The Drow City of the Vault
Far below the surface world, in a vast cavern lit only by the faint glow of phosphorescent rock, sprawls the ancient city of the dark elves.
Erelhei-Cinlu lies deep in the Underdark, within an enormous cavern miles across whose distant ceiling sheds a dim, sourceless light. Beyond a great gate and wall at the cavern's northern edge crowds the city itself: a welter of crooked, narrow streets and alien architecture that bewilders any visitor not born to the place. Nearly ten thousand drow dwell here, alongside perhaps twice that number of half-drow, servitors, slaves and assorted hangers-on.
For all its menace, the city follows rules — twisted and cruel ones, but rules all the same. The most ambitious and capable drow are drawn out of the slums to serve the noble houses, merchant clans and fighting societies. The rest are left to the city's appetites: gambling dens, drug saloons, taverns and far darker establishments line the main thoroughfares, while the back alleys hide poison shops and worse.
Drow society fractures into feuding noble houses locked in perpetual rivalry, bound loosely by their devotion to Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders. In the classic telling, that fragile unity has shattered: House Eilservs and its allies have turned from Lolth toward a deity of elemental evil, setting the stage for civil war among the matriarchs. The true heart of drow worship lies not in the city but in the Fane of Lolth, hidden in an offshoot cavern.
⚜ Campaign log, session notes and house rules to be added here.