The Arcane Exchange

(Some materials of this post are re-posted from previous posts.)

It's said that there are no temples left in Wizard City. Propaganda, that. One stands true and proud, hidden in plain sight near The Bank Inerrable: The Arcane Exchange. Inside, traders furiously perform and re-perform various auguries to predict shifts in the market, scraping hefty profits.

The market is fast, but the traders are faster. They have perfected and distilled the projection of market forces down to ritual form. By prayer and by augury to their Lupine-Bull god they achieve a virtually-guaranteed profit.

(Yes, I'm pretending the creature on the right is a wolf, not a bear.)

Forms of Augury are fiercely contested between traders. Some will swear by the bones and the cards, some by the birds and clouds. Many will rely on multiple methods (particularly those who can afford multiple augurs). However, haruspicy is largely considered the gold standard for market predictions. Certain creatures are better for this than others, creating a demand for strong and mysterious monsters among the traders.

Live monsters may be sold at the Arcane Exchange for 1d4x100gp per Hit Die.

A live basilisk of 4HD, for example, can go for 400-1,600gp at the Arcane Exchange. Its liver can reap profits a hundred-fold its cost if performed by an experienced augur and invested by a wealthy trader.

d12	Augur	Augury Type	Complications
1	A witch plucked right from the bog.	Bone Tossing	There is no discernable pattern.
2	An old hermit-ascetic bribed to abandon solitude with fat stacks of cash.	Sand Reading	The augury tool broke or lost.
3	Some young lad who learned by secretly watching other augurs’ techniques.	Sacred Chickens	Interference by another nearby augury.
4	Kidnapped and caged state cultist from rival nation.	Hydromancy	Rival broker attempting a distraction.
5	A holy monkey-man paid in literal peanuts.	Tarot Card Draw	Rival auger stealing/copying result.
6	A charlatan fortune teller who’s just gotten incredibly and consistently lucky	Haruspicy	Rival augur made exact same prediction.
7	Blind homeless man taken off the street and given nice clothes	Reading Bird Behavior	Strong winds.
8	Three-eyed frog man.	Demonic Possession	Pressure - Incorrect reading leads to sacrifice of augur.
9	Criminalized oracle serving out their life sentence.	Crystal Ball	Police are looking for a ‘fraud’, causing a ruckus.
10	Graduate student in Economics paying off their student loans.	Die Casting	Wizard brawl on the trade floor.
11	Demon in a magic circle.	Vortex Staring	Someone’s demon got out.
12	Mercenary augur. Works for the highest bidder.	Mystery Algorithm	Crowded space - too many augurs and/or traders.

The lower levels hold the avatar of a God of the Market: equal parts man, bull, and she-wolf. Only accomplished traders or affluent patrons of the Exchange are permitted to suckle its blood-milk. In return, it consumes only but a few of them - the losers, of course. Those who fail one too many auguries or go bankrupt are inevitably dragged into the bowels of the building by the market cultists to be fed to their god.

