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DueceEsMachine
2010-12-18, 03:17 PM
Alright, so the topic has arisen among our group - what would really happen when cross-bred races had offspring?

Now, obviously, in the standard rules, it's "Magic" - every race seems to have compatable genetics and is able to reproduce. Okay, that's fine, we can work with that.

Let's say, for arguments sake, that it was a bit more realistic.
A half elf would have two seperate genetic possibilities he could pass on - one set human, the other elven.

So, wouldn't that mean that a half elf/ pure human or pure elf would have a 50% chance of having a pure elven child and a 50% chance of having a half-breed child?

The same would work for two half-elven parents, but the chance of having a half-race child would be 50%, while the chances of having a full human, or full elf child would be 25% each.

I don't know, maybe we're just weird, but the topic was interesting enough that I thought I'd put it up here.

Obviously it doesn't need to be this complicated - the "Magic" scenario works just fine.

Anyone else in the playground given it this much thought?

SurlySeraph
2010-12-18, 03:25 PM
Alleles do not work that way.

You're describing something like this:

{table=head]| Elf|Human
Elf| EE | EH |
Human| EH | HH |
[/table]

Where EE is pure elf, EH is half-elf, HH is pure human.

But there isn't just a single "elf" allele and a single "human" allele. Half-elves inherit a large number of different human and elven alleles, not just a single elf allele and a single human allele, so their offspring would also inherit a lot of different human and elf alleles, and so would continue to be considered half-elves due to inheriting various human traits and various elven traits.

KillianHawkeye
2010-12-18, 03:25 PM
Genetics is actually a lot more complex than that. Basically, you would do what you just did except instead of doing it only once for the sum total of "elfiness" or whatever, you'd do it for each trait that the parent has a chance of passing on to see if that trait comes out as human or elven.

That's why, on the average, a human and a half-elf pairing results in another half-elf.

Yora
2010-12-18, 03:29 PM
If the offspring of elves and humans are not either elven or human but 50/50 of either race, a Mendel distribution does not apply.
Not 100% sure here, but given the existance of half-elves, race seems to be a continuum. You could also have 25% elves, 12,5% elves, and 6,25% elves, and so on. It's just for practical reasons that all these individuals are put into three categories.
>75% elven = elf
25-75% elven = half-elf
<25% elven = human

DueceEsMachine
2010-12-18, 03:46 PM
lol. you know, as soon as I posted this, I figured there had to be someone in the playground more knowledgeable than myself at genetics. looks like I was right.

:smallbiggrin:

Still though, I agree, it is far easier to just stick with 1/2 breed +1/2 breed = 1/2 breed.

It was more a musing that I wished to voice.

Hat-Trick
2010-12-18, 04:14 PM
Races of destiny actually states that half-elves bread other half-elves, so that example at least works.

Eldan
2010-12-18, 04:25 PM
If the offspring of elves and humans are not either elven or human but 50/50 of either race, a Mendel distribution does not apply.
Not 100% sure here, but given the existance of half-elves, race seems to be a continuum. You could also have 25% elves, 12,5% elves, and 6,25% elves, and so on. It's just for practical reasons that all these individuals are put into three categories.
>75% elven = elf
25-75% elven = half-elf
<25% elven = human

Actually, it doesn't have to imply a continuum. There are, in nature, codominant traits. Mendel actually found one with his peas:

AA: Red, aa: white, Aa: pink. So, just three possibilities.

It's very unlikely there's only one elf-human allele, though.

And even more unlikely D&D even has genetics. Remember: D&D doesn't have our atoms, it has the four elements. It has magic and planes. It has Phlogistion.
So, it probably also has panspermia, lamarckism or animunculi.



Races of destiny actually states that half-elves bread other half-elves, so that example at least works.

Where do they get enough yolk to get the bread to stick?

hamishspence
2010-12-18, 04:33 PM
A trickier question is how templates work.

Suppose you got a human half-dragon half-fiend

How does that work?

If a half-human half-fiend, marries a half-human half-dragon,

the actual mix for their offspring (assuming roughly even inheritance) should be half human, quarter dragon, quarter fiend.

Yet mixes less than half, have their own normal way of representing them- quarter-fiend or less, is typically represented by the tiefling race in MM (if of human blood).

Quarter-dragon or less, is typically represented by the Draconic template in Draconomicon.

So- while Human half-dragon half-fiend, might be the mechanical components, the proportions, might suggest a different way of representing such a cross.

Specifically- draconic tiefling.

I suppose there might be other ways of doing it though. If one draconic tiefling marries a fiend and has offspring, another draconic tiefling marries a dragon and has offspring,

and the resulting half-dragon draconic tiefling,

married the half-fiend draconic tiefling,

will their offspring be, mechanically, half-dragon half-fiend humans?

(Maybe this is a silly way of thinking about it- but it's just a little speculation).

(I checked and all combinations mentioned- are permissible under the rules- Half-Dragon, and Draconic- can be added to anything living and corporeal. Half-Fiend, specifies it must also be Int 4 or higher, and nongood).

Eldan
2010-12-18, 04:36 PM
That depends on how often they used their draconic traits during their lives :smalltongue:

And what plane they are born on. And if the stars are right.

hamishspence
2010-12-18, 04:49 PM
3/4 fiend, 1/8 dragon, 1/8 human

crossed with

3/4 dragon, 1/8 fiend, 1/8 human

produces- a rather complicated mix.

2/16 human, 7/16 dragon, 7/16 fiend, as far as I can tell.

Each non-human side is close enough to half-blood, for the template to be justifiable.

But considering it will have all the human traits on top of the half-dragon, and half-fiend, traits- theres surprisingly little Human in there- only 2/16, also expressable as 1/8.

archon_huskie
2010-12-18, 04:50 PM
personally, I go with the theory that half breeds are sterile.

I go with this because of a biology lecture back in high school.

In order for two creatures to be the same species, the following three things must be true.

1. creatures must be physically capable of creating offspring mechanically (A great dane and a yorkshire terrier are still both dogs, but a great dane and a great shark aren't)

2. offspring is created

3. offspring is able to create more offspring.

So in order for elves, humans, ogers, and orcs to be different speices, the half-elfs, half-ogers and half-orcs must be sterile.

Eldan
2010-12-18, 04:52 PM
I'd go the other way, really.

I mean, the handbooks even call them "races", and they clearly produce viable offspring.

Therefore, all humanoids are races of the same species.

hamishspence
2010-12-18, 04:59 PM
I go with this because of a biology lecture back in high school.

In order for two creatures to be the same species, the following three things must be true.

1. creatures must be physically capable of creating offspring mechanically (A great dane and a yorkshire terrier are still both dogs, but a great dane and a great shark aren't)

2. offspring is created

3. offspring is able to create more offspring.

So in order for elves, humans, ogers, and orcs to be different speices, the half-elfs, half-ogers and half-orcs must be sterile.

That biology lecture simplified things considerably (high school, not university- so one would expect it to).

Yes, most of the time, when different species hybridize, the offspring are infertile.
But sometimes they aren't- sometimes there's just reduced fertility.

And sometimes, even creatures of different genus, can produce fertile offspring- the Bottlenose Dolphin and False Killer Whale produce a hybrid called the Wolphin, which has on occasion itself proved to be fertile.

See Wikipedia Wolphin article if you want details.

mint
2010-12-18, 05:13 PM
I find I am totally jazzed by how well versed in genetics you guys were off the cuff.

Eldan
2010-12-18, 05:21 PM
Hmm? Everything discussed so far is basic stuff we had back in high school.

Now, I could also go into MSc level genetics, but I'll spare you that.

Salanmander
2010-12-18, 05:31 PM
Remember: D&D doesn't have our atoms, it has the four elements. It has magic and planes. It has Phlogistion.

Wait, Phlogiston? How does D&D have Phlogiston? D&D doesn't really deal with the mechanics of burning stuff much, so I don't see how there's enough evidence to say that it works by Phlogiston in D&D.

Eldan
2010-12-18, 05:33 PM
Actually, the Phlogistion is the interstellar medium in Spelljammer. They would probably have named it Aether, if that wasn't taken already, but at least it's described as very flammable.

Salanmander
2010-12-18, 05:41 PM
Actually, the Phlogistion is the interstellar medium in Spelljammer. They would probably have named it Aether, if that wasn't taken already, but at least it's described as very flammable.

Ahhhh...classy...

And now I want to create a lawful evil sorcerer bent on eliminating everything but his chosen set by protecting them and then igniting the universe...

Doughnut Master
2010-12-18, 05:54 PM
I would think the probability of a half-elf (or half-orc, half-dragon, half-fiend, etc) having any children would be somewhere around 0% to start with.

Wouldn't all these half breeds essentially be mules?

lightningcat
2010-12-18, 06:13 PM
I would think the probability of a half-elf (or half-orc, half-dragon, half-fiend, etc) having any children would be somewhere around 0% to start with.

Wouldn't all these half breeds essentially be mules?

In all reality, probably. But as far I can recall, the only specifically mentioned sterile crossbreed is the Mul from Darksun (half dwarf/half human).

Now the odds of some of these crossbreeds finding someone to have a child with is a different question entirely.

hamishspence
2010-12-18, 06:21 PM
Half-orcs, while disliked by orcs as weak, and by humans as violent, do manage to make a living, and sometimes marry and have children.

There's a city in Faerun (Phsant) made up mostly of orcs and half-orcs- originally Zhentarium soldiers- they settled instead of going home.

Lots of orcs and half-orcs go there because they're in search of more civilized mates than they can find with the typical orc tribe.

In the same way, Aglarond, was founded when elves and humans worked together- intermingled, and over time, became mixed half-elven/human nation- with a large part of the population being half-elves.

And Dambrath, in the Shining South region, is a kingdom of drow, half-drow, and humans, established hundreds of years ago- with a large percentage of half-drow.

Ravens_cry
2010-12-18, 06:34 PM
I would think the probability of a half-elf (or half-orc, half-dragon, half-fiend, etc) having any children would be somewhere around 0% to start with.

Wouldn't all these half breeds essentially be mules?
Things that are usually categorized as different species HAVE bred successfully and not created sterile offspring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger). And that's assuming the laws of genetics are the same in that world and/or no magical genetic engineering.

Chilingsworth
2010-12-18, 06:37 PM
Also, even in Core, Asimar and Tieflings are evidence that half-celestials/half-fiends are potentially fertile. Similarly, the draconic creature template from Draconomicon shows half-dragons are fertile.


This does lead me to a queation, though: What do you get when (if?) half-elves and half-orcs reproduce?

hamishspence
2010-12-18, 06:42 PM
Things that are usually categorized as different species HAVE bred successfully and not created sterile offspring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger). And that's assuming the laws of genetics are the same in that world and/or no magical genetic engineering.

And even, as mentioned before, things usually classified as different genus (genus being the taxonomic level above species).

A False Killer Whale is at least as different-looking from a bottlenose dolphin (head, colour, etc.) as a human is from an ogre.

And there are definitely half-ogres.



This does lead me to a queation, though: What do you get when (if?) half-elves and half-orcs reproduce?

DM discretion. Maybe add all half-elf bonuses and penalties to all half-orc ones- creating a new race.

The Mongrelfolk in Fiend Folio (updated in Races of Destiny) is an even more mixed creature- it can count as a lot of different humanoids for the purposes of prerequisites that require a particular race- because it's got a bit of many different races in its history.

