My Perspective on Dark Elves, 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D – Part I

Awesome Bill Willingham art!

(I should start with the fact that I read the first books when they came out that featured Dark Elves by RA Salvatore in 1988 with the first being the Crystal Shard; however as you will see my experience fortunately predates his work by about one year).

Before I get into the particulars of the role-playing genre and dark elves in general, I think I should point out a few things. Unlike most people that started playing the game, I was not a geek or nerd per se. I suspect that some had the same path as me, but not too many. I played sports (football even from the time I was 7-8), had lots of girlfriends even from an early age. So suffice to say I was not the lonely prototypical nerd staying in my basement playing D&D to the exclusion of all else. In fact, some of my girlfriends in high school were downright hot! (what the Hell they were doing with me is another post for another time ;) I might be a geek now, but I digress. So for at least me it blows the angst geek stereotype that wants to play dark elves right out of the water.

Now, with all this said I have a terrible secret: I have played drow characters! Harsh? Fan-boy, I know? Hardly. However, I have only played two in my gaming life of 30 years and both were fun for different reasons.

My first experience with dark elves started with the first AD&D book I bought myself, the much maligned Unearthed Arcana. Contained within the tome, really a collection of Gary Gygax's home campaign notes to a large degree, were expanded rules for demi-human races, including Dark Elves. Funny when I look at it now, the deep gnomes may have even more munchkin rules than the dark elves! The Duergar and the Dark Elves are about neck and neck in my honest opinion.

Playing in one of our last 1st edition D&D campaigns in high school before we switched to 2nd, I decided to play a dark elf fighter/magic-user wielding a spetum and shield to mean effect and casting many a fireball and lightning bolt that crossed his path. This was late 1986/early 1987. I still have his character sheet and looking through his notes he finished at around levels 7/9 for about 2 years of play. His name was Relendor Silkenweb. The main memories I have of playing him was that he was very much a mercenary and approached most obstacles with that mindset.

My second dark elf was from the 90s and was created in early 1997 for a 2nd Edition AD&D campaign. Previously the DM tried to get us to play Basic via the Rules Cyclopedia. For one reason or another the group stopped playing and reformed a few weeks later. I played an elf fighter with a morbid curiosity towards death. With that short-lived character called Cormac in Basic D&D I came up with the idea of my second dark elf character named Yonel Var-Empyr, a dark elf elven knight using a kit from Elves of the Evermeet based off Cormac.

Now how I got to this was a bit weird so bear with me. At the time I was re-reading all of the Elric books and being easy reads I plowed through them all. It was from this third read that I would later form up his back-story. I also remember being influenced by Worf on Star Trek - The Next Generation.

I also chalk some of it up to breaking my leg in thirteen places and being on pain killers for months on end...

With all that said, the character gained a ton of back history and it melded to the history of the game the DM presented. It was quite organic. He eventually became a leader of outcast elves, mainly surface elves at that. The interesting thing is that at either time with either character I can’t say I was influenced by the Dark Elf sagas of Drizzt Do’Urden. Shocking I know? In the first case I looked up some drow names from D3 - Descent into the Depths of the Earth and jumbled something around or dropped some letters. In the second case more Elric influence. Can’t quite remember how I came up with the second name.

So what does this have to do with dark elves per se I hear you say? Nothing and everything. As a player that came in a later wave to D&D and 1st AD&D via the Moldvay boxed set I got for Christmas in 1982, I have a different perspective of TSR and its events relating to dark elves, and the road that led to second edition. I mention these because to many the two are the same thing: dark elves and 2nd edition.

Switching gears a bit: Being 12 in 1985, I only had a vague impression or understanding that Gary Gygax had left TSR and no idea as to all the reasons till many years later. So with this in mind my friends and I had about two years of AD&D under our belts and much of that was figuring out what to do with it and coming up with some munchkin characters that make anything R.A. Salvatore could come up with look tame in comparison.

We noodled around with both Basic and AD&D and blended them together as I am sure a lot of people did. I quit that group and joined another group which is where I played my first dark elf listed above. From there I played with some excellent guys who are still my friends to this day, yes even including the 2nd edition games.

