Homebrew Drow/Demon Species Details

Walking in two worlds but truly belonging to neither, half-elves combine what some say are the best qualities of their elf and human parents: human curiosity, inventiveness, and ambition tempered by the refined senses, love of nature, and artistic tastes of the elves. Some half-elves live among humans, set apart by their emotional and physical differences, watching friends and loved ones age while time barely touches them. Others live with the elves, growing restless as they reach adulthood in the timeless elven realms, while their peers continue to live as children. Many half-elves, unable to fit into either society, choose lives of solitary wandering or join with other misfits and outcasts in the adventuring life.

Diplomats or Wanderers

Half-elves have no lands of their own, though they are welcome in human cities and somewhat less welcome in elven forests. In large cities in regions where elves and humans interact often, half-elves are sometimes numerous enough to form small communities of their own. They enjoy the company of other half-elves, the only people who truly understand what it is to live between these two worlds.

In most parts of the world, though, half-elves are uncommon enough that one might live for years without meeting another. Some half-elves prefer to avoid company altogether, wandering the wilds as trappers, foresters, hunters, or adventurers and visiting civilization only rarely. Like elves, they are driven by the wanderlust that comes of their longevity. Others, in contrast, throw themselves into the thick of society, putting their charisma and social skills to great use in diplomatic roles or as swindlers.

Half-Elf Names

Half-elves use either human or elven naming conventions. As if to emphasize that they don’t really fit in to either society, half-elves raised among humans are often given elven names, and those raised among elves often take human names.

EXCELLENT AMBASSADORS

Many half-elves learn at an early age to get along with everyone, defusing hostility and finding common ground. As a race, they have elven grace without elven aloofness and human energy without human boorishness. They often make excellent ambassadors and go-betweens (except between elves and humans, since each side suspects the half-elf of favoring the other).

Half-Elf Variants

Some half-elves in Faerûn have a racial trait in place of the Skill Versatility trait. If your DM allows it, your half-elf character can forgo Skill Versatility and instead take the elf trait Keen Senses or a trait based on your elf parentage:

Demons

Demons were chaotic evil fiends native to the Abyss, ever-evolving engines of destruction spawned in its infinite depths to act as living instruments of oblivion. They were personifications of ferocity, vile perversion, and elemental devastation, existing to further the tendency of all things to slide into entropy and ruin. Barely contained by their monstrous forms, demons were creatures of raw physicality and rage, the embodiment of everything malign about chaos.

Personality

Beings of utterly wanton wickedness, demons were cruel and savage, without compassion or empathy and unfamiliar with concepts like fear or mercy. Every thought that crossed their minds was tainted by hate and malice, each believing that only its own desires were important. They despisted benevolence and sought to tear down order, because first and foremost, demons existed to spread chaos and evil, and all other activities served this ultimate goal of sowing strife and disorder. They craved the opportunity to be unleashed upon the cosmos, always searching for ways out of the Abyss, and would open more purely to expand the influence of chaos and evil in the multiverse.

To demonkind, the Abyss was more than just their world. It was the Abyss that gave them life and within its power to permanently take it away, or to see them reborn anew. At once creator, destroyer, and renewer, the Abyss was the nexus of every demon's existence, and most who planned to be away for long either found or created places that reminded them of home. The nature they existed to spread was that of the Abyss itself, and that meant that demons existed purely to destroy, an imperative above even their own survival.

Despite this, it would be reductive to simply brush demons off as no more than killers. While demons generally loved death, most found killing on its own boring, their innate desire to destroy coupled with the wish to cause as much pain as possible in the process. For the majority of demons, murder was simply one aspect of destruction, the climax to be prolonged in the hopes of enhancing the suffering caused along the way. Indeed, there were seemingly endless ways to destroy; all understood the cravings for carnage and consumption, for absolute ruination and the end all things, but this led to different actions. When left to their own devices in a world they ripped apart nature, hunted down wildlife and tore down civilizations. On a grander scale, they undid the works of the divine and brought despair to the cosmos.

