The Zylarthen Drow

Actual Size

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post, showing what I came up with.

Most obviously, I call them "Dark Elves" not "Drow." If I thought I could do it without offending too many people, I would consider calling them "Black Elves" to make them slightly stranger sounding and to further distinguish them from the AD&D version.

It's mainly a simplified AD&D Drow--but in miniature, like the Seven Voyages of Zylarthen Gnome (which I have included for comparison). Their spells are Zylarthen Witch spells, which I thought would be appropriate:

GNOMES: Hit Dice: ½. Armor Class: 5. Move: 6/3. Alignment: 50% chance of Law, 50% chance of Neutrality. Languages: Type E. Number Appearing: 40-400. % In Lair: 60%. Treasure: Class 1. Description: Gnomes are barely over 1 foot in height and can move through solid earth (though not necessarily stone) as easily as men move through air. They will only be encountered far beneath “the sunlit lands” in deep dungeons or caverns. Missiles: die 1 = none, die 2-4 = spear, die 5 = sling, die 6 = bow.

DARK ELVES: Hit Dice: ½. Attacks: 1-6 - poisoned bolts - spells. Armor Class: 4. Move: 12. Alignment: Chaos. Languages: Type E. Number Appearing: 5-50. % In Lair: 0%. Treasure: Class 10, plus 5-30 G.P. and 50%: 2-12 gems ea. Description: Dark Elves are the counterparts to Gnomes but unfortunately are much more dangerous. Like Gnomes they are barely over one foot in height. Also like Gnomes, they will only be encountered far beneath “the sunlit lands.” Dark Elves do not have the ability to burrow through the earth, but they may move silently and near-invisibly so as to suddenly appear virtually anywhere (surprising on a 1-4). Due to their small size and use of enchanted weapons and armors, Dark Elves always have a +4 bonus to hit and impose a -4 penalty on those trying to hit them. They fight with a variety of weapons but most also carry a small crossbow that can be operated with one hand—the bolts being envenomed and causing sleep (save at -4). All Dark Elves may use these spells once per day: Clairvoyance, Dancing Lights, Darkness, 5’ Radius, Detect Lie, Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, Faerie Fire, Levitate and Suggestion. In addition, for every 10 Dark Elves, there will be a Diabolist. For every 20 Dark Elves there will be an Haruspex. And for every 50 Dark Elves there will be a Prince or Sorceress (each equivalent to a 12th level Wizard). Dark Elf Magic-Users use the same spell lists as Witches. All Dark Elves are 50% resistant to spells.

New Spells:

Dancing Lights: At a range of up to 100’ the caster may create either: a) 1-4 lights that look in the darkness like bobbing torches or lanterns, b) glowing or blinking “will-o-wisp” like spheres or c) a faintly glowing man-like shape. These shapes may move as desired within the range of the spell. Duration: 10 melee turns. 

Faerie Fire: This spell allows the caster to draw an outline of blue “Faerie Fire” around one or more objects or creatures. The Faerie Fire will be visible for 80’ in the dark and 40’ in bright light and may even make invisible creatures visible. An outline of to 60’ length may be drawn—equivalent to four man-sized creatures, spaced fairly closely together. Being outlined in such a way is not in and of itself harmful but it will give opponents a +2 bonus to hit. Duration: 20 melee turns, Range: 80’.

Top Ten Reasons Why I Hate Drow

Boring

One of my current projects is rewriting or reimagining most of the monsters in the Fiend Folio, in among other things a more minimalist OD&D or Seven Voyages of Zylarthen style. As I implied in a previous post, it was my four-year-old son who inspired me to give the Fiend Folio another look.. And if I ever publish the damn thing, it will be dedicated to him.

Zak S made a fine start on it here, which I intentionally stopped reading so as not to bias myself and unintentionally steal stuff. Also, of course, some of Zak's ideas aren't exactly kid friendly.

The project is fun but it's also annoying. There are a number of monsters I don't want to rewrite or reimagine--either because I think they are silly or pointless and I can't quickly think of an alternative, or because their descriptions are lengthy and complicated and I'm too lazy to adequately understand or parse them.

So I follow the same strategy I followed when I took the SATs. When I come to a monster that I don't want or know how to deal with, I skip over it, intending to come back later.

I've skipped over Drow three times.

On Saturday, I drew the line. I would deal with Drow once and for all. And so I spent most of the day thinking about what to do with them.

And in the process I realized I hated their guts.

Why?

Here are ten reasons.

I did eventually reimagine the Drow in a way that I found satisfactory, but this post will take me a much shorter time to write. I will never get back those three hours.

Ten Reasons Why I Hate Drow:

1. Ideally, all elves should be dangerous, mysterious and somewhat creepy. Creating a new category of elves that are almost defined as such, effectively means that elves in general (all the other elves) will not be dangerous, mysterious and somewhat creepy.
2. Drow did not appear in the three little brown books or the supplements. They were introduced in AD&D. For this OD&D curmudgeon, that makes then prima facie suspect.
3. Teenage girls like them. Or at least they're the sort of thing that I imagine teenage girls liking.
4. Some of the very worst "new school" art depicts Drow. Indeed, the "Drow vibe" almost defines new school art.
5. In 4e, everyone looked like Drow.
6. They're too complicated in terms of text length. No monster should have multi-page descriptions. If you cannot grasp a monster in a few minutes or a paragraph, it's too complicated.
7. They're too complicated in terms of...complexity. Drow are Fighter/Magic-Users and Fighter/Clerics. The males may progress to X level as a Fighter and possibly Z level as a Magic-User. The females may progress to Y level as a fighter and Z level as a Magic-User. Only females may be Clerics and they may only progress to X level, while still being Fighters who progress to Y level. But only on Wednesday. And only if you have a double Fizbin.
8. Drow encourage an annoying faux engagement with the occult.
9. Drow exemplify social ecology bloat par excellence. I don't know and I don't care about the rivalries and intrigue  between "House Focker" and "House Flying Focker."
10. Ed Greenwood called Drow "Gary Gygax's greatest, most influential fantasy creation."

I rest my case with 10.

Drow should all be enveloped, flumphed or tirapheged to death.

Or overwhelmed by hordes of Men & Magic Goblins, Kobolds or anyone else with two sentence descriptors.

Ooh, they're so dark!

No, actually. Just boring.


Blog post picture is by Helmuttt.