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Would a half-drow be treated as its own ancestry? Or would they just use half-elf stats and look different?
Would a half-drow be treated as its own ancestry? Or would they just use half-elf stats and look different?
Pick one that is the primary heritage for the game mechanics. You can have it described as having both.
Though a character can have only one heritage, it doesn't mean characters with lineages tracing back to multiple ancestries or heritages don't exist. It's certainly possible for a dhampir to be born to a half-elf mother, or for a duskwalker to appear in a community of death warden dwarves. In these cases, the influence of the versatile heritage overshadows the other heritage—the dhampir heritage overshadows the half-elf heritage, and the duskwalker abilities replace those of the death warden dwarf heritage. So while, superficially, a character might bear a resemblance to both heritages, mechanically, they only gain the benefits of the versatile heritage.
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Half-Elf doesn’t have any stats in this edition. Presumably, Half-Drow would be a Heritage (like it) that gave you Low-Light Vision and access to (currently nonexistent) Drow Ancestry Feats.
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Its something I've been confused when thinking of whether its allowed in PFS or not, like since half drow is listed as half elf ethnicity whether its good idea to do half drow character yet or not in case they end up going with "nah, we have new heritage for it so your half drow isn't actually half drow, oh and we don't have rebuilds for ancestries so ye screwed"
I'm assuming that you are meaning the Cavern Elf heritage instead of Drow. Either that or you are looking at 3pp ancestries, in which case all bets are off.
For PFS, I would think that you would need to be Human with Half-Elf heritage and simply describe yourself as having the Cavern Elf skin tones.
For a home game, I could see being Human, having the Half-elf heritage as far as prerequisites for picking feats, and the Cavern Elf heritage for the mechanics benefits that it gives. You could still pick half-elf feats or elf feats including ones that require Cavern Elf as a prerequisite. It doesn't seem totally overpowered.
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No, I'm fairly sure this is about half-drow specifically
"Half-elf identities are complicated, as they encompass both their human and elven nationality and heritage. Half-elf ethnicities include the Gateborn, descended from Aiudeen elves; Snowborn, descended from Ilverani; Mistborn, descended from Mualijae; Spireborn, descended from Spiresworn; Hollowborn, descended from drow; and Shoreborn, descended from aquatic elves."
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Absolutely not, they're half-elves, despite their parentage.
Drow, thus far, are quite simply, either NPCs or they're represented as Elves with the Cavern Elf Heritage, mainly due to the ... I guess, discomfort the PF2 team has almost certainly felt around creating their own unique spin on Drow as a thing by way of a Lost Omens book due to just how far the rabbit hole they would have to go to even THINK about creating a Lost Omens: Denizens of the Darklands (or whatever) book that would be required to really do it "right" much less figuring out how exactly they can author such a book while stepping on eggshells to avoid anything that has in the recent decade been seen as problematic about them in order to rewrite their whole culture and define them in a unique (and interesting) way.
Now, in terms of representing them with a PC, that's tough, your only real way to do this is with the simple Half-Elf Versatile Heritigate but honestly, I don't see that changing much anytime in the near future. In terms of homebrewing it though, you're on your own but one EASY thing you can probably do is allow a Versatile Heritage for Half-Elf that fully and completely replaces the NORMAL Half-Elf Heritage with that of the Cavern Elf plus anything you think is appropriate and universal to all Elves.
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You’re operating on some 1e lore there, superhero; they have lilac skin now, the half-drow are called Hollowborn, and there’s plenty of non-Evil drow (they often revere proteans). There’s also lots of non-drow elves who stayed on Golarion, in the Mualijae nations, Ilverani, Vourinoi, Jininese, and others.
@XXSUPERHEROXX: I think you might need to rephrase your first paragraph like so:
Ok so just a few things Drow are full blooded elves the Drow, or dark elves, are some of the descendants of (the) elves who refused to abandon Golarion when it was discovered that the Starstone would hit the world. Unlike some of their cousins, they did not escape through a dimensional portal, but rather hid themselves in the Darklands below.
Otherwise it does indeed seem like you are saying that apart from the drow, all the others, their cousins, left to outer space.
And yes, GM’s can do whatever they like in their game, but Paizo has redefined, redacted, retracted and basically changed all sorts of history, mythology and lore between editions. That is their right to do so, and is about as justified as any GM changing it to fit their campaign.
