Reconsidering Drow Alignment

Do you think it might be worth reclassifying drow as a non-chaotic alignment?

I have recently been reading some of the old Forgotten Realms novels and noted that for a chaotic evil people their society is intensely lawful. Now, I am no expert on the matter nor am I as widely read in drow lore as many of you folks here likely are and I am very interested in weather things are different now and if not might a re-alignment be in order.

I understand that they are essentially under the thumb of a goddess who very much IS chaotic and it might be possible to read their society as all a giant joke played on them by her; that they are very chaotic but restrained by endless rules. They even have rules governing betrayal and (illegal?) warfare against noble houses. It's all very interesting but there seems to be very little of chaos in them.

Even the religion around their chaotic goddess is very lawful with many absolute rules and rituals and strict hierarchy that is subvertable, sure, but seemingly only through very orderly, expected, and pre-approved skulduggery.

I suspect this might be a failing of Salvatore, the author whom I have read the most of thus far. He isn't particularly good at reflecting the concept of alignment or even class, really (would you be able to tell Drizzt was a ranger by his actions or would you make other assumptions?).

I'd appreciate some thoughts on this and an overview of current depictions of drow as compared to old ones if possible.

A chaotic society is an oxymoron. Drow are lawful out of necessity, like any civilization. Alignment is a stupid concept when applied to that scale.

I would not call this a failing of Salvatore's, but rather him wisely choosing to ignore gaming conventions that would only serve to damage the narrative value of an actual story.

It's been a while since I read those novels, but I don't remember the drow acting anything like lawful. To have a hierarchy, you need to have at least SOME rules even if it's just "do whatever the matriarch tells you to". They don't really have all that many rules, and even those they break all the fucking time as long as they can get away with it. Attacking another house is illegal: however, they do that all the time and no-one bothers to try and stop them or punish those who break the rule as long as they don't actually get caught in the act even when everyone knows exactly who did it. There are pretty much only two rules that matter: Don't piss off anyone who is more important than you are, and don't get caught breaking the other rules.

>would you be able to tell Drizzt was a ranger by his actions or would you make other assumptions?
Seriously? He dual-wields swords as well as uses a bow, he wears light armor, he's at home in wilderness(whether topside or underdark) and he has an animal companion. What class would you say he is if not ranger? (excepting the first book obviously, because in that one he was training to be a fighter and he only became a ranger later)

Very helpful.

>What class would you say he is if not ranger?
On reflection you're right in that you can see the mechanical marks of a ranger in him. It might be argued that the tematic ones are weaker, maybe? Some are quite strong I suppose like his natural talent as an outdoorsman and his good alignment which was a signature of rangers at the time of Drizzt's conception.
Using two weapons is mechanically true, though I have wondered often why rangers in particular have that special skill and what's so 'rangery' about it other than its been a feature forever. From a strictly D&D mechanisms perspective it counts, though others can do it too. You make a pretty good point that D&D players (the audience of the books of course) will recognise the ranger class. I wonder if it would go the other way and communicate the essensials of the ranger class to non D&D readers? Would they recognise two-weapon fighting as a signature of a ranger or an innate quality of Drizzt's?

The animal companion thing is what's really interesting. In the fiction, anyone could have that statuette and have the panther working for them. I suppose its significant that Drizzt wins its trust, something a ranger is likely to do. But still, its just one animal companion which did not become a thing until much, much later. In the AD&D days, rangers would get 2d6 companions and not just animals. On that list are:

Fighter (human)
Thief (Halfling)
Great Cat

No dwarf is on the list but two interesting things can be inferred:

1. Drizzt was a modern ranger before they existed with one dedicated animal companion; maybe influencing later design, and
2. Drizzt and Bruenor are the only members of the Companions of the Hall that are Player Characters.

Chaotic/Lawful isn’t meant to be read as literally as deciding whether a character follows laws or not. Chaotic nature means the person is individually driven and will simply choose the options that directly benefit themself the most, wheras Lawful alignment means they are adhering to a greater code of conduct that they think benefits them or the world the most.
Thus, Drow are extremely Chaotic-Aligned despite having such a rigid societal structure.
It also helps that it’s standard well-known practice for every Drow to break those laws for their own gain. The important part is just not getting caught. Otherwise such behaviour is encouraged if anything.

>and it might be possible to read their society as all a giant joke played on them by her

Actually that's more-or-less exactly, explicitly what it is. Lolth is fucking batshit insane and the drow are her playthings. She is by a wide margin the most active god in the Material Plane.

>would you be able to tell Drizzt was a ranger by his actions

...yes?

