Are there really any "purebred" humans?

[ElectricMadman]

As you may have noticed, in 3.5 and Pathfinder, there are many hybrids of humans and other creatures. There are of course, the various human hybrid-races, myriad bloodlines, and an abudance of feats having to do with hybrids.


We can also assume that humans have been romancing and breeding with non-human creatures for a long time.

This naturally, will lead to many mostly-human people with a few traits from their inhuman ancestor/s.

For example, a random "human" citizen in a place where multiversal and dimensonal travellers often pass through, such as Sigil, might have an water elemental great-great-great-great-grandparent and a celestial great-great-grandmother. Their heritage is only hinted at by a compulsion to help anyone they see in distress and they ability to hold their breath underwater for up to 10 minutes at a time.

A random librarian in Sigil or somewhere similar, might in fact have several abberations in his ancestry. If a surgeon were to operate on him, there would be some confusion for said surgeon about his viscera.

What traits might these people with remote non-human ancestors exhibit , depending on their ancestry?

[chronomatophobe]

Theoretically and mechanically, yes there are.

Thematically, though, you and I share the view that, while very diluted (to the point of having no mechanical bearing on racial traits) it could be seen as highly unlikely that any given unnamed human NPC has a framed pedigree on his hearth. I would also venture a guess that certain human families/clans pride themselves on keeping their gene pool free of adulterants and would invest a great deal of xenophobic value in such a pedigree. Would add a bit of flavor to a city.

[Nettlekid]

Probably a Paragon Human from UA. It might be hard to be a Paragon of your species without being purely of the species.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, I think that by sheer quantity, there must be some purely pureblood humans somewhere. It's weird, but humans are like the insects of D&D races, apart from like Goblins and Kobolds. We have one of the lowest lifespans, and as such, must breed more frequently than other races like Elves and Dwarves. This does suggest that there are more chances for interbreeding, but also there must be enough pure humans in order to keep the race going. Compare to Dragons, which are also known for interbreeding, except that they live so long and breed much less frequently, and yet there are plenty of pure Dragons left, so if humans are similar but shorter lived and breed more, then they must have some pure humans among them.

I bet Faerun has some human societies that never mingle with other races.

[ElectricMadman]

Distant nonhuman heritage would not effect mechanics, most of the time.

However, the average human probably has a few non-human ancestors somewhere in their ancestry.

[chronomatophobe]

One could also assume that such hybrids have a high probability of being sterile, like mules.

[ElectricMadman]

Yes, I suppose there must be some purebred humans left.

I think that human hybrids are often fertile. Sterile hybrids like Muls are the exception.


Let's think of some societal and cultural effects the frequency of hybrids might have on a place like or similar to Sigil.

In a large enough city with lots of planar travel, there would probably be some tailors specializing in clothes for those with unusal anatomy

[MrNobody]

I think it mostly depends on how you think your campaign: in cities like Sigil or Union is certainly more likely to find an half-dragon-half-fey commoner with a fire elemental bloodline than finding a pure blooded human.

If you try a more "mythological" campaign, where dragons, outsiders and even non-human humanoids can be found only in remote lands (i'm thinking about greek mythology, where every monster is mostly an unique creature or, like satyrs and centaurs, belogs to a race that lives apart from humans), then halfbreed humas should be no really easy to be found, mostly heroes of legends, kings or "VIPs".

[Psyren]

In many D&D settings, magic is so prevalent it can mutate your genome, giving rise to things like sorcerers without any draconic ancestry. In such universes, does the term "purebred" truly have meaning? Even if there was a human who could trace his lineage all the way back to humanity's inception, the interplay of cosmic forces over time would likely have caused great variation between those initial humans and the current stock by now.

I would guess that only the church of Zarus would care about such a concept.

[ElectricMadman]

Lets turn this thread into a discussion about how the prevalence of hybrids would affect the culture, society, and more of a place like Sigil.

[Nettlekid]

Lets turn this thread into a discussion about how the prevalence of hybrids would affect the culture, society, and more of a place like Sigil.

Alright then. I think that a place like Sigil would be almost unable to imagine a world without hybrids. It's a crossroads of the cosmic forces of the universe, so when you have a creature that is half Dwarf and half holy force of Good, the idea of a Human with a Fey Bloodline is barely worth blinking an eye. If anything, like MrNobody said, a creature who claims to be an undiluted product of a single heritage (a pureblooded Elf or Dwarf) might be more remarkable than any blended combination.

