because they had any kind of morality. I thought it was camouflage to not be seen. Also because, from what I understand, Darklands races almost universally have Darkvision, and some flavor text I read somewhere somehow said they see in black and white, so I guess being darker in the darkness makes it harder to see you in black and white, assuming you stand still.
It is 1e canon that Elves who do wicked enough things spontaneously become Drow.
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That's technically a Second Darkness spoiler, in that it spoiled Golarion drow for me.
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It is 1e canon that Elves who do wicked enough things spontaneously become Drow.I would love to get a version of drow that quietly does away with the "being evil turns you blue" lore, personally.I always assumed it was because they lived underground, not because they had any kind of morality. I thought it was camouflage to not be seen. Also because, from what I understand, Darklands races almost universally have Darkvision, and some flavor text I read somewhere somehow said they see in black and white, so I guess being darker in the darkness makes it harder to see you in black and white, assuming you stand still.
Am I allowed to say that's dumb? I like my idea more: feels more natural. Snow rabbits and arctic foxes are white because they live in snow environments and are harder to see.
So if you live in the pitch black, and caves, you know like bats, you'll probably end up darker to remain hidden. or, in the case of the ocean, go translucent. I think they're close enough to the surface, again like bats, to probably just go darker to remain hidden in the dark, especially if they want to hide from the OTHER stuff down there that might be hunting them. Like I don't know I heard Fomoroids live there which are 2 headed giants I think. I don't know if they eat people though.
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It is 1e canon that Elves who do wicked enough things spontaneously become Drow.I would love to get a version of drow that quietly does away with the "being evil turns you blue" lore, personally.I always assumed it was because they lived underground, not because they had any kind of morality. I thought it was camouflage to not be seen. Also because, from what I understand, Darklands races almost universally have Darkvision, and some flavor text I read somewhere somehow said they see in black and white, so I guess being darker in the darkness makes it harder to see you in black and white, assuming you stand still.Am I allowed to say that's dumb? I like my idea more: feels more natural. Snow rabbits and arctic foxes are white because they live in snow environments and are harder to see.
So if you live in the pitch black, and caves, you know like bats, you'll probably end up darker to remain hidden. or, in the case of the ocean, go translucent. I think they're close enough to the surface, again like bats, to probably just go darker to remain hidden in the dark, especially if they want to hide from the OTHER stuff down there that might be hunting them. Like I don't know I heard Fomoroids live there which are 2 headed giants I think. I don't know if they eat people though.
Widespread public opinion is that it's dumb. Paizo's had quite a headache trying to resolve that and other "the Drow are defined by Evil" snarls for a while now - but have made progress in 2e, between retconning them to have lilac skin and showcasing more Chaotic Neutral Drow who aren't bound to demons at all. We've seen them be Protean cultists and crossbow desperados with pet spiders!
There's a lot of hope we'll see them as a PC Ancestry soon.
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I like to run "drow" as more of a social term and decouple it from species altogether. An elf becomes a drow/dark elf because they do something so bad the rest of elf society casts them out. Purple/blue skin is just something some elves are born with sometimes, unrelated to dark elves. Maybe you can have a society founded by dark elves under the earth, but that's more a situation of a civilization having been built on evil ideologies, not a magical/genetic predilection towards evil.
That's just me, though. Not the best fit for canon Golarion. :P
I like to run "drow" as more of a social term and decouple it from species altogether. An elf becomes a drow/dark elf because they do something so bad the rest of elf society casts them out. Purple/blue skin is just something some elves are born with sometimes, unrelated to dark elves. Maybe you can have a society founded by dark elves under the earth, but that's more a situation of a civilization having been built on evil ideologies, not a magical/genetic predilection towards evil.
That's just me, though. Not the best fit for canon Golarion. :P
I actually kind of like that a lot.
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I like to run "drow" as more of a social term and decouple it from species altogether. An elf becomes a drow/dark elf because they do something so bad the rest of elf society casts them out. Purple/blue skin is just something some elves are born with sometimes, unrelated to dark elves. Maybe you can have a society founded by dark elves under the earth, but that's more a situation of a civilization having been built on evil ideologies, not a magical/genetic predilection towards evil.
That's just me, though. Not the best fit for canon Golarion. :P
For what it's worth, it's canon that elves adapt to their surroundings, just in general. Like, if an elf moves to the frozen north, then eventually their body will adapt and they'll become an arctic elf. In some cases (the ones who take the right level 13 feat) it can happen in less than a week.
That at least seems to offer some sort of path out of the hole.
I like to run "drow" as more of a social term and decouple it from species altogether. An elf becomes a drow/dark elf because they do something so bad the rest of elf society casts them out. Purple/blue skin is just something some elves are born with sometimes, unrelated to dark elves. Maybe you can have a society founded by dark elves under the earth, but that's more a situation of a civilization having been built on evil ideologies, not a magical/genetic predilection towards evil.
