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Im still figuring out my char's back ground story, she's a Drow, was wondering if I am aloud to say she is from a minor (Made up Noble Family) Noble House. They have surface Elf in there bloodlines, green eyes and are considered Filthy Bloods by the other Noble Families.

You do not need a request to play a noble drow.

This green eyed drow thing though... Tsk. One is either a drow or an elf, there is no dilution of one blood within the other, or fractional genetics like in a half elf or a half drow. The green eyes would be the result of an unfortunate mutation or deliberate alteration, not a trait produced by an elven presence in the blood.

No I'm pretty sure there's something in the lore about green-eyed drow being persecuted due to suspicion of surface elf blood. Usually yeah there's no mixing of traits but this wouldn't be the first weird exception. On the other hand it might just be a "She's a witch!" dealie and not actual genetics and I will leave it to someone who cares about this sort of thing to give details/sources.

It just means there are no numerical modifiers to make a separate subrace. Like with any cross-subrace, I'm sure there may be physical signs. Just because there's no half-sun-elf-half-moon-elf doesn't meen the mechanically sun elven child couldn't have blue eyes.

Bini hit it on the mark as far as I am aware. Mutation is a way to go, too, just gotta remember kids with abnormal features are typically killed (but if the house is fine with that sort of thing then they obviously wouldn't do that). Background is doable, just with a little bit of tweaks to make it make sense (surface elf thing can stay, for sure, it just wouldn't play into the eyes unless I'm mistaken).

And yes, drow are the only case where you don't have to request to be a noble, mostly because 'noble standing' doesn't actually confer any power unless you are high up in the house. Even drow with backstories as matrons are fine, typically because there's no real way to call in power favors from another drow city (unlike the Surface where you can be a noble and request aid/funds/pizz parties/etc); drow don't work like that haha. Course, that doesn't stop someone from doing a request to try to have something really unique and possibly with benefits.

fake edit: Never heard of that serb, but I'm not arguing. I could be completely wrong, I just don't feel like sourcing it haha.

real edit: Iron makes a good point, however. Technically, mutation is genetic anyways so if you have trace amounts of surface elf genes they could become dominant. So yeah, I think it's technically possible.

Last edited by Bini on Sun, Mar 24 2013, 21:27 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Suspicion and in-character persecution aren't evidence of a lore exception to the general rule. While it has little actual impact to play as the character will believe what is plausible to the character, it is important to note it is just a witch hunt. As food for thought, consider Lolth cursed/blessed the drow family with green eyes simply to revel in the chaos of her society hunting them down and plucking their eyes out; she's definitely the sort to do such a thing whether prompted by the families fraternization with surfacers or by her own whim.

What is the original source for this "subraces don't mix" thing that gets thrown about, by the way? I'm sure it exists, but I would be interested to see the actual phrasing. I have always maintained it to be a mechanical thing first and foremost. To give yet another example, there is no quarter-elf subrace either, but it would be ridiculous to say elven traits are entirely absent from the human child of a half-elf. They're just not dominant enough to give the mechanical bonuses.

I don't know of an explicit source, Iron, but I've always just assumed it logically. If the offspring of two different elven subraces (for example) was a half-breed and not fully an example of one subrace or the other, then subraces would have long ago been significantly or even completely bred out of the race.

PaladinOfSune at http://amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=61418 wrote:

It's a really big part of elven lore, actually. It's also one of the driving reasons Vhaerauns regularly bring on surface elves - breeding with them has every much chance of producing an elf as it has a drow. So they'll either have more surface elves to bring under their thumb or properly increase their numbers with another drow. It's win-win, really! When it comes to drow/elf children, think of drow as being the dominant gene.

In the same post though, this was also said:

PaladinOfSune wrote:

Though, I do recall hearing once that silvery hair is looked down on in Lolthite society, because silvery hair is supposed to be a sign of impure (read: surface elves) bloodline.

So, the pile of evidence adding up suggesting that an impurity does sometimes become physically visible is making me doubt just how correct I was on that point.

Last edited by IronAngel on Sun, Mar 24 2013, 21:55 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Liz wrote:

I don't know of an explicit source, Iron, but I've always just assumed it logically. If the offspring of two different elven subraces (for example) was a half-breed and not fully an example of one subrace or the other, then subraces would have long ago been significantly or even completely bred out of the race.