Now, compare all the discussions we've been having to a discussion about Drow. The Drow culture is one where a halfblood, quarterblood, eigthblood, or even a faded diluted bloodline would be cause for social stigma and persecution, if not outright assassination attempts (as though the Drow needed an excuse.)

[ElectricMadman]

There would be speciality tailors for people with unusual anatomy in a city like Sigil or Union.

[Nettlekid]

There would be speciality tailors for people with unusual anatomy in a city like Sigil or Union.

Well, sort of. I'd imagine that in cities like Sigil, there wouldn't be specialty tailors per se, just all tailors would have a larger variety of clothing. Even if you disregard oddities, like Thri-Kreen and Mariliths wanting to buy multiarmed armor, at the very simplest you'd have to have a tailor who sells nonmagical clothes that can suit creatures from Tiny to Huge size. That would be the bare minimum, and most that stay in business would have much more variety. I'd expect a specialty tailor in any kind of bigger city on the Material Plane, who knows there's a niche market for half-breeds and the like, and doesn't have enough competition in that niche to need to stock normal stuff as well.

[Omegas]

:smallconfused: Man + Sheep = Satyr
:smallamused: Man + Chimp = Dwarf
:smallannoyed: Man + Fish = Merfolk
:smallbiggrin: Man + Goblin = Hobgoblin
:smallconfused: Man + Corpse = Lich
:smallfrown: Man + Statue = Gargoyle
:smallfurious: Man + Circus Geek = Ghoul
:smallcool: Man + Cat = Rakshasas
:smallmad: Man + Hyena = Gnoll
:smallredface: Man + Cow = Monitor
:smallsigh: Man + Horse = Centaur
:smallsmile: Man + Lion = Lamia
:smallwink: Man + Pariot + Snake = Lillend "hay it was Mardi Gras!"
:smallyuk: Man + Tree = Drydad
:smalltongue: Man + Nymph = Died happy!
:smallbiggrin: Man + really good hit of smoke = Janni
:smallcool: a Hobo + a Rabbit = Hobbit
:smalleek: Harpy = what every ex-girlfriend turns into

So yah it is hard to picture a great deal of pure breed humans out there. Honestly this is about half the list from MM1 alone. It is baffling how open minded or desperate some humans must be in the D&D worlds, but hey we do like verity. Cheers to the ale! It makes the female creatures look better!

[Nettlekid]

:smallconfused: Man + Sheep = Satyr
:smallamused: Man + Chimp = Dwarf
:smallannoyed: Man + Fish = Merfolk
:smallbiggrin: Man + Goblin = Hobgoblin
:smallconfused: Man + Corps = Lich
:smallfrown: Man + Statue = Gargoyle
:smallfurious: Man + Circus Geek = Ghoul
:smallcool: Man + Cat = Rakshasas
:smallmad: Man + Hyena = Gnoll
:smallredface: Man + Cow = Monitor
:smallsigh: Man + Horse = Centaur
:smallsmile: Man + Lion = Lamia
:smallwink: Man + Pariot + Snake = Lillend "hay it was Mardi Gras!"
:smallyuk: Man + Tree = Dryder
:smalltongue: Man + Nymph = Died happy!
:smallbiggrin: Man + really good hit of smoke = Janni
:smallcool: a Hobo + a Rabbit = Hobbit
:smalleek: Harpy = what every ex-girlfriend turns into

So yah it is hard to picture a great deal of pure breed humans out there. Honestly this is about half the list from MM1 alone. It is baffling how open minded or desperate some humans must be in the D&D worlds, but hey we do like verity. Cheers to the ale! It makes the female creatures look better!

Couple of nitpicks, I know lots of them were jokes, but Drider and Dryad are two VERY different things. Also a man and a corpse might have been what you were thinking of, because a whole corps might be too many for one man to handle.

[Drakeon Saerin]

Well in Pathfinder there are the Azlanti who were the progenitor humans. Big ancient empire and all that good stuff. They've all but died out unless you're counting Arodin or the Gillmen.

