Status and Titles among Eilistraee's followers

[silke_rahn]

Hello all,
As many know I rp Silke Rahn and her sisters and friends in the free-from RP pages. I also play them on The Forgotten Realm server for Neverwinter Nights-2. I am seeking to form up a community for the surface dwelling drow complete with a house of nobles. Yet it makes me wonder, would Eilistraee's followers mimic Drow society or do they create a new social stucture to live under? If they mimic do they use the old titles and replace some with new ones? If they create a new social stucture do they even have a series of social classes and such? Do they instead have a society similar to hippie communes and that is why players seem to refer to the followers of Eilistraee as Drow hippies? Also would Eilistraee followers have the attitudes for Rivvin (humans) and half-Drow that the Lolthites have?
Silke Rahn, Ursula Rahn, Sabine Rahn, Earade Rahn, Abdelyn Rahn, and Nedylene Rahn fka Nedylene Vrinn (daughter to Nedylene Vrinn)

[Shir'le E. Illios]

Well, most Eilistraeen communities that we know about (with the possible exception of the Promenade) tend to be fairly small, tight-knit groups. For such groups social structure tends to be fairly straight-forward I think; there might be one who is (unofficially perhaps) considered the leader but for the most part they’re all on the same level.

Now, I’m not sure how hippy communities are structured, but for Eilistraeen drow I’d imagine some extension of the above. I’d imagine that they’d encourage personal freedom and wouldn’t have strict ranks as such, but with members respecting certain others who have shown themselves capable as leaders or such. This ties in with how Qilué leads more by being a wiser big sister than by being an overbearing leader. And for the rest I’d imagine the community working together almost as through peer-pressure; people are encouraged in their individuality but at the same time things need to get done for the community too and those that cause problems for the community find their lives harder at least, and ousted in the worst case.

It helps, I think, that they’re all of similar mindset.

Of course, for a player community I think it might be a good idea to have a tad more structure to things as that tends to make it easier for people to understand and fall in line with. As per the designs I had for the Eilistraeen city there is a clear leader and there are clear roles (people who are guards and people who are priestesses, etc) even though I think an Eilistraeen community wouldn’t have such clear distinctions. But I kept things purposely very light with only a very few ‘ranks’ (pretty much just “acolyte”, “priestess”, “high priestess”).

On a similar note, regarding titles, I don’t think that any particular roles and titles are directly assigned to individuals. I think it’s more a matter of individuals taking up the tasks associated with certain titles on their own and through their work and knowledge in this area the title sort of “grows” on them as the community recognizes their dedication here.*

In short I see an Eilistraeen community as very free-flowing, encouraging individuality and placing no one person over another, but recognising each individual’s abilities and how they can contribute to the community. For some that is the ability to lead or wisdom in Eilistraee’s ways, for others this would be something else, giving respect to their ability (thus they’d follow a leader’s advice not because they’re the leader, but because this individual has shown wisdom and ability in leading people). But none is placed above another in value and thus no ranks would exist to place one above another, just titles as a mark of this recognition.

As for how they’d look at other races. The ideal is obviously that all races would live with each other in harmony and as such ideally one isn’t seen as better than another. Humans, fair elves, half-elves and half-drow (and dwarves and Halflings and orcs and all that) are all considered equally to drow. But at the same time I can imagine this not being quite as easy for any drow, particular those coming from Lolthite societies, to accept and I’d imagine a lot having trouble accepting other races. But in the end the ideal is most clearly that all races live together in harmony.

At least, that’s how I look at it.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le


* To bring that back to this site for a moment, this is how I’d like the “tasks” to work here as well; I keep getting requests from people at times whether I want to give them a certain title, but invariably I think that people should show their value in this field on their own. If you want to be Master/Mistress of Dancing (to name a random example) then show your expertise and how you’d contribute in this, show your dedication to writing a page dedicated to this (I’m quite happy to give people access to the Temple site so they can write in those sections), etc. Anyway, sorry for this side-bar.

