#house do’urden

[aldanil]

The House Do’Urden, the way I imagine them in my head

I hadn’t place to draw Zak and Rizzen ):

Tumblr ruined the pixels again

[seanofbeankeep]

Portraits when they’re finished painting

The portraits when they’re cropped, framed and hung up on the walls after:

Paying for a portrait: 💎 💰 💎

Making everyone pose days only to crop them out after: priceless 💖

[princefleabitten]

Saribel and her terrible husband

It kinda hit me that they are like married for 13 years? I think the plot about them would be much more enjoyable if they at least liked each other. I don’t even mean loved, just a little much fondness between 2 persons who decided to marry each other. Fully by their own choice. I still would have understood that they are evil and drow, I swear. Anyway, share your thoughts, I want to know.

[missrosiewolf]

I want…Maya to have an okay relationship with her dad and her brother

I want Maya to have sisterly-ish bonding moments with Vierna

I want Maya to argue with Drizzt over which makes the better pet: cat or spider

But most of all I want her to THRIVE QAQ

[hillhouses]

happy christmas i’m reading the wiki pages on drow lore

[qwahaxahn]

I don’t think she ever forgot those words.

All Vierna has seen the world do to Drizzt, ever since his birth, is break and beat and destroy him. Of course, she was never there for the brighter days in Icewind Dale—all she knows of him is his time in Menzoberranzan, when he suffers and recoils and is smothered into depression and dismay.

She tries to lift him out of it, to encourage him to follow the family’s will, but he refuses. And how many times do you think she heard those words echo in her ears after each new confrontation?

So she decides to act on them. He would be better off dead. Fed to the driders. Free of his pain.

I wonder if it kept her awake some nights, especially after the fall of House Do’Urden. “He would be better off dead,” warped now to mean: “it would have been better for all of us if he had died” as much as “he would be at peace if he was dead.”

Drizzt has to die. Not just to fulfill Lolth’s will, but to finally put him to rest. At least then, the world can’t break him anymore. She isn’t the first of Drizzt’s kin to come to that conclusion.

Vierna is more like her father than she realizes.

[james-the-lass]

Is there a canonical drow House that had Halsin?

House DeVir seems like good timing. House Do’Urden took them down in 1297 DR when Halsin would have been about 155 years old. He became a Druid at 110 in 1252 DR, so both young and a Druid at the time of their fall. House DeVir is also Mother Superior of the Shar enclave in Baldur’s Gate, Viconia DeVir’s house, so a nice dovetail there. However, it’s canonically fairly well-documented via Drizzt Do’Urden’s series, though I’d have to go back and read it again to be sure of details.

Around the same time is the near destruction of House Freth in 1319 DR, also documented in Drizzt’s series, though I’m not sure of the details there without a reread also.

Finally, House Melarn (in Ched Nasad; the first two were Menzoberranyr) was taken out in 1372 DR in a bid to take over a merchant company. But Halsin would have been 230, so I don’t know if that would quite qualify as “young” by his personal reckoning.¹ However, it would leave enough space for the Shadow Curse to occur.

I suppose it could be any House, really, and not even one that was eradicated, given that it’s the way of things for drow high society.

¹ Btw, 350 isn’t really even that old for an elf. Some of the drow nobility whose ages we know lived to be over 600 and weren’t considered old. It was death by violence (murder? debatable) and not old age either.

[wanderingswampbeast]

Long Post: Why I Don’t Like The Drow

I’ve been ranting about this to a friend on discord (a lot of points I make will come from him) but I’ve finally figured out what my issue with the drow is outside of inherently evil groups being dumb.

The drow are boring. Drow lore is less of a dive into a unique culture and more of a list of fucked up things they do. Like, I cannot name a single interesting aspect of typical drow society that does not directly involve murder, sexism, or slavery, or Lolth. And even then, most of those things are written about in an incredibly bland fashion with them.