Ravens_cry
2010-12-18, 06:53 PM
The Mongrelfolk in Fiend Folio (updated in Races of Destiny) is an even more mixed creature- it can count as a lot of different humanoids for the purposes of prerequisites that require a particular race- because it's got a bit of many different races in its history.
An interesting way to fluff them is that they are not so much a mixture as the original base race. Some evolved to become innovative and fast breeding, these are humans. Some went on to become long lived and long thinking, these are elves. Some became aggressive and warlike, these are orcs. And so on. That's why they all can breed together so easily.

Doughnut Master
2010-12-18, 06:55 PM
Things that are usually categorized as different species HAVE bred successfully and not created sterile offspring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger). And that's assuming the laws of genetics are the same in that world and/or no magical genetic engineering.

Interesting. Although, it's important to note that the Liger was bred with a lion. Upon further research, it seems that while females are fertile, male Ligers are sterile. Even though it is an exception to the rule, there are still some severe penalties to the hybrid's ability to reproduce.

Magical hybridization would get over the initial restrictions to creating such an offspring in the first place, but the ability of that offspring to reproduce would be another, though potentially not insurmountable, hurdle.

And it's true we don't know the exact laws of genetics that exist in this world. It just means that we're forced to use the ones we've got.

Ravens_cry
2010-12-18, 07:07 PM
Another example is the Savannah, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_(cat)) a cross between a domestic cat and serval. And again, we're talking different genus here. Its difficult, it's rare, but it does happen.

Eldan
2010-12-18, 07:07 PM
And then there's plants...

thorgrim29
2010-12-18, 07:22 PM
I like the "mongrelfolk as original race" idea.

mint
2010-12-18, 08:33 PM
Hmm? Everything discussed so far is basic stuff we had back in high school.

Now, I could also go into MSc level genetics, but I'll spare you that.

Ok, thank you.

graeylin
2010-12-18, 09:46 PM
Hmm? Everything discussed so far is basic stuff we had back in high school.

Now, I could also go into MSc level genetics, but I'll spare you that.

Heck, if you think Master's Genetics is bad, at least you are still dealing with Mammals here.

Let's chat about Master's level Plant genetics, and toss in the fungal kingdom for kicks.

Necroticplague
2010-12-18, 10:17 PM
Science has already used nuclear cell transfer to create genetic crossbreeds that are not possible by nature normally. For this example I will use a creature called a geep (a amalgam of sheep and goat). It could reproduce with either of the races that it was formed of, sheep and goat. However, it could not produce any more geep. Any offspring they had always end up as the species of the other parent, completely. If the father was a goat, you'de get a goat, with no indication that it's mother was half-sheep. If the father was a sheep, you'de get a sheep, with no indication that it's mother was half-goat. Oh yeah, and the males were naturally sterile, while the females weren't.

Jack_Simth
2010-12-18, 10:25 PM
A trickier question is how templates work.

Suppose you got a human half-dragon half-fiend

How does that work?

If a half-human half-fiend, marries a half-human half-dragon,
Much simpler, actually.

You have a Fiendish Dragon get it on with a human. Half-Fiend? Check. Half-Dragon? Check. Human base? Check.

Ravens_cry
2010-12-18, 10:28 PM
Geeps may be a fairly poor example as hybrids, though vanishingly rare, according to Wikipedia have occurred. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep-goat_hybrid)

hamishspence
2010-12-19, 04:24 AM
Much simpler, actually.

You have a Fiendish Dragon get it on with a human. Half-Fiend? Check. Half-Dragon? Check. Human base? Check.

Fiendish isn't the same as Half-fiend- its a template given to creatures that dwell in the lower planes- and doesn't change the base creature's type to Outsider.

So a Fiendish Dragon, is not a Fiend- only a Dragon which has absorbed a little lower-planar energy.

A Half-fiend Dragon might be closer- but still, while it's supposed to be half-dragon half-fiend, it will have all the Dragon traits.
(A half-dragon Fiend might work too.)

But the actual percentage, if hybridized with human, would be 1/4 dragon 1/4 fiend 1/2 human.

Lord.Sorasen
2010-12-19, 04:50 AM
I would find it hard to believe it's all that much more complicated than presented in the first post. After all, according to stats at least, half-elves all have the same statistics. It's not like some half-elves have the build of their parents and therefor gain the +2 dexterity.

DragonOfUndeath
2010-12-19, 05:05 AM
I would find it hard to believe it's all that much more complicated than presented in the first post. After all, according to stats at least, half-elves all have the same statistics. It's not like some half-elves have the build of their parents and therefor gain the +2 dexterity.

That can actually be explained rather simply: Elf gives +2DEX Bonus as Allele D
Human gives +0DEX Bonus as Allele d

{table=head]| Human (dd)|Human (dd)
Elf (DD)| Dd | Dd |
Elf (DD)| Dd | Dd |
[/table]

now if Allele D is Dominant over Allele d the Half-Elf gains +2DEX, if Allele d is Dominant over Allele D Half-Elf gains +0DEX, if Allele D is co-dominant with d then Half-Elf gains +1DEX (halfway between them)

Apply this to all the traits both races have.

Unfortunately this breaks down when Half-Elves breed as they could pass on either D or d.

Eldan
2010-12-19, 10:46 AM
Heck, if you think Master's Genetics is bad, at least you are still dealing with Mammals here.

Let's chat about Master's level Plant genetics, and toss in the fungal kingdom for kicks.

Had that, at least the plants. It's where my "and then there's plants" comment came from.

Yeah, if all elves and all humans are entirely pure for all elven and human alleles, then in the F1 generation, all half-elves are the same. You'd only get wonky stuff in the F2, with humans with a dex bonus and things like that.

Beelzebub1111
2010-12-19, 11:02 AM
I'm pretty sure that being an elf and a human isn't like having blue eyes or brown hair...

It's more like the difference between a Labrador and a German Shepard. If you cross them you get something in-between. If that cross-breed then breeds with either a Lab or a Shepard, then the next will look a little more like the other parent, but it will still sort of be a mix between those two.

Eldan
2010-12-19, 11:08 AM
Technically, true.

However, if we go about it form the other side, it becomes less obvious:

Clearly, the law of uniformity applies to half-elves, they all have the same basic racial traits.

Therefore, elves have homozygous "elf" traits and humans have homozygous "human" traits.

Ravens_cry
2010-12-19, 11:55 AM
Technically, true.

However, if we go about it form the other side, it becomes less obvious:

Clearly, the law of uniformity applies to half-elves, they all have the same basic racial traits.

Therefore, elves have homozygous "elf" traits and humans have homozygous "human" traits.
Some of the fluff in the 3.X PHB mentions that eye colour in first generation half elves is always green, but is sometimes human colours in second generation half elves.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-19, 12:10 PM
I know I might go into a bit advanced genetics here, but half bloods cannot be determined by simple mendelic inheritance (Dominant/recessive traits). That's for monogenic (based on a single gene) proteins (and the diseases caused by polymorphisms therein).
To make elven inheritance follow a mendelic pattern would impy that the only major difference between a human and an elf would be a single protein (now that's one flexible gene).

Benejeseret
2010-12-19, 01:37 PM
The general consensus so far agrees on the following:

1. Many alleles present (NOT just a 25% / 50% / 25% breakdown of a single segregation)

2. Most half-somethings are a mix of mostly Co-dominant traits. However, with multiple contributing alleles some could be Co-dominant and others just dominant, and some recessive to give an overall co-dominant phenotype


So, in genetics it takes at least 10 generations of backcrossing to be considered Congenic with the parental strain. This means that after 10 generations of crossing back with human the original elven traits are essentially lost. If a trait was selected for (say, the ears) then it can still be present in the population.

If half-elven cross half-elves lines develop them the traits will randomly fix and after 10 generations you will in fact have a true-breeding half-elven 'race'. This fixed 'race' may not be identical to the F1 generation half-elf due to that random fixation.

Secondly, Developmental Genetics also has a basis in RAW to come into play. Half-dragons do not get wings unless they are Large. This means that a small half-dragon has the 'genes' necessary for wings, but the developmental conditions do not exist for that trait to manifest. This fact on its own plays havoc on predicting outcomes (but allows savvy DM's the ability to explain away nearly everything).

And yes, environmental factors come into play to developmental genetics so the alignment of the stars and planes 'could' actually have a role that actually could be justified.
_____________________________

As to the terms 'species', 'race' and the like. Please remember that the entire concept of 'species' was devised, written, and named over two hundred years ago by men who were basically NEW WORLD CREATIONISTS like Carl Linnaeus/Carl von Linné.

That view of the world was limited by historical and religious restrictions and ultimately the very words and context of 'species' ends up being just as limiting to modern genetics. The concept is a useful tool to begin teaching students at a young/highschool level but becomes antiquated and, well, incorrect to properly convey what is real.

______________________________

hiryuu
2010-12-19, 05:17 PM
personally, I go with the theory that half breeds are sterile.

I go with this because of a biology lecture back in high school.

In order for two creatures to be the same species, the following three things must be true.

1. creatures must be physically capable of creating offspring mechanically (A great dane and a yorkshire terrier are still both dogs, but a great dane and a great shark aren't)

2. offspring is created

3. offspring is able to create more offspring.

So in order for elves, humans, ogers, and orcs to be different speices, the half-elfs, half-ogers and half-orcs must be sterile.

This can also be solved by making them ring species and have humans be a universal bridge species.

DueceEsMachine
2010-12-20, 02:04 PM
I have to be honest, I find it very interesting that there is so much interest about this on the boards. I don't have any advanced learning on the subject, which is why I have had so very little to say.

I guess the majority of what I know stems from an interest in a family genetic disease, Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus.

It works kind of how we thought half-breeds would, though not exactly. It has to be transferred on the X chromosome, so is passed only from mother to child, or father to daughter.

Kind of interesting. We keep hoping that the next generation of the family will be all boys so it will die out.

Regardless, I find this all extremely fascinating, so thank you all for your thoughts so far.

Benejeseret
2010-12-20, 05:51 PM
Ah, well Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus seems to be an X-linked genetic condition (although there is a second possible cause that is autosomal recessive)

X-linked traits are usually (in the case of NDI) recessive but due to the Y-chromosome end up manifesting in males as they only have 1 copy (from mom, X)

So, no, NDI does not really fall into a half-breed co-dominant type category. But X-linked traits are interesting in their own right and could be analogous to perhaps a family of male-manifesting sorcerers or somesuch in a DnD setting.

FYI though....you need 2 generations of boys in a row to actually breed-out an X-linked case like NDI. So, so long as you are male an all your siblings are male, then yes, having all boys in the next generation would clear the condition.
The downside is that any currently affected male is basically 100% guaranteed that any daughter they have is a carrier and it persists.

Benejeseret
2010-12-20, 06:07 PM
That got me thinking of other examples that are not "genetic" but could represent DnD races

Teratogens:
The Daelkyr Half-Blood by its listed fluff and connection to the mother's symbiont would have it behave basically like a teratogen. This would predict that the child of a Daelkyr Halfblood is NOT ever born a Daelkyr Halfblood unless the mother has the leach symbiont as well.

Epigenetics
The warlock pact fluff for the warlock class being passed on to offspring could be a dominant trait inheritance...but given that the pact is taken initially during adulthood this implies a more Lamarkian style inheritance. BUT, we can actually avoid the trap that is Lamarkian genetics by applying Epigenetics to explain the initial manifestation and inheritance. In this case it is not the the genes/DNA that gets affected but rather the protein/histones that go along with the DNA. Thus an infernal/fey taint gets passed along in the cytoplasm

Lateral Gene Transfer
It works in bacteria...so why not werewolves? Lycanthropy appears to be a case of lateral gene transfer based on the wording/mechanics. Proviruses would also work this way, allowing both inherited transfer and newly infected cases.

