Drow society... posted for Nate
Ooh... common misconception.
Drow actually live in a state of what is termed "structured chaos". Yes, they kill eachother, but within the bounds of their own society's unique mores.
The dark elf society is VERY rigidly structured. In breif, you have basically 5 classes of drow (though some rank higher or lower within their own classes)...
At the lowest end of the rung, you have most of the men. Men are basically little more than warriors and breeding stock in drow society, it's very, very female-dominated. A man's life is expendable, all men are property of some woman or another (their matron).
The next highest level is magic-using males. They are revered slightly above their normal peers, HOWEVER the most powerful male mage is still considered lower class than the weakest drow female.
Third level is low-level females; peasant-ranking women. They have no families, usually, or are outcasts for one reason or another, but basically these are women who don't fall under any matron in particular.
Fourth level is women of rank: the daughters, cousins, etc of a matron.
The highest level (discounting, of course, the High Queen and Goddess Lloth (humans spell it Lolth) and her preistesses, which are above any pasing lip service to the "law") is the matron, who have their own system of rank (high matron, second matron, etc).
There is a clear order of succession, this daughter will succeed this matron, if this family falls from grace, this family moves up a rank, etc. No one can ever be higher than the great Lloth, but that doesn't stop them from trying to get as high up as they can.
This, combined with the drow disdain for life and general lack of compassion, leads to a climate of assassinations and other such and sundry. It's not uncommon to find a matron (or her lover, if you just wish to send a message) found with their throat slit, poisoned, flayed alive, skinned alive (that's a favorite), etc. Murder is TECHNICALLY illegal, sort of... meaning, it's not in your best interest to kill someone in broad sight of everyone else, but there's no investigation if someone wakes up dead one morning.
Beyond that, drow are encouraged to show disdain for life, and even to make sport of it: for example, torture is considered an art form, and any woman can have a man (provided he doesn't already belong to someone higher-ranking that her) either in her bed or skinned alive, whichever gives her more pleasure (sometimes, both.. if he's not a good enough lover, he can be.. punished... for not pleasing his mistress). Dark elf males frequently will flush out "lesser life forms", such as gnomes, dwarves, halflings, anything that they happen to run across either underground OR in brief raids to the surface, and slowly kill them all one by one. It's a badge of honor to be the coldest and most callous.
They are also a very, very prideful race, believing every other race to be beneath them. They hate wood elves more than any other race, due to their banishment to the Underdark, however, they refer to humans in a variety of colorful terms ("cattle" is my particular favorite, showing how they disdain humankind and feel they are no better than animals), and will, as stated earlier, make sport of hunting other creatures. In fact, the only other race that, in their linguistic structure, they even term in the same phylum as themselves are the wood elves, who have a name that is similar, in the drow tongue, to their own... all the other translations/linguistics of the names they have for ALL OTHER SPECIES, from halfling to human to orc to goblin to dwarf, are all on the same linguistic level as their names for various animals.
The drow life is one that is based on veiled hostility, trickery, sneakiness, passive-aggression, and fear. The biggest punishment that can be meted out to a dark elf is to be "tested" by Lloth and found wanting (Lloth's preistesses, even above the matrons, can demand anyone be tested, so most watch their step and tongue around these women); he or she is turned into a drider, a hideous half-drow, half-spider monster. Since drow, like their surface kindred, are very beautiful and take pride in their appearance (think, Legolas with white or silver hair and coal black skin), this monstrousity is a demeaning and very psychologically damaging punishment. To make matters worse, they hunger for the blood of their kin (or really, anything that crosses their path); AND they can't bear to be too far from other drow. So they wander the passageways of the Underdark, never straying too far from the settlements and cities, but always shunned by their own kind. (Sucks to be them.)
Another point is that NO drow male or female weilds a weapon or wears armor that is less than Masterwork. Usually Masterwork Keen. With magical properties, however, the magical properties rely on the darkness and if the weapon is on the surface too long it will lose them. This is another source of drow pride, because they simply find it beneath them to use "normal" weapons. Drow armor also tends to be very strong, but lightweight and silent. Yes, the better to sneak up on you and slit your throat with.
Yes, they are sneak-theives and assassins, magic-users and very, very skilled with weapons. I would go into the different styles of martial arts that they can practice (my personal favorite is a version called Kyorlin Plynn, which means "Watch and take"... it's a fun little style where basically you dance around an opponent, first disarming, then striking to humiliate by tripping/drawing blood from non-critical areas/etc rather than killing outright... mostly to torture an opponent during the fight; and possibly keeping them alive for torture/interrogation afterwards. Tends to be favored by Lloth's preistesses...), but I'm sure I've rambled enough. ^^;;;
Within the very rigid structure, there is a grand sense of chaos, but it's very regulated chaos. The drow are oxymoronic and ambiguious by their very nature.
I hope that shed some light on the society of the Drow. They're not chaotic, persay. I would probably name the society as a whole neutral evil, since it very effectively balances chaos and order... an individual drow would pick his or her own personal alignment. For example, you have Drizzt Do'Urden, who shunned the drow society all together... he's probably a neutral good. But he's a rarity as far as the dark elves go.
