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  2. Lore

Drow, Bone Tech, and the Living Arsenal Doctrine

Drow, Bone Tech, and the Living Arsenal Doctrine

The Drow are not villains, nor conquerors.
They are stewards of controlled violence.

Where Fauns negotiate and Floroids cultivate, the Drow exist to answer a harder truth of Rootworld: some threats cannot be reasoned with. Apex predators, biome-collapsing entities, invasive horrors from sealed strata, and surface-born weapons that ignore ecological law—all fall under Drow jurisdiction.

Their society is built around precision predation, not cruelty.


Bone Tech as Cultural Bedrock

Drow technology centers on Bone Tech—predator systems grown from fossilized leviathans and psycho-reactive remains. Through Ossedomancy, the Drow awaken mineral memory within calcified structures, shaping bone into living armor, weapons, and infrastructure.

Bone Tech is not merely equipment.
It is heritage, encoded with lineage and purpose.

  • Bone armor adapts to the wearer’s stress responses

  • Weapons self-correct and reconfigure mid-combat

  • Structures grown from skeletal frameworks store aetheric energy

Bone Tech is silent, efficient, and merciless by design—reflecting the Drow belief that waste is the greatest sin.


Psychic Weapon Specialists

The Living Arsenal

Among the Drow, the highest expression of combat mastery is not the hunter—but the Psychic Weapon Specialist.

This elite caste does not wield weapons.

They become them.

Developed deep within Drow enclaves, Psychic Weapon Specialists interface directly with a living crystal weapon-core, a psycho-reactive lattice grown rather than forged. Through disciplined mental focus, the Drow psychically shape the core’s energy into adaptive weapon forms in real time.

To fight one is to face a soldier whose armament evolves faster than thought.


Core Mechanic: The Duskflow Catalyst

Each Psychic Weapon Specialist is bonded to a unique crystalline core known as a Duskflow Catalyst.

  • The Catalyst is psychically linked to its bearer

  • It manifests as different energy weapons based on mental focus

  • Weapon forms can be changed fluidly in combat

You can change your active weapon form as a bonus action.
Each form grants unique passive traits and alters how your class features function.

The Catalyst is not replaceable.
If shattered, the bond scars both mind and soul.


Signature Ability: Aetherlash (Cantrip)

Aetherlash
You project raw, crackling energy directly from your Duskflow Catalyst.

  • Casting Time: 1 action

  • Range: 120 ft

  • Attack: Ranged spell attack

On a hit, the target takes 1d10 force damage.

As your bond deepens, the Catalyst splits its output:

  • 2 beams at 5th level

  • 3 beams at 11th level

  • 4 beams at 17th level

Each beam represents the crystal briefly fracturing and re-aligning—weaponized thought made manifest.


⚖️ Coexistence Through Enforcement

The presence of Psychic Weapon Specialists explains why Drow coexist with other Rootworld races rather than dominate them.

They do not seek rule.
They seek containment.

When Floroids detect runaway growth, the Drow excise it.
When Faun diplomacy fails, the Drow intervene.
When sealed biomes stir, the Drow descend first—and often do not return.

Their violence is surgical.
Their restraint is deliberate.

Rootworld tolerates the Drow because Rootworld needs them.


📖 One-Paragraph Rulebook Summary

The Drow are Rootworld’s predatory stewards, masters of Bone Tech and creators of the Psychic Weapon combat system. Through living crystal Catalysts, their elite warriors become adaptive arsenals—shaping energy with thought and enforcing balance where diplomacy cannot. Feared but necessary, the Drow do not rule the world beneath Xylos. They ensure it survives.