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Pre-Remaster, what's the difference between Drow and Cavern Elves? Both have existed since the beginning of PF2E, both are some kind of elf, but one is a monster and the other is a heritage. That's not what I mean by "what's the difference" though. Trying to answer my own question I come up with maybe Cavern Elves are very similar to Drow in that they retreated underground after Earthfall, but perhaps didn't go as deep or at least didn't run into whatever corrupted the elves who became Drow.
Post Remaster, as I understand it, there are no Drow. The extensive empire they supposedly built in the Darklands never existed. Neither did they. They're strictly legendary. So how did the legends arise?
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Pre remaster, the difference is pretty straightforward. Cavern elves aren't even really a distinct subspecies of elf. A single elf will adapt to her environment over time. You could be born an artic elf but become a cavern elf.
Meanwhile, drow were elves "transformed both spiritually and physically, tainting their hearts with desires for cruelty, sadism, and violence. The hues of their eyes became sinister red or bleached white, and their flesh adopted an unearthly lavender sheen that made the drow instantly recognizable. The drow also developed potent magical abilities and resistances that further empowered them, if at the cost of their souls."
Post remaster, are you sure there are even legends of drow? That would rather undercut their removal for legal purposes. Feels like you're conflating this with their early PF1 status.
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Can Paizo even use Drow anymore? Seems Drow are now something PF2 players may have to use the material they have because not sure they can do something new with them post-Remaster without risking the attack from Hasbro.
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Pre-remaster, cavern elves were just an ancestry you could pick when you were making an elf. They had no established role or presence in the world of Golarion.
Drow, on the other hand, had a huge role, but were mostly villains.
The difference pre-remaster beteeen the two basically boiled down to:
Cavern Elves are for players who want to play an elf who lived in a cave.
Drow are for GMs who want monsters for the players to fight against.*
*
Post-remaster, cavern elves are known as Ayindilar elves, and they descend from those who sought the Darklands as shelter after Earthfall. They maintain isolated, self-sufficient settlements in the Darklands, and may have had grander cities that are now ruins in parts of the Darklands. They replace what happened to the elves who fled into the Darklands in 1st edition lore and became drow but do NOT fill the drow niche. They'll fill a new niche and will represent a friendly element in the Darklands for people to encounter at some point, but we haven't yet explored this topic at all in print beyond a single paragraph in the "Return to the Darklands" article that appeared in the Sky King's Tomb Adventure Path.
Post-remaster, there are no drow. We won't be using them at all or mentioning them in print, even as "legends" or by referring to them obliquely, and the more we do with the Darklands, as we update things from old lore, we'll be replacing more and more of that content as we go with new stuff.
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I always figured that the Cavern Elf was available to someone who wanted to say their character was a Drow that got away from that culture. If they wanted to publish more Drow stuff, you could take that on your cavern elf.
Now obviously for reasons they don't want to publish any more Drow stuff ever, but it never set right to me to see Drow as completely separate from other Elves. Like they used unique rules as antagonists, like everything else in the Bestiary, but that didn't make them special. The Orcs in the Bestiary didn't use the rules for PC Orcs, after all.
So I'm glad that Ayindilar are specifically "a kind of Elf" and not its own special thing.
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Post-remaster, cavern elves are known as Ayindilar elves, and they descend from those who sought the Darklands as shelter after Earthfall. They maintain isolated, self-sufficient settlements in the Darklands, and may have had grander cities that are now ruins in parts of the Darklands. They replace what happened to the elves who fled into the Darklands in 1st edition lore and became drow but do NOT fill the drow niche. They'll fill a new niche and will represent a friendly element in the Darklands for people to encounter at some point, but we haven't yet explored this topic at all in print beyond a single paragraph in the "Return to the Darklands" article that appeared in the Sky King's Tomb Adventure Path.
While I understand that certain "outside" pragmatic concerns require you to move away from drow, I am not sure how well a "friendly element" might work within the setting.
