Drow Relations with Others

Aranea

Lolthian drow have an interesting affinity for the aranea. As shapeshifting spider-folk with magical abilities, they're usually considered distant cousins and allowed to pass unharmed. In some drow communities, aranea who worship Lolth are revered as being blessed by the goddess and fully accepted into the fold. In those cases, it's seen as an honor to mate with them and their shapeshifting children are raised to be magnificent spies.

Beholders

Beholders are known to despise pretty much everyone else. The drow may not view themselves as inherently inferior to beholder-kind, but they have to admit their rays can be devastatingly effective. They loathe the antimagic ray in particular. For this reason, drow tend to avoid beholders until they can control the terms of engagement. It isn't unknown for them to hunt and kill beholders who become nuisances, but not without trying to minimize losses.

Chokers

Drow like to use chokers to guard little-used passages that might be found by... unwanted guests. They often capture chokers and relocate them to form part of a security system. Thieves guilds and wizard schools may send living victims or other food to keep the chokers content, and some of them eat better and live longer than they would have on their own.

Cloakers

Some Lolthian drow communities have established beneficial relations with cloaker packs. A few drow settlements are guarded by cloaker flocks, which are fed well on would-be invaders and enemy spies. Others take note of cloaker lairs and lead enemies through them but emerge unscathed. Arrangements between the two species are rare but longer-lasting in certain regions of the Underdark.

Dragons

Drow contact chromatic dragons when they bother to have nonviolent contact with dragons at all. Their relations often center around specific schemes drow hope to engage the dragons in or vice versa. Generally, this is how it goes:

• Black dragons have been known to attack drow enemies for enough gold and loot.

• Blue and green dragons are often preferred because they're often more stable than the others.

• White dragons are generally shunned for being weaker than their chromatic kin.

• Drow have been drawn to red dragons before, given their reputation as the most intelligent and wealthy of the chromatic dragons, but disasters have resulted more often than successes.

Surviving contact with dragons typically earns some admiration from other drow, and getting the better of them is lauded. A few dragonblooded drow lineages exist, though relations between their forebears have rarely lasted long.

Duergar

When the deep dwarves overthrew their illithid masters after being enslaved for generations, they earned some respect from the drow. Battling illithids is painful work, even for Lolth's children. Since then, the duergar have remained in the Underdark and shown themselves to be talented craftsmen. Drow would rather engage in trade than try to enslave them, however. They appreciate how distrustful the deep dwarves are and don't want to risk becoming the next masters they overcome.

Efreeti

The drow adore efreeti, since they can grant wishes and are as devious adversaries. They happily trade with efreeti whenever and wherever they meet and take pains to make every deal with them satisfactory. After all, genies don't die of old age and remember insults, and wishes are too valuable to miss out on.

Fiends

Lolthian drow have dealt with demons and devils across their lengthy history of magic use. Some arcane casters acquire quasits or imps as familiars, and most summon fiends at some point. Demons are often summoned by clerics, as well, for better and for worse, since those that represent Lolth show up for punishment as often as anything else. They regularly engage each other in schemes and drow have interbred with fiends more often than any other species.

Illithids

Much of the time, drow and illithids don't mix. Mind flayers tend to see drow as some of their favorite meals and candidates for ceremorphosis, and the dark elves are comfortable with neither option. But occasionally, these species engage in careful negotiations. Their shared interests in magic, secrets, and slaves provides some fertile common ground, and successful deals with mind flayers earns great prestige among the drow.

And every now and then, twisted relationships arise, from frenemies to master/apprentice to something that might be called intimate. These bonds can have explosive potential one way or the other, and it's not unheard of for drow and mind flayers to reject their kin and escape together. For many reasons, extended personal contact is discouraged on both sides but once the spark of curiosity has occurred, it can't always be snuffed out.

Kuo-toa

The drow trade with kuo-toan communities for objects as much as sport. They don't respect the kuo-toas in the least, but the fish people pay good prices for whatever the drow offer. Lolthians randomly kidnap and kill kuo-toas to remind them of how fragile they are, but relations mend and trade continues, as assuredly as the tides move. Drow wizards especially enjoy the spell components that come from across the greater oceans.

Svirfneblin

Svirfneblin (or deep gnomes) gave up trusting Lolthian drow at all a long time ago. They'll usually flee and hide when they know drow are coming but if they have superior numbers and enough advance warning, they may set an ambush. For their part, drow love tormenting deep gnomes and make games out of chasing them through the Underdark. Whether the gnomes escape in terror or are captured and enslaved, the drow feel like they win.