I've noticed that the two canonically matriarchal races in D&D are also traditionally evil: the drow and gnolls. (There might be others, but I'm unaware of them? If there are, please point them out!) I might be jumping to conclusions with the gnolls... I'm going on the fact that they're modelled after hyenas (both hyenas and their concurrent evolution buddies, wild dogs, are matriarchal).
Don't get me wrong--I think both of these races are great. But I think it would be cool to have a few traditionally good races that also happen to be matriarchal.
What do you think?
I'll try to define what I mean by matriarchy. A matriarchy is not just a society with female rulers, but a society that is female-dominant. What I mean by that is that female is treated as the default. Leadership positions would go primarily to women, yes, but it's more than that.
Most prominent public figures would be female. Legends would overflow with women and girl heroes. Female bodies would not be objectified. Feminine pronouns would be the default. Words like witch (with a b), hag, and derogatory terms for female body parts would not exist. Feminine qualities would be valued over masculine qualities. That sort of thing.
To my understanding, Gnolls aren't Matriarchal. Males and Females have equal power, look much the same, though often the female will be even larger, but this isn't always the case. The leader of the pack is the strongest, whether male or female. Zaiden is a great example of a powerful Gnoll matriarch, but there are plenty of Gnoll patriarchs as well, like the White Ruin that either killed the last King of Nerath, King Elidyr, or is still fighting him somewhere in the Abyss (that's in the 4e assumed setting). But according to Dragon #367's "Playing Gnolls" article, they have gender equality. They're just equally evil. I do have to concede though, lineage for Gnolls is traced through the mother, but plenty of Patriarchal societies do that.
Marandahir wrote:
@Marandahir: Yes, gnolls are matrilineal. I took that as a sign that they leaned more toward matriarchy, but you're right that such isn't always the case.
@Masterfat78: There's no way I'm gonna spell his name, but he's a demon lord.
ChimericalBeast wrote:
Sturmunddrang wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
masterfat78 wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
Hell with Gnolls you can't even tell the diffrence between Male's and Females unless pregnent or nursing. The Gnoll god is the Demon Prince Yeenoghu.
The only races that I know to treat members of one sex like second class citizens are drow (matriarchal) and orcs (patriarchal). For the good races such relationships are not usually defined, so I assume they're mostly egalitarian when it comes to the sexes, with dwarves leaning slightly to patriarchy and elves to matriarchy (based solely on the vibe I get from the races, not actual quotable knowledge).
@Masterfat78: Cool! Elf societies are a bit more equal, then, as far as leadership roles go.
@MonsterEnvy: Outsiders can't tell the difference, other gnolls might have no trouble at all 
EDIT:
@The_White_Sorcerer: I didn't know that about orcs. I'll look into that.
I think I should probably define what I mean by matriarchy and patriarchy in my first post...
Also DND loves too do amazon societies, although not always evil they have had a tendacy too portray them as stubborn and whatnot, although usually good in combat and tactics.
ChimericalBeast wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
Some of that might be because surface societies tend to be modeled after historical Europe, which was a bit patriarchal.
Although, in some worlds gender is downplayed. In the Forgotten Realms, in theory both genders are meant to be equal.
ChimericalBeast wrote:
The drow (and elves in general) are pretty much the ONLY default matriarchy in the game. Even gnolls seem to be pretty heavily twisted towards patriarchy (male demon lord creator).
Elves in general are pretty feminine as a whole - even Corellon leans towards the feminine (see the transgender opening in Basic!), and other major elven god (the composite moon goddess Sehanine) is a woman as well. Elven queens tend to be more common than elf kings, in my experience. Many elves in general have what many in society consider feminine features to them, both male and female. So, even if the elf ruler is male, the society as a whole usually is very feminine. The drow just take those aspects to an exteme. (Dwarves, interestingly enough, tend to have large quanties of what many consider masculine qualties in both genders, as well as male gods and rulers, while orcs take the patriarchy aspects to the extreme).
So, while I won't say that the matriarchy is portrayed as evil in the game, its just overwhelmingly absent from the game outside of elven culture. The only other true matriarchy I know of is a random country in Faerun, Rashemen, ruled by female mages. You also occasionally get your fantasy-amazon-culture, though that often ends up comprised of wood elves, and looping back into elf culture instead of being something distinct.
So, its not that matriarchies are universally portrayed as evil. Its more that matriarchies aren't portrayed almost ever outside of elves. The drow are just the most loud example, so they get the most attention.
masterfat78 wrote:
My impression of D&D worlds in every society with a X rules and is in all most of the power slots while the rest of society is second class citizens is evil, whether its mages, women or flumphs. Other societies may be evil as well, but the good societies are generally relatively balanced with a bit of a slide to one side or the other for gender.
Sturmunddrang wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
Mephi1234 wrote:
Sturmunddrang wrote:
souldoubt wrote:
Sturmunddrang wrote:
Calling a society patriarchal assumes a long history of male dominance. Aside from the drow matriarchy, most cultures in D&D are highly ambiguous; that is, their history is rather minimally sketched out, so it's undefined whether, eg, female fire elementals were allowed to vote before the Time of Troubles or whatever. At best we have a short list of historic names for each culture, and we can try to make a random guess bSed at the apparent gender distribution on that list. Seems kind of shaky to me, since for example if you asked me (an ignorant American) to list important British royalty, the list would probably be mostly female (Victoria, Mary, Elizabeth...) even though Britain is far from matriarchal.
