Svirfneblin's status in Sshamath

[Silvary Thielfor]

Hello! Regarding the recent Deep Gnome Underground activity in Sshamath I wondered if it was still safe for svirfneblins to wander through Sshamath? Should we stick to the Darkwoods ghetto? I personally play a svirfneblin student of the School of Illusion, would he be expelled?
Again, if any of you play a svirfneblin PC feel free to pm me to RP around this theme

[Rasael]

Hey Silvary Thielfor,

Yours is a good question which has caused confusion in the Underdark for a lot of people over the times.

The short answer is that S'shamath's Drow are hypocritical and have double standards. You can be member of a school of magic as a non-citizen, but you won't advance as far Drow can no matter your skill or value. Yet at the same time you will probably be more valuable to your school than most non-mage drow citizens.


Citizenship of S'shamath is typically reserved for Drow. But it is possible for the Conclave to grant citizenship to members of others races as wel. We don't know how or when this could happen, no DM's have commented on it. We can assume its unheard of, but not impossible.

Apart from citizens there also inhabitants of S'shamath. Inhabitants of the City also have rights, such as that they cannot be slaves if they are of a race that can perform arcane magic (probably excluding grey orcs and half-orcs due to drow racism). They may own property, and their business is normally as well protected as that of citizens. Any enslaved mage from a civilized race who enters the city is automatically considered free.

The schools of Magic which predominantly make up the Conclave are all entirely autonomous. They determine for themselves who they accept as students, who they elect to be their Conclave member, and so on. It is not improbable that a school would accept non-citizens within its ranks because doing so enables it to grow stronger. But It is (extremely) unlikely that a non-citizen would attain a position (in any school) whereby he is involved in higher level decision making. E.a. Becoming a ranking Archmage, emmisary, or even Conclave member. The reason for that is that regular citizens and other schools would ridicule it, such a person would find his authority undermined from all directions, and thus its a bad idea. The racisim in that course of events is implicitly accepted by Drow. They are the superior species, of elf and otherwise, to draw a paralel to certain historical ideologies.

It is on the other hand perfectly possible and quite likely that non-citizens serve as teachers, researchers, spell designers, artificers, and advisers or 'behind the scene' type of agents. So advancement is limited but not to the lowere strata of society. A svifrneblin mage may become quite an authority with a given school, on a given subject. And thus he would be quite valuable to his school, certainly more valuable than any mundane drow citizen.

For the School of Illusion it makes sense to me that they would permit enrollment by Svirfneblin. Because of the well known gnomish affinity with Illusory magic. But it depends on what you bring to the table. In equal circumstances they'd pick a Drow instead. I would imagine they might want a contract which obliges the svirfneblin applicant to indenture himself to the school, so that he or she will stay on as a junior researcher or spell designer, under the supervision of a drow senior. After that they might offer to retain the you as an affiliate for some project or another, assuming your services are still desired. That would give you the oppertunity to advance behind the scenes, but never publically.

I hope it helps

[Deathgrowl]

As I understand, there are some high ranking svirfnebli even in the seventh circle. And they hold some power in the city.

[Storm Munin]

Define high ranking?


The only svirfnebli in the Seventh Circle I can think of as of grand social standing was an intrepid explorer and cartographer. Appreciated, valued and given resources due to what he brought in from the darkness beyond. His whereabouts are now unknown.
His hierarchical standing was not the same, as far as I can remember the only two nondrow to hold true positions of power in the Seventh circle these last years were a duergar quartermaster and an orcen representative for its tribe.
All higher stations of power have been held by drow as far as I can remember and to the dismayed acceptance by my halfdrow.

During expeditions command has sometimes been given to nondrow but usually that ended in chaos as one or more drow agent(s) decided to assert its rights of supremacy.


As for infamous svirfnebli of Sshamath I do recall a crazy monk claimed to have run up and down the streets of sshamath last summer or fall holding a severed drow head in his hand boasting of winning the fight behind it all.
Curiously two drow seemed to be his servants at the time.
But shortly after the toon went off my charts and I would imagine the entire incident might have been retconned.

[Silvary Thielfor]

My svirfneblin PC, Yurken is supposed to be an actual student of the School of Illusion as he completed the test and the task given by the headmistress (DM Asgaroth's event with Servin's toon and three members of Bregan D'aerthe though he didn't finalize it before retiring ).
I was actually wondering if he had to fear to be expelled because of the recent rebellion in Darkwoods (Dev'lins would definitly say my PC is part of it ^^ ) or if Drows would make the difference between an extremist minority and the rest of the svirf community?
In other words, is Yurken still a member of the Sshamath School of Illusion?