The Market God is protected by layers upon layers of bodies: trade-wizards seeking blessings from the divine, animate bronze beast statues at the temple thresholds, frothing free market cultists wielding buzzing weapons of gold and silver, and of course The Secret Police.

~~~~~

Gold Coins to Spellgold Exchange Rates

Columns are based by Edition. Each Spellgold can be used as a Spell Scroll of its appropriate Spell Level.

Numbers given are in terms of gold coins required for a Spellgold of a given level.

Coin Type	Spell Level	5th Edition D&D	B/X, OSR	GLOG
Wood	Cantrip	5	100	100*
Copper	1	25	500
Silver	2	250	1,000
Electrum	3	500	2,000
Gold	4	2,500	3,000
Platinum	5	5,000	4,000
Plutonium	6	15,000	6,000
Diamond	7	25,000	8,000
Condensed Dark Matter	8	50,000	10,000
Anti-Matter	9	250,000	20,000

*In GLOG, 1 Spellgold = 1 Magic Die = 100gp

What New Speculative Currency 

Is All The Rage In Wizard City?

1. Secrets

2. Memories

3. Body Augmentations

4. Arms (functional/attachable ones only)

5. Saint Bones

6. Commemorative Spoons

7. Opium Bars

8. Gems with the souls of adventurers dissolving within.

9. Talking Goats

10. Ambitions, distilled.

11. Fantasies.

12. Babies, Fresh

13. Babies, Preserved

14. Familiars on Sticks

15. Years, Good Health

16. Years, Bad Health

17. Ancestor Spirits

18. Hauntings

19. Living Statues

20. Designer Diseases

21. Cursed Objects

22. Cursed Objects, Ironic

23. Generic Word Trademarks

24. Alliances

25. Chocolate Coins

26. Tulips

27. Books, Ancient

28. Books, Pornographic

29. Books, Talking

30. Books, Screaming

31. Books, For Throwing At Hirelings

32. Tongues
33. Vertebrae
34. Hirelings
35. Hirelings, Deformed
36. Hirelings, Miniaturized
37. Minotaurs
38. Deadly Traps
39. Languages
40. Bottles of Tears
41. Virgins
42. Ponies
43. Dragons
44. Manticores
45. Other Wizards
46. Nephews
47. Clones
48. Small Island Nations
49. Snowglobes
50. Snowglobes, With Pocket Dimensions Trapped Inside Them
51. Snowglobes, With Horrible Horrible Things Trapped Within
52. Alternate Universes
53. Mimics
54. Sunlight
55. Hallucinogenic Toads
56. Mind-Controlling Toads
57. Grandmotherly Wisdom
58. Awkward Conversations
59. Weddings
60. The Weather
61. Letters of the Alphabet
62. Impractically Tall Hats
63. Increasingly Longer Dogs
64. Milk
65. Firstborn Children
66. Chronic/Inheritable Diseases
67. Magic Rings
68. Golems
69. STDs
70. Guano
71. Particular Sausages
72. Cocaine
73. 4th Dimensional Hypercubes
74. Brains in Jars
75. Booze That Makes You Go Blind
76. Mismatched Socks
77. Breathable Air
78. Coupons For Canned Corn
79. Pocket Monsters
80. Designer Wands
81. Animals Polymorphed Into Vehicles
82. Philosophers
83. Molerats That Squeak When They Should Be Speculated On... No Wait They Do That All The Time
84. In-Laws
85. Wacky Wonky Inflatable Flailing Tube Men
86. Grains of Sands
87. Crackhouses
88. Potable Water
89. Triangles, The Shape, Everywhere
90. Fools
91. Warm Blankets
92. Jokes
93. Messiahs
94. Terrible Accidents
95. Sidewalks
96. Heat
97. Stars
98. Sick Disses
99. Everything
100. ...And Kitchen Sinks

Conversations with the Darkness - Emergence of the Red Widows

A summary of select excerpts from the Chronulean Journal of Sociology and Spiders Issue #144, co-authored by W. Smith and C. Le Brau, on the shifts in gendered classes caused by the emergence of the drow upon the neighboring societies of Humans within the Suthlands.

