The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

The Sulzthul – The Aquatic
Drow
The Sulzthul did not naturally evolve or change from
normal drow through the pressures of the Underdeep, but
instead they had change forced upon them.
In the days of the Sundering, many groups of drow were
splintered off from the main body of the race, fleeing the
attacks of the surface elves and their allies, as well as the
previously unseen terrors rising up from the Underdeep.
One large group of drow, mostly non-combatants from
several different clans, were separated from their kin and
driven for several miles by a rolling cave-in that chewed at
their heels and roared in their ears.
Leaderless and terrified, the drow who would become
the Sulzthul came at last to a wide cavern through which
wandered two wide rivers. To their naive eyes, it seemed
safe. As it provided a ready source of both water and fish,
was lit by luminous fungus and not to mention it provided
more room than a cramped tunnel, some of the drow wanted
to remain. After much discussion, the drow chose to wait in
the comparative comfort of the cavern until scouts from the
other splintered groups of their race came to find them.
How much time passed even those who endured the waiting
could not know, isolated from their people and miles
beneath the earth. The tales told now by the Sulzthul vary
wildly in the estimation, holding it to be anywhere from a
few days to a year or more. Whatever the truth, the event
that ended the waiting is not in doubt.
As the Sulzthul sat and waited in their cavern, the first of
the aboleth came upon them without warning, swimming
with unnatural speed. In the dim light of the fungus, the
drow stared at it in shock, this creature unlike anything they
had ever seen. Moments later, more aboleth flooded into
the cavern, and the attack began. The drow were swiftly
overwhelmed by the strange powers and abilities of the
aboleth, and the survivors taken into slavery in the strange,
underwater city the aboleth inhabited.
Though many drow were slain by the aboleth in the initial
assault and still more killed in the days and months that
followed, many were kept alive, toiling pitifully for their
new masters, living off of algae and bound to the water by
the aboleth’s mucus. The aboleth had found them to be
useful slaves, though hampered by dependence on air.
None of the Sulzthul know how what follows was
accomplished, any more than they know which aboleth first
proposed it. The aboleth began to experiment on their drow
slaves, wielding magic, psionics and alchemy in an attempt
to fundamentally alter the drow. Dozens, even hundreds of
drow died gasping and screaming, twisted and stunted into
misshapen monsters by what was done to them. Eventually,
however, the aboleth were successful.
During the years since their enslavement, the drow of
Sulzthul had at least remained drow, cursed and scarred as
they were by the aboleth. Though every adult drow’s skin
had been transformed by the aboleth into the slick mucus
that forced them to remain in the water, the children born to
them were still true drow until the time of the child’s own
transformation at the slimy tentacles of the masters. This
next mighty and terrible work of the aboleth robbed their
drow slaves of even that tie to their old selves.
Only the strongest of the drow survived the experiments,
but when they were at last successful, the Sulzthul were
no longer truly drow at all. Their skin, though it appeared
black still, was now permanently altered into something
similar to the mucus with which the aboleth had cursed
them. This new skin was less dependent on immersion
in water, allowing the Sulzthul to spend as much as four
or five very uncomfortable days out of the water. More
valuable from the aboleth perspective however, was the
decreased reliance the Sulzthul now had on air. Expanded
lungs and the ability of their new skin to process oxygen
directly from the water gave the Sulzthul the capacity to
go as long as 12 hours without taking a breath. Perhaps
the most fundamental change, however, was that these new
attributes were not something limited to the individual
drow, but rather were passed on to their offspring. It is
widely thought that the lessons learned by the aboleth in
creating the Sulzthul were later put to use on humans who
fell into the aboleths’ slimy grip, enabling them to effect a
much more thorough transformation and creating the race
of skum.
Revulsion at this new horror inflicted on them was too
much for many of the Sulzthul to bear, some of whom went
mad or, breaking free for a moment of the aboleths’ control,
took their own lives to escape. Still, the strongest of the
Sulzthul endured, clinging to the frayed hope of freedom
and the bright lust for revenge.
For millennia they were held in bondage by the aboleth,
until the descendants of the strongest of the Sulzthul,
the offspring of those who survived the aboleths’ terrible
experiments, at last got their chance for freedom and
revenge. The aboleth city they were forced to serve was
never very large, with only a few hundred of the creatures
inhabiting it, and by now the Sulzthul numbered several
thousand, the result of an aggressive breeding programme
instituted by the aboleth.
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