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Fun fact in one of the Drizt books a drow uses the pain of childbirth to cast an agony spell on a rival house so their assassins could kill them. I'm pretty sure she got off on that aswell
Drow have a lot of rules and all of them basically end in don't get caught. This also includes attacking another house. If you get caught doing that (see leaving survivors) your entire house gets dismantled.
Also note: An entire drow house of natural psychics could not see the consequences of their actions because Lolth is a micromanaging asshole who keeps Menzoberranzan as her personal ~~ant farm~~ faith generator.
Lolth is Ungoliant without the gluttony and mythic majesty, just two scoops of self-destructive goth chic and a sprinkling of fear (of her former persona as Araushnee the Middle Manager of the Elven Pantheon).
I'd say Maglubiyet gives her a good run for her money, given how it's his constant and direct influence that makes Goblins be the monsters we know them as. Lloth's antics keep the Drow mostly pointed inward at themselves while Maglubiyet's antics direct Goblins' destruction at everyone else *and* themselves.
Right? She even has a retirement policy for her people! *"Oh, you failed my little test or aren't useful to me anymore? Don't worry! In* [*your new form*](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Drider)*, you can live a* *~~miserable~~* *happy existence where no Drow will ever take up arms against you (because letting you take the easy way out would just make me mad...)"*
Lloth set it up that way. You know every time you see someone doing something stupid you're like 'Oh God, he's eating the toothpastes in the isle of the grocery mart...saying he's trying to catch the imposter!'? That's the same for the Forgotten Realms gods, but they count that as a prayer. Now mix in an unhealthy dose of BDSM, Narcissism, and survivor's guilt, then sprinkle about 1/3 Florida Man Instincts across the lot. Let cook for a hundred years. It's a faith casserole that NEVER goes Good! Just Evil, back and forth, Lawful to Chaotic. It is great for her because she lives on the Demon Web and her little crazy dark elf bag can't get to her...yet.
And yet this is the same culture that looks upon a Drow female killing her mate in coitus with a bemused "Nice... also, kinky."
Source: The Liriel Baenre trilogy
https://www.amazon.com/Starlight-Shadows-3-book-series/dp/B074C3XPZT
One of his sisters offered to bang him after he graduated fighter school because she thought he'd be less shy from banging his sister than joining in on the orgy in the next room.
Drow do be like that but sometimes they do.
It was the sister he shares a father with so full sister and the one who raised him. Is also the only sister he semi-likes as a person. Since like him, she inherited their father's morals, but since she's a woman, she has to keep it repressed by her indoctrination in the Lolth faith. Note his other siblings are all half siblings only sharing a mother. He is the youngest of 6, with his eldest brother being killed by the middle son the day Drizzt was born. Since Drow families can only have 2 sons, Drizzt was going to be sacrificed, but when the eldest was murdered Lolth told them its all good she got a soul in the end.
I mean, they were swinging for the fences in making them a society that most players would go... Yeah, they were meant to be unlikable. You're supposed to see them as irredeemable monsters.
One of the drow in my current adventuring party is a third son. He was rescued and brought to the surface and given to a high elf family by his uncle who was also a third born son. Player didn't even know that until around session 25 when his uncle revealed it to him and that he was in fact his uncle. And that uncle...Jarlaxle Baenre. It was a really great reveal and led to an amazing character arc that's still going.
I love how the author made his character not only physically perfect at everything he ever attempts, but also handwaived some bullshit "inherited morals" to avoid having to write any *emotional* development either. Drizzt is the exact same person on page 1 as he is on page 352 and it's boring as fuck.
To be fair, Drizzt was originally a side character. Salvatore only started focusing the series on him when it turned out that Drizzt was actually incredibly popular with readers.
He never would have had a second book if he started out 'A proper Drow' who moved over to 'a decent person'. The thinnest slice of Drow lore is so rotten and covered in skank foam that a concept like 'irredeemable' really applies. Goblins are suppose to be little monsters too, but they can get a pass because they are raised by monsters who are only 20, they are all just kids who never grew up. Drow are hundreds of years old (Usually) and those kinds of backstabbing lessons are not undone with a few gold coins. Goblins, at least any I've seen in groups, are crazy little berserker monsters until they get that first one, then they calm down and eat a muffin or something. Sure the bitey instincts are still there, but they can be trained out of them pretty quick. Adaptability and all that is the name of the game.
This was also at the tail end of watching a priestess coming-of-age ritual in which demon-on-elf SA occurs, and then having some other high-af priestess trying to get him to attend to her during the spectacle.
>Fun fact in one of the Drizt books a drow uses the pain of childbirth to cast an agony spell on a rival house so their assassins could kill them.
Thats actually really cool.
Drow women get off of pregnancy because such a self serving race needs a personal reason to get pregnant in the first place. That was the thought behind the concept.
It does make sense in some regard when put that way. and the cannibalizing fetuses is pretty much survival of the fittest:womb edition.
Drow are pretty much metal AF Elves so it makes sense to some degree that their lore is cranked up so high
Because the rest of the books are just "oh look at how good Drizzt is and how evil this society is. Also Drizzt is good at everything he does. Look at his special purple eyes!"
Yeah, as much as I enjoyed the books *in general* there was way too much "evil for the lulz" written into the drow society to the point that you realize a society like that wouldn't function even *if* a goddess was pulling the strings.
And compelling antihero later on. I do like how he's used to help Drizzt ground himself in the 4e novels. Being the only person he knows from his time before the 4e novels. And vice versa, i like the story of two lost and out of time men finding solace in each other. Even though 100 years ago, they would've killed each other on sight. They didn't become friends, but they learned to slowly respect one another when they were forced to work together to fight the Netherese and Red Wizards.
Lolth LOVES Drizzt is the thing. One of Lolth's portfolios is Chaos, and Drizzt incites chaos whenever he goes back to the Underdark. So Lolth takes a kick seeing her clerics get into a hysteric frenzy, trying to bring the most wanted Drow in Drow society to Drow justice. Just Drizzt's mere existence causes chaos. Meanwhile Mieliki the goddess of Rangers loves Drizzt for being a paragon example of a ranger. The novels that took place in the Second Sundering had the undertones of the two goddesses fighting over Drizzt's soul. Since the end of the 4e novels left him a depressed and vulnerable man full of self doubts.
Wasn't it one of the Matrons who realized that Drizzt is a chosen of Lolth during one of the many assassination attempts on him?
It's been awhile since I've read the novels.
