From: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: Drow Offspring with elves & Rangers.!
Date: 9 Oct 92 12:54:27 GMT
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology

In article <BvpH5n.A64.2@cs.cmu.edu> ddj+@cs.cmu.edu (Doug DeJulio) writes:
>In article <1992Sep30.181838.482@dct.ac.uk> mcspikgfm@dct.ac.uk writes:
>>	I was wondering everyones opinion on the possibility of the offspring
>>of a Drow and another Elf.

>The module "The Vault of the Drow" has Drow/Elf crossbreeds in the
>Drow city, as well as Drow/Human cross breeds.

  IMHC (In My Humble Campaign:) the possibility if elf/drow crossbreeds was
a hotly contended point for about three years realtime and two years gametime.

  The Elves asserted that the very impossibility of elf/drow crossbreeds proved
that the so-called dark 'elves' were not elves at all, but a race of demons
from a nether plane.
  (The fact that drow [draugh IMHC] didn't involve in the Domains, but just
appeared, already violently hostile to Elves a few thousand years ago 
apparently supported this theory)

  The human empire on the other hand, officially considered draugh to be elves.
The original reason for this was bad wording of the pact between a previous
human empire that the current empire traced it's lineage to and the elven
nation Loyautheria, but over time the law became public opinion and draugh
were considered merely extremely exotic elves, hostile to the normal elves.
  (The rareness of raids to the surface for several hundred years after the
almost total defeat of the draugh in the war between Loyautheria and the city 
of Nalkerde, and the prominence of underdark-trade&conquest-positive factions
among the draugh communities since then removed most of the (valid) prejudices
against draugh)

  Among human luminaries, there were some discussion over this point, but most
of them agreed with Atad Yrazbil who (while he was alive) was seen as the 
definite authority on all matters concerning the underdark. The written version
of one of this lectures was used by the PC's as the last word on the origin,
history and behaviour of the draugh.
 
 "I don't think he [that's me:) ] would waste his time writing fire thousand
words worth of disinformation!" - Not quite famous last words.

  Yrazbil said straight up that elf/draugh crossbreeds were as impossible
as elf/orc crossbreeds. He based that on the fact (discovered by him) that
the draugh came from a another world, and that their language were less
related with the main elvish language than the most obscure of elvish
dialects and assumend that they were further removed from elves than what 
humans were. He did however call them elves, which surprised some people since
he had done much of his historic research in the Royal Loyautherian Archives.

  As time passed, the PC's discovered more and more inaccuracies in the
text: Yrazbil had seemed to forget 'small' things like the draugh silent 
battle-language and severaly underestimated the number of draugh in the 
Domains among other things.
  The PC elves however felt safe in the assumption that those nasty creatures
were as un-elvish as the orcs and like to make this point when somebody 
happend to refer to draugh as 'darkelves' in their earshot.
  
  Even during their (covert) visit to Gazonimalan they managed to explain away
all slaves and others looking less draugh than a draugh, but more elven than an
halfelf (the possibility of human/draugh crossbreeds was never in doubt) with
things like that the human parent maybe had a few elves in the family way, way
back.

  But during a temporally very confused(*) episode some months back realtime
they found themselves responsible for a large mixed group of recently freed 
slaves (the draugh 'owners' had met an timely demise) who, having lived in 
the underdark for their entire lives, and in many cases their ancestors had
lived there for many generations, were totally incapable of surviving unaided
on the surface.

  This problem was solved by most of them (the humans, elves, dwarves and half-
orcs. The orcs, goblins and hobgoblins were pointed in the direction away
from the nearest draugh community and sent off on their own) being taken in as
apprentices at a frontier fort in the vicinity that they knew had a relatively
fair commander (Aka LG for those who have everythign spelled out), until they
had adapted enough to the surface to take care of themselves.

  When they a few days later visited the fort a little over a year later 
(I said it was temporally confused:) they ran into a proof of that elves and
draugh can indeed produce offspring.

  They haven't spread this news to civilization however, since they are afraid
of the effects on the mother and the child (One of the elven PC's has an
aunt who has spent the last thousand years hunting and killing draugh, for
example. They're pretty certain she'd try to deny the fact by eliminating
the evidence, especially since she have proven herself ruthless enough to
fireball the party when they were competing for a unique spell).
 
>>Would the offspring have magic resistance or the 
>>natural powers that drows show as they grow up.Would it be more likely to show
>>drow traits than Surface Elven traits depending upon where it is raised?

  I generally run my own version of the draugh and not the TSR canonical drow:

  The 'drow traits' can be divided into inherited, accuired and teached.
Teached traits are the dwarf-type underground proficiencies like determining
depth and direction underground (I don't know if they still have this in
'Drow of the Underdark'). This type of proficiencies are obviously the result
of 40+ years of living underground.
  Accuired traits are things like the poison resistance and the innate magics.
I usually rule that to get the poison resistance a draugh has to be subjected
to controlled amounts of the poisons for 20 to 50 years. This means that even
among draugh living in the underdark, only those who are established in draugh
society has this ability (but most draugh try to give their children this 
resistance, and poisons are cheap in their cities). Try to get hold of those
poisons on the surface:)
  The innate magics are accuired since the draugh need instruction to be able
to use them (see the chapter of teaching dragons to fly in Draconomicon:).
That type of instruction is hard to arrange on the surface, since bright
light negate those powers. I also treat them as being boosted by the
various draugh gods so that draugh nobles can use them more often than
draugh commoners, and members of an old and powerful house can use them
even more often than any old noble. This means that a draugh outcast living
on the surface can *at most* have the basic, once-a-day powers and not the
advanced things like dispel magic.

  Finally, the inherited abilities: improved infravision and magic resistance,
the real munchkinbaits. I treat those as innate powers that don't nessesarily
go away for draugh living on the surface. The infravision is obviously 
degraded by exposure to sunlight, but it should return in a few days time.
And the MR will at least be on juvernile level for a 'pure' draugh living
the surface and comming from several generations of surface draugh.

  Regarding crossbreeds I like to use the method from 'Orcs of Thar': 
Roll a d6 for each inherited ability including the various aspects of 
appearance. On a 1-2 the mothers side dominates, on 5-6 the fathers side
dominates and on 3-4 it is a mixture (with a slight preference for the mothers
side on a 3 and a ditto for the fathers side on a 4) for NPC's.

  PC's should be DM-designed.

  The accuired and teached abilities are dependent on where the person grew
up, but most elf/draugh's that grow up in the underdark are either slaves or
refugees hiding in some desolate corner. Neither situation is conductive to
getting teaching or poison.

>Doug DeJulio

(*) See my posting about timetravel this spring:)

-bertil-
			"So what about elf/orc crossbreeds?"
"Everybody says they are impossible"
			"That's what they still say about draugh/elves!"
--
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
 strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
 exercise for your kill-file."
		"Revive the Swedish-Madagascan Brigand Pact!"
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