The JSS is the most-cited academic journal with
regard to Sociological and Spider studies.

A Suthland Woman's Conversation With the Darkness

Woman: Hello?
Darkness: ...
Woman: ...
Darkness: You're late.
Woman: *after considerable pause* I'm... I'm sleeping. I don't understand.
Darkness: You're late with child.
Woman: Yes, yes... Uhh... I haven't decided on a name. I don't know if-
Darkness: Don't.
Woman: Sorry, I don't un-
Darkness: Don't.
Woman: ...

The Darkness offers the Woman a dark iron band.

Darkness: This will make them afraid. They will leave you alone. Your fear will be theirs. Their power yours. Never again, never again... Forever.
Woman: I don't understand... I don't...
Darkness: For this, the child.
Woman: ...
Darkness: ...
Woman: *whispers* Okay...

Darkness Exeunt

Woman: ... ... ...

They come on Darkdays, when the scant bit of sun is blocked by overcast clouds. When darkness and fog shrouds the land they come to the women of the villages and ask whether they have children or husbands to sell.

For this they trade petty objects worth small fortunes within the Suthlands: a bolt of woven drider silk, an uncut ruby the size of a thumbnail, an eternal love potion, an iron band which makes even guardsmen afraid, a spider which traps the bugs that bite, a medicine for the pain, a bound-familiar that warns of approaching raiders, silence and peace in sleep...

They are the horrors of bedtime stories and motherly threats: "Eat your soup or else mother will sell you to the Dark Elves!" Threats often made with insincerity, but sometimes not.

In order for slave acquisition to be "fair" in the minds of the matricians of the Twilight City, it must have been acquired by exchange - property for property traded fairly by those who govern it. In drow society these property-holders are the matrons. In the Suthlands, it is traditionally the fathers. This (supposed) cultural misunderstanding has fostered the rise of a new class of adult woman. It is as if the power of the matrons has bled down into the lowlands and uplifted the witches and the old wise women, linking their power and influence to the ascent of the Twilight Republic.

These witches, these wives and widows, these medicine women have been come to be known as Red Widows.

The drow leave small red spiders on the property of these women - red like molten wax on sealed letters, so small and still that they remain unseen even in plain sight. These spiders spin exothermic webs unique to the House which designed them, letting the drow know that this women is willing to do business and which House has laid claim to exclusivity. These spiders are not native to this land, and so do not migrate or produce offspring. Should the web be destroyed the spider will remake it before the next Darkday. Nothing less than burning down the house will rid a domain of this mark.

Of course, this "fair trade" doesn't always happen. If a matron has nothing left to offer - no husbands, no children or grandchildren, no far relatives in the nearby villages or information on other locals - then people might simply begin to disappear without her approval. Some, but not all Houses (poorer, more desperate ones) will forego ethics to avoid returning empty-handed, and simply steal entire families in the darkness. Inevitably, the witch will take the blame, and by exile or fire a new matron will be crowned - one that's perhaps more keen for 'business'.

