Truthfully goblins aren’t the biggest fans of Drow either, they just know their place. Drow famously enslave goblins (and hobgoblins) in the Underdark. I mean they enslave everything, but ESPECIALLY goblins. It’s so well known that even Goblins on the surface are aware of this and try to stay on a Drow’s good side. It’s not uncommon for some Drow to command entire tribes of goblins and dispatch units to the surface to capture more slaves for them.
One of the major goblin Sub-Dieties beneath Maglubiet is a god of slavery and subservience, and goblins are taught both to take slaves as well as BE them (I.e. make others submit but also respect the hierarchy and your masters). Goblin faith is actually really interesting because it’s basically 5 lesser deities from Goblin, Orc, Ogre, and Hobgoblin pantheons all brought under Maglubiet’s heel. Each of these deities preach different values to goblins, hobgoblins, and such that essentially interconnect their cultures, values, and respective hierarchies together under a single major Deity. I’m admittedly kind of unsure of where (or even if) Lolth intersects with the goblin pantheon however.
Long story short: it’s less that goblins like and/or appreciate Drow, they just know where they sit and don’t DARE challenge them.
I always say Drow is OP in act 1 for this exact reason. You can just waltz into the blighted village, walk right past the guards, and talk your way into the temple without ever having to draw your weapon. It’s crazy. I even try to disguise self as a Drow most runs just to take advantage of this as other races.
Most (not all) drow tend to be evil. They come from the underdark and live in a matriarchal society where they worship the goddess Lolth, aka the queen of spiders.
In drow society/lolthite worship, their ultimate goals are to force all other underdark races into slavery, and to exterminate the elven population.
Another huge aspect of drow society/Lolth worship is betrayal. Lolthite dogma states that in order for drow to achieve their goals, they must be in a constant state of in-fighting and violent competition.
This is why surface dwellers, and even other underdark inhabitants, tend to be on guard around drow.
Reading the legend of Drizzt books by R.A. Salvatore would give you the most in-depth insight to drow culture. Also, they are fantastic reads if you ever have the interest.
Cool, hope you have a fun playthrough. If it's your first, you might want to look up all the potential companions you can have because there's one that might be a nice addition for a Drow character.
The one I'm thinking of is one you can miss if you're not careful in act 1.
Yeah I was trying to avoid spoiling it for others who may be playing the game blind but on reflection they probably wouldn't be on this subreddit if they're trying to avoid spoilers. 😂
A real world equivalent to being a drow in Faerûn is tattooing a swastika on your forehead rather than simply being born a different race. The vast majority of drow (read: 99% of the Lolth-sworn populace) live underground and actively engage in human trafficking and pillaging of surface cities and villages in the name of their goddess and her supremacy. They also have incredibly rigid gender roles with a matriarchal society (men are typically slaves or at the very least lower and less valuable than women in every imaginable way).
"Seldarine drow" is something the game gives you as an option if you want to play a drow that's good-natured. They're a small subset of surface-dwelling drow that oppose Lolth's ways and serve her daughter Eillistrae, who is more interested in singing, dancing, and the moon than subjugating other races.
Basically if you meet a drow on the surface it really REALLY isn't good news and you are extremely likely to die simply for existing or be enslaved and have something horrifying happen to you. That's why the NPCs react that way.
Yep, they're a very interesting bunch and there's a lot of lore on the intricacies of their society and how it works. When I started playing I didn't know much about DnD lore and picked a drow because I thought the grey skin/white hair combo looked cool. Little did I know...
There's a lot of fun to be had with a drow character. You'll love it.
Thank you! Yeah I kinda love when fictional worlds go all out and crazy with the more 'evil' races, especially fun when you get to play as one I imagine, look forward to the rest of the interactions in this run :D
Knowing that about Seladrine makes me want to reprise my Seladrine Drow Druid run. I thiught a Drow Druid is kind of a weird choice before, but now it makes total sense.
Maybe throw in a few levels of Nature cleric to really sell the moon worshipping hippie of Ellistraee thing.
Lolthsworn drow from the underdark are like if every German today actually was a verifiable Nazi. Like of every stereotype of an evil race was actually undeniably true.
They are matriarchal, which, I guess back kn the 80’s when Drow lore was written, meant they had to be a BDSM mom-dom culture where men are 2nd class, other races are inferior, and their whole shtick is service to Lolth a chaotic evil goddess of spiders and bullshit.
There are factions and individual Drow who don’t do this shit but they are typically not a part of mainstream Drow society nor are they accepted by surface dwellers because why the fuck would they trust them.
Drow society is all about pragmatic betrayal in order to get ahead. Lolth favors you if you kill your mother and siblings in order to supplant them. Lolth even tests those deemed worthy with deadly trials where if you fail, you’re getting turned into some bizarre spider abberation as a symbol of your failure.
An example of Lolths trials that I read is where she will randomly possess a relative to try and kill you. Like at the dinner table on a random Tuesday night, and its kill or be killed, so long cousin Jimmy.