Preventing Apoptosis
If you effectively prevent apoptosis signaling it is possible to get a cell to keep on 'living' even after it is dead.....in this case death being defined by a nuclear/DNA death.
Vampirism could be some form of anti-apoptotic viral disease in which the host cells undergo nuclear death, conversion to viral factories, but prevented from "death". The vampire's regenerative abilities however do not mesh with this explanation.

Prions
The Wendigo template is basically a nod to the Kuru disease transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Protein-based transmission and manifestation.

Eldan
2010-12-21, 04:58 AM
Would that mean that Warlock pacts are in theory already present in human D&D and are only switched on or off by epigenetics? Could, then, mutations result in natural-born warlocks?

And I see lycanthropy more as a retroviral disease than an exchange of DNA in any other way, by plasmids or otherwise.


A vampires healing abilties... a form of very weird magical cancer?

DueceEsMachine
2010-12-21, 10:49 AM
FYI though....you need 2 generations of boys in a row to actually breed-out an X-linked case like NDI. So, so long as you are male an all your siblings are male, then yes, having all boys in the next generation would clear the condition.
The downside is that any currently affected male is basically 100% guaranteed that any daughter they have is a carrier and it persists.

Yeah - so far 3 brothers have it, but only 1 has had daughters, and they're carriers. It's a pretty obvious thing. It'd be really terrible if any of the girls met a guy that was a carrier (especially rare since it only occurs in, I think, 3 family lines in the world) - they could have a girl that had a "super" version of it, one on both sides.

It's actually a pretty interesting story as to how the family line supposedly developed the condition. They've traced the mutation back to Ireland, during a severe drought.

Supposedly, an old gypsy woman travelled through town and stopped at their house, asking for them to share their water. When they turned her away, she cursed them, that their sons should always know thirst. Something along those lines.

Pretty cool stuff, which could actually tie in with the whole warlock idea, actually.

All I know is that the whole thing sucks. The boys hve to drink somewhere aroudn 5 gallons of water a day to stay hydrated. I'm just lucky that I married into the family - my wife isn't a carrier, but her brothers have described it at a constant driving thirst that only goes away after chugging as much water as they can. Even then it's only temporary.

Benejeseret
2010-12-21, 01:18 PM
Would that mean that Warlock pacts are in theory already present in human D&D and are only switched on or off by epigenetics? Could, then, mutations result in natural-born warlocks?

And I see lycanthropy more as a retroviral disease than an exchange of DNA in any other way, by plasmids or otherwise.


A vampires healing abilties... a form of very weird magical cancer?

I was thinking along the line that the epigenetic warlock idea was that the epigenetic marker 'itself' was the source such as a tainted/infernal protein going along for the ride. Kind of a throwback the the humors/liquids of old medicine where the very water of the body was tainted.

But, I guess that since every mortal has the 'potential' to become a god in the DnD multiverse...then their cells therefore carry the 'potential' for deity level powers, or sorcerer powers etc etc etc as they could take a sorcerer class level at any level. So, if something (warlock pact, gaining class level etc) comes along to un-silence that ability, then it would indeed be that warlock is epigenetic regulation.


Vampires do break down the ability to correlate abilities with real-world molecular genetics. But really, all 'magical' abilities breaks that link.

Determining the genetic heritability amongst Fire Elementals is not really that useful....although, I suppose you could stretch a extremophile single celled...crap, let's revert back to magic is 'magic'.

The problem with undead is that they would work alright with the anti-apoptosis angle so long as they could not regenerate/heal in any way.

Cancer is the very opposite of apoptosis in many ways...it is the overabundance of life unchecked and unbalanced. Something trapped on the Positive Energy Plane gets massive healing bonuses (cell growth) but if they fail their Fort save it goes overboard (cancerous explosion) and kills them.

megabyter5
2010-12-21, 03:16 PM
I'd like to return to the idea of the Mongrelfolk. Mentioned earlier in the topic, but only with an alternate interpretation. I've always wondered something about them, actually: They are described with certain physical traits of Humans, Elves, Orcs... And Dwarves. The first three have distinct lines of genetic compatibility, but as far as I know, Dwarves cannot interbreed with ANY other humanoid. Period.

I can't be the first to notice that.

Yora
2010-12-21, 03:19 PM
I think there are even a lot more races in them than just these. And very different ones in each individual mongrelfolk. It probably started with creatures that are compatible with everything, and no matter with what they are mixed, they still maintain this universal compatibility.

DueceEsMachine
2010-12-21, 03:37 PM
Well, as far as I know, there have only been a couple of dwarven mixes, the Mul from darksun, being one that is infertile.

In Dragonlance, Dwarves and Humans occasionally have half-dwarf children, and my personal favorite - the Gully Dwarves are supposedly the worst combination of Dwarf/Gnome Genes, and they can absolutely reproduce (like rats).

So, there is evidence for both, really.

Trekkin
2010-12-21, 03:56 PM
Yora's explanation is how I rationalize mongrelfolk; their transcription and translation machinery is the cellular equivalent to a diesel engine, in that they can run on normal diesel*, biodiesel**, alcohol***, and a great many other things that burn****. As long as those traits were dominant (and, given the massive redundancy required, they probably would be), they'd retain their ability to adapt to new DNA, perhaps with some mechanism for transposing portions of it around...

Actually, although extremely unrealistic it would be interesting to find that mongrelfolk gametes cause the zygote to grow into a clump, then the individual cells to randomly hack up and incorporate non-mongrelfolk DNA in an attempt to outgrow the others until we're back to a zygote, then the process repeated until there were enough cells close enough in efficiency to progress to the blastula phase. Yes, it's not how evolution-based modeling works, but I like imagining Mongrelfolk DNA as some sort of supervirus capable of adding new regulatory and apoptotic mechanisms into the cells it infects in the name of producing a superior species.

*humans
**elves
***dwarves
****gnomes, to the delight of many of us

Yora
2010-12-21, 03:57 PM
Midnight also has, I believe, two dwarf hybrids. One is a dwarf-gnome hybrid and the other dwarf-orc I think.

DueceEsMachine
2010-12-21, 04:04 PM
wait - dwarf-orc? That's genius. Talk about a solidly built character. I mean, between the orcs being a physically domineering race (just by the numbers, str bonus), and the dwarves con bonus, you'd have something tough as nails for sure.

Eldan
2010-12-21, 04:08 PM
Was it Midnight where everything had genius names like Dworc?

Benejeseret
2010-12-21, 04:54 PM
Mogrelfolk

What about something like Kleptoplasty?

Some sea slugs can steal traits from the things they eat and incorporate them straight into their body. So, if a sea slug eats lots of algae it actually absorbs working chloroplasts and gets to become photosynthetic. If a sea slug eats jellyfish/anemones it can supposedly steal the stinging nemastocystes and use them to sting other things.

So maybe the base form of a Mongrelkolk is really just some giant slug...but when it gets to eat a humanoid it takes on its traits, becomes sentient, and becomes humanoid (mongrelfolk).

Now I absolutely must play a Mongrelfolk Master of Many Forms that constantly just becomes what it eats.

Yora
2010-12-21, 05:31 PM
wait - dwarf-orc? That's genius. Talk about a solidly built character. I mean, between the orcs being a physically domineering race (just by the numbers, str bonus), and the dwarves con bonus, you'd have something tough as nails for sure.
They are awsome: +2 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha.
Darkvision, +2 to all saves, +2 on saves against magic.
Truely badass, though I think this would justify LA +1.

flabort
2010-12-21, 10:34 PM
Old quote, but I thought of an idea that was relivant.
As further discusion has taken place that renders my thought null and void, feel free to take it with a grain of salt.


Also, even in Core, Asimar and Tieflings are evidence that half-celestials/half-fiends are potentially fertile. Similarly, the draconic creature template from Draconomicon shows half-dragons are fertile.


This does lead me to a queation, though: What do you get when (if?) half-elves and half-orcs reproduce?

Well, since half-celestials/fiends/dragons have Asimar/Tieflings/draconic creatures as dependents, and since half-elves/orcs have no such descendant creatures or templates, that would lead me to believe that while half-celestials/fiends/dragons are fertile, half-elves/orcs are sterile.

flabort
2010-12-21, 10:38 PM
Bar ninja, intentional double post.

Mogrelfolk

What about something like Kleptoplasty?

Some sea slugs can steal traits from the things they eat and incorporate them straight into their body. So, if a sea slug eats lots of algae it actually absorbs working chloroplasts and gets to become photosynthetic. If a sea slug eats jellyfish/anemones it can supposedly steal the stinging nemastocystes and use them to sting other things.

So maybe the base form of a Mongrelkolk is really just some giant slug...but when it gets to eat a humanoid it takes on its traits, becomes sentient, and becomes humanoid (mongrelfolk).

Now I absolutely must play a Mongrelfolk Master of Many Forms that constantly just becomes what it eats.

I've got one word for you: "Chao! (http://exterminatusnow.comicgenesis.com/d/20040716.html)"
Ok, I've got another couple of words. Kleptoplasty is "Super Mega Awesome".

Tiki Snakes
2010-12-22, 12:53 AM
This does lead me to a queation, though: What do you get when (if?) half-elves and half-orcs reproduce?
Half-Orc plus Half-Elf?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/Monster_gallery/98.jpg
Is pronounced 'Gith'.

Eldan
2010-12-22, 05:11 AM
Gith are reptilian, though. It's even mentioned that they have no externally visible genitalia and lay eggs. Also, those gith on that picture are weird: their eyes should be silver or black, not white.

Anyway, I'd imagine that there's just no stats for elf-touched or orc-touched humans: outsiders and dragons are different enough for humans that even a little of their blood makes a lot of difference, but orcs and elves are similar enough in the first place that a quarter elf wouldn't be different in any significant way anymore.

Pixiedragon
2010-12-22, 05:55 AM
It'd be really terrible if any of the girls met a guy that was a carrier (especially rare since it only occurs in, I think, 3 family lines in the world) - they could have a girl that had a "super" version of it, one on both sides.

Totally offtopic but then I know someone from 1 of those 3 families. :o She has 2 daughters though, both carriers.

Back ontopic though, I read an article yesterday that reminded me of this discussion. Or rather: I read it and it reminded me of elves/humans breeding halfelves. You can read it here (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BK6I920101221)if you want. Basically what it says is that Africa has 2 types of elephants that are as genetically different as humans and chimpanzees and can still breed fertile offspring.

In game rules I made a table for elven/halfelven/human pregnancies. Yes, I have PC's/NPC's that can get pregnant and as one of the players is a halfelf it was needed. I don't think I based it off anything else, just what I learned about breeding myself.


Half-elves
Elf x human will always result in a half-elven child, though with a 10% chance the child will be stillborn.
A half-elf x human will result in a nearly human child; having a 15% chance the child will be stillborn.
A half-elf x elf will result in a nearly elven child; having a 35% chance the child will be stillborn.
A half-elf x half-elf union might result in: a half-elven child (1-50), a near-human child (51-75), a near-elven child (76-90), or a stillborn (91-100)

Elves are less fertile than humans in my world, coupling a human with an elf would increase the chance on a pregnancy but human/halfelf and halfelf/halfelf would be somewhere in between while halfelf/elf has the least possible chance on conception.

Eldan
2010-12-22, 05:58 AM
The problem is that "as genetically different as" is a nonsensical sentence, really. Some humans are as genetically different from each other as they are from chimpanzees, by some metrics I've seen used. You can't just compare percentages of different basepairs.

Pixiedragon
2010-12-22, 06:01 AM
Can you show what kind of metrics would be used then?

