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Drow of the Underdark
At last, dark elves get their due! "Drow of the Underdark" is a Dungeons & Dragons supplement that provides the definitive treatise on the drow, arguably the D&D game's most evocative evil race. Everything you want to know about drow and their subterranean homeland - as well as some things you didn't want to know - can be found in this tome.
This supplement is intended for players who want to play drow characters and Dungeon Masters who want to run D&D adventures and campaigns featuring drow.
This supplement is intended for players who want to play drow characters and Dungeon Masters who want to run D&D adventures and campaigns featuring drow.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published May 8, 2007
3 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
Ari Marmell
101 books436 followersWhen Ari Marmell has free time left over between feeding cats and posting on social media, he writes a little bit. His work includes novels, short stories, role-playing games, and video games, all of which he enjoyed in lieu of school work when growing up. He’s the author of the Mick Oberon gangland/urban fantasy series, the Widdershins YA fantasy series, and many others, with publishers such as Del Rey, Titan Books, Pyr Books, Wizards of the Coast, and now Omnium Gatherum.
Ari currently resides in Austin, Texas. He lives in a clutter that has a moderate amount of apartment in it, along with George—his wife—and the aforementioned cats, who probably want something.
Ari currently resides in Austin, Texas. He lives in a clutter that has a moderate amount of apartment in it, along with George—his wife—and the aforementioned cats, who probably want something.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 2, 2022
The Drow of the Underdark, just by its name, had a lot to live up.
As with this type of sourcebooks (focusing on a specific race or race subsets), chapter 1 kicks off with a discussion about the drow and drow culture. It explores the drow pysche, and what makes a drow civilization tick, and especially how a culture filled with infighting and backstabbings could even survive, let alone thrive in such a hostile environment. I would've loved to be a fly on the wall when all this lore discussions and brainstorms had taken place. It was all quite well-reasoned and well-explained. Unfortunately, this was the high point.
Chapter 2 presents the character options - the usual feats, variant levels, spells, invocations, etc. While there are some new drow-specific options, there were some rehashes. I didn't find it particularly inspiring (the drow bard was especially weird - mechanics conflicting with flavour text).
Chapter 3 goes into prestige classes, which I also found to be particularly disappointing. Forced flavour that don't really jive with the content in chapter 1, and a greater-than-usual amount of conflict between flavour vs mechanics - most noticeable in Cavestalker, Insidious Corruptor, and Kinslayer. It felt like a checklist, as opposed to any true inspiration of something that truly belongs.
Chapter 4 is on drow equipment and tools. There are some very interesting bits here, like protective equipment, the poisons, and special materials. This would have been a chance to really shine the light (pun intended) on the Underdark or unique devices for living underground. Wish there was a lot more of this.
I found chapter 5 to be quite a waste of space. It wants to showcase monsters of the Underdark, but it contains a lot of rehashes and variant monsters with class levels (although with flavouring specific to drow culture).
Chapters 6 and 7 bring the bar back up slightly as it provides a lot of information to support a drow campaign. Numerous adventure hooks, motivations, sample locales, and an entire city to place a campaign in. But personally, given my own understanding of drow culture, especially Lolth-centric ones, such a city cannot exist - from a drow's perspective. Outsiders are allowed too much freedom. But at least, there's quite a lot of meat to it, so there's that.
All in all, it was quite disappointing that there wasn't more about the drow - I mean, the title is "Drow of the Underdark". What I found most glaringly missing is a discussion on the drow pantheon. The drow is a culture so controlled by religion that its an injustice to not discuss about the other deities - especially since the writers decided to discuss about drow manipulating surface societies (an area where the other drow deities are particularly active).
Other bits I thought could have been more would be more on how the drow actually thrived in the unique underground environment, more on how living such a place is different from surface societies - the customs, the daily life of commoners, the unique tools and concepts, etc. It's not like they haven't done these bits for other "race" products (that were focused on multiple races), and yet it felt like they did less of it for a sourcebook focused wholly on a single subrace.
I basically found the product to be underwhelming from a lore and flavour standpoint. Mechanics-wise, it's adequate I guess. As a campaign support, as long as you're willing to accept some inconsistencies between chapter 1 and chapter 7, there's quite a lot of material that can be used to drow-focused campaigns, whether with the drow as allies or antagonists.
