Originally Posted by Arne
Ok, Larian takes a lot of liberties with the forgotten realms world/lore, but sometimes this makes the story really becoming disjointed and breaking immersion. Just a few observations, which are by no means complete:

(1) There are apparently Drow mingling with simple human scavenger groups instead of killing them
(2) Tieflings are not depicted as special or enigmatic, but as commonplace and simply 'humans with horns'
(3) An especially weird/funny moment was as two Tieflings were discussing how 'alien' Lae'zel looks while they are obviously looking much more alien wink
(4) Another situation was when I met a devil making an evil offer to accept his help getting rid of the tadpole - looking exactly like the Tieflings, but now suddenly being enigmatic and evil wink
(5) In the next moment, I again spoke to Tieflings who told me how weak and afraid they were of Goblins, looking exactly the same as the devil
(6) Another situation was meeting a mind flayer in the underdark, who, in the course of a few sentences, was introduced as good and living in the middle of a myconid spore colony

-> Baldur's Gate is a fun game, but this is often immersion breaking. If your Tieflings are just commonplace and another form of humans, they are boring and nothing special. If your Drow are just humans with dark skin, they are boring and nothing special.

Fantasy stories become interesting because of differences in cultures, species, powers. If everyone is the same, then there is no discussion, no conflict and no reason to read a story, watch a movie or play a game.


I could be wrong but from what I think I know:

1) Drow have more and more defected from the Lolth underdark 'we hate everyone' cult, especially males. Often times normal Drow don't leave for the surface except the rare attack on other elves. As such, a drow walking in sunlight is most likely a defector because they would not want to risk their magic items destroying themselves because of the light. Additionally Drizt is a popular hero creating the notion that all drow are not bad.

2) Tieflings used to be special but a lot of events made them more and more common place, especially since I think this is set after Descent into Avernus. However due to their devil like appearance many people do not trust them, hence the druids calling them Tieflings and not refugees.

3) Githyanki look alien to people cause most everyone has never actually met one, and those that do most often do not survive. Gith often stay out in the astral sea fighting the illithids and eachother.

4) Tieflings look like lesser devils, and Raphael is a cambion thus a fully lesser devil. Their appearances are meant to match, which makes some conniving devils more dangerous cause often they don't even need to disguise themselves as another race and instead they will just pretend to be a tiefling.

5) Tieflings despite looking like devils are not devils, often just having a drop of blood or the emergence of something in their ancestry/exposure to certain events. Therefor, most of them skill wise are normal people and do not know how to fight. Compared to a goblin tribal that has lived their life pillaging, they would be more or less outmatched.

6) That happens occasionally, Illithids break off from the hive and gain a semblance of independence. However unlike drow they have not had the benefit of a hero like Dritz and it is far far rarer. Most people would regard that situation a bit suspiciously but it would stand to reason he is likely telling the truth. That illithid is in fact irregular, but dnd is a world filled with excepts rather than the adherence to the hard rule. I want to say there are other example of independent Illithids in dnd 5e campaign modules.