The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

More documents

Recommendations

Info

124 Relations with Others The Pol’Tah have few relations with other races. For millennia, the deep drow rarely encountered any sentient creatures other than shangu and their assorted minions, with whom they unsurprisingly had a very hostile relationship. From time to time, other races would stumble upon the deep drow, and those who survived the meeting returned to their homes with stories of the strange drow living deep in the beating heart of the earth and riding on the backs of enormous purple worms. Other drow heard these stories, but dismissed them as pure fancy. It was with some surprise, then, that a party of House Devoren Explorers encountered a group of deep drow only a few years ago, and it was with some degree of good fortune the sudden meeting did not end in violence. Since that day, the drow and their deep cousins have begun a tentative trading relationship. The Pol’Tah, despite the oral tradition of history so prevalent among the people, scarcely remembered the existence of other drow, and the revelation that the cousins they left so long ago have survived and flourished in the Underdeep came as quite a blow to the deep drow. They had been isolated for so long in the heart of the world that the existence of other races (aside from the shangu) was difficult for the people to accept. The deep drow and their cousins still treat each other with a fair degree of suspicion, a situation made that much worse when the drow tried to take advantage of the Pol’Tah’s blindness and cheat them in the first trading deals. Both sides also view each other with condescension, the drow viewing the Pol’Tah as a race of cowardly cripples hiding at the bottom of the Underdeep, and the deep drow regarding their cousins as a race of weak fools who could never have endured the rigours of life in the centre of the earth. Religion The Pol’Tah left the other drow out of their continuing reverence for the elven Allfather when all other drow were falling away from that faith to worship the new gods revealed to them during the war with the goblins. Even then, however, the Pol’Tah were drifting far from the Allfather’s teachings. As they wandered in the Underdeep, Kez’Skul, the trickster of the new drow pantheon, appeared to them masquerading as the Allfather. The Pol’Tah thought they were delivered, but instead, they were fooled. In the millennia which have passed since that time, Kez’Skul, in the guise of Vermthizzl, the Light in the Deep, has long since lured the deep drow away from anything resembling worship of the Allfather. Considering the reason they left the other drow, it is a cruel irony the deep drow have utterly forgotten the Allfather, and have given themselves over completely to worship of Vermthizzl. For some time, Vermthizzl found this greatly amusing, but his interest in the deep drow has been waning in recent centuries. They have paid for his joke and he found it quite entertaining, but now the joke is done. Whether or not he will abandon the Pol’Tah remains to be seen. More clergy of Vermthizzl are female than male, a fact which seems to be pure happenstance as there is no preference given in the god’s teachings. The cult recruits new priests and priestesses yearly, when 16 children, four from each clan, are chose to enter the temple. Once inside and settled, the children are subjected to an intense and intricate testing process comprehensible only to the clergy of Vermthizzl. At the end of the test, the priests and priestesses choose which eight children performed most satisfactorily, and those eight start down the road towards priesthood. The eight failures are kept locked in the temple and used as sacrifices to Vermthizzl throughout the year. The high priest or priestess of the cult of Vermthizzl is known as the Bright Flame. Slavery The Pol’Tah do not practice slavery, as they have never had the opportunity to do so. They rarely venture far from Drez Khelim, and have little or no contact with other sentient races. For centuries, the only intelligent beings they encountered were shangu, which the deep drow would either flee from or kill. Now that they have re-established contact with the other drow, the concept of slavery may be introduced to the Pol’Tah society, but it is too soon to tell. The chances are against slavery taking hold among the deep drow as they have so little need of it. Most of the hard and dangerous labour for which slaves would be useful is accomplished quickly, easily and safely with the tame purple worms the Pol’Tah have been keeping for millennia. From tunnelling to mining to carrying heavy loads, the work the worms are capable of performing in days is superior to what an army of slaves could achieve in weeks.