As with this type of sourcebooks (focusing on a specific race or race subsets), chapter 1 kicks off with a discussion about the drow and drow culture. It explores the drow pysche, and what makes a drow civilization tick, and especially how a culture filled with infighting and backstabbings could even survive, let alone thrive in such a hostile environment. I would've loved to be a fly on the wall when all this lore discussions and brainstorms had taken place. It was all quite well-reasoned and well-explained. Unfortunately, this was the high point.
Chapter 2 presents the character options - the usual feats, variant levels, spells, invocations, etc. While there are some new drow-specific options, there were some rehashes. I didn't find it particularly inspiring (the drow bard was especially weird - mechanics conflicting with flavour text).
Chapter 3 goes into prestige classes, which I also found to be particularly disappointing. Forced flavour that don't really jive with the content in chapter 1, and a greater-than-usual amount of conflict between flavour vs mechanics - most noticeable in Cavestalker, Insidious Corruptor, and Kinslayer. It felt like a checklist, as opposed to any true inspiration of something that truly belongs.
Chapter 4 is on drow equipment and tools. There are some very interesting bits here, like protective equipment, the poisons, and special materials. This would have been a chance to really shine the light (pun intended) on the Underdark or unique devices for living underground. Wish there was a lot more of this.
I found chapter 5 to be quite a waste of space. It wants to showcase monsters of the Underdark, but it contains a lot of rehashes and variant monsters with class levels (although with flavouring specific to drow culture).
Chapters 6 and 7 bring the bar back up slightly as it provides a lot of information to support a drow campaign. Numerous adventure hooks, motivations, sample locales, and an entire city to place a campaign in. But personally, given my own understanding of drow culture, especially Lolth-centric ones, such a city cannot exist - from a drow's perspective. Outsiders are allowed too much freedom. But at least, there's quite a lot of meat to it, so there's that.
All in all, it was quite disappointing that there wasn't more about the drow - I mean, the title is "Drow of the Underdark". What I found most glaringly missing is a discussion on the drow pantheon. The drow is a culture so controlled by religion that its an injustice to not discuss about the other deities - especially since the writers decided to discuss about drow manipulating surface societies (an area where the other drow deities are particularly active).
Other bits I thought could have been more would be more on how the drow actually thrived in the unique underground environment, more on how living such a place is different from surface societies - the customs, the daily life of commoners, the unique tools and concepts, etc. It's not like they haven't done these bits for other "race" products (that were focused on multiple races), and yet it felt like they did less of it for a sourcebook focused wholly on a single subrace.
I basically found the product to be underwhelming from a lore and flavour standpoint. Mechanics-wise, it's adequate I guess. As a campaign support, as long as you're willing to accept some inconsistencies between chapter 1 and chapter 7, there's quite a lot of material that can be used to drow-focused campaigns, whether with the drow as allies or antagonists.
March 11, 2019
The definitive drow book for your campaign. It's just so much more robust than the Greenwood book and beautifully detailed.
April 8, 2014
I'll start by saying that I am decidedly not one of the 'ANYTHING DROW!1!11!ELEVEN!' crowd. However, I thought this book did fine job of presenting a relatively setting-neutral view of this fan-favorite subrace.
So much has been written about drow since Drizzt Do'Urden won the hearts and minds of teenagers back in the nineties that I won't go into that here. Suffice to say that I've got probably six primary drow sourcebooks, and this is probably number two or three in my own library. The older, paper-back (softback?) version from 2nd Edition is number one on my own list. And just because it's so rich and detailed, the Menzoberranzan boxed set is in a close run with this volume whenever I'm trying to incorporate drow into a campaign.
Solid four stars from me. Would have been five if there hadn't already been so much material printed on the subject, some of which seems to contradict certain passages within this particular tome.
So much has been written about drow since Drizzt Do'Urden won the hearts and minds of teenagers back in the nineties that I won't go into that here. Suffice to say that I've got probably six primary drow sourcebooks, and this is probably number two or three in my own library. The older, paper-back (softback?) version from 2nd Edition is number one on my own list. And just because it's so rich and detailed, the Menzoberranzan boxed set is in a close run with this volume whenever I'm trying to incorporate drow into a campaign.
Solid four stars from me. Would have been five if there hadn't already been so much material printed on the subject, some of which seems to contradict certain passages within this particular tome.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews