Rehabbing the Drow: The Dalamar Paradigm

The plan here at On Beyond Drow is to present new subraces, tribes, and so forth on a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. As the mood strikes me, I’ll also drop in commentary on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and/or over the weekend.

Having spent a vast tract of real estate in the Comments section of my first post dissing the drow—not for themselves, mind you, but for their unfortunate and inevitable overexposure—it is only fair that I suggest some ways to rebuild and refresh them.

One way is to focus on the literal curse of their heritage. In the Dragonlance setting, there were no drow. There were, however, dark elves such as Dalamar, cast out by their people for grave crimes.

Dalamar’s shame was a social and psychological one, but imagine if such an exile came with a physical transformation as well. Exiled elves in your campaign might have a grievous curse laid on them, their skin darkening and hair bleaching, so that their infamy would be visible for all to see. Their eyes would become weak, forcing them to hide from the live-giving sun. However, these elves would likely not have the typical drow’s affinity for spiders or innate magical powers of the drow (unless some evil power intervened to mock and reward them for their fall).

Because their existence would be the result of a curse rather than race, these drow might vary wildly different in temperament. Some might embrace the dark, consorting with demons and monsters (such liaisons may have been what earned them their exile in the first place). Others might quest for atonement. A drow paladin would make a particularly compelling PC in such a setting, and an entire campaign arc might revolve around his attempts to wash away the sin from his ebony skin.

This scenario also demands that the genesis of driders be reconsidered. In this cosmology, driders might not exist, or they might be a example of a further degradation—the ultimate price for drow who fail to redeem themselves.