Envisioning the Drow

 

"Drow" by Stefano Azzalin (resized) used with permission

 

In the beginning, the face of the enemy was unknown, and the malice of the enemy unimaginable. The hidden depths came alive with fearful possibilities - shadowy figures that made no sound, strange weapons that could strike men down in an instant, and foul magic the likes of which had not been seen before. And the stuff of nightmares became reality for the surface-dwellers who faced the Drow in the darkness. Whether they won, lost, or fled, no lover of light would ever be able to forget such an enemy.

The Drow have come a long way since their entrance in the first edition D&D Monster Manual and the modules that followed after, and it is unlikely that gamers will forget them any day soon. For years they were shaped into exotic, terrifying enemies bad enough to make any player squirm, with their own insane goddess, language, customs, and cities. And then, somehow, they became the heroes of popular books, namely R.A. Salvatore's series about Drizzt Do'Urden and Elaine Cunningham's works about Liriel Baenre. Little by little the mystery of the Drow was unwound, until the Drow race was made a player character race in third edition D&D. Since then, there has been an explosion of materials about these excellent antagonists, blowing apart whatever mystery might have remained and in some cases reducing the Drow to one-sided villains.

Yet the Drow will always possess some powerful element of the unknown, so long as they represent the darkest, most vile, and most alluring impulses of the psyche. And they will always reveal a multitude of facets to those who handle them with care and allow those facets to show through. It is with great care that I present my vision of them now.