The Sulzthul – The Aquatic Drow The Sulzthul did not naturally evolve or change from normal drow through the pressures of the Underdeep, but instead they had change forced upon them. In the days of the Sundering, many groups of drow were splintered off from the main body of the race, fleeing the attacks of the surface elves and their allies, as well as the previously unseen terrors rising up from the Underdeep. One large group of drow, mostly non-combatants from several different clans, were separated from their kin and driven for several miles by a rolling cave-in that chewed at their heels and roared in their ears. Leaderless and terrified, the drow who would become the Sulzthul came at last to a wide cavern through which wandered two wide rivers. To their naive eyes, it seemed safe. As it provided a ready source of both water and fish, was lit by luminous fungus and not to mention it provided more room than a cramped tunnel, some of the drow wanted to remain. After much discussion, the drow chose to wait in the comparative comfort of the cavern until scouts from the other splintered groups of their race came to find them. How much time passed even those who endured the waiting could not know, isolated from their people and miles beneath the earth. The tales told now by the Sulzthul vary wildly in the estimation, holding it to be anywhere from a few days to a year or more. Whatever the truth, the event that ended the waiting is not in doubt. As the Sulzthul sat and waited in their cavern, the first of the aboleth came upon them without warning, swimming with unnatural speed. In the dim light of the fungus, the drow stared at it in shock, this creature unlike anything they had ever seen. Moments later, more aboleth flooded into the cavern, and the attack began. The drow were swiftly overwhelmed by the strange powers and abilities of the aboleth, and the survivors taken into slavery in the strange, underwater city the aboleth inhabited. Though many drow were slain by the aboleth in the initial assault and still more killed in the days and months that followed, many were kept alive, toiling pitifully for their new masters, living off of algae and bound to the water by the aboleth’s mucus. The aboleth had found them to be useful slaves, though hampered by dependence on air. None of the Sulzthul know how what follows was accomplished, any more than they know which aboleth first proposed it. The aboleth began to experiment on their drow slaves, wielding magic, psionics and alchemy in an attempt to fundamentally alter the drow. Dozens, even hundreds of drow died gasping and screaming, twisted and stunted into misshapen monsters by what was done to them. Eventually, however, the aboleth were successful. During the years since their enslavement, the drow of Sulzthul had at least remained drow, cursed and scarred as they were by the aboleth. Though every adult drow’s skin had been transformed by the aboleth into the slick mucus that forced them to remain in the water, the children born to them were still true drow until the time of the child’s own transformation at the slimy tentacles of the masters. This next mighty and terrible work of the aboleth robbed their drow slaves of even that tie to their old selves. Only the strongest of the drow survived the experiments, but when they were at last successful, the Sulzthul were no longer truly drow at all. Their skin, though it appeared black still, was now permanently altered into something similar to the mucus with which the aboleth had cursed them. This new skin was less dependent on immersion in water, allowing the Sulzthul to spend as much as four or five very uncomfortable days out of the water. More valuable from the aboleth perspective however, was the decreased reliance the Sulzthul now had on air. Expanded lungs and the ability of their new skin to process oxygen directly from the water gave the Sulzthul the capacity to go as long as 12 hours without taking a breath. Perhaps the most