Despite being driven to destroy all other creatures, demons could temper this desire when presented with those willing to help them ascend to further power, though where destruction was untenable, absolute dominance was demanded. They made for mercurial masters and infamously oppressive overlords, struggling to engender loyalty due to their love of chaos and commitment to cruelty. Demons were utterly self-centered and respected only power, possessing no special affinity even for each other and as a result seldom cooperating unless forced to. However, while their caprice did mean they regularly devoured unwanted servants in bloody-minded frenzies, they also mostly followed through on their promises of vast rewards, gifting great boons disproportionate to the servant if they favored them.

All demons sought to use others to serve their will and satisfy their whims, the specific motivations often varying greatly both between and within individuals, but demonic egocentrism went beyond mere pride. Every demon viewed itself as the rightful ruler of all reality, the perfect being for which even the laws of the multiverse would one day bend and shift, the end of their manifest destiny being their envisioned, perfect world with them at the center. All demons had an instinctive sense of their own relative power however, and the less powerful or intelligent ones had correspondingly modest ideas about what being the center of the universe meant and how to get there. For some this merely meant being free to run rampant spreading mayhem as they so desired, while other, more ambitious fiends had intentions on a wider scale.

Though demons possessed a primal impulse to kill and destroy, these instincts were exacerbated by the Abyss itself, which was possessed of a strange semi-sentience by which it communed. All demons heard its whispers in their visions and dreams, potent murmurings offering insight and greatness. In this sense the Abyss was also a temptress, seducing even the demons themselves with its own hunger for destruction, urging them to dominate it utterly and promising ultimate power to the demon who could. The madness of the Abyss was what demons knew; it was the muse that inspired the horrid acts of violence and depravity that epitomized their kind and the endless slaughter and rebellion they inflicted on each other was their answer to its call.

Intelligence

Demonic behaviors were less philosophically motivated and more following through on instinct, a manifested tendency towards arbitrary mischief and malice. Some acted entirely on instinct with no plan at all, but all demons had some aspect of a brute in them, enjoying overt expressions of power, and they disliked hiding their own. Few demons made good manipulators, as chaos was a poor basis for careful plans and patience, which combined with their wickedness stopped them from fulfilling all of their long-term bargains. Even if those in power didn't kill their own servants for their amusement, they might sacrifice them in service to bizarre and nonsensical plans, and they could be almost absurdly poor strategists.

Even those demons who specialized in plots could not be expected to show extreme levels of subtlety and restraint. Demons liked immediate gratification and were known for their impulsiveness, many times abandoning their schemes in favor of immediate rewards of blood and souls, and even those with long-term ambitions could be easily distracted with them. For all their narcissism, even powerful demons in command of their kin could be embarrassed if a situation where they should dominate was turned against them, and in the heat of the moment might become so enraged that they attacked or even so agitated that they retreated entirely, regardless of the impact on their overall plans. Furthermore, it was not impossible for them to have insecurities, and despite their often-alien view of fear, some used their rage to hide what did scare them.

All this in mind, demons were not stupid, and in fact most types were very mentally competent, those that followed the ways of manipulation doing so well. Only especially brutish demons would sacrifice more safe and certain victories just to revel in bloodshed, and even they would not necessarily surrender their many advantages simply to cause more direct damage. Selfish as they were, demons also had some degree of social skills, and some had a pack mentality or willingness to work with non-demons. Demons were not always against running away either, not just because it was smart, but because it could be fun. Leaving before a conflict was over was an act that could cause suffering in its own way, and could be more profitable or amusing than staying around, and though they usually returned, unpredictability was perhaps the most insidious of demonic traits.

Relationships

Demons surpassed other fiends in sheer fickleness, depravity and violence. They were also the sworn enemies of the devils, though their ageless Blood War came to a cool upon Asmodeus' ascendance to godhood.

Drow/Demon Traits

Your character shares traits of demons and drow elves with their grace and brawn.

Nercotic Sense

Demonic blood coursing through your character veins can sense the necrotic demon arts.

Demonic Flesh

Demonic flesh is a passive trait given by the hosts ancestor to protect the spawn of their beings.

Ability Score Increase

Your Charisma score increases by 2, and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1.

Age

Half-elves mature at the same rate humans do and reach adulthood around the age of 20. They live much longer than humans, however, often exceeding 180 years.

Size

Half-elves are about the same size as humans, ranging from 5 to 6 feet tall. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

Thanks to your elf blood, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Fey Ancestry

You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Skill Versatility

You gain proficiency in two skills of your choice.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common, Elvish, Demonic, and one extra language of your choice.