"In the Deeps, even the points of light are pretty damn dark". - Anonymous dwarf adventurer
Followers of Corellon agree that "brief flashes of paranoia" define drow culture quite well.... As long as you remove the word "brief."
The city of Erelhei-Cinlu dominates the vast cavern known as the Vault of the Drow. Though the Vault, aglow in a purple bioluminescent haze, is six miles long and nearly as wide, the drow city is its crown. Erelhei-Cinlu is the most influential and cosmopolitan of all drow cities in the Underdark. Ruled by eight noble houses, each dominated by a high priestess, Erelhei-Cinlu crouches at the center of a web of alliances and rivalries, hidden plots, and ancient traditions that reach through an untold number of tunnels and caverns beneath the world, and on its surface.
RULING HOUSES
The real power in Erelhei-Cinlu (and by extension, in the entire Vault) resides in the matriarchs of the noble houses. All the ruling houses are webbed in intrigue so thick that no one drow matron or spymaster knows all the ruses and conspiracies in play at any one time. By tradition, eight noble houses oversee Erelhei-Cinlu. Members of these great clans refer to themselves as if they were extended families, related by blood. In fact, they're symbolic alliances connected by ceremonies of adoption. Blood families belong to the same house. They watch each other's backs in the house's constant internal struggle. However, the houses' membership rolls are so large that females need not look outside their clans to find unrelated mates. House leaders are called matron mothers. Like the priestesses, their power is said to derive from Lolth. Of course, when they punish the weak and elevate the strong, they're more likely to mention the pragmatic concerns of the house than to invoke theology. Each house is known by an emblem, which not only signifies the wearer's affiliation but also supposedly recalls (to historians) some Significant detail of the house's past glory.
HOUSE XANIQOS
The upstart House Xaniqos, the youngest and most impetuous of the ruling houses, has secretly laid metaphorical eggs of malice, treachery, and violence beneath the foundations of all the lesser houses. The other houses have doubtless planned similar deceits, but none have done so with the determination and success ofXaniqos. Indeed, the house has so many active schemes in play that its leader, Lady Thandysha, is in danger of losing track of one or more threads. On the day she does so, the entire edifice of her power could well unravel. The House's emblem is a jet crossbow bolt.
HOUSE ALEVAL
Politics is Aleval 's game. Though its spies, scouts, and poisoners number among the best, House Aleval is the most "diplomatic" of the ruling houses. Aleval maintains relations with non-drow (including adventurers from the surface). Of course, when Aleval's politicking fails, other houses know to be on watch for poisoners. Its matron mother, Ana'Shrinarrean, never leaves her estate. Those seeking audience with her must prostrate themselves at the foot of her perfumed bed. Rumor has it that a degenerative transformation keeps her bedridden. Aleval's symbol is a golden wand .
HOUSE DESPANA
This house of warriors, gladiators, and generals is famed for its raiding parties and its school of demon summoners. The matron mother, Ilmirinza, dotes on her familiar, Weley, a loathsome, squeaking demon, half cat and half frog. Other houses complain that she grants too much influence to her consort, the fiery raider Lualisin. Despana's emblem is an adamantine mace.
HOUSE GODEEP
Godeep's power rests in its skill at spider-breeding and its deep collection of powerful enchanted items. Over recent years it has enveloped several families of up-and-coming traders, forging a new identity as the city's preeminent mercantile concern. Its matron mother, Shie, drills her underlings to calculate sums in their head, sending those who fail to come up to speed to the Fane of Lolth for sacrifice. Members of Godeep wear a platinum crossbow emblem.
HOUSE SHI'QUOS
House Shi'quos is feared for its necromantic tradition and cadre of undead servitors. It is said that every structure commanded by Shi'quos is staffed by an elite force of deathless knights. It suffered a recent setback when the unliving occupants of the Ghetto of the Dead drove the house's sheriffs and tax collectors from the catacombs. Every day that Matron Mother Laelao Tlumir delays a reprisal raid against them, the house's reputation suffers. Shi'quos is symbolized by a bat carved in amethyst.
HOUSE VAE
The drow of House Vae control the slave trade. In its effort to keep its pens stocked with fresh product, the house sponsors raids throughout the Underdark and to the surface world. Though the slaves Vae procures are a valuable commodity the city of Erelhei-Cinlu could hardly do without, the activity of slave-gathering itself
draws the attention ofenemies to the Vault. Matron Mother Triue Ulvnay inspects all slaves her people bring into the city, in case she wants to add a creature to her personal collection. Her forehead bears a luminous tattoo of the house emblem, an iron chain.
HOUSE EILSERVS
A rich and troubled history attaches to this notoriously tenacious clan. Every time the other houses bring it to the brink ofdestruction, Eilservs claws its way back to power. Its famous and storied matron mother, Lady Eclavdra, recently perished of apparent poisoning. No one can believe that such a tenacious matron could be brought low by such a base stratagem, nor does anyone know what to make of her surprisingly youthful replacement, Na' Dhaunxutal. The Eilservs ceremonial object is a bronze staff.
HOUSE ZHIQNAH
Paladins of Lolth dominate this odd ruling house, which came to prominence as a result of their ruthless dedication to wiping out cultists of the Elemental Eye. More explicitly religious than other houses, it flirts with the jealousy of Lolth's priesthood. The Zhiq'nah hierarchy resents the implication that its members show a less pure devotion to the spider goddess than the priestesses do. Wagging tongues have it that the priestesses of Lolth are planning an attack on Zhiq'nah's matron mother, Pharloth Vaedra. The Zhiq'nah mark their house allegiance by carrying lapis lazuli daggers.
ARCHITECTURE
Erelhei-Cinlu is set like a polished gemstone in the purple haze of the Vault of the Drow, and some drow refer to the city as "the Dark Gem." Erelhei-Cinlu broods behind a high wall of polished black basalt that at once protects its inhabitants and imprisons them. The wall appears as a seamless, uncut stone edifice that encircles the city. Guard towers festooned with all manner of war machines loom over the wall at regular intervals, providing their occupants with lines of sight that stretch all the way across the Vault. Interspersed between the guard towers and other fortifications are sculpted images of Lolth herself. The statues radiate a palpable evil designed to forestall would-be wall climbers. Those who attempt the feat anyway discover that the drow deter unauthorized climbers with an array of nasty hazards, some mechanical and others arcane. Within the walls, a riot of architectural styles exists. Though many structures are built of basalt, especially the many towers that reach toward the Vault's ceiling, others are composed of petrified toadstool. fused bone, and hardened spiderwebs woven in such thick profusion that they form structures every bit as permanent as those quarried from stone. Among the chaos of buildings and basalt towers rise several narrow spires made of stained limestone. These were raised during an earlier architectural period and seem eroded and timeworn. Many of the larger towers, both basalt and limestone, are connected by way web-bridges high over the streets and lower structures. The narrow web-bridges provide a means of travel for nobles who can't be bothered to mingle with commoners on the city streets, and have the virtue of being easily cut should relations between the occupants of two connected towers suddenly sour. Along the interior walls, a lattice of curving, swooping stone walkways connects the many barracks of Erelhei-Cinlu. Like desiccated insect carcasses, the barracks buildings seem trapped in a meticulously interlaced set of spiderwebs. Each barracks structure holds a militia ofelite drow warriors sponsored by a particular ruling house, ready to spring into action if the city comes under attack, or to fall upon a rival's house at the command of their matron mother.
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