Hi, I'm Lise Fracalossi, a web developer, writer, and time-lost noblethem. I live in Central Massachusetts with my husband, too many cats, and a collection of ridiculous hats that I rarely wear.
I guess we didn’t all read the famous “ask vs. guess culture” Metafilter thread back in the day and take it to heart? Unfortunately the original post has been lost to time, so when I want to make this point, I usually refer people to this article by Jean Hsu on Substack.
Basically, ask vs. guess culture refers to our how we express (or don’t express) our needs and desires vis a vis other people — whether or not we directly ask for what we want, or we assume we already know what the answer will be.
I feel like Hsu’s summary of “guess culture” perfectly encapsulates how I see drow society working. To quote:
Only ask for something if you’re already pretty sure the other person will say yes
Read an abundance of indirect contextual cues to determine if your request is reasonable to make
It’s rude to put someone in a position where they have to say no to you
If the appropriate feelers and context are set, you will never have to make your request at all.
A real world example with my family: my mom always used to complain that her mother-in-law wouldn’t directly ask her to turn up the heat when she was cold. Instead she’d put on a sweater, make shivering motions, and say, “Are you cold?” (Not sure if this is because my grandmother was first-gen Italian? Italy doesn’t strike me a “guess” culture, though).
In my version of drow culture, it’s not just rude to ask a question you don’t already know the answer to, it’s dangerous, because it reveals that you don’t already know.
Or to quote some of my fanfic:
“You don’t suspect he might have hidden motives?” Mavash pushed. “Revenge, or greed, or power?”
“Now you’re thinking like a drow,” Jorlan murmured, crossing his arms. “I’m sure he does. He never has fewer than five or six at a time. But asking will only imply we don’t already know, which is a weakness we can’t possibly show to him.”
Fel’rekt wanted desperately to pepper Krebbyg with questions as they wandered the hallways of the Bregan D’aerthe headquarters. But to ask was to fail — joros zhah hojh, as the proverb went. He was already off his footing; he didn’t need everyone else knowing just how much.
Basically, to drow: not knowing is a weakness. When you ask a question, you reveal that weakness.
And weakness in drow society will get you killed.
So overall, there is a tendency for drow to imply rather than state. In the real world, we might call this “being passive-aggressive,” but I argue it serves a different purpose amongst the drow.
First, it provides plausible deniability for any crimes you’re about to commit 🤣. I call this the “let me tell you a story” technique — I stole this, actually, from Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. There’s a moment where Cardinal Richelieu, rather than directly saying to Milady de Winter “hey go to England and murder the Duke of Buckingham,’ tells a story about a time where the course of history was changed by someone important dying at an opportune time. I heard that on my audiobook and was like, “damn, that’s brilliant; gotta use that.” (I use it in my original fiction, too).
I use this a lot in my drow intrigue game, when Nithrys, my wet noodle of an aberrant mind sorcerer gets called upon to occasionally be a charismatic badass. Like, this bit from my (non-narrative) game notes:
Nithrys tells Gromph [Archmage of Menzoberranzan] a “story” he wants Gromph’s “opinion” on, basically implying that we have a link to Faen Tlabbar, are planning to take it over, and would like their backing (in return for our own backing of House Baenre). But without saying anything outright, of course.
We’re not saying to the most powerful male in Menzoberranzan, “hey we’re gonna take over another house; would you back us?” Because that would be illegal, a reason for execution. But we still get the point across 😈
Also, remember how in part 2 I said the law of “don’t get caught” can erase all crime from the “official” narrative? How do the drow talk about this erased history?
Again, very indirectly! In the chapter “Orb’ilythiiri” of Bright Future we have a flashback to a pre-story event where a number of powerful priestesses are discussing what to do with a problem like Jorlan. But of course, they have to do it without directly mentioning a lot of things which Totally Didn’t Happen™️ (some canonical, some not).
“Matron Baenre,” Miz’ri said, “Again, please forgive my daughter. She is young, and easily infatuated. But the fundamental problem, you see, is… he’s not quite a mongrel, is he?”
When Quenthel did not reply, Miz’ri probed, “You know of what I speak. House Duskryn’s experiment.”
The fan made a rhythmic tap-tap-tap against Matron Baenre’s leg. “I know of no such thing, of course,” she said, her voice placid. “But one hears stories. My brother is quite the fanciful storyteller, for example.”
Which one? Jorlan bitterly mused, though he was sure she must mean Gromph, whose rivalry with Vizeran deVir had ultimately erased Jorlan’s sister Si’Nethraa. Her death had expiated House Duskryn’s sin of presumption, and to admit it had happened was to admit wrongdoing.
And yet, if it was likely to save his skin, Jorlan wasn’t going to argue.
“Yes, Matron,” Ilvara said, sounded chastened. “We hear many stories about your brother, too. Surely his magical prowess has brought glory to your house. Would that our lowly house could have done as much, with what we were gifted and have lost.”
Matron Baenre made a well-hidden snort of satisfaction. It didn’t need to be said how House Mizzrym’s magical talent — Ilvara’s older siblings — had devoured themselves, removing a thorn in Quenthel’s side and paving the way for Gromph to become head of Sorcere.
“But,” Ilvara continued, “It’s fickle how magical talent works, though, isn’t it, Matron? How it seems to miss siblings, or doesn’t breed true — and then sometimes, some seventh son will show up with all the magic that skipped a generation! We discard the ungifted at our peril, I believe.”
Oh, that was cleverly worded, and that was Ilvara at her best — when she wasn’t consumed by rage and zealotry, as she had been of late. Even now, it made Jorlan want to kiss that clever mouth.