When looking at these, I am forced to think about how the dwarves known for steadfast devotion to tradition and history- chose to leave the darklands. And for good reason, since the darklands are an unfriendly place to...pretty much everyone. It raises the question "why don't the cavern elves leave?", or at least "why don't they primarily stay near the surface, like dwarves".
In comparison, Drow are unfriendly, to say the least, which helps them to thrive in that environment. Since they are hostile with most elves (and pretty much any culture that are familiar with their 'new employee recruitment programs'), they find it hard to establish a foothold above ground.
But there would likely be a cultural resistance against full on attempts to abandon their underground empire. Their entire conception was born out of a desire to hold fast to their home, even when faced with an increasingly hostile world. Despite the warping they suffered, they managed to survive, thrive, and even dominate. So they are already well entrenched in a preexisting empire that serves as a major player in their region- which further limits desire to move and make a fresh start.
Of course, despite all these concerns... I understand that there is generally a need to move away from drow, and trying to make the parts work in setting may have to take a backseat.
If Ayindilar have communities with the right combination of natural defenses, distance, seclusion, numbers, magic, technology, allies, and divine favor they can survive against the backdrop of horrors in the Darklands.
Or they could just be really good at masking their towns and villages.
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The dwarves chose to leave the Darklands on a holy pilgrimage, not just because they up and decided to.
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I have to echo keftiu's statement. The question "Why don't these people leave their hostile environment" is a touch misdirected given the numerous historical examples of this phenomenon. The answer is not often simple, but may include one or both of, 'this place is their home,' and, 'there isn't anywhere else to go.'
The dwarves didn't just decide to seek greener pastures elsewhere, they were called by their god--and many of them chose not to answer. The ancestors of the hryngar stayed behind, only to find that their much depleted number couldn't hold their cities, and so they turned to Droskar for strength instead. They embraced cruelty in order to regain their status as a Darklands power, but it seems like the ayindilar chose a different route.
It's not like the Darklands force universally inevitable cruelty upon its inhabitants (the munavri and drathnelar, for example), and the ayindilar hide themselves away in isolated settlements, presumably surviving by not attracting too much attention to themselves and sustaining themselves with magic.
--
Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.
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Now that the game is move away from many concepts of D&D I don't think that even the very concept of underground = more dangerous than surface will need to be kept.
In practice we could just consider darklands similar to the surface of Golarion with many points of civilization (that can be good or evil) where dwarves/duegars/gnomes/orcs/goblins and others underground ancestries live their lives normally making settlements, villages, cities and even empires surrounded by a "wildland" where is full of dangerous just like the surface.
It's natural to surface adapted ancestries like humans consider the underground environment as dangerous, mysterious and evil but this is a human point of view. For the people that live there darklands would be a normal place to live and maybe the surface that's a stranger, very large and chaotic place.
IMO darklands already gone in this direction over the years and now exiting from OGL there are more reasons to become a distinct place from underdark. Orcs are now a common playable ancestry, Oprak is becoming open more and more "friendly" relationship with surrounded reigns. Put cavern elves like a normal civilization would just improve in this direction of make darkland a world under the world instead of just a very big dungeon.
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I am not sure how well a "friendly element" might work within the setting.
All lore aside, having no opportunities for respite and friendly dialogue throughout the Darklands would make it an absolutely trash-tier place to set a campaign. Since you need such a thing to tell good stories in there, you may as well use Cavern elves as one of the options.
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Now that the game is move away from many concepts of D&D I don't think that even the very concept of underground = more dangerous than surface will need to be kept.
I don't think it needs to be kept, but it should be, at least as a baseline assumption. Part of the fun of the Darklands is how dangerous it is.
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"There are terrifying horrors beneath the surface of the planet" is not an original D&D plot device. The underworld being a physical place that is just beneath the ground is pretty classic to mythologies and fantasy stories. Golarion has plenty of terrifying creatures to draw on to keep that narrative true without falling back into "this is just like the underdark."
