Page 52 - Mordenkainen's Tome Of Foes

D RI DERS: LOW EST OF TH E Low
Much confusion and misinformation exists about driders
among non-drow, but all dark elves know exactly what drid-
ers are: failures. They have either fared badly in Lolth's test
or displeased her in some other way.
Once its transformation has taken hold, a newly created
drider is shunned by its house and exiled from the com·
munity, with nothing but a few meager supplies and its
knowledge of the Underdark to protect it. Drow congregate
to throw stones at the still-dazed creature and drive it into
the tunnels beyond the city's environs. If it's unlucky, it's
attacked by a roper, a carrion crawler, or another drider. If
it's lucky, the new drider finds a safe place to hide while its
wounds heal.
So begins a drider's life in exile. Another widespread
works. It also might be evidence of a lesson that she misunderstanding about driders is that they serve the
drow as pickets, elite troops, or even suicide squads. They
learned all too well from the way Corellon reacted to her
do none of those things. They are despised outcasts who
betrayal of him: the smallest flame of resistance must be
live on the fringes of drow territory. Even though drow
snuffed out before it grows into a conflagration.
revile driders, they don't kill them, because a drider's pun·
ishment is to live a long life in wretchedness. Killing one
SOCIETY OF BLOOD AND POISON would cut short Lolth's judgment and possibly earn the
The principal organization in drow culture and society same sentence for the perpetrator.
Driders that survive for a long time can become accom-
is the house, an extended clan that comprises many
plished hunters and navigators in the Underdark. Nothing
related families, plus a number of lesser families who
will reopen the doors of drow society to them, but some·
have pledged loyalty to the house. A house's member-
times a drider can find a place in another community.
ship also includes some (potentially very large) number
Someone who needs a guide through the Underdark might
of indentured drow servants and slaves of other species.
not find a better one than a centuries-old drider that has
A house usually specializes in a business, a service, or a faced every hazard those tunnels hold.
craft that supports by providing income.
Houses are in constant competition with one another.
RULE OF MATRIARCHS
They vie for money, for prestige, and, more than any-
thing else, for power over others- the surest sign of Females are the top figures in drow society. At the head
Lolth's approval. of each house is someone who is a shrewd business op-
No tactic is outside the rules in this ongoing conflict. erator, a skilled tactician, a high priestess of Lolth, and
Raids against another house's outlying property (farm- probably also a merciless assassin with blood on her
ing caverns, trade caravans, or hunting parties) are com- hands. Unlike with many other races, female drow are
monplace. Rumors about disloyalty, conspiracies with typically taller and more robust than males.
surface elves, or heresy against Lolth are circulated so To rise to the top echelons of power, a female must
frequently that no one knows what to be sure of. Assas- first become a priestess of Lolth. Then, to ascend to
sinations, both by blade and by the use of special drow the status of high priestess, she must take advantage
poisons, are a constant threat. Bodyguards and food of powerful connections or craft special alliances. The
tasters are as necessary to the survival of a high-rank- path to ultimate power in drow society is never direct
ing drow as air and water. Squabbles within a house and is always paved with death.
also occur from time to time as relatives jockey for po- A male drow can advance in standing as a combatant,
sition. It's a rare occurrence, though far from unknown, a consort, or both. Physical beauty and fitness are highly
for drow to assassinate their own parents or siblings if prized in male drow, and those who are especially fa.
that's what it takes to create a path for advancement. vored in this regard can earn protection and gifts from
their matrons. A few males can attain high status in
CITIES WITHOUT SUNLIGHT their society, especially those who serve as mages, but
The drow might have not chosen to live in the Under- they never overshadow the females of their houses. Even
dark, but just the same they consider it their home, not the most intelligent, strong-willed, and devious male will
a prison.Just as the sea elves adapted to their aquatic never be more than a second-class citizen in any drow
city or house. That situation will never change as long as
realm, the drow have long been accustomed to the harsh
Lolth reigns as their queen.
conditions of life in the Underdark. They've lived away
from sunlight for so long that they can't bear the touch
NOCTURNAL RAIDERS
of it on their flesh, and thus they prefer to visit the sur- -------
face only at night. If the drow kept to themselves in their subterranean
Even though they Live underground, drow are much cities and fortresses, few other creatures would care.
more than cave-dwellers. Their cities are as magnificent The dark elves could indulge their evil practices until
as anything built by surface elves, and their defenses their caverns were heaped with corpses and awash in
are even more secure. Their most important sites are blood. Even the surface elves might be content to over-
located inside immense, hollowed-out stalactites and look their hatred for their kin and leave the drow alone,
stalagmites, with entrances well guarded.

CHAPTER 2 I ELVES
51