Recent role play with some outstanding folks has left me with a hankering to explore a character concept -- one I tried, briefly, in the past (with some small, but short-lived success).

I am going to make a character who is mute.

Well, that might not be entirely true. I intend to make a character to communicates primarily through emotes. Whether he is mute or simply not one to speak much remains to be decided. I want this character to be a hunter / protector archetype, and I already know how I plan to emulate this mechanically. However, I am at a crossroads in two places:

1. Should the character be completely mute? Or does he simply speak infrequently?

And, as this plays a good bit into the back story -- and why the character is as they are:

2. Is this character a Half-(Wild) Elf or a Half-Drow?

I would love your insight and commentary!

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"I will never refuse a challenge from an equal. I will give honor to worthy enemies, and contempt to the rest."

1. I vote for completely mute. I’ve seen some players like Narkudauman who worked around a mute character but used a notepad / quil. But I want to see someone completely mute. No attempts to communicate.

2. Half-Drow. I feel it helps with a story. Could say he had his tongue ripped out because the Drow mother wanted a daughter and not a son (Though I don’t know anything about the UD).

I’d add more if I wasn’t on a phone.

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Honestly, I'd just go for a quiet character. There's nothing you couldn't do with a quiet character you couldn't do with a mute character. Perhaps they're very reversed or they have such crippling anxiety that they only rarely speak. But often, when people play mute characters, so much of their roleplay can revolve around ways to counter or ignore it.

On one hand, it makes sense IC because why wouldn't you try to lessen the effects of your handicap. But from a meta standpoint, why give a character this element of their being if it's going to be undercut by writing tablets or incredibly specific pantomimes that work with the same efficiency of speech? Why give them this huge disfiguring scar if it will constantly be covered with an impenetrable glamour? In my opinion, giving characters handicaps should be a way to explore working with that disadvantage, rather than seeking to work around it. In a world where people can get new bodies or have pieces grown back or restored, it really lends itself to adventurers, who have gold and access, being able to find ways to heal these things if they wanted to. That leaves, to me, the obvious option of having traits that are innate to the PC's personality being their handicap. It's not that he can't talk, he's afraid to. It's not that he can't hear, he's constantly daydreaming, and so on.

Race-wise, both of the ones you suggested are generally outsiders in most lands if they're traveling, but under different circumstances. Assuming they grew up with their elven counterparts rather than their human ones, both make a good argument for the infrequent, anxiety-blocked speakers. Both communities are fairly insular, so their communication skills, as a perhaps unwanted half-breed, could have been stunted by people's willingness to be involved with them. /2cents

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That was an especially thoughtful and well stated argument, Dark. Thanks for that. I think as of this moment I am leaning toward Half-Drow if only because:

1. I've never played a drow or anything related to one.

2. I already have a Winyan Sun Elf in the Armathora, so it might end up redundant.

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"I will never refuse a challenge from an equal. I will give honor to worthy enemies, and contempt to the rest."