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Every TTRPG I've ever played that had some sort of "BEWARE DANGEROUS AREA" be it the underdark, the darklands, some unidentified wastelands, Ohio, or whatever has had some sort of semi-safe settlement. I'm not going to argue realism because it's a game, but the inclusion of said place has made adventuring in these areas more fun because, while there is the constant threat of the environment and its denizens present, these settlements do give a slice of safety to the players and makes it more fun for them.
That said also amping up the constant threat to said settlement is a good plot point as well even if it's not the main plot point.
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I think the Darklands (and its historical predecessors in fiction and RPGs) benefit from that whole "Points of Light" motif, where you have incredible darkness and danger, but pockets of civilization and safety between them. So in the sense that Ayindilar can provide that, it's pretty cool.
That said, my home setting makes cavern elves translucent, like certain kinds of deep sea fish and I don't really need Drow in the first place.
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Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.Gods, I hate this as the in-world explanation. And I really don't think Pathfinder benefits from unreliable narrators.
There was no other choice possible.
And I, for one, prefer the Sekmin, which I find fascinating, as the evil underground empire rather than the Drows, which leave me quite uninterested.
Kull rather than DnD.
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While I understand that certain "outside" pragmatic concerns require you to move away from drow, I am not sure how well a "friendly element" might work within the setting.
When looking at these, I am forced to think about how the dwarves known for steadfast devotion to tradition and history- chose to leave the darklands. And for good reason, since the darklands are an unfriendly place to...pretty much everyone. It raises the question "why don't the cavern elves leave?", or at least "why don't they primarily stay near the surface, like dwarves".
To me, the answer is simply becasue it's their home, and it only seems so hostile to us because it's incredibly alien and surface dwellers don't know the first thing about surviving down there.
Surface dweller see two tunnels, and can't distinguished which one is a road, and which one is untamed wilderness, or worse yet, the lair of some powerfull creature. When the earth shake, they don't know wether it's due to some burrowing creature nearby or a natural phenomenon, and they don't know wether the tunnel is about to crumble or if it's fine. They rely on their sight far too much, they tend to cary lights that indicate their position from affar...
To me at least, the underdark isn't that much more dangerous than the surface (a bit more dangerous on average due to the closer proximity to rovagug still), it's just that adventuring parties that venture down there get a flat -10 to everything they do because they're complete fish out of water down there (and instead of representing that by a malus, it's represented by a higher DC instead).
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paizo went with unreliable narrators for pf2 years ago, long befor the orc remastery. that decision had nothing to do with the drow, and is what lets them add content like the planes of metal and wood.
also, paizo is a company that employs hundreds of different writers. allowing for different visions was pretty much a necessity, especially since changes to lore, including retcons never go well or consistently.
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There were (and are) definitely other possible choices.
For instance they could just go with a clean retcon
What, exactly, is the difference between an 'unreliable narrator' and an unbounded number of 'clean retcon' events?
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"There are terrifying horrors beneath the surface of the planet" is not an original D&D plot device.
I think an F20 setting with a “Classical” underworld (maybe not immediately) below the surface would be super interesting. Far more interesting than the “Underdark,” though there’s no reason a setting couldn’t have both.
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What, exactly, is the difference between an 'unreliable narrator' and an unbounded number of 'clean retcon' events?There were (and are) definitely other possible choices.
For instance they could just go with a clean retcon
An unreliable narrator is a character or voice that's firmly a part of the fiction piece they take part in. A good example of us using unreliable narrators is when we present creation myths—in order to keep them feeling as "myths" and less as "history" we present things like the Windsong Testaments as in-world legends told by unreliable narrators. In this specific case, an unreliable narrator would be Koriah Azmeren in her writing of volume 44 of the in-world Pathfinder Chronicles.
A retcon is a change to a work of fiction outside of the context of that world; it is not something that arises from in-world lore or content, but is more like errata for lore put in place to correct an error in the text or to adjust the text for any number of other reasons as the result of changes to the publishing world in which the product is being created. In this specific case, a retcon is us removing drow from our setting as a direct result of no longer using the OGL and SRD, which is what allowed us to use D&D's content in Pathfinder.