- Dual-wielding
- Trained in combat at Melee-Magthere but became very good at setting traps.
- Served as a forward scout for drow hunting parties
- Animal companion. Magical, but still
- Lived by himself for 10 years in the Underdark, surviving in the wilds via his knowledge of the wilds
- Came up to the surface, lived innawoods.
- Protected people from attack where possible but was a mysterious loner
- Overwintered in a cave with a bear he made friends with
- Explicitly trained as a ranger and called a ranger by Montolio
- Takes up the worship of Gwaeron Windstorm, a god of rangers
- Spends most of his time living in the wilds of Icewind Dale or traversing the wilds of the Savage Frontier
- Except when he goes to bang his hot maybe-immortal sorta-princess girlfriend in Silverymoon before hooking up with Cattie-Brie on a permanent basis

I honestly don't know why people would think he's NOT a ranger.

>I honestly don't know why people would think he's NOT a ranger.

He doesn't have magic. I agree he's more or less a ranger in concept but you can't actually stat him as one in most editions (except 4e).

Or 5e with the UA Spell-less ranger. Or 3.5e with spell-less ranger from Complete Warrior (or even just a regular Ranger with 10 Wisdom).

Not to mention that of the various characters that can be said to have inspired rangers from history, myth, and fiction (The 2e PHB sites Robin Hood, Orion, Jack the Giant Killer, and the huntresses of Diana; and of course Strider/Aragorn would be a major inspiration), none of them are really spellcasters.

To me, the fact that rangers cast spells in D&D has been the weird thing.

>To me, the fact that rangers cast spells in D&D has been the weird thing.

It's part of a broader problem of treating all magic as spellcasting when the spell system was really only designed to make sense for Vancian style wizards. I can see rangers having a mystical connection to animals and nature but without casting spells like a wizard. Same goes for clerics or bards.

But I can understand it too because it's just simpler from a design perspective to tie everything to the same subsystem.

>He doesn't have magic.

This is accurate; however, in the high days of his adventures it just meant he was not yet 9th level.

>before hooking up with Cattie-Brie.

Ew. I stopped reading after the crystal shard, but didn't Drizzt see her grow up from a little girl (under 12?) to an older teen? I know elves are magical and all but that seems a bit creepy.

(Also, wasn't she more hinted at hooking up with that orphaned, but now barbarian king?)

>2017
>Drow thread
user, stop. The 00s ended. Give up. Drows aren't cool, trendy or hip for over a decade.

The way that I think about it is that a Lawful character or society follows cold hard logic and reason when making decisions, while a Chaotic character or society goes with whatever their gut tells them, IE they respond emotionally.

It's quite possible for a society to be built with laws that came about from an emotional origin ("Won't somebody think of the children?"), and quite suitingly it would most likely be extremely dysfunctional, just like drow society should be.

But drow act on the logic of what personally advances them the most and they frown on those who can't control their impulses.

Yeah, but then Wulfgar was dead for a few years.

> and they frown on those who can't control their impulses

They frown on those who can't hide their impulses, but they're all ultimately driven by impulses.

Drow society only has a single actual rule: don't get caught. Nothing else matters to them. Which is why they're Chaotic, they only have one actual rule. And frankly you can even break that one if you're powerful enough.

They should be chaotic good or neutral.

Yeah about that. He didn’t instigate it.

She all but held him down and foisted herself on him with real talks as he wanted to respect wulfgars memory.

She told him to stop looking at her like a child and respect her earnest request for a relationship before y’know, she died. Was a scene a long time coming.

Not to mention how Llolth is a Lesser Deity like Tiamat, meaning she's an actual physical entity that could hypothetically be killed.

With my smiting fun, they will always be evil in my eyes.

They don't act impulsively, they're cold calculating sociopaths that stage sabotages and violent upheavals with extensive premeditation. The impulsive murderous psycho is the rare dumb brute that does not last long in drow society. Unless it's someone's half demon minion or something like Jeggred.

I mean if you argue it doesn't count because all their plotting is ultimately rooted in impulsive hatred or whatever, then every person ever is chaotic for having feelings and doing anything at all to satisfy them. Forcing themselves to act within a ruleset to achieve their ends instead of just immediately acting on whatever feelings come up I would say is lawful. They're so adherent to their societal principles they don't understand feelings that their society has not deemed drow-like; they struggle to justify feelings of friendship as something self-serving and view love as a kind of alien madness or malicious bewitchment, despite actually being capable of said feelings. Drow are so far gone they only feel what their society deems is right to feel. That seems pretty damn lawful, but maybe I'm understanding lawful wrong.

