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Hello all,
I am running a game and one of my players is a dark elf. Well how would he be treated? I mean they are slavers and genies/janni walk the streets, the pactmasters are strange aliens.
I do not know how to treat this. Also do elves know what a dark elf is on sight in this world? I know the queen does, wizened on history sages, but would the elves not fighting them to retake their home know? How would they react to one?
I don't understand the Drow/surface folk dynamic in golarion, and katpesh confuses this further.
If I recall they are unknown on the surface and normally can not be good. In fact an elf that is vile and evil enoff can convert to a drow. They are drow as they are pure soul corrupted vile and evil. am sure someone will come along with more info
But it's your game ya can switch it around if need be
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If I recall they are unknown on the surface and normally can not be good. In fact an elf that is vile and evil enoff can convert to a drow. They are drow as they are pure soul corrupted vile and evil. am sure someone will come along with more info
But it's your game ya can switch it around if need be
No he is pretty much exactly that pure blooded evil, in a party of good characters. I'm saying he will live long in the party, but I am not sure anyone will know he is evil
Well if they know what he is then yes, no elf will likely party with him I would guess. Anyhow I will see what I can dig up if no one else chimes in
Drow are evil, self-serving who kill enemies and take their stuff.
So they'll be welcome, as they're apparently wealthy.
On the other side, the drow are unknown on the surface world. So the Pactmasters probably couldn't give a damn who they are, as long as they don't disrupt trade.
Drow are the 'dirty little secret' of the Elven peoples. He could possibly pass himself off as a oddly manifested Tiefling, but that charade would only last untill the party runs into an Elf, who would recognize him for what he is and that would only be Bad™ for him and the PCs he is with.
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Drow are the 'dirty little secret' of the Elven peoples. He could possibly pass himself off as a oddly manifested Tiefling, but that charade would only last untill the party runs into an Elf, who would recognize him for what he is and that would only be Bad™ for him and the PCs he is with.
He wears full coverings except over his eyes. Then again thats enough to see his skin is dark and his ears are pointed. Do you think every elf would know? A knowledge history check? Maybe dark elves are stories to scare children amongst the elves. Oddly Legacy of fire has few npc elves
Creative Director
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Drow are pretty much universally hated and reviled in Golarion. They're also not nearly as common on the surface world, and are in many societies more like legends or myths than creatures. When they DO show up, most societies are more likely to shoot first and never ask questions at all, which means a drow PC isn't a very good choice for a player race.
That said, if you're allowing a drow PC, you'll need to tone that down; it might even be worth it in your game to treat drow more like how we treat tieflings... as something to be prejudiced against or suspicious of but not to be killed on sight. Certainly, in Katapesh city, where there's already a huge diversity, a drow will be able to fit in relatively unhurt and unchallenged.
But if you're going for a game that treats official canon as your game's canon... your drow PC is going to have to remain completely disguised whenever anyone other than the other PCs can see him or he's going to get challenged and probably attacked every time he goes out in public. So yeah... you're probably going to have to change the drows' role to a major extent in your game as a result, in which case I'd say looking at how Cheliax treats tieflings is your best comparison.
Cheliax [...] is [...] best
Great subliminal messaging!
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But if you're going for a game that treats official canon as your game's canon... your drow PC is going to have to remain completely disguised whenever anyone other than the other PCs can see him or he's going to get challenged and probably attacked every time he goes out in public. So yeah... you're probably going to have to change the drows' role to a major extent in your game as a result, in which case I'd say looking at how Cheliax treats tieflings is your best comparison.
My understanding is that drow were unknown to the masses. Would a Katapesh merchant or business owner (main type of NPCs met by most adventurers) really look twice at an elf with a different skin shade? especially when they deal with the likes of Jackalwere Guildmasters, Sunset Ship Captain Cthulu like weirdos, and Pactmasters, who could be anything really...
I could understand dragons being on Katapesh City's FBI's 10 most wanted list, but drow? from what I've read in the LoF AP Chapters and Dark Markets, I don't think it would even catch their attention. It's the biggest city (for trade) in Golarion! and from what I've experienced as a player in the SD campaign so far, surface folks don't even know about the drow...
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Creative Director
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My understanding is that drow were unknown to the masses. Would a Katapesh merchant or business owner (main type of NPCs met by most adventurers) really look twice at an elf with a different skin shade? especially when they deal with the likes of Jackalwere Guildmasters, Sunset Ship Captain Cthulu like weirdos, and Pactmasters, who could be anything really...
