
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.
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 deep-stroke thorough body massage, typically on a contoured couch. This is often in a room where others are receiving the same ministrations, so that all present can argue, chat, or do business. A talented body-stroker (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.
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