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This very good article (and the linked artikles) gave me food for thought http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=5528 and this is the result.

As a experiment I tried to reimagine the Drow society (the original being an evil matriarchy with the internal consistence of an anvil dropped too hard and shattered all over the place) and tried to get the society coherent in their motivation and internally consistent.

Please tell me what you think.


1.Q: How can the priestresses afford to let the men learn magic and armed combat (for the sake of convenience, soldiers and house guards in this Q&A are counted to the assassins), power balance wise?

A: They are high fantasy clerics - their magic is the channeled power of their goddess Lolth and they are also proficient with at least one type of weapon. To keep the whole spider theme it might be a pair of daggers, representing the spider fangs. Also, they might be capable of poison magic, conjuring and/or controlling the chemical reactions of poisons. The conjured poison may even be from lolth's own fangs and a sufficient dose capable of killing any living being in a heartbeat.

2. Q: How do they keep the men under control, and why do they publicly display their dominance over them?

A: Serving the spider goddess, they have taken the gender behavior of spiders as their ideal and preach it in their religion. The woman is to be the mirstress of the net, with net here also being a metaphor for politics, intrigues and social control. The man's only justification to live is that he can concieve, and he is to take pride in enduring what ever the woman throws at him who's favor he wants to earn, the more he endures and has either the skars or the public display to show it, the higher is social standing among other men for his determination. To die in the process is considered a honorable death. Like the male spider who carries on even if he hast lost all but three legs in the ordeal and despite that he will die. That spider males might not be aware of the latter and also might simply be too high on pheromones to care about lost legs is something the priestresses omit. However, Lolth may still have altered their body chemistry so that drow women now emit pheromones that have a similarly potent effect on drow men. The higher a priestress stands in her favor, the stronger her pheromones may be. At the same time no mal drow would dare to rise a hand against the gender favored by Lolth, simply because they are protected by divine magic and his death may be slow or quick, but it will be excruciatingly painful and he is told the torture will continue in the afterlife. Also, since the women are in power they have the opportunity for selective breeding and may use it. Most of the actually unwilling men are those who are born with an immunity against the pheromones, but since these have less motivation to endure all the beatings for high social standing, they are also less likely to have children, last but not least because the priestresses have an interest in removing this immunity from the gene pool.
The immunity may or may not be related to homosexuality or asexuality.

The male mass resistance aspect has been dropped, though there might be one or several secret societies of immunes, comparable to the people who do not take their meds in Equilibrium. They may even have substances they regularly ingest that make them appear to react to the pheromones.

3. Q: What about the constant intrigue and assassinations?

A: Conspiracy is a sport in the drow society, with the purpose to keep themselves and especially the men occupied and to train for their return to power. The "assassinations" are usually just the delivering of a token to a specific place, (normally a knife on the pillow or a rapid vomit inducing poison in the cup, the latter especially on public events) and recieving it merely damages one's reputation, or by killing a specific slave while each and every security measure of the houses is still built to catch or kill any intruder. The purpose of this is assassin training for their return to power and it is a fast but dangerous way for a drow man to earn favor. It is also a way for immune drow men to vent frustration. At the same time, catching or killing all intruding assassins is a quick way for a drow magician to earn favor, so they are at a constant amrs race and their techniques in constant evolution.

The constant killing aspect has been dropped, that they reserve for other races that get in their way.

4. Q: How does the formal attire look.

A: Women: Pratical clothes of expensive cloth and leather, often with intricate, hand-stitched spiper and web motives. Their legwear are pants with intricate patterns and cushoning on the back (A big abdomen is a beauty ideal, last but not least because spiders and driders are built that way.) and their footwear may resemble spider feed to symbolize that they walk on the nets of politics, intrigue and social control, or short, the Three Nets, like they were born for it. High collars in the shape of a spider web centeriny on the head again display the proficiency of the wearer in the Art of the Three Nets, the number of spokes and segments shows their exact rank in the hierarchy. The three nets also appears on the pants in some houses, the number of spokes and indicating how many men have vowed to gain their favor or die trying (how many have actually gained it and with how many of those she has actually slept is at her own discretion) and the number of segments indicating how many children she has born (one of the reasons many children are considered a blessing in their religion is because spiders have many and therefore it brings them closer to Lolth, another reason is that they use her magic to ensure the health and development of the child as far as they can, given Lolths favor they can even increase the magic and extrasensory potential of their child.). Sleeves or gloves often also are decorated with webs, again referring to the Three Nets. They may wear revealing clothing, but only to their pride of their body to other women, comparable to male bodybuilders in a patriarchy.