Matron Baenre halted — both her steps and the tapping of her fan. “I see,” she said, after some deliberation. She sounded sour. “Perhaps we can give your pet a chance to redeem himself, then. Blood will tell, as my mother always said.”
On the face of it, there are all kinds of laws in Menzoberranzan. I mentioned the Way of Lolth in my original post. And for most of those laws, the punishment for breaking them is death.
But truly, the only law is, “don’t get caught.”
Or at least: “don’t be caught while male.”
In canon, we see it mostly in regard to house warfare. Indeed, Homeland, the first Drizzt novel, starts with one house wiping out another.
It’s definitely illegal to attack other noble houses. But if you manage to wipe out everyone who would accuse you of the crime? Well, good job; you will be rewarded; your house will take their place, moving up the ladder of the nobility.
But more interestingly: the house you defeated will be treated as if it never existed. Mentioning it directly is no longer allowed. (Of course, as you’ll see in the next post, drow never speak about anything directly).
The law of “don’t get caught” doesn’t just excuse crime — it can erase all memory of it.
If you fail to eliminate the entire house, though? Well, then, your house gets taken down by all the other noble houses. Oops. Guess you shouldn’t have gotten caught.
All of this is canon, so far. But I think this applies to everything that could possibly be seen as a misdeed in Menzoberranzan — and that the severity of the punishment, if you’re discovered, depends on your status in the toxic matriarchy.
In the chapter “El’lar” of Bright Future, I apply this specifically to monogamy. (I have joked that in contrast to polyamory as “ethical non-monogamy,” drow have “non-ethical non-monogamy”). I think Mavash and Jorlan’s conversation explains this better than I could in essay form:
“Though it seems like surfacers place a great deal more importance on… monogamy? Is that the word? Than the drow do.”
“Fidelity not their strong point?”
Adding flourishes to his drawing, he considered how to explain it to her. “That would require putting more words to it than we actually do. The proverb — in many things, not just in coupling — is Jalbol velkyn zhah naubol. ‘Anything hidden is nothing.’ “
…
He relented first, diving back in for an explanation she would understand. “In practice, it means you may take as many lovers as you can get away with. It is only a problem if you are found out. And if you are found out, the punishment depends greatly on your gender and your status. It’s much more dangerous, as in all things, to be male and be too… generous with your affections.” He smiled at his final choice of words, satisfyingly vague.
(Also I came up with that drow proverb and I’m rather proud of it. It expresses “don’t get caught” beautifully within the sorry Drow conlang we have).
Jorlan, in fact, has done quite a few things that would get him executed, or worse (it can always get worse in Menzoberranzan™️), if he was caught. They’re not completely secret, either. So maybe the better formulation is “don’t get caught by someone who matters.” As in this section, where Jarlaxle explains it all:
“Again, I refer you to your assassin friend and his clever set-up.” When that was met with blank stares, [Jarlaxle] made a gesture in Jorlan’s direction. “Or, as he’s known in Menzoberranzan, ‘The Widower.’” Jarlaxle made a smile that showed his teeth, pleased at this tidbit of information.
Jorlan bared his own teeth back.
…
Jarlaxle turned to Mavash, a guileless look plastered on his face. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, dear Mavash, but your lover has rather the reputation for… Hm. Let’s say many of his past lovers have turned up dead under suspicious circumstances? And it’s happened enough times that he’s gained a certain reputation, and a title to go with it — allegedly, of course; nothing can be proven.”
“Uh oh, Mavash,” Gaulir said, a gentle prod.
Jarlaxle tipped a hand towards Mavash. “But you know, of course, of the case of Ilvara Mizzrym.”
“That was all this lot’s doing.” Jorlan waved to encompass the group. “We ambushed them in the Upperdark. I certainly thought Ilvara’s victory was assured. And when it wasn’t…” He shrugged. “It wasn’t something I caused, but certainly, you of all people can’t blame me for making the best of the situation.”
“And did you really execute that ambush to the best of your abilities, Captain Duskryn? Nothing else you could have done to save your mistress or your lieutenants? The same ones who had already wronged you?”
Jorlan, staring down Jarlaxle, said only, “It was a consequence of the drow way of life. As were the other unfortunate deaths.”
“Oh, I think no one is mourning Aumaurae Tlabbar’s death, either, fear not,” Jarlaxle murmured.
I mean, clearly Jarlaxle (possibly my favorite canon character; thanks, DM, for putting him in here ❤️) knows Jorlan’s history here (it’s safest to assume he knows everything, after all). But he’s not inclined to tell on Jorlan to anyone in power. And even if he did tell… publicly, he’s just the houseless male leader of a mercenary band. Who’s going to listen to him?
… which is futher complicated, given Jarlaxle’s real birthright (spoiler: he’s super secretly a Baenre, aka the most important House in the city). But if he wanted his family to act on this, he’d probably have to come up with a more public reason that his family knows about this, so as not to reveal his identity.
… so mostly I think he does this so that Jorlan owes him a favor, and so that Jorlan knows he owes a favor. As I know from my drow intrigue game — where we sigh every time we realize we have to deal with Jarlaxle — it’s very easy to end up owing him a lot of favors.
We don’t actually learn more about the “Aumaurae Tlabbar” situation within Bright Future — maybe in a sequel? — but I imagine it as a case where Jorlan was put in an impossible situation (which involved Bregan D’aerthe) and ended up on the hook for the deaths of not one, but two, of his lovers. So there’s also the factor here that Jarlaxle doesn’t want to implicate himself.