So if you want to make everyone egalitarian, the settings mostly support that. If you want to make gnomes matriarchal, go ahead, although honestly a lot of the modern imaginings of matriarchal society, including the ostensibly feminist ones, ironically seem rife with their own sexist assumptions. ("If women ruled the world, there'd be no war!" Because I guess ovaries would prevent the cultures with better weapons from using their tactical advantage to secure more resources...)
I believe a similar thread was locked due to this basically being stuff too sensitive for this board.
In most established D&D worlds the majority of societies aren't patriarchal. As stated women in most D&D campaign settings get equal access to all roles in society and with exceptions of mostly evil cultures there is no imbalance in treatment and power, beyond what the player brings into it with their own biases.
Look at the Forgotten Realms: most countries have female leadership (either wholly or partially when power is shared by a council), they don't keep women from serving in the military or from becoming clergy. Inheritance of rulership usually isn't restricted based on gender with the females only assuming power because there's no male alternative (which is how most of England's queens came into power, because all male heirs died off so even a first born female had to wait until there was no males left before she could take power).
Yeenoghu, the Demon Prince of Gnolls, is male, but Gnolls aren't patriarchal. They're another example of a D&D race trying to be gender-equal and succeeding at being minimalist, allowing DMs to make the final decisions. As others have said, Orcs and Drow are really the only stand-out races with Patriarchal or Matriarchal societies assumed in the game, though Elves tend towards matriarchy and Dwarves tend towards patriarchy, while still having much more "equal" societies due to their racial characteristics being very much the feminine vs masculine split. Humans only have a patriarchal society if you let them have it; the assumed game leaves them gender-neutral, and FR TRIES to be gender-neutral. Haflings are gender-neutral, but might even lean matriarchal, what with Yondalla in Greyhawk, and Avandra in Nerath, etc., as their patron deities. Dragonborn tend to be both Patriarchal and Matriarchal depending on their alignment, which leads to unfortunate implications, but this is because of the history of Bahamut and Tiamat. Arkhosia, the Dragon and Dragonborn Empire in the world of Nerath (the assumed 4e setting) had a gender-neutral society, which worshipped BOTH Bahamut and Tiamat as separate but equal incarnations of Io the Supreme. Tieflings are assumed Gender neutral, if 4e material on them is to be understood (major leaders of various Tiefling houses in Bael Turath were both male and female, and there didn't seem to be any real discrimination of the sexes). Half-elves and Half-orcs tend to follow their society of upbringing. Gnomes may be slightly on the patriarchal side (especially with the wizzand old long-beared Gnome Kings and Sages as common racial tropes), but I haven't seen any real discrimination towards female gnomes.
Other races: Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Bugbears – I really don't know anything about their gender politics. Same with Kobolds, though I would assume they actually would be a bit more Matriarchal, given that their patron deity, Kurtulmak, is an Exarch of Tiamat, and they really worship Tiamat as much if not more than Kurtulmak. Shadar-kai are Matriarchal, and are not evil, but Neutral. The Netheresi Shades and Shadar-kai are more evil, and are matriarchal, so that's a point more for evil matriarchies, but in settings that aren't the Forgotten Realms, Shadar-kai are a badass neutral race that worship non-evil gods of death (dark ≠ evil). Warforged are non-gendered, but if they decide on a gender, they obviously are conforming to cultural norms, but since they don't have a real culture (outside of the evil Warforged gathering under the Lord of Blades in the Mournlands), they can't really be classified. Goliaths may tend towards Patriarchy, but they're a bit too sketchy a race to define. Satyrs and Nymphs/Hamadryads/Dryads are gender-neutral but also gender-segregated, where they act like two separate, monogendered, monosexual races that have interspecies romances and interbreed for the sake of propogation of young. Pixies are gender neutral. Revenants are a created race that base themselves off of other races, and thus can't be classified. Vryloka worship a female deity, and thus place females in high regard, but are otherwise gender neutral. Vistani are from a multitude of different races, and have different roles for males and females, but ultimately are gender-neutral. Shifters tend to be patriarchal or matriarchal depending on the base animal their werefolk ancestors were kin to (Razorclaw Shifters tend to be more matriarchal, Longtooth Shifters more patriarchal, but even those two are debatable depending on whether they were Werewolves or Werefoxes or Weredogs or Weretigers or Werelions or Werecats, etc, all of which might have different gendered societies). The Shifters and mixed Werefolk of the Brokenstone Vale in the Feywild are gender-neutral by default. Genasi and Devas are both too spread thin to form societies, as are Shardminds, who also have the issue of being crystal-being psionic constructs, and thus so far-removed from gender-norms that even if they formed societies, I doubt it would be relevant. Minotaurs are a mix – the evil ones are clearly Patriarchal, as they worship Bahamut, but I've seen a lot more good FEMALE Minotaurs (Cow women!) than good MALE ones, and I'd guess the good Minotaur societies end up more gender-neutral. Githzerai followed a male philosopher-leader, while Githyanki followed a female lich-queen, but both races tend more towards gender-neutrality. Lizardfolk are too sketchy to tell, but I think they're gender-neutral. Same with Bullywugs. Tuathans are really a culture of Humans and Half-elves from the Feywild, and they tend towards gender-neutrality as far as I can see. Wilden (Killoren in 3.5e) are more plant-like than animal-like, and their society is more hive-mindish, so I think gender-issues don't really apply all that much to them. Muls are an enslaved race in both Athas and Nerath; in Nerath, they're slaves to the Drow, and thus their culture is influenced by that matriarchy. In Athas, they're slaves to the Sorcerer-Kings' city-states, and perhaps are more gender-neutral; not that it matters; they have no rights and no real society regardless. Thri-kreen are gender neutral to my recollection, correct me if I'm wrong. Changeling inhabit other cultures, so they don't really count for these either. Kalashtar and the Inspired are both gender-neutral "races." Elans are humans that have become immortals through astral stuff, and thus have no real societies. The Illumians vanished, but before they did, their society was gender-netural. Modrons are just plain out, being robotic beings that wouldn't understand what you mean really by gender, as cute as they are. I think that covers all of the "common" races. Please fill in the gaps if I forgot any.