Men: Usually only a loincloth and soft shoes. The loincloth is open to the backside and only exists to tickle the appetite and make the unwrapping more fun. It is of a very soft and heavy cloth and shows each inch of his manhood. The cloth itself is usually covered in what skills he claims to have, sexual and otherwise, and the names of women who's favor he has earned so well that they allow him to display their names. Since the size of the letters any symbols is regulated by law and the entire length has to be written full to be allowed to wear it, the length of the cloth is a status symbol. Two additinal flaps that run along the legs on the sides are allowed to be worn if he has enogh to show to cover them. Those who fail to deliver what they promise tend to get punished most harshly. Covering their back is only allowed when they wear their assassin and magician attire. The assassin armor emphasises every muscle and the codpiece is roomy enough for wood while the magician attire is a skin thight silk suit, except for their loincloth under which they still wear nothing.
The skin of many drow men is covered in skars and tattoos which display what they did for their mistress' or mistresses favor, independently from if they ultimately earned it or not.
Since it is entirely to the discretion of the mistress when, if ever, they prove worthy of her embrace many drow men have quite a collection of skars and tattoos and have to be able to recall from who they got what on every occasion. Men who can enjoy the pain are considered lucky and having one around is considered to bring good luck. If a drow woman they named denies it, the man is declared a liar and gets publicly flayed. Since many drow women do not care to remember all men they ever met and may have cut and whipped simply because they were in an angry or sadistic mood, bad luck or a bad impression can get a righteous man flayed and good luck or a good impression can get a liar a seem legit.
Some mistresses like to order their men to get piercings, some mistresses like to order their men to rip them out. Sometimes the same mistress.

5: Q: Priestresses, Magicians and Assassins - who does all the normal work?

A: Slaves (who might be male and be indoctrinated enough that they genuinely adopt the gender perception of the drow. female slaves may exist but might have a higher social status than free drow men to remind them that women are allways on top of the food chain.  To ensure that the power stays in female hands, only women might be allowed to own and command slaves. Male slaves are legally still ranked below free drow men but given that they belong to a woman, drow men do not dare get in their way and the only thing that saves them from the botton is their specialisation useful fields a slave is not worthy of - magic and assassination.), golems and/or enchantments (comparable to a poltergeist golem)

6: Q: What about LGBT? (extrapolating from the rest)

A: Lesbians are fully accepted and only getting a man for a short while to have their chilren concieved is considered as normal a practice as picking up a man for quick fun and only leaving a mark on him to show it when he was really good.
Gays tend to have a low social status since they have low motivation to earn a woman's favor, tattoos for favors earned from men legally need to have another color to deter liars. It is not unusual for a mistress to order two men to have gay sex for her amusement - "to earn her favor by showing their prowess" officially - and it depends on her mood if she selects somebody for it who is actually gay or bi.
Bisexuality in general is completely accepted.
Those who feel like born with the wrong gender are seen as weird when born female but still accepted because they still are female and ambitious when born male. The latter also because being ordered to nurse a mistress' or even just her slaves' children is considered a high honor and drow men or male slaves taking hormones to develop breasts is not seen as unusual.
Those born with an ambigious gender are checked as babies by the priestresses, using magic. If they are capable of bearing children they get a tattoo below the belly button counting them as women, otherwise they get a facial skar on their forehead counting them as men. This includes women who were born with internal defomities that rendered them infertile. No surgery.


Please tell me what you think.