#seladrine drow

[derangedroyalfae]

My drow with a noble background that became a bard:

[rowlynne]

I'm new here friends, but, I just love her (Kaladin) so much and we both love Gale and she deserves to be immortalized forever online.

[sketchyelvenasss]

Drew Aerika. Might line it later

[songbird-oracle]

I’m playing a Seladrine dark urge drow, Druid/bard multiclass. We just beat the Nere battle and got the Spider Song lute (I think that’s the name, I forget), and I now have a headcanon.

The lolth drow sing their children Magic Spider by Nekrogoblicon as a lullaby, and my durge picked it up somewhere in the underdark.

SO

my character can play Magic Spider on the spider song lute to provide bardic inspiration, AND she can wildshape into a giant spider, thus making HER a magic spider

This is the best day

[riza-hawks-eye]

The extra dialogue you get with the Drow twins when you play as a Drow

I like the idea that the twins are Seldarine Drow. I like to think their whole backstory of being courtesans in Menzoberranzan was made up to make them seem exciting to their clients and that they're lying about everything about themselves, including being twins lol.

[temperamentalaquarius]

I can not be consumed by the urge to continue my Dick Grayson run of baldurs gate because it will absolutely dominate my week, but god the temptation is strong

[a-drama-addict]

wet pathetic little wizard. everyone meet Valeska

[arealcrow]

he grew up in a small cave and he's doing his best 💜

[astrellium]

My decision of whether or not to get Baldur's Gate 3 at some point will revolve nearly entirely around how many of my existing OCs I can make in it

[redroomroaving]

Halsin x Ver'yll

(and Malla the hedgehog)

Ver'yll is one of your hirelings - for the curious. A seladrine drow ranger who 'spent his twilights scribbling odes to leafy canopies, bushels, and the merits of the noble hedgehog. When he refused to join the Absolute, its forces tore his forest and body apart.'

This has become a problem.

[tieflingalysanne]

More of Tav’renn

She’s a seladrine drow cleric of selune. She’s my main bg3 character. <3

[karniss-bg3]

What's in a name?

For the past week I’ve had one mission; Find the meaning behind Kar’niss’ name.

To me, that is one piece of information that could lend the biggest clue to his origins. I’ve had luck in some places and roadblocks in others, it’s turned out to be slightly more complicated than I thought. I haven’t come up entirely empty handed though and what pieces I’ve dug up have put him in an entirely new light.

Let’s start off by discussing drow naming conventions. Drow can change their names later in life and may do so multiple times. This is usually due to some significant life event or promotion and said name may relate to these incidents. This makes me believe that Kar’niss got his name after his transformation. After all, being turned into a drider would be considered a big life event by many. They also avoid using any names that may be similar to Lolth, some going as far as to avoid the letter L altogether. Mind you during my research I found conflicting reports. Some sources say it’s fine to pay homage to Lolth in a drow name so long as it’s only partial, such as “loth” or “lothine”. Others say it’s forbidden the whole way around and bad form. Take this as you will.

Drow names are also gendered, their prefixes and suffixes are labeled specifically toward male and female. Rarely, women could take on a male name with little push back. However, if a male takes on a feminine name they would be labeled a rogue or a troublemaker. This information is important later.

There are many more nuances to how drow are named, such as numbering their children in the drow language, or naming children in honor of their mothers and ignoring fathers completely. Looking over what resources I could find, Kar’niss’ name didn’t seem to be related to either of those things. With the exception of the suffix “Niss” which we’ll get to.

I’ve managed to find a chart that has all of the common drow prefixes and suffixes listed. Let’s take Minthara and Nere as two examples. The prefix “Min” is feminine and it means “lesser, minor, second” and the suffix “thara” is also feminine with the meaning “glyph, marker, rune”. This could translate to lesser rune, second glyph, and so forth. Min could also suggest her birth order as second however the birth orders are usually a suffix and not a prefix, at least from what I could find.

Nere is a bit trickier. The only thing I could find on the list was “Neer” and it appears to be a gender neutral name, as it doesn’t have two options listed. Neer means “core, root, strong” and it seems to align with his personal viewpoints. Nere fans may have discovered his full name or something a bit more meaty but as of now that is the closest I could find.

Now we come to the main event, Kar’niss. The one piece of solid evidence I found was the meaning for the suffix “Niss”. It’s the feminine equivalent to “Nozz” and it means “chance, gambler, game”. I suppose “Kar’nozz” doesn’t roll off the tongue as fluidly as Kar’niss. So we have one piece of the puzzle, what about the prefix “Kar”?

That, dear reader, is where my biggest roadblock came into play. Nothing on any resource I’ve found lists Kar anywhere. Not in prefixes, suffixes, house names or Dark Seladrine Gods. A big, fat goose egg. It’s easy to think of Karsus when hearing that prefix, the most powerful wizard that ever lived. Maybe there is a link but honestly I feel like I’d be reaching really hard to make that connection. Kar’niss doesn’t really show signs of being interested in wizardry and if he was before his transformation, he says shit all about it now.

I was ready to give up. I don’t think Larian is the sort to do something without purpose. Even though Kar’niss is a side character, the work put into him leads me to believe that name has some significance. So in my stubborn way I kept looking, until a thought dawned on me. All this time I’ve been digging through drow specific information while ignoring the drider in the room. What about...elvish? Yes the two languages are very similar but drow have different dialect than surface elves. Kar’niss is very pale in complexion and we’ve theorized he could be a Szarkai. It would make sense for him to take on an elvish prefix especially if he was trying to fit into surface societies. There could be a small chance he’s half-drow but the game lists him as drow in his character window so I think that theory isn’t viable.

