Ever since the introduction of the Drow elves in the G and D-series modules, there has been discussion of what they were inspired by. Given that they are dark elves, the explanation I have always seen was the old Scandinavian dark elves or "trow". What always struck me about that was that the few legends about dark elves really didn't say much about them, unlike dwarves who feature in several prominent sagas and in legendry. Recently, prodded by the reading list in the back of the AD&D 1e DMG, I have been reading more fantasy and science fiction from the (roughly speaking) pulp era - around the 20's through the 50's. In the process, its been striking how many authors used concepts and/or bits from Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy - cyclical worlds inhabited by nonhuman and human races, "Hidden Masters" in remote parts of the world pulling the strings of history, etc. One thing that stuck me was when I ran across a guy named Richard Sharpe Shaver. More detailed information is in the Wikipedia entry for him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sharpe_Shaver Basically, Shaver wrote a series of stories for science fiction magazines in the 40's about "Deros", malevolent beings who lived in secret cave cities hidden below the earth, had advanced technology and psychic powers, and kidnapped people for meat or torture. Does this sound a lot like a certain AD&D villain race we know and love? Even the name "Dero" is pretty similar to "Drow". Given that Gary read a lot of fantasy and sci fi, I'd be surprised if he never ran across any of Shaver's material. I have to admit, I am really curious if the "Dero" may have been a conscious or subconscious inspiration for the Drow of AD&D. Has anyone seen this stuff and had the same thoughts about the possible connection? Perhaps Luke or someone else who knew Gary could comment on whether he even read Amazing Stories in his early days? Andy PS - On a side note, Shaver was apparently a real fruit loop. He claimed that the "stories" he published described real events (a la the Balir Witch Project). So, either a fruit loop or an old fashioned huckster in that respect. Apparently his ideas live on in the fluffy world of conspiracy theorists even today though..
Almost forgot - something else that would seem to link the Dero as an inspiration for the Drow.. the Dero supposedly abandoned the surface world to avoid the damaging radiation of the sun. Also mentioned in the Wiki [bracketed notes are mine since this is snipped out of a larger article, and italics mine]: "Palmer [Shaver's later editor/publisher] wrote to Shaver, asking how he had learned of Mantong [the supposedly orignial language of mankind]. Shaver responded with an approximately 10,000 word document entitled "A Warning to Future Man." Shaver wrote of extremely advanced pre-historic races who had built cavern cities inside Earth before abandoning Earth for another planet due to damaging radiation from the Sun. Those ancients also abandoned some of their own offspring here, a minority of whom remained noble and human "Teros", while most degenerated over time into a population of mentally impaired sadists known as Deros--short for "detrimental robots." Shaver's "robots" were not mechanical constructs, but were robot-like due to their savage behavior."
Gary has said that he came acoss the term 'drow' as a term for dark elves in some old dictionary and then developed the flavor/character of the race from there.
Yeah, its all of the above and more with the concepts both being inspired by the same sources: the original "drow" legends of Scotland. I spoke with him about the "trow" years ago and he drifted into the drow (I'm not even going to touch how he pronounced them with a 10' pole! ) talking about sourcing from legends and all. Theres more to them then just that heck there are a lot of inspirations but ultimately they're Gygax's beasts alone in that specific form (NB: prior to that FORGOTTEN REALMS 80's/90's crap!) with tips of the hats all around in pulp and legends.
As far as I know the drow (rhymes with sow) were created by my Dad and inspired by myth, legend and other reading. I don't think that Shaver had any influence- but I never asked him that question directly. I think there were even guys in Tsojcanth called Dero- or something close to that, right?
Don't remember off hand if they showed up in Tsojcanth, but the Derro were in Monster Manual 2. They were dwarf size evil buggers with magic using savants and IIRC some psionics. Lord knows why I've used brain cells to retain this, but they always stuck out in my brain because they used an unusual weapon - the aklys (throwing club). Great humanoids to use against PC's back in the day. Not sure who created them for AD&D in MM2. Andy
TSOJCANTH the module was huge because it had the Monster supplement but most of the baddies that didn't appear in the adventure itself appeared in that booklet that was included as a pull out. My copy is so worn from less than year's use as most of them were replicated in the MONSTER MANUAL II the following year so I shelved that into the adventure but man, is that thing stained! The conversations that I had with Gary were deep rooted reflections of that TSOJCANTH/MONSTER MANUAL II time. (NOTE: He remarked that the picture of Iggwilv in the Monster Supplement didn't resemble what he had in mind.) and he talked of having many underground races throughout "Greyhawk" (he mentioned you could travel the entire length of Oerik underground) that were on the cutting room floor (including the "trow") waiting for the mega MONSTER MANUAL (that never was) but he was only able to recall vague outlines that he later worked into DANGEROUS JOURNEYS and still later LEJENDARY ADVENTURES. Having been so "worked" the original concepts were mixed around according to him. From TSOJCANTH, the Duergar were a race of evil dwarves and the Derro were evil half-dwarves. The missing trow as they would have appeared in GH, he said were an offshoot of the drow and another race of dwarves that resembled the duergar but were different. Confused? So am I! Seriously, I have some threadbare notes somewhere but I packed them away.
Grognardia reports that one of the writers Gary credits in Appendix N of the original DMG might have been a big influence on the Drow. http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/08/ ... eople.html As for Derro, the way I saw it, I think Gary set up Derro to be the degenerative descendants of the Suel Race if "Sea of Death" is any hint.
Huh, good find on that article on the novel Shadow People.. just ordered it from Amazon : ) Thanks! Andy
Trent Foster swore by that a couple of years ago when I was yammering about how The Face in the Abyss definitely was seminal in a lot of D&D and rang of the D series and the drow in a very indirect way. I still stand by that although I haven't got around to Margaret St Clair as the Summer is over and I'm busy reading non-fiction lately.