Now cross this with my DMing. In my current gaming group either one other DM and I take the DMing chores. In the times I DM’d I think I have used the dark elves as protagonists exactly once as a minor story arc revolving around a human PC cleric. When it is all said and done my favorite underdark race and one that I often use in my AD&D games is the Derro, another creature that first appeared in 1st edition AD&D...

So thus you have my perspective as a Dungeon Master (I rarely use them) and I have played exactly two dark elves since 1982. Thus the stage is set for my discussion of Drizzt, Dark Elves and 2nd edition AD&D.

So this closes out Part I. I will be starting on Part II soon. That next one is going to really get into the meat if you will, mirroring my analysis of the rise of 2nd Edition and the hated cliché of the Dark Elf character, what the archetype means and how it mirrored TSR.

 

Jack Whyte’s Camlann Chronicles / A Dream of Eagles

Now that the holidays are done and the Word of Hashut is underway, I thought I would take a moment to talk about my latest readings. As noted to the side, I am reading Glen Cook’s The Black Company. However my erstwhile friend Randy just provided me with book 6 of the Camlann Chronicles (or in Canada, A Dream of Eagles) by Jack Whyte

This is a great series that I can’t say enough about. I have recommended it to a few of my friends and work colleagues and thus far no one has disliked it. Without spilling the beans too much, it is set in the time of the historical Arthur and gives plausible reasons as to why and how the legends have come down to us the way they have. I say “historical Arthur” but then again that is truly up for debate anyway. I won’t spoil it by saying anything further — just pick up the series.

Currently, I am on Book Six: The Sorcerer Part 2 – Metamorphosis, which is six out of nine.

Again, highly recommended.

The Bellower Issue 3 is Out

Sorry gang but it has been a while with health issues and all and hopefully I find out some good news later today from my doctor.

I have also updated what I am currently reading. If you have not read the Jack Whyte series called either the Dream of Eagles or the Camlann Chronicles (depends on where you live) then I highly recommend doing so. Great read and a great telling of a classic tale, perhaps the classic tale.

On to other stuff: I see that the next issue of the Bellower is out from Ogre Stronghold so it is time for me to download and review it.

The issue can be downloaded from here: http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=17070.0

At a quick glance I like the cover (I knew what it was however due to the Ad exchanges amongst the current ezines in production). Looks like it will be a good read.

Also on the horizon I am hoping to start reviews of some of the fan made modules for 1st and 2nd edition AD&D. We will see how that goes.

First 2nd Edition Module done!

Despite tons of tribulations in my life right now I managed to somehow get my first module for 2nd Edition AD&D done: W2 - Assault on the Hill Giant Raiders to a playable form. (It is called W2 because module W1 is taking far longer to write than I would like).

This came about from my players getting some fairly high level characters and wanting to challenge them with giants but not wanting to resort to G1-3 Against the Giants by Gary Gygax. While I love G1-3 I wanted to opt for something different. Thus this first stab.

Look for more to come as I write them.

Willmark

UPDATE: as of 7/4/26. I decided a long time ago to not push forward with publishing 2nd edition modules.  I ended up using this adventure twice in two different campaigns and it was a success each time.

Gold and Glory #4 Released – Ezine Layout and Design Thoughts

Once again I go insane by actually designing and laying out not one ezine, but two. 

In this case I am talking about Gold and Glory #4 rather than the Word of Hashut. As soon as I finished it I had to immediately start working on Word of Hashut #9, which is now very, very late as a result. It was fun and it was nice to do something different.

This time around I tried out a few new things in terms of layout and it brought me back to the Winter of last year when I did Gold and Glory #1 (February 2010).

One thing is for sure: there is no way I can do two, so I am sure that the Gold and Glory crew will be looking to hire some folks to work on it.

Also a nice touch is TwilightCo's cover for this issue, his second in a row.

Issue #4 can be found here. Enjoy!

Gold and Glory #4... is done!

Exclusive news here! I have finished the layout for Gold and Glory #4, the ezine of http://dogsofwaronline.com/


In the coming week I hope to have this one out by Friday next week as I'm getting well into Word of Hashut #9. That will be a blog post for a later point and is going to be a great one.

