Drow

Culture

Coming of Age Rites

The Blooding: A coming of age event that consisted of killing a dangerous or sentient surface creature.

Ideals

Gender Ideals

Lolth’s dogma mandates to recognize female drow as more valuable than males, who are considered worthless. This gives female drow absolute power, and they are also less likely to be sacrificed than males. Males who hoped to find any place of power often resorted to ends as treacherous as the women that ruled the drow, hoping to perhaps win a coveted place as the mate of a powerful matron mother. Arcane magic is a route for power for male drow, though open only to a few. While they are still socially inferior to female drow, they aren’t in real danger of being killed by a priestess, while even accomplished male war commanders are in danger of being executed for perceived insults. Generally, men try currying favors with women and advance their station by attaching themselves to them (for example, by gaining high officer positions, or becoming consorts). Other ways of gaining station as a male were to become an arcane devotee (though it doesn't grant complete safety), or an arachnomancer, taking advantage of the reverence of spiders that comes with the worship of Lolth. It would be easy to imagine that drow females, by comparison, have it much easier. However, this is an illusion, and their prestigious position came at a high cost. In fact, the teachings of Lolth and the drive to gain more power made the competition between female drow, particularly those who belonged to powerful houses, violent, aggressive and lethal in a way that males didn't have to deal with. It was even worse for those women who sought power outside of Lolth's church, where they have to compete not only with other females, but with resentful and oppressed males as well.

Courtship Ideals

Courting was the domain of women in drow society. Trying to initiate a relationship was a reason for execution by torture and sacrifice for a male drow. In general, drow women chose their partners as animals would be chosen for breeding purposes. Furthermore, once a relationship started, the male partner had no say on how long the relationship would last, or whether it should even start. The woman, on the other hand, could change partners as she desired.