Homeland

Being a male in the matriarchal drow society, Drizzt Do'Urden suffered considerable abuse at the hands of his family in the first sixteen years of his life. His first ten years were spent in the care of his older sister Vierna; though she was far from kind, in his later years Drizzt would recall some affection for her, stemming from the fact they shared paternity through Zaknafein.

As a child, Drizzt displayed amazing reflexes and coordination. Consequently, Zaknafein was able to persuade Malice that Drizzt should become a warrior, instead of replacing Nalfein as the house wizard. Thus, at the age of sixteen, Drizzt began his weapons training. It was then that he began learning the skills that would lead to him become one of the most formidable swordsmenin both the Underdark, and Faerûn.

At twenty years of age, he went to Melee-Magthere, Menzoberranzan's warrior academy, where he excelled in his studies despite his resistance to the attempted brainwashingby the masters of the academy. When it was clear that there were none in Drizzt's class who could beat him, the masters of the academy matched him against students three years above him. Drizzt defeated that class easily. His time at the academy would have been spotless (by Drow standards) except for the graduation ceremony, where he disgraced himself by refusing to take part in an orgy, refusing the advances of two high priestesses, one of them his sister, and damning Lolth. Although he thought that no one noticed because they themselves were too "distracted" by the ceremony; therefore, he still graduated with honors.

After graduating he took part in a surface raid in which he saved the life of a child of the most bitter enemy of the drow, the surface elves, by hiding her underneath her murdered mother. Drizzt's weaponmaster Zaknafein, having similar morals to Drizzt, thought he killed the child, but Lolth knew he hadn't and dropped the Do'Urden family from her favour because of it. Zaknafein then fought with Drizzt, thinking he had become like other drow, and was told the truth of the matter by Drizzt.

Unfortunately, the females of House Do'Urden, in a bid to find out why Do'Urden was no longer in Lolth's favour, were watching this battle. The end result of this is that Zaknafein offered himself as a sacrifice to spare Drizzt and Drizzt, on realizing what had happened, left house Do'Urden to live in the Underdarkwilderness.

Drizzt then spent some years in the Underdark, during which he was enslaved by mind flayersand then had to fight Zaknafein again, who had been made undeadby Malice, thanks to Lolth's "greatest gift" Zin-Carla, to find Drizzt. In the end, Zaknafein regained enough control to make himself fall into a pool of acid, destroying himself.

For Malice's failure to use Zaknafein to kill Drizzt, Lolth decreed that house Do'Urden should be destroyed, and House Baenre(the most powerful house in Menzoberranzan) did just that, with only Vierna and Dinin (Drizzt's older brother) surviving.