Eldan
2010-12-22, 06:04 AM
That's the problem, really: no one really knows. We have a a few handfuls of known human genomes. We have even less chimpanzee genomes. We can look at them and say "Hey! Here's a gene that's switched on in humans, but not in chimps!" or "This gene occurs in all humans, but never in chimps!", but usually, we don't know what these genes do. We can perhaps tell if they are regulator genes or coding genes, and that's already a lot.
But then, what do you do if you suddenly have the situation "So Humans 1,4,8 and 29 have this gene, and so do chimps 3 and 6, but all the other subjects lack it."

Basically, until we know what these genes actually, comparison is difficult.

Benejeseret
2010-12-22, 02:15 PM
That's the problem, really: no one really knows. We have a a few handfuls of known human genomes. We have even less chimpanzee genomes. We can look at them and say "Hey! Here's a gene that's switched on in humans, but not in chimps!" or "This gene occurs in all humans, but never in chimps!", but usually, we don't know what these genes do. We can perhaps tell if they are regulator genes or coding genes, and that's already a lot.
But then, what do you do if you suddenly have the situation "So Humans 1,4,8 and 29 have this gene, and so do chimps 3 and 6, but all the other subjects lack it."

Basically, until we know what these genes actually, comparison is difficult

Boom. Literary headshot there, nicely put.

Every single time an Anthropologist starts doing genetics I die a little inside.

Example: Hey, here are some songbirds that cannot/do not sing...and they lack the gene FoxP2.....And the human vs chimp FoxP2 is slightly different....That must mean that FoxP2 is the main language gene that marks the turning point of human language development and that language is genetically determinant....

WFTBBQ!!?! (my professional response to the above study claim)



Anyhoo...

Half-elves and reduced fertility/fecundity


Half-elves
Elf x human will always result in a half-elven child, though with a 10% chance the child will be stillborn.
A half-elf x human will result in a nearly human child; having a 15% chance the child will be stillborn.
A half-elf x elf will result in a nearly elven child; having a 35% chance the child will be stillborn.
A half-elf x half-elf union might result in: a half-elven child (1-50), a near-human child (51-75), a near-elven child (76-90), or a stillborn (91-100)

Did that come from some printed fluff....cause it again reduced Mendelien inheritance to basically a single allele and I think most agree not a good model.

Stillborn - Well, if the reason is chromosome nondisjunction due to improper chromosome balance or pairing then you would predict these numbers to be way, way higher. If the reason is due to recessive mutations popping up then you would expect it way, way lower. Current human rates are around 0.5-1%

Which bring up Hybrid Vigor.

You would not guess it from DnD half-elf stats, but quite often hybrids actually show increased size/growth/'success' that either of the parental lines. Based on stats and the like, the DnD multiverse does not usually follow Hybrid Vigor

Eldan
2010-12-22, 02:18 PM
Half-elves have a diplomacy bonus. That means that they can get it on more often. So there's your hybrid vigor :smalltongue:

Yora
2010-12-22, 02:48 PM
They have better Con than elves.
Just mixing two breeds doesn't automatically make an individual more healthier. What happens it that the damage done by inbreeding is reduced, so they are not as damaged as their parents. And I think it can be assumed that at least humans are genetically diverse enough that this doesn't become a factor.

archon_huskie
2010-12-22, 06:17 PM
Boom. Literary headshot there, nicely put.

Every single time an Anthropologist starts doing genetics I die a little inside.


For starters, anthropologists study culture.

Tiki Snakes
2010-12-22, 06:23 PM
Gith are reptilian, though. It's even mentioned that they have no externally visible genitalia and lay eggs. Also, those gith on that picture are weird: their eyes should be silver or black, not white.

Anyway, I'd imagine that there's just no stats for elf-touched or orc-touched humans: outsiders and dragons are different enough for humans that even a little of their blood makes a lot of difference, but orcs and elves are similar enough in the first place that a quarter elf wouldn't be different in any significant way anymore.

Oh sure, officially. But just look at a picture of a Gith, (zerai or yanki) and tell me that on some level, they don't look like an Orc Faced Elf?

Eldan
2010-12-22, 06:26 PM
For starters, anthropologists study culture.

Which is why I (biologist) die a little inside whenever I read their grand new theories on genes.

Benejeseret
2010-12-22, 08:42 PM
If they just stuck to culture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_anthropology

If only.

To be fair, it is really only the interpretation (and the media re-interpretation) of such a field that becomes the problem. A select few manage to walk the line of feasibility and stay within the limits of they're data....but some studies I have read are cliff-diving straight into pseudo-science and basically not learning enough of the molecular biology to properly support their claims.



I think it can be assumed that at least humans are genetically diverse enough that this doesn't become a factor

Compared to what?

Meh, I agree that outbreeding depression is equally valid (given we are talking about elves after all) as hybrid vigor. Plus, hybrid vigor is perhaps more relevant to plants. But, ultimately that has more to do with the fact that plants can easily survive polyploidy conditions and so cross-'species' hybrids have a better chance to end up fertile.

**Cookies for the diplomacy boost equaling more nookie equaling more offspring logic

Benejeseret
2010-12-22, 08:46 PM
Back to topic:

Tiki Snakes - completely agree with you. I see an orc/elf when I see their pictures.

Am I not remembering some old Baldur's Gate plot about orc/elf crosses? I cannot seem to remember the details


And going back to the OP:


Anyone else in the playground given it this much thought?

Me. Sadly, far too much thought.

Years and years ago when taking an ecology class that covered predator/prey modeling and equations I scribbled out during one class every different Vampire fluff I could think of (Buffy vs Rice vs Dracula etc etc) and modeled the population curves for stability.

FYI: Buffy-style vamps would overrun the population and destroy their entire food source almost immediately unless Buffy single handedly found the source of each outbreak immediately...and she hardly ever left one town.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-23, 04:31 AM
I'd just like to chip in again and point out that while genetics is very important in determining how you will be as an adult individual, enviroment (which also is "inherited" is probably at least as important (many recent advances in genetics suggest this, but it is not exactly proven yet). So the various bonuses a race recieves is probably a result of a combination between polygenetic factors (and not mono-genetic medelic traits) and enviromental factors.
If for instance an orc recieves a bonus to strength then it it can be from a combination of traits that allows muscles to grow faster and a culture that fosters strength. Whereas an orc who never would have to use manual labour in his/her entire life would not be as strong, despite having the genetic background that allows him/her to.

However, I have a suggestion regarding the half-bloods that could explain how they can be so remarkably different despite being able to breed and also takes into account how they can be "half-bloods". Rather than being genetic fusions they're mosaics/chimaeras. That is to say that they consist of two different celllines that fused (or differentiated) in the early stage of development. A half orc would then consist of a equal mix of orc and human cells, both cooperating with one another.
In the embryonic stage the cellines will then provide one another with their growth factors, making the local human cells grow a little more like orc cells and the local orc cells growing more like human cells. Creating the hybrid.
How it is passed on would then be determined by which cellline that formed the sex-cells currently used (meaning they could only pass on traits from either of ttheir cellines and not both).

Grim Reader
2010-12-23, 07:29 AM
Wouldn't all these half breeds essentially be mules?

I find it has interesting social implications if they are. They would be less desirable as marriage partners, especially in areas where marriage is basically an alliance between families. On the other hand, familes (and fathers) would be more likly to look the other way if their daughters had a fling with a hybrid, than with someone fertile.
Knowing this might also influence the attitudes of the young ladies, etc.


Yeah, if all elves and all humans are entirely pure for all elven and human alleles, then in the F1 generation, all half-elves are the same. You'd only get wonky stuff in the F2, with humans with a dex bonus and things like that.


So, in genetics it takes at least 10 generations of backcrossing to be considered Congenic with the parental strain. This means that after 10 generations of crossing back with human the original elven traits are essentially lost. If a trait was selected for (say, the ears) then it can still be present in the population.

I like to combine the two above -assuming that half-eves occur in places and lines where there can be occasional genetic drift across the lines. While this does not have mechanical effects, it opens a lot of fluff for players. You can have bruly half-elves that take after their human parents in looks. You can have half-eves with near elven dexterity, human size with elven pound-for-pound muscular stength, near-even lifespan with human looks, etc, etc.

Incidentally, in a non-magic environment similar to our own preindustrial history, I'd expect the increased lifespan to be selected for hard.
It seems to come with no particular drawbacks, and would provide an enormous reproductive boos as well as increased ability to nurture and aid descendants.


This can also be solved by making them ring species and have humans be a universal bridge species.
I've had similar thoughts myself. Albeit without the universal bridge.

I had considered in Elves-Humans-Orcs-Ogres, not sure what happens from there. With Dwarf-Gnome-Halfling as a separate ring.


That got me thinking of other examples that are not "genetic" but could represent DnD races

Teratogens:
The Daelkyr Half-Blood by its listed fluff and connection to the mother's symbiont would have it behave basically like a teratogen. This would predict that the child of a Daelkyr Halfblood is NOT ever born a Daelkyr Halfblood unless the mother has the leach symbiont as well.

Epigenetics
The warlock pact fluff for the warlock class being passed on to offspring could be a dominant trait inheritance...but given that the pact is taken initially during adulthood this implies a more Lamarkian style inheritance. BUT, we can actually avoid the trap that is Lamarkian genetics by applying Epigenetics to explain the initial manifestation and inheritance. In this case it is not the the genes/DNA that gets affected but rather the protein/histones that go along with the DNA. Thus an infernal/fey taint gets passed along in the cytoplasm

Lateral Gene Transfer
It works in bacteria...so why not werewolves? Lycanthropy appears to be a case of lateral gene transfer based on the wording/mechanics. Proviruses would also work this way, allowing both inherited transfer and newly infected cases.

Preventing Apoptosis
If you effectively prevent apoptosis signaling it is possible to get a cell to keep on 'living' even after it is dead.....in this case death being defined by a nuclear/DNA death.
Vampirism could be some form of anti-apoptotic viral disease in which the host cells undergo nuclear death, conversion to viral factories, but prevented from "death". The vampire's regenerative abilities however do not mesh with this explanation.

Prions
The Wendigo template is basically a nod to the Kuru disease transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Protein-based transmission and manifestation.

And Trolls as a contagious cancer, similar to the one devastating the Tasmanian Devil populations.


Half-Orc plus Half-Elf?

I've heard of campaign worlds where humans are explained as elf-orc crosses.

Eldan
2010-12-23, 08:06 AM
I'd actually say the opposite about elven lifespans. They aren't really advantageous.

After all, D&D assumes that maximum human life span is around a hundred years, elven life span several centuries.

However, humans will most likely still have an average lifespan of, I don't know, 30 or so, due to child mortality, and most will probably life to 60, once they life to adult age.

Elves have basically the same problems, disease, malnutrition, hygiene, but they also have a -2 constitution. Really, it's a wonder they haven't died out: they breed even slower than the ridiculously slow-breeding humans, and should technically die of disease more often than humans.

megabyter5
2010-12-23, 09:31 AM
You ignore the fact that these races live in a world of Remove Disease, Heal, and even Raise Dead.

Eldan
2010-12-23, 09:45 AM
Of course. I was just replying to a post claiming that in a nonmagical world, such a lifespan would be selected for.

Grim Reader
2010-12-23, 10:24 AM
I'd actually say the opposite about elven lifespans. They aren't really advantageous.

After all, D&D assumes that maximum human life span is around a hundred years, elven life span several centuries.

However, humans will most likely still have an average lifespan of, I don't know, 30 or so, due to child mortality, and most will probably life to 60, once they life to adult age.

