Need information on Half-Drow

[NegInfinity]

I need information on Half-Drow and their treatment/place in Sshamath.

I poked around Sshamath forum and.... I'm not finding much. In fact, I think half-drow don't even have a monster manual page.

Does anyone have extra info?

[samb123]

Well, they're half-breeds. Half-breeds aren't usually treated well. I would imagine most are treated as inconveniences at best and slaves at worst.

[Calantyr]

Half-Drow are treated pretty well in (and under) Dambreth, but pretty horribly everywhere else.

Surfacers consider them to be tainted with Drow evil, Drow think they have been polluted with weakness. That said, if you can prove to the other Drow that you are strong they'll tolerate you, and maybe even respect you. But you'll always be considered second-class compared to true Drow.

[Cenerae]

Too drow for most humans.

Too human for most drow.

And drow treat everyone they view as inferior like garbage, most of the time, so I would expect to be treated like most any other non-drow race. Although living in Sshamath at least ensures you won't get captured to be casually experimented on or the like, so at least you have that going for you.

[NegInfinity]

To be honest, I was interested lore references. I mean I can make a guess myself, but there's nothing on half-drow in official sources.

[Calantyr]

To be honest, I was interested lore references. I mean I can make a guess myself, but there's nothing on half-drow in official sources.

Most relevant half-Drow lore (that I know of) is in Dambreth's history and background.

[illithid]

All I could find in Drow of the Underdark, I don't have a copy of Races of Faerun, that may help more?

HALF-DROW PLAYER CHARACTERS
In the core DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game, the offspring of drow
and humans are standard half-elves. The union of a drow and
any other creature does not produce children. However, in
the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting, there exists a race of
half-drow as the offspring of humans and drow elves. This rare
race is found primarily in the isolated land of Dambrath on the
southernmost shores of Faerûn. It is not recommended that
half-drow be used except in a FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign.
The half-drow race is detailed in the FORGOTTEN REALMS accessory
Races of Faerun and is updated here. Half-drow have
the standard racial traits of half-elves given in the Player’s
Handbook, except that their favored class is the class in which
they have the most levels. In addition, rather than elf blood,
they have drow blood. Since drow is a subrace of elf, the net
effect is that they have elf blood as well. The specification
of drow blood means that for all special abilities and effects
particular to a drow, a half-drow is considered a drow. One
piece of errata from Races of Faerun is that half-drow do not
have darkvision. Rather, they have only the low-light vision
typical of half-elves.
Though largely spurned by their arrogant full-blooded kin
of the Underdark, the half-drow of Dambrath do own a distinct
advantage over the drow in that they do not suffer the
light blindness common to their pureblood cousins. To this
end, they make excellent adventurers well suited to both the
Underdark and the surface world.

[NegInfinity]

All I could find in Drow of the Underdark, I don't have a copy of Races of Faerun, that may help more?

HALF-DROW PLAYER CHARACTERS
In the core DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game, the offspring of drow
and humans are standard half-elves. The union of a drow and
any other creature does not produce children. However, in
the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting, there exists a race of
half-drow as the offspring of humans and drow elves. This rare
race is found primarily in the isolated land of Dambrath on the
southernmost shores of Faerûn. It is not recommended that
half-drow be used except in a FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign.
The half-drow race is detailed in the FORGOTTEN REALMS accessory
Races of Faerun and is updated here. Half-drow have
the standard racial traits of half-elves given in the Player’s
Handbook, except that their favored class is the class in which
they have the most levels. In addition, rather than elf blood,
they have drow blood. Since drow is a subrace of elf, the net
effect is that they have elf blood as well. The specification
of drow blood means that for all special abilities and effects
particular to a drow, a half-drow is considered a drow. One
piece of errata from Races of Faerun is that half-drow do not
have darkvision. Rather, they have only the low-light vision
typical of half-elves.
Though largely spurned by their arrogant full-blooded kin
of the Underdark, the half-drow of Dambrath do own a distinct
advantage over the drow in that they do not suffer the
light blindness common to their pureblood cousins. To this
end, they make excellent adventurers well suited to both the
Underdark and the surface world.

Oooh, this is interesting. Races of Faerun. I'll check this out.

Thanks.

[NeonAvenger]

Races of Faerun doesn't contain much of what you're looking for either. The Half Drow section almost exclusively talks about Dambrath, the only parts that seem to mention what you're looking for are:

In human society, half-drow are distrusted nearly as much as their full-blooded cousins. Despite this, good half-drow are much less rare than good drow. Whether this has to do with the influence of their human blood, or the desire to rebel against the drow who treat them so poorly, is difficult to tell.

...

Drow blood is a sign of power and wealth in Dambrath, but when the half drow of the surface visit their ancient families below the Gnollwatch Mountains, they find that their full-blooded drow relations treat them as inferiors.

So... they get treated badly in a vague and unspecified fashion.

[NegInfinity]

Races of Faerun doesn't contain much of what you're looking for either. The Half Drow section almost exclusively talks about Dambrath, the only parts that seem to mention what you're looking for are:

In human society, half-drow are distrusted nearly as much as their full-blooded cousins. Despite this, good half-drow are much less rare than good drow. Whether this has to do with the influence of their human blood, or the desire to rebel against the drow who treat them so poorly, is difficult to tell.

...

Drow blood is a sign of power and wealth in Dambrath, but when the half drow of the surface visit their ancient families below the Gnollwatch Mountains, they find that their full-blooded drow relations treat them as inferiors.

So... they get treated badly in a vague and unspecified fashion.

Hmm, I see. Thanks.

The overall impression I get is that half-drow in general is less fortunate than a tiefling, but are going to be treated slightly better in cities like Sshamath.

[Sun Wukong]

Especially if you are a specialist wizard...