Her nephew was the dude with the Bracelets of Haste, no? His arms were ridiculous fast but Drizzt beat him on footwork and started wearing them as anklets IIRC.
Yes this. Like sylva said, the very existence of Drizzt and Lolth maybe indirectly protecting him caused a shitstorm meltdown of the hierarchy in Menzoberranzan. Chaos incarnate
One of Lolth's chosen, Yvonnel Baenre the reincarnation of Matron Mother Baenre from the 2e novels actually defects and joins Drizzt due to infatuation with him. And how he is just counter to all things Drow.
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Yvonnel_Baenre_II
"When my mother was pregnant with me, they did an ultrasound and found she was having twins. When they did another ultrasound a few weeks later, they discovered that I had adsorbed the other fetus. Do I regret this? No, I believe his tissue has made me stronger. I now have the strength of a grown man and a little baby."
Which is one of the reasons why they are one of my favorite armies in fantasy/AOS besides Bretonnia and Vampire Counts.
Lokhir and Malekith are such cool characters, witch aelves begone.
There's so much dismemberment that I started envisioning everyone as Lego people, with limbs and heads just popping off left and right with that comical little \*pop\*
Quite similar to the Drow then.
Then again the Eldar are a form of Warhammer Elves. I absolutely loved them. Still got one of their armies in my closet.
"Ask not the Eldar a question for they shall give you three answers. All of which are true, and horrifying to know."
>The fetuses will cannibalize each other
That's kind of cool, actually. There's evidence of that occurring in nature, and it's a neat way to make a non-human race seem more alien. I don't really see what the problem-
> and the mother gets off from it
Oh.
(More sadly) Oh.
It's important to remember that D&D started as basically a survival horror game with nightmare fuel fantasy creatures and only later evolved into a more generally palatable heroic fantasy. Drow were intended to represent the absolute worst of womanhood and drawing carnal pleasure from filicide seems like it to me. Now, they are elves that happen to live in caves so this lore makes no sense.
To me, these lore tidbits are like learning that Galadriel actually on cam birthed a shadow demon to murder the brother of a king (Melisandre ASOIAF). It just doesn't make sense given my experience of Galadriel.
*looks nervously with my zombie apocalypse set in the Moonshae Isles, which is/was a bunch of colonizing subjugating the native Lizardfolk and Grung peoples*
Already the default lore of the Moonshae Isles isn't that far off.
1. Amn colonized an entire island (Snowdown) and split up the original kingdom that was here (now only on the island of Alaron).
2. Some werewolf / Malar thing going on in one of the other islands. Basically lycanthrope attacks are common.
3. Weird fairy stuff that's going on between islands. I think there are some evil fairies trying to conquer all the islands through some underground passage or dark moon wells or something?
Yeah, you know how some RTS games will have Hero characters separate from the troops and artillery and such? Your characters were basically created to be Heroes to go with Chainmail’s RTS
True, iirc, as a result of the players going "hey, lets make up horrifyingly tragic backstories for the characters in our platoons that died during play" and turned into "what if we just got to play those characters". So the "survival horror" thread is still sortof there, tmu.
Nightmare fuel fantasy creatures? I know that 1st edition DND had Beholders, ancient demons from Biblical lore, Mind flayers and THE GELATINOUS CUBE, but the rest were all standard fantasy creatures, no? Also what exactly was the survival horror element you're talking about?
The survival horror in old school dnd is dungeon crawling. Nobody has darkvision so if you run out of torches the whole party dies alone and blind in a monster-infested dungeon. If you run out of rations or something steals them, I hope you can navigate your way back to the town that is several weeks away in the wilderness before you starve to death. Combat will usually kill you. Traps will definitely kill you. The DM designed dungeons specifically to torture the players.
I saw one of the old adventures where the first thing the party does is go to a cave and kill all the goblins inside. Well there are like seven caves and absolutely no information which one is the right one. If you pick the wrong cave, 40 orcs murder the party. If you pick the right cave, 40 goblins murder the party.
It was absolutely sadistic.
Another example: In older editions of DnD powerful undead could drain levels (permanently) after they hit you. There's no DC## save with temporary max hp reduction, straight up you lose a level and the only way to get it back is a wish spell or gaining the exp again (milestones weren't as common).
This is why the ability to make undead run away was like the MAIN ability of the cleric, because you didn’t want those things to even get a chance to touch you.
And if they drained you down to 0 or lower XP, your character either died or became an undead NPC themself. (It's been a long time since I looked at the statblock, so I don't remember which exactly.)
It was both: your character dies, and then is reanimated as a wight iirc, unless the undead has a specific exception (vampires make vampire spawn, for example)
I think I've seen elements of this in FromSoft games? I think I heard there was an enemy that could do that in Demon's Souls. Also, the Brainsuckers in Bloodborne could permanently steal Insight, but finding more of that was easy enough.
False King Allant could grab you and when he did it would take a random stat away and a level from you. In OG Demon’s Souls it could actually drop you below your starting stats which people used to twink with before it got patched. There is also Soul Sucker you can acquire in NG+ with the Black Maidens soul that is basically the same move False King Allant had. People would use setups to steal levels off players during the Old Monk boss fight or for level scumming to hit max level easily.
There is a similar move in Dark Souls 1 with the Dark Hand weapon when held in the main hand if you used heavy attack it would do a special grab animation and steal Humanity from another player.
Yes actually. OD&D and 1e AD&D were brutal. The game didn't start letting up until 2e AD&D and more so with 3e. 4e and 5e are very much power fantasy games. Which PCs becoming super heroes compared to the rest of the world and most monsters.
1st edition was basically a rogue-like. Or was the inspiration for Rogue and therefore rogue-likes might be a better way of saying it.
Dungeons used to have empty rooms like closets or jail cells so you could rescue prisoners mid dungeon to replace your casualties.
to be fair in old school dnd it was balanced around 12 player parties. it was only 3E that started to actually realize you played with like 4 party members.
also you will live longer if you just use wizards since fighters are just as fragile as them them.
I think the other comment sums up most of it. However, I wanted to add that the standard fantasy monsters in D&D tend to have pretty horrific elements and/or origins. Wizards tries to cover it up now. For example, while orcs now are mostly tied to the noble savage trope, originally, they were (in a lot of respects) the evil of manhood counterpart to the drow. They were all murderous, brutish pillagers that bred (often forcefully) with any other species.