Elves have basically the same problems, disease, malnutrition, hygiene, but they also have a -2 constitution. Really, it's a wonder they haven't died out: they breed even slower than the ridiculously slow-breeding humans, and should technically die of disease more often than humans.

That is true for elves. Although in their specific case it seems that they tend to follow a similar strategy to humans, but to an even greater degree. They try to control their environment, limiting contact with competitors and eliminating hazards. Which fits oddly well with how Elves tend to work in fantasy, often living in tightly controlled enclaves.

As the ones who survive to maturity should be able to accumulate even more skills than humans, their lifespans support this strategy. Their big disadvantage is their inability to recover quickly as a population from adverse circumstances. This means competing species will already be well established in ranges formerly occupied by elves before the elves can recover population.

Thus, in an environment with multiple intelligent species, the elves will find their range constantly shrinking. Much like what probably happened with us, Neanderthals and possibly Denisovans.

But my original point was about the half-elves, who have no constitution penalties. Their increased lifespan would be an incredible reproductive boost if they were added to a human population in a historical setting.

Beelzebub1111
2010-12-23, 10:47 AM
But my original point was about the half-elves, who have no constitution penalties. Their increased lifespan would be an incredible reproductive boost if they were added to a human population in a historical setting.
Which is what happened in Eberron.

Benejeseret
2010-12-23, 11:42 AM
Rather than being genetic fusions they're mosaics/chimaeras. Etc.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that there is no current biological example of that being a basis for any F1 hybrid cross that I am aware of, perhaps someone can give us an example to model it after? Unless we are making assumptions about the ploidy state of orcs or something totally novel...chimeras just don't begin that way. At all.


And Trolls as a contagious cancer, similar to the one devastating the Tasmanian Devil populations.

Beautiful. Consider that stolen and used forevermore.


I'd just like to chip in again and point out that while genetics is very important in determining how you will be as an adult individual, environment (which also is "inherited" is probably at least as important (many recent advances in genetics suggest this, but it is not exactly proven yet).

I was waiting for that to come up. Yes, true. We must be careful to distinguish between considering populations and individuals though.

The half-orc population has a general +2 Str compared to humans, but individuals will still range from Str5 to Str 20 (assuming rolled stats). The individual variance can be explained by environmental and individual traits...but in a DnD setting a half-orc is a half-orc no matter what background you write up. Unless you take regional feats or variants we have to assume the +2 Str is inherent to being a half-orc....not "orcyness" (culture)

On the flip side - prestige classes like Stoneblessed tell us that attribute stats can be given due simply to culture. Thus, the DnD multiverse is conflicted.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-23, 12:31 PM
The problem with that line of reasoning is that there is no current biological example of that being a basis for any F1 hybrid cross that I am aware of, perhaps someone can give us an example to model it after? Unless we are making assumptions about the ploidy state of orcs or something totally novel...chimeras just don't begin that way. At all.

True, there are no naturally occuring populations of chimeras or mosaics occuring in nature since like polyploidism or aneuploidy it occurs by accident during cell division. Since hybrids themselves, except in bred cases, are rare the odds of finding an hybrid chimera in the real world is very low.

However, there are individual chimeras/mosaics about and while not hybrids, they can sport rather diverse cell-lines. There are also breeds of lab-rats that are chimeras that have been bred where the phenomenon have been and is studied. There are indeed cases where one cell-line compensates for or affects the growth of the other (and vice versa).

Hypothetically it could work that way with fantasy half-bloods. In this case they wouldn't so much be hybrids as rare cases of chimerism (wether most other offspring of cross-breeding would spontaneously abort or just be of one parents race could be discussed). Given that we're not really aware how the various races functions anyways, we can't really say if it is possible or not. I admit not the most elegant solution, but it comes with far less problems than if half-breeds would be polygenic or monogenic I think.


I was waiting for that to come up. Yes, true. We must be careful to distinguish between considering populations and individuals though.

The half-orc population has a general +2 Str compared to humans, but individuals will still range from Str5 to Str 20 (assuming rolled stats). The individual variance can be explained by environmental and individual traits...but in a DnD setting a half-orc is a half-orc no matter what background you write up. Unless you take regional feats or variants we have to assume the +2 Str is inherent to being a half-orc....not "orcyness" (culture)

On the flip side - prestige classes like Stoneblessed tell us that attribute stats can be given due simply to culture. Thus, the DnD multiverse is conflicted.

True. But the half-orcs +2 bonus could be influenced by an higher affinity for it and it's enviroment together. Their orcish traits could give them a higher affinity for higher strength and violent tendencies, while their enviroment either fosters strength (orcish) or pushes them towards less desirable heavy labour or combat professions (human). This would create a enviroment favourable for those traits which would mean they'd develop in the individual.
So it would not just be orcish, but also human (standard) enviroment which would push them toward a higher strength.

But a pampered, never-have-to-lift-a-finger, half-orc would never (neccessarily) develop a noticeable higher strength since it's enviroment would not provide for it. He or she would have a trait that'd help him or her do it of course, but his/her muscles wouldn't per default swell just by merit of being part orc.

Eldan
2010-12-23, 12:57 PM
Wouldn't "environment" be how you distribute your rolls, however? Given a standard array given in the books (with one 13, one 8 and so on), or an elite array, someone growing up to be come a combatant would be more likely to put their higher values into strength, in addition to their genetic differences.

megabyter5
2010-12-23, 01:31 PM
This means competing species will already be well established in ranges formerly occupied by elves before the elves can recover population.

Which might explain why elves have evolved a close relationship with woodland creatures via druids and rangers: It's a coping mechanism to deal with predatory animals encroaching on their settlements. On top of that, it may have something to do with elves and dwarves (noted to have at least mutual disdain for each other in any fantasy setting) not occupying similar environments.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-23, 02:03 PM
Wouldn't "environment" be how you distribute your rolls, however? Given a standard array given in the books (with one 13, one 8 and so on), or an elite array, someone growing up to be come a combatant would be more likely to put their higher values into strength, in addition to their genetic differences.

Yes and no. An 18 int human (or whatever) probably have both enviroment and genes providing the basis for the score (and training too, if I have understood DnD correctly). So technically we cannot differentiate any part of the attributes to genes and enviroment specifically.
All we can say is that when the scores have been finalized, both genes and enviroment have factored in.

So the half orcs racial bonus (or any racial bonus) is probably equally affected by genes and enviroment just like the rest of his ability scores are. It cannot be divided into enviromental factors and genetic factors, because just like real life we can only look at an adult individual to see the final indivual and then both have factored in.
How much of an 8 strength half-orc and a 16 strength human are enviromental and genetic respectively? And vice versa, 16 str half-orc and 8 str human?

Benejeseret
2010-12-23, 02:47 PM
That is true for elves. Although in their specific case it seems that they tend to follow a similar strategy to humans, but to an even greater degree. They try to control their environment, limiting contact with competitors and eliminating hazards. Which fits oddly well with how Elves tend to work in fantasy, often living in tightly controlled enclaves.

As the ones who survive to maturity should be able to accumulate even more skills than humans, their lifespans support this strategy. Their big disadvantage is their inability to recover quickly as a population from adverse circumstances. This means competing species will already be well established in ranges formerly occupied by elves before the elves can recover population.

Indeed, the elf fluff and write-up as it stands is counter-intuitive (biologically).

A long lived (long developmental time) strategy assumes that the few offspring that are made have a much increased chance of survival due to the longer stage as a weaning, more parental resources, and selection toward this strategy. This basically assumes that the offspring would have increased survival chances. Since in DnD this is mostly represented by Constitution (survival skill, health, disease resistance etc) we have a problem with elves.

Perhaps we need to model elves like Sea Turtles. A very long lived species that is sensitive to environmental changes and whose range is currently diminishing.

The following would then be true for elves:

1. Long lived
2. Few adult elves survive but those who do can expect a long life
3. Ritualized reproduction. Steal a vulcan (space elves) concept of rare but highly 'fruitful' rutting period
4. (the big change) Massive numbers of new born elves in rare blooms
5. Most of the new born elves die

In gaming terms I think it would be a neat plot to have a ravashing horde of baby elves descend on a farming community, but the local elves are highly, highly protective of them. Classic endangered species pest

Benejeseret
2010-12-23, 03:00 PM
But a pampered, never-have-to-lift-a-finger, half-orc would never (neccessarily) develop a noticeable higher strength since it's enviroment would not provide for it. He or she would have a trait that'd help him or her do it of course, but his/her muscles wouldn't per default swell just by merit of being part orc.

Wrong. Sorry friend, but RAW disagrees. If I am understanding the point of this thread, we want to make RAW and Real Life genetics mesh in a way to enhance verisimilitude.

A pampered, never-have-to-list-a-finger, half-orc would have exactly +2 Str compared to a pampered, never-have-to-list-a-finger, human EXACTLY BECAUSE his/her muscles default swell just by merit of being part orc. Base stats are rolled/bought first, THEN racial attributes are added.

Finally, age adjustments are made after Base and after Racial adjustments. Therefore racial adjustments existed from birth.

Base attributes are linked only to race. Race is not linked to culture by RAW (but specific exceptions exist such as Stoneblessed). But even with Stoneblessed, a Stoneblessed human get "more dwarfish" and gains +2 Con...but if a dwarf gets "more dwarfish" to an equivalent degree (paragon) he also gets +2 Con, on top of his racial +2 Con that he was born with.

Benejeseret
2010-12-23, 03:21 PM
Hypothetically it could work that way with fantasy half-bloods.

In bold is the end-all and be-all of that whole concept. I cannot say you cannot be right due to that word and its implications.

However, I can still disagree for whatever it's worth in this context.

Chimeras do exist. They are very cool. But, since we have already agreed that orcishness, humanness, and elvishess (etc etc) could not be due to a single allele then a chimera that perfectly nondisjunction/somatic crossover segregates all human from all elven alleles at once, during early embryogenesis, in every single half-elf.....just....no

But, I'll work with it, and here is a way that a chimera, in the way you want to use it, could exist as half-elves.

1. Human is the base chromosomal state of both races
2. 'Elvishness' is actually inherited as a extra-chromosomal, self-replicating unit such as a giant plasmid/cosmid/ring chromosome
3. It segregates independently from all base chromosomes or works as a transposable element

4. "True Elves" have a copy (or multiple) in every one of their cells. Perhaps it has integrated into their genome permanently, but pops back out if heterozyous to a "base human" state
5. Half-elves are chimeric in that the element has not segregated in early somatic development properly and a mix of their cells are 'base human"

6. BUT, this would mean the following:
i. Elves sometimes spontaneously generate half-elves or even humans from elf x elf crosses
ii. Half-elves x human crosses could generate True Elves, half-elves, or humans
iii. Human x human would never create half or true elves


This could actually be a cool concept for a world where all races occasionally produce humans. Most view these human children as aberrations or a curse as they share the same traits. A few scholars speculate that the 'human' condition represents a primordial state of the 'ancestors/ancients/prime race'.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-23, 03:23 PM
I'm sorry, I'm not entirely too familiar with DnD since I don't play it. However if that rule is to be taken into strict adherence, then we might as well throw genetics out of the window since it doesn't work like that.
If I have the genetic material to grow tall but suffer from serious calcium deficiency then I will never grow tall. If I have traits that help muscle growth but left unable to move then my muscles will atrophy.

However, if I have understood correctly a half-orc is thematically stronger than the average human. Yes? This correlates to the +2 bonus so that if you'd draw up a complete average (which like always, doesn't actually exist) they'd be stronger. They are given the bonus to correspond that the average adult half-orc is stronger than the average adult human (and then the aging rules is derived from those scores. So even the attributes of the child is defined by what the race is supposed to be thematically as adults).