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I will definitely miss the dark elves. It seems like they could've had villain versions of just about anything. Chaos elves, or corrupted elves. Chaos dwarves. Chaos/corrupted anything.
But, as PF2R is our game. And adventure paths is what my group plays, we'll deal.
Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.Gods, I hate this as the in-world explanation. And I really don't think Pathfinder benefits from unreliable narrators.
It's not an unreliable narrator, as the Grand High Dino explained. It is a retcon. Sibelius used a poor choice of words there.
I guess I should have said "if anything, Drow are only legendary".
I understand the need to remove Drow from the setting. I just hate retcons.
I do see an opportunity here. The Drow in Abomination Vaults could be rewritten as cavern elves, or perhaps better, sekmin, though that would make them much less likely to be friendly to the PCs. Here though is another reason to hate retcons -- Paizo probably won't do this, certainly won't do it for every instance where drow appear in the books, APs, scenarios, and adventures. They don't have the time or the people.
Anyway, thanks for the comments.
It's not an unreliable narrator, as the Grand High Dino explained. It is a retcon. Sibelius used a poor choice of words there.Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.Gods, I hate this as the in-world explanation. And I really don't think Pathfinder benefits from unreliable narrators.
Ack, my bad. I ended up conflating the explanation for the in-universe Pathfinder Chronicles with the larger drow question in the game as a whole. Indeed, the drow are just ret-gone--no in-universe necessary explanation because they were just never there. This works better than any amount of justification or explanation that could never have made it to print in any ORC product, or simply pretending their empire is still there off-camera any time we go below the surface.
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I never liked the idea of the deep underground being full of dangerous psionic monsters and evil elves.
I prefer my center of the earth to bull of barbarians in loincloths and bikinis riding dinosaurs and fighting ancient serpentine mystic cults.
So the idea that the barbarians in loincloths might be elvish works for me.
And even if the reason is legal; I am so glad to see the 'Curse of Ham' get tossed out of the game I prefer.
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It just seems weird to me to make a whole subgroup of a sentient species "evil" when for humans you have evil countries (Cheliax, Nidal, Geb) but there's no particular expectation that any random person from there is actually all that villainous.
Like if you want evil elves, you can make a city or a country of elves evil. You don't need "evil elves" to be a type of thing.
The Hyrngar kind of get an exception because everybody in your up-line and everybody in your down-line is part of the whole deal, but their MLM is an opt-in thing! Sure, the alternative might be death, but you could have picked it.
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Ack, my bad. I ended up conflating the explanation for the in-universe Pathfinder Chronicles with the larger drow question in the game as a whole. Indeed, the drow are just ret-gone--no in-universe necessary explanation because they were just never there. This works better than any amount of justification or explanation that could never have made it to print in any ORC product, or simply pretending their empire is still there off-camera any time we go below the surface.It's not an unreliable narrator, as the Grand High Dino explained. It is a retcon. Sibelius used a poor choice of words there.Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.Gods, I hate this as the in-world explanation. And I really don't think Pathfinder benefits from unreliable narrators.
James Jacobs literally used Koriah Azmeren, the one who reported on the (now-retconned) existence of Drow, as an example of an unreliable narrator.
She misled both the in-world residents, but also the irl audience.This is a case of "things can be two things". Drow were retconned out of existence. Part of the in-lore explanation for this happening is the use of an unreliable narrator as the original font of knowledge about the Drow.
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I prefer my center of the earth to bull of barbarians in loincloths and bikinis riding dinosaurs and fighting ancient serpentine mystic cults.
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Annoying typos and timer based editing...FULL of barbarians not BULL... :)
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The sekmin are more original to pathfinder and much more "other" as an adversarial subterranean threat. Can't say I'll miss the dnd race that every 5th or 6th player wanted to use as their beautiful, counter-drow-cultured, dritz knock-off, edgelord.
