A drow scholar and a colleague examine a fragment of Xen’drik’s ancient stonework.
Drow are an elven people whose principal histories lie in Xen'drik, the continent across the sea from Sharn. They share an ancient relationship with the continent's fallen giant civilizations, but their later cultures followed different paths. They do not share one faith or political allegiance.
Several traditions
Vulkoori traditions revere Vulkoor, a power represented by the scorpion. Related communities can honor a wider range of primal spirits. These societies have their own relationships with the land and the ruins around them.
Sulatar traditions preserve a distinctive command of fire and elemental binding inherited from Xen'drik's ancient past. Their understanding of magic developed through a different history from Khorvaire's guilds and Houses.
Umbragen traditions grew among drow who sought refuge in the depths beneath Xen'drik. Their relationship with a spiritual power called the Umbra is central to that inheritance. The broad word “drow” does not reveal which of these traditions, if any, an individual follows.
Travel and identity
A person who leaves Xen'drik may be a scholar, craftsperson, exile, sailor, or someone pursuing a particular family obligation. Sharn's port and academic institutions provide reasons to cross the sea, while long residence can produce a thoroughly local identity.
A visitor can know a region's stories without possessing a map to every ruin. A Sharn-born drow may know the continent chiefly through family accounts. Their relationship to the wider elven peoples can be close, distant, or complicated by the different histories those communities preserve.
Reference: Eberronicon, Drow, printed page 8, summarizing the Vulkoori, Qaltiar, Sulatar, and Umbragen traditions.