The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

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to the Lorgreln with warnings
of shangu. Eventually, the
Lorgreln realised they were
trapped, with no way to leave
the tunnels they now inhabited
save through a just-established
colony of shangu. Desperate as
the warriors were to depart, they
could not overcome the fears of
the rest of the population.
Sealed off from other drow in
the thin air of their tunnels, the
Lorgreln tried several schemes
to circumvent their peculiar
handicap, including tunnelling
farther away from the shangu.
When they discovered a gigantic
cavern, they were elated. The
air seemed cleaner and fresher
inside and indeed, the Lorgreln
were able at last to start some
small fires to cook their food
and warm themselves at night.
The Lorgreln were fortunate
to have some skilled smiths
among their number, who went
to work preparing a furnace to
smelt the rich veins of metal
in the tunnel walls into forged
steel. The warriors of the
Lorgreln had accepted at last
that they would remain here
with the rest of their people,
and while the smiths went to
work, the warriors supervised
the remainder of the Lorgreln in the construction of crude
dwellings and fortifications within the cavern.
The Lorgreln had few stoneworking tools, or indeed, tools
of any kind with them at the time of the Sundering. Those
tools they did have, as well as weapons which could be
modified to serve, were all but worn to uselessness in the
early construction of their settlement. Using hard stone
and the last remnants of their metal tools, the drow began
to extract iron ore from the walls of the tunnels to forge into
new weapons and equipment. The ore that came from the
walls was almost pure, so rich were the veins.
As the small furnace built by the smiths was fired for the
first time, however, and the first of the ore was fed into its
roaring maw, the Lorgreln realised they had not overcome
the air problem at all. The furnace hungrily gulped the air
of their new cavern home, belching out noxious smoke that
quickly hung like a choking fog throughout the area. With
no other option, the drow extinguished the furnace.
They were quick to realise the increased danger of their
situation. Only a short distance from a colony of shangu,
they remained trapped but now had few useful weapons
to defend themselves with. One of the smiths, a skilled
craftsman and warrior named Hruth na’Ythreen, whose
name is still revered by the Lorgreln, came at last to a
difficult decision. Taking one of the only hammers left
to the Lorgreln, and seizing a misshapen lump of iron,
he began the slow and ultimately painful process of coldforging
an iron knife.
The drow, like the surface elves, are distant from their fey
roots, but there remains enough of faerie in them to make
cold-forged iron a painful thing to even touch, let alone