The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

86
Culture
The culture in the Darkling Sky is, like the rest of drow
society, one of suspicion and paranoia. This is for good
reason, as membership in this group, whose very existence
is denied by most temples and Noble Houses, is nonetheless
always punished by torture and death.
It is the belief of the Darkling Sky that the drow have lost
their way, through their fault and through the influence
of the new gods discovered in the Underdeep during the
days of the goblin war. The Darkling Sky is, at its core, an
attempt to turn the drow away from the culture that resulted
in their banishment to the Underdeep. Their ultimate hope
is that the drow will turn away from the terrible path they
now follow.
In practice, however, the Darkling Sky is primarily
concerned with not being discovered and destroyed by
other drow. Within drow culture, they are considered
heretics and traitors, weaklings and fools who must be
eliminated before they spread the poison of their beliefs to
others. A member of the Darkling Sky who is discovered
and captured can expect a long, exquisitely painful death.
The Darkling Sky offers hope to the rare drow who survives
childhood and adolescence in drow society without falling
into the evil that pervades drow culture. These individuals
are usually discovered and eliminated long before the
Darkling Sky is even aware of them however, as maintaining
a noble heart without calling attention to it in the world of
the drow is a narrow line to walk.
Leadership
The Darkling Sky is divided into small groups called
glades. A glade consists of only three or four individuals,
most of whom do not even know the names of the others
in their glade. This is a necessary precaution to prevent a
captured member of the Darkling Sky from revealing the
names and identities of other members of the organisation
through torture or after death through a speak with dead
spell.
Each glade has a single leader, who knows how to leave
a message or establish contact with someone else in the
organisation. There is no central command structure in the
Darkling Sky, though there are rumours of a single drow
who acts as the head of the entire organisation.
Generally, drow who join the Darkling Sky do so with the
desire to flee drow society, and most of the members of the
organisation have done just that, making their new home in
the surface world. They still live in hiding even in the sunlit
lands, not only from the prejudice of the surface races but
out of fear that, if discovered, the drow from whom they
fled might come to the surface to retrieve them. However,
having a contingent of drow living on the surface makes the
Darkling Sky unique in that it exists both above and below
the surface.
Place in Society
The official stance of the drow churches and most Noble
Houses is that the Darkling Sky does not even exist.
Unofficially, of course, they know quite well that it exists
and consider it a grave and continuing threat to the drow,
a sickness that will weaken and destroy the dark elves in
a way even the Sundering could not. The members of the
Darkling Sky are hunted mercilessly, with secrecy as their
only shield against capture and a horrible death.
For some very few drow, however, the Darkling Sky is a
slender ray of hope. Those drow who find the most basic
trappings of drow society repulsive and intolerable, those
who have managed to maintain a noble heart despite the
place in which they live, have a chance to either escape
from the lands of their race or stay and attempt to make a
difference if they can contact and join the Darkling Sky.
Religion
The Darkling Sky is devoted to the elven gods the drow
once worshipped, but whom they abandoned during their
first exile into the Underdeep. However, the gods of the
elves have not forgotten that the drow spurned them, nor
have they been blind to the evil and cruelty the drow have
perpetrated upon so many others. They have not forgiven the
drow for these terrible crimes and it is exceedingly difficult
for even the most pious, good-hearted drow of the Darkling
Sky to gain the acceptance of one of the elven gods. Most
of those in the Darkling Sky see this as a penance for the
crimes their race has committed and studiously maintain
their faith in the elven pantheon, hopeful that someday the
elven gods will offer them forgiveness.
Mercenary Organisations
Background
There are many mercenary organisations living on the
fringes of drow society. Often made up mostly of drow
from the lower social classes, these organisations roam in
and around the lands of the drow, seeking employment as
armies, guards or criminals.
Mercenary organisations range in size from just a handful
of specialised individuals to a large host. The largest and
most well known of these is the Fist of the Deep, an army
for hire that consists of more than 5,000 drow warriors and