Do you think noble drow names are like celebrity baby names irl?
Like over here you've got the noble houses naming their newborn daughter a name that's barely pronounceable that means like, "destined for the blessing of Lolth" or whatever
Meanwhile common folk will know like eight of the drow equivalent of the name Emma
virge, no offense, drow culture is fascinating to learn about even if it fucking sucks, but while reading/hearing that thought experiment my brain was just playing the wii theme song the whole time
(Virgil sighs,)
Virgil: It’s Colony, not ‘Kingdom’... Okay, from highest to lowest it goes Obok C'rintri, Ugulur C'rintri, Rivvazz'a, and Rothen. That's High-ranking Nobles, Low-ranking Nobles, commoners, and... worse.
Virgil: The Obok C'rintri are top-Ranking Nobles. The highest Rank is our Quarval-sheress: The Queen of Spiders, Dark Mother of the Drow, The Most Glorious Goddess Lolth. And yes, you have to say the whole ass thing every time...
Virgil: Under her are the Il'haressen. The Val'sharess is the Matron Mother of the First House, and the leader of the Colony as a whole -- it means "Undisputed Queen of the Elves, most blessed by Lolth." My Priestess was our Val'sharess: Val'sharess Dhaunarra Olonrae. While I was still her Dalharuken -- I'll get to that one -- I used her last name as mine, too. Just under her is any other Il'haress: the Matron Mothers of the other Houses, and members of her council. This is where Logan's dad would go, if you ignore the gender thing...
Virgil: Under them are the Yathtallar, a High Priestess of Lolth, and Yathrin, the lower priestesses. Those are our clerics and paladins, so that's where I said Roman would go, if you ignore the gender thing. You can call any Il'haress or Yathtallar "Priestess" in common, since they're all clerics or paladins of Lolth, or one of the Drow Pantheon gods... Next is the Dalharil, any Daughter of a Matron Mother. So, that's Logan, if you ignore the gender thing again -- I called him Drada-Dalharil because he said he had one older brother, which makes him the Second-Daughter of his House.
Virgil: Under them is the Ilareth, or Blackguard -- the personal guards of the Matrons and her daughters, and heads of the army, and Soldier class. The Malla Ilareth is the highest ranking of all of them; the Blackguard Captain of the Val'sharess. Next is any Jabbress, or female Mistress at the Temple of Lolth; The girls who work there under the real Priests, or are kept there to be their servants. The last of the Obok C'rintri are the Jabbuk, or any Male Master at the academy of weapons or magic.
Virgil: Then there's Ugulur C'rintri, or lower-ranking Nobles. They start with the tenth Rank, which doesn't really have a name. It's just any Female Relation of the Matron Mother that didn't literally come out of her: aunts, nieces, cousins, whatever. Not her mom, because if she's a Matron Mother, she's killed that bitch already... Under them are the Ilharn, or 'Patron' of the House; whatever dude a Matron, Dalharil, or Priestess likes most at the given moment. Logan and Patton are dating, so Patton's his Ilharn.
Virgil: Next is the Qu'el'saruk, or Head Guard and Weaponmaster of the House. Then the Qu'el'faeruk, the House Wizard or High Mage, and the Qu'el'velguk, or House Assassin. Sometimes the Ilareth of the house does one or two of these, sometimes it's separate people, but the Qu'el'faeruk must always be male -- the Ilareth, Qu'el'saruk and Qu'el'velguk can be either gender.
Virgil: Under them are the Dalharuken, or the sons of the Matron Mothers, in order of age. My Val'sharess never had kids, so she called me her Mal'Dhalaruk, or Elderboy, after she chose me to be her Blackguard. It was technically an infantalizing insult, but it's not like I could stop her...
Virgil: Under them are the Rivvazz'a, or Commoners. That's any “Jalil Sargtlin" or female warrior, any "Jalil Quaztle" or female merchant, any “Jalil Lloun'az” or female artist, any other female citizen, any "Faern" or male wizard, "Jaluk Sargtlin" or male soldier, "Jaluk Quaztle" or male merchant, “Jaluk Lloun'az” or male artist, and any other male citizen. “Citizens” are average people, like farmers, workers, et cetera. Below them are the livestock and plants they cultivate, and below that are the Rothen, and any Shebali, or Rogue Drow -- Drow without a colony.
