How much hard would be for a drow to reach the surface and live a normal life?

[Conradine]

Let's say there's a not noble, common birth drow who finds life in the underdark too violent, dangerous and stressful.
( standard Forgotten Realms setting )
What would be the safest and easiest way to reach the surface?

My bet: since there are merchant caravans coming to and from drow cities, joining one as guard and laborer, follow it to the surface, then disappear.


Once in the surface, what would be the safest and easiest way to make a living?

My bet: learn the surface languace from the merchants before reaching the surface ( mabye buy a dictionary too ), put on lighter make up and hair die, then pretend to be a surface elf or half-elf and live as an artisan / farmer somewhere away from monsters and wars.

[Buufreak]

Besides the built in light blindness, as long as they find a place that doesn't hate drow (or elves in general) they'll be fine.

[Palanan]

Joining a caravan may not be that easy. There are caravans that travel frequently between cities, but I wouldn't expect drow caravans to often make the journey to the surface. Drow typically raid surface communities rather than trading with them, and a heavily armed caravan appearing from the depths of the earth would likely be attacked at the first opportunity.

Beyond that, the caravans are probably searched very thoroughly before leaving a city, for exactly this reason. No one wants to be blamed for inadvertently harboring a refugee from an inter-house war, since that would go poorly for the merchants who organized the caravan.

[Khedrac]

This completely depends on the campaign world (as does the existence of merchant caravans that go near the surface).

In the early days of Greyhawk drow were virtually unknown to the surface dwellers, and I think even with the latest materials there was no trade between them and the surface making the escape much harder.

On the other hand, are Ebberon's drow even underground?

Once they reach the surface, it's as Buufreak says - it all depends on whether they can find somewhere where the inhabitants won't see them as a member of an enemy race.

[tyckspoon]

Stand around moping about how you don't fit in with the rest of the Drow and don't want to have to murder two other people just to get breakfast, then check that breakfast for poison. This works as a prayer unto Elistrae, patron goddess of 'Actually I'm not like the rest of my race' Drow, and she'll make sure Drizzt stumbles across you to lead you to one of her enclaves soon enough.

..more seriously, the Forgotten Realms really does have a goddess whose specific area of interest is 'Drow that want to get out of regular Drow society', and Realms gods are particularly active and interventionist in their world. If this Drow is really determined to make it out, Elistrae will see to it that the necessary opportunities to do so happen.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Assuming we're talking about FR here, the easiest way would be to pay a sizeable portion of your WBL to a trafficker to make this happen. The safest way would be to do that, but be really really careful about which one you choose.