Isn’t this delightfully complicated, this dance? This intrigue is one of the things that makes the drow so interesting to me. I didn’t even have to go too far afield in my headcanoneering!
I’m switching around the order a bit. Next will be my discussion of “guess culture.” It seemed a better follow-up than what I had planned to discuss. Suffice it to say — this 👆overcomplicated dancing around the truth is so emblematic of the drow.
Or: ruining fanboy’s hopes and dreams one murder elf at a time.
In writing my On making the drow less problematic post — some three years ago now! — I realized that a lot of why I see the drow as so interesting? Comes from my own head.
Yes, I do see the organic flaws of the rules-as-written drow… but then I just substitute my own reality. This informs how I write the drow characters in my fanfic, as well as how I play drow in my various murder elf-fancying games.
But maybe, yanno. This isn’t super transparent to my friends who are asking me “what do you find so interesting about them?”
So, here, at long last, is a series of drow headcanon posts. I’ve written the whole thing already; it should work out to 12 posts. I’ll post links here as I publish the remaining 11.
Introduction + the banality of evil and social Darwinism (this post)
I feel like I need to start by establishing my credentials — or maybe my lack thereof. As I alluded to in the previous post, I have been a drow fancier since 2e, and I was reading the Legend of Drizzt novels before they were even called that. But I lost interest over the years; after all, the Dunmer of TES are pretty awesome and much less problematic.
Only when I was playing Out of the Abyss in 2020-2021 did I decide to dive back into the world of my second favorite murder elves.
Then, writing Bright Future, I went deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
And I’ve been back on my drow bullshit ever since.
So, I guess my expertise comes from:
Reading numerous D&D sourcebooks featuring the drow, including Drow of the Underdark for 2e, Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue from 4e, and Volo’s Guide to Monsters from 5e.
What Drizzt novels I have actually read and remember. I have not read all of the 34?35? of the damn books; please forgive me. I actually don’t enjoy Salvatore’s writing much at all, and I often have to force myself to read it.
Lots of time on the Forgotten Realms wiki.
Playing a lot of drow characters.
Reading lots of fanfic about drow.
Writing my own fanfic about drow.
If that doesn’t qualify me to write this post… well, too bad, I’m still gonna write it.
Also, whenever I write “drow” in this post, I mean “Lolthite drow,” because they’re the most interesting to me personally. But as I said in the original post, #notalldrow.
And a big ol’ “drow being awful” content warning for this entire series — but I’ll be more specific in individual posts.
So how do the drow do, according to Lise? Let’s find out.
The banality of evil and social Darwinism
The phrase “the banality of evil” comes to us from Hannah Arendt, taking cues from Kant, and refers to the belief that evil is commonplace and petty, and arises out of treating people as means to an end. I talked about this in the original post — about how I have major problems with the extravagant, Snidely Whiplash levels of evil we see on display so often in the books, where drow arrange elaborate tortures for other drow, or are cruel just for the sake of being cruel.
As I said over there, this gets glossed over as “well, chaotic evil, lol,” but that explanation doesn’t do it for me. A culture based on nothing but chaos wouldn’t stay together as long as this one has — tens of thousands of years, we’re told. It could hardly be said to be a culture at all.
Canonically, the drow are taught that Lolth’s chaos is what makes the society strong; that they are tempered by internecine strife and wars with other races. But I’d argue that’s less “chaotic evil yay!” and more “social Darwinism, yay!”
In fact, we’re also told that the drow engage in an extreme form of social Darwinism, which includes such charming practices as selective breeding, eugenics, and murdering infants with disabilities. (Not to mention the traditional sacrifice of the third son to Lolth). Any life this ends tends to be brushed off as “eh, they were too weak to have survived in drow society anyway.”
Given this, I believe that drow culture is deeply selfish — and selfishness is what I took evil to be when I first learned about D&D’s alignment system. Most individual drow see no harm in shoving another one in front of the metaphorical bus. (Purple worm? Demon prince?) This leads naturally to the belief that anyone you screw over probably brought it on themselves.
That is evil. But it’s not mustache-twirling, “let’s arrange overly complex tortures for our enemies” evil. As I said at one point re: my boy Jorlan: while he’s definitely suffered in drow society, it’s mostly through neglect. Few people have been cacklingly evil to him, because that is simply more fucks than most people have given for him.
And, honestly? I find that utter disregard more evil, more terrifying, than any overly creative torture some teenaged fanboy — or Salvatore himself –would come up with.
(I will admit to sometimes having some extravagant evil in my fanfiction, though — the chapter “Orb’illythiiri” of Bright Future is a good example — if only because I love making my boy suffer! But it’s important to have a light hand with it, and stay true to the characters involved).
More… tomorrow? When we discuss the only law that matters in Menzoberranzan: “don’t get caught.”
Il-Lashtavar met this exchange with a sense of bemusement. I will shatter your waking mind and free you from this prison of flesh. Its attention rested on Jorlan, suffocating in its disdain. And from this tiresome dreamer who lays his claim on you.
Chapter Front Notes
Previously, on Bright Future…
Mavash and companions found (and destroyed) Gromph’s grimoire, defeated a balor and Quenthel Baenre, and were crossed and double-crossed by Jarlaxle. And then they were met with an even greater threat: Il-Lashtavar, the Devourer of Dreams.
Chapter End Notes
“Ragar” is “find, discover, uncover” in Drow. As in, “oops, they found out who was really behind this shit.”
As always, I changed some things to make this fight more narratively satisfying. Some of that was the consequence of how I changed the last chapter, in terms of stage managing/positioning. But you’re reading a story, not session notes, so I hope you won’t mind.
