Dark Elves: Legends And Lore

The last session ended with some dissatisfaction that I hadn't revealed that dark elves can detect magic at will. Although this is a common enough spell that you just need to expect it almost anywhere you go, I figure it's worth putting up some common information about Drow (in this case, modeled after the original Gygaxian presentation) as localized to the Green Pass setting.

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The underground citadel of Emru-Marol, Gateway of the Shackled Passage, is the primary trade hub connecting caravans from the pirate states of the Larcenous Coast that pass into the Undying Lands beyond the mountains. The city is cosmopolitan in its population (beastmen, underworld fiends, and even more otherworldly types), but local political and civil functions are dominated by the noble houses of the dark
elves, the Drow.

All Drow classes have the following racial abilities:

• Drow add +2 to their own surprise rolls when underground (they are wary and normally be surprised).
• Drow are highly resistant to magic. They have a +2 bonus to all saves vs spells, and have additional magical resistance of 50% + 2% per level.
• Drow are sensitive to bright light. In sunlight, a light spell, or any similarly bright illumination, they suffer a -2 to attacks and saving throws (replacing the usual bonus). Their realm is enchanted to ward against bright lights.
• All Drow can cast the following spells once per day: faerie fire, darkness.
• At 5th level and above, they gain detect good/evil, detect magic, and levitate, once per day.
• Female Drow can also cast dispel magic and clairvoyance once per day.
• They have superior visual acuity extending into both the infrared and ultraviolet spectrum. Their realms are dim and shadowy in visible light, but glow continually in these extended spectral ranges. Creatures with only infravision perceive their cities in a hellish red-oranges. Ultravision reveals brilliant iridescent shades of green and purple.
• They have all the stonecraft and dungeon detection traits of both dwarves and elves.

Drow gear is also potent:

• They wear spider silk cloaks and boots that make them virtually invisible and silent, allowing them to surprise opponents on a 1-5 out of 6.
• They coat their missiles (crossbow bolts and javelins) with sleeping poison (save at -4, or sleep for ½ to 2 hours). Drow are themselves immune to this poison.
• Drow items are often powerful but are enchanted to function only in their dark realm. If brought to the surface they will decay in the sun. Even if kept in the dark, they will permanently be reduced to mundane items within a month.

Noble Drow classes include the following variants on the elven courtier class:

• Drow House Priestess (as elven courtier, but cast as full clerics, not ½-level mages)
• Drow Arcanist (as elven courtier, but cast as full level mages)

House Priestesses are always female, and Arcanists are always male. Commoner female Drow are often fighters. Commoner male Drow may be either fighters or (more rarely) spellswords.

Travelers from the east will need to clear a security checkpoint before boarding the Block Lift. The Lift is a solid hollow cube of granite which rises and descends through its shaft by magical means. The checkpoint is garrisoned by dark elven patrols. They enforce a strict limit on the use of the elevator, allowing only six passengers at once. Additional passengers can be transported only after being chained by the wrists to shackles set into the wall which immobilize hands behind the back. (The Drow are very paranoid about slave insurrections, and so insist that transported captives be restrained whenever being transported.) If more than six caravan members wish to enter unchained, they must make multiple trips. This occupancy limit is enforced by rune wards, so even the current garrison commandant cannot negate it.

The Drow are very hostile toward surface elves, and look suspiciously on followers of any Lawful faith, especially clerics of the monotheistic faith of Durnovar and any of the dwarven/barbarian gods (Thor, Odin, Freya, etc). Drow have “detect good” as a racial at-will ability, making it difficult to conceal such allegiances. Such persons will not be allowed to enter the city except as restrained and disarmed captives in shackles. If surface elves or Lawful heroes (paladins, bladedancers, etc) are freely part of a caravan group, that group will suffer a negative reaction penalty that will make it likely that they will be arrested or attacked.

Rather than kill intruders, Drow will almost invariably attempt to capture them using their spells and poisons. High-level captives are valued as potential sacrifices to their goddess, the Spider Queen, and hardworking dwarves and gnomes are coveted as slaves. Even ordinary captives are often used for recreational torture, or fed to prized pet spiders (who like their meat fresh!)

Green Pass Campaign III, Session 2: Why Are We Killing These Trolls?

August 30-31, Caudex Annales, 70 AUP
Things picked up in the hill country with the party driven off the road by a patrol of three trolls. Figuring that they have taken out over a dozen ogres last week, the party saw no particular reason to flee from trolls. The trolls were little match for an entire warband of heroes, although they did manage to draw some blood before going down.

