(image description: a comparison image between DnD drow and my own design for drow. The DnD drow is a humanoid woman with dark grey skin and long white hair, wearding very dark grey blue clothing with a lot of drape and a spider motif. My drow is a monkey-like bipedal creature with purple skin, white hair, a long tail, and sensory facial whiskers, wearing very shiny pink and purple clothes with layers and embroidered designs and a sheer spiderweb shawl. There are also lists of comparative descriptions on each side, detailed below. End description.)

Dnd Drow: practice eugenics, are described as evil with an emphasis on their dark skin. got banished to live in caves because they're evil, so they don't actually have good adaptations for it. a lot about their evilness is tied to the worship of a spider god, with a religiously strict social hierarchy in a reverse sexist matriarchy. They have slaves, especially male sex slaves (i had to tone that down as "poorly treated harems" for the sake of posting it in an all ages discord server with rules about sex discussions)

My Drow: purple cave elves semi-based on baboons for some anatomical details. their genetics are real weird and their hormones are quite unique. they worship a motherly spider goddess because spiders are cool and also they actually have a special ability to make magic glowing silk, so the spider worship makes sense. They live in caves because they adapted to live there, with big ears and eyes and sensory whiskers. they live in a matriarchy because the matriarch is their mom and she is part of a polycule, typically established for political reasons like maintaining allegiances. the social hierarchy is managed through mass sibling rivalries because living with dozens of your own siblings is a little tense sometimes. Also due to their eusocial biology, they essentially have three different biological sexes and quite a few different social gender roles, depending on hos you want to define a gender role.

as u can see, my drow are clearly the superior version. (this is a joke, i am making a joke, don't sue me WotC)

should i make a new word for them? maybe. but since "drow" just comes from "trow" which describes a very wide variety of cave-dwelling fae, coming up with a new word that's still recognizable is gonna be tricky.