The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

start fending for himself and dealing with his problems
on his own, the wealthy family or Noble House to which
he belongs will continue to see to his education, as the
education of the child is a valuable investment in the
future.
On the other hand, a child born to the poor drow of a city,
the ones living in a small cave gouged into the rock of a
back alley in the lowest levels, cannot expect any access to
education whatsoever. Often, the only thing such children
are taught is that they cannot rely on anyone else for help
or aid. These children of the poor and desperate must learn
to survive by their wits. Those with enough cunning, guile
and luck will survive, and in the case of the truly fortunate,
may even rise above their station. The rest will either die
alone and unnoticed or will continue to eke out a meagre
existence in the fetid gutters of the drow cities.
Somewhere in the middle are the children of the merchant
classes, those clans and families of drow with some degree
of wealth, but without the seemingly endless riches enjoyed
by wealthy families of the Noble Houses. The children of
these classes are usually trained in continuing the business
practiced by the family, be it as a merchant or craftsman.
Most of the education received is either directly from the
parents or from a guild, if the drow child lives in one of the
rare cities where guilds exist.
A child of the wealthy tends to receive his education from
a number of sources. The extended family will teach the
child about the history of the family and Noble House
and hired tutors will instruct the child in the various basic
subjects. Sometimes, educated slaves of other races are
used as tutors, but only for extremely specialised fields of
knowledge; generally speaking, the drow feel they have
nothing to learn from other, lesser races.
Depending upon the culture and religions present in the
city, a child of the wealthy may also have the opportunity
to be educated by a local temple. Usually, this is done as a
prelude to the child’s expected entrance into the clergy of
that temple, first as a servant (a stage which rankles both
child and parents), then as an acolyte and finally as a priest.
Aside from the time the child will spend as a servant, an
education by a temple is highly-sought by drow families,
as it offers the possibility of expanded power through the
cooperation of a temple.
Apart from education in a temple, there are very few schools
or academies devoted to general education in drow society,
as conflict and chaos between the children of rival groups
is all but inevitable. There would be much less likelihood
of such conflict between children of the lower rungs of
society, but as the parents cannot pay, there is no incentive
for any drow to run such a school.
Magical academies are also extremely rare among the drow,
for all the reasons given above. If the child of a wealthy
family demonstrates some particular and remarkable talent
and facility for magic, the parents will attempt to find a
mage who will take the child on as an apprentice. This is
a difficult, painstaking and expensive process, most of the
time and money of which is devoted to finding out where
the political affiliations of a considered mage lie and once
a suitable candidate is found, bribing him with enormous
gifts.
Engineering
The drow are capable engineers, but they lag behind other
more organised Underdeep races, the dwarves in particular.
In a way, this is unavoidable. The drow as individuals are
too chaotic and the drow culture too suspicious and plagued
by infighting, to effectively establish the widespread
sharing of knowledge among members of the race in the
manner that has made the dwarves so tremendously adept
at working with stone.
Additionally, the drow often rely too heavily on magic to
accomplish quickly what would otherwise be a long and
troublesome effort. For example, faced with a cavern with
an unstable ceiling, dwarves would construct an array of
thick buttresses capable of supporting the cavern’s ceiling
for the next ten millennia. Drow would prefer to throw up
some buttress spells, then augment them with a series of
fragile columns. If the spells fail and the cavern collapses,
it can be dug out and the whole process done over again.
Viewed as a whole, drow engineering work tends to be as
artistic as it is functional and many of the race’s artistic
preferences are expressed in the buildings they create. Tall,
flowing buildings are the rule in drow cities, spires more
graceful than the stalagmites and stalactites that surround
them. The all-pervading use of magic in drow engineering
means that their structures often sport lesser towers jutting
off at impossible angles and delicate lattices that should not
be able to hold up the weight of the stonework above.
Space is always at a premium in drow cities. Though the
drow are certainly capable of enlarging the caverns in
which they build their cities with magic and slave labour,
such excavations must be undertaken very carefully. There
are many stories, known very well among the drow, of
the city of Ulsh Vaun whose people were reckless in their
excavations and now lie buried beneath inestimable tons of
broken stone.
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