There are also egalitarian societies, dating back to antiquity such as the Gauls or Ancient Egypt, sort of a vast middle ground between patri-/matriarchy. In a world where magic exists, there is no need to cling to european examples such a Britain and France, inheritors or the Roman tradition which was indeed patriarchal. Drow women are larger than the men physically, so the old paradigm was probably figured very simplistically: larger equals dominant. This seems to led to some unfortunate connotations, which were most likely unintended.
Matriarchy does not exist in any real society and would only occur in an environment where women opressed the men into sumission. Oppression = evil. Non evil societies would at best end up egalitarian.
The reason for the predominance of Patriarchy in society comes down to Hunter/Gatherer origins in which because of the need for the female to breast feed children they stayed back and became the gathereres while the males would venture further from the family because they did not have to travel with a child. With men actively usind tools and weapons to hunt they became more skilled in their use and if a there was a power struggle between male and female dominance the males would have the advantage over the females. This meant at best societies would end up with both sexes equal in political power. Most hunter/gatherer tribes were egalitarian as both sexes had very important roles to fill. It was not until Humans developed agriculture that allowed for a food surplus did patriarchy become more dominant.
Races like the Drow became Matriarchal because of a divine influence that changed the male/female balance through direct influence.
CelticPaladin wrote:
Compared to how many patriarical societies that are evil? Illuskan and the former Brotherhood Arcane, the Moonshae Northmen, the Zhentarim, the Netheril...
Compared to that two Matriarical that are evil isn't so bad.
And before someone complains about no good 'matriarical' societies, the Rashamen Witches rule Rashamen and they were not out and out evil. More Neutral, but not as Evil as the Drow.
A patriarchal/matriarchal society isn't inherently sexist (or evil, for that matter). It can simply mean that in most households/familiies the head is usually one gender, with no implications at all about leaders of the whole society. Yes, it can also apply to cultures where one gender dominates/enslaves the other, but that's not implicit in the word.
Anyway, back on track, I think of dragons as matriarchal. But that may just be me.
Marandahir wrote:
CVB wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
Drow and Gnolls are fine, please let's not cast personal crap all over them.
The OP is the result of Cultural Marxist indoctrination. As such, the game you run will read like a script written by Joe Slovo.
Grazel wrote:
Please lock down this thread, it's like the old "never discuss religion and politics at a dinner-party".
Marandahir wrote:
Elton74 wrote:
In my setting, all gnolls are born male.
As they kill intelligent beings, they grow lady parts. More kills, more lady parts.
The dwarven word for a gnoll grandma is translated as "army slaughter".
So gnolls have to kill to survive as a species. They are less evil and more destructive out of neccessity. Pointed in the right direction and they can be a force for good or evil. But they have to kill something.
This thread has now gotten too big for me to respond individually to each response, but rest assured I am reading them all.
First off, I'm terribly sorry if I've offended anyone. To clarify, I don't believe either patriarchy or matriarchy is inerently more or less just or any better than the other.
This could be my own bias showing, but I've tended to assume "patriarchy, unless specified otherwise." For example
(LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER SPOILERS):
I saw goblinoids as patriarchal because the only NPCs with specified genders were male, including those in positions of authority.
(END SPOILERS).
Different cultures within various races (such as humans, dwarves, elves, etc.) with specific gender dynamics are totally valid and I'm looking forward to researching these.
Those who are saying that patriarchy or matriarchy in the extremes would be inherently unjust and, therefore, bad are absolutely correct. But they aren't always portrayed that way (not just in D&D; all over). Also, subtler forms tend to be ignored or normalized (again, not just D&D). To be prefectly clear, when I ask for examples of good aligned matriarchal cultures, I'm not saying "we should base our society off this in real life." I'm saying "this might be a cool background for a PC to have."
