Drow

I think Drow is a pretty cool guy, eh evil and doesn't afraid of anything

Drow are black-skinned and white-haired subterranean elves who are allergic to sunlight. The strange thing is they live underground, but have black skin due to their curse by Corellon when Lolth turned them away from the other elven gods. They produce adamantine equipment (which falls apart in sunlight, yet is bad-ass underground), take slaves, are ruled by a matriarchy that likes S&M, have magic resistance and hate normal elves. In short, they'd be fucking cool, were it not for the fact that 90% of all player character Drow will be Chaotic Good and be Rebelling Against The Evils Of Their Race, thanks to the raging hard-on underages have on Drizzt. As a result, even though dark elf pr0n is 1; common, 2; totally acceptable given their interests, and 3; totally relevant when somebody asks for dark elf pictures (see 2) people still get whiny on /tg/ at anything moderately crude. Sure, we're trying to hold back the tide of cancer, but where dark elves are concerned, it's totally good.

Eberron's Drow are somewhat different, in that they have gender equality (more or less), hang out in jungles with the Yuan-Ti, and worship Vulkoor, a dickish scorpion god who looks like a cool guy to hang out with compared to Lolth. Their mamas also actually love them rather than whip them everyday then sacrifice them later. They're still a bunch of racist dicks, though. Still, Eberron Drows are the more tolerable Drows, have a nice childhood, and at least they can be reasoned with easier. This means you can play as a Drow there without issues you'll have in any another setting.

Driders are what happens when drow take their obsession with spiders a bit too far. The specifics vary.

Character templates

AD&D and 2nd Edition

During this era, Drow were recommended as being restricted to the role of monsters, due to their in-game lore; both Drizzt Do'Urden and Viconia de'Vir stand out as "playable" drow, with backstories to explain why they're on the surface instead of down in the Underdark. That said, The Complete Book of Elves splatbook did give rules for playable Drow and holy fuck were they powerful... IF you were playing in the Underdark.

+2 Dex, +1 Int, -1 Constitution, -2 Charisma for initial ability score modifiers, and with racial maximums of 18, 20, 17, 19, 18 and 16 for Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma respectively. They have a bunch of spell-like abilities, all usable once per day; Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire, and Darkness by default, with Levitate, Know Alignment and Detect Magic gained at level 4. Drow Clerics get even more, in the form of Clairvoyance, Detect Lie, Suggestion and Dispel Magic. Also, they start with Magic Resistance 50% and increase it by +2% per level, to a max of 80%, and get a +2 bonus on all saves involving magic.

So, what's the drawback? Aside from the sensitivity to light (-2 penalty to Dexterity and Attack Rolls, enemies are +2 bonus to saves vs. drow spells), they also lose their powers if they spend more than two weeks outside of the Underdark, losing 10% Magic Resistance and one spell-like ability each day. If they go back to the Underdark, they get their powers back if they spend 1 day for each week they spent on the surface. Also, they get a -4 penalty to Reaction rolls against other elves, and increase their experience costs by +20%.

3rd edition

3E had rules in the core set for monsters as races. For Elf (Drow) the effective Character level (ECL) was 3, so a 1st level Drow elf is equivalent to a 3rd level regular elf character. The usual elf bonuses and flaws, plus: +2 Int, +2 Cha, Darkvision 120' instead of elf-normal lowlight vision, Spell resistance of 11+level, +2 to will saves for spells, can cast these spell-like abilities 1/day: dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire, weapon proficiencies are hand-crossbow rapier and shortsword instead of elf-normal, sudden bright sunlight will blind a drow for 1 round, and the drow will be dazzled until they leave the bright light. Boy drow have wizard as their favored class, girl drow have cleric (of Lolth) as favored class.

They had an article on their culture in Dragon Magazine #298 that really emphasized the darker side of drow culture. Want a sample? According to this lore, drow don't die out because, despite their tendency to murder and torture each other, they're as fertile as orcs, with females normally conceiving twins and triplets. They normally only birth a single baby, though, because the strongest usually kills and absorbs the others in the womb; these prenatal struggles actually produce orgasms more intense than anything a drow female might feel elsewhere. This sensation, chad-zak, is explicitly called out as the main reason why drow women are willing to get pregnant at all, considering the selfish power-hungry bitches they generally are.

Eberron has a drow sub-race called the Umbragen, who possess strange, mystical powers connecting to the darkness. Mechanically, this is represented by replacing their spell saving throw bonus with a + 2 racial bonus to Hide & Move Silently checks, swapping their weapon proficiencies for longbow, shortbow, longsword & rapier, and making their Favored Class into warlock, plus a racial-restricted set of variant abilities for soulknife and a bevy of racial feats. All of this appears in Dragon Magazine #330.

