in multiple drow cities, while others confine their operations to a single location on which they maintain a fierce grip. In some situations, the Houses will sometimes act as proxies for the temples, while in others the temples will grudgingly do the bidding of the Houses. The dominant social force varies from city to city and Games Masters have free rein to set the power levels of the temples and Houses as best fits the campaign.
The Noble Houses and the cults of the drow share power unwillingly and just as there is conflict among the churches, so too is there conflict among the Houses. Over the years, this internecine warfare of the Houses has come to be called the Game of Bones, or the Sheathed War, and it is a mark of just how much enmity exists between the Houses that they cannot even agree on the name of the conflict that endlessly divides them. Complete rules and a full description of this ongoing and eternal struggle can be found on page 88.
Though some of Noble Houses are quite old, proudly tracing their roots back to the time of the Sundering and before, this is not always the case. Other Houses are quite young, having risen to supplant older Houses that had grown weak and careless in their decadence. There is always resistance from the surviving older Houses to the acceptance of such upstarts into their ranks, but provided the new House has the power necessary to hold its newly acquired position and continues to be successful at the Game of Bones, acceptance will eventually come.
Listed below are ten of the most powerful Noble Houses of the drow. At the end of each description is a list of House features, skills and abilities.
House Features: This lists the natural bonuses and penalties that accrue to any drow of that House. These cost the drow character nothing, they are merely the effects of growing up in the culture of that particular House. These
features are in addition to normal drow traits, though in some cases they may enhance or negate a specific drow trait. As well as these features, it is worth noting that membership of a House brings other benefits and penalties, from the network of resources and contacts provided to the often inconvenient or dangerous demands placed on a drow in the service of their House.
House Skills: These are the prevalent skills learned and practiced by drow of that House. A drow character of the House always treats these skills as class skills.
Favoured Class: This is the most common character class to be found in that House of the drow and replaces the default favoured drow class of wizard or cleric.
Predominant Alignment: This is the alignment adhered to by the majority of drow of that House.
Predominant Religion: This is the god most commonly worshipped by drow of that House.
House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah
House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah are perhaps more responsible than any other drow for the reputation of the dark elves on the surface world, as well as the many misperceptions those in the sunlit lands hold regarding the drow.
Background
Two of the largest Houses at the time of the Sundering, House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah managed to escape the hosts of shangu and vengeful surface elves by fighting a slow retreat through the unknown passages of the Underdeep, rather than simply fleeing as did so many of the dark elves. So deadly were the shangu and so wrathful were the surface elves however, that even the combined forces of House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah could not stand against them.
Fortunately for the drow, they were able to slip out from between the two hosts of enemies, retreating away through the Underdeep while leaving just enough forces in combat to keep the enemies coming from both sides, ensuring that the hated cousins who betrayed them would run headlong into the alien menace marching up out of the depths of the world. This ploy cost the two Houses many of their finest warriors, but it was successful. In the trackless paths of the Underdeep, the betrayers of the surface met the shangu, the scaled abomination of the depths, and were forced to flee back to the lands of the sun.
In an attempt to cut off any pursuit by their enemies, the drow worked their most powerful magics and collapsed tunnels and caverns in their wake, filling the air around them
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with choking dust. There was some concern about finding the other tribes of drow who had been scattered when the dark elves were caught between the surface elves and the shangu, but these were trumped by the concerns of House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah for their own survival.
Satisfied at last that the job was done as the dust settled, the drow of these two great Houses, numbering well into the thousands even after the horrid losses of battle, collapsed in exhaustion amid the dry stone and billowing dust.
The drow knew little of the powers of the shangu however, or of the forces they could bring to bear. The ogre slaves of the shangu were busily clearing away the crumbled stone and digging new paths through the Underdeep, flogged ever onward by the desire of their masters to reach the two Houses, the greatest prize of breeding stock and slaves that had narrowly escaped their grasp.
The drow of House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah were taken unawares by this newest assault. Still reeling from their losses in the first meeting with the shangu mere days before and with many of their warriors lost in the scheme to bring the shangu and surface betrayers together to destroy one another, the exhausted drow were unable to mount a defence against the renewed attack. They fled into the Underdeep, a leaderless, frightened rabble with the shangu and their minions close on their heels.
The drow feared escape was impossible this time, that the two great Houses would be destroyed and consumed by this unimagined terror from the depths of the Underdeep.
Desperate and terrified, they called out to their gods for deliverance from their enemies, and their prayers were answered. Ahead of the fleeing drow, the tunnel they ran through began to widen, silvery wisps of spider webs drifting and wafting through the air. The passageway grew ever broader, until the foremost of the drow saw, at the limits of their vision, a solid wall of spider webs sealing off the tunnel. Some began to panick, afraid that they had been trapped, but the more faithful continued forward, trampling the doubters, and the thick mesh of webs parted before them.