To simplify what I'm hoping WotC might give us is "one canonically, explicity matriarchal race that is traditionally good aliagned."
Yes, the drow are annoying, both from colorist/shadist and from sexist perspectives. Yes their original conception as a race played into the assumption that female political power is by default unnatural and bad. Yes the people who came up with them had some pretty serious personal issues. Yes they remain extra annoying due to the lack of explicitly matriarchal good societies, and the ongoing default to explicitly patriarchal good societies in much campaign material and liscenced fiction.
The drow have always been a problem in this regard. And they will always remain that way, as the lore is too entrenched. If they bother you like they bother me, I recommend completely re-writing them for your core campaign. Here's a tip for home brewers looking to reflavor elves in general and drow in particular: elves in most settings are are known for having a deep spiritual connection to the world. In both 4e and 5e D&D, the world is split into three faces: fey/arcane, natural, and shadowy/dark. There happen to be three subraces of elf - a fey/arcane subrace, a natural subrace, and a shadowy/dark subrace. Just Saying.
Bonus tip: a female trinity appears in a few mythologies and fantasy sources, with perhaps the most archetypal form being the maid/mother/crone. Such a trinity also seems to naturally fit with the fey/natural/shadow division of the world and the elven races in D&D. I'm not sure 5e even has a default deity lineup, but in 4e it was pretty easy to appropriate/refluff Sehanine, Melora, and the Raven Queen to fit that set up, and then put those three as the top deities of the respective elven branches (with Corellon not as the chief high elf deity, but rather as the consort of a chief deity too wild and free to be tied down with the daily business of tending to her people's needs).
Now Drow have a reason to be dark (connection to the shadowfell) without being necessarily evil, and all elven races have a cultural reason to be matriarchal as the chosen peoples of a fundamentally female earth mother / gaia trinity. It basically writes itself, and IMO has a lot more thematic resonance and story potential than yet another 'half of X fall to evil and they hate/fight each other to this day' story. All just IMO, of course. Just a suggestion that anyone can take or leave. Heck, if you wanted you could even maintain a rivalry or divide or historical falling out between high elves and drow, what with their patron deities and mindsets being the most opposed of the trinity.
As for core drow, though, yeah. They're icky. And not in a "I'm pleasantly creeped out by this fictional creepy monster" sort of way, but rather in the "I'm unpleasantly creeped out by the real life creeps who came up with this stuff, and mildly threatened by the fans who cleave to it so adamantly while refusing to even consider the implications and often getting angry at those who so much as mention them" sort of way. Not much that can be done about it at this point, though, as, again, it's just way too entrenched.
As for gnolls - hyenas have female-dominated social groups, and have a (largely undeserved) bad reputation & cultural stigma, so it's easy to see how gnolls got to be where they are without anybody having to draw on gross hangups in their creation, but it is unfortunate how they fit into the pattern.
Just off the top of your head, can you think of any male dominated societies that are "evil?"
tuffn00gies wrote:
A few. Duergar, iirc? Orcs, usually. Goblins often to my recollection, but that might be more about how they've been run in games I've played in than how they've been portrayed in canon source material.
The problems with drow are less that there is a female dominated evil race, but rather that they stand out as such when there aren't really any cannon matriarchal good races. But even that is less of an issue than how the Drow are designed and conceived. They aren't 'matriarchal' so much as they are a parody of matriarchal, a false performance of 'female power' in the service of male sexual fantasies. Hence the dominatrix themes, the female drow typically wearing lingerie as clothing and posing sexily all the time, while the men are fully dressed. Female drow are also typically very stereotypically portrayed, while male drow, good and evil, tend to have more individuality and character. Basically, Drow society is blatantly conceived of to titilate a presumed male audience while also just casually buying into the idea that female political power is weird and unnatural and bad, and that makes basically the entire drow race as a game element rather insulting. It only takes a tiny bit of critical observation and reasoning to come to the conclusion that it's better to just dump them and start the dark elf concept over from scratch in your home game.
And that's just looking at the sexist angle, not even bringing the colorist/shadist element in.
malisteen wrote:
I like Eberron's take on Goblinoids myself, as a culture forst to the outskirts of civilization not because they're feral barbarians but because their lands and cities were taken from them, who often hate and attack the 'civilized' races not because they're evil monsters, but rather because they're the struggling remnants of an oppressed people for whom hatred of the 'occupiers' is in every way a rational response. Then again, portraying them that way sort of makes the players the 'bad guys', if their response to a hobgoblin raid is to follow the goblins back to their camp and kill them, while on the other hand negotiating any sort of peace between the goblins and the local human villiage is nigh impossible due to the historical context. On the one hand, that's a very disempowering set up for the characters, and as such might not be what the players are looking to play. On the other hand, it's a much more engaging and honest scenario, and gets even more interesting when you consider the possibility of the players actually playing the goblinoids themselves.
