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Before any bring it up, yes, I've read the Second Darkness article that says "Are there any good drow? No." But with the release of the Advanced Race Guide and such, it seems like a drow PC should be feasible. I'm well aware that there are exceptions to every rule, but that drow society as a whole isn't the kind of environment a PC drow would appear in, at least one that can function in a non-evil party.
So I'm wondering, is it possible for a drow who's been burned badly by the political/religious game of drow life to basically say "forget this, I'll find a way to survive on my own," and then basically go into hiding among surfacers in chaotic places like Riddleport, Kaer Maga or the Shackles where their presence doesn't attract as much attention? Or for a drow to have been taken out of that society at an early age and thus grown up amongst non-drow.
I'm not asking if there are GOOD drow out there, the best drow I can imagine given Golarion's setting is a rather selfish CN. Altruism is a concept that's alien to them. No Drizzt Do'Urdens here. But what made Drizzt a stretch to believe is that he grew up in that Evil drow society, and didn't become like them because of his dad's influence. The core idea here is that the drow in question either conciously abandoned the drow way of life to ensure his/her own survival, something drow will always find paramount, or were removed from that society and thus didn't grow up with that set of values?
To put it at it's simplest, is a drow PC viable at all? Or will EVERY drow, PC or NPC be some type of CE?
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Not only is it viable, it's canon.
One note on that "Are there any good drow?" sidebar in Second Darkness that a lot of folks like to throw around: It was specifically suggesting that groups hold off on good drow characters until after Second Darkness. It was that specific AP that they recommended not going down that route, to preserve the them of that campaign.
So you're perfectly good to go!
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They're not hard-wired to be Chaotic Evil, no, it's just their most common alignment. That said, if you're a player, talk to your DM. Some DMs won't want a drow PC in their games and it doesn't usually have anything to do with alignment.
I think Second Darkness would be specifically a bad fit for drow unless they're introduced late.
The other Adventure Paths should actually be fine. None of them deal specifically with the themes of an self-exiled drow, but most character concepts will need support from the DM to fully bloom within an adventure path.
I can't claim encyclopedic knowledge of the adventure paths, but Skull and Shackles sounds like a good fit. I've been running Rise of the Runelords (Anniversary Edition) and it would be fine as long as the drow had a reason to be in Sandpoint (like anybody else).
Shattered Star, the current path, would probably be fine as well. Just say the Pathfinders helped the drow to the surface and he/she has adopted them as a surrogate house while he/she finds his/her way in the world.
A lot of it depends on how much the DM wants to play up everyone's xenophobia. For what it's worth, most of Golarion isn't aware of drow, so only the well-learned and in-the-loop elves are likely to react differently than any other weird looking species.
Cheers!
Landon
I've got a "half elf, half drow" character in a Runelords campaign: mechanically an elf with the drow-blooded racial traits. She has...issues.
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Shouldn't non-evil drow in Golarion turn into elves?
(And can you just imagine that scene in the birthing room of a drow household? "He's not *mine*!")
Presumably drow children don't come out of the womb completely evil unless evil in an hereditary trait in Golarion. So presumably Drow have to breed true regardless of alignment it's just that Surface elves occasionally fall into drowdom.
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Creative Director
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The reason we did that "Are there any good drow?" sidebar was because we were deliberately trying to "reset" drow as bad guys and wanted folks to be assured that we weren't going to throw in a dual-scimitar wielding ranger into the mix.
Now that we're about a dozen adventure paths in, if we were to do a drow adventure today, we wouldn't do this sidebar at all.
There CAN be good drow. They're just very very very rare. To the extent that in 5 years of monthly products, we've not yet had one show up in print.
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it's just that Surface elves occasionally fall into drowdom.
Yep, and honestly I'm really thankful the transformation only works one way, because otherwise good drow would be riddled with unfortunate implications. The whole "you are evil no longer, your skin is now light!" thing.
Besides, why lock away obsidian-skinned elves as a look for good drow? It's a cool aesthetic that a lot of people like.
Besides the fetishwear is much better at illustrating your tendencies towards evil ;)
Okay, but are there any Adventure Paths where it would make sense for drow characters besides Second Darkness?
In Isles of the Shackles, it is said that there a little isolated drow settlement under one island and that these drows have some commercial relationships with pirates above them. So I suppose a drow in Skull & Shackles coul be possible.
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The other Adventure Paths should actually be fine. None of them deal specifically with the themes of an self-exiled drow, but most character concepts will need support from the DM to fully bloom within an adventure path.