The drow found themselves in the first of a series of enormous caverns, glowing with the light of luminous fungus and resounding with the rush of water through an underground river. Spider webs festooned the walls and faith in the strength and power of their goddess, and with
hordes of arachnids gathering around them, they stood their ground in the face of the assault. As the enemy herded their slave-beasts forwards into the caverns and the battle began in earnest, swarms of spiders of all sizes rushed to meet the attackers. Mighty shangu leaders wrestled with giant, bloated webspinners as the remaining drow warriors cut through the beleaguered ogres and abominations, the magical webs of the Dark Mother’s sanctuary hampering the invaders but letting the drow pass without obstacle. Soon the assault had been repelled and the shangu thrown back in defeat, and now the survivors found that they were the hunted, with innumerable spiders dogging their footsteps as they fled. Few shangu ever returned from those caverns, and many of the drow families of House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah still keep a shangu skull as a treasured heirloom of that day.
With the shangu gone, the drow gave thanks to the Dark Mother for their deliverance from the enemy. Some drow were not sufficiently grateful however, clinging instead to their devotions to the other gods of the drow and only mouthing the words of gratitude and supplication to the Dark Mother. The faithful drow called on the Dark Mother again and now the spiders infesting these caverns began to hunt among the dark elves, culling the faithless from the faithful and hanging the poisoned, screaming heretics in webbed cocoons from the ceiling beside the bloated corpses of the shangu and ogres upon which the vermin still feasted. Some few of the faithless fled the caverns before the spiders could come for them, but the dangers of the Underdeep soon overcame them.
The battles with the surface elves and shangu had depleted the numbers of the drow, as had the Dark Mother’s culling of the heretical drow. House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah were large Houses however, and there were still several thousand drow between them when the last of the faithless was fed to the spiders. Convinced they were safe at last behind this screen of the Dark Mother’s children, the drow of both Houses began to construct their new home, which would one day become the webbed city of Drak’kamuth.
The first construction to begin, before homes or fortifications or storehouses, was a temple to the Dark Mother. This early building still stands as part of the enormous temple complex in Drak’kamuth devoted to the Dark Mother.
House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah both had priests among their number and the peace that followed the war was soon broken by the two Houses contesting which of them would be in control of the burgeoning priesthood of the Dark Mother. This desire of the ruling families of each House to dominate her priestesses was insulting to the Dark Mother, who sent a plague of venomous spiders
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into the homes of the rulers of House Narrishtah to slay some of the impertinent drow and provide an object lesson to the others. From that time onward, the priestesses of the Dark Mother have been held separate from the Houses of the drow in Drak’kamuth.
The plague of spiders sent by the Dark Mother was sufficient to bring the battle over control of the priestesses to a swift and sudden end, but in no way did it blunt the growing competition and distrust between the two Houses. However, it did instil a sufficient amount of fear that the priestesses of the Dark Mother were able to slowly bring the two Houses under their influence. Both House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah still wield tremendous power in Drak’kamuth, but long habit and experience have taught them to pay careful heed to the words of the priestesses.
The drow of House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah longed for vengeance upon the surface elves as much as did any drow, but even their hatred of the surface betrayers was eclipsed by the rage of the Dark Mother. The priestesses began to demand offerings to the goddess of surface races, of humans and dwarves and particularly elves, presented as a pledge by the drow of vengeance against the betrayers.
From the caverns near Drak’kamuth an easy pathway led to the surface world. The drow travelled this path on the first of an uncountable number of night time raids against the surface, capturing those who dwelt there for slavery or sacrifice and slaughtering all those they could not drag back into the Underdeep with them. As the surface races moved away, the drow of House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah found new routes to the surface, continuing a campaign of terror and vengeance against those who still dwelt in the sunlit lands. It is from these drow that most of the common perceptions of the dark elves in the surface world were formed.
In time, the drow of Drak’kamuth grew strong enough for the priestesses of the Dark Mother to deem it right to seek out any other drow who may have survived the Sundering, that they too could be made to worship only the Dark Mother. The other tribes of drow have since been found, but the goal of the priestesses to wipe out worship of any god but their own has thus far met with abject failure.
Culture
The culture of Drak’kamuth, House Arras’zur and House Narrishtah and the cities they have founded since has been fundamentally influenced by worship of the Dark Mother.
Religion pervades every facet of life in these cities, from the ubiquitous spider motif in clothing, jewellery and buildings to the near-constant chanting that rises from the web-cloaked temples of the Dark Mother. Spiders are literally everywhere in these lands, ranging in size from tiny to large. Millennia of breeding and experimentation have created literally dozens of races of spiders, used by the drow for everything from food sources to silk manufacturers to guardian animals.
Among the drow of Houses Arras’zur and Narrishtah, everything is considered a gift of the Dark Mother to her worshippers, from the caverns in which they live to the skills with magic they possess. In the many years that have passed since the Dark Mother ended the feud over her priestesses, the drow of House Arras’zur have come to dominate the clergy of the Dark Mother, while the drow of House Narrishtah have embraced arcane magic. This is not a hard and fast division, as drow from each House practice both manners of magic, but it is a valid generalisation. Although there are a number of fighters among both Houses, they are not as prevalent as they are in many other drow Houses, the profession never having completely recovered from the near-total elimination of warriors from each of the Houses at the time of the Sundering.