[ElectricMadman]

Let's come up with more combinations, but possible second generation outcomes his time. :smallsmile:

[Nettlekid]

Let's come up with more combinations, but possible second generation outcomes his time. :smallsmile:

What do you mean? Because you could have feasibly any lineage, it just might not have mechanical effects in-game. If a Human marries an Elf, their baby would be a Half-Elf. If that Half-Elf marries a Human, their baby would technically be a quarter Elf, but since not "Quarter-Elf" race exists, the player would have to decide whether to use Half-Elf or Human stats for the baby. (Incidentally, this is what really annoys me about minmaxers who make a Dwarf with the Half-Ogre and Half-Minotaur templates. NO, that's stupid, what part of it is left a Dwarf if you're half two things that aren't Dwarf?!)

I wonder why there are no Half-Dwarves. Usually for anything Elf there's an equal and opposite Dwarf thing, and vice versa, but not here. I also wonder about Half-Halflings. Is that where Tallfellow Halflings come from?

What would be interesting to determine is how many descendants do you have to go through to change one designation into another? Get a Fey and a Human. The baby will be a Half-Fey Human. Now, if that Half-Fey Human has a baby with a Human, will the baby still be Half-Fey, or will it now be a Feytouched Human? How many Humans must the Fey blood go through until it goes down to something as small as a Fey Bloodline? Similar for Dragons, Half-Dragons, Draconic, Dragon Bloodline, etc.

[avr]

I'm sure there'll be purebred humans, same as in RL there's members of almost any ethnic group you care to name who have ancestors from only that ethnic group.

Lots of different ancestry could end up with something like Mongrelfolk, or the answer to where the Sphinx comes from, or it could be that a "dwarfo-dracono-giganto-nympho hybrid with a little bit of human blood" would average out to human.

Tolkien implied that the hobbit families which Tallfellow Halflings were derived from might have a bit of Numenorean (human, mostly) ancestry IIRC.

[Chronos]

Quoth Nettlekid:

Probably a Paragon Human from UA. It might be hard to be a Paragon of your species without being purely of the species.
Nah, half-elves are explicitly allowed to be Human Paragons.

[Nettlekid]

Nah, half-elves are explicitly allowed to be Human Paragons.

Oh right, forgot about that.

[Chronos]

And, it has to be said (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/InterspeciesRomance):

Human: Hey elf, you look like a girl.
Elf: To a human, everything must look like a girl.
Human: What?
Elf: Half-orcs, half-ogres...
Human: ...shut up.
Dwarf: Half-dragons, half-kobolds.
Human: I said shut up!
Elf: ...
Dwarf: ...
Human: ...
Elf: Centaurs...

[Yuki Akuma]

One could also assume that such hybrids have a high probability of being sterile, like mules.

Half-elves, at least, are specifically noted as being able to breed. Second-generation half-elves are even noted to have a different most-common eye colour (green, as opposed to first-generations' blue).

Or was it the other way around? Well, either way.

[Vinyl Scratch]

I wonder why there are no Half-Dwarves. Usually for anything Elf there's an equal and opposite Dwarf thing, and vice versa, but not here. I also wonder about Half-Halflings. Is that where Tallfellow Halflings come from?

Dark Sun had Muls, that were Dwarf/Human hybrids. Because of their ridiculous toughness, they mostly ended up slaves or gladiators, but were also a playable race.

[Nettlekid]

Dark Sun had Muls, that were Dwarf/Human hybrids. Because of their ridiculous toughness, they mostly ended up slaves or gladiators, but were also a playable race.

That's pretty cool. Were they tougher than regular Dwarves?

[Vinyl Scratch]

^
Based off the 4th ed rules, (Don't know of any 3rd ed Dark Sun books) Muls are just a bit tougher than the normal dwarf.

They get bonuses to both strength and constitution, a bonus to the endurance skill, and require less sleep. They also get an extra healing surge and the racial ability to end a physical status effect once an encounter.

The advantages Dwarfs have are no encuberence penalties to movement, stability bonuses, and a resistance to poison.

[Grey Watcher]

...

For example, a random "human" citizen in a place where multiversal and dimensonal travellers often pass through, such as Sigil, might have an water elemental great-great-great-great-grandparent and a celestial great-great-grandmother. Their heritage is only hinted at by a compulsion to help anyone they see in distress and they ability to hold their breath underwater for up to 10 minutes at a time.