This is almost the exact opposite of how I try to make adventure path characters. I largely play in Play-By-Post games, and getting in is like an audition, so I try to make my characters so their narratives cleave as closely to the Adventure Path and its' themes and arcs as possible. It's why I buy the Adventure Path books, even if I don't intend to GM them, so I can make a character that fits the narrative of the adventure path so well it's practically guaranteed to be accepted. For example, I always try to make tiefling characters for Council of Thieves, as it's evident from the books that tieflings and their struggles play a primary role in the events and themes of the Adventure Path (most of the villains, from the early gang you bust to the final boss, in the campaign are tieflings who aligned with their infernal forebears). I wouldn't play a drow in Council of Thieves as a drow character would be a complete outsider to the narrative, and thus would cause serious literary dissonance. I feel if I didn't make characters this way, the GM would simply say "No," and I wouldn't be allowed to join the game. It's the reason I have a hard time playing anything but humans in stuff like Rise of the Runelords or Shattered Star, as what does an elf or dwarf care about Thassilon, an empire of humans, when they had their own empires that need researching?
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Council of Thieves might have some potential with some parallel themes going on between a drow PC and all the tieflings involved. "Choosing one's destiny over accepting whatever society assigns you" and all that.
That's the only one that leaps out at me at the moment, unless you can get in on a "ragtag bunch of misfits" Kingmaker game, which could have great potential all on its own.
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Just give him purple eyes and dual wielding scimitars and call it a day.
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Council of Thieves is more an example, than something I actually plan to do. It's a way of illustrating my habit of trying to tailor the PC I make to the events of the Adventure Path. For me it's not so much about "having fun" as crafting a story, and I want that story to be the kind of story a Creative Writing professor would give an A grade, no easy task when you're hobbled out of the gate by using the fantasy genre.
EDIT: No, I don't intend on writing down my PC's run through an Adventure Path and turning it in for college credit. That's plagiarism, something I will NEVER do, and I'm already a college grad anyway. It's just a way to illustrate my desire for playing an Adventure Path as an interactive story and making sure the literary themes and the narrative are as tight as possible. Such a thing is pleasing to my BA in English heart.
I mean, I have an idea for a half-drow raised by dwarves who becomes an Oracle of Torag, but such a concept is surely too Mary-Sueish, and doesn't work with something like Second Darkness.
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The other Adventure Paths should actually be fine. None of them deal specifically with the themes of an self-exiled drow, but most character concepts will need support from the DM to fully bloom within an adventure path.This is almost the exact opposite of how I try to make adventure path characters. I largely play in Play-By-Post games, and getting in is like an audition, so I try to make my characters so their narratives cleave as closely to the Adventure Path and its' themes and arcs as possible.
Huh, this isn't something I'd ever considered, really. Although our storytelling style is sort of similar. We tend towards "here's the hook, make your characters, and off we go!"
So I'd tend towards starting from an adventure path, adding "drow," and going from there.
For example, take Rise of the Runelords:
Decades later, he moved into Sandpoint with his adopted cousin Niska Mvashti, who is now quite elderly indeed. Between inborn talent, Niska's tutelage in the ways of the Harrow, and decades of pouring over carved stones found in Old Light, he has the makings of a promising Thassilonian-specialist invoker.
Although his ogre-scarred face is welcome in Sandpoint, particularly at the Rusty Dragon, some still shun him. However, this has little to do with his race and much to do with the unpredictable rages he's experienced since the Late Unpleasantness.
Cheers!
Landon
ah
ahhh
AHHHHHH
Drrrrrrrrrriiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!
sorry, sneezed. Carry on.
Seriously though, I'm going to request/ask/beg my DM not to make any Drow other than evil flavored. If only to avoid the inevitable Drizzt issue.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Re: Drow in general.
As James said the drow (and half drow) are aberrations, but not impossible.
Some things to consider though.
Drow are isolated from most 'normal' society. This disconnect *can* lead to um, interesting, RP oportunities. As a Real Life Example (Danger! Real Life in an RP thread!) think about the stereotypes you can encounter, even here on the boards, assuming that 'all Americans' think one way, and 'All Europeans' think another.
Now imagine the drow who thinks "All elves abandoned the world and now came back as parasites" "There's nothing wrong with worshiping demons, just *how* they do it." "All others races are 'idiot cousins' to us."
