In Need of A Opinion 13: The Drow is finished

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Leema Har'gachi
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In Need of A Opinion 13: The Drow is finished

Post by Leema Har'gachi »

I've finally finished writing the general overview, physical description, personality, alignment, homeland, and religion for the drow, hopefully this will give you guys a good idea of what I plan of doing with the drow in the setting I'm making for my game system. I really looking forward to hear some feedback on this. I hope you all enjoy it.

I've finally finished writing the general overview, physical description, personality, alignment, homeland, and religion for the drow, hopefully this will give you guys a good idea of what I plan of doing with the drow in the setting I'm making for my game system. I really looking forward to hear some feedback on this. I hope you all enjoy it.

Drow

These elves where once a species respected for their honor and sense of duty, however after L’Jallil D’Vhid curse the dark elves who share her appearance and beauty to be compelled to be as destructive and violent as she is that changed. The dark elves became renowned for murder, betrayal, cruelty, and evil atrocities that caused the other kinds of elves to brand them traitors and banished them to subterrain darkrealm. Deep in the murderous grips of the curse and under the sway of L’Jallil D’Vhid’s cruel machinations the dark elves took a new name a name that would inspire fear, a name that means dark assassin, that name was DROW!

Personality: Back during the first days of their banishment to the darkrealm, drow where paranoid, hot tempered, cruel, and quick to spill blood. Now days, the strength of the curses compulsions to kill, betray, and destroy has lessened greatly. Though that doesn’t mean that the hot blooded nature the curse spurned isn’t there any more, just that the influence of the curse of wanned enough for most drow to hide their anger at the slights of others or suppress it complete in some cases. Now the drow are close to how they were before the curse, they have a sense of honor and duty to family and to their house. But, most drow (around 60% of the current population) have a hair trigger and when insulted or treated poorly are apt to hide their anger and plan a very elaborate revenge, usually to kill the source of their damaged sense of honor. While a sense of duty to family and house is foster throughout the species, drow living in societies where L’Jallil D’Vhid is the primary worshipped deity are often groomed to carefully take advantage of weakness of drow in higher position so that they can take them out in secret to advance in position themselves. Most drow who live in the darkrealm are paranoid of getting betrayed by other drow and not without good reason, drow who have move to the surface communities under the guidance of T'puuli An’ar do not live in fear of betrayal by other drow, but are constantly struggling with the anger, paranoia of other species, and the horrors they were forced to commit in the darkrealm by the faithful of L’Jallil D’Vhid and the Lady of Chaos’ terrible curse. Those who live in these communities often try to live to the standards of their Dark Elf ancestors, some even decided to expel the curse from their bodies and return to being normal dark elves once T’puuli An’ar managed to find a way to remove the curse from willing drow. Regardless, drow take great pride in their honor and duty. Betrayal will cause any drow to lash out instinctively at the traitor even will those who wish to live a peaceful life like their ancestors did before the curse as this is the nature of the curse. Evil drow finds making true friends difficult and their own impulse to take advantage of others makes keeping them even harder. Neutral aligned drow struggle will living in the shadow of violence while making a living, they may not commit violence willing but they can be spurned to protect themselves often to a bloody end when threatened. Good drow often attracts the attention of T’puuli An’ar and her fallows who will try to sweep the drow safely to the surface of the lightrealm so that they can live in peace, but good drow living in the darkrealm often attract the attention of the Lady of Chaos as well who sends her loyal followers to viciously beat the drow into submission to her ways. Thus, good drow have it the hardest, if they stay in the darkrealm they were born in, they will either die, be tortures until they summit to committing evil, or be forced to leave in effective exile from the home they were born into.

Physical Description: Drow tend to be short compared to other breeds of elves with males ranger from 4 foot 1 inches to 5 feet and females being 4 foot 6 inches to 5 feet 4 inches, with females being taller than males and heavier. Drow are very beautiful to other humanoid races even though they tend to have thin frames like all elves. Strangely most female drow tends to be voluptuous and athletic, those who aren’t at least athletic don’t tend to live past 30 before being kill either in training or by a rival. Drow faces are sharp, less rounded than most human faces, but the lack facial and body hair except of course eye brows and the hair on their head. Drow eyes are narrower angled at a downward incline in compared to humans with blood red crimson eyes being the most common eye color with purple, gold, and silver being less common eye colors, and a few drow and deep blue eyes that look like the color of the ocean. The drow skin is always pitch black, the blackness of their skin will sometimes have a extremely dark purple tint to it which can only be seen clear in direct sunlight. Their skin has a sheen to it that makes their pitch black skin look like obsidian when they are within a light source and in darkness their skin allows them to blend into the moonless night to creatures without the ability to see in the dark. Drow tends to have pure white, light yellow, or an almost aqua blue hair color with silver, dark purple, or black hair being rare.