4th edition

The 4E Monster Manual had some explicit monsters-as-races in the back, and the Drow were one of them, although they got an identical repost in the 4e Forgotten Realms Player's Guide alongside the Genasi -- fittingly, since FR basically created the idea of Drow PCs.

For Drow, +2 Dex and +2 Cha or +2 Wis, Darkvision, +2 Intimidate, +2 Stealth, Fey Origin, Trance, and one racial encounter power (Llothtouched) that could be used as a minor action for one of two effects that last until the drow's next turn: a close-burst-1 darkness spell the drow can see through, or a faerie-fire spell that gives combat advantage against the target.

5th edition

Drow are finally mentioned in the Player's Handbook as an equal option for elf subtypes. The usual elf advantages, along with +1 Cha, 120' darkvision, automatic knowing some spells: the 'dancing lights' cantrip at 1st, the 'faerie fire' 1/day at 3rd level, and 'darkness' 1/day at 5th level. Automatic weapon proficiencies are hand-crossbows, rapiers and shortswords. They are also the only race to receive an explicit penalty in the core book: if the drow or the drow's target are in direct sunlight, the drow has disadvantage on attack rolls and perception rolls. Better hope you fight indoors a lot.

That said, they haven't remained the only penalized race in 5e. Both the duergar and the kobold also have the same Sunlight Sensitivity weakness, whilst kobolds and orcs are the only races in the game to have ability score penalties - something that caused an immediate outburst of skub, since that mechanic had seemingly been dumped since 4th edition.

Xanathar's Guide gave them a boost with a new racial feat; Drow High Magic. Reflecting the "noble drow" spell-like abilities of AD&D, this feat grants a drow the ability to cast Detect Magic at will and both Levitate and Dispel Magic once per long rest without a spell slot.

Pathfinder

Pathfinder ditches the Lolth aspect and instead makes Drow aligned to assorted Demon Princes instead. They got playable templates for the first time in their Bestiary entry, and updated versions thereof in the Advanced Races Guide. Pathfinder goes back to really, really freaking old Drow lore by stating that there's two kinds of Drow; normal Drow, and Noble Drow, who're even tougher and nastier, with a lot more magical powers. These were handled as separate races in the Bestiary, but ARG instead changed it to a Drow race with a bunch of racial feats to simulate Noble Drow abilities, which is arguably more balanced.

Fluff-wise, they're tied into the weird sf-bent of the Golarion setting, being the descendants of elves who refused to flee the planet in the face of a catastrophe, and turned to demon worship to survive. First-generation drow are actually the result of elves who've broken really bad physically and psychologically transforming into dark elves. Natural-born drow aren't actually innately evil, but their culture, which engages in the traditional practices of slavery, human sacrifice, etc., with the lovely addition of " fleshcrafting," is so hideously corrupt that almost all of them end up bad anyway. They aren't matriarchal like classic drow either. Just assholes. Their driders are... well, see that page.

Drow

• Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 30 feet
• Darkvision 120 feet
• Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantments.
• Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
• Spell Resistance: 6 + class level
• Spell-Like Abilities: Dancing Lights, Darkness and Faerie Fire, each 1/day.
• Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds a drow for 1 minute and leaves them dazzled on all subsequent rounds until they get out of the light.
• Poison Use: Drow don't risk poisoning themselves when they apply poison to weapons, etc.
• Weapon Familiarity: Free proficiency in Hand Crossbow, Rapier and Shortsword.

Noble Drow

• Ability Score Modifiers: +4 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Wis, +2 Cha, -2 Con
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 30 feet
• Darkvision 120 feet
• Drow Immunities: Drow are immune to Magic Sleep Effects and get a +2 racial bonus to saves vs. Enchantments.
• Keen Senses: +2 Racial Bonus on Perception checks.
• Spell Resistance: 11 + character level
• Spell-Like Abilities:
  • Constant: Detect Magic
  • At-Will: Dancing Lights, Deeper Darkness, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Levitate
  • 1/Day: Divine Favor, Dispel Magic, Suggestion
• Light Blindness: Abrupt exposure to bright light blinds a drow for 1 minute and leaves them dazzled on all subsequent rounds until they get out of the light.
• Poison Use: Drow don't risk poisoning themselves when they apply poison to weapons, etc.
• Weapon Familiarity: Free proficiency in Hand Crossbow, Rapier and Shortsword.