...

... Did you just imply that Guybrush Threepwood was part angel, part water elemental? :smallconfused:

[Grayson01]

Yes there would be purebred humans still. Think about the huge amounts of humans out in the world. Think of how isolated cultrally, economically, and/or geographically so many of them would be. There would be some many that wouldn't even be exspoded to other races in vast numbers. Let alone in a social breading manur.

[MrNobody]

Lets turn this thread into a discussion about how the prevalence of hybrids would affect the culture, society, and more of a place like Sigil.

In such a situation i would imagine a struggle to get civil rights and political power: the few pure humans would define themselves as the only race that has the right to be free and rule the city. Hybrids would oppose thi, expecially those with outsider/dragon ancestry: they will claim their supremacy by the power of their ancestors, defining themselves as "perfected" human beings and discriminating not only the weak pure-humans, but also the halfbreed coming from breeding with "lesser" creature: ogres, orcs, reptilian creatures, aberrations and so on. Their low-powered (and often low-minded) ancestors make them no worth for be real citizens, with rights and political influence.

Every group would struggle to gain economic power, cause money means power above people, and power above people means cultural and political power. I would imagine public organizations for civil rights and hidden organization (KKK like) heading to the same group: the first publically promoting the group's interests, the second secretly interfering with and destroing the other group's initiatives.

Every group would have his own artists and the city would be filled with statues and buildings representing the power of every single group: no corner of the city would be save from this public display of power and influence. Theaters would put on stage satirical plays sponsored by every group and squares would be filled with bards and travelling artists called from all the multi-verse to magnify their customers and mocking at other factions.

Less powerful group would be isolated in ghetto-like districts, regarded with fear by the population and depicted by the ruling minorance as a dangerous place, home for criminals ad murderers. Members of the ruling minority would live in beautiful disticts in the upper city, with blooming gardens and guards all over to prevent "lesser citizens" to trespass.

[GnomeGninjas]

:smallconfused: Man + Sheep = Satyr


Satyrs are more goat-like than sheep-like.

[Chronos]

Quoth Grayson01:

Yes there would be purebred humans still. Think about the huge amounts of humans out in the world. Think of how isolated cultrally, economically, and/or geographically so many of them would be. There would be some many that wouldn't even be exspoded to other races in vast numbers. Let alone in a social breading manur.
It doesn't work that way in our world, at least. Yeah, you'll occasionally hear about "isolated" tribes that avoid "all outside contact", but those isolated tribes, even if they're not interacting with the entire outside world directly, are still interacting with their neighboring tribes. And in any situation where you get interactions between peoples, you'll also get breeding between them.

There may well be people who claim themselves to be racially pure humans, but it's highly unlikely that they're correct.

[ElectricMadman]

... Did you just imply that Guybrush Threepwood was part angel, part water elemental? :smallconfused:


That was strange.

[Yuki Akuma]

Belatedly, I enjoy the idea of followers of Zarus caring about things like this. Being ranked on how pure their blood is, especially pure families getting little plaques to put over the mantelpiece...

Particularly non-pure families being sacrificed because Zarus is a Vile god...

[Lord Vukodlak]

All these hybrids exist but they don't necessarily all exist in the same setting.

[ElectricMadman]

True.


What minor, not-especially-noticable traits do you think various mostly-human hybrids might have?

Especially the more unusual and exotic hybrids

For example:


Couatl - Iridescent brightly colored hair

[Deadline]

I also wonder about Half-Halflings. Is that where Tallfellow Halflings come from?

No no, all halflings are descended from a curious immortal inmate of the asylum in Sigil. The inmate claims that his name is "Ling", and that all of his progeny are "half me". He also claims parentage over Tieflings, Mephlings, and generally anything "Ling".

[Lord Vukodlak]

No no, all halflings are descended from a curious immortal inmate of the asylum in Sigil. The inmate claims that his name is "Ling", and that all of his progeny are "half me". He also claims parentage over Tieflings, Mephlings, and generally anything "Ling".

Including Pandas named Ling-Ling

[ElectricMadman]

Wow, he actuallly got a panda to reproduce.

[Ravens_cry]

Including Pandas named Ling-Ling
Actually, that was cloning, since it's *all* Ling.

