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socialmediasocrates · 6 months

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a fun fact about the drow is that they turn blonde with age (which i guess makes sense since most of them have silver/white hair but it's still pretty funny); i think most of balalafay's premature blonde has probably turned rather pink by this point, though...the fate of a frontline fighter 😔

once, around a century before lala was born, her mother vowed that she would wash her hair in another drow matriarch's blood; something something about our parents and the cycles they put in motion. generational trauma is kind of the centerpiece of her character arc, this doom spiral of anger and pain that started when their home sunk into the underdark, their mountain collapsed beneath their feet, the trees they named themselves for almost entirely eradicated, even their bodies warped beyond their own recognition; they had been illythiiri and now they were named dhaerow, a word meaning "traitor" that would eventually become drow, the name for an entire race of elves. i think there's a lot to be discussed in how dnd's lore talks about the drow and how it tends to frame their treatment in terms of "purity" and how when they are frequently slighted by the gods of the surface elves, and the surface elves themselves, it is done because they view the drow as inherently impure. i could go on about how often the surface read on them is just taken at face value and doesn't really ever look at what made them; corellon and the sun elves are often absolved for what they did, in the lore of dnd, and it's always kind of squicked me out. they weren't all always lolthites. in fact, before the descent of the drow, most of them weren't lolthites.

anyway if i have to live with generational trauma so does my bg3 blorbo thanks for attending this ted talk

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 tav #drow tav #drow oc #i couldn't talk and talk about how her struggles with generational trauma and personal trauma weigh on her relationship with astarion #a thought for a different post #mothspeak #balalafay alean'arabani #with pace and a fury defiant

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socialmediasocrates · 7 months

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if i make it a post i can just link it in a fic note so Official Moth-Exclusive Drow Lore™️ regarding naming conventions below the cut

Caveat: I use the angelfire name generator to create drow names and then built lore off that base

Further caveat: this is my own homebrew naming system; some of it builds off of canon but most of it came straight from my hyperfixations

So their culture works in such a way that you kind of have to indicate who you defer to (there are exceptions, more on that later), and this is typically done with an occupational name that will indicate what noble house owns your life and to what extent. The prefixes break down thusly:

den' -> you work for the family

bin' -> you are apprenticed to a member of the family

ken' -> you are one of the family's slaves

kenat' -> you are a freedman or the child/descendant of a freedman associated with the family

This will act as a surname, with the individual's actual family name taking the place of a middle name. Some drow from the Deep Dark will replace their family name with an abbreviated version of the name of the city they were born in. Using the fic character Mayeari as an example, she uses an abbreviated version of the city Ust-Bräxaorthe's name in lieu of a family name, thus her full name is Mayeari Bräx ken'Eilssath. In the Deep Dark, it is also uncommon for drow who are not yet fully recognized as adults to use any part of their family name in their own official name; most see this as something you earn. It is also common for young nobles employed by or apprenticed to a more powerful family to use their own family name as a middle name without prefix, giving you names like Alakuit Masalak'ue Halastii den'Arabani.

Nobles will have courtesy names formed of the first character of their same-sex parent's name, typically the second character of their own (sometimes the first character is used but this is rare), and a suffix chosen by the drow themselves upon reaching adulthood. Prior to that, their courtesy name is the first character of their same-sex parent's name and the second of their own ie Alakuit's childhood courtesy name was Masalak, and Balalafay's was Shriala. Using this childhood version of the courtesy name when referring to the drow in question is extremely familiar for non-relations, but not generally considered insulting. Typically, though, even non-immediate family will exclusively use the courtesy name and whatever applicable honorific when speaking of a noble drow; the use of personal names is somewhat intimate and uncommon outside of a small inner circle (this is why the party calls her Balalafay or Lala, but Mayeari and some other drow that will appear later exclusively call her variations of Shrialafaer).

