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Dark-Elf Roleplaying Notes

First, read the Book of Knowledge for a head start.

Dark elves are perhaps most dangerous race in all of Derlith. What makes
them so dangerous is that their evilness is so completely unorganized and
unpredictable. A dark elf acts upon his whims above all. Whatever causes
the most misery or advances the will of the dark elf is what is done above
all else. Dark elves are also extremely racist to all but their own kind.
The only exception is that they sometimes ally with cambions, as they
believe in the similar philosophy that the weak will always be destroyed
by the strong, and also they believe that cambions are related to the gods
of the dark elves - the evil spider god, that is. Dark elves despise all
elves, as it is the "elves' fault" that they were forced below the surface
millenia ago. Elves are killed on sight for this reason. Dark elven raiding
parties have been known to rise into the forest by night and destroy entire
elven villages - men, women, and children, and to force the parents to
watch their children be tortured and die in front of them. The other races,
aside from cambions, are viewed by dark elves as future slaves to do their
bidding. They believe humans are nothing but useless wastes of space and
material created by the gods.

Dark elves have a reverence for spiders of all kinds, and they will never
kill them, as it is a bad taboo to do so. The spider god always looks
unfavorably on those who do so. Dark elves usually  will use poison in
combat so long as the poison causes their opponent much pain and suffering
before they die. A dark elf can NEVER be trusted, as they will turn on a
dime if a situation does not suit them coming out ahead in some way.

Despite being so chaotic in nature, dark elven society is amazingly more
ordered then one would think. There are basically four castes to dark elven
society, all sometimes intermixing with one another: nobles, warriors,
merchants, and slaves. Virtually all spellcasters must be from a noble
family. Warriors can be found amongst all the castes, yet they make up a
caste of their own. The same is true of the merchants. Slaves are 99% made
up of people not of the dark elven race. They are never elves, because
elves are put to death. The majority of clerics are female, and the
majority of mages are male. The spider god prefers females to be the
leaders of his worship, and often a high priestess is the head of every
noble family. Favor of the spider god is required to remain a noble family.
Should this favor be lost for any reason (even if on a whim of the spider
god), all the other powerful noble families will destroy that noble family.
Wars are often declared between nobles as well. Usually if the family
declaring the war does not win, they lose the favor of the spider god, and
are destroyed by all the other families.

Loyalty to the dark elf is securely based on fear and nothing else. Because
of this, it is very rare to find a dark elf at the head of any majorly
large band of outlaws or criminal organization. They do not have the
leadership ability necessary to inspire people to follow  them. They must
use fear to do so. Because of this, along with a general distrust people
have for dark elves, drow often only are able to lead up to 20-25
individuals. However, the exception to this rule is when solely dark elves
are involved in an organization. When this is the case, fear of the spider
god often keeps them in line. This is what has happened in Oakspire, where
hundreds of dark elves have taken over the forested city and are preparing
to raise their entire race back to the surface... or so rumors hold.

So when playing dark elves, remember that they are usually selfish,
backstabbing, racist, vengeful, chaotic in action, cowardly, and very
disloyal. However, they are very fierce in battle, giving no quarter to
their enemies - especially elves, whom they like to play with and torture
before killing.

Note that in D&D, the dark elves follow a spider GODDESS - here ,however,
it is a GOD.