[ElectricMadman]

Let's come up with some possible not-especially-notable traits for some of the more exotic and unusual mostly-human-hybrids everyone!

[Chronos]

Most of them probably wouldn't have any discernible unusual traits at all. Just because your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was an X, doesn't mean you actually have any X DNA at all.

Even if they do have some unusual traits, they might not even realize that they're unusual. For instance, they might have a hair color that's not natural for pure humans, such as orangish-red. And yes, there's really speculation, here in the real world, that that hair color might be a sign of ancestry from another species.

[ElectricMadman]

Yes, red hair quite possibly came to us from Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis.

[Eldan]

Psh. "DNA". Who ever came up with that! The Glass City Institute of Ancestor Worship has conclusively proven that heredity is determined by civilizations of tiny homunculi that live in the blood.

The offspring of radiance elementals have blonde hair and no shadows.

[ElectricMadman]

The Glass Institute theory has been discredited!



It has been proven that teeny tiny alchemical instructions are the units of heredity !

( Let's turn this into a in-universe discussion about hybrids! )

[Eldan]

Oh? And who, please tell me, would follow your instructions if there weren't any equally tiny homunculi reading them? Huh?


Are you even a Doctor, Mister Madman?


Anyway, back to topic. In my studies, I have proven that individuals who prefer a warm breakfast are descended from fire giants.

[Jeff the Green]

Population geneticist here. This isn't my exact area of expertise, but it's close enough for me to pontificate a bit.

There are three variables here. First is the rate of introgression. That is, how often does a non-human mate with a human and then have that offspring mate with humans, and those offspring mate with humans, etc. Obviously, the more often humans

Then there's population size (Ne). Assuming no natural selection, the chance that any given non-human gene will become fixed (i.e. reach 100% in the population) is equal to Ne-1. So if the human population is 10,000, each gene has 0.01% chance of becoming fixed. There are ~21,000 genes in the human genome, so with Ne=10,000 we'd expect about two non-human genes to become fixed per introgression event (not to mention all the junk DNA).

Finally, there's population structure. If there's random mating (i.e. if each human is just as likely to mate with any random human as any other) then there's no population structure. If there isn't random mating (e.g. you're more likely to mate with someone from your village than someone from the next village over), then there is population structure, and that reduces the likelihood of every human having non-human DNA. However, the required amount of gene flow to render this moot is on the order of one individual migrating per generation, so we can pretty safely say that in most universes humans don't have significant population structure.

So, in my professional opinion, unless there are hidden enclaves of humans with no intermarriage with the outside world and no fooling around with dragons, outsiders, or anything else, there are no pure humans.

An example of this in the real world is polar bears. There'd been a bunch of debate about when polar bears and grizzly bears diverged, because the fossils and the DNA conflicted. Recently, though, they showed that polar bears' Mitochondrial Eve (the ultimate female ancestor of all polar bears) was in fact a grizzly bear. Very rarely, the two species will hybridize and form pizzly bears. These normally aren't very successful, but at some point in the distant past a female pizzly bear had a female cub, and that female cub had more female cubs, and so on, until every polar bear alive today had that pizzly bear as an ancestor.

[Eldan]

Argh, the Pizzly bear. Because clearly, Pozzly bear was not silly enough.

But really, we are talking about a fantasy world. Where heritage is occasionally Lamarckian or follows morphic resonance. I'm not sure talking about population genetics is all that appropriate. After all, you can inherit the divine right and ancestral knowledge.

[Jeff the Green]

Argh, the Pizzly bear. Because clearly, Pozzly bear was not silly enough.

But really, we are talking about a fantasy world. Where heritage is occasionally Lamarckian or follows morphic resonance. I'm not sure talking about population genetics is all that appropriate. After all, you can inherit the divine right and ancestral knowledge.

Lamarckian vs. Darwinian evolution are irrelevant for this. As long as there are genes, it works. And really, there have to be, otherwise there'd be regression to the mean and no variation in populations at all. In fact, the very existence of aasimar, who are born from phenotypically normal humans, dictates that genes must be discrete in a way that allows population genetics.

[Eldan]

Maybe so. I'm just saying, we don't know how the genetics work. Or if there even are genes. For all we know, there really are tiny homunculi inside females that assemble babies according to a construction plan that they are handed by the baby's ancestors.

