A couple of drow-related questions

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1. Drider priestesses. Priestess means special grace of Lloth. Drider means special disgrace of Lloth. How comes there are drider priestesses and even quite powerful ones, which would mean really special grace from Lloth? Another thing is how comes driders are able to cast spells at all in their stultified state...

2. What are some general rules for forming drow names and names of drow houses?

3. How does one call the serpent whips in English? I would appreciate the names of other such accessories and similar vocabulary.

4. Speaking of vocabulary, maybe someone knows of a decent online drow dictionary?

5. Finally, any drow sourcebooks? I mean typical rule books, not novels.

6. Female drow carreer. Is it only priestess, or does priestess have to be the main carreer, or just at least one level of priestess as a rule of thumb, or are they free to become single-class fighters or wizards, for example?

Thanks in advance.

 

1. I never thought a Drider Priestess of Lolth was even possible... But they do excist?

5. There's some info in Races of Faerun.

6. IIRC, a female Drow can become anything she likes, but to become a Priest(ess) of Lolth you have to be a female.

 

1. Maybe this could help? http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/mm/mm20011118a

5. Also, Underdark book has information about drows and almost everything related to Underdark.

6. Yeah, females can be what they like. And priestesses can be wizard/clerics, psionic/clerics, fighter/clerics or whatever suitable for character.

 

http://members.sagacio.com/uo/drowtop.html
English to Drow converter, all you need actually. They mark words that isn't "official" but it have a huge vocabulary.

 

Velve, that link doesn't work.

 

2. I've always made names from this site...
http://www.geocities.com/venoriksilinrul/Names.html.

 

That link doesn't work unless you remove the extra dot behind .html

This is a version of that link that does work.

 

Well, that was odd to say the least. I thought it worked but I had wrong.

 

Driders consider themselves to be specially blessed by Lolth (read: Lolth). Keep in mind that just because you're a Cleric of a deity or power doesn't mean that deity or power specially favors. All it means is that you serve it with the powers it grants you. Also, it's not just the Drow Clerics that become Driders (some Driders cast arcane spells).

Lolth is Chaotic Evil anyways. After Drow get past 6th level, they take a certain test. They fail, they become Driders. It's basically keeping the strong in Drow society.

Driders, though Chaotic Evil, and murderous and probably crazy, can still cast spells in any case. Just because you're super Chaotic Evil doesn't mean you take a hit to mental stats or can't use magic.

Monster Manual has info on Drow. IIRC there's also a Complete Drow Handbook by a third party publisher.

The Drider entry in Monster Manual should also help answer question 1.

My guess is that if they're Clerics, they're Clerics all the way. But nothing says you can't have Drow Wizards, Fighters, etc.

 

Personally I don't think it should be possible for drider to be a priestess, it's the ultimate punishment, and destroys the mind of the person (going by the Drizzt books).

 

Yea, let's take Dinin as an example. Completely brainsucked. However, in IWD2 - I know it's a game, but it's licensed by Wizards - I remember fighting drider priestesses.

Now, being a cleric and getting spells is no special grace normally. But not with Lloth. High-level spells are believed to require special grace of Lloth. Well, those drider priestesses weren't exactly 6th level amateurs casting up to 3rd level spells. They cast spells of level 5-6+.

A strange thing is that, following the example of Drizzt books, Driders are like constructs. They shouldn't be able to worship anything, let alone focus their minds on non-innate spells, not to even mention some 15-16 WIS to cast those spells in 3E.

 

Still, Lolth is a Chaotic Evil deity. She might grant spells to a Drider Cleric (a Drider with levels in Cleric, mind you) if that Drider is bent on, say, killing the entire Dwarven people in the name of Lolth.

In any case, Driders are considerably more intelligent than any human or Drow. A Drow subjected to "Drider-ness" loses his or her identity, but that doesn't mean the Drider becomes like a zombie or golem with no intelligence.