I could understand dragons being on Katapesh City's FBI's 10 most wanted list, but drow? from what I've read in the LoF AP Chapters and Dark Markets, I don't think it would even catch their attention. It's the biggest city (for trade) in Golarion! and from what I've experienced as a player in the SD campaign so far, surface folks don't even know about the drow...
Drow aren't necessarily unknown in Golarion—they're just not commonly encountered on the surface at all. Stories of demon-worshiping midnight-black evil elves from the depths of the earth are widespread enough that their reputation would certainly precede them more or less anywhere... and this lack of concrete knowledge actually plays against the drow's favor since there's no familiarity and just wild rumor.
But again, Katapesh is certainly a place where, if anywhere, drow would be accepted. Although it's true that there are already some crazy folks in Katapesh... I should ALSO point out that the "Jackalwere Guildmaster" is an underground figure who doesn't show his face in public often at all, the Sunset Ship captain normally keeps his human disguise up and lets all of the day-to-day interactions with tradesmen and merchants get handled by his underlings, and the Pactmasters themselves keep themselves well disguised and masked also. So a drow in Katapesh, especially one who wears a disguise or covers up his identity, should be fine...
Of course, part of all of this is the fact that we're REALLY TRYING to make the drow in Golarion bad guys, not angst-filled good guys. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all... it's just that that's a particular thing for the Forgotten Realms and something that a lot of our customers seem to not like.
DM: You see a drow walking down the street what do you do?
Player: Unload my clip, reload with my fast loading feat, unload again, activate my belt of battle and repeat, free action shout for help from the city guard.
Paladin: OMG! Camille! I told you that suntanning booth was a bad idea!
City guard: What happened here?
Player: I thought she was a drow.
Paladin: MY FRIEND! ::cries::
City guard: That's what she gets for impersonating a drow and causing a scare. It's against the law you know.
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Of course, part of all of this is the fact that we're REALLY TRYING to make the drow in Golarion bad guys, not angst-filled good guys.
I think the best way to deal with this would be to make their racial entry "Always Chaotic Evil" like demons and red dragons or something... this sends a clear message that drow are not and will never be a PC race in the Pathfinder Setting (although I understand that a RPG company would probably tend to avoid risking hurting a segment of their customers - i.e. spider kissing players - I think it's safe to assume that most of the readership here wouldn't be offended and in fact quite accepting of the "drow as monsters only" concept...)
"For those who like to rock, we salute you," kinda statement that would shoe away the kids and make us grognards feel proud that Paizo was the right bet to place all along! :)
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Oh he plays a neutral evil character. He does not play a "good drow" and the other party members are massively suspicious of him. I was just wondering about external threats.
Ok so I am gleaning that if he keeps himself covered he will have minimal trouble in katpesh, but should he be revealed he will face contempt in katpesh, and violence of the mob variety outside of katpesh.
I was figuring that but having James confirm is nice(thanks). I didn't want to be out of hand mean to a character in the group.
Your player and you might want to consider long term reaction of the elvish authorities. If elven merchants or diplomats learn of (or possibility of) a drow doing buisness in Katapesh they might take action to investigate and possibly "buy him out" from the Pactmasters.
A permanant and solid alter-ego/disguise would be prudent. The character might not be shot at by everyone recognising a drow it but loose lips ...
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Your player and you might want to consider long term reaction of the elvish authorities. If elven merchants or diplomats learn of (or possibility of) a drow doing buisness in Katapesh they might take action to investigate and possibly "buy him out" from the Pactmasters.
A permanant and solid alter-ego/disguise would be prudent. The character might not be shot at by everyone recognising a drow it but loose lips ...
A good thought. Elvish agents would suspect a deeper plot.
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Drow aren't necessarily unknown in Golarion—they're just not commonly encountered on the surface at all. Stories of demon-worshiping midnight-black evil elves from the depths of the earth are widespread enough that their reputation would certainly precede them more or less anywhere... and this lack of concrete knowledge actually plays against the drow's favor since there's no familiarity and just wild rumor.
It feels odd to argue, you know with Paizo directly... But I was under the impression from the Second Darkness AP, that short of the Winter Council Drow remain unknown even to the elven people as a whole (if your campaign takes place after SD that might not be the case.) An elf encountering a drow might at best be confused. Where as a commoner meeting a drow would probably be as mystified as if they had met an elf for the first time as well.
