The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

emained separate, retaining their own societies and power
structures while very slowly re-establishing ties to their
rediscovered kin. Thus the drow remain; a people divided
by time, distance and culture, but sharing such bonds as
race, common defence against the other denizens of the
Underdeep and above all, the dream of vengeance upon the
hated betrayers in the world above.
Even in the time before the Sundering, the various clans
and tribes of drow were led by Noble Houses. Though the
Sundering changed many things, it did not change this.
Some of the scattered tribes still had a Noble House with
them immediately after the Sundering, a group of drow
that clung ferociously to whatever power was left to them.
Others had no Noble Houses among their number at all, a
situation that was soon rectified either by the priesthood of
one god or another seizing control and anointing a faithful
group of followers as the nominal leaders, or by a series
of violent coups in which every faction with
any power at all made its play for leadership
of the tribe. By the time the scattered bands of
drow began to seek one another out at last, the
constant violence of various factions vying for
control had ebbed.
Today, the Noble Houses vie with the
priesthoods as the closest thing there is to a
unifying factor in the drow. The various nations
and tribes of the drow are tied together with a
web of commerce and tentative alliances, much
as is the case with many of the races on the
surface world.
The drow concept of a House differs somewhat
from how surface races would define the term.
For example, the drow differentiate between a
House and a Noble House, though the second is
always part of the first. A House of the drow is a
large group of dark elves, often numbering well
into the hundreds or even thousands. The long
life spans of the dark elves give them literally
centuries to reproduce. Though reproduction is
slow, this long window of opportunity makes
up for it and tends to generate an intricate web
of siblings, cousins and myriad other relations.
Obviously, it is impossible for such a large
number of people to hold the reins of power,
which is where the Noble House comes in.
The Noble House is that segment of the House
with all the power and all the control, usually
a single small family. Yet the cousins of that
family, also members of the greater House, may
be toiling away in the lower rungs of society,
with little hope of anything better and certainly no hope
of any help from their wealthy cousins. This example is
extreme, of course, and as a general rule, drow who can
claim membership in a House enjoy an elevated social
standing within that particular drow nation or culture,
often occupying positions within the lower nobility or
the merchant and artisan classes. Many of the tribes of
drow scattered in the Sundering have become almost
entirely members of one of more Houses, the long years of
marriage and reproduction yielding a network of relations
more intricate and criss-crossed than a spider’s web.
It is a common misperception by those outside the race
that the drow are all alike, each boasting identical (or
very nearly so) powers and abilities. Once, millennia ago,
this was true, but the Sundering and the time spent in the
Underdeep has changed that. Though hardly changed as
much as the four Lost Tribes, many Houses of drow have
diverged in some small ways from the common conception
51