Ack, my bad. I ended up conflating the explanation for the in-universe Pathfinder Chronicles with the larger drow question in the game as a whole. Indeed, the drow are just ret-gone--no in-universe necessary explanation because they were just never there. This works better than any amount of justification or explanation that could never have made it to print in any ORC product, or simply pretending their empire is still there off-camera any time we go below the surface.It's not an unreliable narrator, as the Grand High Dino explained. It is a retcon. Sibelius used a poor choice of words there.Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.Gods, I hate this as the in-world explanation. And I really don't think Pathfinder benefits from unreliable narrators.James Jacobs literally used Koriah Azmeren, the one who reported on the (now-retconned) existence of Drow, as an example of an unreliable narrator.
She misled both the in-world residents, but also the irl audience.This is a case of "things can be two things". Drow were retconned out of existence. Part of the in-lore explanation for this happening is the use of an unreliable narrator as the original font of knowledge about the Drow.
There is no in-lore explanation for this. Read James's last paragraph closer:
A retcon is a change to a work of fiction outside of the context of that world; it is not something that arises from in-world lore or content, but is more like errata for lore put in place to correct an error in the text or to adjust the text for any number of other reasons as the result of changes to the publishing world in which the product is being created. In this specific case, a retcon is us removing drow from our setting as a direct result of no longer using the OGL and SRD, which is what allowed us to use D&D's content in Pathfinder.
This isn't two things. This WAS one thing, and now will be the other thing and we are pretending the first thing never happened.
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I guess I should have said "if anything, Drow are only legendary".
No, you shouldn't say that either because it is misleading people. There is no "if anything." Drow are not going to be acknowledged as ever having existed or possibly existed in setting anymore. The word "drow" will no longer exist on Golarion. Let me say it louder:
The word drow will not exist on Golarion in any ORC published Paizo material.
You can come up with alternate solutions for your own games. You can even just keep drow. But dont write anything implying Paizo is following rhe canon of your own table, because it confuses people like Ectar and gets them riled up over something that isnt happening.
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The confusing bit is that drow absolutely exist in PF2 material and will continue to do so in that older material, because things like abomination vaults and drow in PFS or setting books are not likely going to be Errata’d or changed because those books would have to change a lot to jump from OGL to Exclusively ORC material, for no reason except to try to errata the drow situation. Abomination Vaults is an OGL book set in an OGL Golarion where Drow exist and have always existed. it is OGL Golarion that is experiencing the “stories of Drow in the darklands have been greatly exaggerated” because Skyking’s tomb is still OGL and Drow could still be written about there. But ORC Golarion has never had Drow and never will even have anything like innately evil dark elves that live underground and worship demons. Currently both Golarion’s exist and will continue to exist for many people’s play experiences with Golarion. I doubt the video game adaptation of abomination vaults is going to have to use ORC listening now that it has become more clear that the OGL really can’t be revoked. 3rd parties can continue to publish Golarion material with OGL Drow as long as they want. It is the future of Paizo products that is experiencing the retcon. That is a confusing place for many players, but it doesn’t really matter. For players at their own tables they can just use whatever they want. There just won’t be new stories with them and there could be potential conflicts with future books overwriting past locations and adventures, but for that to matter at your table, you’d have to be using old and new material together in the same game. You can either make that work, or choose to just use one or the other as you like.
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I am not sure how well a "friendly element" might work within the setting.All lore aside, having no opportunities for respite and friendly dialogue throughout the Darklands would make it an absolutely trash-tier place to set a campaign. Since you need such a thing to tell good stories in there, you may as well use Cavern elves as one of the options.
Even the D&D version Underdark has pockets of respite. It's not all Drow, Mindflayers, and Hook Horrors, there are normal communities living in the depths. Regular dwarves, deep gnomes, myconid colonies, harper hideouts, etc.. A party that looks hard enough could find friends in low places.
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You're right that drow will never be mentioned again in formal publication. They literally can't for the sake of Paizo's future.
