I need a sanity check from yall who are better versed in inner sea lore than I.
We are starting a new game in Golarion for the first time and I'm running my brand new RotRL Anniversary Edition. Yeah! One of the players is new to RP but very excited to get her inner geek on. She's also an artist. She spotted the picture of the Drow in the Core Rulebook and fell in love. There is nothing in my inner sea world guide that implies renegade drow exist in Golarion. They are evil. People will burn them. People will put out the witch, just so they can use the wood to burn the drow.
Without turning this into a wall of text; lets's just say the campaign (her and another character) to convince me to let them look that way began. Stats, they didn't care about. They just want to look that way. So I came up with this compromise:
They can be half-drow.
Drow feed such abominations to monsters, but occasionally the Svirfneblin may rescue one (or two) and smuggle them to the surface.
They will use the normal half-elf stats.
Human's haven't a clue about drow, but they all know that there are dark-skinned humans on the southern continent. They will just assume that they are normal half-elves whose human parent was black. There is no skin-color prejudices in Golarion, so there shouldn't be any reaction penalty from humans; half-elves are already exotic.
They are foundlings adopted by the shonti, so they are heavily tattooed and ritually scared. This will further hide their true nature. Especially usefull if they have to deal with elves.
Elves will be puzzled by them. If they figure out what they are, they are likely to attack first and use speak with dead to ask questions later. Elves hate drow more than Dwarves hate watered beer.
Does this sound plausable within the world? I'm only getting into this world, so I'm far from an expert. Opinions are appreciated.
...or a dark skinned Elf (hanging around Osirion/Qadira/Mwangi etc), with a Drow sense of haute couture?
I need a sanity check from yall who are better versed in inner sea lore than I.
We are starting a new game in Golarion for the first time and I'm running my brand new RotRL Anniversary Edition. Yeah! One of the players is new to RP but very excited to get her inner geek on. She's also an artist. She spotted the picture of the Drow in the Core Rulebook and fell in love. There is nothing in my inner sea world guide that implies renegade drow exist in Golarion. They are evil. People will burn them. People will put out the witch, just so they can use the wood to burn the drow.
Without turning this into a wall of text; lets's just say the campaign (her and another character) to convince me to let them look that way began. Stats, they didn't care about. They just want to look that way. So I came up with this compromise:
They can be half-drow.
Drow feed such abominations to monsters, but occasionally the Svirfneblin may rescue one (or two) and smuggle them to the surface.
They will use the normal half-elf stats.
Human's haven't a clue about drow, but they all know that there are dark-skinned humans on the southern continent. They will just assume that they are normal half-elves whose human parent was black. There is no skin-color prejudices in Golarion, so there shouldn't be any reaction penalty from humans; half-elves are already exotic.
They are foundlings adopted by the shonti, so they are heavily tattooed and ritually scared. This will further hide their true nature. Especially usefull if they have to deal with elves.
Elves will be puzzled by them. If they figure out what they are, they are likely to attack first and use speak with dead to ask questions later. Elves hate drow more than Dwarves hate watered beer.Does this sound plausable within the world? I'm only getting into this world, so I'm far from an expert. Opinions are appreciated.
Hey there. Some good news for your player. The Advanced Race Guide has options for Half-elves that want to be Drow descended. On the d20pfsrd here, there's some Race Traits you can take. For example
Drow-Blooded Some half-elves born of drow parents exhibit more drow traits than others—particularly many of the physical features of the drow—and have darkvision 60 feet and light blindness. This racial trait replaces the low-light vision racial trait.
Drow Magic A few half-elves with drow ancestry exhibit the innate magic of that race. Half-elves with this trait have drow blood somewhere in their background, and can cast dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire each once per day, using the half-elf's character level as the caster level for these spell-like abilities. This racial trait replaces the adaptability and multitalented racial traits.
In addition, this blurb
The exception is those few half-elves born of humans and drow. Not unlike most half-orcs, such unions are commonly born out of violence and savagery that leaves the child unwanted by its mother if not killed outright. Moreover, as the physical features of half-drow clearly mark their parentage, crafting a reputation founded on deeds and character instead of heritage is more challenging for them. Even the most empathetic of other half-elves balk at the sight of a half-drow. Among other races, half-elves form unique and often unexpected bonds. Dwarves, despite their traditional mistrust of elves, see a half-elf's human parentage as something hopeful, and treat them as half-humans rather than half-elves. Additionally, while dwarves are long-lived, the lifespan of the stout folk is closer to a half-elf's own than that of either of her parents. As a result, half-elves and dwarves often form lasting bonds, be they ones of friendship, business, or even competitive rivalry.
I hope this helps.
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Typing from a phone so this isn't the full post, but kudos on helping your players get the look they want.
Along with the mechanical options mentioned upthread, there's also room for non-horrifically evil drow in the setting, what with an active goddess of redemption and canonical non-evil drow in drow societies(though they will be outliers among their own people). The latter can be of great help if any players don't want rape in their backstories.
Renegade drow have the added problem that they're not just trying to defy evil upbringing; they're also tainted by demonic power.