Down a new rabbit hole I went and I found some interesting information. The first piece I found came from Tolkien's elvish dictionary. Kar means “do, make, build” in elvish. Couple that with gambler, chance and game you could translate the full name to “Make your own luck” or even “Take a chance” depending on how you approached it. Other options are “Playing a bad/dangerous game”, “Making a bad decision/bet” or something more in the realms of a negative connotation.

The second piece I found came from forgotten realms. There are several words that have the word Kar listed in them. These three are the most notable:

Hakar: Enemy

Sekkar: Flee

Karask: Demon

Only one out of the three starts with Kar and it seems fitting for what Kar’niss became; A demon. Sekkar also aligns with the notion he was a Szarkai, as they preferred to flee from battle rather than engage. Enemy seems self explanatory, he could feel like he is the enemy of Lolth or the Underdark as a whole.

Out of them all the Tolkien option seems to suit the best. The others are part of a bigger word and while threads can be stretched between them, there is no way to say that they’d hold. So where does that leave us? Naturally with more questions than answers, but this does suggest a few intriguing directions Kar’niss could’ve come from.

It is apparent that Kar’niss is very subservient and afraid, but that doesn’t mean he always was. Taking on the feminine suffix “niss” could suggest he was a troublemaker or a bit of a jet setter while in the Underdark. Maybe he broke rules, said things he shouldn’t have, pushed boundaries. If he was a Szarkai he could’ve been sheltered from some of the more harsh treatment other males were known to endure. This could’ve made him arrogant, egotistical and brazen. He may have over stepped, made a bad gamble as it were, and it cost him everything. The feminine suffix of “niss” could also be a way to emasculate him further. Drider are sexless and Kar’niss’ lower regions no longer exist, something that might have bruised his pride terribly.

Alternatively, his suffix could’ve been given to him by others to suggest his luck at being born a Szarkai although that is more of a stretch. Kar could also align with how spiders make and build webs thus the distinction between the two. Or maybe he took on an elvish lover or friend and gave himself an elvish prefix in honor of them, or they gave him the name, even if such a relationship cost him in the end.

There are so many wild variations and theorycrafting you could do with those pieces of information. While most of it is loose the one thing I can say for sure is that the suffix “Niss” has great importance. I think he made a bad bet or played a dangerous game and lost, and becoming a drider is his punishment. Maybe he took on the trials of Lolth, something a few might consider a game, and lost there as well. Perhaps if I keep digging I can find something more solid to link him with the prefix “Kar” but as of right now this is what I could find.

So ends my journey for answers, for now at least. I hope this wall of text provided folks with some interesting information and ideas. Thanks for reading!

Sources: Tolkien's Elvish, Drow, Prefix/Suffix list for drow, Elven Lexicon, Drow naming practices.

[firstknightvulion]

Wyll: Why does Minthara call you babygirl?

Tav: Because I am her babygirl. Duh.

Wyll: You’re not worried about her past as…herself?

Tav: Everyone has past. I don’t care about her body count.

Wyll: …do you mean sex or actual kills?

Tav: Yes.

Wyll: And her future plans?

Tav: She plans to conquer the Spider Bitch’s realm. Realistically, that’s gonna take decades. Probably a century or two. All the while, I get to help her doing what I love. Destroying anything associated with Lloth.

Wyll: So nice of you to find a common interest.

Tav: It helps the relationship. You know, vibing at the same frequency.

The thing about Minthara that is so compelling about her is that she is irredeemable. She is that bad bitch.

SPOILERS

When you play as the Durge and refuse his power, she has deleted lines where she will break up with you. You can ask her about your shared love and she will mock you for it. What is love before literal divine power?

That is the crux of who she is. I kinda wish they kept it in.

I play “good” characters. Which made the prospect of romancing Minthara kinda none existent before Patch 5 rolled around. But then we got a way to get her without the mass murder of innocent people. But still, I approached the romance with Minthara much more deliberately than the others. She’s still ruthless and cruel. You want a hardass woman that goes soft for you, you gotta pick Lae’zel. Minthara will never compromise who she is.

Usually, it’s the established characters that get twisted to fit into a specific mold to romance your avatar. In Minthara’s case, I’m twisting my character to romance her. A good, male Seladrine Drow is usually a character that most people consider as far fetched as a partner for Minthara. And that’s why I like it. It’s a challenge, it makes the characters feel more real.

I guess I just wanna say thank you to Larian to writing a character so compelling.

[jestersarts]

Wanted to make a non-b3 'flayer OC for a while now and finally said fuck it and made a funny little squid.

Her name's Miette and she used to be a seladrine half-drow circus entertainer! She exhibits near-total partialism of personality/memory, still her extremely kind and jovial self even after ceremorphosis.

Her colony...begrudgingly tolerates this, as it consisted of a very sparse amount of runaways who only had a single mature tadpole to spare...

[everybodyloveshippos]

crazy that bg3 was like 'heres the lolth drow who all have Red eyes to indicate their evil levels and then the seladrine drow (do u rlly have to pick one of these??) who have different eye colours bcus theyre good and this is indicated thru physical traits meanwhile war of the spider queen had lolth's chosen vessel be a drow with grey eyes

[cirinalunas]

"I did not expect.. You." ⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Solenzara ⌇ Seladrine Drow ⌇ Necromancer ⌇ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

after having minthara for two evil runs i Wanted Her. Bad. love this woman sm, and her tailor made very tired wizard gf. i wanted more of a "lets be better together" kind of jive but man..... minthy is just....... a bad woman. but thats ok bc shes hot. anyways LETS GO LESBIANS!!!!!