~~~~~

It has given the adult women of the realm a special power they had not before, one normally reserved exclusively for the old wise women and the witches: one which instills fear and awe.

More than one abusive husband has stayed his hand at the fear of being abducted in the night. Children are taught to behave themselves lest mother decide to have them stolen and eaten by the elves. Fathers contemplate the merits of their sons when before they did not. It has put a deserved fear in those that had a cruel power.

For some, not enough. Concurrently, as the drow's expansion has empowered the witches, so too has it empowered witch hunters - horrible, horrible men - motherless, sisterless bachelors, like roaming bands of bandits. They go from town to town, with torch and royal authority in hand to find the little red spiders and burn those homes to the ground, preferably with its occupants still inside. They are prone to false positives and abuse of power, tending towards the intensively superstitious and ignorant. They travel only by daylight and make great campfires in the dark, for despite their power they fear the dark ones more than any. The drow, keen to preserve their business interests, reserve special torments for this lot. Though they rarely promote open combat with them (as even under ideal circumstances this is a dangerous endeavor), the drow are particularly adept at psychological warfare - noises in the dark, monsters in the shadows, illusions, curses, subtle poisons on painless darts. Witch hunters go mad by the dozen.

They often take out this madness on the people they have sworn to protect. Whole villages can go up in flames before royal charters are belatedly revoked. This frequently results in entire villages taking up arms against all - witch hunters, strangers, king and country alike. After that, peasant rebellion and royal crackdown is not far behind.

Which thereby begs the question: were the witch hunters always mad, or did the drow make them as such? Did they merely accelerate the progression of events, or did they cause them? Was this the grand scheme of the matricians of Twilight City all along? To foster rebellion and divide the nations of the Suthlands that they may more easily be conquered? The drow are famous for their schemes within schemes within schemes, for their double and triple feints, for their mastery of psychology and sociology on levels practiced whereby others only study.

These humble academics do not know, and perhaps it never will become known until far-future historians have discussed and debated their theories.