Planescape, at least, says that Aasimar and their fellow planetouched can also come from environmental factors acting on the parents.

[Anderlith]

In Pathfinder there is an island dedicated to having pure & exceptional humans.

[ElectricMadman]

( Let's have lots of in-universe in-character discussion on hybrids)


Oh? And who, please tell me, would follow your instructions if there weren't any equally tiny homunculi reading them? Huh?
I admit , Mr. Eldan , that there must be some minuscule parts of the body which decipher the instructions , although whether they are homomunculi is debatable .



Are you even a Doctor, Mister Madman?

No , however, I do teach at a university part of the year.



Anyway, back to topic. In my studies, I have proven that individuals who prefer a warm breakfast are descended from fire giants.

I would love to hear on more of your findings, Mr Eldan .

Perhaps you could tell me your first name, Mr. Eldan?

[Lord Haart]

There's a Dragon article about paragenasi and left-right planetouched. It says that progeny of humans and elementals from the quasiplane of Dust always dresses in funeral garbs regardless of the situation. Which somehow sounds almost as cool as silly.

Also, Jeff the Green rocks.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Do you think there are any truly "purebred humans" in 3.5 or Pathfinder?

Well, let's say you have a half-celestial who's 50% human, 50% celestial. They mate with a human (let's say this is one of the "original" humans for the sake of argument.)

Their children are 75% human, 25% celestial. If these children mate with humans, they'll be 87.5% human, 12.5% celestial. Next generation, they're 93.75% human, 6.25% human, and so on. So long as they keep breeding with pure humans (that is they don't mate with new celestials or celestial-blooded, or with each other) the presence of celestial genes dilutes and decreases exponentially with each generation. This is called Outbreeding.

Now there's only so much information in human DNA (fantasy genetics fallacy, I know, work with me here). Too lazy to do the math again, but IIRC with total outbreeding it's only 14 generations until the original parent genes are filtered out to the point of being indistinguishable from random mutations.

For purebred humans to completely disappear, you'd have to have non-human genes introduced into the gene pool faster than they're weeded out from dilution. This depends on the size of the population, how fast they reproduce, and the relative survival rates between the different human subgroups. Someone who knows more about this stuff can probably calculate some solid estimates for you, but my money is on pure humans toughing it out: While the non-human blood usually increases a human's power and thus gives them survival advantages (but also gives them a disadvantage from social costs), human and non-human pairings in most settings tend to be depicted as unusual at best and extremely rare in some cases, depending on the non-human partner.

[Eldan]

( Let's have lots of in-universe in-character discussion on hybrids)

I admit , Mr. Eldan , that there must be some minuscule parts of the body which decipher the instructions , although whether they are homomunculi is debatable .

No , however, I do teach at a university part of the year.

I would love to hear on more of your findings, Mr Eldan .

Perhaps you could tell me your first name, Mr. Eldan?

Eldan is the first name :smalltongue:
There wasn't an official first name for hte character ever. But he usually used "Blake", because I think Blake sounds cool.


Studies of family trees support my findings on fire giant blood. However, the reason I made the association in the first place was when I found out that fire giants in cold regions keep up their body temperature by eating glowing hot coal, a pattern that is repeated in their human-blooded descendents with beans and sausages for breakfast.

Fey descendants carry a trace of their ancestor's aversion for iron that mainly manifests itself in a marked tendency to hit themselves on the thumb with iron hammers while hammering in nails. Up to 50% more often than normal humans.

Come on, people, this is more fun than discussing basic real world genetics. I know those already. I don't know your hybrid traits.

[Jeff the Green]

Maybe so. I'm just saying, we don't know how the genetics work. Or if there even are genes. For all we know, there really are tiny homunculi inside females that assemble babies according to a construction plan that they are handed by the baby's ancestors.

That doesn't really matter; the math is medium independent. There could literally be a homunculus with instructions on a little scroll, but as long as the instructions come in discrete chunks (e.g. words, particles, genes) and come from both parents, the math works. (Even if it doesn't come from both parents, it still works, but there's a changed coefficient or two in there.


Planescape, at least, says that Aasimar and their fellow planetouched can also come from environmental factors acting on the parents.

