The Legend Of Drizzt Gave DnD Dark Elves A Great New Origin Option

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The long-running fantasy novel series introduced some major changes to the status quo for the dark elves of Faerun, and these provide an ideal origin story for drow elf heroes. Author R.A. Salvatore’s saga is the most popular novel series in the campaign setting. While most novels have ceased publication, has continued strong since 1988. Though is not the only campaign world for the current 5e rules, it is the closest the edition has to a default setting. Book 36 of the series, titled, changed ’ drow forever.

As approaches book 40, the series also celebrates its 35-year anniversary this year. Drizzt’s story began prior to 2e. The recently released video game took place early in Drizzt’s history, between the first and second published novels. Salvatore’s stories have spanned four rule system shifts for, and the fiction of the world has changed to match each edition. Each group is free to decide how much of a setting’s canon to concern themselves with, but the significant events of seem tailor-made to justify new dark elf player characters.

One of ’s many iconic monsters is the drider, an aberration similar to a centaur, with the upper torso of a dark elf and the lower body of a massive spider. In driders were created through a ritual performed by priestesses of Lolth, the goddess served by the matriarchal drow city of Menzoberranzan. To be made into a drider was a form of extreme punishment, described as a painful and degrading process for the dark elf in question. Updates to changed the drow, allowing for dark elves who do not worship the spider goddess Lolth, but opened the door to even more heroic drow.

After realizing that the goddess they worshiped for generations was closer to a psychic plague than an independent