fundamental change, however, was that these new attributes were not something limited to the individual drow, but rather were passed on to their offspring. It is widely thought that the lessons learned by the aboleth in creating the Sulzthul were later put to use on humans who fell into the aboleths’ slimy grip, enabling them to effect a much more thorough transformation and creating the race of skum. Revulsion at this new horror inflicted on them was too much for many of the Sulzthul to bear, some of whom went mad or, breaking free for a moment of the aboleths’ control, took their own lives to escape. Still, the strongest of the Sulzthul endured, clinging to the frayed hope of freedom and the bright lust for revenge. For millennia they were held in bondage by the aboleth, until the descendants of the strongest of the Sulzthul, the offspring of those who survived the aboleths’ terrible experiments, at last got their chance for freedom and revenge. The aboleth city they were forced to serve was never very large, with only a few hundred of the creatures inhabiting it, and by now the Sulzthul numbered several thousand, the result of an aggressive breeding programme instituted by the aboleth. 125
Page 3 and 4:
Editor Christopher Allen Cover Artw
Page 5 and 6:
Drem na’Koth leaned on his cleft
Page 8 and 9:
6 History of the Drow What follows
Page 10 and 11:
8 The war raged on and on and the d
Page 12 and 13:
10 and sending the elves back to th
Page 14 and 15:
12 The last few undrunk drops of oi
Page 16 and 17:
14 An Overview of the Drow This cha
Page 18 and 19:
16 Far less alien but equally dange
Page 20 and 21:
18 This preference for elegance and
Page 22 and 23:
20 have some hope of being restored
Page 24 and 25:
22 The drow regard raiding as being
Page 26 and 27:
24 The scarcity of building space i
Page 28 and 29:
26 they partake of the pleasures wi
Page 30 and 31:
28 and immediately punish anyone fo
Page 32 and 33:
30 the form of scars all over his b
Page 34 and 35:
32 Driders are monstrous outcasts t
Page 36 and 37:
34 Sacrifices are made to Alsythuth
Page 38 and 39:
36 create an impression of softness
Page 40 and 41:
38 Worshippers The worshippers of K
Page 42 and 43:
40 Additionally, vengeance holds a
Page 44 and 45:
42 unworked clay or whatever other
Page 46 and 47:
44 Thraud (The Pitiless Blade) Symb
Page 48 and 49:
46 worshippers of Ydrillia have mas
Page 50 and 51:
48 Vermthizzl (The Light in the Dee
Page 52 and 53:
50 The Noble Houses Religion plays
Page 54 and 55:
52 of the dark elves. The details o
Page 56 and 57:
54 into the homes of the rulers of
Page 58 and 59:
56 Favoured Class: Wizard Predomina
Page 60 and 61:
58 healthier appreciation than most
Page 62 and 63:
60 higher regard than any other qua
Page 64 and 65:
62 is done by summoned and magicall
Page 66 and 67:
64 Though their numbers were beginn
Page 68 and 69:
66 the drow and many slave trainers
Page 70 and 71:
68 spasm of rage at this betrayal,
Page 72 and 73:
70 were exhausted near prostration
Page 74 and 75:
72 The enmity between House na’Kh
Page 76 and 77: 74 the collapsed tunnel was abandon
Page 78 and 79: 76 Religion The drow of House Pelsh
Page 80 and 81: 78 he is taught how to be challengi
Page 82 and 83: 80 na’Koth began brokering secret
Page 84 and 85: 82 1,000 years. The names of its fo
Page 86 and 87: 84 of the majesty of the Underdeep
Page 88 and 89: 86 Culture The culture in the Darkl
Page 90 and 91: 88 The Game of Bones - the Sheathed
Page 92 and 93: 90 Gaining Power Character Type Pow
Page 94 and 95: 92 to maintain its slaves, mercenar
Page 96 and 97: 94 Influence Requirement: 0 Power R
Page 98 and 99: 96 the police force is interested s
Page 100 and 101: 98 a campaign of lies and innuendo
Page 102 and 103: 100 The Lost Tribes are groups of d
Page 104 and 105: 102 Kathricia would not stop scream
Page 106 and 107: 104 The Kanahraun nobles wield and
Page 108 and 109: 106 For the most part, however, the
Page 110 and 111: 108 to the Lorgreln with warnings o