Sand Vikings

This follows a similar format as The Drow Have Discovered Agriculture. Take a culture, churn it through the apocalypse and change its biome. Today it's vikings and half-elves.

~~~~~

The lineage of the late Ilta of Valta has produced a number of great heroes and frivolous wanderers. Her blood and cunning has crafted a line of long-lived princes sworn to never to take the throne - of queens that have kept wisdom constant. She had seen the lives of her children and grandchildren play out to conclusion, and yet never despaired beyond her capacity. When she died, she did so gladly - for though rulership soon passed to greedy men, the legacy of her wisdom would be secure for generations to come. To this day there are heroes bearing her blood who travel the land in search of mighty deeds, who sire kings of kings and pass into legend.

From The Banner Saga

The Hydan Herroya - The Lords of the Sands - are the keepers of a tradition of survival. They sail enchanted ships that grace the dunes as if it were the ocean's waves, and hold dominion over oases beyond the reach of all but demons. It was not always so.

Long before the Tidelock, their ships sailed on seas. Their lands were rocky and hard, and so they raided their neighbors and traded with far-flung peoples. They held common-born Heroes in high honor - men and women of great strength, fortitude, or cunning. Their magicians traveled wide to gather secrets held dear, and told stories as a form of power.

Source

Then the Sun froze in the sky. The Moon dipped below the horizon and was never seen again. The winds riled up into hurricanes and the oceans began to evaporate into apocalypse storms. This doom was foreseen by little and dreaded by all. Ilta was there, centuries ago, but then a young maiden among a people not of her own, to be wed to a dying old king whose name is now forgotten.

Yet then her devotion was strong. She prayed to the goddess of war and peace, of home and the roads for salvation in these times. She so she was answered by an avatar of Iune herself, which said: "Marshal the people and take them West. There, where the Sun but lays on the horizon shall you find Home on the everlasting shore." By the goddess she was bestowed great powers of war and peace, and so with gathered the kings and magicians of the old world into one caravan to sail into the west on a disappearing sea, in hope of salvation.

There were many trials, but with the protection of the goddess but few were lost. It is in this time that the sand ships came into being: repurposed from the timber of vessels at final rest, at the edge of the Saltsea. With this secret unveiled the people found respite at the Ends of the Earth, the walled domain of the King of Winter whose impenetrable glaciers now melted into rivers, his domain crumbling and breaking away with each passing day. Powerful though he was in the face of annihilation, he could not resist the coordinated might of the Hydan, and was destroyed.

Source

A new haven was made on the ruins of the Kingdom of Winter, Sandrsjorheim - the Sand Shore Home. It was there, among the lakes and the sands, that Ilta ruled her people in peace and love. She met a man - Kari, whose might in the campaign against the King of Winter struck decisive blows, whose passion and strength inspired greatness in those who witnessed his deeds. Together they were wed and had many children, and many more grandchildren. She would personally rule until even her grandchildren could learn from her wisdom.

But Kari was a Man, and Ilta was not. She would live forever, but her lover was mortal. Her children would live to three hundred years, her grandchildren two hundred, her great-grandchildren but a hundred and twenty. Each generation would bear both the blessing and the curse - to see their children grow old with them, never able to inherit that which death grants to children. It would cause many to leave home, many to never return.

The Princes of the lineage of Ilta would never come to rule. In the Middle Days, after the founding of Sandrsjorheim, the men of the kingdom came to unrest. They saw the power of the lineage of Ilta and decried its unfairness - for they had little say in the affairs of rule. To avoid rebellion, Ilta struck a compromise, that no man from her lineage should ever take up the throne. Instead, a queen would be selected from her children, and a king selected from among the greatest of the men of the kingdom - mirroring Kari's ascent. And so these great men would marry into Ilta's family, and she would abdicate. She would become the Advisor of Kings, and the greatest or strongest among them would rule. There was peace.

But now, three centuries later, the lakes have all but dried up. The desert has claimed its due, and Ilta has passed on in glory. What shall be the fate of the Hydran Herroya?

Travelers and Heroes

The Princes of the lineage of Ilta had no hope of land or rulership, and so with the blessings and favor of the goddess who has blessed their lineage they go out into the world to find their fortune. Sun-kissed and experienced in the perils of the Unsetting Desert, they first spend years as hermit wanderers, honing their skills of survival, before heading into the greater world in search of fortune.

These Princes become the fathers or grandfathers, sidekicks or party members, sages or advisors of heroes in other culture's stories - great travelers from foreign lands who claim thrones and fortunes and sire culture-heroes by right of divine blessing and might of steel. They become not foreign conquerors, but assimilate into that culture whose fortune finds them. They marry the daughters of kings and queens and bear long-lived and blessed children whose lives are watched over and defended by the goddess of home and travel as they and Ilta were.