Alignment: Drow tends toward chaotic alignments due to the curse or at the lest neutral. All of the evil alignments are rather common especially in the darkrealm (45% of drow in the darkrealm are of some kind of evil alignment), Neutral alignment are a little less common (25% of drow in the darkrealm are Chaotic Neutral or Neutral, there are no lawful neutral drow ever). Good Alignments are a little more common, (30% of drow in the darkrealm are of some kind of good alignment) though 2% of those are killed before they can escape their birth place each year. Good aligned drow tends to be Chaotic Good or Neutral good with 1 out of 20 good aligned drow being lawful good. The drow population on the surface on the other hand is much different as 65% of all drow are of a good alignment with 25% being of a neutral alignment, with only 10% being of a evil alignment. Drow tends to be Chaotic Evil, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Neutral, Neutral, Neutral Good, and Chaotic Good with Lawful Evil and Lawful Good being rare.
Homeland: The vast majority of Drow (around 56%) live in the subterrain world beneath the surface called the darkrealm where they have large, sprawling cities made of the stone. In fact, usually their building look as if they are made with the natural stone of the cavern, whether it be the walls, stalagmite, stalactites, or the very floor of the cavern magically raised up to look like the building is in itself part of the ground. Drow are excellent craftsmen and if they want to, they can design gorgeous structures made of stone, however most drow structures in the darkrealm are made for practicality and with defensibility in mind. Drow who live on the surface, often called the lightrealm by the drow though the surface folk don’t know of this, either are travelers living with other surface races or lives in the large forest cities of T’puuli An’ar faithful with their redeemed dark elf brethren. These cities are filled with large house made as part of the tree magically with large stone structure doting about for storage, or other needs that might not work as well in a house made within a tree. A temple made of stone with a large open field with a vast circle of small trees in its center is usually located towards the deepest part of the city, there celebration, gatherings, and other event are hosted in the holiest of places where all are invited and welcome under the protective embrace of the Silver Dancer.

Religion: The pantheon of the drow isn’t like most pantheons, most of the deities are in conflict with one another in some way with some exceptions. Not a single deity have a strong hold on the drow though several hold a good number of faithful. L’Jallil D’Vhid is often regarded as the patron goddess of the drow, but that is more of a dilution of thinking caused by centuries of her influence due to the curse, not to say she isn’t a major player among the drow pantheon for she very much is, but her overwhelming control over the drow has long since been overembellished by her clergy. D’Vhid is without a doubt the patron goddess of evil drow, though only 48% of all drow actually worship her. Most just give her lip service while in public and worship one of the other deities in private (something that could get them killed in a city that has a high percent of Lady of Chaos worshippers like in the city of Errdegahr Cress). L’Barra An’ar is a lesser god and L’Jallil’s son, but he claims a lot of worship form both evil and neutral aligned drow being a god of assassination and warriors, what evil drow choose not to worship L’Jallil usually claim him as their patron deity. Anistrial is an odd goddess, not only is she a lesser goddess, she also neutral good as well as being T’puuli An'ar once mortal daughter. This strangely enough doesn’t hinder her ability to gain both worshipper and clergy. In fact, most drow city keep at least a small temple dedicated to her where marriages are often performed. Lovers and drow in the mist of passion after give prayer to her in hopes that she might be able to make the moment last longer. Anistrial is a goddess of love, marriage, passion, and sex. T’puuli An’ar is a rather powerful deity in the pantheon as she puts herself directly opposite of her mother L’Jallil D’Vhid and she wishes to free the drow from her cruel mother’s influence. The Silver dancer holds the distinction of having one of the highest worshipper base among the pantheon, further bolster by her many former drow followers whom wished to be free of the curse and were transformed into true dark elves. Around 43% of drow worshiper in some form and unbeknownst to most drow all dances and songs performed by drow are in fact an indirect form of worship for her as she was the one to teach many a dark elf the art of song and dance before the vile curse was inflicted to them.

