The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

106
For the most part, however, the Kanahraun dine on
other races, as constantly consuming one another
would quickly wipe out the people, a fact the ruling
class understands very well. Thus, most Kanahraun
eat a regular diet of gnomes, goblins and other
weaker races to be found in the Underdeep. Tribes
of Kanahraun keep a stable of drugged and crippled
sentients to be used as food in times of privation.
Not content to practice what they preach, the ruling
Kanahraun dine almost exclusively on drow flesh.
To ensure a constant supply of the choicest cuts, the
rulers of the Kanahraun prefer to keep one or two
drow secured to their table with boneforged bonds.
Each day, they will harvest the flesh they desire
then apply healing magics to keep the unfortunate
drow alive and restore his body, so that they may
feast on the same cut of meat from the same drow
the next day, should they so choose.
Even the ruling Kanahraun seldom consume their
own people, however. They much prefer to eat the
flesh of other drow, those who hold themselves
above their feral cousins. For the most part,
Kanahraun are only eaten by their fellows upon
their death, when the body is cooked and divided
as equally as possible among the rest of the tribe.
This not an act of base hunger or greed but one of
respect for the dead and as a means of ensuring that
their strength stays within the tribe.
A practice of the Kanahraun which may be more
terrifying than any other is their propensity to eat
the flesh of the undead. When a corporeal undead
servant has served out its useful time and has been
damaged beyond recall, the Kanahraun eat the undead
flesh, often reanimating the bones so that the corpse may
have renewed usefulness as a skeleton servant.
Kanahraun can eat foods other than the flesh of sentient
races, of course, and are perfectly capable of subsisting
on such things. However, the taste is all but intolerable
to them, and they will only eat such foods to stave off
starvation.
Government
The Kanahraun are composed of two classes, the ruling
class and the lower class. In every Kanahraun community,
great or small, it is the ruling class that holds all the power.
Descended from the offspring of Azzanoth, these drow
have bred out much of their fiendish heritage, but there is
usually still enough to mark them for what they are. They
control all magic in the Kanahraun, they act as priests and
priestesses to Azzanoth the Glutton and they rule the lower
class of the feral drow with both the stick and the carrot.
The ruling class makes up about 10 percent of the
population of the Kanahraun, and not all of them can rule.
Actual leadership of any group of Kanahraun falls to a
single member of the ruling class, chosen from among all
contenders in a five-day bloody rite that remains a secret
outside the temples of Azzanoth. This one individual is
responsible for all governance of the community, from
distribution of food to ordering of raiding parties. In larger
settlements, the leader, still known as First Voice after the
title Brasnaloth bestowed upon himself, will appoint others
of the ruling class to share some of the burdens of rule,
but this is considered an invitation to challenge and seldom
lasts long.
There are only two actions among the Kanahraun which
are considered crimes; that is, something the ruling class
must step in to deal with. The first of these is insurrection