>You can tell Drizzt is a ranger because he dual-wields!
Reminder: this is cart-before-horse.
The ranger class is good at dual-wielding because fucking Drizzt does it.

Drow society is thr way it is because Lolth likes it that way. Which is also why it falls apart when she disappears for a while.

To have spells he would need to pray to Mielikki and ask for them. He doesn't do that, he is happy to worship in the way he worships without asking for spells directly.

In game terms, he just never prays to fill out spell slots.

Rangers don't pray, they just do naturey things and nature grants them naturey powers, no?

Actually last time I checked, she was an Intermediate Deity (Deities & Demigods 3e; also the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3e). Or did she lose power between 3e and 5e?

>Forcing themselves to act within a ruleset

Again, there's really only one rule - "don't get caught". Lawful Evil requires at least some respect for and honest belief in authority and structure and hierarchy. Drow may construct these things, but they resent them and work outside of them as often as possible. Consider that in recent years, for example, one of the Eight Great Houses of Menzoberranzan has been House Do'Urden, resurrected (even though drow are supposed to never speak of them again) and placed there (without having earned its spot by offing other Houses), headed by a moon elf (even though drow are supposed to kill them on sight), but in reality is a mere puppet House of House Baenre so that Baenre gets an extra vote at the Council of Eight (which is a totally unnecessary extravagance because Baenre is already stronger than the other seven Great Houses combined and can impose its will with impunity).

Arguably this makes a mockery of the entire structure that Lolth supposedly decrees the drow should follow, but it personally amuses Lolth so she allows it, and Quenthel can get away with openly flouting the rules otherwise because she's fucking Quenthel Baenre, she's in charge.

More in a moment, I'm going to run out of characters.

Forgotten Realms has a habit of forcing all divine casters to get their powers from gods, even primal types like druids. I assume it applies to rangers too.

One thing to keep in mind when discussing Drow society is you have to be aware it exists and hasn't imploded is because Lolth intervenes and messes with the order of things to keep it going. It's an utterly self-destructive society otherwise.

2/2

>but maybe I'm understanding lawful wrong.

You are. Being Lawful implies more than simply *having* some kind of structure or hierarchy, it also implies implicit respect for and belief in that hierarchy. You follow it not only because of the consequences of not following it, but because you honestly believe that it is the best way to run things and that it is a fundamentally positive thing.

Drow don't have that. They chafe at the restrictions placed on them and seek every opportunity to subvert them. They have no respect for the structure they're forced into, and it exists SOLELY because Lolth personally intervenes constantly to keep it extant. The 3e book "Drow of the Underdark", after having a long section describing drow society, basically then says, "okay, so now you know all this and are probably wondering, 'how can drow society even exist'? The answer is...it can't. Drow society would have torn itself apart eons ago, if not for the fact that the Spider Queen personally intervenes to keep things from getting *too* chaotic. But everything about the structure and order of drow society depends upon Lolth forcing fundamentally chaotic beings to live in a fundamentally lawful society. Left to their own devices, a drow city would implode and destroy itself inside of just a few years, if that; and the constant frustration and anger that drow feel as a result of the chafing certainly plays into their evil nature"

Nope. Rangers could dual-wield right at the start of AD&D 2nd Edition at the very least (see pic here, ; originally this was one post but stupid character limit is stupid). 2e came out in 1989 (and had been in development since 1897), scarcely a year after The Crystal Shard was released in 1988. I find it hard to believe that the AD&D ranger was already modeled after Drizzt, since:

1) Drizzt was not even intended to be the main character of The Crystal Shard, Wulfgar was;
2) It is unlikely that Bob Salvatore and the team developing 2e had any significant interactions with each other;
3) The way dual-wielding works for Rangers doesn't follow how Drizzt dual-wields (two weapons of the same size), whcih instead relies upon the 1e rules for drow; and
4) The Crystal Shard, while successful, was not such a massive, game-changing hit as to influence the development of 2e notably.

>It is unlikely that Bob Salvatore and the team developing 2e had any significant interactions with each other

It's a little more likely than we might think. I'll grand you that interactions wouldn't have been significant but there is likely to have been something.
Crystal shard was being written in the development cycle of 2nd edition and I think its actually unlikely that they didn't give him an overview of the stuff relevant to his work at the time. It's actually highly likely that he himself would have asked them what some of the changes were.
At that time, 2e wasn't complete and likely changed later which might account for discrepancies.

Drow are Chaotic because they're Lolth's bitches and Lolth says they are.

Law and Chaos are no less capricious than Good and Evil. They mean whatever their respective deities say they mean; if you don't like it take it up with them.