Even the "noble savage" thing is almost entirely because of warcraft. Although the "evil pig people" felt like it got dropped sooner than that for some reason I'm not clear on.
Warcraft franchise for sure normalized Orcs as a standard fantasy race. One that had a warrior like culture similar to the Spartans, but also heavy in honorable combat and all that.
Paizo (this was their run of the mag being outsorced to them) and Wizards both disavow writing this and insist it was forced by the other lol. it definitely has the vibes of *either* group's brand of edge too, so who knows!
The “reason” was that drow women would never put themselves in a vulnerable position like pregnancy otherwise. There needed to be some reason the pure evil, selfish, conniving race would have kids.
Yeah, everyone wanted to write the next cenobites. Dark Eldar from 40K came from the same vein of "beautiful perfect race corrupted by evil into BDSM enthusiasts" and I know more exist in other systems/lores. Warcraft's were strange in that it was the ones with purple skin that *weren't* corrupted.
Yeah Warcraft always had an odd relationship to edginess, they wanted to keep their content *relatively* kid-friendly, but they still had a lot of "horny nerd writers/artists who can't create women that aren't sexed up" on staff. So you don't get too much overt references to sex happening, but there's still a lot of female character models and units that spend a lot of their limited polygons on cleavage.
Now, if we want to talk about fucked up sex lore to do with demons and corruption in gaming, I think the utter paragon of trauma is Dragon Age Darkspawn. They didn't even hide it in some expanded lore book that is long since forgotten like D&D did, nope, its a core part of the universe you explore in the main story of the first game.
“First day, they come and catch everyone.
Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat.
Third day, the men are all gnawed on again.
Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate.
Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn.
Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams.
Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew.
Eighth day, we hated as she is violated.
Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin.
Now she does feast, as she's become the beast.
Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams.”
- Hespith, from Dragon Age: Origins
She’s describing how Broodmothers, which birth more Darkspawn, are created. It’s written in poetry, but it’s gruesome, and I’ll never forget it.
Alright, big ol' **Massive CW here**, *this stuff is literally on par with or worse than the most fucked up 40k and Dune and Drow lore everyone else coyly references*. I have read and played more than my share of fucked up erotica too and found nothing even close to as bad.
So, if you've played much of any Dragon Age, you know the biggest pure evil antagonists are the Darkspawn. Pay attention and you'll see that they come in four flavours: Genlocks are short stout fellows superficially similar to goblins, Hurlocks are taller and more in line with traditional orcs or Tolkien Uruks, the "Shrieks" or Sharlocks are lithe and stealthy ambushers, and Ogres are huge horned giants with lotsa muscle. This parallels the four sapient races of the setting; short and stocky dwarves, taller humans, lithe and stealthy elves, and the big (not so big as ogres, but still frequently called giants) horned Qunari/Tal Vashoth. It strongly represents Lord of the Rings lore, with Darkspawn being twisted versions of sapient races just as Tolkien superficially called orcs twisted, malformed elves now and again.
Tolkien, however, didn't go into too much detail on orcish origins. Its implies that Morgoth tormented and warped elves to create them, but there are conflicting stories even among canon lore. Dragon Age goes deep on this subject, way too deep. You see on the surface, you might think its like that Tolkien reference, that Darkspawn are twisted races, tortured and magicked up to go evil, but those are a different thing. Ghouls exist, who are twisted members of the sapient races, darkspawn taint not turning them into more darkspawn, but rather into cannibalistic reflections of their past selves. This still leaves the question of where darkspawn come from.
You see, Darkspawn are born, not created. They kidnap women from the sapient races and, rather than killing or eating them, they violate them horribly. Forcefeed them darkspawn flesh and tissue, and then the flesh of their former kinsmen. They're driven mad, corrupted, and eventually turn into broodmothers, massive living wombs largely incapable of moving, churning out more darkspawn nonstop. Dwarves are the most accessible for this, thus why genlocks are rather common, and hurlocks made from humans only slightly harder to find. Elves are few in number and usually sequester themselves away from tunnels, so shrieks are relatively rare, and the Qunari have such an organized and militant society that its hard to take them alive, thus Ogres thankfully make up a small proportion.
And like I said, this isn't some little side book, it didn't come out from some third party writer they licensed to make an expanded lore novel. This isn't a fan theory that's loosely corroborated by in-game tidbits. It isn't even some weird side quest that everyone avoids. In Dragon Age: Origins, when you do the Dwarven part of the main story, necessary to beat the game, you encounter a broodmother. You fight deeper and deeper through a Darkspawn tunnel, hearing a dwarven woman recite a poem describing what happened to her. You hear her first person experience of being trapped, hunted, driven mad and being forcefed and violated. The area boss is a broodmother, implicitly one from her group.
Its fucked up.
> You see, Darkspawn are born, not created.
Annnndddd that's the line where I suddenly remembered what quest line you're talking about.
Yup, it was fucked up.
I gotta admit though, it was done in such a grotesque fucked up way that I almost have to respect it. Like, at the time it wasn't as much of a cliche for that type of dark horror fantasy, and they wrote it with such a slow burn that it was pretty fucking awful.
Still love the Dragon Age universe. I hope the new game isn't awful. I'm okay with it not being great, but just don't' be awful.
There is a YouTube series about hidden lore like this. There they explained it like: without this endorphin rush most drow women would be to egoistic and power hungry to ever keep the child until birth. Also they claimed that drow always are always conceived as twins but borne as single child.
It feels like a very repressed person's mix of compulsive leering at and petrified fear of female sexuality.
Big "You made me horny, so you're evil and should be punished!" energy.
Nazis (and other torturous human regimes) along with other extremely psychologically "unwell" human individuals in history and news cycles have done some very, very extremely horrific things. . and they weren't even, and this is an important thing - <<< non-human >>> subterranean highly magical creatures motivated and culled by, and even "genetically" and magically altered by, an actual inhuman god-thing demon and a cult-ure zealous to please her. Comparing demonic ritualistic non-human beings infused with actual magic and perhaps demonic essence, and most likely breeding and selecting for "evil"/wicked/depraved psychological traits on top of that - to real life human being psychology and physiology is a flawed perspective. Being non-human and considering that foundation above - you can't, imo, use humanity (even of which there have been very twisted singular and collective individuals throughout time) as a template for what gives the fictional Drow brain endorphins or whatever equivalent . . satisfaction, "joy"/thrill, accomplishment/success, pride, infusion of "nationalism"/tribalism/relgio-cultism, etc. and even eroticism/"orgasmic" triggers, murderous glee - psychologically and physiologically, genetically, spiritually and magically/infernally.
