Erelhei-Cinlu

The city of Erelhei-Cinlu stands like a polished gemstone in the heart of the dark elf realm. At the center of an elaborate web of alliances, rivalries, and traditions, it embodies the essence of drow existence—a darkly enchanted capital from which Lolth's faithful praise her name as they plot against one another and the world beyond.

Erelhei-Cinlu is also one of the most cosmopolitan drow cities, which is to say that outlanders are tolerated. Those who interfere with the drow are ruthlessly and painfully exterminated, but those who abide by the city's traditions, as distasteful as those traditions might be, can survive here, at least for a time.

A Brief History

Erelhei-Cinlu lies at the core of a subterranean realm known as the Vault of the Drow. As dangerous as it is immense, the Vault is the center of drow power in its part of the world, and Erelhei-Cinlu is its unquestioned seat of authority.

For many years, House Eilservs was the city’s leading noble family. But when a raid by surface adventurers threw the Vault into chaos, Eilservs and its Matron Mother, Eclavdra, fell from grace, replaced by the ambitious House Tormtor. This realignment of power sent shock waves through Erelhei-Cinlu society, and in the aftermath, House Kilsek challenged Tormtor’s authority, going so far as to reject the worship of Lolth, the Queen of Spiders. The Priestess Wars began, and they raged for almost two decades until some semblance of peace was restored to the city. In the process, several major houses, most notably the rebellious Kilsek, were destroyed or significantly weakened, while others, such as the nomadic Vae and the upstart Xaniqos, rose to power and displaced or destroyed their predecessors.

The massive changes wrought by the Priestess Wars are still being sorted out by the Spider Queen and the surviving drow. Though their wickedness and perversity remain undiminished, the drow of Erelhei-Cinlu have gained a certain amount of perspective from these events, realizing how close they came to self-destruction. Accordingly, their activities below and above ground have changed, with intrigue and hidden plots replacing overt militaristic schemes. House Tormtor and others now place spies in the surface world, pay agents and unwitting dupes to advance drow causes, and pull the strings in clandestine operations ranging from simple merchant affairs to the corruption and overthrow of entire kingdoms. These activities occur in secret because most drow do not wish to draw more attention to themselves than absolutely necessary. Not all dark elves are as cautious, however. House Vae’s slave raids on the surface world have raised alarms among other houses that advocate subtlety.

Similar motivations spur drow activities in the Underdark. Although open conflict, slave raids, and the mindless destruction of foes always have their place, the drow of Erelhei-Cinlu have grown more cunning, making peace and sometimes even allying with traditional rivals, such as the illithids and the derro. These partnerships are for convenience only, and both sides know it. For the time being, however, House Tormtor and its allies seek to weave a web of diplomacy, espionage, and conquest that will eventually bring all subterranean races under drow rule. Tormtor believes that it is doing the work of Lolth in a manner that the Spider Queen herself would find most pleasing.

Power in the City

As is the case in other drow cities, the real power in Erelhei-Cinlu resides in the noble houses and their matriarchs. Due to the city’s importance to drow society at large, the nobles of Erelhei-Cinlu are especially powerful and exceptionally ruthless, even for dark elves.

Currently, the city is recovering from a series of convulsive internal conflicts that saw many of the old families displaced or destroyed. The so-called Priestess Wars were unusual for a society that favors subtle intrigue over open conflict, but when such raw clashes occur, Lolth watches with pleasure as the weak are smashed and the strong rise to take their place. The Spider Queen sees overt civil war as a means by which her people remain pure and avoid stagnation. Besides, she and her consorts find it amusing to watch and occasionally meddle.

By tradition, eight noble houses oversee Erelhei-Cinlu, each responsible for one of the city’s neighborhoods, or ghettoes. At times during the various conflicts that have racked the city, the number of houses fell to as few as four, but new and upcoming houses always step in to fill the gap.

Each household is organized along familial lines, with the high priestess as the unquestioned ruler. Lesser houses cultivate relationships with greater houses in the hope of gaining influence and eventually displacing them. Of course, members of allied houses rarely trust each other, upholding their arrangements only as long as they have something to gain.