If it's heritable, it's treated the same anyway. If it's not, it's more like a birth defect than anything else: a purely environmental effect on phenotype.


Well, let's say you have a half-celestial who's 50% human, 50% celestial. They mate with a human (let's say this is one of the "original" humans for the sake of argument.)

Their children are 75% human, 25% celestial. If these children mate with humans, they'll be 87.5% human, 12.5% celestial. Next generation, they're 93.75% human, 6.25% human, and so on. So long as they keep breeding with pure humans (that is they don't mate with new celestials or celestial-blooded, or with each other) the presence of celestial genes dilutes and decreases exponentially with each generation. This is called Outbreeding.

Now there's only so much information in human DNA (fantasy genetics fallacy, I know, work with me here). Too lazy to do the math again, but IIRC with total outbreeding it's only 14 generations until the original parent genes are filtered out to the point of being indistinguishable from random mutations.

For purebred humans to completely disappear, you'd have to have non-human genes introduced into the gene pool faster than they're weeded out from dilution. This depends on the size of the population, how fast they reproduce, and the relative survival rates between the different human subgroups. Someone who knows more about this stuff can probably calculate some solid estimates for you, but my money is on pure humans toughing it out: While the non-human blood usually increases a human's power and thus gives them survival advantages (but also gives them a disadvantage from social costs), human and non-human pairings in most settings tend to be depicted as unusual at best and extremely rare in some cases, depending on the non-human partner.

That's only true for an infinite population. See my previous statement on the fact that a given mutation/non-human gene has a 1/2Ne chance of reaching fixation. (I forgot the 2 previously because I normally don't work with diploid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploid#Diploid) populations.) So if there was one hybridization event in a population of 10,000 and there are 20,000 genes in the genome, we should expect one gene from that non-human to reach fixation.

In fact, if there are enough hybridization events and no selection against hybrids, we should expect the human gene pool to eventually consist 100% of non-human DNA.

[Sith_Happens]

Heredity in D&D is obviously governed by phlogiston. And neutrinos.

[Omegas]

Well, let's say you have a half-celestial who's 50% human, 50% celestial. They mate with a human (let's say this is one of the "original" humans for the sake of argument.)

Their children are 75% human, 25% celestial. If these children mate with humans, they'll be 87.5% human, 12.5% celestial. Next generation, they're 93.75% human, 6.25% human, and so on.

Technically that is a cultural assumption. Genetically we can not define traits at this point so we use simple division which is not correct.

Now this is overly simplified but a Better Example. The initial pairing created a sub-species. Neither A or B. Like Mules - most cases would suggest they would be unable to reproduce. In D&D we say they can.

When the paring of the new sub-species mates with A or B then there is a 50% chance of creating an additional sub-species or the original race. Each Generation has the same chance.

So it is more like flipping a coin over and over. How many times can you get it to land on heads before the dominate genome is washed out?

Now with genetics, the reproductive Splice happens at a random point. It would be impossible to determine where the new sub-species dominant Genes started and ended. So assume the dominate Genome is 1 on a percentile roll. There too the minor genes would never fully be eradicated due to the randomness of where the splice took place.

In any account the percentages would not be finite. This is why a white and black couple can have black children, their black children can breed with white partners and still have black children. The Genetic lottery is anything but calculable. We simply use divisions of percentages and a cultural taboo.

Now What I would like to know is what would you call a half elf half dwarf?

[Eldan]

Heredity in D&D is obviously governed by phlogiston. And neutrinos.

Phlogiston? Okay. That's one I'd like explained, please. How would a substance that has negative mass, glows and is the cause of all fires have anything to do with heredity?

Heterochromia (eyes of different colours) is a sure sign that an ancestor on your mother's side had a non-fraternal twin with a different eye colour.

[Sith_Happens]

Phlogiston? Okay. That's one I'd like explained, please. How would a substance that has negative mass, glows and is the cause of all fires have anything to do with heredity?

You see, each creature's "flame," or soul, demonstrates a unique microstructure of phlogiston particles shared only with that of an identical twin. This microstructure is a good absorber of neutrinos, which cause it to emit a characteristic spectrum of heredities and antiheredities. When two creatures conceive a child, the interference pattern formed by their heredity spectra determines the microstructure of the child's soul, which in turn dictates the characteristics of its body. The influence of the antiheredities is negligible, as they immediately disperse into the Astral Plane and proceed to disturb Githyanki sleep patterns (why do you think those guys are so cranky all the time?).

