The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

meaningless. Though they are still considered heretics,
the drow cults no longer concern themselves with trying to
destroy the Dark Fey.
For their part, the Dark Fey studiously avoid the cities of the
drow, knowing that to enter one would mean capture and,
most likely, sacrifice to one of the false gods worshipped
by their benighted kin.
Religion
Most of the Dark Fey have no true religion in the traditional
sense of the drow. Rather, they believe the entire world is
occupied by various spirits and that the Underdeep itself is
one enormous spirit. They attempt to communicate with
this spirit, to carry out its wishes and understand its mind.
They believe that the druids of the Dark Fey receive their
spells directly from this being.
The Dark Fey believe the true nature of the drow lies in the
race’s fey roots and that only by embracing the vestiges of
faerie that remain within them can they become what they
were meant to become.
There are some Dark Fey, presumably the less insane
of their number, that continue to worship the drow god
Kez’Skul, the Trickster. At the Games Master’s option,
it may be that Kez’Skul is responsible for the creation of
the Dark Fey themselves, that he has deceived the ultimate
deceivers into worshipping him unwittingly.
Darkling Sky
Hunted and hated by drow society, the Darkling Sky is
perhaps the most secret organisation in all of drow culture.
It has to be, otherwise it would never survive.
Background
No one in the Darkling Sky knows how far back the
roots of this organisation reach, nor do they know who is
responsible for forming it. Most believe it has existed in
one form or another since the days of the goblin war, when
the drow discovered new gods in the depths of the earth.
In fact, it is not so old as that, though the Darkling Sky is
still ancient in its origins, formed only a few generations
after the Sundering. It began in House Kolnahos, unlikely
though that is, in the time after that House discovered
the tribes of goblins and hobgoblins living nearby the
Kolnahos city of Klat’huan. Still filled with bitterness for
the Sundering and goblin war that preceded it, the drow
captured and enslaved these goblinoids, torturing them,
working them to death, conducting magical experiments on
them, all in a futile effort to slake their thirst for revenge,
a thirst that only grew stronger with each goblin corpse
dropped into the crevasse that split Klat’huan in half. As
the hunters and warriors of House Kolnahos ventured into
the Underdeep in search of more races to enslave and the
chants to Polshoath, the Dark Lady of Agony rose ever
higher, echoing in the canyon of Klat’huan, some very few
drow began to question the wisdom of the path their people
followed.
The first of those to question were the descendants of
Carryzn na’Baruss, the great warrior of House Kolnahos
whose bravery and skill allowed the House to escape the
grinding mill of the Sundering before they were completely
destroyed. These two, a brother and sister who had followed
their family’s path as warriors, looked at the recent history
of the drow and were dismayed. The drow were beaten,
almost broken, scattered through the Underdeep like
leaves before a gale. To the minds of Carielie and Lashan
na’Baruss, the drow had first set foot on the path towards
their current calamitous situation by turning away from
the old ways, the old gods, during the goblin war. By
embracing new gods, by their willingness to do anything
to destroy the enemy, the drow had laid the foundations of
their own undoing. The siblings were not so foolish as to
openly speak of these thoughts, choosing instead to bide
their time.
When a caravan of House Devoren Traders first made
contact with House Kolnahos, the children of na’Baruss
chose to act, leaving their people behind to join the caravan.
The two of them lived an existence as nomadic as any of
the drow of House Devoren for the remainder of their lives.
They practiced tremendous caution in which drow they
spoke to, rightfully frightened of the fate they both knew
would be theirs if they were discovered. They espoused a
return to the old ways, the old gods. They spoke of a return
to the surface of the world, where the drow might live again
in peace with their elven kin beneath the darkling sky.
In the end, their precautions were not enough and
the heretical thoughts of both brother and sister were
discovered; they spent the rest of their short and miserable
lives as slaves before finally meeting their deaths on the
altar (the Dark Mother for Lashan, Thraud for Carielie).
Though they died terribly, the seed they had planted in the
hearts of some drow did not.
The Darkling Sky remains today as it was when it was
founded, a group of drow of good or neutral heart who
desire a return to the old ways, to the surface, to life as it
was before the new gods came and corrupted the souls of
the drow.
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