Nobles are, additionally, granted exclusive use of the prefix "alean'" for their surnames. In this example, Balalafay's full name is Balalafay Shrialafaer alean'Arabani. (I opted out of using the first-daughter/son, second-daughter/son, etc system for the specific sociocultural group Balalafay belongs to because it would be excessively messy). Most but not all nobles will use this prefix, and the exceptions are people like Balalafay's own mother, Shrianatar Dhris'shriamal Arabani, who will only style herself with "alean'Arabani" in reference to her title, which would be rendered as "Malla'Valsharess alean'Arabani" or "High Matriarch of the Noble House of Arabani." Shrianatar, and her predecessors, adopted this title to remind others that they can trace their descent all the way back to Illythiiri royalty, and she in particular dropped the prefix from her surname to remind everyone that she defers to no mortal. This is because Shrianatar is the physical embodiment of the sword of Damocles. I might make a separate post talking about her if anyone would want to read it.

As children, drow will have a maternal signifier comprised of the first character of their mother's name, the first character of their own name, and the prefix zau'. Balalafay's, as an example, was zau'Shri-Bala (her brother, Balaste, despite a seemingly similar name, was actually called zau'Shri-Bal). Past the age of fifty, very few drow retain this name, and hardly anyone ever uses it in reference to them. Referring to an adult drow using their maternal signifier is an insult that has caused wars; it's Just Not Done unless you really, really want to start shit.

Not every drow within the cohort that adhere to these naming traditions adheres to them very closely, and it is still uncommon for even high ranking Matrons and Matriarchs to abandon the alean' prefix to their name. Abandoning the prefix among nobles indicates a very high opinion of oneself and, drow being drow, your rivals will immediately set out to prove that you're not hot shit. This has not worked on Shrianatar, evidenced by the fact that she's still High Matriarch and has expanded her house's holdings outside of their ancestral city state considerably. For drow of lower rank, abandoning the occupational name is similarly audacious and rarely seen; it's most common among escaped men living on the surface.

I'll probably add to this later there's a lot.

#dnd drow #homebrew worldbuilding #with pace and a fury defiant #mothspeak #moth the hack writer

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socialmediasocrates · 8 months

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"Your cage is beautiful," they continued, "but a cage nonetheless. They locked you away here, and you would abandon Arvanaith for them?"

"They love me, flawed though they are, and they are not the only ones that I would abandon Arvanaith for. I would rather be cast into the Hells than look daily upon the face of the god who damned my people, and for what? We have only ever been as you made us. If we are worse, now, than the Illythiiri were, I can wonder only what you even expected. You cursed us. You drove us underground, bound us with the faerzress, gave us only what you thought of as too impure for worthier elves. And yet we are wholly to blame, and you entirely absolved, yes? It is your divine prerogative to play favorites endlessly, to bless our surface kin in the same breath as you curse us, to bestow good will and divine approval upon our cousins when they kill us. Do not lie to me. Do not say it is only those of us who follow Lolth. How would any of them know? Have you given them such discernment that they can know our hearts from a glance? Had a sun elf struck me down, oh Larethian, would I still have been worthy of Arvanaith?" She took a breath, and then forged on, "We are imperfect. Many of us are cruel. But we are not beyond redemption, and I am not who I am in spite of my nature. How dare you?"

[…]

"If you leave from this place, I cannot promise you a place in it to return to. This," they gestured around them, "is it truly something you will abandon for a people all too happy to live in their darkness? Who have, time and time again, chosen poison over the antidote? Whose pride compels them to spurn you for the very things that earned you Arvanaith?"

"You do not have to believe in my people, Protector." She took her mandolin and her notebooks; she held them close to her chest, and she watched the light continue its march across her vision. "I will believe in them, and that will be enough."

dnd canon has way too many "good genocides" and it grinds my gears

this is the fic this is an upcoming excerpt from

#baldur's gate 3 #drow tav #bg3 fic #moth the hack writer #with pace and a fury defiant

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