However, half-orc thematically don't have the exact same lives as humans do. They don't share enviroment. They are social pariahs, often described as troublemakers. They are forced into slums and disowned. Often ending up as thugs or heavy labour. Seldom recieving proper education and often getting beat up as children.
That is an enviroment that fosters the strong (and I don't have to explain how orcish society foster it, do I?:smallwink:). It motivates and trains them to become stronger. That too is described in that bonus is it not? Even if the background may vary between characters, is not the attribute bonuses based on race themes which never change?

And ultimately, our difference of opinion here might be that we look at it different ways. Remember, in genetics you can only actually look at phenotypes and correlate it to the genotype. This is what I am sort of doing here too. I look at the bonus... once the scores been finalized. Thus once genes, enviroment and practise already factored in.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-23, 03:28 PM
In bold is the end-all and be-all of that whole concept. I cannot say you cannot be right due to that word and its implications.

However, I can still disagree for whatever it's worth in this context.

Chimeras do exist. They are very cool. But, since we have already agreed that orcishness, humanness, and elvishess (etc etc) could not be due to a single allele then a chimera that perfectly nondisjunction/somatic crossover segregates all human from all elven alleles at once, during early embryogenesis, in every single half-elf.....just....no

But, I'll work with it, and here is a way that a chimera, in the way you want to use it, could exist as half-elves.

1. Human is the base chromosomal state of both races
2. 'Elvishness' is actually inherited as a extra-chromosomal, self-replicating unit such as a giant plasmid/cosmid/ring chromosome
3. It segregates independently from all base chromosomes or works as a transposable element

4. "True Elves" have a copy (or multiple) in every one of their cells. Perhaps it has integrated into their genome permanently, but pops back out if heterozyous to a "base human" state
5. Half-elves are chimeric in that the element has not segregated in early somatic development properly and a mix of their cells are 'base human"

6. BUT, this would mean the following:
i. Elves sometimes spontaneously generate half-elves or even humans from elf x elf crosses
ii. Half-elves x human crosses could generate True Elves, half-elves, or humans
iii. Human x human would never create half or true elves


This could actually be a cool concept for a world where all races occasionally produce humans. Most view these human children as aberrations or a curse as they share the same traits. A few scholars speculate that the 'human' condition represents a primordial state of the 'ancestors/ancients/prime race'.

Hey, I like that. It's a bit a of a stretch, but an elegant one. Certainly solves the problem how all races can interbreed too.

Eldan
2010-12-23, 03:40 PM
The idea of modeling elves after sea turtles is both hilarious and cruel.

The elven mothers leave the settlement to give birth, abandoning their babies (which come in dozens) out in the forest. Only those who can crawl back to the village get fed.

Benejeseret
2010-12-23, 05:00 PM
Remember, in genetics you can only actually look at phenotypes and correlate it to the genotype.

For human geneticists that may be true...but I work with model animals and I can assure you we can do a lot better then mere correlation.

But let me try and reword my logic on this. I fully agree that orcish society, or the outcast society of half-orcs could and perhaps should rightfully 'toughen' up these children. But, in the DnD character generation multiverse the rules as written let us do thought experiments to test the influence of each.

Let's do a theoretical twin study.

A half-orc couple live on the outskirts of Sharn. The male is a turnip farmer and the female a seemstress. They are devout worshipers of Olladra and have a lot of kids.

Through Olladra's blessing they manage to have 4 sons (fraternal quadruplets) all at the same time. These sons grow up together (cohort with nearly identical environments). But, due to half-orc x half-orc cross each has a range of each traits.

Two are basically an even mix and end up half-orc (mechanically)
One is very orcish and follows orc mechanics
One is very human and follows human mechanics
- (I am aware this breakdown looks single allele mendelian but lets assume it is multi-factorial but thresholds set for sake or the argument)

Everything else is the same. They do the same chores, eat the same food, and study the same things with the local tutor/priest when they can. Olladra (god of luck) happens to see that identical roles are made for each of their stats (explained by having identical upbringing).

However,

Billy/Benjamin - The half-orcs end up a little stronger then their pink brother
Bruce - The orcish brother is stronger then all of the others
Bobby - The humanish child takes better to his schooling and is far more skilled then his other brothers.

This is how DnD works.

An identical family exists (their cousins) who live with the druids out in the Demon Wastes. The mother is the twin sister of the mother above, the father is the twin brother of the brother above. They also happen to have quadruplets born the exact same day (all praise Olladra).

Their life is harsh and brutal out on the Demon Wastes

Danny / Dilan their half-orcish sons
Deegan the orcish son
Dwayne the humanish son

Same things happens. Deegan the orc is stronger then his brothers, Dwayne the pink one is much weaker but more skilled.


On a family gathering all boys arm wrestle each other to decide who is strongest.

Deegan wins. In fact, every single one of the second Demon Waste family is stronger then any of the first family from Sharn. That is the effect of upbringing resulting in higher Str etc....but within family cohorts the orc is still the strongest internally.

QED.



The elven mothers leave the settlement to give birth, abandoning their babies (which come in dozens) out in the forest. Only those who can crawl back to the village get fed.

Ha! I'm liking this more and more. I need to run a game with this someday and have a ravenous swarm of elves spawn plaguing a forest.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-23, 07:18 PM
Hmm... I think I have managed to somehow gotten across the idea that the racial bonus isn't genetic at all. Which was not my intent and I apologise. What I tried to present was that it ought to be both genetic and enviromental. By merit of being nigh inseperable in a fully developed character rather than something else.

The racial bonus is part of enviroment shapes them and part potential to be shaped. The +2 str could be that the average half-orc is stronger than a average human, which is due to that they have a potential of becoming stronger quicker. But our lazy, pampered, never-lifts-a-finger half orc with str 6 could hypothetically still meet a human who have had the same situation in life with str 7 (yes, that human could also have 4 or 3. But 7 or 8 are not outlandish stats for that description).
Here the racial bonus does not, to me, mean that the half-orc somehow has been lazier than the human but rather that he had a trait that allowed him to become stronger than the human but he never made us of it.

His cousin on the other hand, on his fathers side, another half-orc who grew up in the gutter of some slum and got recruited for a band of succesful mercenaries comes out with str of say... 16. Here the bonus have indeed helped him in life, and definantely figures in his score. In fact, part of his success in his band is that he reacts well to training and quickly trains and retrains (after injury) his strength.

Genetically however, in one of these two half-orcs the orcish trait(s) of muscle hypertrophy lie unused and in the other it does not. Our pampered half orc is still weaker than the human average and our orcish is stronger that the human average, regardless of heritage.

The half-orcs does have the potential of becoming stronger yes. But their enviroment should factor in if they actually do become stronger. As presented in most roleplaying games the orcish descent and their living conditions and social position go hand in hand, which makes it impossible to determine wether the bonus their recieve for being half-orcs is strictly genetic or a combination (but all complex features and traits and combinations in humans, so why would they be different in a half orc).

Note: If we are actually constructing characters by buying attributes for points, then we're actually comitting a sort of bias. Instead what we should be looking at is a spread of attributes between the possible normal values (5-20?) if we wish to discuss it genetically.

Tiki Snakes
2010-12-23, 08:05 PM
Note: If we are actually constructing characters by buying attributes for points, then we're actually comitting a sort of bias. Instead what we should be looking at is a spread of attributes between the possible normal values (5-20?) if we wish to discuss it genetically.

Actually, I'd say the act of attributing ability points models enviroment MUCH better than the bonus would, essentially.

Given that it is entirely legitimate to create an orcish character with a backstory completely lacking any of the appropriate enviromental 'orcy' triggers that would naturally encourage a higher strength, but that the character will still have a higher strength than an otherwise identically created human, it's hard to claim that the racial +2 is even partly a matter of enviroment.

0Megabyte
2010-12-23, 11:48 PM
While I'm no scientist, I've noted a lot of talk of hybrids and chimeras and whatnot. Very cool stuff, and I definitely wonder how they relate to dragons and their half-dragon offspring.

However, for humans, orcs and elves, at least, it seems most likely to me that they're the same species.

As it's been shown, Neanderthals and humans not only met, but had kids together. In fact, the evidence suggested that non-Africans have about 10% Neanderthal specific genes, even to this day.

I'd imagine the difference between humans, orcs and elves to be no more significant, and possibly less, than between humans and neanderthals, which are now shown to be truly different races of humans, but still humans for all intents and purposes.

So, for them at least, talk of chimeras and whatnot probably isn't necessary. And considering how many genes are involved, two half-x's would probably still be a mix recognizable as a half-x, at least most likely.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-24, 04:28 AM
TikiSnakes: Here's the thing though, strength in nature increases to the point where we need no more (but is limited by various factors). So our identical human and our identical half-orcs have this little problem. If the half-orc only needs str of X in his enviroment, then a human in the identical enviroment will reach str X too (he will after all at all times share the same load, burden and exertion). That bonus "should not exist" in an enviroment where the character is never put in situations to increase it.
Why? Because the body conserves resources. It is the same reason unused muscles atrophy... actually this is exactly what it is in this case. Being stronger than you have to be is not an advantegous trait.

However, if we play with the idea that orcish muscles grow regardless of workload then it starts to sound worringly close to neoplasia. That orcish muscle growth is lacking control. That for some reason it is not slowing down in time and growing beyond need. In a human that would be a cancer warning signal (and a pretty major one).
If one go by that approach orcs would probably be more susceptiple to tumors and cancers, particulary sarcomas.

Of course, all this could be dismissed by saying the attributes does not accurately portray reality. But that would make the whole discussion moot, so let's not.

Tiki Snakes
2010-12-24, 08:19 AM
If a man is abandoned in the jungle, raised from birth by a tribe of Chimpanzees, will he, by adulthood, have the exact proportional strength of a raging adult chimp?

If a baby Chimp is purchased from near-birth from the black market, and raised by a family of scientists, librarians and/or nerds, will the Chimp not infact be strong enough to open a bag of Doritos without raising a sweat?

How about if we substitute a Gorilla in place of the chimp?

If not, do Chimpanzees and Gorillas suffer from Neoplasia? OR are they, perhaps, simply stronger by nature of what they are?

Grim Reader
2010-12-24, 09:16 AM
Neanderthals are an interesting point here. Neanderthals appear to have been on the average, stronger than us. And there seems to have been a biochemical basis for that. Neanderthals appear to have had much higher levels of testosterone than us, along with some undetermined mechanism to prevent this from leading to brittle bones.

Testosterone does lead to higher muscle mass. It seems reasonable to assume that the Orcs are fitted to a default environment where competition is rather strength-based, and so include mechanisms for greater strength. Different anabolic/catabolic stereoid balance, more growth horomone, etc.
Like a naturally higher production of "bodybuilder" horomones.

On that subject, I have always favored a world-background where the various intelligent races each come from a different world, and have ended up on the D&D "mosaic" world in the past. Many are obviously badly fitted for their environment, and others would quickly ecologically blitz the environment in a primitive setting.

Similar worlds are found in Brian Daleys "A Tapestry of Magics" and Jack L. Chalkers "Changewinds" series.

If each race evolved independently or semi-independently on a separate world, a lot of the problems of their environmental misfirts go away. The Elven slowness to recover from populations drops does not matter as long as the only competition is other elves. As an intelligent species they should be dominating their environment enough to crush all other competitors anyway.

This still leaves the question of how they ever made it into the Old Stone Age with their excruciatingly slow marturation rates. I would expect that those were added later. Once in control of their environment, they extended their own lifespans massively.