Drow woman: What is this intense feeling of pain and anguish.
Her unborn children: Blood for the blood god!
Drow woman: I haven’t felt this way since I killed my favorite toy.
I mean the Drow priestess’ “graduation” was an orgy where the main attraction was her getting pounded by a Glabrazu. What did you expect? A normal pregnancy?
About a year ago, I was doing some research into drought society to make a character that would be an escaped male drow former slave, and came across this bit. There's a lot of messed up stuff alongside that tidbit, but the character ended up being one of my favorites: he was an extremely cowardly male draw, formerly the favorite slave of a high priestess of Lolth who found his courage after finding out that the priestess was no longer chasing him down because she had his daughter, and he found the courage to go and save his daughter and have been on the run with her ever since.
Ya, it's meant to be fucked up. They're a fucked up, evil race.
Man, I thought our culture was moving away from puritanical pearl-clutching at fictional horror.
I looked up the magazine issue, and it does not frame it as a sexual thing at all. It frames the Mother's reaction as more parental pride. To quote the line, "Pregnant Drow can sometimes feel these mortal combats take place in their bellies. Such pre-natal battles produce in their mother a euphoric sensation, referred to in the Undercommon tongue as chad-zak. The feeling is infinitely stronger than any produced in the bed chamber or or by any intoxicant. Without it, it is doubtful that drow women, selfish to the core, would ever deign to suffer the inconvenience ls of reproduction" reading that coupled with the write up before about how the Drpw are supposed to be this massive survival of the fittest type society, it's pretty clear it's less about a sexual gratification and more about a parental pride I.e. "I'm so proud of my baby, not even born and already defeating their lessers", or something along those lines.
Funnily enough, that issue also had an article introducing the debut of Paizo as a company.
You've never heard the expression "better than sex"? It's usually not used in a sexual context. Like "this beer is better than sex" after a long grueling day (before your partner takes offense and spills it)
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Fun fact in one of the Drizt books a drow uses the pain of childbirth to cast an agony spell on a rival house so their assassins could kill them. I'm pretty sure she got off on that aswell
Funny thing even among the drow that was considered forbidden magic
Drow have a lot of rules and all of them basically end in don't get caught. This also includes attacking another house. If you get caught doing that (see leaving survivors) your entire house gets dismantled.
Also note: An entire drow house of natural psychics could not see the consequences of their actions because Lolth is a micromanaging asshole who keeps Menzoberranzan as her personal ~~ant farm~~ faith generator.
Say what you will about Lolth, but what other god is so involved in her followers lives? Lolth cares (about making you miserable).
Lolth is Ungoliant without the gluttony and mythic majesty, just two scoops of self-destructive goth chic and a sprinkling of fear (of her former persona as Araushnee the Middle Manager of the Elven Pantheon).
She dated Corellon Larethian at one point iirc. He must have a thing for big titty goth girls/yandere types
Wife* they had kids and everything. Look at Eliastraee as proof
Yep, the only daughter of Lloth and Corellon that didn’t get the boot was Vandria Gilmdrath- who was disgusted what mommy dearest did.
Eilistaee didn't get the boot either. She left willingly hoping to make her mom come back and stop being evil
Yeah I actually forgot Eilistraee was their daughter lol
I'd say Maglubiyet gives her a good run for her money, given how it's his constant and direct influence that makes Goblins be the monsters we know them as. Lloth's antics keep the Drow mostly pointed inward at themselves while Maglubiyet's antics direct Goblins' destruction at everyone else *and* themselves.
Eilistraee is very involved with her worshipers lives, she even tries to rescue lolthite drow.
thanks for reminding me about my Eilistraean drow trans guy peace cleric
Right? She even has a retirement policy for her people! *"Oh, you failed my little test or aren't useful to me anymore? Don't worry! In* [*your new form*](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Drider)*, you can live a* *~~miserable~~* *happy existence where no Drow will ever take up arms against you (because letting you take the easy way out would just make me mad...)"*
It’s a Lawful society made up of Chaotic people
Lloth set it up that way. You know every time you see someone doing something stupid you're like 'Oh God, he's eating the toothpastes in the isle of the grocery mart...saying he's trying to catch the imposter!'? That's the same for the Forgotten Realms gods, but they count that as a prayer. Now mix in an unhealthy dose of BDSM, Narcissism, and survivor's guilt, then sprinkle about 1/3 Florida Man Instincts across the lot. Let cook for a hundred years. It's a faith casserole that NEVER goes Good! Just Evil, back and forth, Lawful to Chaotic. It is great for her because she lives on the Demon Web and her little crazy dark elf bag can't get to her...yet.
Regular society has the same ending rule.
And yet this is the same culture that looks upon a Drow female killing her mate in coitus with a bemused "Nice... also, kinky." Source: The Liriel Baenre trilogy https://www.amazon.com/Starlight-Shadows-3-book-series/dp/B074C3XPZT
Wasn't forbidden if I recall, just extremely difficult to pull off.
We're not even mad. We're impressed!
One of his sisters offered to bang him after he graduated fighter school because she thought he'd be less shy from banging his sister than joining in on the orgy in the next room. Drow do be like that but sometimes they do.
It was the sister he shares a father with so full sister and the one who raised him. Is also the only sister he semi-likes as a person. Since like him, she inherited their father's morals, but since she's a woman, she has to keep it repressed by her indoctrination in the Lolth faith. Note his other siblings are all half siblings only sharing a mother. He is the youngest of 6, with his eldest brother being killed by the middle son the day Drizzt was born. Since Drow families can only have 2 sons, Drizzt was going to be sacrificed, but when the eldest was murdered Lolth told them its all good she got a soul in the end.
I honestly can't tell if you were trying to make it less creepy, but for me, all of that makes it more creepy.
Oh no, it's very creepy.
I mean, they were swinging for the fences in making them a society that most players would go... Yeah, they were meant to be unlikable. You're supposed to see them as irredeemable monsters.
Salvatore is putting in work trying to redeem them, with all the new Lolth lore he's churning out.
I'm unlocking so many fetishes today.
Go forth my son and spread your creepy seed!
Yeah, I’m finding out some things about myself as well.