A lot of the conversation they have afterwards was pretty true to how it played out, however! That said, the “Aumaurae Tlabbar” thing is something I threw in — a bit of backstory about Jorlan’s other justifiable homicides “widowings,” and something I imagine Jarlaxle not only knows about, but actively played a part in. But that, dear readers, will have to wait. Possibly until the next fic 😉
Is this the best chapter I’ve ever written? Hells no. Is it full of spelling and grammar mistakes and typos? Probably. I usually sit on my fic chapters for a day or so before posting, but I decided to YOLO this one, because I need to finish this goddamn fic. It’s already been three years since the campaign ended!
No promises, though; my life has taken many twists and turns in that time, and it will probably continue to.
As always, thanks for reading. I cherish your comments and feedback, including constructive criticism.
Fel’rekt gets the Bregan D’aerthe orientation, courtesy of Krebbyg Masq’il’yr, and immediately starts questioning everything he thought he knew about drow society.
Chapter Front Notes
Content warnings: (canon-typical) ableism, and some more internalized transphobia. Also implied/referenced sexual assault — which is pretty much gonna be a constant, because consent doesn’t exist for males in an evil matriarchy.
Chapter End Notes
I re-read the description of both Fel’rekt and Krebbyg in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, and realized they are both described as being “young.” For the purposes of having them around in both 1338 DR (when this story begins) and 1492 DR (when WDDH is set), I’m going to generously interpret 200-250 years to be “young” in elf terms, especially in the context of “young to be Bregan D’aerthe lieutenants.” This whole ding-dang fic doesn’t work otherwise, so I hope you’ll excuse that broad interpretation.
I may have speedrun The Silent Blade before writing this chapter just to learn more about Rai-guy. Alas, I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know from the Forgotten Realms wiki or from reading Servant of the Shard. He’s really not a well developed character, and only appears in two books. So, uh, free real estate, I guess.
I borrowed the “hair-cutting ceremony” from biichan’s fic “the season it revives,” because I thought it was beautifully symbolic of what being in Bregan D’aerthe means.
I also want to say, re: Fel’rekt’s reaction to Tebrynn’s disability: he’s been raised in a culture that is obsessed with social Darwinism and eugenics. Fel’rekt has probably never even met a drow with a disability, because so many of them are killed. Tl;dr Fel’rekt is ableist because he doesn’t know better.
The next chapter is primarily Jarlaxle’s POV and is going to address Some Things That Happened in 1338 DR (i.e. during the events of Exile). I’ve leave you to do the math.
Four scenes that never happened. (At least not on screen).
Chapter Front Notes
Welp, the real next chapter is taking some time now — writing fight scenes sucks — so I thought I’d treat you to some deleted scenes to hold you over.
These are things that just didn’t work out as full scenes — whether that be for plot reasons, tone reasons, or whatnot. Some of them got recycled in part in other scenes, so if you see some familiar lines, that’s why. Each is labeled after the file name I gave them, with some notes about where it fits in the timeline.
Or: how Fel’rekt joined Bregan D’aerthe, became an unlicensed therapist to some Very Sad Elf Boys, kissed a few of them, eventually became a lieutenant, and ended up slinging a gun in Waterdeep with everyone’s favorite pansexual disaster.
Introductory Notes
Listen, I know I have two unfinished longfic about sad drow boys being sad, and I haven’t forgotten them, but this story ambushed me in the dead of night. It combines a bunch of things I’ve been wanting to see together in a fic:
The origin story of Fel’rekt Lafeen, the trans male Bregan D’aerthe lieutenant in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Since we are told very little about him, there’s a lot of freedom to invent him. Is that what the kids call “free real estate?” 🤣
More internality and introspection from Jarlaxle and his band than we see in canon. (Which is to say, any). In particular, I’ve always been interested to see how Jarlaxle would have been affected by Zak’s death, and how Bregan D’aerthe might have suffered as a result.
The boys of Bregan D’aerthe (and their leader) getting some well-deserved therapy. I mean, seriously, most of them probably have PTSD in some form, because #TheInherentTraumaOfMenzoberranzan
Sad drow boys kissing. And just generally queering the heck out of Faerûn.
And as we all know, we must write the fic we wish to see in the world. So, one transatlantic flight later, here’s chapter one.
Also, necessary disclaimers:
Lolthite drow are pretty awful, and we’re in a period where Jarlaxle’s alignment was listed as neutral evil. Many warnings may apply; I’ll tag them as they pop up.
I am not trans. I am agender, however, and I like to think I’m at least somewhat aware of trans/enby discourse, and I’ve extensively researched how to sensitively portray trans characters. But please please please let me know if I fuck it up.
Yes, therapy is more than just listening. No, I don’t condone unlicensed therapy IRL. But hey, this is Menzoberranzan and it’s the best they’ve got.
There will probably not be explicit smut, unless I somehow manage to break decades of precedent. But there will likely be some non-explicit spice.
I’m not going to expend too much effort staying compliant to canon. Because fuck R.A. Salvatore, that’s why. He doesn’t deserve his fans. I reject his canon and substitute my own.
That said, I have nothing but love for the folks who worked on Dragon Heist, like Chris Perkins or Matt Mercer, as well as Jeremy Crawford, who was the one who came out and said, “yes, Jarlaxle is pan; did the rainbow cape give it away?” I love how they’ve made Forgotten Realms queerer, and I wish RAS hadn’t missed the memo.