[Tyrmer]

[quote="Shir'le E. Illios":305ulqcb]If you want to be Master/Mistress of Dancing (to name a random example)...[/quote:305ulqcb]

OI! I may not be as active these days but I like my title where it is. *Sulks*

[silke_rahn]

ok a loosely structured community sound good, since I don't think many Drow will be surface dwelling on The Forgotten Realm server. As it is I think that there are only about four full-blood Drow living at Luna Temple, the Eilistraee worshipers' sanctuary on that game server. I play one of these, Nedylene Rahn formerly Nedylene Vrinn. Nedy is the elder sister to Silke, Sabine, Ursula, and Earade my half-Drow characters. She was sacrificed by the Lolthites of the Drow city of Szith for being an Eilistraeean, but the Dark Maiden raised her from the dead. Now after a long journey including an earlier stay at the temple Nedy is the only player character priestess of Eilistraee I know of at the temple. She is a level seven character with the following level break down: Fighter level 4 and cleric level 3. Ursula Rahn her half-sister is the only other player character priestess of Eilitraee in the game on that server that I know of and Ursula is also a level seven character. Her break down is Cleric level 4 and fighter level 3.

I was thinking of organizing a guild/ house for the Eilistraee followers on The Forgotten Realm server. I would like to invite any from the Chose to join me on that server. If you play a full-Blood Drow be advised that you will start out in Szith, a Lolthite dominated Drow city. Half-Blood Drow startout in the Human city of Fae, I would recommend that unless you want to play another refugee/ survivor of the Vrinn-Rahn family massacre like a cousin to the Rahn sisters, don't make your heritage as a half-Drow be like the one I've created. Unless you can create a very convincing back story that is. From what I've now read half-Drow seem to lothe their heritage as being the product of forced mating of a female human with a male drow.

Their main DM has the server up to allowing 69 players on at anyone time. So if anyone wishes to join me I would welcome the company. Oh by the way if you have "hak" or other over-ride files for anyother server operating with your NWN-2 game you need to turn those off when playing on The Forgotten Realm server as it causes the server to crash. You also need the Mask of the Betrayer expansion module to play The Forgotten Realm besides their module data from their webpage: http://www.forgottenrealm.ca/. They have a download page that has the needed downloads to access the server and play their module.

Another warning: Many non-Drow PCs on this server will kill any drow without asking about your background. There are some that will RP with you before running their blades through you, but many will just kill you because you are a Drow. There are a few that will take the time to see past our light hair, dark skin and mostly red irised eyes. Also if you play an Eilitraeean in Szith play your faith realy close to the vest as we say in America. The House Mori'hyanda is a house of extremely fanatical Lolthites. House Morcane is almost as bad. House Dev'Lin is the third house and is mostly filled with male Drow that follow either of Eilitraee's brothers. If you decide to play on this server whether you join one of these houses or not if you play an Eilistraeean publicly in Szith praise the Spider Queen. You will survive and maybe stay under the radar of the Mori'hyandas. I speak from experience here. Oh and don't trust Eowien Desh if you meet her. In Character if you do meet her RP learning that she is not to be trusted. Eowien is my only evil Drow character and she though of the family Vrinn betrayed Nedy and the other surviving adult full-blood Drow of the family to the Mori'hyandas and the prietesses of Lolth in Szith.

Nedy did get sacrificed as I said earilier, as did Maria Illistryn and Jason Illistryn. Maria was raised from the dead by a Kal'lazar Dev'Lin. Kal is someone that if met IC should be trusted. He worships Selvetarm, but according to the pre-bannishment ways. He has helped Nedylene and Silke out. Silke and Ursula have helped him out. So there is a sort of agreement going between the Rahn's and this one Dev'lin.

[Shir'le E. Illios]

[quote="Tyrmer":lirxbbji][quote="Shir'le E. Illios":lirxbbji]If you want to be Master/Mistress of Dancing (to name a random example)...[/quote:lirxbbji]

OI! I may not be as active these days but I like my title where it is. *Sulks*[/quote:lirxbbji]
Bah, sorry. Truly was a random example; was just the first thing that came to mind.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le