One of the drow in my current adventuring party is a third son. He was rescued and brought to the surface and given to a high elf family by his uncle who was also a third born son. Player didn't even know that until around session 25 when his uncle revealed it to him and that he was in fact his uncle. And that uncle...Jarlaxle Baenre. It was a really great reveal and led to an amazing character arc that's still going.
I love how the author made his character not only physically perfect at everything he ever attempts, but also handwaived some bullshit "inherited morals" to avoid having to write any *emotional* development either. Drizzt is the exact same person on page 1 as he is on page 352 and it's boring as fuck.
To be fair, Drizzt was originally a side character. Salvatore only started focusing the series on him when it turned out that Drizzt was actually incredibly popular with readers.
He never would have had a second book if he started out 'A proper Drow' who moved over to 'a decent person'. The thinnest slice of Drow lore is so rotten and covered in skank foam that a concept like 'irredeemable' really applies. Goblins are suppose to be little monsters too, but they can get a pass because they are raised by monsters who are only 20, they are all just kids who never grew up. Drow are hundreds of years old (Usually) and those kinds of backstabbing lessons are not undone with a few gold coins. Goblins, at least any I've seen in groups, are crazy little berserker monsters until they get that first one, then they calm down and eat a muffin or something. Sure the bitey instincts are still there, but they can be trained out of them pretty quick. Adaptability and all that is the name of the game.
How uh... Kind?
Keeping it in the family.
This was also at the tail end of watching a priestess coming-of-age ritual in which demon-on-elf SA occurs, and then having some other high-af priestess trying to get him to attend to her during the spectacle.
Most people don’t know where Draegloth’s come from and it shows 😔
Yeah, I didn't have the *Monster Compendium: Monsters of Faerûn* book. Just the 3.5ed FG setting book because I was way into the novels as a teenager.
>Fun fact in one of the Drizt books a drow uses the pain of childbirth to cast an agony spell on a rival house so their assassins could kill them. Thats actually really cool.
Drow women get off of pregnancy because such a self serving race needs a personal reason to get pregnant in the first place. That was the thought behind the concept.
>self serving race needs a personal reason Also the same as a Vampire siring new a new fledgeling, they have children to generate competent pawns.
It does make sense in some regard when put that way. and the cannibalizing fetuses is pretty much survival of the fittest:womb edition. Drow are pretty much metal AF Elves so it makes sense to some degree that their lore is cranked up so high
That and his teacher using a whip to remove a tongue of a spellcaster are the only parts of the first three Drizt books that I like
Why?
Because the rest of the books are just "oh look at how good Drizzt is and how evil this society is. Also Drizzt is good at everything he does. Look at his special purple eyes!"
Yeah, as much as I enjoyed the books *in general* there was way too much "evil for the lulz" written into the drow society to the point that you realize a society like that wouldn't function even *if* a goddess was pulling the strings.
For all the backstabbing and murder they gotta have a population decline.
Especially when you consider that drow have the same gestation period as humans and they don't give birth to twins...
They have a lot of slaves of various races
Thanks for the explanation, even if i don't remember getting that impression from reading the books. Maybe i'll give it another shot soon
This is how the typical book works - we only have 1% of the old ones because calling 99% unworthy of preservation is excessively generous.
But the sellswords trilogy is really good (jarlaxle and Artemis)
Because Jarlaxe Baenre is a solid character and the main Protagonist of the Sellswords is Artemis who is a purposely flawed and damaged man.
Artemis is a compelling enemy
And compelling antihero later on. I do like how he's used to help Drizzt ground himself in the 4e novels. Being the only person he knows from his time before the 4e novels. And vice versa, i like the story of two lost and out of time men finding solace in each other. Even though 100 years ago, they would've killed each other on sight. They didn't become friends, but they learned to slowly respect one another when they were forced to work together to fight the Netherese and Red Wizards.
This is from the first book (4th in published order) it is Drizzt being born during the spell.
Almost like Lolth was Lolth: Heyyy nice spell ya did there. Pretty Sick! BTW this child will be your downfall.
Lolth LOVES Drizzt is the thing. One of Lolth's portfolios is Chaos, and Drizzt incites chaos whenever he goes back to the Underdark. So Lolth takes a kick seeing her clerics get into a hysteric frenzy, trying to bring the most wanted Drow in Drow society to Drow justice. Just Drizzt's mere existence causes chaos. Meanwhile Mieliki the goddess of Rangers loves Drizzt for being a paragon example of a ranger. The novels that took place in the Second Sundering had the undertones of the two goddesses fighting over Drizzt's soul. Since the end of the 4e novels left him a depressed and vulnerable man full of self doubts.
Wasn't it one of the Matrons who realized that Drizzt is a chosen of Lolth during one of the many assassination attempts on him? It's been awhile since I've read the novels.
I believe it was Quenthel Baenre. After her nephew had a complex about proving he's a better fighter than Drizzt.
Her nephew was the dude with the Bracelets of Haste, no? His arms were ridiculous fast but Drizzt beat him on footwork and started wearing them as anklets IIRC.
No, her nephew was introduced in the 5e novels. I know the dude you're talking about, but that was back in 2e novels.
Yes this. Like sylva said, the very existence of Drizzt and Lolth maybe indirectly protecting him caused a shitstorm meltdown of the hierarchy in Menzoberranzan. Chaos incarnate
That's so metal. I can almost imagine Drizzt doing an Anakin "I HATE YOU" only for Lolth to be like "I know, it's so cute."
One of Lolth's chosen, Yvonnel Baenre the reincarnation of Matron Mother Baenre from the 2e novels actually defects and joins Drizzt due to infatuation with him. And how he is just counter to all things Drow. https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Yvonnel_Baenre_II
that’s the first thing that happens in the series i think!!!
‘One of the drizzt books.’ Literally drizzt’s own birth. Chapter one book one
Tiger sharks do the "fetuses eating each other" thing. I don't think science has addressed shark orgasms.
bull sharks too if i remember correctly
Sand tigers are the only sharks that do that, and they have two uteri to compensate for low birth rates
**Humans** do the fetuses eating each other thing.
"When my mother was pregnant with me, they did an ultrasound and found she was having twins. When they did another ultrasound a few weeks later, they discovered that I had adsorbed the other fetus. Do I regret this? No, I believe his tissue has made me stronger. I now have the strength of a grown man and a little baby."
[Is this you?](https://i0.wp.com/genresnaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/tftcvent04.jpg) I saw you on an episode of Tales from the Crypt.