Mutations are caused by background radiation, which is why high concentrations of planar energies have been known to sometimes result in templates.

[Eldan]

Interesting. You know, I will have to set up an experiment to capture Antiheredities and study them. Perhaps they can be used to breed certain traits out of the population.

Do you think shadow magic would be able to do it? Dark Mirror of the World, and all that?

[Sith_Happens]

I think you'd have better luck using psionics, due to its extensive interactions with the antiheredities' plane of destination.

On a separate note, I posit that a pure or near-pure human could be identified by an abnormally strong desire to keep its skin properly moisturized.

[ElectricMadman]

Mr. Blake, the diversity of sorcerer ancestry is a fascinating subject.

What characteristics do certain bloodlines of sorcerers have?

[Eldan]

Most are indeed fairly obvious. Spells tend to emulate ancestors and the magics they command.

However, I am aware of one very interesting case: three unrelated sorcerers with chain devil ancestry were all able to cast the cantrip Magister Findelwald's Magnificient Knitted Sweater. I am sure that merits more research into chain devil hobbies.

[ElectricMadman]

I believe you , sir , are descended from many various results of lab experiments, which is part of what gives you your passion for the sciences.

Mr. Blake, could an individual with brightly colored and iridescent hair be descended from a couatl ? Given their intelligence, it is likely that a couatl interested in humans might polymorph itself to observe them closer, which could lead to an individual that is part couatl.

[Eldan]

Actually, while many would certainly prefer the Couatl, up to 90% of rainbow-haired individuals are descended from Senmurvs.

Couatl-born also have lightly forked tongues and the ability smell rats with them.

[Lord Haart]

Like Mules - most cases would suggest they would be unable to reproduce. In D&D we say they can.

Just to be a sticker for facts: if i remember correctly, Mules themselves explicitly don't reproduce in D&D. At least the humanoid (Dark Sun) kind, not sure if there's such data on the equine one.

[ElectricMadman]

Have you encountered any Phasm-descended people?

[ElectricMadman]

Mr. Blake , what could a tendency to be struck by lightning signify in terms of heritage?

[ElectricMadman]

Mr. Blake ,tell us more about your research.

[Grim Reader]

A confounding factor is that many nonhuman genes -or chromosomes, observe how the Y chromosome do not exchange genes much with the x-chromosomes, resulting in at least one case of a "nonhuman", or "early human" chromosome being passed on in our world- many nonhuman genes will not be neutral in terms of being passed on, but will confer huge advantages.

Just the half-elven lifespan is a massive reproductive advantage, much less something like being half-celestial.

[Emmerask]

As you may have noticed, in 3.5 and Pathfinder, there are many hybrids of humans and other creatures. There are of course, the various human hybrid-races, myriad bloodlines, and an abudance of feats having to do with hybrids.


We can also assume that humans have been romancing and breeding with non-human creatures for a long time.

This naturally, will lead to many mostly-human people with a few traits from their inhuman ancestor/s.

For example, a random "human" citizen in a place where multiversal and dimensonal travellers often pass through, such as Sigil, might have an water elemental great-great-great-great-grandparent and a celestial great-great-grandmother. Their heritage is only hinted at by a compulsion to help anyone they see in distress and they ability to hold their breath underwater for up to 10 minutes at a time.

A random librarian in Sigil or somewhere similar, might in fact have several abberations in his ancestry. The only external sign of this is a creepy presence, but if a surgeon were to operate on him, there would be some confusion for said surgeon about his viscera.

I think that almost all humans in 3.5 and Pathfinder have at least a few inhuman ancestors in their family tree. Mongrelfolk just have the most noticeable signs of their heritage.

Do you think there are any truly "purebred humans" in 3.5 or Pathfinder?

3.5 is only a bunch of rules, if you dont include a setting in the question then absolutely yes there can be...
create a setting with ONLY human humanoids and no connection to any other dimension... have only purebred humans.
done.

If you ask the question with specific campaign settings in mind then maybe ^^

[ElectricMadman]

Let Us discuss possible hybrid traits !