They are the favorite foes of many a party of adventurers. In these pages, the drow come to life, their culture and powers detailed fully for the first time. This guide presents new rules galore; new spells, new magical items, insight into the mysteries of Lolth, Monstrous Compendium entries for related monsters of the Underdark-and much, much more.
Learn all about the drow herein, from the words of the ancient elven sage Erlathan Greycloak ("Proud, graceful evil. Cruelty personified; talent wasted, beauty lost in darkness" ) to the lore of the great sage Elminster ("Did I ever tell thee how close I came to having a drow wife? No? Well, then").
Product History
FOR2: The Drow of the Underdark (1991) was the second release in the new prestige Forgotten Realms series, and the first by setting creator Ed Greenwood. It was published in July 1991.
A Shared History. Drow follows on from the history of FOR1: Draconomicon (1990), as it was the second book in a series meant to expand upon "elements" of the Forgotten Realms that went beyond the geography of the "FR" series (1987-1993). It also has the same gloss-on-matte cover treatment. Like Draconomicon, this is a book about a singular monstrous culture - but it actually spends a lot more time on that culture than its predecessor because it doesn't include variant monster types nor adventures (as Draconomicon did).
About the Drow. By 1991, the drow already had a rich history, much of which Greenwood explicitly referenced when writing this new book about drow in the Forgotten Realms. The drow were first mentioned in the Monster Manual (1977), but they didn't actually appear until the famous GDQ adventure series (1978, 1980) by Gary Gygax & David C. Sutherland III. D3: "Vault of the Drow" (1978) was particularly important because it depicted a society of warring, Lolth-worshiping drow that later became the archetype for the species.
Other notable sources referenced by Greenwood are as follows: "Children Of the Spider Goddess," by Eric Oppen, in Dragon #129 (January 1988), the first "point of view" article for the drow; "Entering the Drider's Web," by C.E. Misso, in the same issue, which gives a bit more detail on the spider-drow; and of course R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden stories, beginning with The Crystal Shard (1988), which made drow important to the Realms.
Expanding the Drow & The Realms. Though technically a Forgotten Realms book, this volume, much like its predecessor, spends most of its attention on detailing the culture of the peoples headlining the book - here, the drow. Thus, there's material on the nature of the drow, their society, and their religion (plus lots of crunchy bits like spells and magic items). One of Greenwood's biggest goals in writing these sections was to suggest drow societies that did things other than worship Lolth, which had been the standard model to date. He wanted to make the drow into well-rounded people and to create a society for them that could actually survive - not just annihilate itself.
One of Greenwood's most important expansions in this direction (and one of the biggest expansions for both the drow and the Realms) was the creation of three new drow deities - something that Greenwood added at the behest of editor Newton Ewell: Eilistraee, or the "Dark Maiden" was thus a goddess for good drow (who had previously appeared in Greenwood's own campaign); while Vhaeraun was a god of drow living in the surface world.
Historically, the most interesting of the new drow deities is Ghaunadaur, who was a "Realmsified" version of Gary Gygax's Elder Elemental God (or EEG for short). The EEG was first introduced in the G-series adventures, in which a couple of his temples show up. He's mentioned again in the D-series adventures, where he's supposed to be a foe of Lolth. It's likely that he was intended to be the big bad guy at the end of the GD sequence - before Sutherland decided to use Lolth instead because of an attractive hand towel (see the history of Q1: "Queen of the Demonweb Pits").
Similarly, the EEG was supposed to be the big baddie at the bottom of T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil (1985), but eventually Zuggtmoy filled that slot. After those near misses, Ghaunadaur became the first real look at the EEG. He'd next appear in DMGR4: Monster Mythology (1992). More recent sources suggest that the EEG is the same entity as Tharizdun from WG4: "The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun" (1982), but in later interviews Gygax clearly stated this was not his intention.
Further Expanding the Realms. In his dedication, Greenwood thanks James Lowder for "finding drow in the Realms." This references the fact that Lowder was at the time the Forgotten Realms fiction line editor, and thus responsible for coordinating materials between the RPG and fiction lines. Among the things he did was figure out possible locations for drow settlements in the Realms.
Not a lot of this shows up in Drow, though, which spends just a single page talking about the Underdark, but it was surely the foundation of some of the material in the book. Later books about drow in the Forgotten Realms would offer much more detail on their underground cities.
Monsters of Note. Drow includes numerous new monsters - most of them spiders and bugs. Two monsters are worthy of a bit more note: the deep dragons - an Underdark-dwelling drake which has appeared in a few Forgotten Realms supplements over the years - made their first appearance here; and the yochlol, or handmaidens of Lolth, meanwhile make their first 2e appearance, following Q1: "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" (1980) and Monster Manual II (1983). They've appeared a few times since, both in the Forgotten Realms and in Planescape.
Future History. A short time after this publication, Ed Greenwood wrote "If You Need Help - Ask the Drow!" for Dragon #176 (December 1991), which crossed over some ideas from Drow with The Ruins of Undermountain (1991). Two related books also appeared in the 2e era: Greenwood's Menzoberranzan (1992) gave specific detail on one of the drow cities of the Underdark, while Eric L. Boyd's Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark (1999) detailed many cities and civilizations within the Forgotten Realms' Underdark.
More recently, Underdark (2003) covered the Forgotten Realms' Underdark for 3e, though it was about lots of races, not just the drow. Chapter 8 of that book is notable for laying out the various kingdoms, providing a real gazetteer for the underworld. Finally, Drow of the Underdark (2007) shared a name with this tome, but detailed drow generally, with no specific reference to the Realms.
About the Creators. By 1991, Greenwood was writing several Forgotten Realms books a year for TSR. One of his then recent works of note was FR11: "Dwarves Deep" (1990) - which he ties into Drow though a story of warfare between dwarves and drow, something that was originally inspired by Roger E. Moore.