Does that apply to every non-human race out there, then? And I doubt sun elves and moon elves intermarry nearly as much as humans of different ethnicities in our world, anyway. There certainly are differences among humans. Considering there is no mechanical middle-ground, I don't see why the subraces would have been bred out any more than they have among humans. Even less so, if we assume there's a magical reason the child assumes one subrace pattern over the other. But not only does it not make sense to say the sun elven child of a moon elf could absolutely not have blue, silver-specked eyes (because the strict interpretation would mean it doesn't receive any genes from its other parent, which is impossible), it's also entirely unnecessary micromanagement. We don't need to go around checking player characters' appearances.

My halfling trader/entertainer Janser certainly was taller than most hin and had slightly pointy ears, because he had elven blood in the family. There are plenty of character descriptions in the FR literature describing characters whose appearance betrays a mixed background even if they're mechanically fully their one race.

It's pretty clear that the rule, if it is a rule, was created in order to save the DM from having to calculate strange hybrid stats for his players when they all want to have some mixed ancestry. Not to say that invalidates its lore impact, but it's pretty obviously a clause dictated by game design.

All noble backgrounds require approval. Underdark drow houses are the only exception. Afaik.

I don't see the problem with a Drow having green eyes personally if the character can justify why they are green (which the player has done). My toon has bright blue eyes afterall and noone's killed him for that fact yet.

Chances are if the eye colour wasn't pointed out in game, noone would even notice.

I didn't mean to argue that a child born of a union netween two different subraces couldn't carry over a subtle trait or two from the parent of the other subrace, Iron. Just that the the child is, in every mechanical and societal way, considered to be fully a member of one subrace or the other. She's not half-'n-half.

And yes, it would be silly to apply this to humams, who don't actually have true subraces, but rather just populous ethnic groups.

Liz wrote:

I didn't mean to argue that a child born of a union netween two different subraces couldn't carry over a subtle trait or two from the parent of the other subrace, Iron. Just that the the child is, in every mechanical and societal way, considered to be fully a member of one subrace or the other. She's not half-'n-half.

I fully agree. That's why I'm interested to see the original source for this oft-mentioned rule, to see if it actually denies such subtle traits. I'm pretty sure it's not in Races of Faerûn, though I may have missed it.

In Elves of Evermeet, there is a mention of dark elfs and "fair" elfs mixing and the result always was another dark elf. It hink it was mentioned by one of the characters there, evil drow wizard.

But I remember reading this very same rule, either or when breeding between subraces of elfs. For example the marriage between Moonflower and.. Uh, well most important houses in Evermeet, the offsprin would go either to moon elf family or sun elf family depending which race it was.

Yeah, I remember reading the thing Magiros mentioned as well. Elf + drow = drow, always. But I also remember reading somewhere that drow twins never both survive birth and that's never really paid much heed to on Amia.

It's specifically noted in several sourcebooks that elven subraces breed true, not into half-breeds of one or the other. Complete Book of Elves is the most obvious place I can think of.

This is canon lore we use for the server. Note that minor things carrying over (like eye colour of one of their parents or something like that) is fine, in my opinion.

Silent2001 wrote:

All noble backgrounds require approval. Underdark drow houses are the only exception. Afaik.

And Mulhorandi!

PaladinOfSune wrote:

It's specifically noted in several sourcebooks that elven subraces breed true, not into half-breeds of one or the other. Complete Book of Elves is the most obvious place I can think of.

This is canon lore we use for the server. Note that minor things carrying over (like eye colour of one of their parents or something like that) is fine, in my opinion.

I don't think anyone even questioned it. I wanted to see the canon reference it's based on so we can evaluate whether it explicitly prohibits appearance traits as was assumed. To resolve the matter of eye or hair color, or height, for good is very simple by checking if it's mentioned. In response, I got responses of "I remember" and "I've read". >_>

I guess nobody actually knows.

We're basically quoting comic book lore here, Iron. I've heard about Vhaeraunites using elf stock to produce elven spies indoctrinated in service of Vhaeraun, too. But I've also heard drow + elf = always drow. It's inconsistent as all buggery.

Bini wrote:

Suspicion and in-character persecution aren't evidence of a lore exception to the general rule. While it has little actual impact to play as the character will believe what is plausible to the character, it is important to note it is just a witch hunt.

But none of this rules out the possibility of the lore exception existing. No evidence was even suggested to be presented and that should be taken as it is; but there exists the suggestion of the possibility, and there is a trend of exceptions.

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