The eight leading houses are described below in order of their relative status in the city. None of the families actually live within Erelhei-Cinlu—the place is far too vulgar and filthy for noble drow. Instead, their vast estates are located to the north, across the river known as the Pitchy Flow, while high-ranking administrators oversee house affairs within the city.

As the hub of dark elf activity in the region, Erelhei-Cinlu is surprisingly cosmopolitan, with all major races present as residents, visitors, or slaves. Even the despised surface elves can walk the city’s labyrinthine streets and manage to survive in the face of their cousins’ venomous hatred.

Being chaotic in general, the drow care little for the alignment or character of visitors, as long as they obey the city’s ways and stay out of trouble. Travelers who enter the Vault of the Drow through normal trade routes are inspected by dark elf patrols, who demand that each visitor swear on pain of death to obey all dictates and traditions of the drow houses. Visitors then receive dark green guest cloaks, which they must wear at all times to signify their status as outlanders.

Non-drow who live in the city are restricted to the Ghetto of Foreigners, which falls under the administration of House Tormtor.  To be granted resident status, an individual must live in Erelei-Cinlu for at least six months and then make a successful application to Tormtor.  Outlanders who become residents no longer have to wear guest cloaks, but they must pay a fee of 1 gp per month and carry a resident's medallion - a black metal item inscribed with a stylized spider.  Trade in counterfeit medallions is brisk.  Fakes cost up to 1,000 gp, even though the penalty for carrying or selling them ranges from permanent enslavement to death.

Relations with the Outside World

The drow are increasingly aware that they do not live in a vacuum and that a teeming surface world exists above, far from the isolated security of their realm. Early attempts to gain influence in that world ended catastrophically, causing the downfall of major drow houses. But since the conclusion of the Priestess Wars, the drow of Erelhei-Cinlu have grown more realistic and cunning in their dealings with outlanders, whether they hail from the surface or from below.

Most drow believe it is their destiny to conquer the Underdark. However, the other subterranean races—including derro, illithids, aboleths, kuo-toas, duergar, desmodus, and myconids—stubbornly refuse to cooperate with drow schemes for world domination. Some races, in fact, have the temerity to actively resist.

The dark elves know that they are among the most powerful of the Underdark races, and they have no intention of abandoning the destiny of conquest promised by Lolth; however, the drow are willing to employ subtlety and forge alliances to get what they want. Some drow houses, for example, have established close ties with illithids, using the mind flayers to help promote dark elf causes in the Underdark and on the surface. Such alliances are hazardous, however. House Noquar suffered for its association with illithids and was eventually brought down in the Priestess Wars.

Relations with the surface world are complex and often involve contradictory goals. The disastrous assault on the Fane of Lolth, now decades in the past, still lingers in the drow psyche, and most dark elves wish to maintain a degree of isolation from surface dwellers. At the same time, the lure of power and the lust for bloodshed and mayhem (inherited from their patron deity) compels the drow to expand their realm beyond the confines of the Underdark. The dark elves of today hope to accomplish this goal with intrigue and subtlety.

Erelhei-Cinlu is a wondrous sight, brooding in the dim light of the Vault, sur rounded by a massive wall made of polished black basalt and studded with guard towers. The city is every bit as chaotic as its natives, with structures ranging from the ramshackle tenements of artisans to the extraordinary buildings in the Ghetto of Scholars. Day and night are a purely surface concept, so the city is busy at all hours, teeming with drow, their slaves and servants, and outlanders of all races.

The dark elves are notorious for their kinship with spiders, which developed as a result of their self-image and the dictates of their unforgiving deity. Nowhere is this relationship more obvious than in the streets of Erelhei-Cinlu. Spiders of all sizes and varieties lurk in alleys, on rooftops, in basements—just about anywhere, stringing webs between buildings to catch vermin or unwary passersby.

Outlanders are increasingly common in Erelhei-Cinlu, and despite the wishes of some secretive drow, the city’s existence is known to more and more surface dwellers with each passing year. Visitors can find rewards and opportunities in Erelhei-Cinlu, but they must remember that they take their lives in their hands just by sharing the streets with the mercurial and often sociopathic dark elves.

The city is divided into eight ghettos or districts, each under the control of a different drow house. The nobles do not live within the city’s enclosing wall, dwelling instead in palatial estates on a plateau to the north that is accessible only by way of the Flying Bridge.