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Vulkan
2015-08-14, 11:00 PM
What happens when a Drow and any other elf breed? What is the skin color of the offspring? Would it just be a dusky tan? Would the poses pupils or would they just have those blank whites?

Nifft
2015-08-14, 11:33 PM
Pick one:

1 - It's one or the other, not a mix.

2 - Depends entirely on Lolth's opinion of the parents. Drow are not genetically colored, but rather divinely cursed.

3 - Can't happen without magical assistance, since all Elves are actually female Dwarves.

Vulkan
2015-08-15, 02:42 PM
Ah, I ask because one description for a Half Drow was

A half-drow is the offspring of one human parent and one drow parent. A half-drow generally has dusky skin, silver or white hair, and human eye colors. They can see around 60 feet (18.3m) with dark vision, but otherwise have no other drow traits or abilities.

History

Half-drows are often conceived when a male drow mates with one of his human female slaves, or when outcast drow mate with surface-dwelling species.

Xandra Shobalar encountered a merchant in Mantol-Derith, ostensibly human, who was in fact half-drow. Perhaps indicative of the drow view of such things, she found his suspected nature to be appalling

-Forgotten Realms

But in 4th ed D&D we have....


Half-drow are more like their drow parent than their non-drow parent in appearence, although they may have the features of their non-drow parent, so a half-drow, half dwarf might be shorter than a drow would usually be.

Half-drow among Lolth-worshipping societies try to disguise themselves as drow so they can hold power, while elsewhere, they try to put as much distance between them and their drow heritage.

Half-drow mature at a variable rate depending on the non-drow parent. Generally, half-drow mature faster than elves and then at the same rate once mature, but this can vary greatly. Like drow, half-drow have a noticeably more fertile than elves, with a shorter gestation period. Half-drow are known to have both a higher birth and death rate than elves (although due to the lower population, the actual number of births is much less).

Keltest
2015-08-15, 02:47 PM
Typically, children of mixed elf subraces are one subrace or the other. To a degree one or the other might be more likely, depending on the exact pairing. This is of course setting specific.

NecroRebel
2015-08-15, 02:54 PM
The child of a drow and another elf would probably be either a drow or an elf in 3.x. The text you quoted there is explicit - a half-drow is the child of a drow and a human. As such, the child of a drow and an elf is not a half-drow, but rather something else that isn't addressed by the rules.

The child of a drow and an elf in 4e would be a half-drow with some traits of elves. As drow and elves resemble each other fairly strongly except in coloration, that probably would mean that the half-drow would look mostly like a drow but with, say, hair or eye colors that are unusual among that race.

Vulkan
2015-08-15, 03:22 PM
Ah, thanks I have a 60 year old half Drow NPC who lives among elves (which would make her 12 in human years in I'm doing the aging math right)

I should mention this is Pathfinder.

gadren
2015-08-15, 04:28 PM
There are no explicit rules on this, so it is entirely up to the GM. If the GM hasn't developed a decision on this yet (which is likely), and you want your character that is descended from a high elf and drow elf to look a certain way, you can just talk to them about it.

Vulkan
2015-08-15, 05:08 PM
Oh, I am the GM. I'm doing an investigation game involving a Demon Tree that's begun to corrupt the woods.

Would you like to see my various notes?

hamishspence
2015-08-16, 03:50 AM
In Forgotten Realms, the offspring of drow-elf pairings tend to take after the drow parent - at least in Elaine Cunningham's novels.

Vulkan
2015-08-16, 09:04 AM
Yeah that's what I'm going to do. She's going to be a Drow that looks like her mother did at that age pupils and all.

The campaign is a "who are the cultist" game in which the party stalks and talks to various towns folks to discover who the cultist are.

GungHo
2015-08-17, 09:50 AM
In Forgotten Realms, the offspring of drow-elf pairings tend to take after the drow parent - at least in Elaine Cunningham's novels.

Yeah, the only real differences in those parings were eye color and temperament. Otherwise they bred true to drow. Divine curses tend to be the dominate characteristic.