Shattered Kingdoms

I've noticed (actually it was quite a while ago, but I'm lazy) that there are many help pages for culture in SK. And while there is an accompanying one for elves, there is not a corresponding one for deep-elves. Now, I was going to try and research it, i.e. read through a few fantasy books and integrate that with what I see in Ch'zzyrm over Christmas break, but then I realized that there must have been a good reason that they changed 'drow' to 'deep-elves'. And, since I wasn't around back then, could I get an answer as to why? Also, the help file would be kind of long if I went over every house in Ch'zzyrm and gave them special properties, descriptions, yadda yadda yadda... Anyways, I'm looking for ideas to integrate into making the culture page for deep-elves. If you guys wanna post any other ideas on culture, send me logs of interesting things about Ch'zzyrm, deep-elves, whatever, I'd really appreciate it, because the deep-elves deserve to know how the deep-elven class system is set up so that they may interact with each other and/or other races better ICly.

There are two main stories about how deep-elves came to be. One can be found in a book sold in a bookstore, IC, and one other refered to a bard's song in a book, or in a rare book in a distant tower. If you ask about it IC, you will be directed to the resources more specifically. In one version, deep-elves came from a betrayel of elves, and in the other version they were created by a Dark Goddess.

I was looking for more information related to their class system, social aspect of their personalities, etc etc... I really wouldn't want to include that sort of info about the creation of deep-elves on a culture page that everyone could see, because sometimes it's more fun to find out IC.

Although I did have an idea a little while ago... Sometimes when n00bs start to RP, they come to a part where it would be vital to their argument to know their history. Now assuming that races generally grow up around those of the same race, it'd be nice to have a help page for each race (and exclusive to that race) about their history, creation, etc... I know that it sounds like a lot of work, but it would add a lot of depth, and it'd be nice to reference to find something to RP on with a random person of your same race. This would be more real, since I'm assuming that people go to school and learn about their history (except for maybe giants). Just a few ideas to toss around.

Rusin, some people may tell you how obsessed I am about the history of the realms of SK. And I can really assure you, that the most pleasurable part of learning it was... the procedure of learning it, book by book, lore by lore, and rarely, when no resource was saved IC, from some ooc resources, and brining it into the IC realm by writing a book or a song about it. Such a page might be helpful and a good idea, if it would be limited to some very basic stuff, and I believe such information is already distributed to a newbie, quite easily. Perhaps if more information was given at creation, one would easily loose interest on discovering the many little details that build his character's surroundings. Just my opinion though.

We made a conscious decision to move away from D&D-style "drow" elves. While our deep-elves are cave-dwelling, they have every skin pigment that any other race would normally have (although they tend to be paler than someone who would live on the surface). They are definitley not all black-skinned and white-haired.

The deep-elf city was made BEFORE we moved away from drow, so it should not be taken as the gospel on the way deep-elves are supposed to be. Sadr has been subtly changing it as time permits. Hopefully Sadr will post and let you know what kinds of changes have been made.

The caste and house system in Ch'zzrym is but one way that deep-elves are known to (have) live(d). Once upon a time, the matriarchal system that is depicted there was more prevalent. But with the travelling and more metropolitan mixing of the races, the dominance of that system is falling by the wayside.

Just like the diaspora of cultures of humans, the deep-elves who were raised elsewhere have the value and culture of that region, respectively. Deep-elves from Teron, or the Empire, or the Northern wastes may have different cultural norms. In this aspect, portions of deep-elven culture could be seen as varied as "human culture."

Read as: To many people trying to be Drizzt or take characters from other D&D sources, not to mention the glut of deep-elves who took the last name 'Do'Urden' or some variant thereof...

I was around back when they were called Drow elves and I never had a problem with it. I actually liked it. I don't dislike Deep-elves but still Drows are cool.

So what was the reasoning behind the change anyway? If I ever knew I forgot.

Drow creates a pre-conceived notion of black elves with white hair. Our deep-elves have never been restricted to that type even before the name change. As with all such changes to the game, the removal of the term drow is retroactive with regards to RP. Therefore, in-character, deep-elves are not and have never been called "drow".

If they live in caves can you make a racial slur to them as cavemen?