That's just me, though. Not the best fit for canon Golarion. :P
Golarian can't really pull that off, but it does seem as if they're doing something similar with branching cultures that are slowly more divergent, and more friendly than what most people think of when they see a drow.
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It is 1e canon that Elves who do wicked enough things spontaneously become Drow.I would love to get a version of drow that quietly does away with the "being evil turns you blue" lore, personally.I always assumed it was because they lived underground, not because they had any kind of morality. I thought it was camouflage to not be seen. Also because, from what I understand, Darklands races almost universally have Darkvision, and some flavor text I read somewhere somehow said they see in black and white, so I guess being darker in the darkness makes it harder to see you in black and white, assuming you stand still.Am I allowed to say that's dumb? I like my idea more: feels more natural. Snow rabbits and arctic foxes are white because they live in snow environments and are harder to see.
So if you live in the pitch black, and caves, you know like bats, you'll probably end up darker to remain hidden. or, in the case of the ocean, go translucent. I think they're close enough to the surface, again like bats, to probably just go darker to remain hidden in the dark, especially if they want to hide from the OTHER stuff down there that might be hunting them. Like I don't know I heard Fomoroids live there which are 2 headed giants I think. I don't know if they eat people though.
Honestly Drow should be albinos. that's what happens to critters that become adapted to living in deep caverns. No light means no no need for coloration.
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True, but that's in worlds without see-in-zero-light darkvision being commonplace. :p
Don't darkvision make everything show up in black and white without any colors? In which case, there's still no need for coloration.
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Don't darkvision make everything show up in black and white without any colors? In which case, there's still no need for coloration.
I feel like if you were a lighter color, such as albino, in the black and white, you'd show up as well, a bright white outline I think. I don't know. I have only seem like Night-Vision video feed from stuff like baby monitors and night time ring-lites and you know army night-vision. Seems like the darker something is (in black and white) the harder it is to see, and the lighter something is the easier it is to see.
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Don't darkvision make everything show up in black and white without any colors? In which case, there's still no need for coloration.
so some context on this tradition; originally in ADND darkvision was infravision and lowlight was ultravision. beings with infravison could see other creatures and navigate their surroundings based on body and ambient heat, which is also why they where completely unable to differentiate color or read using this sight. beings with lowlight vision could glean information from the faintest amount of background radiation and as such could see pretty clearly anywhere that had access to the open sky. obviously dnd and pf have dropped the pseudo scientific technobabble in favor of magic people with magic eyes, but I thing its still a good point of reference for describing things
Yeah, what the others said. If predators can tell the difference between black and white, yeah, color matters. In a fantasy darkvision world, being dark-colored is actually highly advantageous in dark areas.
I still don't like dark-skinned drow and am glad Golarion did away with it.
Yeah, what the others said. If predators can tell the difference between black and white, yeah, color matters. In a fantasy darkvision world, being dark-colored is actually highly advantageous in dark areas.
I still don't like dark-skinned drow and am glad Golarion did away with it.
...and "dark-skinned with stark-white hair" was just loopy.
Also, presumably different rocks would be different shades as well.
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I would consider shades of blue and purple (like Night Elves! My favorite) to be "darker" than say Blood Elves, to use a Warcraft Example, and by all means Night Elves are not overly considered Evil, any more than Blood Elves are.
I like the idea of them being a darker coloration (such as indigo, or violet, or even "ultramarine Blue" or "Naggaroth Nightshade" purple to use Citadel colors) being due to natural adaptations to their under-ground environment, and they are known as Dark Elves because they are darker in coloration rather than "because evil, and evil is darkness".
I don't think Morality should have anything to do with it. I would also make the case that more often than not, if I were to try and put any sort of world building logic into this, Dark Elves may be more aggressive and xenophobic because the idea is basically "don't blow up our spot." If you come down there bringing light and stuff into the environment you are painting massive targets on everyone and everything and it sounds like the Darklands have some pretty nasty super predators hanging about and, well, understandably maybe we just don't do that here.
After all we have indiginous tribes who kill/attack anyone/anything that gets close to them in the real world and I don't see anyone out here calling THEM evil. They are, as of now, still essentially uncontacted/unexplored. I would posit the Drow are not to this degree, but rather express this sort of behavior to a lesser degree as a survival tactics -> going further to say that Drow Adventurers are trying to escape the Darklands for an "easier" (Presumably, grass is always greener aye?) place to live, but due to being underground for so long, they struggle with such things as Light Sensitivity which is why these people, as a whole, haven't left. After all - Why does anyone live in Australia with its natural fauna being what it is? Maybe a dumb argument, but like, "they could have left". So we've dealt with why they don't live on the surface, and why other races might find them "evil" and why they behave the way they behave, and the last question might be "well why aren't there a lot MORE adventurers" and supposing it's something like the Oregan Trail: maybe it's just not that easy to up and leave and make it all the way to the surface.
I'm sure a lot of elves have died trying.