It's been suggested then that the Herroya have a safe harbor in any empire - and this is not entirely unfounded. Aside from their capacity to work as loyal and fierce mercenaries, the legends of their Princes often make way to scholars and griots wise enough to remember the rhymes and connect the blood lines of their forefathers. The Herroya are oft considered cousins to their hosting peoples, no matter how outlandish the comparison. Though, whether this is merely a means of diplomacy or a matter of truth is yet to be determined.

War and Peace

The goddess Iune watches over her chosen like they were her children. She jealously guards them from other gods and perils, like a Hera or Jehovah. She grants them safety on the road and wisdom in rule. But do not be fooled - she is a goddess of aggression as much as protection. Her domains are a duality: home and travel, war and peace, death and life. Her insignia is the mother bear, her weapon is the axe - a tool of creation and destruction both.

Source

Rulers and clerics within her watch will often carry coins used for the express purpose of augury. When decisions of terrible import become hard to make, they will toss it to find the will of the goddess. However, this is never to be used in place of good judgement. Should a ruler or cleric find themselves becoming too reliant on these auguries they will often begin to fail as the grand matron disapproves of their over-reliance on her protection. She wants her children to be self-sufficient.

The Roost

Perched on the highest point in The Drain is a chapterhouse swarming with the thousand discerning eyes of toothed owls. Their gaze freezes the blood and paralyzes the legs, making it all the easier for some wolf-bird to glide in for the kill.

Home of the Omicron Delta Theta sorority - The Sisterhood of the Cell. Wizard City’s preeminent pre-med sorority provides its members with a place to pursue their biomancy studies without restraint or oversight. Troublemakers and failed experiments are tossed from the precipice, fed to the owls, or both.

Signature among these novo-strigiformes is the so-called owl-wolf, combining the pack instincts, teeth, and size of the wolf with the composure and stealth of the owl. These creatures often prey upon the small mutated critters of The Drain, but sometimes they go for larger meals at the behest of the Sisters. The genotype of the owl-wolf is relatively stable (much like that of the owlbear) and is resistant to mutations effects such as those of the Drain and the Sisters' experimentation.

Source - Yukai-Yukino-Yoji

Source

Source

Here we display three experimental ratios of owl to wolf. Respectively, 80:20, 50:50, and 25:75.

MAD SCIENCE

Read left to right or mix and match.

d20	This Sister is developing...	But to complete it she needs...
1	The most adorable creature in existence by frankensteining together adorable animal babies.	Two of every animal baby!  (One for the dry run, one for the real deal.)
2	A plague that makes people burst out in painful boils whenever they interrupt someone.	Newts. Why is it always newts? She’ll need a dozen damn newts!
3	Flight for opossums. Just imagine it! Flying opossums! Ahhh! Hissssssss!	Like, maybe… Three dozens wings. Doesn’t matter what they came from, just not from the owls.
4	Eyes for worms. Poor things deserve to see what they’re eating.	Eyes. Lots of ‘em. Tiny ones, especially. An indeterminate number. Like, maybe a bag? A bag of eyes would be great.
5	Bonelessness-inducing serum. Hilarious when applied to freshmen. Is it reversible?? AHAHA!	Test subjects! Care to advance the cause of biomancy?
6	Calculator mice - capable of moderate to challenging arithmetic.	One really good brain. Like, an amazing brain. An extraordinary brain. A genius brain.
7	A love potion. For who? Well, for the market of course! I’m going to be RICH!	Hearts. A few handfuls. Go over to Heart House and pluck a few from the walls.
8	A hyper-aggressive form of ant… That shoots lightning. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this idea, nope!	Some decent lightning rods. Like, BIG ones.
9	Cancer for cancer. Cancer squared. Tumors on your tumors. It’s like putting out a fire with an explosion… hypothetically.	Uhhh… Some tumors? A variety would be nice.
10	The ultimate sterilizer… Wait no it’s just acid.	A few gallons of fresh water and/or isopropyl alcohol. Guess which one’s harder to find?
11	A tuber that will grow ANYWHERE, not just in soil!	Fertilizer and soil, but not fertilizer *in* soil.
12	A breed of guardian animal, for purely defensive purposes of course.	Strong stock! Find two of the toughest meanest creatures you can find and bring them back here.
13	“Medicinal Honey”, which is to say: honey that’ll get you really freakin’ high.	Bees. She requires bees. Bees and drugs.
14	Domesticated mimics.	Some mimics, of course.
15	A wig that protects the wearer against spells and attacks.	Hair. Lots of it. Bags. Spools. Longer the better. Trimmings won’t do. Oh, and the scalps, too.
16	Random hybrids - let’s cross ‘em and cross ‘em again and see what sticks.	Some mutated creature samples. Plenty down in The Drain. The more mutated the better.
17	Wings! Beautiful beautiful wings! I shall blot out the Sun with my genius!	Wax and wings. Source not important. Two pounds of each should do.
18	What will eventually be known as Dick Rot. That’ll show those assholes at the Black Magic Fraternity!	Some strains of flesh-eating bacteria and/or flesh-consuming mold. Go jump in a dungeon for some.
19	Owls that reproduce by mitosis. More friends!	A few strains of ooze. At least three varieties. Back to the dungeon with thee!
20	Something BIG for the upcoming Bio Mass. Something that’ll change everything.	ONE myconid, ONE lobster, ONE gnome, and no questions asked...

The Drow Have Discovered Agriculture!

I might do more posts like this in the future, following a similar format of taking standard fantasy cultures and squeezing them through the 'how does this change after this particular apocalypse happens' lens.