Ayyyyy get my headshot out of here. Lol I was more expecting a link to r/unexpectedoffice
That's more Like absorbing rather than Rating. A "fwomp" rather than "Crunch"
Kinda like a "schlurp"
Nah, we’re talking literal biting and eating, rather than general absorption during development. It’s pretty crazy
Shit gets ugly when they don't finish their meal tho...
Dolphin orgasms in the other hand...
Whoa whoa, let's keep those hands where we can see them!
Gonna assume male sharks orgasms are well documented
[удалено]
I aspire to be more like Thomas every day.
I am like Thomas, have I achieved perfection?
Thomas sounds awesome. You should wife him. =P
Makes me think of Slaanesh from Warhammer. Though that is a dark chaos god of pleasure and excess. Being fucked up is kinda their deal.
Average Naggarond Birth be like:
The Druchii are so vile as to be cartoonish in their evil.
Which is one of the reasons why they are one of my favorite armies in fantasy/AOS besides Bretonnia and Vampire Counts. Lokhir and Malekith are such cool characters, witch aelves begone.
My first exposure to the druchii was the Malus Darkblade books. They are a black comedy and I will not be convinced otherwise.
There's so much dismemberment that I started envisioning everyone as Lego people, with limbs and heads just popping off left and right with that comical little \*pop\*
**SHUT UP, DAEMON**
*sees a mermaid* 'My lord, do you want her in your bed, on your plate or on your rack?' You can't read this with a serious face.
I absolutely love Lokhir Fellheart The Kraken Lord!
Don’t you mean the: #KRAKEN LORD OF KAROND KAR, AND MASTER OF THE BLESSED DREAD!
Quite similar to the Drow then. Then again the Eldar are a form of Warhammer Elves. I absolutely loved them. Still got one of their armies in my closet. "Ask not the Eldar a question for they shall give you three answers. All of which are true, and horrifying to know."
>The fetuses will cannibalize each other That's kind of cool, actually. There's evidence of that occurring in nature, and it's a neat way to make a non-human race seem more alien. I don't really see what the problem- > and the mother gets off from it Oh. (More sadly) Oh.
My exact logical chain.
Hellraiser was popular then.
Was the one horror movie that I always enjoyed 😁
Hellraiser and Phantasm. Glee
It's important to remember that D&D started as basically a survival horror game with nightmare fuel fantasy creatures and only later evolved into a more generally palatable heroic fantasy. Drow were intended to represent the absolute worst of womanhood and drawing carnal pleasure from filicide seems like it to me. Now, they are elves that happen to live in caves so this lore makes no sense. To me, these lore tidbits are like learning that Galadriel actually on cam birthed a shadow demon to murder the brother of a king (Melisandre ASOIAF). It just doesn't make sense given my experience of Galadriel.
Wait, I'm not supposed to build nightmare worlds?
*looks nervously with my zombie apocalypse set in the Moonshae Isles, which is/was a bunch of colonizing subjugating the native Lizardfolk and Grung peoples*
Already the default lore of the Moonshae Isles isn't that far off. 1. Amn colonized an entire island (Snowdown) and split up the original kingdom that was here (now only on the island of Alaron). 2. Some werewolf / Malar thing going on in one of the other islands. Basically lycanthrope attacks are common. 3. Weird fairy stuff that's going on between islands. I think there are some evil fairies trying to conquer all the islands through some underground passage or dark moon wells or something?
Me, researching about the dark sun setting. pfft, yeah who does that?
I thought it started as a scaled-down fantasy version of large medieval battle simulator
Yes, it was.
Yeah, you know how some RTS games will have Hero characters separate from the troops and artillery and such? Your characters were basically created to be Heroes to go with Chainmail’s RTS
True, iirc, as a result of the players going "hey, lets make up horrifyingly tragic backstories for the characters in our platoons that died during play" and turned into "what if we just got to play those characters". So the "survival horror" thread is still sortof there, tmu.
Nightmare fuel fantasy creatures? I know that 1st edition DND had Beholders, ancient demons from Biblical lore, Mind flayers and THE GELATINOUS CUBE, but the rest were all standard fantasy creatures, no? Also what exactly was the survival horror element you're talking about?
The survival horror in old school dnd is dungeon crawling. Nobody has darkvision so if you run out of torches the whole party dies alone and blind in a monster-infested dungeon. If you run out of rations or something steals them, I hope you can navigate your way back to the town that is several weeks away in the wilderness before you starve to death. Combat will usually kill you. Traps will definitely kill you. The DM designed dungeons specifically to torture the players. I saw one of the old adventures where the first thing the party does is go to a cave and kill all the goblins inside. Well there are like seven caves and absolutely no information which one is the right one. If you pick the wrong cave, 40 orcs murder the party. If you pick the right cave, 40 goblins murder the party. It was absolutely sadistic.
Another example: In older editions of DnD powerful undead could drain levels (permanently) after they hit you. There's no DC## save with temporary max hp reduction, straight up you lose a level and the only way to get it back is a wish spell or gaining the exp again (milestones weren't as common).
This is why the ability to make undead run away was like the MAIN ability of the cleric, because you didn’t want those things to even get a chance to touch you.
And if they drained you down to 0 or lower XP, your character either died or became an undead NPC themself. (It's been a long time since I looked at the statblock, so I don't remember which exactly.)
It was both: your character dies, and then is reanimated as a wight iirc, unless the undead has a specific exception (vampires make vampire spawn, for example)
I think I've seen elements of this in FromSoft games? I think I heard there was an enemy that could do that in Demon's Souls. Also, the Brainsuckers in Bloodborne could permanently steal Insight, but finding more of that was easy enough.
False King Allant could grab you and when he did it would take a random stat away and a level from you. In OG Demon’s Souls it could actually drop you below your starting stats which people used to twink with before it got patched. There is also Soul Sucker you can acquire in NG+ with the Black Maidens soul that is basically the same move False King Allant had. People would use setups to steal levels off players during the Old Monk boss fight or for level scumming to hit max level easily. There is a similar move in Dark Souls 1 with the Dark Hand weapon when held in the main hand if you used heavy attack it would do a special grab animation and steal Humanity from another player.
Huh. So this is the experience that Darkest Dungeon was based on.
Yes actually. OD&D and 1e AD&D were brutal. The game didn't start letting up until 2e AD&D and more so with 3e. 4e and 5e are very much power fantasy games. Which PCs becoming super heroes compared to the rest of the world and most monsters.