I applaud your dedication to the dark elves. From my understanding trow is both an old English word for trust/faith/belief and a malignant fairy of the the Orkneys/Shetlands and may derive from Scandinavian draugr. Which makes trow somewhat older than just the 18th Century.
Dark elves, the ban-sidhe, bad fairies etc call them what you will, but currently on Golarion Drow have purple skin, don’t particularly revere spiders and aren’t all evil and hopefully aren’t cavern elves particularly. That’s history for you.
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I am sorry but changing the rules from 1st edition to 2nd edition should not change the history of the Golarion if it did then playing the game is a huge waste of time.
Hey, just dropping in with a little context! If you see a lot of people mentioning PF1 lore vs. PF2 lore, it's actually because there aren't a lot of places it changed significantly, and drow are one of the notable exceptions for a reason. Obviously, you can do whatever you feel like in your games.
"What's up with drow in Pathfinder?" First edition wasn't that long ago, right? PF2 was a mid-2019 release. That's true, but PF1 lasted for a solid decade or so. And a lot of the drow lore was from the very start of that.
When Pathfinder launched, it did so under the massive shadow of D&D. They needed quick, recognizable stuff and ways to distinguish themselves. This resulted in things like Baba Yaga and the Egyptian deities being included in the setting. Drizzt and the anti-hero drow thing was big at the time, so one of the ways Pathfinder tried to distinguish itself was doubling down on the whole "edgy evil drow" deal. Even in PF1, that didn't age well, and they started walking back some of the early lore during the middle and end of PF1 because they made some mistakes. PF2 happened to be a great opportunity for fixing up and reframing some stuff. Where PF1 drow ranged from grey to purple skin, PF2 moved that to just be in the lilac to purple range. There's a bit more focus on the "chaotic" part of "chaotic evil", and on how the major drow societies are pretty messed up without it being an inherent part of what drow are. Updated lore is at the bottom of their bestiary entries.
Unfortunately, the wikis don't really ever have old stuff cleared out, so it's a bit confusing for new folks. Meanwhile, the folks on the forums have probably had a few bad experiences with people who have been... let's say uncomfortably insistent on drow needing to have black skin. There's a reason Paizo made that particular change. Not saying that's where you're coming at it from, just giving a little context for what might otherwise seem like an odd reaction.
As for why we don't have official playable drow yet, we just haven't gotten a book focused on the Darklands yet. It's a region that they probably want to flesh out properly.
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It’s a little strange to share outdated Pathfinder lore, get corrected with how that’s shifted between editions, and respond with “it’s all a game, canon is flexible, DMs can change it.”
We’re on the Pathfinder forums talking about what’s in the Pathfinder books, y’know?
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Just a note that the Paizo implementation of drows changed during PF1, so before PF2.
And from the beginning Paizo tried to make them different from those of WotC.
It's just that the first try was a bit too close to WotC and to extremely harmful stereotypes (being Evil gives you Black skin).
So, the Paizo drows evolved a lot during the 15 years since.
This is one of the few points that had to be revised because Paizo at the beginning had no one dedicated to keeping the whole setting completely consistent.
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Yeah, the depiction of Drow started changing prior to PF2, it just wasn't as apparent to some people until PF2.
Paizo hs attempted to change them to differentiate them more from WotC and to break the association between evil and skin color, as it is a very damaging stereotype.
So yes the lore changed, for good reason.
Please don't react so negatively when people tell you the lore has changed, because it's usually to make the game more inclusive and friendly to all people and it is deliberate changes by Paizo (at least in this case). Not some accidental change.
Creative Director
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Just as we change rules as better ways to express the game are developed, we also change world lore. Usually we try to do so in a way that works well with established canon, but sometimes that's not possible. Since we traditionally haven't had a method in place to propagate canon and world lore changes that's as effective, as wide-reaching, and as accepted as the errata process, it's been a challenge from day 1 getting these changes out there, so when folks do help us out by pointing out how things have changed... please please PLEASE accept their help and feedback gracefully and with the understanding that it's just as possible to make mistakes in lore that need correcting OR that something we create during year 1 of a long-lived shared world might not be the right choice on year 10 or year 15 or year 115.
As always, individuals are free to use whatever rules and lore they and their table prefer for their games, but please keep in mind that the baseline for which we create new content DOES and WILL continue to change. We'll do our best, but sometimes those changes will bother folks, and all I can ask from them is patience and understanding. And thank you all for traveling along in Golarion all this time with us in the first place!