WHRP - Dark Elves

[Vuren]

i'm going to be starting a whrp campaign and i have a friend who wants to play a Dark Elf exploring trying to find a certain weapon(he got the idea off of the malus darkblade books) and i was wondering what changes i should make to the normal elf profile for him(obviously i'm thinking of making him do lots of will tests or lose 10-20% on his rolls dealing with other characters for diplomacy and the like)

[Paraicj]

Putting a Druchii in a a group is difficult. No Asur could possibly in the group, they'd just attack eachother on meeting and keep fighting til one of them died. As for humans, while Asur are arrogant towards them and treat them as inferiors, to Druchii they are cattle, slaves and no better. There would be no diplomacy. Only peremptory orders. I don't know about dwarfs, but I can't imagine they're on good terms either. Halflings would probably be seen as some kind of pet, if they were lucky.

Whatever problems there are between Asur and Dwarfs, multiply it by 10 for Asur and Druchii. For the humans, the same.

A very difficult proposition!

[Musashi]

Dichotomies are easier to reconcile in D&D.

[Allerion]

from time to time dark elves have ganged up with chaos...

[Andruillius]

Any RPG in the Old World with a dark elf would be very difficult to make realistic, in terms of making it fit with the general Warhammer background. You could make one in Naggaroth, of course, like going to the northern borders to find some chaos temple.

[Ruerl Khan]

i'm going to be starting a whrp campaign and i have a friend who wants to play a Dark Elf exploring trying to find a certain weapon(he got the idea off of the malus darkblade books) and i was wondering what changes i should make to the normal elf profile for him(obviously i'm thinking of making him do lots of will tests or lose 10-20% on his rolls dealing with other characters for diplomacy and the like)

Well, if he is going to interact with non-druchii then he needs to be an "adjusted" persona, the average druchii is a rather vicious person and quite often in possession of a rather bad temper. There exist exceptions, there exist examples of druchii who are capeable of long term planning and hiding their identities, the player character would have to be one of those.

If he is to be in the old world, then he needs to masquerade as a high elf, wich then sets a few requirements as to his background, one of the most important ones being that he needs to be trained in the customs of the Asur, he needs to be trained in being patient and hiding his true allegiance. That is possible, there are after all canon examples of high elves, even very high ranking ones, being murdered by a dark elf who had been masquerading as a high elf.

So with all due respect to Paraicj, I disagree with his statement: Putting a druchii in a group is not making it impossible to have an Asur there, but I do agree that its going to be a challenge, and I wonder what sort of gain the player has in mind for playing a dark elf, I sincerly hope its not just the "cool" factor, but rather an interesting character twist that can contribute in a constructive way to the roleplay of the group.

That to me is the essense of an RP, the storyline, if he can fit into the storyline, without being damaging to it (few can) then it can work, otherwise i'd try to talk him out of it. Looking for an item is in itself not enough to create an interesting storyline though, thats a plot hook at best.

Regards

Ruerl Khan

[Vuren]

the player get the idea from a previous friends game session for wheel of time, where i ended up causing the pattern to shatter and leafblighter to return.

but my main question is still un-answered. what stat changes and item changes should i make for him starting out? if any.

[Ruerl Khan]

the player get the idea from a previous friends game session for wheel of time, where i ended up causing the pattern to shatter and leafblighter to return.

but my main question is still un-answered. what stat changes and item changes should i make for him starting out? if any.

None, physically the elves can be practically identical, and if he is to work around the normal elves he'd need to be able to hide his nature, ie. no use of special DE weaponry.

I'd raise his awareness of certain things, such as poisons, but decrease his awereness of other things, such as things that gives peace of mind, can't point to any specific skills as I don't know the WHFR system, but you get the gist of it. Either way, no modification should be more than 10% in the positive way for any skill, and it should have at -least- one, preferably more, disadvantages to counter it out. Its the RP thats important anyway, not the stats.

[Vuren]

again i competely agree but i feel that the stats play into the rp.

[Paraicj]

A DE statline would probably be fairly identical to a HE line with less FEL. They are the same race, just on a different path. Physically and mentally, they are equal, it is only in terms of the ability to not think of everything else as prey or an enemy that really marks them apart. The single-mindedness of a Druchii could be shown with slightly raised WP maybe?

I think the RPing ability of the player would be the most important thing. He/she would have to be able to play a character holding a secret that would have them lynched seconds after it was found out. Even more so than latent magic abilities, more on a par with a noticable mutation, and everyone else is a witch-hunter.

Ruerl, I see what you're saying, and I agree most of the way. However, I do think that only a highly-skilled Druchii, probably an assassin, would have a chance of fooling an Asur into believing him to be Asur, so if the campaign is with low-level characters, it might not really be an option, as a normal Druchii warrior, or even Shade would be able to hold up to scrutiny, if an Asur became suspicious.

That was a convoluted sentence, sorry!

As Ruerl says, it's about the RPing, not the stats, and this holds even truer than usual here.

[Vuren]

we know that high elves can fake being dark elves through alith anair.

[Eldacar]

we know that high elves can fake being dark elves through alith anair.

You have to be good at it, though. The average High Elf can spot the average Dark Elf (fairly easily), and vice versa. A High Elf skilled at infiltration and so on won't be spotted by the average Dark Elf, but may be spotted by a Dark Elf skilled at investigation. There are some really good elves on either side (e.g. Alith Anar fooling Morathi), but that doesn't mean that they're all like that.

None, physically the elves can be practically identical

Last I checked, Naggarothi are more likely to have dark hair and eyes, as well as paler skin (their Nagarythe heritage), while High Elves tend to run the full gamut. Other than that, I'd agree.

[Vuren]

you are correct i was just pointing out that the fluff does say it's possible.

[Eldacar]

you are correct i was just pointing out that the fluff does say it's possible.

I never denied that. However, within the scope of the WHFRP ruleset, a Dark Elf skilled at infiltration may be required (just for background accuracy) to start at a higher "level" (i.e. has accumulated more experience) than a more regular PC, which could/would be unbalancing to the game.