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Honestly I'm less interested in a Drizzt-type character and more of a Viconia-type character, someone more interested in self-preservation and getting by than actively proving they're better than their genes. The only reason they're really cooperating with the norms and morality of surfacers is to avoid setting off panic buttons that would put an elven death squad on their tail.
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I'm realizing I was kind of rude and stubborn with this post, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have insisted on a myopic method of character creation.
I do have an idea for a Second Darkness character now that's semi-plausible. Basically Landon Winkler's excellent idea of a Sandpoint-raised drow, but a Janderhoff-raised half-drow. Less social stigma, a family that understands darkvision, and with the apparent absence of the blood parents, the awkward question of conception doesn't need to be addressed.
Is this a good idea? I've been told it is by a few friends, but I suspect bias because they're my friends.
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I'm realizing I was kind of rude and stubborn with this post, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have insisted on a myopic method of character creation.
I do have an idea for a Second Darkness character now that's semi-plausible. Basically Landon Winkler's excellent idea of a Sandpoint-raised drow, but a Janderhoff-raised half-drow. Less social stigma, a family that understands darkvision, and with the apparent absence of the blood parents, the awkward question of conception doesn't need to be addressed.
Is this a good idea? I've been told it is by a few friends, but I suspect bias because they're my friends.
I'm big on alignment expectations being tied more to culture than blood, so I'd say it's perfectly doable. In fact, Sandwich Stoutaxe is exactly that, and she's a full drow. And a paladin of Moradin.
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Basically one of many groupsourced characters made up by /tg/. A lot of the relevant info was gathered into an article for her on 1d4chan, which a Google search should turn up. (I'd link directly, but I'm at work and you never know if that site is going to be NSFW or not)
...
(It might be NSFW by the way, I really don't know at the moment. It wasn't last time I checked, though be warned that antisocial slang is pretty much the norm)
I think they eventually wound up making an entire party of elves adopted by other races to adventure with her. IIRC, Goldentusk the bard/barian raised by orcs(who had already married a tribesman, had a kid, and was widowed by the time she joined up, also, implanted golden tusks), Violet(?) the cleric raised by halflings(who painted on her own freckles to fit in), and Keekee the nutjob rogue raised by kobolds(who sharpened her teeth to points and was very "trapsy").
Those were fun threads to eavesdrop on.
While I understand the desire to play something "different", I would have a real hard time with a PC Drow. Every time I looked at it I would think "Drizzt clone". I am sorry, but with as many "Drow that just had to get out" etc I saw after the whole Drizzt fad started, it is locked in my head.
Having said that, I would say try it and see how it goes. If the party and you all seem to gell, then keep going. If it just feels like a clone, then let the experiament die. That is what I would suggest.
Well, part of the core concept is that the character really doesn't consider herself drow. She's not even fully drow, and she even rejects her half-elven heritage in favor of the dwarven way.
EDIT: Just checked out the article Mikaze mentioned. It's so like the idea I had it's actually kinda scary!
I say run with it then. Have fun and see where it takes you. :-)
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Thanks for talking me through this, everyone! I feel I'm in a better roleplaying place now. Now to figure out what to play for Jade Regent and Shattered Star (my Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne characters are already made, a cowardly halfling archivist and a noble-hearted yet fiery half-orc inquisitor).
We had a Half-drow in carrion crown AP, she was a half elf with some "look" to her that was different (this was before the advanced race guide was out). Technically she died, bled out. However after looking at her character sheet there was an ability that was missed that would have stabilized her...somwhere out there, in ustalav she has come to lying in a ditch.... She might return, slightly rebuilt with the new racial traits out there.
She was one of my wife's favorite characters and with the new traits, even cooler. Half drow 6th level inquisitor here we come!
I wonder if we could continue CC as a solo campaign? The group split up after she didn't return (no one saw her die, as they were split up at the time)
No good drow wouldnt turn into elves, the spotaneous combustion that turns normal elves into drow is a combination of "something else" and their alignment, there are plenty of evil elves that never turn into Drow, says as much in SD AP.
What that "something else" is either demonic or divine intervention, or some deep ancient genetics, it never said.
To The OP:
The original appearance of "the first Drow" in SD AP, on Golarion, had that NPC pretty isolated and operating on her own.
What if?
What if her mission failed? What if something changed?
Think of her like a Japanese soldier on a remote tropical island found in 1965 who didn't know that ww2 was over (happened more than once)
The NPC could remain loyal to the cause and forever be evil.... OR
Maybe she adapted, no longer cared, found a non Drow mate (begrudgingly) heck maybe even found a surface elf mate???