Content warnings for this chapter: casual mentions of slavery, fantastic racism, violence and death, mild transphobia (mostly internalized) and deadnaming.
… so about what you would expect from a closeted trans male character trying to survive an evil matriarchy. This chapter will be the worst of it; I don’t want this to be a story of trans suffering.
Just kissing. Always kissing.
End Notes
“What Do You Hear In These Sounds” is the title of a Dar Williams song about the experience of therapy. Yes, this is the second fic I’ve used a Dar Williams song title for; why do you ask? 😆
House Xalyth is a reference to Xalyth’s Company, a merchant clan that specializes in trading gems, led by a matron. It’s mentioned in the Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue sourcebook.
This time period in Bregan D’aerthe’s history — between Zak’s death and the start of The Legacy of the Drow trilogy — isn’t well developed. I’m honestly not sure who Jarlaxle’s first officers would have been then. I think Kimmuriel — though he works with Jarlaxle as early as the 1010s — didn’t fully become a lieutenant until the fall of his house in 1358. Valas and Rai-guy’s timelines are wibbly-wobbly enough to make it work, so that’s what I decided.
Was Jarlaxle always aware of the circumstances of his birth? Maybe not; just another thing I might know if I could stomach more of RAS’ deathless prose.
As a general rule, any drow words I use will come from here.
In the interest of full disclosure… I really don’t know where I’m going with this. I don’t have an outline. I don’t know how many chapters there will be. (Though it’s gonna cover a period of about 150 years). I don’t know what all pairings there will be (though I do intend to smash Fel’rekt and Jarlaxle together like two Barbie dolls). I don’t know who will find their way to the therapist’s couch. I’m going to try to make chapters semi-standalone, for that reason, because it’s quite likely you’ll be waiting a while between them.
A little over two years ago, I embarked on my journey into Pathfinder 2e — and a little less than two years ago, I wrote “Five months of Pathfinding,” detailing my experience with the system thus far.
Well, here it is, September 2023, and we recently wrapped up the Agents of Edgewatch campaign, the campaign we started back in May 2021. I retired my redeemer champion Kivran, and I’m about to embark on a new campaign with a thaumaturge named Tak. So at this point I’ve played a character from 1-20, played through an entire adventure/story arc, and built a new character of a different class.
I think it’s time for my much-more-informed opinions!
… in a multi-part format, as it turns out that I have MANY opinions. A whole-ass wavelength of them, in fact.
Some basics
As a starting point, let me share/remind you of the statistics on the party, campaign, variant rules, deaths, etc.
We were playing the level 1-20 Adventure Path (AP) “Agents of Edgewatch,” which can be glossed as “fantasy guards at a fantasy world’s fair.” It starts pretty lighthearted, but quickly descends into some dark and heavy stuff.
Our party was five people, and we had one GM (Josh). We had eight different characters over the course of the adventure, due to three character deaths.
For reference, player/character names and party composition:
I was playing a Taldan human champion of Iomedae named Kivran.
My husband Matt was playing Lucio, a Taldan human swashbuckler. Who, despite all our jokes about his absurd movement speed, was not a sylph.
Chloe played the leshy Shep. Originally a druid, she retrained as a summoner when the class was released in Secrets of Magic. (This will be a recurring theme).
Diego started by playing the kobold alchemist Jabi, but retrained as inventor when Guns and Gears came out. Jabi died at level 13, and he returned as Zokaratz, a fetchling witch from Shadow Absalom.
Poor Nick went through three different characters. He started as Nathraak, a Varisian human wizard. Then, when Secrets of Magic came out, he also retrained, as a magus. Nathraak bought the farm at level 10, so he created Frøya, an Ulfen human thaumaturge. Sadly, Frøya only lasted for three levels; she died in the same battle as Jabi. Nick rerolled as Cedela, a Galtan human rogue, who was with us until the end, but died a dramatic scripted death in the final battle.
As far as variant rules go, we used Free Archetype from the get-go. Later on in the adventure, we switched from the standard progression rules to Automatic Bonus Progression (for story-related reasons which I’ll get to in a later post).
“How did you like Pathfinder, Lise?”
That would depend on when you asked me! I ended on a generally positive note — as judged by my joining the new campaign! But there were many ups and downs along the way.
You can see my “new TTRPG energy” and optimism in my August 2021 post. “Okay, this is different, and crunchier than I expected,” I seem to be saying, “but there are so many possibilities! I can work with this.” I was excited to try something new, and optimistic about what lay ahead for me and my character.
“Holy shit, this is Mathfinder!”
Sometime after that I hit a low. Maybe it was trying to figure out how shields work (“okay, so I subtract the shield’s hardness from the damage taken, then the shield and I both take the remaining damage. If the shield takes more than like 15 damage, it breaks, and has to be repaired. Plus I have to take an action each turn to raise a shield. So how useful are they, really??”) Or maybe it was the language of the Glimpse of Redemption champion reaction. (“What the hell does ‘The ally gains resistance to all damage against the triggering damage equal to 2 + your level’ mean?”)
At one point in time, I made a joke like, “Nobody said there would be math.” To which player Nick said something like, “Uh, everybody said that, Lise. There’s a reason they call it Mathfinder.”
But by that point I was learning more about the world of Golarion and Kivran’s place in it. I loved my character’s complex relationship with the church of Iomedae, and her growing connection to Pharasma. I loved coming up with fun downtime activities for our characters, like “we’re going to go over to the Foreign Quarter and get some dumplings from Tian Town.” Or “oh hey, if you’re going to the Temple of Norgorber could you pick up some Mwangi coffee?”