The last of the drow pantheon is something of a mystery even to the other drow gods themselves, the Masked Lady is a mysterious goddess who appeared one day, with her face completely hidden behind a full mask, but with long flowing silver hair and eyes seem to be a every changing rainbow of colors. She isn’t known to ever leave the material plane; in fact, the rest of the drow pantheon is pretty sure if she is really a different goddess and not one of them in disguise, she most likely doesn’t have a home plane or at the very list the material plane is her home plane. But, no one knows for sure. The Masked Lady is a demigoddess and as such does not have a avatar, she merely roams the darkrealm helping or making love to those she fancies, pulling pranks on the other drow gods or those she dislikes, and teaching those who wish the ways of magic and thievery. Known as the mask of mysterious or the eclipse maiden she is a goddess of chaos, pranks, illusions, and pleasure as well as being the patron goddess of thieves and magic-users especially illusionists. She doesn’t encourage worship nor does she actively try to encourage thievery she merely views stealing and magic as art forms. As such she only has maybe 3% of drow worshipping her, but all magic-users and thieves give some prayers to her and will often search for her to offer her a magical item (always stolen in the case of thieves), she has no temples and she has only a handful of clerics, but she loves and cares for all of them and those who decide to worship her in any form as if they were a most beloved lover, giving protection and aid whenever needed.

Racial Trails:

Type: Humanoid (elf)
Ability Score Adjustment:+1 to Dexterity, Comeliness, and Intelligence, -1 to Constitution and Charisma.

Size: Medium, 4’4” to 5’7” with a 5’ average.

Movement Speed: 120 feet for males and 150 feet for females.

Dark Elven Resistance: When you make a save vs. spells, area of effect, wand, staves, or rod against a spell or spell-like ability, you gain a +2 bonus on that save throw.

Dark Elf Two-weapons Fighting: When you wield a one-handed weapon in each of your hands while engaging in two-weapons fighting, you do not take the normal penalties for fighting with two-weapons and you are not limited to a hand axe, dagger, or dirk as your off-hand weapon as long as the weapon can easily be used in one hand (this also applies for using double weapons) or take no longer than a free action to reload, it a ranged weapon. As long as you are proficient with the weapon in both hands and you are wearing light or no armor, you gain a +1 bonus to your armor class and this applies to your touch armor class as well.

Darkvision: You can see in areas of dim light as if it were bright light. You can see in darkness as if it were dim light up to 60 feet away from you. While you are using your darkvision you can’t discern colors, only in shades of grey. While in darkness, you can switch between darkvision and infravision as a swift action.

Daylight Sensitivity: You are sensitive to any source of light with brightness equal to sunlight, including spells such as daylight or sunbeam. While you are in sunlight or light of similar brightness, you take a -1 penalty on attack rolls, a -2 penalty on any General Skill checks to Search or Spot, and your dexterity score is treated as if 2 points less while you are in bright light. You also suffer the penalty on attack rolls when attacking a creature in sunlight even when you are in darkness.
You may attempt to adapt to sunlight by spending 6 hours every day for one week in sunlight, at the end of the week you must make a save vs. petrification with a DC 10 + 1 for each day you did not speed at least 6 hours in sunlight minus the number of weeks attempted (on your first week this is 0). On a failed save, you still suffer from sunlight sensitivity and must attempt it again after another week. Any time afterward if you succeeded, if a month has gone by where you stayed in a place of complete darkness without being exposed to lights of sunlight levels of brightness you will lose your resistance to sunlight and must retrain again, though you get a +5 bonus on all future checks.

Drow Spell Resistance: Drow are resistant to the effects of spells or spell-like abilities that directly target you like charm person, enlarge, destruction etc. but not those that have effects that create a physical force to deal damage or impede movement like magic missiles, darkness, fireball, lightning bolt, force cage, wall of force, chromatic sphere, etc. When a spell or spell-like effect targets you, there is a 30% chance that spell simply cannot get pass your innate resistance and this increases by 1% for every level past 1st using your highest class level to a maximum of 50% at 21st level. On a roll of 30% or less adjusted for level the spell fails to have any effect, except spells that deal damage in which case you take ¼ of the total damage on a failed save and no damage on a successful save. If the spell succeeds to bypass your spell resistance, roll for save throws normally if the spell allows a save and resolve other protective effects, if necessary, like elven resistance to charms effects. Spells of 2nd level or higher reduces the effectiveness of your spell resistance by a percent equal to the spell level, therefore a5th level drow fighter has a base spell resistance of 34% if they are the target of the 5th level spell polymorph, they have a 29% chance of the polymorph spell simply failing with no save throw necessary, but if the diminish spell is casted on the same drow it fails on a roll 34% or less.
CODENAME:Leema
Real Name:Leema Apollyon Har'gachi
Class:Variant Illusionist Favored Soul {gestalt}
Race:Shadow Drow
Height:5'8"
Weight:158 Ib.
Hair:Yellowish
Eyes:Purple(pinwheel)
Skin:Pitch-black(surrounded by Shadowy Purple Aura)
Deity:Eilistraee
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