Orc, Ogres etc, would be species that had not made it out of the Stone Age on their respective worlds, but were bright enough to pick up tricks from their competition once they met them.

Modeling the origin worlds of the various species and speculating on what that means for the species is fin. Halflings obviously had long periods of food shortage on theirs.

Benejeseret
2010-12-24, 11:19 AM
Benejeseret uses [Frenzy].

Benejeseret has fails his [Will] save and must now attack the nearest ally!

Blaaaarhhhh!!!!!

0Megabyte takes [8 points of damage]
Aux-Ash gets an AoO against a [grapple]

_______________________________________

Ok, ok. Maybe not that extreme. But really, each of you are falling into either media-related half-truths or logical fallacies regarding evolution.

OMegabyte
First off, I will say I am trying to come up with something for dragons...but so far I have been meekly avoiding the really extreme stuff as 'magic' and 'fantasy' are going to really trump any possible genetic/molecular reason.

But then you dove head-first to Neanderthals. So, this is exactly what I was weary about regarding Anthropologists playing with my toys. My toys being genetics to drive the analogy home.

The actual article only supports about 1-4% "shared genes" with Neanderthals. However (!!) I could likewise say that brewing yeast share 50% of their genes with humans but that does not mean they are taking advantage of young women who pass out while drinking beer.

Sample sizes are small, the reference sizes are even smaller, contamination of ancient samples is a HUGE issue in that field and finally; even if their methods are sound, closely sharing SNP's and microsatallites might just mean we had a close common ancestor....which...we did.

It might be true. Absolutely. The trouble is that their claims are way beyond what they can really support and the media and common understanding misinterprets and twists it even further (for example: the 1% possibly supported became 10% in your post).

These are the same people who say this:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071018-neandertal-gene.html

Let me quote the author.
"From the point of this gene, there is no reason to think that Neandertals did not have language as we do," said the study's lead author, Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany."
That statement right there undermines all of his credibility to me as it means that he completely oversteps the limits of molecular genetics/development and does not even realize how wrong his claims may be as he is basing his conclusions on unreasonable/unfounded assumptions.


Aux-Ash
Evolution does not work that way. Developmental biology does not really work that way.


Here's the thing though, strength in nature increases to the point where we need no more (but is limited by various factors). So our identical human and our identical half-orcs have this little problem. If the half-orc only needs str of X in his enviroment, then a human in the identical enviroment will reach str X too (he will after all at all times share the same load, burden and exertion).

Natural selection does not select for strength, or any such trait. It only selects for those who survive and it so happens that any number of traits might help make that happen. That distinction is REALLY important.

If orcs overcome the selective pressure by being stronger...ok. But that does not mean humans need to face the pressure in the same way. If aggressive wild boars are invading on their territory for generations perhaps orcs responded by being selecting for strength and wrestling them for the territory. The strongest male got the most territory and thus the most mates. Human however could respond to the same pressures by using their brains and wiles and end up evolving the cognitive ability to develop problem solving thinking, which lead to better spears [Craft (Spearmaking)] which lead to easier wild boar kills. The spearcrafter got the most respect and loot from selling his wears, which let him buy the most jewlery and secure the dowry of a few wives.
And nearby, the half-elf village was nearly devastated due to their piss-poor combat skills. However, as they fled an hid from the boars, they used their +racial diplomacy to woo the wives and daughters of warriors successfully fighting boars and ended up 'cheating' their way into evolutionary success.


That bonus "should not exist" in an environment where the character is never put in situations to increase it.

First off, "it does exist" in a DnD multiverse. Second, it does exist in the real world as well. Vestigial organs, embryonic structures for gills and evolutionary carryovers, still exist. The pressure to get rid of them is far less then the energy required to get rid of them. Moreover, re-routing an existing system is FAR easier then completely remaking a new one. So, we see many cases of very inefficient biological systems, gene pathways etc.

If you think evolution selects for efficiency, then you are wrong. Evolution selects for what works. If that is efficiency...awesome...if not...so be it.


Why? Because the body conserves resources. It is the same reason unused muscles atrophy... actually this is exactly what it is in this case.

Difference between adaptation and evolution, and that difference is often in the 10s of thousands of generations to see whole populations shifts (unless bottlenecking etc happens).

If a gorilla and a human sit on a couch together and what Lucy reruns while eating Pringles for 10 years...they are both going to be atrophied tubs of lard. BUT, the gorilla is STILL going to have more muscle mass compared to the human.

I'm sorry, but that is how biology works.


Being stronger than you have to be is not an advantegous trait.

Sure, it isn't advantageous, but it's still there.
Evolution does not select for what is "best."
Evolution selects for what works "at the time" and "under those conditions"
If the conditions change then the trait is not longer advantageous. But it still exists and will continue to exist for a long time depending on just how disadvantageous it is under the new conditions.

Sickle Cell Anemia is a very advantageous trait in areas with high Malaria loads.
But when families move to areas without Malaria, the trait is comparatively disadvantageous compared to not having it.
But children are still born with it and will continue to be born with it for hundreds of years (likely thousands)

Benejeseret
2010-12-24, 11:40 AM
Grim Reader - that does look after a lot of the issues. However, unless they all originally same from 1 world, split to many to diversify, and then came together again; there would otherwise be no reasonable expectation for them to be able to interbreed.


Halflings obviously had long periods of food shortage on theirs.

Or their cultural courtship involved complex dances during mate selection and that cultural pressure over hundreds of years slowly selected for highly dexterous individuals. It just so happened that a mutation for stature was linked to the dexterous allele and so it to was selected for 'by happenstance.'

Or, in Eberron, the ancient tall halfling ancestors started riding dinosaurs and smaller individuals were better dino-riders due to the medium size of the local dino population.
"B!tches love dinos" a famous quote from Sir Humperdink, the historic founder of the halfling dino-riding clan.

Or C...Or reason D....Or reason Z

Grim Reader
2010-12-24, 07:49 PM
If aggressive wild boars are invading on their territory for generations perhaps orcs responded by being selecting for strength and wrestling them for the territory. The strongest male got the most territory and thus the most mates.

Human however could respond to the same pressures by using their brains and wiles and end up evolving the cognitive ability to develop problem solving thinking, which lead to better spears [Craft (Spearmaking)] which lead to easier wild boar kills. The spearcrafter got the most respect and loot from selling his wears, which let him buy the most jewlery and secure the dowry of a few wives.

And nearby, the half-elf village was nearly devastated due to their piss-poor combat skills. However, as they fled an hid from the boars, they used their +racial diplomacy to woo the wives and daughters of warriors successfully fighting boars and ended up 'cheating' their way into evolutionary success.

While I realize that is an example, I think it should be added that after humans got into the upper paleolithic, the selective evolutionary pressure on us have mostly been us.

By which I mean that most male deaths before old age in the period were probably due to other humans. How we interacted with other humans were far more important to our reproductive success than most other factors. Which is where the half-elf diplomacy bonus would probably shine.

Speculativly, the strength bonus of Orcs gave them an advantage in the mating selection, and allowed the physical dominance of rivals, and hence got selected for.


Grim Reader - that does look after a lot of the issues. However, unless they all originally same from 1 world, split to many to diversify, and then came together again; there would otherwise be no reasonable expectation for them to be able to interbreed.

I could think of a lot, although all of them are total pseudoscience:) But the subject is hard to specualte on with complete scientific accuracy. I spent a lot of time musing on the subject, and prefer an explanation where "likes attract" between universes. All the universes interact with each others probablity patterns when similar enough. The observers being similar would be why they tend to end up in on the same statelevel.

As I've set it up, it gets rather complicated anyway, because all the universes are constantly splitting at each quantum event that could have gone differently, but then collapse back together again unless the theoretical difference has grown sufficiently large when there is an observer.


Or their cultural courtship involved complex dances during mate selection and that cultural pressure over hundreds of years slowly selected for highly dexterous individuals. It just so happened that a mutation for stature was linked to the dexterous allele and so it to was selected for 'by happenstance.'

Or, in Eberron, the ancient tall halfling ancestors started riding dinosaurs and smaller individuals were better dino-riders due to the medium size of the local dino population.
"B!tches love dinos" a famous quote from Sir Humperdink, the historic founder of the halfling dino-riding clan.

Or C...Or reason D....Or reason Z

While true, such selective pressure could modify gross issues of morphology, such as stature quickly, but significant biochemical modifications should take a considerable amount of time, after dinos were tamed. More than recorded history, I'd think. And yes, I do know of the russian foxes.

I would point to the physiogonomy of the haflings being a more extreme version of the Inuit type, coupled with their high appetites and exceptional ability to store energy. It all points to long periods of food shortage, possibly with cold conditions, punctuated by periods of high food availability. Something like Heliconia, perhaps. Or more exterme seasons.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-25, 03:12 AM
Sorry, Benejereset. I was talking about individuals, not evolution. There you are absolutely correct. I was also simplyfing a bit since I was writing on the fly and not with my books next to me.

My point is sort of, there is no polygenic trait in humans (and thus I assume in any other fantasy race) that relies solely on genetic level. If I have the potential to be tall but suffer from malnourishment then I will never be tall, not will I necessarily be taller than my fellow malnourshisees. If i have the potential to be strong but never practise or work manually then I will never be strong, nor will I be stronger than anyone else in my position. If I have the potential to have great eyesight but live all my life in total darkness then I most assuredly will not have good eyesight and not better than anyone else in the same darkness.

And we're still on "scratch-the-surface-depth" here

This is all on individual level of course. Even if I have a "gene that lie unused" (it doesn't really work like that I know, but bear with me) I can still pass it on. As you say, in evolution only what is succesful (ie. allows me to pass my traits on) matters.

My point with this aside is to point that that if we're to discuss how half-bloods work genetically then we should take into account that many of the traits will be both genetic and enviromental (not one or the other but a combination) on the individual level. That it is not so simple to just assume that they are strictly genetic and will for sure be passed on.

0Megabyte
2010-12-25, 06:46 AM
Benejeseret:

I will admit only to this: The information on the discoveries about neanderthals may have been inaccurate. I had not heard any complaints about it from the geneticists I know, so I hadn't gone as deep into the data as I could have. I'm by no means a professional, but I try to keep up on genetics and evolution, even though it can be easy at times to get inaccurate information, especially when coupled with time and imperfect memories.

However, the point I was trying to make is not made unsound, even if the example is incorrect, and you make a very good argument that the evidence given isn't enough to prove the conclusion.

The point was that races like elves and orcs may very well be just some sorts of human subspecies. (Or, to be clear, all three races are part of the same species, without being biased as to which is the more "primitive" of the three.)

I'd say the best evidence for this is that, even with some differences in looks and ages (with elves being an extreme outlier in age, much like humans [including orcs and elves, as opposed to chimpanzees, gorillas or orangutans] are extreme outliers in intelligence) the different races are able to interbreed, and the fluff gives no indication of increased levels of infertility, and in fact are clear that the children of such unions are fully viable in their own right, able to breed both with each other and with the original groups without trouble.

That's how the game assumes it, and I see no reason to disagree with those assumptions. So, it seems to me, the three races are at least no more different than each other than we and neanderthals are. They don't seem any more different, anatomically speaking, either. Probably less.

It just seems an easy answer. "The three are the same species!" Possibly also true of halflings, maybe dwarves, though if Dark Sun is to be believed (and I see no reason why not, because hey, it's fun), the children of humans and dwarves are sterile Muls. That basically means they're different species, and probably branched from the phylogenetic tree earlier than the other four. Gnomes, I'm less certain of.

