City Life and Racial Changes

[XionUnborn01]

I'm writing up the back story for a campaign coming up and I'm having the PC's play characters that have been raised inside a sealed city for hundreds and hundreds of years. Think of it somewhat like Fallout, but it's a city the size of California that's been magically sealed.

The races are separated into different parts of the city to make sure that pure lines of races aren't lost before the city is opened to the outside world and I'm trying to decide what, if any, changes that would cause to races. Would orcs become smarter, would some races lose their extreme muscles and develop better brains? Would halflings or gnomes naturally grow a little larger to be better noticed?

What do you guys think; Would hundreds and hundreds of years inside a city cause any notable racial changes? If you think they would be changed what do you think the changes would be?

[XionUnborn01]

One thing I had in mind was creating half-human-dwarves, half-human-gnomes, and half-other races. The odd combination of half-gnome half-halfling comes to mind.

The exact stats aren't really thought up yet, but I think it would be interesting to see the mixes. Half orc and half dwarf for example. A Dworc? Orf? I just imagine an orc with an epic beard that's shorter than normal.

[animewatcha]

it's probably counts as a third party book ( and one of those that needs errata, but..) Races of Ansalon actually has a lot of 'half-x' races like half-gnome.

[XionUnborn01]

Do you know if that's available to buy in pdf form? Also now that I think of it, what company made Bastards and Bloodlines? I used to have it in pdf form but I can't find it.

[White_Drake]

Green Ronin

[Ravens_cry]

Well, given that it's a confined space, I think the general trend, at least for medium creatures, would be to smallness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism). Halflings might indeed grow larger is the 'island rule' holds for them, though more slowly than orcs growing smaller. Halflings are already fairly large, compared to rats and mice at least, so it might not apply.
Orcs culturally would likely undergo a change. Living in a city, rubbing shoulder constantly with other races, would probably serve to reduce the xenophobic tendencies over time.

[Yora]

Are all the races interbreeding?

Given that we're speaking of many centuries, even with segregation and laws against it, only high class families that form a closed off society of their own would remain unaffected. For the commoners, the interbreeding would eventually get very considerable.
There is an effect called hybrid vigor, which makes crossbred individuals take most of the beneficial traits from each parent while inheriting only few of the bad ones, and in some cases even turning out "better" than either parent. However, I am only aware of it in domesticated animals bred for specific traits, which almost always means some degree of inbreeding that results in many bad traits that the breeders ignored to get the traits they wanted.
If you cross two races that are actually genetically healthy and diverse, I don't know if hybrid vigor actually makes a difference. Hybrids don't have special powers, they simply have much fewer inherited defects.
However, when you cross tigers with lions, there is an interesting effect that delays maturity, which results in the individuals keeping grower for more years, making them grow considerably larger than either parent. This is something you could play quite wild and lose with.

[XionUnborn01]

Just to clarify a little bit on the city. My idea is that the barrier created left some room for growth, so that it is now completely filled with the city, in the beginning it was probably only about 75%-85% city, the rest being more open area. I plan to have several scattered druid groves throughout the city, after all who, wants a city with absolutely no parks?

A thought I had was that the more 'brutish' races, orcs specifically might slowly go from +4Str/-2Int/Wis/Cha And having light sensitivity to something more like this; +2Str/-2Int and losing light sensitivity entirely. Possibly giving them a +1 on Str checks, to show that they haven't lost all their muscle, but much of their bulk.

And on the cross-breeding; I think that there would be quite the population of...'multi breeds' probably from the lower class families that didn't/couldn't keep their children from crossing races. So, I'm sure there will be whole thief gangs of Halfling/Dwarf/Gnome people, using their small size to their advantage.

Perhaps the smaller races kind of had a split; some got bigger while others got smaller. A tiny sized gnome is creepy sounding but it might make sense.

[Ravens_cry]

How is the food and waste situation dealt with?
Also, I would make it smaller than California (I assume you mean area) as that is ridiculously large for a city unless most of the space is devoted to agricultural concerns and other infrastructure.

[XionUnborn01]

My plan so far is for the waste and food to have been dealt with via magic. Liberal use of purify food and water, some transmutation, things like that.

And the city will have large portions that serve as druid groves and agriculture areas. This will make 'natural' food slightly more expensive and the created food cheaper.

My plan is to be able to have the party adventure through the city for their first few levels and then find some way out of the city, possibly a spot where the magic is weakened or some such; I haven't put much thought into that part yet.

The reason it's so big is because it will have been a central hub of the continent and while the outskirts were originally just small villages and tent cities and such surrounding the larger cities they have been incorporated into the city proper over the years.