Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG (Alpha, March 10th 2025)

Drow: Intensely matriarchal, tunnel-dwelling, scantily-clad warriors obsessed with an evil spider goddess. Why would anyone with access to magic and resources live in tunnels and fight half-naked? Enter: Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG.

These dark elves have a long and sordid history, but now they live in a network of tightly constraining social rules, entangling them like a useless servant in the webs of a domesticated spider. Every Drow is the matriarch of a household of servants, and together (and apart), they must navigate the edicts of the Spider Goddess and keep up the Reputation that keeps them safe against other Drow.

Asymmetric Gameplay 

Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG features two distinct player-character classes, and two distinct game master roles.

Players either take the role of a brutal mistress whom everything she says goes, whether she understands what she’s talking about or not, and whose position of dominance is maintained by the respect of her peers, respect that hinges on how brutal and controlling she is to her subordinates; or an array of pathetic servants who are helpless without their mistress’s “leadership,” (and maybe even be more so with it).

In addition to the standard game master role, the one who sets up the scenario and runs the NPCs, there is a secondary game master role, that of the Spider Goddess, representing the social scrutiny weighing down on every caste of this strict, ruthless society. Silk & Dagger encourages rotation of players in and out of these roles, rewarding them with points that can be spent to give their own PCs an edge next time they play a PC.

Satire and Deconstruction 

Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG takes many of the established trappings of “dark elves” and asks “what kind of society and environment would actually produce individuals like this?” This question is the springboard off which the satire launches, and lands uncomfortably close to home.

Comedy 

Taking inspiration from games like Paranoia, Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG presents a situation where survival often hinges on working together, but social pressures, class divides, and constant scrutiny encourage player-characters to do anything but, resulting in a sitcom-esque comedy-of-errors in a grimdark, lightless world.