Unfortunately, in more archetypal 'boot & loot' D&D campaigns, that kind of political & moral ambivalence gets in the way. For such games, there needs to be a clear distinction between 'good guy' and 'bad guy', that makes it ok to play the former and kill the latter. It often makes for funner games (although fun isn't the only thing one might look to get out of a game). But 'evil races' or 'evil subraces' never did sit right with me. Heck, even going back to the patriarch of the genre, they didn't sit right with Tolkein either. Yes, he had his 'just evil' orcs, but as time went on he came to regret that narrative/conceptual decision.
So it's a difficult balancing act in general. The more humanlike a fantasy species is, the less ok it is conceptually for them to be 'just evil' so players can kill them without care. If it sits poorly with you, but you still need such for your campaign, then try homebrewing things to be more inhuman and monstrous. Goblins as fey creatures born of nightmares, attack-on-titan style mindless giants that exist only to kill and eat, or campaigns where undead or aberrations are the primary antagonists.
I think the thread is a little lopsided.
Yes Drow are a high visibility case of 'evil matriarchy', and the Elves of Forgotten Realms AND Greyhawk (in the Kingdom of Celene) are ruled by females.
I think this has more to do with Elves being led by a woman in Lord of the Rings and female spiders being bigger and badder than their male counterparts rather than anything sexist.
Anyway - I am having a number of cultures female-led in my Homebrew campaign and don't generally recognise gender bias in most races as presented either as Character Races or Monsters.
I think this is a case of looking in the mirror and seeing/applying your own bias to what you see.
Caliburn101. wrote:
Caliburn101. wrote:
The drow are a race that is female-dominant, has black skin, and is portrayed as evil. It is true that this is problematic only when applying instances of real world sexism and racism, but given that art reflects life and women and people of color encounter discrimination constantly in their real lives, it isn't hard to understand why they might find the portrayal of the drow somewhat offensive.
Ideally, we could all check our personal baggage at the door before sitting down to play D&D, but that isn't going to happen. It goes both ways, too: the campaign I play in most often has players (and a DM) that apply real world concepts of such things as decency and discrimination to the game. For better or for worse, we play our fantasy in much the same way we experience our lives.
I remember Drow from about the beginning, while people may take issue with them today, pretty sure there was no fetish or bias intended in ther creation.
Good races don't have oppressive regime's to the level of Drow for either gender. Drow are fairly unique in their wild gender inequality so they stand out. If you had a good-aligned race that treated men (or women) the way drow treat men, they would cease to be good aligned.
R_Dragoner wrote:
@Eric888: Drow are fairly unique in the D&D multiverse. I am not asking for another matriarchal race that treats its men as the drow treat theirs.
To be honest, I think that if WotC had several women artists, writers, and game designers have a crack at the drow there might be some very interesting and fun results.
Most geek hobby products would be pretty significantly improved with more diversity among their creative staff. D&D is actually not the worst in this regard by a mile, and WotC in particular have taken pains to try and improve the product in this regard, though some of the attempts have been a little too... cute for me. Still, they've made some effort to show more diversity among the sample artwork, they made overt attempts to address the issue of women in D&D around the 3e release first with an extended thread discussing it (which got into the hundreds of pages of posts and included a lot of very good discssion), and even the whole separate 'astrid's parlor' subforum on the boards, moving from default masculine pronouns in the game books to alternating male & female, trying 2nd person pronouns, etc.
Deliberate effort, which is appreciated. WotC isn't the 'dig in the heels' type in this, if they were I wouldn't play their games. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do to really fix the drow short of completely rewrite them, and they're too entrenched for that at this point.
But yeah, more diversity in the staff room of course would always be helpful. There's a noticeable difference between a middle to upper class straight white dude trying to be sensitive and someone who's actually lived a different experience to that, and if you want a diverse audience then you really need to reflect that desired audience in your staff room.
@malisteen: I wasn't trying to criticize WotC's employment system or anything. I was just remembering looking at some art done of the male and female drow which was noticably influenced by the male gaze, and I thought, "Maybe they should have asked a few women to pitch cothing design ideas."
Certainly couldn't hurt. And I was mostly trying to say the same thing, albeit far less concisely.
malisteen wrote:
Drow are fine, please do not let other's twisted views of racism and sexism skew you.
Brock_Landers wrote:
malisteen wrote:
R_Dragoner wrote:
Elton74 wrote:
Sturmunddrang wrote:
Sturmunddrang wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
Sturmunddrang wrote:
Sturmunddrang wrote:
Mechagamera wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
Grazel wrote:
Man... where's Astrid's Parlor when you need it?
ChimericalBeast wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
Been Dazed and Confused for so long it's not true.
Wanted a woman, never bargained for you.
Lots of people talkin', few of them know
Soul of a woman was created below.
malisteen wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
souldoubt wrote:
malisteen wrote:
@Malisteen: You have an excellent point about the types of fantasy the drow provide (ostensibly and in actuality). I think with some tweaking, they can fulfill a female power fantasy, even if it's also saying "oh, by the way, your fantasy only comes in evil." With some deconstruction, I think the drow could provide a means of commenting on real life patriarchy. Either with the evil played down to better reflect a direct inversion, or left as-is to show it taken to an extreme. Of course, that could make players feel uncomfortable. Kind of "you got your social commentary in my escapism" (not to downplay the importance of escapism: Heaven knows that's why I drive over an hour to and from my DM's store every week).
