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The fierce drow have haunted the history of the elves since time immemorial. Those surface-dwellers brave enough to venture into thedark realms underground always find an unfriendly reception from the hated dark elves. Few return to the lands of the sun and sky to sharetheir terrible tales of the perverted drow world. In the underworld, the drow are known as among the cruelest creatures in an already cruelland. They compete with the vile derro and corrupt duergar in an eternal struggle for dominance in a place where ferocity is the only optionfor survival. Their use of slaves and fondness of the fighting pits make them feared by all whom they would war against, and most defenderswould rather kill themselves than be taken alive by the drow. Even the great powers of the underworld respect the drow, and sometimes fearthem outright, for their sorcerous talents go unmatched by most other races.

This book offers a complete guide to including the feared drow in your campaign, whether as characters or monsters. Everything youneed to role-play drow in your campaign is included, from social structure and cultural habits to combat strategies and new character options.Players will find a wealth of new ways to field drow, and GMs will discover several new opportunities for encounters. The Complete Guideto Drow is world-neutral and stand-alone, so the information found within can be integrated easily in any campaign.

Introduction

Chapter One

Origins and PhysiologyThere are many conflicting stories as to the origins of the drow.

The elves of the surface tell one story, and the drow tell another.There are regional variations, and clerics of some deities proclaimone truth while other clerics speak differently. Regardless of thedetails, one thing is certain: all elves, including the drow, were onceone people. The wars that drove them apart were the beginning of aneons-old hatred.

The wars that ripped the elven nations asunder were known asthe Kindred Wars. During the years before these conflicts, a selectgroup of alpine elves grew in power. They began to sing their battlehymns to the darkest gods then known to the elves. They called them-selves the ben’docian, and they were tall, fierce, and proud. Theyclung to the cliffs and crags of their mountainside citadels, rainingterror and death down on the grey and high elves that assaulted them.The other elves called the ben’docians the drouin, or “dark elves.”

As the Kindred Wars progressed, and the drouin began to calleven darker powers from the depths of the chaotic Abyss, humans anddwarves allied with the other elves to exterminate this hated foe. Thedrouin fortresses were shattered by the combined strength of themighty human, dwarven, and elven armies that chased the mercilessdrow, as the humans called them, from the mountains.

As the years stretched into decades, the drow searched for aplace to call home. They split into three nations. One of these nationssettled in the tropical jungles, and another in the arid deserts. Theysoon fell back to the nomadic ways of their ancestors. They still hadthe six-foot height, purple eyes, and platinum blonde hair of the ben’-docian, but they exhibited changes as they conformed to their newenvironments.

The ben’docian of the jungle began to develop green skin. Theirears elongated, almost becoming double their original size. They dis-

covered that their attunement to arcane magic was beginning to shiftto a more nature-based aspect. They still called to the dark gods forguidance and support, but of these dark powers few answered them.Their strength increased, even as their numbers began to dwindlefrom constant attacks by dinosaurs, aranea, and other elves. Soon thelast of the true ben’docian elves died off, leaving a legacy of forgot-ten and deadly shrines to very fierce and evil gods in the most inhos-pitable jungles of the world.

The ben’docian that moved to the desert took the name of thedrouin, as remembrance of what their cousins had done to them. Asthey roamed the deserts, they darkened in coloration to deep carameland rich brown hues. They moved faster than they had before; gener-ations of running across the sandy dunes strengthened their legs andhardened their hearts. They became nomadic bandits, feared by allwho crossed their path. But their line did not end in bloodshed.Instead, they were bred out of existence by mixing too often with thehumans that called the desert home. This became the root of theBedouin tribes that inhabit the desert to this day.

It was the third group, which had retreated to the deep halls andcaverns under the surface of the earth, that came to be what we nowcall drow. This group was led by a few strong warrior-priestesses whohad escaped the genocide of their mountain fortresses. Under theiriron leadership and careful plotting, the drow came to settle the deep-est corridors of the underworld, where even the dwarves feared tomine.

