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A review by kalliahlunar
Daughter of the Drow by Elaine Cunningham
5.0
I quite enjoyed this book for its expansion of Drow lore, it does a great job of filling in the gaps left by the Drizzt books and bringing Menzoberanzzan to life, making it a functional society albeit undeniably chaotic. Liriel's journey out of the Underdark and to new ways of thinking makes sense and I love her. I would read part of this book and then go play my Drow tav and go back and forth and I got a lot of inspiration for my character and her arc. I remember reading about Liriel encountering the priestesses of Eliistraee and then returning to my game and pulling Phar Aluve from the rock, it's so fun to have that connection.
That said, I'm really glad that the dnd source books and community have moved to the idea of Drow are shades of blue, purple, and gray, because reading this book today, the concept that there's these evil elves underground and they all have black skin is so obviously offensive to real people. Like the original cover for this book, good Lord.
Reading this book from a feminist theory lens is also fascinating because you can read a story about a matriarchy that's written by someone from a society that still has some patriarchal ideas, and you can see that bleed through.
All said I liked it
That said, I'm really glad that the dnd source books and community have moved to the idea of Drow are shades of blue, purple, and gray, because reading this book today, the concept that there's these evil elves underground and they all have black skin is so obviously offensive to real people. Like the original cover for this book, good Lord.
Reading this book from a feminist theory lens is also fascinating because you can read a story about a matriarchy that's written by someone from a society that still has some patriarchal ideas, and you can see that bleed through.
All said I liked it