After the fall of the High elves, most elves chose to repent from their ways and no longer seek out immortality, and leadership of all races, however there was on division that could not relinquish their beliefs so easily. This division of elves prolonged their punishment and caused the final collapse of the elven kingdoms. For this they were banished from the surface of the earth and given the choice to either repent and change their ways in leu of the wrath of the lord of magic, or retire from the surface to deep underground where their ideals could harm no one. The majority chose banishment fleeing from the elves into the mines and crevices in the earth.
There in the earth they remained for eons, changing to adapt to their environment and festering in their beliefs like an infected wound. Deep in the earth they refined their magic talents and twisted them into the dark arts to fit their environment. Surrounded by the dead long buried in the earth they perverted magic into the first forms of necromancy, creating legions of skeletons and ghouls to do their biding. It is uncertain what unholy acts and blood pacts may have been made in the depths by these drow. While many refined magicaly others focused their physical talents becoming lithe quick warriors passing through the shadows. As their power grew unattested they became vengeful toward the elves, forming bonds of hate that would never be broken. They became great in power and number, using their enslaved dead to construct and build, until eventually they reemerge to the surface far too powerful to be driven back again.
At first the transition was near impossible for the drow as they now called themselves, but in time their skin readapted to the sunlight. Most drow still prefer to be out during only night hours, but they can tolerate the sunlight for a time. Drow are almost the same in appearance as the elves, however, they are slightly shorter in stature and have a dark colored skin as a result of the sudden contrast from the subterranean world to the bright world above. Drow will be hostile toward any elves on sight, and tend to isolate themselves from all other races as well do to a malice still held deeply in their hearts. |