So I guess my opinion at that point would be “I don’t need all these rules pls let me just play D&D 5E but in Golarion.”
“How do I stealth past the bunyip?”
After a while, I could calculate myself how much damage my shield mitigated, or how much resistance my champion’s reaction granted to an ally. At the very least I was comfortable doing “champion stuff.”
But the minute I left the world of champions, I got confused.
How does stealth/concealment work? I still don’t quite know. I know there are many different degrees of “seen”, eg., undetected, obscured, hidden, invisible, etc. I know there are flat d20 rolls you have to do to hit somebody at different levels, eg. a DC5 flat check to hit someone who’s obscured.
But since I basically couldn’t stealth anyway — due to a mere 25ft of movement speed plus being CLANKY CLANK in heavy armor — it rarely came up.
… until I was forced to sneak into a dockside warehouse, and suddenly was attacked by a fish.
Lemme tell you, I sure know what a bunyip is now, even if I still don’t fully understand the stealth rules.
Magic was another one that was more complicated than I expected. Prepared casters vs. spontaneous casters, PF2e’s more traditional take on Vancian magic than 5e’s, four different spell lists, devotion spells, focus spells, cantrips, heightened spells, discrete vs. continuous heightening patterns, and on and on.
Mostly I didn’t have to deal with it as a champion — except for the Lay on Hands focus spell. But my fellow party members translated it simply for me — it always healed 6 * (1/2 your level rounded up).
But then I (very briefly) retrained into cleric archetype. Suddenly I had a few divine spells, and I had to figure out spell heightening. “Cleric” was appropriate as a descriptor at this point, because it felt like I was trying to read Old Church Slavonic. This conversation cleared some things up, but I promptly forgot most of it when Book of the Dead came out and I decided the Soul Warden archetype was more along the lines of what I wanted for Kivran, and so — yup — I retrained.
Still not sure this is entirely clear to me, but I suppose I’ll find out when I finally play a caster!
Other points of confusion: the stages of poisons and diseases. Grappling (has this actually changed from the bullshit that was 3.5?) Counteractchecks.
“Why am I not playing a rogue, again?”
I think another downturn for me was when we hit level 13, and we lost Jabi and Frøya in the same battle. That wasn’t the issue itself — the issue was a combination of factors that made me feel a lot weaker than the other party members.
One was that the new characters came in at level 15, while the survivors needed to wait until the end of the chapter to be leveled up two levels. (I presume the GM was like, “uh, the party just lost two characters; they need a little bit more fire power and HP to actually survive this encounter”).
At around this level, too, the damage numbers for dps classes just got absurdly high. My husband’s swashbuckler gets in an appropriate finisher and rolls well? 100+ damage. (To say nothing of his absurd move speed; Mr. “I have 75ft of movement speed plus I also have a fucking climb speed when I have Panache”). Our new rogue Cedela gets trapped in a narrow hallway with a bad guy? I shuffle over at “I’m wearing plate armor” speeds to protect her, only to watch the bad guy be wiped off the map in one of the rogue’s turns.
What also felt bad was the fact that the rogue also went in the Intimidation direction, an area I had invested in heavily for Kivran. It often felt like we were competing to see who could Demoralize an opponent first — and Cedela had the higher Perception, so it was mostly gonna be her.
I was also annoyed when I found out that she had the Scare to Death feat, the pinnacle of the Intimidation skill feat line. “How do you have that at level 15? I can’t get it until level 16,” I asked Nick one day.
“Oh, rogues get skill feats every level instead of every other level,” he answered.
It was completely irrational, but it felt like the rug (or rogue heyyyy) being pulled out from under me. I thought I understood the system, and I expected that once I understood it, I’d have the class fantasy. But it turns out the system had more surprises for me, and I didn’t have what I wanted, after all.
While the class fantasy of a redeemer champion isn’t, and shouldn’t be, doing damage, it does suck when you feel like you don’t have a chance to even get to the fight before combat ends. Everything a redeemer does well involves being within 15′ of the enemy and allies, after all. And it always sucks feeling like someone else in the party is taking over “your thing” — Intimidation/Demoralize, in this case.
“I finally feel like the tanky tank I wanted to be.”
The level wonkiness worked itself out once we were all level 15. And the rogue’s player and I got better about not stepping on each other’s toes with Intimidation — even learning the advantages of having two people who can Demoralize.
But the “class fantasy” part I had to make a conscious effort to fix. I did that by retraining — basically reallocating some of my character choices.
I can’t take all the credit, though. My party members were amazing. Hearing that I wasn’t having fun, they all threw out a bunch of suggestions for retraining, some wackier than others.
Ultimately I dropped the Edgewatch Detective archetype in favor of the Marshall archetype, focusing on Inspiring Marshall Stance (the Diplomacy option) rather than Dread Marshall Stance (the Intimidation one — I again wanted to avoid overlapping the rogue). Job done: I immediately felt like a hero. I get to pose dramatically, and it empowers all my allies. Then I can also do things like give them an extra action!
Later on I also added on the Bastion archetype, which improved my shield and shield block action, allowing me to do things like block attacks to adjacent allies.
Finally, I was the tanky tank of my dreams, and things were good.
“How can I keep track all these feats?”
Look, this game is crunchy. And like anything complex, the complexity increases exponentially, not linearly, as the system grows.
In PF2e, some of the most important puzzle pieces are feats. Each feat is a cool thing your character can do that breaks the rules in a small way and differentiates them from others. They’re comparable to feats in D&D 5e, in that way, but unlike in 5e, where they’re rare (and have to be swapped out for an ability score increase), you get a feat or multiple feats at every level in addition to your ASIs.