The Drow don’t really have much depth to them, and are just kind of evil for evil’s sake (or “because Lolth said so”). They do slavery, but the only real purpose of doing slavery for them is “because Lolth said so”. It isn’t for cheap labor, it’s to be more evil. They betray each other purely because that’s what evil people do. They’re misandrist, not for any real societal reason, but because Lolth hates men. There’s none of what would make slavery an interesting topic or story element, no justification for why they should be allowed to commit one of the worst injustices possible, no real economic reason for it. They just do it because Lolth says they should, and from a writing perspective it hammers home the fact that they’re evil. They aren’t evil because they enslave and murder, they enslave and murder because they’re evil, if that makes any sense.

Them being written as comically evil as they are also hurts them from a worldbuilding perspective. They’re so reliant on slaves for menial labor that the lower class of their society struggle to get jobs. Drow culture so obsessed with betrayal and dumbass house wars that even when actively under attack from the outside they sabotage each other. They’re so decadent that their buildings are held up with magic and semi regularly collapse when a spell fails. To put it bluntly, drow society feels like one that should have collapsed in a few centuries, which, funnily enough, is way longer than D&D elves live.

Their culture being so monolithic also makes writing anything about them difficult. Every drow antagonist is going to have near identical motivations, methods, and ideologies as every other drow antagonist. Every drow protagonist is going to ultimately feel very similar to Drizzt, because leaving their fucked up society to become a do-gooder is such a common backstory element that they added a whole extra god just for doing that. In fact, you can divide 90% of drow characters from any official materials into these categories:

Manservant

Ambitious male, usually a wizard (5 bucks says he has long hair and a widow’s peak)

Dommy Mommy Warcrime Woman

Drizzt Do’Urden or one of his many duplicates

Self-loathing and/or resentful Drider

And finally, their existence almost purely to be humanoid enemies you can fight at nearly any levels is just kind of lazy. This is a problem that I have with the “evil races” of a lot of fantasy but having a group that’s evil by birth just feels like an excuse to not have to write actual motivations for your antagonists. It’s the difference between “go attack this camp of soldiers because they’re part of the SkullMurder army and their general wants to use our land to build a dread fortress” vs “go attack this camp of soldiers specifically because they’re drow/goblins/orcs/the dreaded peepee-poopoo folk”. Using stuff like this just feels like an excuse to not have to write an actual antagonist since it comes pre-written in the group’s lore. This has the side effect of whenever such a group is the antagonist of the plot, the players or audience know near exactly what to expect. The orc is here to conquer, the goblin is here to steal, and the drow is here to enslave or do some dark ritual.

I’ve legitimately heard people say “well if XYZ can’t be inherently evil anymore, who will we use as bad guys?” It’s very simple: whoever the fuck we want. Write an evil queen, or a scheming wizard, or an underground slave trade network. For God’s sake, anyone can be evil, you don’t need to tie that to a specific ethnic group and write it as “they’re just like that”. Write an actual character for your antagonist.

[avelera]

Being a basic Drizzt Do’Urden book series loving bitch from back in the day has been so rewarding while playing BG3. If you could SEE my face when names like “Baenre” and “Oblodra” show up (not to mention a couple references to Bruenor Battlehammer and the Drizzt man himself) in the game.

Like, I know it’s the Forgotten Realms, I know that Menzoberranzan and the Baenres and the Oblodras are referenced in MANY places in that world, not just the Drizzt books, but…!! House Baenre! House Oblodra! My horrible Drow Houses full of horrible Drow people I nevertheless adore! My children! They are here!!

[novarex]

A closeup of Maya Do'Urden from the Drizzt Visual Dictionary.

MAYA - The youngest daughter of Malice, and sired by House patron Rizzen, Maya Do’Urden is a fanatically devoted priestess of Lolth. Skilled with telepathy and the mace and shield, Maya gives Drizzt his first lesson in “the way of the drow,” forcing him to kill her goblin champion. She gets her own taste of the way of the drow when House Baenre comes to destroy her house.

[wellthebardsdead]

Clow: *joining the harpers in hiding for the ambush, watching quietly and waiting* I- *steps out in shock*

Wyll: C-Clow?! What are you doing?!

Clow: I know him… *steps out in view of the caravan* Kar’niss?… is that you?

