Rehabbing the Drow: It's All Good

If you want drow in your cosmology but are searching for a way to freshen them up, one option is to simply make them all good (or at least neutral). It’s amazing what that this one simple change can mean for their entire entry in the Monster Manual.

First of all, good drow naturally would not worship Lolth. They might worship the Seldarine, Eilistraee, deities from other pantheons, or entirely new patrons. Out from under a thumb of a bloodthirsty, chaotic deity, their society would be able to develop in ways vastly different from the Darwinian cities of Erelhei-Cinlu or Menzoberranzen.

Without Lolth, the drow affinity for spiders likely also disappears. If they retain that fondness, exploring why could be a fun challenge. Perhaps drow are renowned weavers, and years of harvesting spidersilk have built a bond between them and their eight-legged pets. Perhaps they live on cliffsides and canyons where spiders are the only reliable steeds. Or perhaps they have a strong druidic culture and prestige classes that focus on nature’s often forgotten or reviled children.

Meanwhile, drow skin color and light-blindness have been considered marks of their cursed status. If there never were any curse, is there a natural, environmental, or magical reason for these traits? Is it an adaptation to their cave habitats? And from whence do their magic resistance and spell-like abilities come? Or perhaps no explanation for black-skinned elves is necessary. Drow might even be the only(!) elves in your world.

Finally, we discussed previously, any change to drow as a race inevitably raises another question: what are the implications for driders?

It’s okay, of course, to simply get rid of them—if drow are good and not in thrall to the Spider Queen, driders are unnecessary. Alternately, drider status may be a curse (or a reward from Lolth or a similar entity) for the rare drow who do turn to evil. Disney’s The Little Mermaid actually provides this model—one only needs to look at Ursula’s octopus lower half to know that she’s the film’s villain. A good drow who falls from grace or accepts an evil power’s boon might become a drider in the process.

Tomorrow we’ll put these notions to work and create a good drow subrace—the silkworm drow.