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The daily life of most drow may be dominated by hard drudgery and the wanton cruelty of superiors.but there is fun in the city of Menzoberranzan, for those who know how to find it. Among visitors from the surface world, the decadent things noble and wealthy non-noble drow do have become legendary.

Among Menzoberranyr inhabitants, drow and non-drow (slaves, hireling troops, and trading agents) tend to keep separate in their leisure activities. Visitors with money to lose are generally welcome in drow recreational activities, but less so in non-drow gatherings (as they might be spies hired by the drow Houses).

Parties

Drow love parties.affairs of wild music and dancing, much drinking of exotic and powerful beverages, and the inhaling of scented smoke (sometimes primed with magical illusions) from braziers. Houses rent sumptuous open mansions as neutral ground in which to entertain, rather than risking the security of their own property.

Drow love to score witty points in barbed conversation (while dancing or dining); a wise host hires wizards to entertain with magic, heading off any drunken (and destructive!) magical competitions among the revelers.

Parties tend to last most of a day. Most end in wild fighting, vandalism, fires, and wanton debauchery, with party-goers being dumped unceremoniously into the street. Wise Matrons send escorts to carry helplessly drunken scions of Houses home.

Drow of different Houses can also get to meet each other at more formal dances, or illiyitrii (“promenade”). Both stately and political, these affairs are places to be seen, in which drow of both sexes dress up in their finest garb. They are very dangerous situations for non-drow who are not conversant in the subtle intricacies of drow manners, House rivalries, and recent happenings among noble Houses in the city.

In sharp contrast to illiyitrii are the nedeirra of the younger and wilder drow. Seldom attended by high priestesses, these wild, acrobatic “sweat dances” Usually leave young drow drenched in sweat, dancing to the syncopated, driving rhythms of drumming and piping music. A wizard or two is often hired to create fun: illusions, tickling and slapping cantrips, and so on.

Massage

For drow who live hard, always tense and alert for attack, the ultimate sensuous pleasure in life is a warm bath (or a perfumed oil soak), followed by a “deepstroke” thorough body massage, typically on a contoured couch (often in a room where others are receiving the same ministrations, so that all present can argue, chat, or do business). A talented bodystroker (masseuse) is a highly-valued (and highly-paid) artisan of drow society.

The most popular leisure spots in Menzoberranzan are the massage houses. Massage is a common outlet for the passions of drow of different Houses, for whom courtship is too dangerous.

Hunts

Noble drow, alone of the inhabitants of Menzoberranzan, like to mount hunts out into the Underdark’ either of monsters, or of slaves released into the tunnels with some sort of head-start.

Although drow hunters may restrict themselves sharply in terms of weapons, equipments, and steeds used, to give the quarry a chance, it is rare to find a hunting party without a wizard and at least two (usually five or six) priestesses along. The hunters will almost all be wellequipped with magical items useful in combat - just in case the hunters become the hunted, or a rival House is unable to resist a chance to strike at relatively unprotected enemies.

For the same reason, it is rare to find a hunt (except those sent out to find and exterminate or capture intelligent prey, such as adventurers or scouts from other drow cities) composed of members of more than one House - except the rare “Dark Hunts” run by the Academy.

Most of these are training affairs, in which the monstrous quarry is equipped with spells it can cast or magical items it can use against its pursuers. More than one captured adventurer has ended up as the doomed quarry of a “Dark Hunt”. Very rarely, one escapes, to die a lonely death, lost deep in the wild Underdark.

The Pits

Drow of all ranks are welcome in the city’s “drinking pits”, where they must surrender all weapons as they enter, and can get as drunk as they want, shout, argue, talk, and have a good fight. Priestesses often use magic to eavesdrop in such places, listening for treachery, plans for attacks on Houses, or other business being discussed.

The entertainment in such places is slave-versus-slave and slave-versus-beast fights, in pit-arenas. Establishment patrons wager heavily on these bloody contests.

Plays

Drow theatrical productions always involve slapstick comedy, singing, the use of masks and exaggerated costumes, the passing on (or invention) of sly gossip about city affairs, and imparting the latest news (bought from newly-arrived merchants, who have learned to charge for such news, and not offer it freely to any who ask) of the Underdark’ or, especially, the wonders and events of the fabled Lands of Light (the surface world). They are typically the centerpiece entertainments at parties, but are also staged in rented warehouses near the Bazaar from time to time.

At a party, a stage is often defined with a faerie fire - glowing rope laid in an oval; larger productions typically take place on a raised stage. Drow audiences always stand and move about during a performance, not sitting down. To discourage thieves, some playhouses hire an expert thief and a wizard. The wizard’s magic gives the thief extraordinary means of sight, and also animates a dozen or more glowing skeletal hands (used by drow directors to point out things during performances) above the crowd. If thievery is detected, the thief directs the wizard to bring a glowing, pointing hand down to indicate the guilty party. The crowd around tends to exact justice on the spot.

Wizards At Play

Drow mages like to play pranks (in massage houses and other places of recreation, where such things are expected, and most likely to escape retaliation or punishment) by creating small, harmless “oops” spell effects.

A favorite cantrip creates a “second pair” of hands, so a drow being massaged suddenly feels another pair of hands - or, the embracing hands of an amorous dancing couple are suddenly multiplied manyfold.

Wizards in search of more violent and powerful play sometimes fly out into the wild Underdark, to the rifts inhabited by driders, and get in some good “driderblasting” with whatever offensive spells they can muster. This pastime always carries the spice of danger.one never knows when a drider will elude or break through barrier-spells, during a magical attack that disrupts these defenses, and be able to reach its tormentor.