The only catch being that with Drow being such SOBs that peasant may never have the opportunity to meet with a normal elf at a later date and discuss.
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Drow aren't necessarily unknown in Golarion—they're just not commonly encountered on the surface at all. Stories of demon-worshiping midnight-black evil elves from the depths of the earth are widespread enough that their reputation would certainly precede them more or less anywhere... and this lack of concrete knowledge actually plays against the drow's favor since there's no familiarity and just wild rumor.
It feels odd to argue, you know with Paizo directly... But I was under the impression from the Second Darkness AP, that short of the Winter Council Drow remain unknown even to the elven people as a whole (if your campaign takes place after SD that might not be the case.) An elf encountering a drow might at best be confused. Where as a commoner meeting a drow would probably be as mystified as if they had met an elf for the first time as well.
The only catch being that with Drow being such SOBs that peasant may never have the opportunity to meet with a normal elf at a later date and discuss.
I got a similar impression. But regarding what James said I am now more inclined to think golarion thinks of them like I do the bogeyman
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I got a similar impression. But regarding what James said I am now more inclined to think golarion thinks of them like I do the bogeyman
I'm pretty sure AP13 gives you an elf NPC who is just as surprised as the PCs when the villian is a drow, it is like "the big reveal"
semi off topic
In our case, every time we found one of the drow diaries my PC's insisted in adding to my narrative with stuff like "Dear Diary, why oh why doesn't he notice me, with his twin scimitars flashing in the accursed sun, the the sweat beaded on his chiseled form, truely Dritz is dreamy.
[waits for coffee to spray from nose /]
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Creative Director
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The big reveal in Second Darkness wasn't as much a big reveal to the people of Golarion (who knew about drow but not much, and indeed thought of them as boogeymen), but a reveal to players. Until Pathfidner #13, we hadn't done ANYTHING with drow, and they're a popular race so we played things up.
It was a tricky stunt to pull off, especially since drow are SO overwhelmingly a part of the game. We wanted to try to return some of the mystique to the race, and some of the old school flavor of them being monsters, and that meant we had to pull a lot of tricks to try to get folks's minds off of what WotC had done with drow in the Forgotten Realms and in Eberron.
Anyway... the OP was asking what would attitudes be toward a drow in Katapesh, and I was only trying to point out the fact that drow are viewed as bad guys. There's been SO MUCH BACKLASH against the drow as a result of the immense popularity of Driz'zt, after all, that it's now more or less second nature to me to remind folks that in Golarion the drow are bad guys.
All part of the neverending quest to establish our own sort of presence in the industry, I guess. We do some things different than WotC, and it's hard some times to get folks to realize that.
And in the end, if you have a player who really wants to play a drow and you're cool with that... you absolutely SHOULD embrace a less vilified approach to them and err more on the side of how Forgotten Realms treats them.
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My understanding is that drow were unknown to the masses. Would a Katapesh merchant or business owner (main type of NPCs met by most adventurers) really look twice at an elf with a different skin shade? especially when they deal with the likes of Jackalwere Guildmasters, Sunset Ship Captain Cthulu like weirdos, and Pactmasters, who could be anything really...
I could understand dragons being on Katapesh City's FBI's 10 most wanted list, but drow? from what I've read in the LoF AP Chapters and Dark Markets, I don't think it would even catch their attention. It's the biggest city (for trade) in Golarion! and from what I've experienced as a player in the SD campaign so far, surface folks don't even know about the drow...
Drow aren't necessarily unknown in Golarion—they're just not commonly encountered on the surface at all. Stories of demon-worshiping midnight-black evil elves from the depths of the earth are widespread enough that their reputation would certainly precede them more or less anywhere... and this lack of concrete knowledge actually plays against the drow's favor since there's no familiarity and just wild rumor.
But again, Katapesh is certainly a place where, if anywhere, drow would be accepted. Although it's true that there are already some crazy folks in Katapesh... I should ALSO point out that the "Jackalwere Guildmaster" is an underground figure who doesn't show his face in public often at all, the Sunset Ship captain normally keeps his human disguise up and lets all of the day-to-day interactions with tradesmen and merchants get handled by his underlings, and the Pactmasters themselves keep themselves well disguised and masked also. So a drow in Katapesh, especially one who wears a disguise or covers up his identity, should be fine...
I imagine that claiming to be arare breed of Mwangi elf would be the simplest and most belivable cover story.