• UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    "The article DOES leave a “back door” open for us some day in the future to still have some sort of “cruel demon-worshiping elves”

    So there’s a chance for localized Dunmer? :SusOrdinator:

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        We will continue to be subjected to R.A. Salvatore garbage.

        “X fell apart

        :soypoint-1: SO DEEP AND MOVING :soypoint-2:

        • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          I used to be a giant fan of Drizzt because I got the impression that he didn’t just kill his enemies, but instead thought about morality and such; but it was hard to continue feeling that way when you realized actually Drizzt liked killing beings from the ‘evil’ races.

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            “Born evil” is a horrible Gygaxian legacy concept that should be driven entirely out of tabletop RPGs.

            I reject it entirely in my own campaigns; sometimes cultures have tendencies toward alignments, but apart from colonialist expectations and the oppression of poverty pressed upon them, my players figured out pretty quick that the goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, and ogres out in the fringes weren’t just driven to precarity and desperation, but were also pitted against one another to keep them divided and weak.

            I was so. Fucking. Proud. Of my party coming not as slayers of them, not even as “saviors,” but as intermediaries that got the tribal leaders to begin to agree who their real enemies were and joined the native people’s vanguard to help drive the governor and his trading company right off of the island. They made lasting friends that helped them out much later in the campaign as a show of solidarity. :mao-clap:

            A little trick I do to keep the D&D “treasure table” vibes going without making it all about looting “evil” people’s homes and temples and the like is that they received gifts from the people they helped out of gratitude. It worked great; no one minded. :sicko-wholesome:

            • Evilsandwichman [none/use name]@hexbear.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Nice, now that’s my kind of campaign.

              I’m a terrible DM but I also don’t do the whole ‘evil races’ thing either when I do actually DM; the only such beings when it does occur being fiendish beings who come from hell or the abyss, or the undead (except for one ‘undead’ lich who only became a (plant based) lich because he feared death greatly).

              I remember reading a forum post by Gygax (so relatively recent post, as in within the last twenty years) where he justified the killing of the children of evil races saying that a certain general’s observation of ‘nits make lice’ (in reference to the general pushing his troops to kill the women and children of native Americans) was an observable fact.

              https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/dtpgim/gygax_on_lawful_good/

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                Gygax and his chud writings are one of the primary reasons I outright reject “The Thermian Argument” when it comes to how things must be just because that was how the fiction (emphasis: FICTION) was written previously. I don’t just apply it to D&D, but D&D is certainly where I actively reject it in my own campaigns.

                I’ve had to deal with some Thermian Argumenters in the past, online but also occasionally in person, saying that anything in the lore or the story’s narration that has horrid ideology and/or political messaging in a piece of fiction isn’t necessarily “condoning” it, yet it can not be changed or rewritten or retconned because that was how the fiction was already written. Fuck that.

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The Gygaxian take on drow was always :kombucha-disgust: and was loaded with misogynistic baggage from the start, written right into the text, that amounted to “these straw feminists with the whips deserve to have a lesson dealt to them and they’re born evil so they’re fair game! Also their weapons, armor, and clothing disintegrate in sunlight if you get the implications!” :awooga: :hypersus:

  • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Probably a good thing tbh. I like what drow can be in the right GM’s hands, but their origin and established lore and everything is cringe city. No reason not to throw the whole thing out

    • AFineWayToDie [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      D&D elves, including dark elves, are borrowed from Norse folklore and Tolkien’s interpretations of it. Mind flayers and beholders were specifically created for D&D, so the reason for their exclusion is legal.

      • femicrat [she/her]@hexbear.netOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Tolkien’s “dark elves” weren’t black-skinned, nor did they live underground, worship spiders or take slaves. They were called “dark” elves (Moriquendi) because they never saw any light before the sun and moon (i.e. the sacred light of the Two Trees).

        Tolkien had a big thing about light. And its opposite, darkness.

        • lurkerlady [she/her]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          yeah even in pathfinder its a little different. drow are elves that went underground during earthfall while the good elves went back to their planet (yes, elves are aliens). the drow went insane because rovagug, the eater of worlds, is imprisoned in the core of golarion and has a greater influence the deeper down you go. earthfall itself was a bunch of asteroids being flung at the planet by tentacle space fish, the asteroids themselves physically killed a couple of gods

          fun fact, golarion means god cage in some random language

        • AFineWayToDie [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          According to Wikipedia:

          The word “drow” is from the Orcadian and Shetland dialects of Scots, an alternative form of “trow”, which is a cognate with “troll”.

          Also please forgive the mansplaining. I’m especially bad at it when it comes to D&D/PF.

  • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    It is for the best, there are plenty of cool things to do with the idea. Not one single DnD media has done any of them. Just start fresh. Naked mole rat elves. Just blind hairless and pooping on each other the way a cave species was ment to.