What would the offspring of a Drow and a Surface elf Be? I guess you can do that with the ARG.
AS odd as it might sound. I could see a politically correct Drow being more attracted to orcs or half orcs than to humans or elves (demons and whatnot being their norm)
A half orc half Drow could be an interesting look.
What Alignment the child is? Doesn't necessarily mean the parents are evil the child has to be....
Write your PCs background...
I'm with Paizo, they wanted to put an end to entire villages of Drow paladins erupting from the countryside.
I would have a real hard time with a PC Drow. Every time I looked at it I would think "Drizzt clone".
That is funny as my core group back home runs Drow game from time to time but not one of us has ever based a character off of Drizzt. The closest we have had to basing off anything from the books was off of Jarlaxle (who in my opinion is a way more interesting and entertaining character) and with that basing it was to make their own organization (not a merc group but a holy order of Selvetarm that serves the council).
I for one Love Drow period, with the exception of Drizzt (Don't hate him but the only books of his I really enjoyed was Homeland more for Menzo). Menzo the setting and the War of the Spider Queen books are some of my favorite.
And with so much influence from every source of history to entertainment, who is to say that ANY character isn't based off of something that is already out there. It is all how the player plays the character to make it truly orginal.
I won't allow them at my table until post-Second Darkness (which I'm prepping to run soon too!). And that's only if the PCs can
Or, you could say that it was just your luck when that druid cast reincarnate on you :) .
(Since this thread has been Necro'ed anyway.)
{. . .}
So I'm wondering, is it possible for a drow who's been burned badly by the political/religious game of drow life to basically say "forget this, I'll find a way to survive on my own," and then basically go into hiding among surfacers in chaotic places like Riddleport, Kaer Maga or the Shackles where their presence doesn't attract as much attention? Or for a drow to have been taken out of that society at an early age and thus grown up amongst non-drow.
{. . .}
Building on this, how about **2** drow decide to escape, not only because of problems with drow society in general, but also because they want to elope (a powerful motivator). Thereby, their kid(s) grow up in non-drow society.
But chaotic places need not be the only possible refuges, although admittedly they might be the first choices of drow who happened to be lucky enough to get a reputable travel guide to the surface nations of the Avistan/Inner Sea region AND to know of a way to get to the right part of the surface. Andoran(*) should be a good place to end up as a refugee, and for the kid to gain a better world view than what the parents started out with. Most people in Andoran wouldn't know what a drow is, and Andoran seems to have a pretty good bill of rights, so at least at the start it would be a pretty good place for the kid(s) to grow up, and it would take some time for anti-drow influence to creep in from Kyonin (since the Winter Council seems to be so secretive that they won't even let on what they know to the rest of Kyonin, many Kyonin elves might not have specific stories to back up their general prejudice, and thus might initially end up vaccinating the local Andoran population against their prejudice rather than spreading it). Then the challenge becomes coming up with a plausible way to get the character over to wherever you want this character to enter the Pathfinder Adventure Path (or module, or whatever) you are getting into. This could come in the form of the more ill-intentioned Kyonin elves finally getting their act together to apply pressure through the more shadowy parts of the Andoran authorities, or something like that.
(*)Unfortunately, none of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths seem to have touched or be about to touch Andoran, although adventure-worthy skullduggery such as that of the Lumber Consortium (as seen in the vicinity of Falcon's Hollow) has been touched upon in shorter publications such as Crown of the Kobold King, and Andoran has plenty of other enemies (both external and almost assuredly internal) to justify a Pathfinder Adventure Path.
Looks like I ran out of time to edit my post above. Anyway, is what I had in mind for a non-evil Drow character originating in Andoran as specified above. Apart from the very minimal crunch I ran on the Ability Scores page of d20pfsrd.com to ensure that the stats numbers fit sanely within the High Fantasy 20 point build, and the inclusion of at least 1 level of Fighter (Lore Warden) to get her Sarenite weapon proficiency, everything there so far is backstory and other character development.
Thanks to the posters in this thread for convincing me to get off my rear and actually put into writing (actually typing) one of the several character concepts I had developed after reading some Pathfinder Adventure Path Player Companions and Play-By-Posts. Maybe this one will actually go somewhere.
Quantium, capital of Nex, would be a decent home for an exiled drow.
Things far, far worse than drow can freely roam Quantium's streets as long as they behave themselves. "A creature considered a monster or worse in the ports of the Inner Sea is merely a citizen in Nex, where legend holds almost anything is possible."