I'll bet drow could be used to make some great commentary on racism, but I'm not sure how much they'd have to be redone for that. It's not my area of expertise, and I'm afraid I'd screw it up. (I'd totally play in that campaign, though! I just don't feel up to the task of designing it.)
@TheMattyLee: Bingo!
@CVB: I see what you're saying, but they can still be matriarchal even if they're also puppets.
@Caliburn101.: They have. Not as much, but people have. It could be because the idea of super-oppressed males in an evil matriarchy is taken for granted. Also, not all drow males are slaves.
Full disclosure time. One, I'm a relatively new player having not-quite-a-year of experience under my belt. Two, I like both gnolls and the drow (though I focus on followers of the late Eilistraee; when I discovered her I was so bummed to learn she'd been killed off). I think, handled well, both races can offer some really great opportunities. Especially since twisting or playing against steroetypes is, like, my favorite thing. Like, I'm the sort of wierdo who will play a goblin scholar or a changling that refuses to hide his race. Or, I'll look at the lore and think, "So kenku are rogueish and jumpy? Cool. I'll play a kenku rogue with an anxiety disorder they have to live with and overcome."
For example, the character I've played the longest is biracial rogue/swordmage hybrid. He's 5/8ths wild elf and 3/8ths drow. He's a trans man that, while he's geting his identity policed in the outside world, doesn't understand the concept of being a wild elf or a drow and not both. He's learning about passing in the racial and gendered sense, and wondering if he's a disappointment to his mostly-drow mother and if his little sister is his replacement. And he's constantly calling people out on sexism and racism. He is so much fun to play.
TL;DR: I'm kind of new at this. I like to deconstruct things. I'm not asking WotC to do away with or radically alter the drow or gnolls. I just want a good-aligned, matriarchal race with at least two genders and sexes.
Caliburn101. wrote:
Veleria wrote:
You don't need to look to non-human social structures.. You could consider the Iroquois Confederacy, for instance. One might argue whether the society was/is completely 'good', but in the real world societies aren't just good or evil. Aligned societies, like aligned individuals, are a quirk of D&D logic/metaphisics to facilitate gameplay (ie, X are evil, so it is ok for the adventurers to kill them, or so that is why they attack human villages, without the need for any further explanation or justification).
malisteen wrote:
@malisteen
To use an analogy...
... there may be favoured house slaves with some social authority and common field slaves with none, but they are all slaves.
I know the character based examples of 'not slaves', and not one of them is actually free to the extent you seem to imply.
EDIT: You know what? Nah. I've said my piece and I'm pretty happy with it. So yeah, unless something particularly new is added to the conversation, I'm good here.
Just looking at this thread has raised a couple of points: if you look at the first appearance of drow D1-D3 the artwork shows a drow patrol both male and female all dressed in identical chain mail, helms and weapons. So whilst there may have been a drift towards a more sexualised visualisation of the drow, it certainly was not how they were originally concived.
Also for those who believe the worst places for someone to be either sisfemale or transfemale/transmale are Western Europe or the US really need to study what is happening in the majority of the african countries or the middle east as far as the treatment of people who fall into those groups.
You know, after remembering the Menzoberranzan box set in 2e, and a couple of blurbs about other Drow cities and then the 3e shift in perception, I gotta point out: The original Drow weren't ALL matriarichal. Only ONE city was, and it was called Menzoberranzan, there were at least five or so in the underdark that WEREN'T, in fact the God of Slimes (I think it was him, or at least the God had a name that sounded awfully similar) ruled one, if I remember correctly, and it was evilly patriarichal.
So, not all Drow were meant to be matriarichal.
And Elistree's followers, all of which are led by female priestesses, were also generally Good aligned.
mrsrockguru wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
mrsrockguru wrote:
Germany.
Japan.
Iraq (yes, Iraq, where Shia were discriminated against prior to Saddam Hussein's removal. Sadly unlike the examples above the project was abandoned too early, leaving us with the barbarians at the gates).
Going back go previous centuries, any colony where the indiginous inhabitants practised cannibalism and/or slavery, eg New Guinea, New Zealand.
krontekag wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
krontekag wrote:
TiaNadiezja wrote:
Well, stopping people eating each other has to count for something, right?
krontekag wrote:
Something that has not been brought up in this thread is related to the original statistics for the Drow as presented in G3. If you look at the description and stat generation methods for Drow NPCs, or PCs with DM permission, you will see a few telling things. The females are described as being on average 5'6 compared to the males being 5'0, and the difference in stat generation methods is astounding. Males, for example, have 6 + 1d4 strength, and females have 8 + 1d6 strength. This continues, with a gap of at least 1 on average, for every stat with the exception, I believe, of Dexterity and Intelligence. Females further have 15' movement, compared to males having 12' movement, and have considerably more spell-like abilities.
