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TBeholder
Great Reader
2509 Posts |
 Posted - 16 Sep 2025 : 22:55:38
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
A nymph can blind or kill with its overwhelming beauty; I would not call that "conducive to rest", but I understand that the perfect forms of these creatures is what holds appeal.
By the drow standards this may be merely "not completely boring". 
Consider that in Sshamath the festhall which caters to drow males, particularly wizards, is named "The Spider's Kiss".
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quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
Why? They don't put it in the temples of Lolth or something.
Lolth brooks no indulgence in different (and potentially subversive) beliefs; art carries the power to affect belief. Furthermore, Lolth's influence is not confined within temple walls.
Perhaps her theocracy is more confident than what you are used to? 
quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
Funnily enough drow under WotC doubled-down on a more 'inherently evil' interpretation, with a particularly notorious Dragon Magazine article from Robin D. Laws having some genuinely horrific ideas in it.
That's not "under WotC doubled-down", as much as "there is no bad publicity content, so anything goes, even any hackety-hack with screwed up fetishes". IMHO.
Possibly, catering to some editors' fetishes at that. Considering what sort of sourcebooks Bruce Cordell used to write, yet in d20 era he somehow did not get to publish much beyond "some more hurr durr tentacles" (and disastrous collaboration on Complete Shrooms) until he quit. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
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Scots Dragon
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
114 Posts |
Posted - 17 Sep 2025 : 00:51:14
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quote:
I cannot speak to a lone magazine article (published when, by the way?), but, at least within the past decade, they have softened the Drow as a collective...and for reasons not wholly artistic.
Dragon Magazine #298, published in 2002.
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Regardless, Drow supremacy to the extent that it strictly forbids foreign iconography has been a part of the race since at least the late 1980s.
In Menzoberranzan, perhaps. But not all drow city-states operate the same way. Notably there are many city-states where Lolth's cultural dominance is not complete. Sshamath is a famous example. T'lindhet beneath Dambrath has an uneasy alliance with the surface Loviatar worshippers in order for their half-human offspring to serve as proxy rulers on the surface. Eryndlyn is a three-way ongoing conflict between Vhaeraunites, Lolthites, and Ghaunadaur worshippers.
And in Greyhawk, although Lolth reigns supreme, the cults of Erelhei-Cinlu have been infiltrated by influence from Tharizdun and Graz'zt.
The drow are not a monolith. I don't think we need to treat this as anything more than a group of earlier drow who happened to have some different cultural norms than those expressed by Menzoberranzan. |
Edited by - Scots Dragon on 17 Sep 2025 00:53:03 |
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Ruins of Undermountain II - Curious Drow decor