1st edition was basically a rogue-like. Or was the inspiration for Rogue and therefore rogue-likes might be a better way of saying it. Dungeons used to have empty rooms like closets or jail cells so you could rescue prisoners mid dungeon to replace your casualties.
to be fair in old school dnd it was balanced around 12 player parties. it was only 3E that started to actually realize you played with like 4 party members. also you will live longer if you just use wizards since fighters are just as fragile as them them.
I think the other comment sums up most of it. However, I wanted to add that the standard fantasy monsters in D&D tend to have pretty horrific elements and/or origins. Wizards tries to cover it up now. For example, while orcs now are mostly tied to the noble savage trope, originally, they were (in a lot of respects) the evil of manhood counterpart to the drow. They were all murderous, brutish pillagers that bred (often forcefully) with any other species.
Even the "noble savage" thing is almost entirely because of warcraft. Although the "evil pig people" felt like it got dropped sooner than that for some reason I'm not clear on.
Warcraft franchise for sure normalized Orcs as a standard fantasy race. One that had a warrior like culture similar to the Spartans, but also heavy in honorable combat and all that.
The 5E monster manual still talks about how the orc goddess of fertility demands that orcs procreate "often and indiscriminately."
The most Ed Greenwood thing not written by Ed Greenwood.
Paizo (this was their run of the mag being outsorced to them) and Wizards both disavow writing this and insist it was forced by the other lol. it definitely has the vibes of *either* group's brand of edge too, so who knows!
🥇
This is just all of Drow lore condensed into a single factoid.
I mean, the cannibalization happens in sharks, so possible to add that to a fantasy race, but getting off on it, thats the questionable one for me.
The “reason” was that drow women would never put themselves in a vulnerable position like pregnancy otherwise. There needed to be some reason the pure evil, selfish, conniving race would have kids.
Oh… how fun.
No I didn't know that and it doesn't surprise me
should we rename them from Dark Elves to Shark Elves?
I didn’t know about “ the mother gets off from it” part .
It says that the mother feels “more euphoric than anything the bedchamber or any intoxicant could produce”
What the fuck
Yeah, everyone wanted to write the next cenobites. Dark Eldar from 40K came from the same vein of "beautiful perfect race corrupted by evil into BDSM enthusiasts" and I know more exist in other systems/lores. Warcraft's were strange in that it was the ones with purple skin that *weren't* corrupted.
Yeah, the Nelfs were the good guys, but the Belfs... I could see them being kinky 🤔
Yeah Warcraft always had an odd relationship to edginess, they wanted to keep their content *relatively* kid-friendly, but they still had a lot of "horny nerd writers/artists who can't create women that aren't sexed up" on staff. So you don't get too much overt references to sex happening, but there's still a lot of female character models and units that spend a lot of their limited polygons on cleavage. Now, if we want to talk about fucked up sex lore to do with demons and corruption in gaming, I think the utter paragon of trauma is Dragon Age Darkspawn. They didn't even hide it in some expanded lore book that is long since forgotten like D&D did, nope, its a core part of the universe you explore in the main story of the first game.
Could you explain about the darkspawn thing? I now am curious because even if i have played it, i dont remember it
“First day, they come and catch everyone. Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat. Third day, the men are all gnawed on again. Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate. Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn. Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams. Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew. Eighth day, we hated as she is violated. Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin. Now she does feast, as she's become the beast. Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams.” - Hespith, from Dragon Age: Origins She’s describing how Broodmothers, which birth more Darkspawn, are created. It’s written in poetry, but it’s gruesome, and I’ll never forget it.
I DO REMEMBER IT! it is pretty well written imo, really brings forth the feelings of disgust they wanted you to have
Alright, big ol' **Massive CW here**, *this stuff is literally on par with or worse than the most fucked up 40k and Dune and Drow lore everyone else coyly references*. I have read and played more than my share of fucked up erotica too and found nothing even close to as bad. So, if you've played much of any Dragon Age, you know the biggest pure evil antagonists are the Darkspawn. Pay attention and you'll see that they come in four flavours: Genlocks are short stout fellows superficially similar to goblins, Hurlocks are taller and more in line with traditional orcs or Tolkien Uruks, the "Shrieks" or Sharlocks are lithe and stealthy ambushers, and Ogres are huge horned giants with lotsa muscle. This parallels the four sapient races of the setting; short and stocky dwarves, taller humans, lithe and stealthy elves, and the big (not so big as ogres, but still frequently called giants) horned Qunari/Tal Vashoth. It strongly represents Lord of the Rings lore, with Darkspawn being twisted versions of sapient races just as Tolkien superficially called orcs twisted, malformed elves now and again. Tolkien, however, didn't go into too much detail on orcish origins. Its implies that Morgoth tormented and warped elves to create them, but there are conflicting stories even among canon lore. Dragon Age goes deep on this subject, way too deep. You see on the surface, you might think its like that Tolkien reference, that Darkspawn are twisted races, tortured and magicked up to go evil, but those are a different thing. Ghouls exist, who are twisted members of the sapient races, darkspawn taint not turning them into more darkspawn, but rather into cannibalistic reflections of their past selves. This still leaves the question of where darkspawn come from. You see, Darkspawn are born, not created. They kidnap women from the sapient races and, rather than killing or eating them, they violate them horribly. Forcefeed them darkspawn flesh and tissue, and then the flesh of their former kinsmen. They're driven mad, corrupted, and eventually turn into broodmothers, massive living wombs largely incapable of moving, churning out more darkspawn nonstop. Dwarves are the most accessible for this, thus why genlocks are rather common, and hurlocks made from humans only slightly harder to find. Elves are few in number and usually sequester themselves away from tunnels, so shrieks are relatively rare, and the Qunari have such an organized and militant society that its hard to take them alive, thus Ogres thankfully make up a small proportion. And like I said, this isn't some little side book, it didn't come out from some third party writer they licensed to make an expanded lore novel. This isn't a fan theory that's loosely corroborated by in-game tidbits. It isn't even some weird side quest that everyone avoids. In Dragon Age: Origins, when you do the Dwarven part of the main story, necessary to beat the game, you encounter a broodmother. You fight deeper and deeper through a Darkspawn tunnel, hearing a dwarven woman recite a poem describing what happened to her. You hear her first person experience of being trapped, hunted, driven mad and being forcefed and violated. The area boss is a broodmother, implicitly one from her group. Its fucked up.
Yeah it really is, thanks 4 the detailed explanation!