Kar’niss: who lurks in the da-… I know you… *steps forward slowly* szarkai Do’Urden, slave to spider bitch servants, szarkai like me, pretty pale spider… *halts in front of him and leans down, the lantern gleaming off of clows icy skin as the tadpole reacts to his presence, entering their mind* you are chosen by my majesty too! Free from your masters, free in our majesty’s light! *takes his hand gently* come, come with me.

Clow: I- wait- *pulls the artefact from his bag and holds it up, it’s surface glowing red hot and burning into the driders mind, finding his consciousness through the fragments and showing him the truth* fight- with me?… for our freedom?

Kar’niss: I- *blinks and looks at the artefact, then at him* the absolute… lied to me… the cultists- held me down, dropped that leech on my face, laughed as they told it to ‘pick an eye’ so dark in the cave, so dark in this land, I couldn’t resist I couldn’t fight back, no better than lolth, worse than lolth! *snarls and draws his blade, turning to face the rest of the caravan* FILTHY CULTISTS!! YOU WILL BLEED FOR WHAT YOUVE DONE TO ME!! *lifts Clow up onto his abdomen and charges into battle*

*several hours later*

Astarion: so we have a drider amongst us?

Clow: *letting Kar’niss braid his hair as they rest amongst the huge pillow nest he built him* yes! He won’t cause any trouble. He’s always been very polite and well behaved, the only reason he was turned into this is because his house lost favour, *reaches up stroking his cheek* you didn’t deserve this…

Kar’niss: *trills in delight at his touch and leans into it* hnnnnrrrr~

[seanofbeankeep]

Drow House Glyphs have the ‘mother matron doodled it on her notepad while as a student at Arach-Tinilith and now it’s our house mark’ vibe

Esp Do’Urden and DeVir

[missrosiewolf]

Saw the House Do’Urden family portrait and all I can say is Maya is giving such gremlin energy I love her

[rukafais]

Zaknafein meandered back across the city soon after, to House Do’Urden and Matron Malice, and there he remained as the tendays slipped past. And every day, he rose from his bed and thought that he was a day closer to death. And that, at least, was a good thing, after all.

A comic about whetstones. Or going through repetitive motions, or something.

[slusheeduck]

Fictober 2023 Day 10 - Prompt: "Honestly, why would I care?" Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3

“Well, there’s not much by way of food. Or supplies. Or weaponry. Or alcohol,” Wyll said as he and Astarion rummaged through the wrecked house’s library. “But we do have a lot of books. Gale will be thrilled.”

“Yes, and a fat lot of good it does the rest of us,” Astarion grumbled. “Maybe one of these is a secret lever, and we’ll get a door that leads to a fantastic wine cellar. Oh, or a torture chamber!”

“Maybe sound a bit less excited about that.” Wyll sighed. “Then again, given what we’ve seen so far, a torture chamber’s the more likely option.”

He did start tugging at book corners, waiting to feel one catch. There really were an obscene amount of books here. Beside him, Astarion delicately ran his fingertips over the spines, no doubt searching for a trap.

“The Importance of Impotence: Finding Pride In Childlessness, Query in the Quarry, An Owlbear’s Guide To Life…whoever lived here certainly had some strange tastes. Are you reading these titles?” Wyll asked.

Astarion clicked his tongue irritably as he stooped down. “Honestly, why would I care? Don’t make small talk, Wyll, it doesn’t suit you.”

Wyll shook his head. Well, he tried being nice—suppose being a monster hunter didn’t make one very popular with the monsters themselves. He resumed looking over the books, then paused. It couldn’t be. Could it? Here? Carefully, he pulled one book out.

“Oh my gods,” he murmured. “They have the new Drizzt Do’Urden biography.”

“Drizzt Do’Urden?” Astarion’s voice had gone up at least half an octave, and in an instant, the vampire was hovering over Wyll’s shoulder, cold hand gripping his arm. “Oh my gods, it is!”

Wyll looked at him, surprised. “You…know about Drizzt Do’Urden?”