With this factored in, it only makes sense that a Chaotic/Neutral Evil race with these qualities would be "Matriarchial", in a sense. With all the chips finally on the table and the thin veneer of decency stripped away, whoever is the toughest is going to naturally tend towards positions of power, and with such a shocking disparity in physical, mental, and magical ability, the vast majority of the time, that's going to be women. Earlier someone mentioned that Drow women may not care about their appearance, and could be very overweight or super skinny. I actually doubt the second part, because then they would be weaker then their peers and have a very short life expectancy. Really, with my players, I describe the Drow as not living in a "matriarchy", but rather a "murderarchy". I am annoyed by people saying the other races are super patriarchial, because I don't do things that way and furthermore do not see anything in my rulebooks indicating that is the case, so it seems a lot like a case of personal bias and assumption.
I did have a non-combatant female Drow villain, once, who was noticeably small, standing only 4'7, and not broad or at all physically imposing. I made a point of this being rare, however, and she got her power from vast sums of money and contracts with loyal (and therefore non-Drow) minions and servants, generally Humans or Hobgoblins, and was basically Lex Luthor (screw Veronica Cale) in the campaign.
What definitely is stupid is the dumb spider-dominatrix look. Which is certainly not present in G3, as in fact one feature the Drow NPCs seem to have is a very, very good AC, derived from extremely magically powerful, well-crafted equipment. I personally tend to have them wearing full-body spidersilk armour with inset adamantine trauma plates or a thin layer of mithril (Drow would do surprisingly well if they were encounter gunfire), since I feel that a race that is based on stealth and dexterity should wear more flexible armour. I can definitely say I am liking the Trickery domain in 5th Edition, since this is the first time in any edition I've played where I feel you can do a Drow Cleric in a really fitting way. Just wish I could give them the two-handed d10 katana finesse weapon from the earlier playtest.
As for their physical appearance, I will say that at a minimum they look super cool. There's a reason everyone seems to want to play them, and it isn't disgust.
Caliburn101. wrote:
CaptainPicard wrote:
malisteen wrote:
I think it was teh cover of Q1 (I think it was) that had Lolth in Drow female form on the cover that gave people the skimpy-dressed drow female idea. This wasn't how the drow themselves were portrayed in the module series, just how Lolth was described and that later artists and players hooked onto and expanded to the rest of the drow. The same thing happened again with the dreaded Drizzt clones. Drizzt wasn't the first good drow he just caugt the imaginations of some of the fanbase and it grew from there.
As for the stats that was at a time when male and female were disparate for each race, and the drow were an exception as the normal player races the males were always bigger and had higher stats.
TiaNadiezja wrote:
@CaptainPicard: I did not say the other races were "super" patriarchal. I said they were patriarchal. Patriarchy is when men are the default, and all things are centered around that. When everything from inheritance to medicine is centered around the male. WotC doesn't have to say "this is a patriarchy" when I read an adventure in which every NPC of a certain race that has a specified gender is male. When the political and religious leaders are male, and the potential usurpers are male, and the only pronouns that aren't he/him/his are it/its, I realize I'm probably looking at a patriarchy.
That is not inherently bad, but once in a blue moon, I'd like to see the reverse.
In fact, is there a way to straight up ask WotC for something? Because I might want to do that.
malisteen wrote:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
krontekag wrote:
malisteen wrote:
@CaptainPicard: You didn't sound angry to me. You're fine.
@Krontekag: Please stop.
krontekag wrote:
See also:
ChimericalBeast wrote:
TheMattyLee wrote:
malisteen wrote:
Cennedi wrote:
krontekag wrote:
AtomicPope wrote:
Every once in a while I like to get crazy and answer a threads actual topic.
Don't get me wrong--I think both of these races are great. But I think it would be cool to have a few traditionally good races that also happen to be matriarchal.
What do you think?"
I agree. What races did you have in mind?
I had mentioned previously that in my 4e games, elves in general were matriarchal, and not just drow (who sort of took over the shadar-kai role as the primary shadowfell dwellers, not exactly evil, but still more likely to be enemies than friends), with a primary maid/mother/crone godess trinity as the chief of their pantheon, with each part of that trinity tied to a particular aspect of the world (fey, natural, shadow) and its corresponding elven subrace. Corellon was stil more-or-less the chief deity of the Eladrin due to maid deity being unconcerned with daily lives of worshippers, but in general societies were matriarchal/female default, grounded in some degree of biological essentialism with female elves living considerably longer than males (average 800 compared to average 600, partially biological, partially social reasons, either way long enough that it didn't make a direct difference to elven PCs). Monthly hormore cycles considered the norm, less emphasis in their history/culture on testosterone cycles of success feeding escalating risk/aggression until a crash, more potent social roles (political leaders, spellcasters) considered female by default - males not discouraged or forbidden from such positions, but considered exceptions, some personal bias, but not to the point of preventing elven society on the whole from being 'good', etc.
Dwarves I have a hard time viewing as anything other than patriarchal, especially since their defining physical characteristics - beards, beer guts, and muscles - are generally masculine traits in humans. Then again, they do have the strong, stable, familial based clan thing going, which one could work with for a dwarven matriarchy. Such could certainly be an interesting, slightly subversive take on them, particularly if one goes with the old school bearded dwarven women, such that non-dwarven visiting PCs might simply assume that they're talking to lords and kings when they are in fact addressing ladies and queens.