But game developers have come out and stated outside of publicized works, as one possible explanation among others, that drow were simply rumors started by unreliable reporters.
There's nothing misleading. There's just you calling people out as wrong for simply following along with the explanation that they've been told by game officials.
Please stop it.
You're right that drow will never be mentioned again in formal publication. They literally can't for the sake of Paizo's future.
But game developers have come out and stated outside of publicized works, as one possible explanation among others, that drow were simply rumors started by unreliable reporters.
There's nothing misleading. There's just you calling people out as wrong for simply following along with the explanation that they've been told by game officials.
Please stop it.
OK, can you link me to a source? If so, I'll retract my comments. Because right now, in this thread, we have the creative director saying that 2013 was an unreliable narrator and 2024 was a retcon, in response to a request to clarify the difference between the two. That's a pretty unambiguous answer.
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It's been a while so I'll need to do some digging; I'll post a direct quote and link if I am able to find it again.
Also, you and I apparently interpret James' comments VERY differently. I consider James' own post in this thread as evidence of unreliable narrators existing in the setting (even if they can never be mentioned ever again in official sources). He even cites a previously published in-world character that was purported to have spread misinformation about the existence of drow.
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No need to search more; I found the twitch stream where James mentions it. Check out the 20 minute mark.
https://m.twitch.tv/videos/1831877743
Aaaaand I was wrong. His statement there makes it much clearer that they do have an in-world unreliable narrator thing, though that article doesn't sound likeit tmentions drow specifically. Sorry gang. I'll say it louder for the people at the back.
CAPTAIN MORGAN WAS WRONG.
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CAPTAIN MORGAN WAS WRONG.
*Covers ears*
No need to shout. I think you will find that most Paizonian forum posters are pretty magnanimous. Besides, the people in back are always sleeping anyways. If you wake them and they start to crawl out of the woodwork, well, then you'll have some real ornery folks to deal with! Thankfully, we only really have to deal with them on holidays, when the Paizo staff are away.
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The trickiness of the situation is that OGL Golarion did not end with the announcement of the remastery, and in fact is still getting developed in the AP line through the sand point AP. ORC Golarion is already in existence through some product lines, but not others, so there is an overlap of the two universes where some of the changes have had ground work laid, but once it really kicks over, nothing more can be said about it.
It is important to remember that there are thousands, maybe even millions of Golarions in our world. The legal ones are not that important for players to understand in full
The confusing bit is that drow absolutely exist in PF2 material and will continue to do so in that older material, because things like abomination vaults and drow in PFS or setting books are not likely going to be Errata’d or changed because those books would have to change a lot to jump from OGL to Exclusively ORC material, for no reason except to try to errata the drow situation.
I think it's mostly that officially published material has never reflected the reality of specific people's campaigns. So it's not really different than "I was able to build a character in PF1 who could do a thing that is impossible in PF2" IMO. Or "the canon outcome of this AP is different from the outcome we got".
So it's not really a bigger deal for Paizo to ignore Drow that were in stories any random reader of their new book might not have played, than to ignore how "people used to be able to make a lot more attacks."
Specific campaigns and characters that aren't reflected by Paizo materials to the liking of a given group of players simply can be altered by that group to better reflect their version of things. Like if your Wrath of the Righteous campaign killed Baphomet for good, then you simply replace him with a different Demon Lord if it comes up.
The trickiness of the situation is that OGL Golarion did not end with the announcement of the remastery, and in fact is still getting developed in the AP line through the sand point AP. ORC Golarion is already in existence through some product lines, but not others, so there is an overlap of the two universes where some of the changes have had ground work laid, but once it really kicks over, nothing more can be said about it.
It is important to remember that there are thousands, maybe even millions of Golarions in our world. The legal ones are not that important for players to understand in full
Interesting point. I haven't found the Koriah Azmeren mention from Sky King's Tomb yet, but given that adventure was published under OGL they can at least indirectly reference the drow article, which I assume they would not be able to do in ORC adventures.