Indeed:
Half-Elves: all alernate racial traits except drow-blooded and drow magic are legal for play; all racial subtypes except drow-descended are legal for play; all favored class options are legal for play; all racial archetypes except wild caller are legal for play. For the bonded witch archetype, energy siege shot is replaced with resounding shot (Advanced Player’s Guide 238) at 10th level and arcane cannon is replaced with fire brand (Advanced Player’s Guide 222) at 14th level under the bonded item weapon entry; all half-elven equipment, magic items, and spells are legal for play; all half-elven feats except Half-Drow Paragon are legal for play.
Half-Drow totally exist. Check out the Advance Race Guide, as well as Odraude's first post in this topic to see what kind of replacement racial traits the aveage half-drow gets compared to a normal half-elf.
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So a half drow might be a different story, but Drow in Golorion were never intended to be fit in the role of "hero of a dark race in search of redemption." Much of the drow mythology is set down in the Second Darkness AP, prior to Second Darkness the Drow were almost non-existent on the surface world, even the most learned non-elf scholar of the elves would have been surprised to hear of the Drow, or would call your crazy.
As Drow emerge in Golorion over the Second Darkness arc what is revealed:
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But as noted in a previous post, they are not likely to exist in Golarion. The ARG is deliberately left Campaign Setting neutral, so that all options may be utilized it wanted.
I don't know about this Channi-Ti character. Nothing in the Pathfinder Wiki page says anything about her being Half Drow. The only thing that I can glean is that there is an reference to her elvish parent's skin being an ebony color, which would indeed make her a Half Drow. Though I have not read any of those fiction pieces...
However, before reading that there shouldn't be any in Golarion, I had one in my Rise of the Runelords campaign when my PCs visited Riddleport. The elves in the party slaughtered him with extreme prejudice.
As has been mentioned, I would allow it if there was a good backstory.
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I'm running Kingmaker, I have a drow PC. It may be set in Golarion, but it's my campaign and my rules.
In your campaign, you're going to be playing everybody in the world who isn't a PC. You decide the reaction of the general public.
If it's not a problem for you it's not a problem.
Agreeing with Ampersandrew above -- if it's not a PFS game, it's 'your house, your rules'.
One of my players wanted to play a drow paladin of Sarenrae, and had the entire backstory for it -- after the epic "Is it OK for a paladin to kill goblin babies?" thread, she asked, "So what happens if it's a paladin of Sarenrae, and he rescues the baby, and raises it in the temple of Sarenrae, goddess of redemption?"
I allowed it, and so far it's been awesome. She's constantly roleplaying out her drow's need for violence, sadism, and blood against over 100 years of strict upbringing at a temple of redemption. Sometimes the violence wins, and sometimes the paladin wins. I'm greatly looking forward to her first atonement; I'm sure she'll need many.
But it's a blast to GM, and I don't care for black-and-white worlds, so I feel free to ignore rules I don't care for.
But I'm also absolutely not PFS-approved.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that this is in Rise of the Runelords. Every dwarf she's met has tried to kill her on sight, but the humans aren't as clued in. When she passed through Magnimar she had to be taken to the temple of Iomedae where they validated her paladin status, and sent her through town with paladin escorts to avoid any unpleasant 'incidents'. I have humans in frontier towns a lot more tolerant of any being wearing the dressings of a paladin who saves their town from destruction. Go figure. (And she arrived in town with a cleric of Sarenrae, though I conveniently disposed of him early on in the campaign so she'd have to explain herself.)
Half-Drow totally exist. Check out the Advance Race Guide, as well as Odraude's first post in this topic to see what kind of replacement racial traits the aveage half-drow gets compared to a normal half-elf.
I've heard a bunch of people say that the ARG is setting neutral, so the races included in it may or may not be found in Golarion. I say everything in there is in Golarion, though, so there you go.
Anyway, I would say that non forlorn elves would have a good chance of knowing what was up with a dark skinned half elf. Since it was so long ago that the races diverged, I'd say even forlorn elves would have a good chance of knowing, as long as they were raised by elves themselves.
She could go with Tiefling as the race, since that could easily cover odd colorations.
Thanks folks!
Some great input there. I forwarded to picture of Chianni to her. The stuff about dwarven reactions was usefull too. I had wondered how dwarves might feel.
I really don't think the ladies are that concerned with stat bonuses. I haven't bought extra books for race guides yet. My gaming budget isn't huge, so I'm making due with the minimum pathfinder purchases I can get away with now. Paizo stuff is great, but it aint cheap. And there is so much stuff that would be cool to have. If I don't eat lunch for two weeks, I can buy the Bestiary Box and maybe lose 10 lbs...Sounds like a win-win...
Sorry. Distracted there for a moment.
It sounds like yall basicly agree with my take: It's non-canon, but can probably be worked in without too much hand waving. After the Unearthed Arcana debacle ("You couldn't swing a bec-de-corbin without hitting a curvy dark elf maiden. They were OP in all the right places" - OoTS last comic) I am just as down on OP Drow PCs as most DMs. But players who are willing to take standard half-elf stats and even accept a penalty just so they can look the way they want, is something I really want to work in.
