The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

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the drow and many slave trainers of the House can be found
in other cities, selling their services for a fortune in gold.
The art of training slaves has been refined in this House to
the point that a well-trained slave will gladly kill himself
on his master’s whim. Such training has even become a
spectator sport of sorts, in which multiple slaves are given
a variety of implements of pain and torture and ordered by
their masters to choose an item and use it upon their own
flesh until ordered to stop. The slave who picks the most
painful device and who uses it longest without crying out,
is deemed the winner. This is commonly called ‘Loyalty
of the Knife’ and results in great renown for the drow who
trained the winning slave.
The forced breeding programme the rulers of House
Kolnahos began shortly after the Sundering in an attempt
to increase the drow’s numbers has never really stopped
and most drow attached to this House are the result of such
mating. It is no longer enforced or administered to the
drow as harshly as it once was and there is no need, as
it has simply become their way of life. Those drow who
do a significant service to the House are exempt from this,
however, and are free to choose and keep a mate as long as
they like.
The rulers of House Kolnahos have kept their power through
the years largely by focusing the anger and frustration of
their people on outside targets, such as the goblins. This
has grown over the years into a deep-seated hate of other
races. Even more so than most drow, the dark elves of
House Kolnahos consider all other races their inferiors,
creatures which should feel honoured to be taken as slaves,
creatures which exist only to serve and supply the drow
with cruel amusement.
There are a large number of clerics in House Kolnahos,
and while sorcerers are also not uncommon, wizards are
somewhat rare. Large numbers of fighters follow in the
House’s proud tradition of warfare, and the slave hunters
of the House are primarily rangers or multiclassed fighter/
rogues, often specialising in fighting techniques for
subduing rather than killing opponents.
Religion
The cult of Polshoath, the Dark Lady of Agony, is the
predominant religion in House Kolnahos. During the earlier
days of the House, she was prayed to and invoked in hopes
of increasing the birth-rate of the drow and restoring their
devastated population. While this aspect of her worship
never faded, her aspect as the goddess of pain eventually
rose to rival it as the drow inflicted terrible punishments
and torments upon the creatures they had taken as slaves,
particularly goblins.
With the advent of the House’s extensive interests in the
slave trade however, the cult of Alsythuth the Bloodied
Coin has been gaining in prominence among the drow of
House Kolnahos and now stands almost equal with the cult
of Polshoath. The rulers of the House have encouraged this
growth quietly, as they had long felt that the clergy of the
Dark Lady held too much sway within their lands. The
addition of a new and equally prominent cult seemed the
ideal way to dilute the power of the clergy. There is some
religious tension between the two cults, but there has yet to
be any acts of open violence, whether between the clergy
or between the followers.
House Features:
� All drow of House Kolnahos begin play with a trained
slave of 1 st level. This slave should be treated in all
ways as a cohort of the drow (see DMG), except that he
will never, under any circumstances, become disloyal
to the Kolnahos drow.
� +2 bonus to Intimidate checks.
� -2 penalty to all Craft and Profession checks.
House Skills: Diplomacy, Intimidate
Favoured Class: Cleric
Predominant Alignment: Chaotic evil
Predominant Religion: Polshoath
House Merezzym
The dark elves who count themselves members of House
Merezzym spend more time on the surface world than
almost any other drow, where they are known as the
Midnight People.
Background
The drow of House Merezzym were separated from the
other dark elves long before the Sundering. It was in the
time of the goblin war, as the drow began to learn the ways
of their new gods and master the knowledge of warfare,
that House Merezzym was severed from the rest of the
drow people.
The rulers of the House thought to find a path around the
goblin hordes that they might use to regain the surface,
much as the Pol’Tah had sought to do (see page 115). The
drow of House Merezzym were not motivated by a desire
to return to the old gods and the old ways, but rather by a
desire to flank and destroy the goblin hosts. Marshalling
their forces for what could be a lengthy journey, the rulers
of the House set out into the Underdeep.
The paths below the surface were far more difficult to
navigate than the drow had imagined, however. Much
as with the Pol’Tah, the Merezzym became quickly and
utterly lost in the endless labyrinth of winding tunnels, dead