After a few generations of hard work, and by the dark blessingsof the evil gods above, the drow forged a society based around theircollective hatred of their surface cousins. With this hatred and new-found devotion to their gods came physical changes. The first wasdarkened skin. As a drow grows older, her skin takes on an ashen

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sheen. This makes her appear to be a very dark grey when young, and almost solid black by adulthood.Glowing red eyes and a thick mane of stark white hair replaced the formerly platinum hair and blue to purple eyes. Their ben’docian

height was diminished to an average of 4 to 5 feet, with females being slightly taller. Their muscled bodies grew and corded from their crampedcavern homes. Their fingers grew long and evolved an additional joint to accommodate their silent hand language.

After the dust of eons settled, a new race walked the earth. From the ashes of war, chaos, and death came a race of horror and resilience.Welcome to the race known as the drow.

Chapter Two

Social StructureDrow society is organized into the basic unit of the house. Each

house is an extended family living alongside its slaves, hirelings, andmercenary soldiers. The houses are usually located in proximity toeach other, forming cities that can grow to great sizes when prosper-ous. The houses themselves are organized on matriarchal principles,and the ranking of the houses depends on religious and military sta-tus. Several layers of social status pervade each house, with the slavesand common drow warriors on the bottom; merchants and craftsmanin the middle; and the house nobility and clergy at the top.

The relative status of each house within the city is of paramountimportant to each and every drow, just as their own status within theirhouse is a constant obsession. Drow society is ultimately lawless andimmoral. As such, the opportunities available to each drow are con-tingent on the power they (and their house) can wield, and nothingmore. Conversely, the protection afforded to an individual is in directproportion to his power. A weak or dwindling house will see itsresources snapped up by competing houses – even stolen outright, ifthey are brazen enough. At that point the weaker house will surviveonly by growing in strength, or by forming alliances (at a disadvan-tageous negotiating position) with houses that can protect it.

Despite this general lawlessness, drow society is far less prone toanarchy than one would expect. The webs of power relationships thatconnect the houses ensure that no affront goes unavenged. It is“legal” for a drow to murder another drow, and the unstated law isthat the victor of such a struggle assumes the possessions and statusof the loser. But if the loser was in debt, the victor inherits that debt,too, simply by virtue of the fact that his debtors will demand paymentfrom he who robbed them of their payment source. And if thedeceased had powerful allies, the victor may be in danger. Drow rela-tionships are often furtive and unannounced, so no drow commits aviolent act without carefully investigating which behind-the-scenesplayers may be affected by his actions.

A similar lack of morals pervades the houses. The drow withineach house are related by blood or marriage, but such relationshipscount for little beyond keeping the violence in the family. Drow donot switch houses, ever. Doing so is a form of treason. Other houseswill take drow defectors only as slaves, and nothing better. As aresult, the drow within each family scheme endlessly to raise theirstatus. There is no “out” – there is nowhere to go, short of leaving

drow society entirely – so the only step toward improvement is toraise one’s status relative to others in the house. Doing so can involvea combination of ingratiating oneself to the ruling house mother,earning favor from a deity, weakening or even eliminating rivals out-right, or dirty tricks, such as secretly arranging for rivals to “disap-pear” when on mundane hunts.

Houses

Family is as important to the drow as it is to the dwarves and totheir surface elf cousins. The families of the drow are organized byhouses, each of which is ruled by the house matriarch. This house-mother is the center of the family’s religious and tactical life style.

Following the housemother in family power is the eldest daugh-ter-priestess. This eldest daughter will assume control over the fami-ly when the current matriarch dies (whether from old age or intrigue).Most often this intrigue is instigated by the eldest daughter seeking tosecure her place as the family’s new matriarch.

A house’s power is gauged not only by how many members itcan deploy in battle, but also by how many of its number are faithfulfollowers of the drow gods. If a house defeats another in the field ofbattle, the losing family normally surrenders its priestesses andpriests to the victor. Depending on their reputation, the deities theyworship, and the skill with which they fought, these clerics will beenslaved or offered low-level positions in the house. Enlarging itsranks of worshippers brings the winning family closer to the drowgods and further into their favor.

Of the other members of a drow family, wizards and fighters arealso highly prized. A favored wizard that performs well will often beallowed greater personal freedom to pursue his own dark goals.Fighters that exhibit a natural aptitude for defeating a family’s ene-mies and keeping the internal security of the family intact can even-tually earn the respect and favor of the females of the house.

Male drow are not expendable, but they are viewed as little bet-ter than slaves if they are of common stock. All families try to keepthe number of males to a minimum and view multiple male births tobe a sign of ill favor in the eyes of the drow gods.

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