Is anyone interested in reading the "characters meet up" story for the group? It's a small wall-of-text...
Thanks folks!
Is anyone interested in reading the "characters meet up" story for the group? It's a small wall-of-text...
Story time!! Seriously, I love people telling their stories, so type away.
The children of Forlorn elves are also Forlorn. Just because there were enough elves around for you to be full blooded doesn't mean your family aren't the only elves in town.
Forlorn is cultural, not genetic. The children of forlorn elves are not forlorn because their parents are long-lived enough to handle their slow aging.
I'm gonna try to spoiler the character meet, even though I don't think there is any Runelords spoiler stuff - this is just how I visualized them meeting before the campaign starts.
The character roster is:
Half-Drow Oracle raised by shonti
Half-Drow Rogue raised by shonti
Gnome Druid plans to take some ranger levels too, animal companion
Human Wizard of whatever OP class he can find somewhere - I say that smiling even though it's true, it'll be fine. I've been playing since before AD&D; I can handle a little powergaming. He's a good RPer and a smart fellow. He'll likely need a little extra power to keep the crazy elf sistas under control (somewhat).
Half-Elf Bard already nicknamed "Master Thespian". Genius! Thank You.
All Chaotic Neutral. Some admit to slight "Good" tendencies. Sigh.
My Note to them:
Hello role players!
This is just a quick note to explain how your various characters ended up in Sandpoint. If these ideas don't jibe with your back story, feel free to throw them out and use your own.
Natasha and Jenny's characters were both foundlings adopted by the Shonti tribe. You have no idea how two dark elf half breeds ended up on the outskirts of the Shonti camp in the middle of the night, during one of the worst storms in memory. (of course, I do ;) All you know is that you were raised by the barbarians as " almost" one of them. By " almost" I mean, of course, basically second class citizens. Always looked down on, always treated as not quite good enough, and never quite accepted; the only thing you really had growing up was each other. Eventually, it came to be enough. During your people's frequent raids on the Chelaxians, you took to wandering off on your own. You saw no sense in killing complete strangers just because someone told you to. After all, it's not like they stole your land - you don't have a land.
So you would go off on your own to explore, see if there wasn't anything you could acquire for yourselves, talk about what the wide world was like beyond the camp, and practice a little amateur herbology. It was during one of these outings that you met Nina's character. Your first impulse was to kill her in good barbarian fashion. However, something gave you pause: even under the influence of the wildwood flower, you suspected this might not be a Chelaxian. In your experience Chelaxians are usually about 6 foot tall, black haired, and try to kill you. This being seems to be about 3 foot tall, has bright purple hair, and seems to be carrying on an animated conversation with a badger - which seems to be answering. It was this latter fact that you found the most intensely fascinating and you just had to ask her what it was saying. This started a conversation in which Nina's character explained that she was on her way to a town called Sandpoint. She explained a lot of stuff about needing to establish a connection to this world, avoiding something called the graying, and a whole bunch of other stuff which you are pretty sure you wouldn't understand even if you were not stoned. The part you did understand was that this was a chance to meet new people, see new things, and have the adventures you'd always dreamed of. When she asked you if you wanted to go with her, you didn't even hesitate.
During the trip you met two fellow travelers. Your first impulse was to kill them, but the gnome restrained you; explaining that in the non barbarian world it's considered polite to talk to people before you do bad things to them. She wasn't quite sure why. Taking her word for it, you allow the two to approach. It seems one of them is a human of some totally OP Mage class that hasn't been determined yet, who is traveling to Sandpoint to deliver a book to a scholar there named Brodert Quink. He might also have needed to get out of town for just a little while. Something about a senior prank, a dissection class, and a potion of animate dead? His companion is a bard on its way to perform at the Sandpoint theater. The theater has quite a good reputation and seemed like the perfect spot to try out his new one man show "Cyrano de Bergerac", about a man with an uncomfortably large… Is something wrong? When he says this, you realize that you been staring. He is one of you! I mean, his skin is a lot paler, but he is unquestionably a half elf. You've never seen one before. You had assumed from the way people talked to you that there must be other half elves out there, but you never thought you'd meet one. You have 1000 questions…
During the weeklong trip to Sandpoint one thing becomes very clear; these people accept you. They don't judge you. They don't look down on you. Most important, they don't treat you any differently because of how you look; they just treat you like an equal. That's something you've never had. You think you like it.
It looks like a great omen for the future that you've arrived at Sandpoint on the day of the swallowtail festival. With the consecration of the new cathedral, this looks like a great festival.
Game master note: there has never been a half-drow seen in living memory. People do know, however, that the humans on the southern continent often have deep black skins. It will generally be assumed that you are normal half-elves whose human parent was black. You're unlikely to face any more prejudice or discrimination than a normal scarred, tattooed, barbarian half elf would. At least from humans. If elves figure out what you are, they're likely to kill you first and then cast speak with dead to ask questions later. Just saying. Elves hate Drow more than dwarves hate watered beer.