In fact, by the time you reach level 20 in this game, you will have +/- 32 feats of different types. With the popular Free Archetype variant rule, you’ll add on an additional 10 class and/or archetype feats.
This is vastly simplified, due to variant rules, differing class progressions, types of feats being tradable in various ways, etc — but you get the idea. You have a lot of what are essentially variant rules and special actions to keep track of.
By the time I reached level 17, I had around 40 feats, and man was the cognitive load high, especially during combat. I’d (mostly) plan what I was going to do on my turn, but when my turn came up and I said it aloud, somebody would say, “oh remember you have [other feat],” or “remember [this buff given by one of their feats],” and “probably not a good idea to use [that action] now because X.” It kind of turned into combat by committee.
There also ended up being a lot of retconning — “oh wait, I didn’t actually have my shield raised, so I couldn’t have blocked that. I should actually take full damage and my shield should take none.”
None of this felt good.
Surprisingly, combat didn’t bog down nearly as much as I expected under this weight. I’m not sure if this is due to a general systems improvement over 1e/D&D 3.5e (the latter being where I once battled a purple worm for six hours of real time), or that my fellow players were systems experts who planned out their turns ahead of time and helped others do the same. Or both!
But still… I often joked I needed a flowchart to play my character.
“… that’s the neat thing, you don’t.”
Around that time was the OGL 1.1 kerfuffle I wrote about here. This definitely made me much more invested in Pathfinder as an ecosystem, seeing how Paizo responded (sometimes with delightful cattiness) to Wizards’ poor business and ethical decisions.
It also led to me watching a lot more YouTube videos about Pathfinder, which is where I discovered The Rules Lawyer, who (imho) is the savviest and most entertaining of the YTers in this space.
In his video Let’s do the SAME COMBAT in D&D and Pathfinder 2E!, he dropped a piece of wisdom on me that has stuck with me. It has helped me feel better about making mistakes, retconning things, house ruling things on the fly, etc.
The quote (beginning at 13:30; emphasis mine):
So as you can see a number of modifiers can happen in a single roll, which can be overwhelming at first. Though in my experience it’s something people get used to.And if you’re not tracking it all and nobody’s noticing you’re still having fun.
Was I having fun?I sure was. In character, Kivran was developing a crush on Cedela, thus perpetuating the “Kivran has a type, and that type is evil women who look like they could suplex her” joke.
Out of character, I still genuinely liked the other players, who were helpful, funny, and like-minded. How did I find these amazing people on r/lfg, and how were we still getting along two years later?? It truly is a miracle.
Around this time I was also realized that this isn’t just difficult for me. Nick, perusing his character sheet at the start of his turn, once said, “Okay, let me see if I can find some bullshit that can help in this ridiculously long list of feats.” (“Oh yeah,” I remembered, “Cedela has twice as many skill feats as Kivran”). Diego, who played our witch, also had a very complicated build, and often mentioned how much anxiety he had before every turn.
Given the high level of systems knowledge these two players had — enough so that their idea of a fun time is “rebuilding PF1e classes in PF2e” and “homebrewing a variant system for crafting magic items” — I knew no one expected me to know it all and to get it right 100% of the time.
Challenge accepted
As we reached level 18 or so, I realized another thing that was different from 5e: It was still challenging.
At level 18 or 19, there was at least one battle where we were forced to retreat from a combat to avoid character death(s). In the same dungeon, we also came across a trap that, if run RAW, would have one-shot Kivran and outright killed her via the Death trait. (GM Josh ran it as “this seems incredibly overtuned to me; let’s just play it out and see what happens; no consequences”).
My general feel about challenge is: if death, and loss of your character, isn’t on the table, it’s not fun. Nothing means anything if it can’t be taken away, and, as I’ve said before, there’s no emotion that humans won’t pay to experience in the safe environment of a story. That includes loss, grief, and fear.
So to see us still struggling in a meaningful way — at the level where, in Out of the Abyss, our party was able to defeat multiple demon lords in a single battle, almost untouched — was really fucking cool.
Also, not only were the encounters challenging, they were interesting. One of my favorite fights in those high levels was when we were attacked by a living mural, which turned some of us temporarily two-dimensional. This led to Kivran being worn on the cloak of her beloved Cedela for the rest of the session — a situation which had surprisingly few downsides!
Or, as the GM said, when I asked if I could still take the Demoralize action as a 2D picture on a cloak: “Sure, because Cedela’s ass does not quit.”
The end of the road
Finally we reached level 20. I will admit, at that point, the challenge did sort of vanish. I permanently had a raised shield, I could use Glimpse of Redemption and Shield Warden on the same ally at the same time, and I could make monsters shit their pants with fear just by walking into a room. We crushed our way through the final dungeon in record time, and it seemed like nothing could stand up to us for more than a couple of combat rounds.
Given that, the final battle might have been astonishingly anti-climactic… except that the other players did everything they could to make it awesome.
Zokaratz threw out some, um, ill-advised spells that caused the room to start falling apart around us, video game boss battle-style. At one point Lucio was climbing up the wall with Zokaratz on his back to escape the collapsing floor, and Shep’s bear eidolon was scrambling to avoid falling into the ever-growing pit at the center of the room. As part of a scripted death, Cedela exploded in a fine mist of blood upon striking down the Big Bad, splattering Kivran (who was fighting beside her). It ended with us all piling into a portal to Shadow Absalom to escape the falling tower, in a “come with me if you want to live” moment.
