Importance of a Player-played Matron Mother in FK?

[Selveem]

I don't play Drows.

I had one, but it seems he doesn't exist any longer.

However, Drow have always fascinated me.

Maybe it's the woman in charge for once. Maybe it's the intricate society that is only held together in a spider web. Maybe it's the Dark Unknown.

A few questions have always plagued me, though:

• Does FK HAVE to have a Matron Mother being played by a player?
  (And if so) Does a player HAVE to play a pre-twinked Matron Mother to truly rule?
  Does the Matron Mother have to be Cannon? Can no one else seek to usurp the throne?

I'm sure I'll come up with others later, but these are just what came to mind.

[Duranamir]

As i understand it.....

Matron Mothers currently are auction characters they have a number of special abilities about managing there house's they are also the 4 FM's of Lloths religeon.

In my experience when played they are generally great fun to RP with. However they are not played that often.

It would require a degree of IMM intervention to make another character a Matron Mother due to the special house specfic things. Would make a cool RP though and i can see no inherent problem other than departing from Canon.... It would be like someone taking over from Blackstaff as high wizard of Waterdeep, a truly major event.

However....

I can see no problem with a player becoming a Inner circle or FM without being Matron Mother. Best example of a suitable post i can think of is the high priestess of the Academy temple in Menzoberranzan a post that could be held by a priestess from any house.


Duranamir

[Nedylene]

PS. From those who have matron mothers... The characters are not "twinked" Each one is manually worked on by the players and nothing is gifted to them re levels, spells, skills, components, equipment, etc

[Selveem]

By pre-twinked I meant preset. They do not start off with 0 skills and 0 spells like a normal character.

My apologies if I offended any Matron Mothers with the question.

[Mele]

Actually unless you are given a previously owned auc char they are began in the temple like any other.

Matron Mothers are on their second(Ithink) set of owners. One of which does not play in general. Three of which are around.

One MM was on just at the end of Oct.

There used to be an email that would go to all four of them, but when FK's net domain changed it was not brought over.

[Oghma]

I'll go out of my way to say that I've observed several Matron mother rp's in the last year or so and have never been disappointed. If anything, I see them as an enjoyable part of the drow roleplay and as we get more drow to participate in the game I am sure we will eventually see more of the matron mothers again.

[Selveem]

Great feedback so far on the questions:

Does FK HAVE to have a Matron Mother being played by a player?
(And if so) Does a player HAVE to play a pre-twinked Matron Mother to truly rule?

Remaining question Duranamir touched on, but I'd like to hear from other people too!

Does the Matron Mother have to be Cannon? Can no one else seek to usurp the throne?

[Caelnai]

Does the Matron Mother have to be Cannon? Can no one else seek to usurp the throne?

Like that Blackstaff overthrow, it could be applied for perhaps...but I hope that application isn't accepted.

Drow RP in-game is a long way away from this sort of thing, and we already have to deal with males not knowing their place and (imo, ridiculous and non-IC) attacks on Matron Mothers. I would support beefing up of the current order over modifying it in anyway. Then maybe PCs would have something to rebel against.

[Horace]

I'm not one to use literature as a base of canon - but I find it particularly interesting that in "War of the Spider Queen" drow were chomping at the bit to kill Lloth.

Drow don't serve Lloth because they love her. They serve Lloth because it's a means of obtaining power. If the matron mothers (or other priestesses) aren't around in game, then the reality in game is that Lloth isn't a great means of obtaining power anymore...which significantly lowers her value to the ambitious drow.

Keep in mind there are one or two other gods ambitious male drows are encouraged to follow. So Eilistraee, Vhaeraun, Selvetarm, and Kiaransalee are all dead or gone - you still have Ghaunadaur.

And one out of five major drow deities ain't bad

War of the Spider Queen not only showed how ungrateful drow are to their gods, but how incredibly vulnerable the gods are when the drow decide it's time to make a move. Very neat idea, that I think would be cool to push down there.

[Caelnai]

Drow don't serve Lloth because they love her. They serve Lloth because it's a means of obtaining power.

Drow serve Lloth because She is the most powerful by far of drow Gods. Just because a certain faith in FK may not have an active God-player or High Priest, doesn't mean Ao lets Oghma sneak in and steal all their profiles. (Though I hear he tries anyway. )

We have certainly deviated from canon elsewhere in FK. However, I think the current status of the Priestesses in Underdark has more to do with the mechanical character difficulties of priests than IC weaknesses of Lloth, Matron, or House power.

Part of the challenge of playing drow is learning to thrive within the unique, chaotic and female-centric culture. Isn't that what makes it interesting RP? If you are going to change that, it would just be fighter-rah with darkvision....you might as well shut the place down and send everyone topside.

[Horace]

I was merely pointing out that Duranamir's suggestion not only makes sense in character, but it's precisely what happened in an already published FR novel. Lloth is only as powerful as her followers, and many males down there (including a few of the gods) would promise an awful lot to whoever unseated her power structure.

Drow are only motivated by power. It's not a matriarchal society because they all love women so much. It's matriarchal because Lloth set up the structure to best suit her needs. Lloth stranglehold on drow society is more of perception, than reality.

[Duranamir]

I actually prefer the "however" from my previous post. Allow a player to become an Inner circle or FM of Lloth independently of the house structure and the Matron Mothers.

I love having Matron mothers and every time they turn up it is a really major and good RP. What i am suggesting is removeing the block that has only Matron mothers do all the questing/faithing. Part of the problem is that IC Zeerith Armgo is not going to be wanting to faith a Tlabber or a Baenre nor should she. By placing a PC into the faithing process in a none house position we could retain all the house things and unblock the process of faithing.

And as far as replacing a Matron Mother that should be a really major RP not something done on a whim, as it is the presence of Canon characters like the Matron Mothers, Blackstaff and others that helps make the rich background we all play in. What we should not be doing is depending on the Canon characters for normal day to day things like faith quests.

Lloths silence and its results are not something i would choose to RP here as it is such a far reaching event in the Drow Time line, we would have to destroy Ched Nasad for a start !. So for now at least Lloth is watching and is a jealous and paranoid goddess as she should be.

Though i might agree with some of the reasoning about why Drow worship Lloth as long as there were not a priestess listening !

Duranamir