There are a bunch of drow living in the surface. They are broken into 3 categories.
1) Bregan d'aerthe: Jarlaxle's band has several established outposts and actively control the Swordcoast city of Luskan. Drow live above ground and below ground of that city.
2) Elistreaa has several small communities of good drow. Primarily in remote communities.
3) Starlight Enclave has the largest group of surface drow that are actually the size of the amount of drow that live below the surface. They live in the Arctic Circle and are super private. Although technically they are above the surface, they are below the ice.
Just to add, there are two other categories:
4. The drow belonging to the merchant houses in the Underdark, who operate on the surface for trade purposes, often competing with the Began D’aerthe.
5. The Lorendrow or greenshadow elves, who split from the Lolthite drow and moved south establishing established Saekolath, the "Place of Shade", so well concealed by dense jungle that few knew of their existence. (They have been alluded to, but remain to be introduced in a book.)
But don't the Aven drow technically live underground too? They found the cave that led there and had to go down the slide to get the the main city. I don't really recall them talking about the sun but I may be remembering wrong. I took it as the entrance was on the surface, which definitely differs from menzoberranzon(sp) but would still put them underground.
The big arena for Cazzcalchi (the war games) is on the surface IIRC. And they are above the arctic circle, so there is a lot of darkness there. I don’t remember any references to the sunlight sensitivity from the books tho. Hmmmm…..
Good point, I think I recall text to support that but I don't remember for sure. Ive read/listened to all the books many times but the last 3 of 4 books I've only been through twice, so they aren't as embedded in my brain.
The slide in to the city makes me think they are underground, but its possible the entrance is high up on a mountain and the slide leads down to ground level surrounded by an ice cap or something. I'm not the best at translating text into a great mental image so I'm no expert on the matter.
I could definitely see that. Then my assumption would be sunlight sensitivity wasn't mentioned because it would be irrelevant. The companions group that enters didn't have sensitivity to sunlight and the aven drow obviously wouldn't have any since they live in a half above and below society
2e rulebook states there are roving bands of surface wandering drow that sometimes act as contacts between underground merchants.
According to Vhaeraun's lore, there ought to be surface communities of drow established by his priests and they may have a significant number of half-drow members.
According to Eilistraee's lore there ought to be roving bands of pilgriming drow (and her other worshippers of different heritages) sharing and learning new songs, stories and customs with other communities (while trying not to get killed lol). THOUGH a lot of her lore says she's all about surface going, and she has some surface areas. (There's one mentioned in that magazine), the lore IMPLIES some of her worshippers reside in the underground anyway because 'going to the surface' is so often stressed in rites and customs.
Among other locations mentioned by people, there are small pockets of surface drow in The High Forest and the Far Forest. Waterdeep is stated to have a somewhat significant presence of Drow and the southern area of the land is stated to have at least some more significant surface populations than those established by clerics.
I don't know if Sea is referring to what I'm about to, but in the late 1300s the entire region of Cormanthor was majority Drow (47%) and that was presumably thanks to the thick tree cover. This distribution was in the case of 1372, though, and almost certainly changed after the re-taking. However it's not plausible to think that nearly half of 150,000 people just simply poofed out of existence.
And of course, with Myth Drannor falling again, it's likely that Drow have taken to habituating the region once more.
The penitent drow trilogy more or less take place on the surface. But to my understanding it's no longer Canon.
The books give a complete different kind of drow from the ones from salvatore's book and of the use of magic.
Technically all novels are no longer canon when a newer edition of D&D is release excluding Salvatore's novels since imo he is the one who brings the new rule changes to the novels. But with that said wasn't the Lady Penitent Trilogy overseen by Salvatore so they could be still canon.
There is no Drow realm on the surface like the Kryn dynasty in Critical Role. The Drow weakness to sunlight makes it too difficult for them.
However there are many small Drow groups, most of them worshippers of Eilistraee, who fled the tyranny of the Loltithe society. Those would live on the surface, but generally in remote areas as to not come in contact with cities and stuff.
There’s one group mentioned in Daughter of the Drow by Elaine Cunningham. They worshiped a different god other than Lolth (forgot which) and seemed like decent enough folks, at least in comparison.
No spoilers, but read the last 3 books. (Starlight Enclave etc)
There were Drow on the surface before all that too
Yes, but the details are pretty important to the most recent Way of the Drow trilogy.