Page 112 and 113: 110 There are more priests than spe
Page 114 and 115: 112 The iron drow are a particularl
Page 116 and 117: 114 in the iron drow; indeed, it se
Page 118 and 119: 116 passageway then a few minutes l
Page 120 and 121: 118 For the last few leagues, the c
Page 122 and 123: 120 of the worm’s stomach, they c
Page 124 and 125: 122 Engineering The Pol’Tah are c
Page 128 and 129: 126 Through his own strength of wil
Page 130 and 131: 128 pronounced than those of other
Page 132 and 133: 130 The only reason anyone would go
Page 134 and 135: 132 The exception to this is the ra
Page 136 and 137: 134 harshly. Left unchecked, such b
Page 138 and 139: 136 should ever touch more than tan
Page 140 and 141: 138 In such a campaign, the drow wo
Page 142 and 143: 140 Player Characters may be more w
Page 144 and 145: 142 be more honest in portraying th
Page 146 and 147: 144 of the world. This will require
Page 148 and 149: 146 caravan guards, and rangers are
Page 150 and 151: 148 The Explorer Class Levels Base
Page 152 and 153: 150 The Fist of Nazrakoth Class Lev
Page 154 and 155: 152 The Lord (Lady) of the Veil Cla
Page 156 and 157: 154 The Pitiless Blade Class Levels
Page 158 and 159: 156 raiders, drow who are charged w
Page 160 and 161: 158 creature of sexual orientation
Page 162 and 163: 160 Shadow of Mu’Ushket Class Lev
Page 164 and 165: 162 The Talon of the Dark Mother Cl
Page 166 and 167: 164 The Taskmaster of Olyet’Naru
Page 168 and 169: 166 Tormentor of Polshoath The wors
Page 170 and 171: 168 Grip of Torment (Su): By the ti
Page 172 and 173: 170 widely known varies with the lo
Page 174 and 175: 172 effect is identical to the inse
Page 176 and 177:
174 Worm Friendship (Ex): The Wormr
Page 178 and 179:
176 The Elven Avenger Class Levels
Page 180 and 181:
178 The Elven Infiltrator Class Lev
Page 182 and 183:
180 Normal: When you climb any surf
Page 184 and 185:
182 Normal: Normally drow have spel
Page 186 and 187:
184 feat, unless you leave the rang
Page 188 and 189:
186 Drow Magic and Equipment In the
Page 190 and 191:
188 A Final Word on Boneforging Bon
Page 192 and 193:
190 Scrolls Roll Effect 1-16 Scroll
Page 194 and 195:
192 Rods, Staves and Wondrous Items
Page 196 and 197:
194 Wave Conjuration [Acid] Level:
Page 198 and 199:
196 If the victim makes his initial
Page 200 and 201:
198 opponent, and are quite capable
Page 202 and 203:
200 effect, is considered normal in
Page 204 and 205:
202 Vile Infestation (Lesser) Conju
Page 206 and 207:
204 is 20 for the Fortitude save to
Page 208 and 209:
206 A soulburner dagger has a +4 en
Page 210 and 211:
208 tool and resource at their disp
Page 212 and 213:
210 Boneforged weapons have the sam
Page 214 and 215:
212 of drow warriors that the dark
Page 216 and 217:
214 Price List for Slaves Race Base
Page 218 and 219:
216 for a skilled slave and the cos
Page 220 and 221:
218 Special Qualities: Camouflage,
Page 222 and 223:
220 Combat The druuge prefers to at
Page 224 and 225:
222 Hulurn Medium Animal Hit Dice:
Page 226 and 227:
224 Kanahraun (The Feral Drow) (Rul
Page 228 and 229:
226 The males of the Lorgreln tend
Page 230 and 231:
228 Skills: A morgoshe has a +8 rac
Page 232 and 233:
230 The Sulzthul, also known as the
Page 234 and 235:
232 can before slaying those who re
Page 236 and 237:
234 The Kanahraun Reavers Medium Hu
Page 238 and 239:
236 to his remaining Pact brothers,
Page 240 and 241:
238 Sithil Hwerzel Sulzthul male, S
Page 242 and 243:
240 Equipment: Leather armour, long
Page 244 and 245:
242 hand, mending, open/close, pres
Page 246 and 247:
244 Alertness, Diehard, Endurance,
Page 248 and 249:
246 magic, haste, lightning bolt, s
Page 250 and 251:
248 The human wizard Terlessa was s
Page 252 and 253:
SAVING THROWS COMBAT BONUSES CHARAC
Page 254 and 255:
HEAL RATE PER DAY MAGIC ITEMS SPELL
Page 256 and 257:
254 An Overview of the Drow 14 Bone
Page 258:
256 Open Game License THIS LICENSE
show all

The Tome Of Drow Lore.pdf - RoseRed

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?