The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

than any other place House Zhakhun had tried to call home,
it was not without its disadvantages.
The most prominent problem was the lack of food. There
was little in the way of edible fungus to be found in the
area and the lake lacked enough fish to feed all of House
Zhakhun. Under pain of torture, the newly enslaved
morgoshe revealed where the drow could find herds of
wild gursk. For a time, these beasts sustained the drow,
but as the population grew, the drow still needed new food
sources. Putting to use the skills learned during their long
guerrilla war against the shangu, the drow warriors left Veth
Surzhil to hunt for more beasts to feed their people.
Over time, these hunters encountered other races, such as
orcs, goblins and deep gnomes, some of which they enslaved
and others they did not. Those the drow left free were not
left alone, however. The drow of House Zhakhun used their
own strength and power to extort food and other supplies
from the people they allowed to remain free. Slowly, this
practice made hunting obsolete as a form of gathering food,
but it had become so ingrained in the society of the drow
that the practice of hunting continued unabated.
Now that food was no longer a concern however, the drow
were no longer constrained to hunt unintelligent animals.
Many remembered the old stories of their forebears hunting
shangu as House Zhakhun retreated from the Sundering
and so they set out in search of that deadly prey. Others
merely took to hunting goblins
and orcs in the winding paths of
the Underdeep. Whole sets of
traditions and rituals began to grow
up around the hunt and more and
more drow began to embrace it as a
way of life, as a means of proving
the superiority of the drow over
all other races in the simplest way
possible.
In time, the presence of the House
Zhakhun hunters in the Underdeep
came to the attention of the shangu,
who had lost track of the drow after
the last major conflict. Marshalling
their forces, the shangu struck at
Veth Surzhil and for the first time
the drow were able to turn them
back. Defeated, the shangu slunk
back to their own cities in the
depths of the Underdeep.
With the threat of the shangu
removed for the time being at least,
the drow of House Zhakhun began to expand, founding
new cities and enslaving or subjugating new races. Most
of them spared little thought for the other drow by this
point and so discovering the fate of the rest of their race or
reuniting with them was not considered terribly important.
Instead, the hunt took on ever-greater significance.
As the House Zhakhun hunters became more and more
skilful, they grew bored with the potential quarry, longing
for something that would prove a challenge. Many set out
through the Underdeep, searching for shangu, deep trolls,
aboleth, dragons and other creatures of great personal
power that would make for thrilling quarry. Other hunters
had a different idea, one that quickly became popular and
is now in widespread practice, mostly in House Zhakhun
but also among nobles of other drow cultures who happen
to enjoy the hunt.
By this time, the drow of House Zhakhun had slaves
from a variety of different races, from lowly kobolds to
deadly trolls. Unlike most drow, House Zhakhun would
occasionally breed its slaves, either to create new hybrids
or to attempt to pass on certain desirable traits from one
generation of slaves to the next. The hunters took it upon
themselves to create an entirely new class of slaves, the
prey-slave. Almost from the moment of his birth, a preyslave
is subjected to a rigorous regimen of training and
conditioning. He is taught how to fight, how to hide, how
to escape traps, how to survive in the Underdeep. In short,
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