Recent server development has introduced a humanoid animal(?) companion for druids and clerics with animal domain. The iron rule still makes sense for surface cities, but no longer for the underdark's Sshamath and having an animal companion of such type allows further RP opportunities.
Sshamath lore says:
http://www.bgtscc.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=78
Some of the above list can be summoned by a druid and act as a slave to a character. The only problem with those is that you can't disarm them, so they always carry a weapon.Slaves
Sshamath is as close to a free city as you will get from the drow, designed to encourage trade so the Conclave can accumulate as much magical power as possible. A much larger variety of races live and work together as free people, if not citizens, in Sshamath than do in Menzo. Slavery is critical to the functioning of any drow city as compared to other humanoids they are not numerous, they reproduce slower, and require much more resources to raise to adulthood. Much as nazi germany depended upon slaves to fuel their production during the war so do drow rely upon slaves to do most of the day-to-day farming and production associated with a functional society.
That being said Sshamath treats slavery differently than in other drow cities. Whereas in other cities anyone who is weak enough will undoubtedly become a slave, in Sshamath races considered capable of wizardry such as humans, elves, svirfneblin and deep imaskari are never kept as slaves by citizens. However they are permitted as the slaves of visitors. The slaves of Sshamath are largely resigned to their fate. In addition to the liberal use of charm magic, the conclave permits visitors to bring in small groups of their own slaves and to occasionally purchase slaves from other cities. These practices ensure that Sshamath slaves are aware that their life here is not nearly as bad as elsewhere.
Creatures who demonstrate an aptitude for wizardry are considered free in the eyes of Sshamath law and are allowed to live albeit in a ghetto, the Darkwoods, that is prevented from getting too big. This ghetto is populated by a host of shebali (commoner) drow, rivvil (humans), svirfneblin and many other non-citizens of Sshamath.
The Duergar are the exception to this has they have forged a direct relationship with the Conclave, they maintain their own quarters in the place they work, the Darkspires.
(...)
Slave Races: 50,000 total
Goblin 39%
Grimlock 19%
Orc 12%
Ogre 10%
Minotaur 9%
Human 6%
Outsider 5%
Is it time to revise that rule at least for the underdark?
Because as far as the reasons I can think of go, there are rules in place to make it PG-13. Similarly anyone can do similar treatment to mobs they have or are about to kill. 