Drow [Elf]

A drow's skin is black and its hair pale, most often white. They are shorter and slighter than humans, rarely topping 5 feet; males weigh 80 to 110 pounds and females, unusually, outweigh them at 95 to 120. Their features are sharply sculpted and their fingers and toes long and fine. Like all elves they are more dexterous and less hardy than men.

Their practical black clothing often has strange powers without registering as magic. Drow boots and cloaks work like boots and cloaks of elvenkind, though with only a 75% chance to keep the wearer hidden in shadow or to achieve surprise. The cloth resists cutting and burning, granting +6 to saves vs. fire. These items only fit and function for wearers of elven size and shape, and altering a cloak's size runs a 75% risk that the whole thing unravels into scrap.

Centuries below ground have taught drow many underworld tongues. Besides their own exotic dialect of elvish they speak common and the trade language of the deep, and they are fluent in gnomish and other elven speech. They also use a silent code of hand signs and body language that can pass information but not nuance or feeling. Within 30 feet of each other, drow add subtle expressions, postures and movements, making this sign language as expressive as most spoken ones.

Violence is part of everyday drow life, so almost any drow met alone or in company is ready to fight. Outside their cities, every drow is at least a 2nd-level fighter.

They wear light, unencumbering black mesh forged from a steel and adamantite alloy. In a drow armorer's hands it equals chain mail +1 to +5 without radiating magic, typically gaining +1 per four levels its owner has attained, so even the humblest warrior has the equivalent of chain mail +1. Adamantite bucklers range from +1 to +3, the last reserved for the most important fighters. The usual sidearms are a short sword and long dagger of the same alloy at +1 to +3, nobles sometimes +4. A few prefer adamantite maces of +1 to +5.

Half (50%) also carry hand crossbows that fire darts up to 60 yards. A dart deals only 1-3 points, but it is usually coated with a sleep poison: the target must save vs. poison at -4 or fall unconscious for 2d4 hours. Some drow throw small javelins treated with the same venom, with a 90-yard range and attack bonuses of +3 at short range, +2 at medium and +1 at long.

Drow move without a sound, see 120 feet with infravision, share the dwarves' instinct for underground surroundings, and find secret doors as well as other elves. A drow is surprised only on a 1 rolled on 1d10. Each day, every drow can call up darkness, faerie fire and dancing lights once apiece. Above 4th level they also gain one daily use each of detect magic, levitate and know alignment, and priests further add one daily use each of suggestion, clairvoyance, dispel magic and detect lie.

Magic resistance starts at 50% and rises 2% per level, using only the highest class level for multi-classed drow; a 5th-level drow thus has 60%. All drow also save at +2 against every kind of magical attack, devices included, that gets past that resistance.

Groups always follow a higher-level leader. A band of ten or more answers to a fighter/mage who is no lower than 3rd level in both classes. At 20, a fighter/priest of 6th level or better in both classes joins as well. Above 30, up to half the group may be priests, and overall command falls to a fighter/priest of no less than 7th/8th level, whose aide is a fighter/mage of 5th/4th level, all in addition to the other leaders.

Bright light is their great weakness. Inside a light or continual light spell's radius a drow is 90% likely to be spotted, loses 2 points of Dexterity and attacks at -2, and anyone saving against its spells gains +2. When the target, rather than the drow, stands in such light, the drow suffers -1 to hit and the target gets +1 to saves against its magic. The penalties stack, so if both sides are lit the drow attack at -3 and their targets save at +3. Out of combat, drow are 75% likely to leave any brightly lit area. Torches, lanterns, glowing weapons and faerie fire do not bother them.

Long ago the elves split into a faction devoted to evil and another that held to good or at least neutrality. The civil war that followed drove the selfish, chaotic elves deep underground into dark caverns and winding tunnels, where they became the drow. They have no wish to return to the surface, and few surface dwellers ever see one, but they hate the elves and faeries who exiled them and constantly scheme against the daylight peoples.

Their cities are gloomy, magnificent places built entirely of stone and mineral, sculpted into bizarre shapes. The rare visitors who return describe them as pure nightmare. Society is split among rival noble houses and merchant families clawing for power, and each drow carries a hidden brooch bearing the emblem of the faction it serves. Drow believe the strong should rule and enforce a rigid caste system with a tangle of titles and privileges.

They worship a dark deity, the spider goddess, whose priestesses wield enormous influence; because most priests are female, women hold nearly every high office. Young fighters undergo brutal training, and those who fail its final tests are executed, which is why drow below 2nd level are so seldom seen outside a city.

Giant lizards carry their burdens, and bugbears or troglodytes often serve them. Their cities welcome evil creatures, mind reavers among them, and drow ally with many wicked underworld races. They war constantly with others, including dwarves and deep gnomes (svirfneblin) who settle too close. Slaves of every kind are common, including former allies who disappointed them.

Drow craft weapons and garments with near-magical qualities but without actual spellcraft. Some sages credit the strange radiations around their cities, others the superb metals and cloth and the skill of the makers. Whatever the cause, direct sunlight ruins it: exposed drow cloth, boots, armor and weapons begin an irreversible decay, losing their properties and rotting to worthlessness within 2d6 days. Kept from the sun, the items still revert to ordinary objects after 1d20+30 days, unless they spend one week in every four bathed in the underworld's radiations, in which case they last indefinitely.

Surface traders pay well for drow sleep poison. Sunlight destroys its potency at once, and once exposed to air it lasts only 60 days, though an unopened packet stays potent for a year.

A drider has the head and upper body of a drow joined to the legs and abdomen of a giant spider. When a talented drow reaches 6th level, the spider goddess may test it, and those who fail are reshaped into driders. They keep all the once-per-day drow spells and any wizard or priest abilities they had. Most (60%) were 6th or 7th-level priests; the rest were mages of 6th to 8th level.

In melee a drider attacks with the ability of a 7 Hit Die monster, often with swords or axes, and many carry bows. Their bite deals 1d4 and forces a save vs. poison at -2 to avoid 1-2 turns of paralysis. Cast out by their own people, they live alone or, 10% of the time, with 2d6 huge spiders, and never keep company with drow or their own kind. Savage creatures, they prefer blood above all other food and stalk their prey patiently until the moment to strike.