Nex has all sorts of odd stuff going on, such as an invisible stalker on its government council.
Drow are actually kind of low key for that area.
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Kaer Maga is probably actually one of the best places for an outcast drow to try and get by. It's one of the best places to be an outcast anything trying to get by.
Also, after Chronicle of the Righteous, we have a perfect replacement for Eilistraee, an dshe actually works better in the context of Golarion: The Black Butterfly, Desna's Shadow.
Not only does she look like a drow, her Obedience practically doubles as a survival tactic for good-aligned drow in potentially hostile territory. Really recommend checking her out.
I thought the Paizo cg drow iconic was a fighter that dual wielded two spears??? and has some issues that have issues
but yeah, most drow I've seen per say on neverwinter have do'urden as the sure name , or have drizzt in front of it and a few that wear jarlaxle's name.
well nothing wrong with taking anything from someone else's character and running with it. Just what irks me is that taking the name of someone else's character just shows up as laziness in naming your character.....
Do what Dave Sutherland did in Queens of the Demonweb Pits but reversing some of the names as featured in Vault of the Drow:
How about Tz'zird Nedurod?
Just because you are the same alinement as the magority of your society in no way means you are in lockstep agrement with them. Individuals have different opinions for just about every thing.
The Second Darkness campaign did not say that the drow in it were the only drow in the world. IF another drow city found out what they were doing, they could have strongly objected. A Drow character in that campaign could work, because they have their own reasons to act against the leadership running that plot. OTher than I keep my stuff on this planet.
Just because you are the same alinement as the magority of your society in no way means you are in lockstep agrement with them. Individuals have different opinions for just about every thing.
The Second Darkness campaign did not say that the drow in it were the only drow in the world. IF another drow city found out what they were doing, they could have strongly objected. A Drow character in that campaign could work, because they have their own reasons to act against the leadership running that plot. OTher than I keep my stuff on this planet.
It is implied, however, that the drow of Zirnakaynin are the largest faction of Drow. As in the city could, in a sense, be the drow capital. Sure, there are enclaves and minor colonies/settlements elsewhere, but the drow are, by a supermajority, evil. And it is stated that any drow that break this norm are ostracized, cast out, or sacrificed/killed/assassinated.
^And one would expect some fraction of those who were cast out or fled to avoid one of the other fates to make their way to the surface world, even before Second Darkness. Not a huge number, since the situation has obviously remained fairly stable for a long time until the approaching fruition of the plot to bring a second Starfall, but ought to be a few sprinkled here and there, and occasionally 2 of them might even find each other, or have left together. Not in enough numbers for most people to notice, but just enough to keep the myths at a low smolder . . . .
A few hundred or maybe even a few thousand spread over Golarion probably wouldn't cause too much of a ruckus if they managed to establish themselves in areas that were either Really Remote or Really Cosmopolitan.
amd I get that. It is ok to take influence for a character but don't take the full character to make your pc (class, spec and name)
For example my next character I am working on a Wizard/cleric os Asmodeus (plan to go Mystic Theurage). With his personality I am taking influences from Jarlaxle (doesn't kill unless absolutely necessary but still will kill to prove a point, would rather use you as a potential tool, always looking to strike a bargin) but I am also taking influences from Dr. Doom from Marvel but I refuse a a player to take an established characters name. That lacks creativity.
It is implied, however, that the drow of Zirnakaynin are the largest faction of Drow. As in the city could, in a sense, be the drow capital. Sure, there are enclaves and minor colonies/settlements elsewhere, but the drow are, by a supermajority, evil. And it is stated that any drow that break this norm are ostracized, cast out, or sacrificed/killed/assassinated.Just because you are the same alinement as the magority of your society in no way means you are in lockstep agrement with them. Individuals have different opinions for just about every thing.
The Second Darkness campaign did not say that the drow in it were the only drow in the world. IF another drow city found out what they were doing, they could have strongly objected. A Drow character in that campaign could work, because they have their own reasons to act against the leadership running that plot. OTher than I keep my stuff on this planet.
You completely missed my point, and have shown you either do not remember the certant aspects of the campaign, or you have not played it.
Not all of the drow in the city were aware of, or would have supported the star fall plot. Just because every one is the same alignment does not mean they have the same opinion as every one else. Each family, organization, and individual have their own goals. It is more than conceivable that a drow player character would oppose the star fall plot for their own reasons. One of which is insuring their own survival.