Instead of continuing along the road toward the mountains, the party set up a base camp and dispatched all but the reserves to hunt down the lair of the trolls. After a few miles of relatively simple tracking through the hills, they began to notice signs of other organized patrols of a similar composition, all converging on a troll sizable troll village.

To test the strength of the trolls (and over the objections of Vandar), the party arranged a small ambush with a pit trap a few hundred yards outside the village. The trolls remained awake through the night, and grew increasingly agitated about the missing patrol, until eventually they sent out a number of search and rescue squads in all directions. One of the squads almost immediately blundered into the trap, one troll stumbling in and the others tottering off balance at the edge of the pit while the squad leader roared behind them. The party, watching their silhouettes against the stars from just outside of infravision range, rushed forward to assault the others.

The battle progressively saw an increasing number of trolls pushed into the pit on top of the first one, who by now had been set on fire with some judiciously applied incendiary oil. When the squad leader went down, the party hauled his body to the edge and tossed him over too, creating the worlds least-appetizing BBQ grill. (Well aside from the lizard goons, who sawed off some troll limbs to save for later.)

Troll patrol

All the commotion of battle attracted the attention of the rest of the villages squads, which had not gone farther than a few minutes away. A few stealthy members of the party (including both gnomes, Conan and Grimdark) hid again and counted no less than 20 trolls running past, in three groups. The final group obviously featured the leaders of the village, include a skull-adorned shaman and a chieftain at least a dozen feet tall. Having no interest in tussling with that many trolls, the rest of the team decided to make a run for it, breaking into multiple groups.

Meanwhile, the stealthy observers slipped past them to investigate the village. The village was still watched by a few dozen troll wives and whelps, who occupied several buildings set up against a main hall dug into the hills. The village was discretely set to the flame, torching out the guards and catching a few to perish in the conflagration. Conan put his talents as a multilingual librarian to use by inscribing the orchish message that the carnage had been wrought by a "Drago the Destroyer" and his band of marauding orcs, and then everyone headed back to base camp. (The trolls abandoned the chase in the morning.) The party moved on, puzzling over the mystery of why the trolls were so well-organized.

The expedition advanced into the mountains, and camped for a night on the edge of the tree line before the final leg of the overland journey. Advance scouting revealed that the path lead directly into the side of mountain through a crevasse guarded by dark elves, the notorious spider-worshiping slavers of the underdark. Ceremonial spider motifs decorated the entrance gate, and the doorway itself was covered by a great lattice of adamantine bars.

The gnomish Sup Foo Master, Grimdark Thunderstain, decided that the most logical course of action would be to parley with the dark elves and trick them into opening the gate, and then attack them (hahaha no that would actually make sense and we're talking about gnomes here) to mesmerize the dark elves by performing an interpretive dance. Alas, the elves were totally unimpressed by this display of lithesome gnomish artistry. So as a backup strategy, the party elected to present themselves as "monster part traders", showing off their impressive collection of slightly singed troll kneecaps. The elven sentries and their commandante waved them through (perhaps a bit too quickly, in hindsight) and gave them clearance to descend down the block-lift shaft with their caravan wagons -- but only in groups of a half-dozen or so, and only after securing their elven "captive" to shackles set into the walls.

As each group arrived at the customs inspection station at the bottom, the occupants were dismayed to discover that the lift compartment was filling with knock-out gas. After several trips, the entire party had been incapacitated, and awoke to find themselves immobilized in a rather unpleasant torture chamber with a large number of other recently acquired captives, bound hand and foot on iron racks.

The torturer-on-duty methodically branded everyone in the room on the left shoulderblade with a hot iron, to a tumult of agonized screams -- accompanied by Conan the Librarian's incessant questions about how exactly the branding irons were heated and what application of metallurgy was responsible for the sturdy construction of the shackles.

Whereupon an elderly matron with an air of authority entered the room, dressed in black velvet and lace...

Casualties
None, although pretty much everyone is in a bad spot at the moment

Treasure and Experience
Coins: None
Gems/Jewelry: None
Trade goods: None
Items of special interest: None

Total nonmagical treasure value: 0
Gold per share: 0

Killed: 2 troll champions (2x 900 xp), 5 trolls (5x 680 xp), 5 trollwives (5x 140 xp)

Total experience from treasure: 0
Total experience from kills/captures/deceptions: 6100 xp
Total experience from exploration: 0
Total experience: 6100 xp
Total experience per member: 469 xp

(Note: Mort the Wardog and Zigg's henchlizards are taking an experience half-share (and also a treasure half-share, for the lizards). Inactive "reservist" PCs are claiming neither experience or treasure -- unless their players want to split treasure between both a current and inactive PC, at their discretion.)