The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

ends and nightmarish dangers. For years, the Merezzym
wandered hopelessly through the deadly maze, facing
privation, despair and terrible creatures unlike anything they
had ever imagined, such as the wholly evil and immensely
dangerous shangu (see page 231).
Lost and desperate, the grand plans to reach the surface
and flank the goblin hosts were quickly abandoned by
the drow, but by the time the rulers of House Merezzym
ordered a return to the rest of their people, it was too late.
The path back to the other drow was lost in the tangled web
of galleries and passageways.
Robbed of all other options, they pressed onward. The air
and the stone around them grew steadily colder until they
emerged into a series of caverns whose walls were covered
in glassy sheets of ice. Beyond the caverns were still more
passageways, leading eventually to the very thing the drow
of House Merezzym had sought in the first place, a path
to the surface. This surface was not the way the drow
remembered it, however. It seemed forbiddingly cold and
unimaginably bright, lit by a brilliant sun that would never
set. Unwilling to turn back now that the goal they had all
but forgotten was at last realised, the drow chose to wait for
the sunset to come.
At last, the sun slipped below the horizon to begin the
second phase of its yearly cycle this far towards the pole,
plunging the surface world into a night that seemed as
endless as the day had been. The drow emerged into the
surface world, into a landscape filled with objects that had
once been familiar to their people, with trees and mountains,
objects that now seemed alien and abnormal after the long
years spent in the Underdeep. Covering everything was
a blanket of white, of ice and snow, forcing the shivering
drow to turn their attention first to surviving the plunging
temperatures brought on by the darkness.
Arming themselves with fire and thick clothing made of
the hides and furs of the beasts that roamed this frozen
region, the drow set out to explore the
surface world, searching for any sign of
their elven kin or of the goblin hordes.
Instead, they encountered primitive
tribes of humans and orcs, who were
awed by the appearance and the power
of the drow, naming them the Midnight
People. The orcs were frightened and
hostile, while the humans thought of
the drow as gods, a belief the dark elves
were glad to encourage. The drow,
for their part, saw both groups as yet
another resource to be exploited.
With their superior equipment and skill,
the drow were easily able to overcome
the scattered tribes of orcs, enslaving
the survivors and putting them to work
constructing a fortress for the drow in
a series of immense, ice-coated caves.
The drow allowed the humans to remain
free for the time being, preferring to use
their status as gods to direct the actions
of the humans. Among many other
things, this involved sending runners
to the south to seek out any news of
elvenkind. The freedom of the humans
ended when the runners returned,
bearing news of a war. Though the
details were few, the drow were able to
piece them together to understand what
the humans did not - that the surface
elves, the humans and other races had
banded together to attack the drow. In a
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