Are Drow Not Elves?

[ADHSteve]

So. Why are Drow not a sub-race of Elf? Was another race in the pipeline at some point or did they just want the race choices to look even on the UI? Lol

[Beytran70]

I imagine they wanted to separate it out to give more room for unique dialogue options and interactions, whereas in 5e it doesn't matter as much with subraces just giving some varied abilities and such.

[magattatou]

They used to be. I admit to not being 100% familiar with 5E lore, though. It just seems like something Larion did for BG3.

[ADHSteve]

Originally posted by Beytran70:

I imagine they wanted to separate it out to give more room for unique dialogue options and interactions, whereas in 5e it doesn't matter as much with subraces just giving some varied abilities and such.

Is that why no one seems to acknowledge half-drows? Makes sense.

[Scheneighnay]

They are, just they're inherently evil like basically every other underdark race, as having to deal with every other underdark race made them evil, as is the case with the other underdark races.

[Harukage]

The word for all of them is Tel-quessir.
Now if you start considerering who is who between different breeds of elves, eladrin and mixed elf races... You will break your brains. There are way too many of them.
Drow is often put as a thing of their own because of their history. As a part of the original race who stood in oposition to the rest of tel-quessir.

[count_zer01]

They're counted as elves for the purpose of half-elves so it's probably down to all the different dialogue options you get for going drow.

[FoxFox]

Yeah, was wondering about this. Seemed like Duergar and Deep Gnomes could have been separate races too if Drow are one. Plus half-Drow are considered half-elves along with high elves and wood elves, which makes it even weirder to separate Drow from other elves.

[MewTressym]

Technically yes and no. They are elves, or, were I think is the better way to put this.

Lloth cursed an article of equipment to attract arrows to it, and gave it to Ellistrae to gift to Lorrelon, and Ellistrae did so believing she was giving her father a gift out of love. Only for the next time Ellistrae knocked her bow the arrows went straight to her father, forcing her to nearly take her own fathers life by a twang of her own bow.

Lloth and Ellistrae were banished from the Elf pantheon as a result, with Ellistrae trying to create her own cast of Drow that would be against her mother Lloth's cast, but ultimately had almost no followers, and to a God their power comes from how many followers they have and how loyal those followers are, and since she had almost none, she legitimately had no real way to expect to defeat her mother Lloth.

There are two ways this story ends, one with Ellistrae being killed by Lloth, the other with Ellistrae and Mystra banding together and Ellistrae ultimately falling under Mystra's protection with the two creating a Chosen together from a female Drow of Ellistrae's followers that was born stillborn.

This is a VERY scuffed cliffnotes version and if you read the stories there's a LOT more to these two stories.

[Yaldabaoth]

Originally posted by Scheneighnay:

They are, just they're inherently evil like basically every other underdark race, as having to deal with every other underdark race made them evil, as is the case with the other underdark races.

"Modern" (read: woke) D&D moved away from that. Lolth is now the culprit because the powers at wotc are of the opinion that inherently evil people with black skin who worship spiders and live under the earth in a fantasy universe will confuse the american audience into drawing parallels. Yeah, they don't think much of their audience. Just paypigs.

[RealDealBreaker]

If they had listed drow as a sub race of elves, then they would have had to have added a 'sub-subrace' or 'cultural group' option and drow would be the only subrace with a third level of division. Probably much easier to list drow as a race then the two cultural groups (Llothsworn and the other one) as subraces.

[Scheneighnay]

Originally posted by FoxFox:

Yeah, was wondering about this. Seemed like Duergar and Deep Gnomes could have been separate races too if Drow are one. Plus half-Drow are considered half-elves along with high elves and wood elves, which makes it even weirder to separate Drow from other elves.

I think the confusion comes from how they were handled in the source books.

Drow are in the PHB, Deep Gnomes and Duergar are mentioned (with some fantastical abilities they don't have as a playable race) but weren't given actual mechanics.

So the latter two were shoehorned in.

[Grizzly]

I think Drow are seperate because they have their own two subraces: Lolth-Sworn and Seldarine. Guessing that the current solution was better then having a sub-sub-race menu.

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by Beytran70:

Originally posted by Yaldabaoth:

"Modern" (read: woke) D&D moved away from that. Lolth is now the culprit because the powers at wotc are of the opinion that inherently evil people with black skin who worship spiders and live under the earth in a fantasy universe will confuse the american audience into drawing parallels. Yeah, they don't think much of their audience. Just paypigs.

You idiots really have to post the same pointless, regurgitated arguments on every thread, don't you?

Look pal, I find it annoying too but you really can't go around calling people idiots for expressing an opinion. You'll end up in trouble with "The Authorities" (i.e., Steam mods). It's not worth the ban to attack someone who uses the term woke.

[Beytran70]

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

Originally posted by Beytran70:

You idiots really have to post the same pointless, regurgitated arguments on every thread, don't you?

Look pal, I find it annoying too but you really can't go around calling people idiots for expressing an opinion. You'll end up in trouble with "The Authorities" (i.e., Steam mods). It's not worth the ban to attack someone who uses the term woke.

I don't really care either way, tbh.

[Blackfox Kitsune]

its because the dark elf / drow race has two factions under it, it was easier to split them into their own race to allow for being loth born or following a different god other than the dreaded spider queen..