Good to see just who is reading/following this blog. ;)

The Bellower Issue 2

The big flabby guts over at Ogre Stronghold are back at it again, and this time with the latest release of the Bellower. The Bellower being the ezine of the excellent Ogre Stronghold website. As one would imagine (but for the benefit of those not in the know) this is for the game of Warhammer, specifically the Ogre faction of the Warhammer World. The Ogre Kingdoms site can be accessed at: (www.ogrestronghold.com)

In much the same way the production delays seem to plague the Word of Hashut the Bellower got out a bit later than last time, not that I know anything about that...

For layout it is in the horizontal (landscape) format again and that is fine. To me personally it is immaterial as my laptop is often hooked up to a large monitor for reading or I read them on my home desktop and a 24” screen…

There are no real noticeable production glitches and being the geek that I am I noticed that the ezine was created in Scribus which is open source. That would be my choice if I did not use InDesign on Gold and Glory and The Word of Hashut so kudos there. Why would anyone check this you ask? Because if you create these things you wonder what someone else is using that’s why. Scribus is freely available from here: http://www.scribus.net

First off the good things that I liked or noticed as I read through it

Great job on the cover. A good looking cover is a necessity for ezines in this day and age. In a world of increasing ezines it is harder to stand out unless there is a good cover. This one fulfills those requirements. The cover also ties in nicely to the content inside. It shows that the Bellower Staff is looking at theme rather than a random picture on the cover that has only marginal meaning to the contents.

I enjoyed the focus on the Trapper. It is always nice to see articles that challenge the status quo of thinking for a particular army, whether it is from the theoretical or a necessity. All too often many Warhammer players can’t get out of their rut. I think those that don’t play “Point and Click armies” are able to do this better and such is the case here. Also the Trapper article was well laid out and an easy read. A few more graphics and/or pictures might have helped it “breathe” a bit more as the last page of the article felt a bit cramped in terms of its space.

I also really liked the recap of Animosity IV. This is a great example of a short, concise article that gets to the salient points quickly and is an easy read. Great job here Mercules.

The Saber step-by-step guide: It was well laid out and clear about what steps you were doing. In short a great guide for a newbie to follow. A few bigger pictures showing the painted goods might have gone a long way here.

I like the look of the ezine with varying shades of gray. It breaks up the pages nicely. With that said see my comments below about improvements. Also the flip side of prolonged usage of white text on dark backgrounds is eyestrain. This issue has a lot of reversed type. The flip is to beware of too dark of a background with black type as it can blend. (Of course this blog is black and white but I keep the posts short(ish).)

Things to work on

The next step for the Bellower Team is to step up their game and to attempt an ezine in full color. The (largely) black and white layout/theme is well executed and looks great. It is also fun to do once in a while but for the sake of variation it is good to add more color. This is more difficult to accomplish but worth it to give it a try. This is more of a style thing, not that anything is wrong.

I noticed a few typos here and there; nothing too major and I know how tough it can be to catch them all.

Careful use of the text wrapping tools! I know for a fact how tricky this one can be. The fact that the software can easily wrap text is great. The downside is that it can produce tight text to an object or even weird separations or gaps of the text. When finished it is always a good idea to have someone else look at it who has a fresh set of eyes: after looking at it for months you tend to fill stuff in mentally, I know I do.

From the layout perspective the Painting Competition article was a bit unfocused. What I mean is that it was not always clear looking at it what won what placing in the competition. I know I did a double take a few times here and there. Once I looked it over again I can see where the idea was going but it seemed a bit disjointed.

The back cover is a minor point but an important one. The back cover sets the tone for the next issue and also gives a sneak peek as to what is coming next. Now how this goes it is likely that someone was supposed to do it then “something came up” forcing Randroid to scramble, not that I would know anything like that.

If you are looking for a great read that focuses on the flabby mercs of the Warhammer World then these are your lads and this is your mag. There is nothing bad about the issue at all and overall I would feel comfortable giving it a 4 out of 5 rating, easily. All in all a fine effort from the group here and all around it is nice to see an improvement from Issue 1. Congratulations on the good work and keep it up.

Willmark