Virgil: ...That's everybody. But, I guess I should note that there's a difference between your Rank and your Primacy, which are both crazy important to keep track of...
Virgil: If someone is lower Rank than you but Superior to you, you still owe them respect, and have to treat them accordingly in most situations. I was a Malla Illareth, so I would be above any Jabbress by at least one full Rank...but because I'm male and she's female, I'm still Inferior to her. So in any situation where my Priestess was present or we were talking warfare, she would defer to me as the Higher-Ranking official on the subject, but I was still required to show her respect in those moments, and defer to her in any other situation.
Logan: ...You sound like you really have a handle on this system.
Virgil: ...Yeah, everyone has to. If you get it wrong and disrespect someone, they’ll kill you.
[1] What first impression do they typically make? Are they likeable from the get go, or take time to grow on people?
Okay first - I really appreciate mutuals playing this game with me. Because it's not even stuff I've asked myself about my characters!
Viedyn- most would find him sociable or even charismatic, but guarded. "Likeable" is a strong word for an evil aligned Drow. But yes, I imagine if Viedyn saw a benefit in it, he'd come across as very likeable.
He's accustomed to having to placate people above him. Especially his Matron and her sisters. He's adept at reading people and masking his true feelings. This means that he can appear charming even when he's seething inside, which makes him a dangerous person to cross.
Durafein - Standoffish and a bit skittish. A few courtiers resorted to literally ambushing him because he's elusive. He's definitely not making fast friends.
What's interesting about Durafein, though, is he DOES grow on people. It takes him a long time to relax around anyone new. But eventually, as long as the person hasn't given him reason to be guarded or suspicious, he'll start to open up. He'll begin to do "normal" things like banter and eat/drink with others. He won't SEEK company but if someone he considers "safe" asks or just happens to be there he won't turn them away. When he gets comfortable enough that he enjoys being around someone, he becomes protective of them in the way that a guard dog is protective. So he may not necessarily CARE about your problems - but he'll enthusiastically eliminate the source for you.
(there was absolutely a "well, technically I didn't kill him. Gravity did that for me." conversation at the table)
I didn't see the emoji ask game on your blog. So I'm just going to drop this "ask" to say your drow/duskwight have been so fun to follow along with.
Your wonderful poses aside, I'm getting into playing a drow for the first time in a tabletop game with friends, despite not being very familiar with them (or D&D as a whole). I have used your writings as reference sometimes, when thinking about how my paladin (of course) would act/behave based on drow society.
Thank you for sharing your OCs with us.
I literally fangirl screamed over this, then sent a screenshot to the one IRL friend I gush about OCs with and WE fangirl screamed together. All to say - I REALLY appreciated it!
This also made me feel way better about a small info dump I was drafting for next week.
I'm HYPED to hear you're playing a Drow and I really hope you enjoy it! They CAN be quite tricky depending on their alignment but that's what I find fun about them!
I also answered publicly so I could add two things!
- my ask box and inbox are open for Drow ideas, questions, gushing, etc. I love speculating on how they may react to scenarios based on their alignment, religion, position in society, and ambitions, etc.
- I don't always reblog games! I participate when I can because it spreads joy and I enjoy learning more about OCs, but sometimes when I know I'm gonna be slammed IRL I won't reblog because I can't answer quickly. I've literally got a tab open on my PC to remind me to play with one more mutual tomorrow morning but I've gotta dive into work right after and it's gonna be a really rough day.
If I played an OC ask with you - you're ALWAYS welcome to play/ask the same thing right back at me even if I didn't reblog!
Not reblogging doesn't mean I don't WANT to play - I just don't want anyone to feel like their 'ask' wasn't good enough if I'm too busy to get to it. I've been there and it's a bad feeling wondering if you messed up.
