Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General lore question: half elfs

I do not play PnP, but I was thinking about what char I would be if I did.

Question: In order to be a half elf, is it necessary that one parent is a human and the other one is an elf or is it enough when you had some elfs among your ancesters?

Background: My char should be from a lesser noble family in a forest region. They may have some elfs among their ancesters, but they live like a normal human noble family.
I wanted to be a half elf with the noble background without assuming that a human noble had a child with an elf servant or something like that.
It would feel very strange if:
- The elven queen is now married with her 10th human husband. My char is the half brother of the queen and her grand grand grand son.
- My parents live together in the same house with their elven grand grand grand mother who looks still younger than my mother.

side note: Pathfinder mentions that tieflings and aasimar can be born from two human (or other normal races) parents when their ancesters had some contact with fiends or celestrials.
- Is the same true for DnD?
- Can it be like this for half elfs?

Half Elves can be born from two Half-Elf parents, or from having one parent be a Half-Elf, and the other a Human.

Although it isn't an option presented in the book, you might also have a Half-Elf born to two Human parents who both had Elven ancestry (but not enough for them to present as Half-Elves).

It's not the same as Tiefs and Aasimar, they are planetouched, which means they either have a planar creature in their ancestry, or someone in their family was warped by planar energy. In Pathfinder and to a lesser extent D&D 5e, you could have spontaneous planetouched, which includes planetouched babies being born to non-planetouched parents because of high levels of planar energy in the environment they live in.

I wish the rules had half-gnomes. It' would explain my big nose.

Human + half elf parents would be fine.
I just thought of a way how to have a half elf char in a more or less normal family.

The idea was that his family rules over somevillages in the middle of nowhere.
He leaves because the place is boring as hell and a future of ruling over some villages is beneath him.
He seeks glory to increase his social position. There must be a way to improve your title, like rising from the son of a baron to be a count.

I want gnoflings, gnome + halfling

Best I could do is, Gnoblin. Gnoblin homebrew for DnD
Highlights: "Passion for Smashin'. Your appetite for destruction leads you to instinctively know how to break things. you can roll one additional weapon damage die when attacking inanimate objects such as doors, chests, rocks, etc."

If Halfling have child with other race ... the result is Half-Halfling ... or Quarterling?

Personally the Sorcerer option to be dragon blooded opens up more role play than going half elf... Of course they can be dragon blooded too

Gnofling, gnoblin, and now we have the gnorceror class, too! I am liking this trend.

Okay, this gave me a good chuckle.