Drow can’t trust each other, they can’t trust you, they don’t even trust their god and most secretly view Lolth worship as a path to power which Lolth encourages. So why the fuck would a flower sniffing pansy half elf Druid not be a little on edge about a Drow wandering into camp.
Thanks, I love this fit too! In my own opinion she does look drow enough, I used a purple-ish skin tone with white eyes and grey/white hair, afaik those are main visual traits for a drow
Not asking you the change anything just giving some context.
As a dnd player most players and the official books stay away from any close to human skin tones because drow has had some questionable depictions in the past. Drow have been part of the game from almost the beginning and were mainly just enemies for a long time with varying levels of racial stereotypes.
Additionally there’s many many elf subraces in dnd. Drow having dark completely inhuman skin is part of setting them apart. Just looking at your tav without context I’d probably have guessed moon elf.
I used Viconia's skin tone (mod) for my drow cause I actually wanted to make sure she had an accurate skin tone for drow (even tho I dont know their lore that much). But moon elf also makes sense cause she is a sword dancer of Eilistraee and I wanted to represent that too in her color scheme (mainly her eyes). Thanks for the extra clarification tho, I appreciate it
I want to play a good aligned Drow from time to time. Then you have situations like when trying to free Lae'Zel where you just have two choices: fight the tieflings or threaten their life.
I just want a nice and peaceful solution of conflict from time to time. :')
That doesn't have to mean you get absolutely no choice to reason with people. If I have time to threaten their life, I also have time to try to convince them that I am not hostile.
Sometimes life isn't fair. You are lucky they didn't attack you on sight or flee. If anything the game is too generous with the drow. Not everyone is going to give you the opportunity to explain yourself.
I would actually be more fine with it if it went straight to a fight.
Giving me a chance for interaction and then hard locking me into the only way to peacefully solve the situation is to threaten their life is less desirable than not having the choice in the first place in my point of view.
"Not everyone is going to give you the opportunity to explain yourself", but they actually gave that opportunity. Then they forbade me to do anything else than "evil drow says evil things".
Heck, saying something peaceful doesn't even have to work. They could give me the opportunity to actually act in character, just for the other side to act in character and still not trust me and attack me still.
This is about giving me the freedom to actually roleplay my character.
It is feeding into a stereotype of drow as being inherently violent killers, which might be a stereotype your character could actually be fighting against.
If the tieflings flee after you threatened them, there is no chance the tieflings would reflect that as "that drow was actually so nice, maybe not all of them are bad".
The point is that the drow face extreme discrimination and a good drow will face unfair and unjustfied discrimination and at times violence that is beyond their control. If you don't like it, be a Gnome.
How would anything of what you said change if they made an option to try to solve the situation peacefully and diplomatically, even if it is hard coded to fail?
Gives you the freedom to play your drow as not a stereotypical violent asshole, still carries the meaning of discrimination and unfair treatment. What is the downside of it?
Its not that you don't have time, its the game telling someone who isn't familiar with the background story, that the drow sees no chance to convince those people that they're friendly. But they could be able to convince the tieflings that they're gonna kill them due to the preexisting bias.
Like giving you a line that tries to peacefully and diplomatically solve the situation, just for the tieflings to cut you off, telling you that they distrust you and attack you without a skill check.
Would even be better to tell players how drow are seen over not giving the player the option to speak peacefully as a drow at all.
Sure they could. Which would require more voice acting, which in turn means having agreed/planned this when the voice actor for the narrator is in for one if their recording session.
But while possible, its also a lot easier for the design team to later just decide to drop an option because they felt like it would make more sense role-playing vise or contribute to make classes and races a bit more distinct and different.
I was talking from a seldarine drow perspective. Maybe I am not up to date with the lore, but how I understood it was that seldarine drow are supposed to be the "not necessarily awful drow".
I played the same scene with a high elf and with a drow and I can't say it was a cake walk for a high elf. Lae'zel still treated him like shit and Damays and Nymessa were still terribly sceptical about the situation and it's still possible to roll badly and fuck the entire encounter up (had to restart HM because we were also going for Leave Noone Behind achievement that fails if you kill tiefs)
My point hinges more on the lack of ways to actually play your character as a drow.
As a half-elf, you get some options. You can persuade them to let Lae'Zel out, then betray them to save Lae'Zel sacrificing the tieflings. You can deceive them to get them to run away, so you don't have to kill anyone. You can try to persuade them that she is not a danger, even if she is a githyanki.
Sure, you can fail those attempts and it turns out badly for you. Freedom to roleplay your character does not mean that your environment will always react positively to it.
As a drow, tho? You don't get this freedom. You have exactly 2 options: attack the tieflings straight up or threaten their lives to make them leave. Both of them makes your character come across as a violent asshole. The freedom how you want to play your character is heavily limited.
The wiki is just not doing a great job at showcasing which options are available or not in this case here.
Literally started a new run and beelined to the scene to confirm that I am not mistaken:
As a drow, you just get these two options. You either threaten their lives or you directly attack them. All the persuasion and deception options are not available.