It was easily the most epic final battle I have ever seen in a tabletop campaign. (Yes, even moreso than Out of the Abyss).
In Conclusion (for now)
That final battle was definitely a high point to end on, and that informs the positive tone of this post. But it is interesting to think that if I had stopped playing at certain points, my opinions might never have evolved to this level, and I might be telling everybody about what a bad experience I had and how I’d never play Pathfinder again.
I also think that if my group hadn’t been so ding-dang awesome, it wouldn’t have been as enjoyable. I can easily picture playing with a less experienced group, where we were all confused by the mechanics. That picture includes hours of time wasted looking up and arguing over rules, and it just isn’t pretty.
I can also picture a boring final battle, if we had all played optimally and just beat the boss until they were dead. And without the RP and character development I put into Kivran (and which the others nurtured), I wouldn’t have been as invested in the outcome.
Lucky for you, it’s been a positive experience, and I still have lots more to say about it. Next time I’ll get more detailed on how crunchy the game mechanics are, and help you to answer the question of “would I enjoy this game?”
Test me, Mistress, Kzandr wanted to say. You will not find me wanting. Kzandr discovers his taste for blood, and draws the attention of one of the mistresses of Arach-Tinilith.
Introductory Notes
Content warnings for this chapter: mentions of slavery, incredibly inappropriate teacher/student relationships, power imbalance, and some non-explicit sexual content with dubious consent.
End Notes
Nithrys (briefly mentioned) is my current PC, an aberrant mind sorcerer. He won’t show up much in Chitin, but ideally he’ll get his own multi-chapter fic after I finish this one.
“Shebali” means “non-noble drow” in the Drow fan dictionary.
For this, and for all the Drow words that pop up, I use a combination of this Drow Dictionary PDF (which is one part the glossary from 2e’s Drow of the Underdark, one part fan-created), and Chosen of Eilistraee’s Drow Translator (which includes everything from the PDF). I tend to prefer the canon stuff to the fan-created stuff, but there’s only so much one can do with the vocabulary Ed Greenwood gave us!
House Kenafin is one of the two houses that will later merge and become House Melarn, who become major antagonists in the more recent Drizzt novels. They’re definitely the house bringing the religious fanaticism to the party! Kyrnill is actually a minor canon character, named as the matron some years later.
Vaen’jraa’kah is another PC, a barbarian/ranger. She’ll come up a lot more when we finally get to the actual plot and not just Kzandr backstory.
Ethestra’tana is first priestess of House Vel’bol and… both an NPC and a PC. It’s weird; we’ll get to it! Aksharu, as I mentioned last time, is an NPC, second priestess of the house.
Kzandr is like 5’2”. Perfectly average for a male drow, but I do enjoy the mental image of him looking Kyrnill directly in the boobs.
The reason I describe this chapter as dubcon is because, even though Kzandr is clearly into Kyrnill’s seduction, he’s also very much in a coercive situation (teacher vs. student, age differences, truth spells used without consent), and in a society where he’s not really free to say no. Pretty much anything involving Kyrnill and Kzandr is going to have this tag.
Keptolo is described in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes as the consort of Lolth. He’s basically the minor god of “keeping your sugar mama happy.”
“Orthae Thalack” is fan-Drow for “holy war.” As far as I know there’s no canonical place where drow go to train as paladins, so I created one.
As far as the mechanics go, Kzandr is an Oath of Conquest paladin. By default, that’s a lawful evil oath, as it’s very much aligned with the devils of the Nine Hells, who hate the chaotic evil demons of the Abyss where Lolth lives. But with DM Bill’s permission, I modified it to be more suitable for a chaotic evil paladin.
I missed writing this bastard. It’s funny to me how I can switch seamlessly between writing Bright Future — which I’d gloss as “a sad drow male learns about love from a manic druid dream girl who doesn’t own a hairbrush” — and this story, which is the Udadrow at their worst. (I literally got back to writing this chapter the day after posting the last chapter of Bright Future).
Anyway! I cherish your feedback, positive or constructive! And your opinion: is Kzandr going to be able to keep Kyrnill happy? What’s his next poor life choice gonna be?
“You don’t see the spider that bites you.” Mavash and companions explore the archmage’s sanctum in Sorcere, in search of the grimoires that will allow them (eventually) to send the demon princes back to the Abyss.
They find more than they bargained for.
Chapter Front Notes
Again I apologize for my long radio silence. I blame *gestures broadly at her life*.
But this chapter is a nice n’ long one, so get a beverage, dim the lights, and strap in!
Previously on Bright Future…
With a haunting vision/nightmare of a different Jorlan fresh in her mind, Mavash joins her companions as they make their way into Menzoberranzan, their goal Gromph’s grimoires in Sorcere, to complete the ritual of the Dark Heart. At the same time, Jorlan contemplates his own secret plans, recently set into motion…
Chapter End Notes
Chiana is Drow for “betrayal.” 😈
Luckily for you, you probably won’t have to wait too long for the resolution. I have taken September as a leave of absence from work, thus I am anticipating more writing time.
Eager to hear what y’all think is going on here. (And as always, I welcome any constructive feedback).
Unrelatedly, I had a bunch of false starts on this chapter, and threw out a few hundred words of Lux/Neheedra banter that just didn’t fit. I still think it’s funny, though, so I might post it as a light interlude before the next chapter.
(I’ll leave the specific footnotes in AO3; they’re sizable, and also somewhat spoilery).
ETA: I got permission from DM Nixon to link his variation on the map I mention in the footnotes. So please enjoy this spoooooky map as you navigate your way through this scene.