“Know about him? I’m obsessed with him,” Astarion said, eyes bright. “Reading about him is what’s kept me sane for the better part of two centuries. He is literally everything one could want from a hero.” He looked up at Wyll. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you like him.”

Wyll laughed. “I had my father read The Companions Codex every night I could for a year straight,” he said. “He’s why I started on this path. I dreamt of having adventures like his.”

“Everything all right?” Karlach poked her head into the library, and Wyll nodded as Astarion ducked around him to look at the book’s dust jacket.

“Yes, we’re fine. Just found the new Drizzt Do’Urden biography while pok—”

“Drizzt Do’Urden?” Karlach’s hands immediately went to squish her cheeks in excitement. “Oh, my mum used to tell me stories about him all the time!” She hurried over to look at the book. “Isn’t he the best? Sometimes, when things got really bad down in Avernus, I’d try and imagine I was one of his companions—y’know, fighting the good fight against all odds.”

“Wyll,” Astarion said, suddenly very serious. “I know you’re a good person. It’s frustrating, but typically manageable. But in this case, we need to take this book.”

“We really do, Wyll,” Karlach agreed.

Wyll looked it over, then glanced around. “Well…I mean, whoever owns this place probably isn’t coming back…” Karlach and Astarion nodded intently. “…and I bet it’ll be great for camp morale.”

“Then it’s settled. Back with us it goes.” Astarion paused, finger going to his lips as he looked between Wyll and Karlach. “One…problem. There’s only one copy, and three of us.”

All three looked between each other.

“Well…I’m probably out,” Karlach said after a moment, giving a sheepish smile as she holds up her hands. “I know I’ve cooled down a bit, but paper and fire? Not a great combination.”

Wyll looked down at the book for a moment, face tight. With a long sigh, he held it out to Astarion. “Here. You can read it first.”

Astarion took the book, an eager glint in his eye, but he glanced up at Wyll and Karlach. After a moment, he heaved out a sigh. “Well, now I look like an arsehole if I do take it.”

Wyll crossed his arms. “I don’t suppose there’s some way all three of us could read it at once? Like maybe…” He suddenly grinned. “I’ve got it.”

~

“But Regis looked to Drizzt and nodded, and Catti-brie did, too, and so the drow pulled out his onyx figurine and brought in the sixth member of the Companions of the Hall. All gathered, then, Regis and Wulfgar announced their plans, and Bruenor’s cry of dismay split the night and turned many nearby eyes their way…”

Wyll’s voice was steady and smooth as he read the book aloud. He, Astarion, and Karlach all sat together, backs to the fire, and hadn’t moved since they’d cracked it open, save for when Wyll passed the book to Astarion for his turns to read. Karlach, the three had decided, was just a little too much at risk for singing the pages.

Off to the other side of the fire, Lae’zel frowned as she crossed her arms, looking to Falerin—he was listening in, but not nearly so raptly.

“Who is this…Drizzt?” she asked. “Is it a holy text in this plane?”

Falerin stifled a laugh. “You would think it with them, wouldn’t you?” he whispered. “He’s an adventurer. Hero, really, in every sense of the word. There must be hundreds of books about him. I read a few when I was younger.”

“T’chk. They are contenting themselves with children’s stories, then,” Lae’zel scoffed. “If they wish to know true feats of bravery, then they should hear of how the immortal queen Vlaakith once st—”

“Shhh!!” Wyll, Astarion, and Karlach all snapped their heads around, fingers to their lips. Lae’zel, clearly caught off-guard, went quiet, and the three turned around to resume their reading.

“Wait until they finish. They’ll probably be through the whole thing by morning,” Falerin whispered.

Lae’zel looked over at him, then let out a little huff. “Very well. I will listen to these Drizzt stories. Perhaps there is something useful to glean, outside of magic cats and lavender eyes.”

Fictober 2023 Drabble Master Post

[everybodyloveshippos]

House Do’Urden (minus Drizzt)

repost of my first Legend of Drizzt fanart (the og is still up, this version just has less blur effects haha)! started this series last august and well. yeah,,, here we are. i knew the obsession was gonna be serious when i sat down and drew this