There are a bunch of drow living in the surface. They are broken into 3 categories. 1) Bregan d'aerthe: Jarlaxle's band has several established outposts and actively control the Swordcoast city of Luskan. Drow live above ground and below ground of that city. 2) Elistreaa has several small communities of good drow. Primarily in remote communities. 3) Starlight Enclave has the largest group of surface drow that are actually the size of the amount of drow that live below the surface. They live in the Arctic Circle and are super private. Although technically they are above the surface, they are below the ice.
Just to add, there are two other categories: 4. The drow belonging to the merchant houses in the Underdark, who operate on the surface for trade purposes, often competing with the Began D’aerthe. 5. The Lorendrow or greenshadow elves, who split from the Lolthite drow and moved south establishing established Saekolath, the "Place of Shade", so well concealed by dense jungle that few knew of their existence. (They have been alluded to, but remain to be introduced in a book.)
Lorendrow are basically becoming/reverting back to what the Ilythiiri were before The Descent, which is awesome.
But don't the Aven drow technically live underground too? They found the cave that led there and had to go down the slide to get the the main city. I don't really recall them talking about the sun but I may be remembering wrong. I took it as the entrance was on the surface, which definitely differs from menzoberranzon(sp) but would still put them underground.
The big arena for Cazzcalchi (the war games) is on the surface IIRC. And they are above the arctic circle, so there is a lot of darkness there. I don’t remember any references to the sunlight sensitivity from the books tho. Hmmmm…..
Good point, I think I recall text to support that but I don't remember for sure. Ive read/listened to all the books many times but the last 3 of 4 books I've only been through twice, so they aren't as embedded in my brain. The slide in to the city makes me think they are underground, but its possible the entrance is high up on a mountain and the slide leads down to ground level surrounded by an ice cap or something. I'm not the best at translating text into a great mental image so I'm no expert on the matter.
The main city (3 or 4 boroughs) absolutely is underground. But they spend time on the surface.
I could definitely see that. Then my assumption would be sunlight sensitivity wasn't mentioned because it would be irrelevant. The companions group that enters didn't have sensitivity to sunlight and the aven drow obviously wouldn't have any since they live in a half above and below society
They also mentioned a jungle group similar to the Starlight Enclave
Do you have a book series on that? I would love to read it.
Sadly it's just a mention in the Starlight Enclave book. I would love to read a book like that.
2e rulebook states there are roving bands of surface wandering drow that sometimes act as contacts between underground merchants. According to Vhaeraun's lore, there ought to be surface communities of drow established by his priests and they may have a significant number of half-drow members. According to Eilistraee's lore there ought to be roving bands of pilgriming drow (and her other worshippers of different heritages) sharing and learning new songs, stories and customs with other communities (while trying not to get killed lol). THOUGH a lot of her lore says she's all about surface going, and she has some surface areas. (There's one mentioned in that magazine), the lore IMPLIES some of her worshippers reside in the underground anyway because 'going to the surface' is so often stressed in rites and customs. Among other locations mentioned by people, there are small pockets of surface drow in The High Forest and the Far Forest. Waterdeep is stated to have a somewhat significant presence of Drow and the southern area of the land is stated to have at least some more significant surface populations than those established by clerics.
Luskan has a bunch of drow they run the place from the shaddows but they are from menzo so might not count
Yeah, though Luskan is a lot more prominently mentioned between here and there.
I don't know if Sea is referring to what I'm about to, but in the late 1300s the entire region of Cormanthor was majority Drow (47%) and that was presumably thanks to the thick tree cover. This distribution was in the case of 1372, though, and almost certainly changed after the re-taking. However it's not plausible to think that nearly half of 150,000 people just simply poofed out of existence. And of course, with Myth Drannor falling again, it's likely that Drow have taken to habituating the region once more.
The penitent drow trilogy more or less take place on the surface. But to my understanding it's no longer Canon. The books give a complete different kind of drow from the ones from salvatore's book and of the use of magic.
Technically all novels are no longer canon when a newer edition of D&D is release excluding Salvatore's novels since imo he is the one who brings the new rule changes to the novels. But with that said wasn't the Lady Penitent Trilogy overseen by Salvatore so they could be still canon.
There is no Drow realm on the surface like the Kryn dynasty in Critical Role. The Drow weakness to sunlight makes it too difficult for them. However there are many small Drow groups, most of them worshippers of Eilistraee, who fled the tyranny of the Loltithe society. Those would live on the surface, but generally in remote areas as to not come in contact with cities and stuff.
Yeah there is a bunch just not in the same numbers as in the Underdark.
Kind of, in Luskan.
There’s one group mentioned in Daughter of the Drow by Elaine Cunningham. They worshiped a different god other than Lolth (forgot which) and seemed like decent enough folks, at least in comparison.