Halflings are more easy to cast in a matriarchal / female default light, given their default maternal harvest godess, and their default cultural emphasis on storytelling and on avoiding rather than confronting or initiating agression. One could easily imagine matronly match-makers as the principle political power of nomadic halfling clans, and from there it's pretty much just stated matrilinial inheritance away from the target.
Orcs / Half Orcs, like dwarves, are more of a stretch, given that their principal traditional characterization revolves around traits that we would consider masculine. Further, their traditionally portrayed society plays very much into testosterone based hormonal patterns and behaviors. One could pull a subversion, but I feel it would be more of a stretch than with dwarves.
Dragonborn, on the other hand, seem like a better possibility if your looking for a potential matriarchal warrior race, given their reptilian appearance seems an invitation to get into some non-mamalian concepts. Some (though of course not all) reptiles exhibit a sexual dimorphism where the female is larger & more agressive. I'm sure that's the case for some mammals as well, though I can't think of any apart from hyenas off the top of my head, and they're kind of a special case which is already sort of claimed by gnolls in D&D. Anyway, yeah, one can easily imagine Dragonborn with the females larger & more agressive, with the males perhaps more colorful and flamboyant, and extend that through their culture. Would have been interesting, imo. I really feel like the dragonborn in general had a lot of potential that the final incarnation didn't quite live up to, but that's another discussion.
Tieflings & gnomes... I don't know. I don't get a lot of gendered feelings about either of them? So I don't feel either is an especially good or bad fit for matriarchal society, and this post is long enough.
I wouldn't want to go overboard on in game explicit gender politics in general. The drow example does kind of ask for a counter balancing element, but in general I like a more truely egalitarion, more escapist bent on gender politics within my D&D worlds. People deal with this stuff constantly in real life, no reason to force it on them in fantasy life. That said, it's worth acknowledging that D&D as a game comes out of a patriarchal society, and that many in that society will read in game elements through a patriarchal lense unless explicitly told to do otherwise (and even then).
Fae are pretty obvious for a matriarchy.
That and any insectoid colony race, obviously, what with consisting of fertile queens, infertal female warriors & workers, and the only males as drones. Or any insectoid race, really. Or an anglerfish race, though that's weird and creepy enough to be a better fit for aberration monstrosity than PC race. That and, I'm not sure effectively single-gender races are quite the same as a patriarchal or matriarchal society where genders are more or less evenly split, yet one is still treated as the social default.
Insectoid races, though... What were the insect guys from the 3.5 psionics book? Not the thri-kreen, the shortie, 4 limbed ones. I always thought they were adorable, maybe I'll try a homebrew update on them as a Matriarchal race. Female default, overwhelmingly female population revolving around a queen, with female worker/soldiers who are unfertile but can become fertile to start new colonies, males as a minority gender who function mostly as drones, deemed the weeker gender / in need of protection by society (after all, any worker/soldier could become a queen if the queen dies, but if the colony loses its males it's done for). Thus drones would be expected & culturally obligated to serve a pimarily reproductive role, secluded from the outside world. Expected, but perhaps not required. A drone could, if they insistd, choose to go out into the world and live a life of their own, but would be treated as odd, or disfunctional, or outright selfish by others of their kind, sort of a more overt version of how women who choose not to have children are sometimes treated in our own society?
Or maybe going out into the world would be normal for them, but they'd be expected to settle down by their adult years within a new colony, spreading genetic diversity between colonies in this matter, but with the same social pressure on male adventuring whatever-they-were-calleds to "settle down"?
I don't know, but I think there's a decent framework of an idea there.
EDIT: Dromites, that's what I'm thinking of:
@DemoMonkey: Honestly, I figured maybe WotC could be persuaded to create a new race that fit the bill. It didn't occur to me to think about which already existing races could be made canonically matriarchal.
Though elves could work, I'd think the more "established" and popular races would be off the table. So, no humans/elves/dwarves/halflings/orcs (not to be inflamitory, but can you imagine?). Pixies (already associated with femininity in popular culture) or thri-kreen (instectiods), maybe. More "obscure" races like wilden might also work. I like Malisteen's drgaonborn idea. Matriarchal dragonborn sound great and subversive to me (seeing as we already got that yin-yang with Bahamut and Tiamat going on, and Tiamat is the evil lady), but I think it might not go over well with some players.
To address the posts that suggest I make a matriarchal race up, not everyone is interested in DMing or doing a homebrew. Also, it wouldn't be canon, and thus not easily accessible to most players.
There's definetly matriarchal rule over the art in the PHB, I've noticed that much. I had been wondering if that approach wasn't based on a demographic they were aiming for. I guess they missed a point or two of contention?
Wizards of the coast, with a few exceptions and the occassional annoying recurring habit, has been mostly pretty good about the art, at least from a gender perspective. Much better than a lot of other fantasy themed geek/nerd hobby material. Same with pronoun use. Setting lore is harder to simply change though, what with existing fans being invested in the lore as present in the assorted liscenced novels they've spent hundread of dollars and hours on over the years.