The new text more accurately describes the place of drow in the D&D multiverse and correctly situates them among the other branches of the elf family, each of which was shaped by an environment in the earliest days of the multiverse: forests (wood elves), places of ancient magic on the Material Plane (high elves), oceans (sea elves), the Feywild (eladrin), the Shadowfell (shadar-kai), and the Underdark (drow). This new text replaces a description that confused the culture of Menzoberranzan-a city in the grip of Lolth’s cult in the Forgotten Realms-with drow themselves. As Jeremy Crawford, Principal Rules Designer of Dungeons & Dragons, puts it: This change will now be part of the 5e Player’s Handbook.
But it’s no longer the defining characteristic of their race. As was suggested in the company’s post last summer about diversity issues in D&D, the company is taking an approach to Drow that we’ve seen in recent sourcebooks like Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount: now Drow are simply another race shaped by setting and circumstance rather than just being evil elves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, WotC followed its own advice. So when I saw that Wizards of the Coast has published an errata for the 5th Edition Player’s Handbook that addresses the Drow - a race of elves that have traditionally had an evil alignment - I was very curious to see what Wizards had in store for the elves of the Underdark. There’s been a lot of talk recently about fantasy racism in D&D (and plenty of other fantasy games), some of it by us.