Honestly, for a lot of these species, it depends entirely on the fluff of the world. The only ones that are clear are humans, elves and orcs, as half-orcs and half-elves exist as separate races. Even then, orcs and elves coming together is less clear. It's possible humans are like an intermediate in a ring species, as another stated here, able to breed with both, even though the two are different enough from each other to be unable to breed. Or they aren't. I dunno. I like it better, though, if all three are able to interbreed, but elves and orcs just do it far too rarely to be noted.

Halfings, I'm less sure. I guess there's a version of halflings out there that have human blood in them, what were they, tallfoot halflings or something like that? Anyway, I'd lump them in there too.

Now, as for dragons... well, that's probably just magic.

Grim Reader
2010-12-25, 08:14 AM
My point is sort of, there is no polygenic trait in humans (and thus I assume in any other fantasy race) that relies solely on genetic level. If I have the potential to be tall but suffer from malnourishment then I will never be tall, not will I necessarily be taller than my fellow malnourshisees. If i have the potential to be strong but never practise or work manually then I will never be strong, nor will I be stronger than anyone else in my position.

But the strength level varies enormously between prople who do not work out or practice! Far more than among those who do.

Aux-Ash
2010-12-25, 11:16 AM
But the strength level varies enormously between prople who do not work out or practice! Far more than among those who do.

Indeed Grim Reader and why that is depends on many many reasons, including but not limited to daily exertion, the level of manual labour, nourishment, health and genetics (though the genes behind it are not identified).

It varies more not because it relies more on genetics, but because people who work out regularly establish a higher minimal exertion level which gives them a narrower range to vary in.

Benejeseret
2010-12-25, 02:20 PM
Grim Reader - I first interpreted your multi-world races as 'aliens', but since it seems you were thinking parallel uniververse/planes I now agree and like it now that I get what you ment.

And sorry all for the side-tracking, it just stumbled on topics very near to my heart/profession that have always made me edgy. I think we're all now saying basically the same things, but with different spins based on our backgrounds.

(my wife's a paleontologist and I'm a genetisist and we get into these arguements ALL the time. It is facinating and kinda scary that the people who study 'evolution' and the people who study 'genetics' so often seem to be having two different conversations. Neither side is really wrong...but somehow the other side never sounds right either.)



Getting back to the weird DnD creatures:

Beholders - I have always wanted to link Beholders to some other stationary monster such as a Roper. Making them the equivalent of jellyfish/hydra. Beholders always make me think of jellyfish.

A dual lifestyle species with a sedentary feeding and that buds off mobile/sexual version (beholder). Gives the reason for Beholders to start up Cults and the like, to feed the fields of ropers (or whatever fits) that are their offspring/parents

________________________

Gods

Now, not to derail into theology too much, I was thinking the other day about their influence of evolution in such a world.

In a world where Gods actually exist, having a God's support would be a HUGE survival advantage to that Clan/species. Complex traits such as 'faith' are likely far too convoluted to be selected for directly, but one could predict that overall whatever traits the God favours would very, very quickly gain an upper hand in a population. Drow are the clearest example of this where having favour is a direct reflection of a House's advancement, spread, and survival.

The only way a section of the population could begin drifting towards other traits would be to A) switch gods, or B) first uncover substancial powers independently that frees then from the deity reliance.

hamishspence
2010-12-26, 05:23 AM
Getting back to the weird DnD creatures:

Beholders - I have always wanted to link Beholders to some other stationary monster such as a Roper. Making them the equivalent of jellyfish/hydra. Beholders always make me think of jellyfish.

A dual lifestyle species with a sedentary feeding and that buds off mobile/sexual version (beholder). Gives the reason for Beholders to start up Cults and the like, to feed the fields of ropers (or whatever fits) that are their offspring/parents.


There is one tree-like variant of Beholderkin in Lords of Madness: the Overseer. They have a 5 ft speed, are ground based, and can command beholders- they are subordinate to Hive Mothers but rank above ordinary beholders in the hierarchy of a beholder hive.

This is what they look like:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/lom_gallery/88133.jpg

Gwarthkam
2010-12-26, 12:12 PM
Argh, this thread forced me to register on the forum :smallsmile:

While I wholeheartedly agree on mostly anything Benejeseret has said in this thread, the 8-point damage to 0Megabyte would have to be justified by critiera of parsimony, not a percentage of symplesiomorphic traits from yeast :smallfrown: have a go at the argument for homology of MC1R etc., then go coup-de-grace 0Megabyte :smallsmile:

Benejeseret
2010-12-28, 12:17 PM
The Overseer fits that perfectly, thanks.

______________________
Gwarthkam - Bio geeks unite! As we refluff these things to suite the multiverse with verisimilitude, we need to make our own gargon as well. Physics geeks got the killing of Catgirls for the same process....what do we get?

______________________

Other Races:

Dragons

Soooo...first lets compile all the variants.

True dragons, with alternative form
Half-dragon....anythings
Dragonblooded
Tauric dragons (different then half-dragons I believe)

Am I missing many others?

Aux-Ash
2010-12-28, 01:58 PM
Heh... I too was attracted by this thread and had I not been already registered I would probably have done so too just to participate.

As for the various types of dragonbloods... not sure I can help much there. I did read in NWN once that sorcerers were ancestors of dragon-cross races. But that might have been that setting specifically?

Whatever it is... sounds like a challange to get to be compatible with genetics.

0Megabyte
2010-12-28, 04:54 PM
Argh, this thread forced me to register on the forum :smallsmile:

While I wholeheartedly agree on mostly anything Benejeseret has said in this thread, the 8-point damage to 0Megabyte would have to be justified by critiera of parsimony, not a percentage of symplesiomorphic traits from yeast :smallfrown: have a go at the argument for homology of MC1R etc., then go coup-de-grace 0Megabyte :smallsmile:

Hey now, calm down, no need to give advice on how to do a coup-de-grace on me! :smalltongue:

While I'm not an expert in the subject (not taking classes for it, anyway) I could probably, with a little brushing up, reach up to, probably, a few CR below your level. You'd get experience for beating me, at least, should I actually put some effort into this. :smallwink:

Gwarthkam
2010-12-28, 10:18 PM
Oh yes, sorry 0Megabyte, but I was semi-defending one of your impressions :smallsmile:

I'll offer you a defensive immediate-action, in case Benejeseret approaches to coup-de-grace you: ask him to explain to you what a species is. If his body contains enough geekness from evolutionary biology, chances are he'll explode

Benejeseret: I think we might get the power to formulate very basic biology concepts in a language that makes it impervious to normal reasoning and sound clever. Hmm but you're right, that's not enough by far, we'll have to unite and scheme for something greater :smalltongue:

Eldan
2010-12-28, 10:33 PM
Heh. Hearing that question doesn't make me explode anymore. Only smile. And yet, I have to use it at work every day.

Though generally it's a fun subject to argue about.

0Megabyte
2010-12-28, 10:57 PM
Oh yes, sorry 0Megabyte, but I was semi-defending one of your impressions :smallsmile:

I'll offer you a defensive immediate-action, in case Benejeseret approaches to coup-de-grace you: ask him to explain to you what a species is. If his body contains enough geekness from evolutionary biology, chances are he'll explode


*twitch* Explaining what a species is...?! You know, someone asking me that that might make me explode.

JaronK
2010-12-28, 11:06 PM
Considering Half Dragons and the like, I'm pretty sure D&D doesn't actually have genetics. The gods had ideas for what creatures should be like and made them. Some of them can cross breed, others can't, and the results are determined magically as well.

And this is basically how it works, except you have stuff like Magebreed mucking everything up.

In the end, a Wizard did it.

JaronK

Benejeseret
2010-12-29, 09:17 PM
Considering Half Dragons and the like, I'm pretty sure D&D doesn't actually have genetics. The gods had ideas for what creatures should be like and made them.
...
In the end, a Wizard did it.

With an estimated 40% of Americans still believing in Creationism....you're post cuts a little close. One of those, I would laugh but I want to cry, kinda points.

My response to them is always the same.

God[s] might have created life, and Religion is the one who gets to ask Why. Science will never directly conflict with that because Science does not ask Why.

Science gets to ask How.
And so I do.
________________

Dragons

My view of Kobolds (and perhaps other dragonblooded) is this: if a long lived species has many life stages, and should a mutation allow sexual maturity at a younger stage, so long as the 'younger' breeders can survive to pass along this trait it will quickly shortcut, possibly leading to speciation if only in a distinct sub-population.

I can imagine a clutch of dragons (through DnD version of mutation - taint of Chaos or somesuch) wherein wyrmling dragons can reproduce. Leads to a quick population explosion of small dragonlings. Large populations plus more mutations in an environment that supports/selects certain traits leads to more changes. If the early population has little predation, it would allow further variation and drift

If the clutch of wyrmlings was in a tight, secure cavern complex, wings could be lost without significant survival loss. Likewise, with younglings mating, the pressure for becoming large would be greatly lessened by the loss of predators. In fact, if the only real pressure was resources, and the lowered 02 concentrations in small caverns, smaller forms would be advantageous and there is little pressure to keep later developmental stages.

...

Kobolds

...

Profit!

______________

Other dragon-like monsters could be explained in a similar manner - or could simply be an outgroup branch of the 'dragon' family.
______________

Half-Dragons

This is harder as again we are back to compatibility/gestation/sterility etc etc etc

As any Living, Corporeal creature can be half-dragon....this means we might have to look pretty broad for an analogous match to model.

-Physical and mental stats altered.
-Skeletal/structure changes (bite / wing / claw)
-Biochemical changes (breath)
-Neurological changes (sleep/paralysis immunity)

That's a whole lot....

Sooooo, here is my (extreme) possible compromise.

What if Dragons were parasitic?

-Victim is kidnapped (Hence, all those Princesses)
-Victim inoculated
-Victim is immobilized in a thick calcium concretion in a fetal position (egg looking thing)
*Victim completely re-processed by gestating wyrmling and results in wyrmling
**Victim is improperly re-processed, host immune system fights, chimeric state results from co-integration of host and wyrmling. (explains both half-dragon and tauric)


What this could mean for a game:

-Gives a reason for Dragon kidnappings rather then eating

-Parthenogenesis: eliminated need for male/female as this could be the underlying basis for dragon COLOURS. Each colour represents a clonal line.

-Half-Dragon template could be obtained AFTER birth. And hey, it so happens that Dragon Disciple does basically that. This would imply that Dragon Disciple willing take a Dragon spore and develop it over time without the hard shelled cocoon, leading to chimeric condition of half-dragon

-This implies that half-dragons would possibly be sick/pained creatures with a short life expectancy unless sorcery or other healing helps bring the two conflicting cell lines to a 'peace.' Possibly could further be that the half-dragon somehow escaped the egg/cocoon too early.

-Possible social implications is that this is a big secret of Dragon, and thus the hunting and disposal of half-dragons is a social drive to prevent other sentient creatures from finding out. Interesting conundrums for 'good' dragons requiring willing sacrifices, or refusing to inoculate sentient creatures?

Eldan
2010-12-30, 07:39 AM
On the subject of genetics in D&D:

I really like the opportunity to use D&D to build worlds based on outdated scientific, or, if we go back far enough, philosophical theories.

Therefore, I have no problem building a world where inheritance is based on Lamarckism (my daddy made a deal with a demon, I'm a warlock) or Panspermia (my mommy grafted Aboleth parts to her arm, I'm farspawn). I'm not even opposed to little men sitting in every sperm who then grow into full humans inside a woman.

After all, we already have phlogiston, alchemy, the four elements, aether, and, most likely, spirits responsible for gravity.

On the other hand, I really like your idea of Slaad-dragons and Illithid half-dragons.