The worst part about irrelevant lore tidbits like this is that you know some sweaty dweeb thought of it whilst masturbating.
Yeah I sure did.
Still do.
Ed Greenwood chief among them
Edit: my autistic wife has informed me that that one wasn't him
Edit
force of habit?
Yeah, also funnier and fitting
Nothing wrong with making a fictional race as disturbing as possible
The "mother finds this orgasmic" part doesn't add to how disturbing the concept is though it just makes me feel weird about the writer
Yeah, just cut that part and its good for a race thats supposed to be disturbing
Tiger sharks do that. It makes a certain amount of sense. Though it's odd that it's just that one kind of elf. It would fit better for a more monstrous race.
But the thing about being orgasmic is just bizarre.
Drow are elves that got twisted specifically by Lloth into hypercompetitiveness among other things.
It's cringe but it's strangely logical cringe.
There's actually a lot of metaphysical logic behind the reason there's like a thousand kinds of elf and they're all separate races with notable physical differences unlike other groups that mostly settle with "these halflings are taller"
Tl;Dr elves were originally eladrin, the champion race of good/chaotic. Their chaotic nature means that their children adopt the traits of their environment but as they're a deliberate Tolkien reference having left their native plane is functionally their original sin, like the elves leaving Valinor in LotR. (Unless I'm misremembering the specifics, but the vibe is still right)
What exactly is logical about this detail? Is a pregnant drow orgasming for no apparent reason going to drive her to be more competitive?
Do you think a fight to the death does not jostle the walls?
It's hardly going to be the only jostling in there.
When you hear "Lloth twisted" you could substitute "magically bioengineered" if that helps. Her goal was to turn an essentialist race of good/chaotic beings into lawful/evil ones, to do that she made physical changes that reinforce her desired behaviors.
Lloth linked unavoidable fetal Social Darwinism into physical pleasure for the future matriarchs of her new elven society. Lloth wanted a society that glorified the survival of the fittest above practically all else, and this was a means towards the end.
Yes, it's edgy cringe, but that's the point: this is a setting with objective capital-E Evil gods and Evil is fucking cringe.
(Also it was made by horny super dweebs)
It still doesn't help. I could see the point in a drow orgasming from eating another drow. Or even ordering another drow to eat someone. But from a drow in her womb that she has no control over eating its twin? That doesn't encourage any sort of behavior, beyond getting pregnant and hoping they get lucky. And you can do that a lot better just by making them orgasm from the act of getting pregnant.
If you don't see how a literal Darwinian struggle resulting in both physical pleasure and a direct demonstration of your god's philosophy follows a logical chain of thought that's just a straight up skill issue.
Would it help if you knew that they live in the Underdark, aka the womb of the earth, and their ultimate goal is to burst out of that womb and reconquer the sunlit surface?
Like, it's not really subtle once you have the required background lore. Pretty blatant metaphor, in fact.
The entirety of the drow is inspired by old femdom porn mixed with a violent ultra competitive society like the worst of Rome, the middle ages, and cyberpunk corpratism combined. They were considered an evil race for the entire life of that concept.
I mean sure, but I don't think it's like, bad to be included either. Still serves to make them fucked up imo
As in, Im reading it as the mother knows that's what is happening and derives intense pleasure from it that it becomes physical elation
It's not like the drow have any choice in the matter. And it doesn't make any sense that they would find that orgasmic. It's just a writer's bizarre fetishes.
It absolutely makes it more disturbing, get out of here with your babies eating each other is fine, but a shitty mother enjoying it is fetish stuff moral high ground nonsense.
I dunno dude, I disagree with you and seemingly a great deal of other people do too, but you are absolutely entitled to your opinion. No need to insult me to make your point.
Yeah... a LOT of the Drow lore got amped up around the time Salvatore was writing about Drizzt.
Some of it was like "the Tau are actually led by mind control" in that it was always there but mostly ignored. But most of the REAL fucked up "let's have an orgy with your siblings" stuff was very much done to make Drizzt cooler and... yeah...
Its why anyone who insists "they ruined Forgotten Realms" and "We need to go back to the good old days" deserves some massive side eyeing,
The Tau thing is interesting because people got that idea from a source that you're supposed to recognize is an Imperial anti-xeno propaganda manual.
Oh, old D&D was pretty weird, and there have been writers saying some real weird shit. There’s disturbing and there’s that, something that’s not necessary if you have a decent amount of writing skill.
Hell, they could have just not used “orgasmic” and just said “this is respected in drow society”.
Would they even know?
I mean, we know that there are sharks which do that. If we can figure that out about a large, tooth-filled, ocean-going species then I think Drow could figure it out about themselves.
Either way, it’s better than saying that lady drow get off to their kids eating eachother.
They could have just not said anything about two babies eating each other too, but you are worried about the pleasure part of it? Lord forbid someone mention pregnancy and sex in the same sentence.
There is a stark difference between something we’ve literally observed in nature and claiming that a drow woman would derive sexual pleasure from it. And don’t try and tell me “lol can’t have pregnancy without sex” as if you’re that daft that you actually think that argument isn’t 100% garbage in this case.
Come on, be serious.
Agreed. Makes the drow slaying more impactful. Less infanticidal orgasms, what a noble goal.
Is that the fucker responsible?!
Ed Greenwood, as pictured, wrote almost the entirety of the forgotten realms lore. They are an incredibly accomplished writer, and are responsible for a lot of iconic elements of modern D&D.
Yes, some of his contributions are disturbing and fetishy, but that's a small minority compared to the vast number of things put out. Contrary to what others may be implying here, I feel that avoiding his work out of distaste will leave you much worse off than exploring it with the understanding that some stuff will get freaky, and that you have the ability to leave that at the door when it comes to your own table.
If you're at all a fan of the forgotten realms, I would highly recommend checking out his YouTube channel which contains a treasure trove of creative D&D cannon not published everywhere else.
Ed can be praised and blamed for a lot of things, but I don't think this specific bit is him
Looking it up, this is from Dragon Magazine 298 in an article by Robin D. Laws
Seems the channel name or link is missing
You have no idea of the quagmire you've wandered into. Chad-zak is a funny meme leave it at that. Don't Google it. Don't delve any further. There are things worse than balrogs down there.
You know what? For once, I'm going to listen to this advice
I feel like this is relevant lol.
But know what? I'm glad we're in a world where fantasy authors can be cringe sometimes.
Not every idea hits, and sometimes like this it's downright gross and I don't like it, but I'm glad they are free to give bad ideas a try, because in the end it really is whatever we want it to be.
We can take what we like, and leave what's better left.
Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