And that's all she wrote!
Drow actually live in a state of what is termed "structured chaos". Yes, they kill eachother, but within the bounds of their own society's unique mores.
The dark elf society is VERY rigidly structured. In breif, you have basically 5 classes of drow (though some rank higher or lower within their own classes)...
At the lowest end of the rung, you have most of the men. Men are basically little more than warriors and breeding stock in drow society, it's very, very female-dominated. A man's life is expendable, all men are property of some woman or another (their matron).
The next highest level is magic-using males. They are revered slightly above their normal peers, HOWEVER the most powerful male mage is still considered lower class than the weakest drow female.
Third level is low-level females; peasant-ranking women. They have no families, usually, or are outcasts for one reason or another, but basically these are women who don't fall under any matron in particular.
Fourth level is women of rank: the daughters, cousins, etc of a matron.
The highest level (discounting, of course, the High Queen and Goddess Lloth (humans spell it Lolth) and her preistesses, which are above any pasing lip service to the "law") is the matron, who have their own system of rank (high matron, second matron, etc).
There is a clear order of succession, this daughter will succeed this matron, if this family falls from grace, this family moves up a rank, etc. No one can ever be higher than the great Lloth, but that doesn't stop them from trying to get as high up as they can.
This, combined with the drow disdain for life and general lack of compassion, leads to a climate of assassinations and other such and sundry. It's not uncommon to find a matron (or her lover, if you just wish to send a message) found with their throat slit, poisoned, flayed alive, skinned alive (that's a favorite), etc. Murder is TECHNICALLY illegal, sort of... meaning, it's not in your best interest to kill someone in broad sight of everyone else, but there's no investigation if someone wakes up dead one morning.
Beyond that, drow are encouraged to show disdain for life, and even to make sport of it: for example, torture is considered an art form, and any woman can have a man (provided he doesn't already belong to someone higher-ranking that her) either in her bed or skinned alive, whichever gives her more pleasure (sometimes, both.. if he's not a good enough lover, he can be.. punished... for not pleasing his mistress). Dark elf males frequently will flush out "lesser life forms", such as gnomes, dwarves, halflings, anything that they happen to run across either underground OR in brief raids to the surface, and slowly kill them all one by one. It's a badge of honor to be the coldest and most callous.
They are also a very, very prideful race, believing every other race to be beneath them. They hate wood elves more than any other race, due to their banishment to the Underdark, however, they refer to humans in a variety of colorful terms ("cattle" is my particular favorite, showing how they disdain humankind and feel they are no better than animals), and will, as stated earlier, make sport of hunting other creatures. In fact, the only other race that, in their linguistic structure, they even term in the same phylum as themselves are the wood elves, who have a name that is similar, in the drow tongue, to their own... all the other translations/linguistics of the names they have for ALL OTHER SPECIES, from halfling to human to orc to goblin to dwarf, are all on the same linguistic level as their names for various animals.
The drow life is one that is based on veiled hostility, trickery, sneakiness, passive-aggression, and fear. The biggest punishment that can be meted out to a dark elf is to be "tested" by Lloth and found wanting (Lloth's preistesses, even above the matrons, can demand anyone be tested, so most watch their step and tongue around these women); he or she is turned into a drider, a hideous half-drow, half-spider monster. Since drow, like their surface kindred, are very beautiful and take pride in their appearance (think, Legolas with white or silver hair and coal black skin), this monstrousity is a demeaning and very psychologically damaging punishment. To make matters worse, they hunger for the blood of their kin (or really, anything that crosses their path); AND they can't bear to be too far from other drow. So they wander the passageways of the Underdark, never straying too far from the settlements and cities, but always shunned by their own kind. (Sucks to be them.)
Another point is that NO drow male or female weilds a weapon or wears armor that is less than Masterwork. Usually Masterwork Keen. With magical properties, however, the magical properties rely on the darkness and if the weapon is on the surface too long it will lose them. This is another source of drow pride, because they simply find it beneath them to use "normal" weapons. Drow armor also tends to be very strong, but lightweight and silent. Yes, the better to sneak up on you and slit your throat with.
Yes, they are sneak-theives and assassins, magic-users and very, very skilled with weapons. I would go into the different styles of martial arts that they can practice (my personal favorite is a version called Kyorlin Plynn, which means "Watch and take"... it's a fun little style where basically you dance around an opponent, first disarming, then striking to humiliate by tripping/drawing blood from non-critical areas/etc rather than killing outright... mostly to torture an opponent during the fight; and possibly keeping them alive for torture/interrogation afterwards. Tends to be favored by Lloth's preistesses...), but I'm sure I've rambled enough. ^^;;;
Within the very rigid structure, there is a grand sense of chaos, but it's very regulated chaos. The drow are oxymoronic and ambiguious by their very nature.
I hope that shed some light on the society of the Drow. They're not chaotic, persay. I would probably name the society as a whole neutral evil, since it very effectively balances chaos and order... an individual drow would pick his or her own personal alignment. For example, you have Drizzt Do'Urden, who shunned the drow society all together... he's probably a neutral good. But he's a rarity as far as the dark elves go.
And that's all she wrote!