~~~~~

The Drow have discovered solar agriculture, anyway. Lunar Horticulture has been a practice since time immemorial.

When I started running my Tidelock campaign some uhhh.... 5 years ago?? (Jeeze, that's long), I was initially going to scrap all preconceptions and cultural baggage that's been associated with the drow and make them into weird dream people or something.

But then a player wanted to play a drow, and she seemed really excited about like, playing against the edginess grain and being friends with spiders and stuff so I was like ehhh... okay!

But being the contrarian that I am, and wanting to fit the drow into the larger themes of post-post-apocalyptic societal change, I couldn't simply regurgitate the old tropes (at least not without some spin).

So the Drow in this campaign have agriculture now, and that's a really really big deal.

~~~~~

A Very Very Brief History of the Pre-Apocalyptic Drow

They were what you would typically associate with drow: underground, spiders, slavery, Lolth, depravity, torture, Houses, matriarchy, mushrooms, weird drugs, all that jazz and rock & roll.

This is what they are far before the Campaign begins.

I've been coding them as Classical Romans, co-opting stories from the Iliad, the Odyssey, Romulus and Remus, and the Aeneid as their origin myths. (Romula and Rema suckle the Wolf-spider's poison milk and gain immunity - that sort of deal.) They have a tyrannical monarchy (but not for long).

This but more spider.

Everything is defined in the context of the fact that there isn't enough food underground - even the Matricians couldn't eat lavishly (to do so would mean feeding fewer troops/guards, a recipe for internal assassination). Young life is cheap, old life is very expensive. A leader's ability to procure food (protein especially) is what defines them as successful.

The Traditionalist factions of the present world herald back to this time. They point to the legendary figures as founding foremothers of impeccable strength chiseled from adversity. They believe that the present changes in drow society will make them complacent and weak, and that strict discipline to traditionalist protocols is necessary to maintain empire.

Then Comes the Tidelock

The world literally stops spinning. Nearly everything on the surface gets wiped out. The last remaining holdouts are shelter-dwellers, wizards, and peoples at the old poles. The Underdark remains largely untouched, insulated from the Apocalypse-winds and the Unsetting Sun (or lack thereof).

It takes a while before the drow notice this. Slaves and trade from the surface stops. This is compensated by more underground operations against other Underdark factions. Slowly, unbeknownst to anybody, underground warfare becomes unsustainable without the resource sink of the surface. This never becomes known except to maybe a handful of ignored and ostracized academics.

But slowly, rumors start to spread in the cities of a place on the surface kept in perpetual twilight - where the Sun shines enough to sting but not blind. It is a cold place. Humans dwell among the crags.

Expeditions are sent by industrious Houses desperate to rise above their station in an infamously ossified political system. They are discouraged by the Monarchy, who are violently resistant to change and aware of how new territory will change the power dynamic. The new Republican factions establish colonies, founding the future capitol Twilight City. Their access to new resources and power inevitably lead to internal conflict and Civil War.

The Republican factions win a Pyrrhic victory at a terrible cost. They unleash something upon the old city (it has varied over time exactly what this thing was/is) - a Death Tyrant, the Mondmilch, a Memetic Plague, a Cordiceps Betrayal Strain, something civilization-ending. It kills everyone, including the monarchy. The city cannot sustain life anymore and is abandoned.

Those that stood with the monarchy are exterminated. All remaining refugees resettle in Twilight City.

Then Comes Agriculture

With total victory achieved, a new form of government is formed. The New Moon Republic comes into being. Every House gets to field one Senator. A Chancellor is elected from among the Senators. (This eventually changes as population begins to boom among Republican Houses, prompting governmental reforms allowing "New Houses" to form and gain Senate seats.) The sky is the limit - literally, figuratively. On the surface, there is nothing to keep a House from expanding as much as they want.

Cold weather crops are "discovered" by Drow researchers (having been grown by local humans).

This changes everything.

Pictured: Everything changing.

The drow can just grow as much food as they want (with help extorted from the local humans, anyway...). There's no limit of space or fertilizer or farming labor (necromancy is found to be particularly potent in the shade of the Eternally-Eclipsed Moon). Suddenly the wealthy can eat whenever they want. Suddenly even the poor Houses can feed all their members. You don't have to sacrifice every other baby to Lolth because if you don't they'll just starve to death anyways.

They don't need Lolth anymore. There are other gods, ones more relevant to the troubles of the surface world - Hydur (Wind/Vengeance), Tiamat (Ocean/Disaster), Iune (War/Migration), Manmanuk (Chaos/Dreams), Dolena (Unchange/Undeath). Lolth threw her hat in with the monarchy anyways, so her worship becomes illegal. The clerics are told by the governmental powers that be to worship the new gods or go the way of the monarchy - nearly all comply. Those that don't practice in secret. Those that do are pragmatic about it - after all, Lolth detested weakness, and she was ultimately the loser after all was said and exterminated. It's perfectly consistent with Lolthian ideals to abandon her worship for the winners. Even the Traditionalist factions take up the new gods. A Sword of Damocles is established for the campaign.