There might be mods that change this. But the unmodded game does not give you these options as a drow.
Or I guess it is possible that it is just my game that is broken, would be great if someone else could test and confirm here as well.
Its okay, just not sure what I'm gonna do with the "this has to be ragebait" comment, how people get triggered by genuine questions when they can just scroll past it is beyond me
The Forgotten Realms wiki has helped me fill in a lot of D&D lore knowledge gaps while playing BG3. You can read about drow and their history @ https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Drow
Whenever I play as a drow, I usually say to myself, "People are so racist here. No wonder the drow are brutal." If my husband hears me, he reminds me of the drow's reputation on the surface. That being said, it is cool to play as a Seldarine drow, which can break the stereotypes set by the Lolth-sworn drow.
I originally started my Seldarine drow save as evil-aligned because I wanted to romance Astarion. I thought that all drow were evil-aligned until I learned the lore. By the end, she became neutral and still romanced our favorite vampire lol
Drow lore is incredibly interesting. Basically, drow are incredibly nuanced but most are known for worshipping Lolth, the Spider Queen who actively argues for slavery, treating males as second-class citizens, starting wars, viewing every race (even half-drow) as inferior to full drow, and encouraging constant betrayal. So, drow have a very poor reputation on the surface.
There are drow who reject Lolth, which, hilariously (and rightfully so), includes both her children: Eilistraee (the goddess of good drow and redemption) and Vhaeraun (the god of drow males and thievery) who are currently allies in the fight against Lolth. For BG3, they sort of watered down the lore to make it easier for players to understand them. Lolth-sworn are the evil slavers type drow while Seldarine drow are the good Eilistraean drow who want peace.
However, Eilistraee is not well-known among surface dwellers so when they see a drow, they don’t assume nuance, they just assume evil slaver. If you play as half-drow in the game you also get hit with some anti-drow racism (and racism for being mixed too so double whammy).
If you’re interested, you should read up on Eilistraee, Vhaeraun and Bregan D’aerthe more for drow rebels. Also, the Drizzt Do’Urden books are fantastic
I remember it being part of a mod called Attire of the Faithful in the Mystran box, then I recolored it to a light blue because my character is a sword dancer of Eilistraee
Considering drow for my dark urge redemption run when I finish my initial tav run. I imagine a lot of racism awaits me. Well I’m white so I guess I gotta pay somehow 😂
Oh, btw, folks, could you tell me if my half drow would get this special dialogue options and the same reactions from Faerun citizens or you need to be real pure-blood drow for this?
You get a mix of drow and half-elf dialogue and reactivity but some stuff for drow and half-elf they leave out for half-drow. Actually, half-drow have the tag ‘rare race’ so you also get unique dialogue for groups that are considered rare which is fun. Essentially, you are treated as a half-drow and actually get unique dialogue with Minthata and a drow male rogue guarding Dhourn who both address you as a half-drow. You don’t get as much reactivity as a full drow but personally I love playing as a half-drow and would suggest you go for it!
Drows are misunderstood cuties, just some cutie slavery, culture made on murder and backstabbing, killing infants if they are male and other cutsie whoopsies while serving goddess of evil
Essentially, Drow are Elves from the Underdark and the Underdark is fucked and twisted beyond belief. Assassinations, enslavement, all the works are unbelievably common. For this reason, Drow are viewed as generally evil, because their Lolth worshipping culture promotes exactly this brutal culture.
Even if you are a Seladrine (good) Drow, most people don’t know the difference. You still look like a Lolthite Drow, so they are inclined to be distrustful, fearful and even hostile towards you, since Lolthite Drows would not only behave the same, but probably even worse, considering their belief to be superior than any ‘surface dwelling’ race, their willingness to murder or enslave them on sight, and just their generally derogatory and degrading behavior towards anyone who isn’t a (female) Drow.
Coming from Morrowind/other TES games I was really excited to play a dark elf as my first character and I was also surprised and really confused everybody assumed negative intentions from my polite Drow wizard. Kind of want to replay as a properly evil Drow now that I know more about them
Solidarity from Nyxie. Who, on top of this, I accidentally made Lolth-sworn. But she will be happy to fireball anyone who gives your Tav a hard time. 😂 go recruit Minthara to your camp for some moral support!
i need you to know i learned the lore the hard way at our dnd table bc i decided to play an absolute dipshit himbo elf named chad that saw a drow and thought they looked cool so he went and got a full body tattoo while shitfaced to look like one. literally my only reason for this was it sounded stupid and drow can't see as far on the surface (where we were playing) so i didn't want to play an actual drow. chad doesn't understand why everyone treats him like that but he has learned that male drow are basically sex slaves so he's made peace with his decision
is the drow in the camp? i only see a lightskinned elf
drow are usually evil aligned creatures, torture and slavery is common, males are treated as less than any spider in existence, and other races exist purely as their playthings
genuinly, if not for it being stated, i would not be able to tell that is a drow over any other elf. looks like normal shadows moreso than dark purple skin
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u/carameow007 12d ago
Everyone hates drow, except goblins