Rehabbing the Drow: Eliminating the Spider Queen

As we mentioned in our previous installment of “Rehabbing the Drow,” drow identity is very bound up in the worship of Lolth. Remove her and the picture changes dramatically. Perhaps they all become good...or perhaps they simply become a different shade of evil.

Such was the promise when Eberron was released. Finally, we were told, drow who don’t worship the Spider Queen! What a notion! What possibilities! So who do they worship?

…A scorpion god.

*Sigh*

Actually I'm kidding. I like the drow of Eberron and Vulkoor a lot. Ordinarily, yes, I’d savage the concept as unoriginal—we've just switched genders and arthropods. But it’s actually perfect for the Eberron mission—make the familiar different, but close enough to the original so it’s still D&D. Drow are still into bugs, just not spiders; they’re still mostly evil, but not single-mindedly so; they’re still tough, but as fierce barbarians and sorcerers instead of as assassins and wizards.

(Yes, it’s a wee bit problematic to a have a dark-skinned subrace living in savagery south of paler cousins, but it works for the setting, so once again—see the essay tucked away in the Comments section of my first post—we’ll overlook any unintended and unfortunate real-world correlations.)

Plus, not every drow in Eberron is a scorpion-worshipper. The Umbragen dabble in the powers of Shadow (Dragon #330), and the Sulatar play with fire magic (Secrets of Xendrik). And having them regularly fighting giants make for outstanding imagery. All in all, the drow of Eberron are a nice tweak on the familiar…especially in a setting where most of the “regular” elves range from a touch too jingoistic to downright creepy.

(Props also to Keith Baker for giving giants their own continent and historical context—it revitalizes them like nothing else has since a few articles in Dragon #141 and the power boost they got in 2nd Edition. Well done!)