Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Does anyone know if Gary or even another author* wrote in perhaps Dragon or other supplements about the abilities and so forth of half-elves beyond the broad spectrum laid out in the DMG and PHB? To-wit, what about a half-aquatic elf? Or half-Drow?

I mean, half Wild Elf or half Valley Elf or Gray or Wood I think are covered by the "generic" half elf, sure but the others, what's the skinny?

I'm only aware of the generic kind, I can't recall ever seeing anything outlining any sub types of half elves. I don't think I'd want to keep track or have to ask every time "what kind are you again?" when it came to making rulings.

DungeonDork wrote:I'm only aware of the generic kind, I can't recall ever seeing anything outlining any sub types of half elves. I don't think I'd want to keep track or have to ask every time "what kind are you again?" when it came to making rulings.

Right, and again, I think for gray/sylvan/vale/wild it wouldn't make any difference, however, Drow and Aquatic half-elves would be interesting. Maybe for the former some mild inherent spell abilities at a lesser degree than their elf parent, and something similar for the latter?

I'd just say they don't breed with humans. heh.

Half-drow are covered in UA and IIRC they pretty much suck - they get the intolerance to sunlight but none of the other drow special abilities, and are outcasts from both societies.

DungeonDork wrote:I'd just say they don't breed with humans. heh.

Yeah, and personally, I don’t imagine human/elf intercourse happening every day. Half-elves are a coherent race, with their own nations, that sprung from legendary couplings in the mythic past.

T. Foster wrote:Half-drow are covered in UA and IIRC they pretty much suck - they get the intolerance to sunlight but none of the other drow special abilities, and are outcasts from both societies.

Shows how often I look at Unearthed Arcana.

Half-drow were also mentioned in passing in D3, in the WM encounters for rakes and also the NPC Nilonim perhaps, IIRC (although Jason Zavoda's GH index says that he's a drow not a half-drow)??

Half-aquatic elves are covered in an article in Dragon 116, though it's not BTB.

Yes, the so-nice issue with lots of 1E articles for ships and aquatic adventures.

All I'm seeing in DragonDex is...

"Half-Elven Point of View, The", Roger E. Moore, 60 (p. 14), D&D1
"Complete Half-Elf, The", Greg Jensen, 214 (p. 10), D&D2

IOW, not a whole lot. I don't get discouraged when there is little if any canon stuff. That merely means that it's wide open to ample homeruling and embellishment.

Falconer wrote: Yeah, and personally, I don’t imagine human/elf intercourse happening every day. Half-elves are a coherent race, with their own nations, that sprung from legendary couplings in the mythic past.

Interesting - sort of a Dunedain take on it, eh?

I've tended to think of half-elves in D&D as literal products of a mixed mating, only common (relatively so) in areas where humans and elves live side by side.

ThirstyStirge wrote:All I'm seeing in DragonDex is...

"Half-Elven Point of View, The", Roger E. Moore, 60 (p. 14), D&D1
"Complete Half-Elf, The", Greg Jensen, 214 (p. 10), D&D2

IOW, not a whole lot. I don't get discouraged when there is little if any canon stuff. That merely means that it's wide open to ample homeruling and embellishment.

Dragondex only lists the title of the article, and sometimes the main subject.

There could be paragraphs of half-elf material in an article on another subject - like the Dragon #116 article prespos mentioned earlier (Children of the Deep by Todd Mossburg), which covers aquatic elves and aquatic half-elves in 1E AD&D.

This is kind of a tangent, but I find I'm increasingly biased towards humans as PCs and everything else as incredibly rare or just flat out NPC/monster. Not sure if that's good or bad, but it's true.

Philotomy Jurament wrote:This is kind of a tangent, but I find I'm increasingly biased towards humans as PCs and everything else as incredibly rare or just flat out NPC/monster. Not sure if that's good or bad, but it's true.

Me too. As I've gotten older and (I like to think) my AD&D campaign settings more fully developed, I would much rather prefer players who like to be some kind of "alien" play a human foreigner to the immediate campaign area rather than a demi-human. Unless it's a commercial setting like Greyhawk and everyone is knowledgeable about the milieu and the expectations of such, it usually only results in some really off the wall and glaring anomalies between how I want to portray (or not portray) demi-humans as the DM/Campaign Designer and the players' preconceived or out of place ideas. For instance, I could have spent up to a year or more fleshing out something akin to Glorantha with truly ALIEN dwarves, elves, etc. and then some guy will come along wanting to play Legolas or Gimli or worse, some self-styled concept like a half-aquatic elf. Really, I want to tell that player to try playing a black-skinned tribesman from the Jungles of Far Pathuum or an albino Northman cleric first and see how that works out before taking on the role of that aquatic half-elf fighter/magic-user midway through a 700 year lifespan. I know that could seem overly restrictive and boring and not really in keeping with the rules and modules that have demi-human (N)PCs at every turn, but I'm neither trying to play the AD&D equivalent of vanilla ice cream nor run the equivalent of an open GenCon tournament.

In certain cases where I specifically make allowances and details for a certain demi-human type it's not usually a problem as I will also give the prospective player(s) a prepared sheaf of notes on what exactly it means to be particular demi-human types and their potential in-game advantages and disadvantages. In some cases I may actually EXPECT one or more players to take up such a role and encourage them to do so. If I'm running a game largely based around underwater adventures and swashbuckling island-hopping for example, that aquatic half-elf could very well be an excellent PC concept with unique and complementary abilities and/or knowledge. If we're playing a campaign based around the Keep on the Sub-Saharan Desertlands on the other hand, that aquatic half-elf is only going to serve as a player's extra-special snowflake with absolutely no purpose other than satisfying the urge of that one guy who just decided he wanted to be a slightly effeminate cross between Legolas and the Man from Atlantis.

When it comes to players who propose playing an obvious NPC class or a monster I recommend a long and deep belly laugh in their presence followed by a succinct 'No'. I call this the Mary Sue Mornard Solution and it prevents all manner of bullshit that everyone will come to regret later, with the possible exception of that one juvenile douchebag who suggested playing the Balrog Necromancer in the first place.