The population explodes. Now it's not about maintaining that perfect population balance, but about making as many children as you possibly can. The Traditionalists are slow to pick this up, so the Republican factions will always been 50-100 years ahead of their rivals in terms of numbers of soldiers, workers, and Senate representation.

Things That Are New:

Feasts and Obesity. Vomitoriums are added to estates. Beauty standards change from petite chiseled lean muscle to double chins and THICC. Male concubines now look like Pillar Men or Dad Bod. The first drow ever suffers from diabetes and then subsequently dies from diabetes because drow medical practitioners have no idea what that is.

Pictured: Pillar Men, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

I want you all to appreciate what a nsfw land mine
it was to google "overweight drow".
Artist: EPgalo

Land Ownership and Marriage. Ownership in drow culture has traditionally followed this axiom: if you built it then it's yours. This applied equally to buildings, food, and children alike (men, of course, had no input in building children). Land ownership in the way we understand (as in a person owns the land itself, apart from anything built on it) wasn't a thing. But now the land itself is super important - you need it to plant more kale, cabbage, and wheat. You need people to not disturb it because otherwise the food doesn't get made. Hence, land ownership gets introduced to drow society.

And guess who gets the land? Those that could claim it, namely the Houses with resources at their disposal. The lands of the Feyfjord to the north are claimed by the Republican factions. The south lands (the Suthlands) are claimed by the Traditionalists (who hate this idea but they can't not go along with it). The Feyfjord gets turned into zombie farms. The Suthlands become targets for ever-emboldening slave raids.

Marriage comes hand-in-hand with land ownership. With land becoming important so does lineage - you want this land to go to your children, not someone else's. Marriage, at this point, has not become ritualized. It is merely a contract, like any other (I help you make this baby and that baby gets this land). The Republican factions embrace marriage as innovative, the Traditionalists don't.

Gymnasiums and Sports. Oh boy oh boy, now there's really energy to spare. The first public gyms are created by the Traditionalists factions (as traditionally, there was maybe one gym in the city, and everyone wanted more). Calories can finally be spent en-masse on getting SWOLE. Gender segregated is present (gyms for men are smaller and fewer, only recently constructed). Sports other than watching sick slaves get eaten by monsters can now reasonably occur. Favorite among them: tunnel wrestling, acrobatics, peryton racing, mountain climbing, and trick archery. Bloodsports to the death are far less common because now you can actually use those people. The Traditionalists maintain gladiatorial games, but it tends to be far more showy and dramatic nowadays than in the past.

Gyms take up space. Underground they require more justification.

No Rest For the Dead and Cannibalism Goes Out of Fashion. Necromancy progresses to the point where the spirit may be detained indefinitely within this world. Servant castes of a House are expected to serve, die, and serve again... forever. Bodies are a resource for making food, as now there's no resource ceiling cap on labor. So sadly, for those who enjoyed the symbolic, aesthetic, or religious aspects of cannibalism, it is no longer of prudent economic use. The Traditionalists will still sometimes do this, with children consuming the parents - especially with someone important such as a matriarch (to doubly spare them the undead afterlife and 'have them join their lineage in body'), but even they have recognized the importance of undead labor.

Fashion and Furs. It's cold on the surface. Much colder than in the cities built neat heat vents, cradled by the passive radiation of the earth's core. There's also much more space - to fight, to walk, to simply be. Drow used to wearing nothing but light silks must adopt that which they always associated with the barbarians and crude troglodytes of the surface: pants. Oh, those barbarous pants! Drow stop complaining about pants after the first couple of times a cold wind sweeps up their undersides - now silks are indoor/traditional clothes. They're for Senate meetings and heated baths. Furs take over as the garb to wear - some senators even wear them in the senate now! Fur trapping becomes a very lucrative industry, with pelts hunted all across the world to make warm vestments in Twilight City. Increasing waist sizes have even compounded this demand further.

New Fashion = Furs + Silks

Heavy armor becomes desirable as the need to design for spelunking becomes less of a priority. The drow didn't spend millennia on making comfortable and utilitarian armor to suddenly abandon it now, though. As such, drow armor is easily the most comfortable to wear, anywhere. It's good to hiding things and carrying tools. You can sleep in it without penalty.

Heavy Armor is now a viable means of protection
when you're not spelunking.

Cuisine and Chefs. The drow don't need to consume every bit of slop that becomes available - they can now be choosy. Chef becomes a viable profession, and they explode in popularity. The first Drow Cookbook is published, largely to train other chefs. It contains classic royal recipes such as mushroom steaks and eyeball a la mode (dwarf eyes are traditional), as well as new dishes such as cabbage soup and *gasp* bread! Bread is a big deal - it's cheap, it's compact, it lasts - more for the lower classes than anyone else. The Traditionalists think eating grain makes one weak, though, and that those empty calories are suitable only for slaves.

Just wait until they discover dairy... Hoo boy that'll be exciting!