The Races of Pathfinder
Player's Handbook:	Dwarf - Elf - Gnome - Half-Elf - Half-Orc - Halfling - Human
Advanced Race Guide:	Aasimar - Catfolk - Changeling - Dhampir - Duergar Drow - Fetchling - Gillman - Goblin - Grippli - Hobgoblin Ifrit - Kitsune - Kobold - Merfolk - Nagaji - Orc - Oread Ratfolk - Samsaran - Strix - Suli - Svirfneblin - Sylph Tengu - Tiefling - Undine - Vanara - Vishkanya - Wayang
Bestiaries:	Android - Astomoi - Caligni - Deep One Hybrid - Gathlain Gnoll - Kasatha - Munavri - Naiad - Orang-Pendak Reptoid - Rougarou - Shabti - Trox - Yaddithian
Adventure Paths:	Being of Ib - Kuru
Inner Sea Races:	Ghoran - Monkey Goblin - Lashunta - Skinwalker Syrinx - Triaxian - Wyrwood - Wyvaran
Ultimate Wilderness:	Vine Leshy
Blood of the Sea:	Adaro - Cecaelia - Grindylow - Locathah - Sahuagin - Triton
Planar Adventures:	Aphorite - Duskwalker - Ganzi

See also

• Unified Setting/Drow - Arctic merchant vikings who ride giant lobsters. But still with black skin and white hair.

• Drizzt Do'Urden - A... polarizing character, but still the most famous and iconic drow hero in D&D.

• Viconia de'Vir - A cleric of Shar in the Baldur's Gate games, and a good example of a "PC-friendly" drow who isn't a chaotic good Drizzt clone. Also Bioware's first "sexy, mildly-evil-but-mostly-misunderstood lady love interest" character, setting the template for all those that followed. Had an incredibly complex, tragic and deep story in the sequel involving brotherly love and sacrifice. May have inadvertantly spawned a horribly Mary Sue webcomic funded by clinical psychopaths with too much money to spare and an axe against humanity to grind.

• Sandwich Stoutaxe: 1d4chan's take on the heroic Drow, she was abandoned by her family and raised by a Dwarf. So named because said dwarf found her in a basket that he thought was full of sandwichs.

• Drowtales: When an admittedly skilled bunch of artists with the mental maturity of a blighted potato makes a webcomic series financed by sponsor avatar insertion, porn requests, and the worst, plot dictation and slather copious amounts of Skub onto it.

Gallery

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  not racist; or at least not THAT kind of racist

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  in the skin darkness of the future, there is only Mary Sues. A.k.A Drowtales: How to be a mangaka-faggot with cognitive dissonance.

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  did I mention the Mary Sues yet?

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  drow men have a place in their matriarchy

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  Welcome to the jungle, where you can play a Drow however you want

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  Xen'drik's drows like to tattoo themselves with scorpion venom.

Monstergirls

This article or section is about Monstergirls (or a monster that is frequently depicted as a Monstergirl), something that /tg/ widely considers to be the purest form of awesome. Expect PROMOTIONS! and /d/elight in equal measure, often with drawfaggotry or writefaggotry to match.

The Dark Elf maiden is an alluring creature, if in a different way to her light-skinned cousin.

Given that female elves are practically canon monstergirls in Dungeons & Dragons to begin with (where do you think Half-Elves come from?), and that the drow are both female led and have a long tradition of cheesecake/pin-up tier femdom-heavy artwork for their females - there's a reason drow are often mocked on nu-/tg/ as a culture made up of cheesy BDSM pin-up art - it should be no surprise that drow feature in works of erotica just as frequently as their surface cousins. Indeed, the talk of D&D sessions everywhere must have had since the late 90's, inevitably, sexualized Drow raids owing to Greenwood's Magical Realm. Often called "Dark Elves", their skin tone ranges from the actual drow onyx/blue/purple to more dusky brown colors, which leads to the nickname "chocolate elves" being used for erotic female drow characters.

Given the heavy BDSM themes in actual drow society, it should be no surprise that drow monstergirls are usually portrayed as dominatrixes in the same way. Asian hentai artists, however, like to subvert the idea by portraying them as submissives instead of dominatrixes; chocolate elf slaves and maids are as old as Elf slave, wat do? threads. Might have something to do with dark skin being inferior in Asian cultures.

In the Monster Girl Encyclopedia, the Dark Elves have willingly embraced succubusization, unlike their Light Elf kindred. This has turned them into a perverse culture of dominatrixes, who take human men as their sexual slaves. They were some of the setting's earliest skub when it was confirmed that they actually do practice incest, with young dark elves being taught the arts of sexual dominance, bondage and sado-masochism by using their fathers as their subs - that was quickly blown out of the water by other controversial aspects of the setting, like the revelation that most monstergirl daughters will generally lose their virginities to their fathers and then decide whether they do or don't want to go and find their own boyfriend later.