The Drizzt books might contradict me here, but I believe those books came out before 3E.

 

remember that the driders are only cast out by the Drow and their society, along with their perception of Lolth's faith.

Personally I dont see anything wrong with a Drider priestess of Lolth, but I dont think a lot of driders would want to (but that's not the same as nobody doing it).

 

Info on Drow Priestess of Lolth/multiclass found on page 245 FRCS:

"Lolth's clerics sometimes multiclass as fighters or sorcerers. Drow clerics of Lolth have cleric as their preferred class."

I thought Driders couldn't become Priestesses of Lolth because they hated the Drow, but according to the same page, Drow Priestesses of Lolth hate and fear their own patron, too.

 

Grr, I hate when people completely ocntradict themselves. The Dark Elf Trilogy is the most detailed information you get on the subject, even if it's not up with all the new rules it's still the same world, and shouldn't be disregared as irrelevant. After all, this is about the world, not the rules system.

... That's stupid. Fanatical devotion and fear mayhap, but not hate.

Would not the loss of identity end any chances of you worshipping something?

 

Dark Elf trilogy is set in FR. Standard D&D assumes the Greyhawk campaign setting. There are also a variety of other campaign settings that might contradict the Dark Elf trilogy.

Lolth is a Chaotic Evil deity. That could mean that she could grant spells to a bunch of people who hate or fear because those people can use their granted spells to do what she wants (the people may go around killing surface elves, dwarves, etc.). Just because you're a Cleric of someone doesn't mean you're a fanatic of that deity - it just means you carry out that deity/power's will, and that deity/power helps you out.

Yes, but that doesn't mean the Drider can't cast spells (maybe a Drider Cleric's deity isn't Lolth, but a Drider Cleric's domains and Lolth's domains are similar). What I mean by identity is that allegiances to people are gone, alignment changes, and so on.

I don't think you can dispute the fact that some Driders cast spells as Clerics. So you're going to have to assume that the Driders still worship or serve something in order to cast those Cleric spells.

 

I haven't seen anyone reply with this; but where did anyone say that Drider Priestesses had to be Clerics of Lolth? They could just as likely serve another drow Diety, or a different diety altogether. Off the top of my head perhaps; Erythnul, Shar, whatever. Just a thought.

 

Well I'm assuming that Chevy is talking in the way of FR, seeing that is where Dark Elves (I presume) originally come from and that there is a larger amount of knowledge on their version of the drow than anyone elses. Plus the fact that it is the most widely used world.

True, but I think that fanatical devotion is far more likely. If you hated Lloth and enjoyed killing her enemies, you could probably find a deity that you do like and kill surface elves just as well.

Drider (judging of course by the Dark Elf Trilogy) will mindlessly serve those who have the power to control them (priestesses of Lloth). By that logic they mindlessly serve Lloth also, thus I doubt that they'd be worshipping other deities. Their mentality wouldn't allow it.

 

I believe the idea among the Drow is that Lolth torments you, and if you can get away with it, good for you. If you can't, well, you probably had it coming anyways. So I imagine what the Drow do is just appease Lolth with sacrifices or serving her by being a Cleric.

In the Underdark, I don't think that's it's likely to find anywhere to turn to. Racism is pretty big there, with Dwarves (evil or not), Mind Flayers, xenophobic Grimlocks, etc., etc. Plus some Drow Cleric might just kill you for running away form Lolth.

I'm not sure what you mean by not having a Drider's mentality. First, Driders are have better mental stats than any normal human, so insanity or stupidity is ruled out. Second, they may be Chaotic Evi, but that doesn't mean that they can't serve CE deities. A CE deity who enjoys watching creatures kill creatures might grant patronage to a Drider.

I recall that the Spider domain in FRCS lets you control spiders. That could happen, but it doesn't mean controlled Driders worship Lolth, it just means they serve her against her free will (since that is what commanding creatures like undead does). Plus you might have Driders who just escaped from Drow Clerics.