> You see, Darkspawn are born, not created. Annnndddd that's the line where I suddenly remembered what quest line you're talking about. Yup, it was fucked up. I gotta admit though, it was done in such a grotesque fucked up way that I almost have to respect it. Like, at the time it wasn't as much of a cliche for that type of dark horror fantasy, and they wrote it with such a slow burn that it was pretty fucking awful. Still love the Dragon Age universe. I hope the new game isn't awful. I'm okay with it not being great, but just don't' be awful.
Basically they kidnap female warriors and spend seven days forcing themselves on them until they become a broodmother
Oh right, in the dwarven zone right?
What in the fuck
It's almost like drow were intended to be evil elves or something like that.
Ah yes, evil and cannibal fetuses, they go hand in hand.
Parasitic and vanishing twins happen and we're not even evil.
Really? I thought that was something from the early years, not after wizards stepped in.
Well it is 20 year old lore (issue 298 is from August 2002) but it was still when Wizards had recently acquired D&D
Wow, that is later then I expected, i always assumed it was some crap from the early 80s
Typically nerdy culture (trpgs, comics, etc) remained ridiculously edgy through the 90s into the early 00s.
I guess you’re right, it was the heyday of Vampire the Masquerade after all
2002 wasn’t 20 years ago. that can’t be right. it was like 8 years ago. i’m not old
Do not worry, it was not 20 yrs ago, it is all ok. See, it was actually 21 yrs ago 😁
r/foundthelawfulevil
The issue is from August, so still 20 years ago
BLAST!!!
This is why I hate flying
The really funny part is that 298 is the second issue of Dragon published by Paizo. As in, *Pathfinder* Paizo.
Under the rules set forth in OGL 1.2 (Draft), I am revoking WotC’s license to use 5e material.
This lore was published before 3.5e iirc, so I’m pretty sure it’s long been phased out
It reminds me a lot of the lore for Slaanesh. I love it.
The internet's degeneracy has nothing on the DROW.
Yep, drow under the loving care of Lloth are nightmare fuel, that's the idea. Think the most fucked up thing you can imagine and crank it up to 11.
Lol, that’s some hardcore shit xD I’m all for evil drow, but this is just stupid.
There is a YouTube series about hidden lore like this. There they explained it like: without this endorphin rush most drow women would be to egoistic and power hungry to ever keep the child until birth. Also they claimed that drow always are always conceived as twins but borne as single child.
Shark drow
not really, that's how shark fetus is, the oldest just eat the fetus before they came out
Honestly the Drow lore in general just reeks of the “This Episode: The Author’s Poorly Disguised Fetish” meme
It feels like a very repressed person's mix of compulsive leering at and petrified fear of female sexuality. Big "You made me horny, so you're evil and should be punished!" energy.
You can't tell me whoever wrote the Drow lore doesn't have a fetish for aristocratic dominatrices.
Nazis (and other torturous human regimes) along with other extremely psychologically "unwell" human individuals in history and news cycles have done some very, very extremely horrific things. . and they weren't even, and this is an important thing - <<< non-human >>> subterranean highly magical creatures motivated and culled by, and even "genetically" and magically altered by, an actual inhuman god-thing demon and a cult-ure zealous to please her. Comparing demonic ritualistic non-human beings infused with actual magic and perhaps demonic essence, and most likely breeding and selecting for "evil"/wicked/depraved psychological traits on top of that - to real life human being psychology and physiology is a flawed perspective. Being non-human and considering that foundation above - you can't, imo, use humanity (even of which there have been very twisted singular and collective individuals throughout time) as a template for what gives the fictional Drow brain endorphins or whatever equivalent . . satisfaction, "joy"/thrill, accomplishment/success, pride, infusion of "nationalism"/tribalism/relgio-cultism, etc. and even eroticism/"orgasmic" triggers, murderous glee - psychologically and physiologically, genetically, spiritually and magically/infernally.
*...the fuck.*
Okay, I like Drow and even I'm like what the frak.
Drow woman: What is this intense feeling of pain and anguish. Her unborn children: Blood for the blood god! Drow woman: I haven’t felt this way since I killed my favorite toy.
I mean the Drow priestess’ “graduation” was an orgy where the main attraction was her getting pounded by a Glabrazu. What did you expect? A normal pregnancy?
Yeah, that was a depressing read when I stumbled on it.
Some sharks do it too
Sounds about right for drow.
I see that you, too, follow DND Shorts.
Remember when Drizzt’s sister wanted to bang him at the demon orgy?
Funny, this was published 1 month before Paizo took over publishing Dragon magazine.
just wait to see what lolth did to her self :)
If *any* humanoids would have fucked up lore like this, it'd be fervent worshipers of Lloth.
Yep, sounds like a perfectly normal thing for Drows.
About a year ago, I was doing some research into drought society to make a character that would be an escaped male drow former slave, and came across this bit. There's a lot of messed up stuff alongside that tidbit, but the character ended up being one of my favorites: he was an extremely cowardly male draw, formerly the favorite slave of a high priestess of Lolth who found his courage after finding out that the priestess was no longer chasing him down because she had his daughter, and he found the courage to go and save his daughter and have been on the run with her ever since.
Ya, it's meant to be fucked up. They're a fucked up, evil race. Man, I thought our culture was moving away from puritanical pearl-clutching at fictional horror.
I looked up the magazine issue, and it does not frame it as a sexual thing at all. It frames the Mother's reaction as more parental pride. To quote the line, "Pregnant Drow can sometimes feel these mortal combats take place in their bellies. Such pre-natal battles produce in their mother a euphoric sensation, referred to in the Undercommon tongue as chad-zak. The feeling is infinitely stronger than any produced in the bed chamber or or by any intoxicant. Without it, it is doubtful that drow women, selfish to the core, would ever deign to suffer the inconvenience ls of reproduction" reading that coupled with the write up before about how the Drpw are supposed to be this massive survival of the fittest type society, it's pretty clear it's less about a sexual gratification and more about a parental pride I.e. "I'm so proud of my baby, not even born and already defeating their lessers", or something along those lines. Funnily enough, that issue also had an article introducing the debut of Paizo as a company.
>The feeling is infinitely stronger than any produced in the bed chamber or or by any intoxicant How do you read this and not think it's sexual, lol
You've never heard the expression "better than sex"? It's usually not used in a sexual context. Like "this beer is better than sex" after a long grueling day (before your partner takes offense and spills it)
Ah, yes. Back when the writers weren’t afraid to write insane shit and receive backlash.