Let’s create the scientific names for 5e races

[Requilac]

What most have been about half a year ago when I was explaining to my table my homebrew campaign setting during session 0, a question that came up quite a lot where about what certain races were like in that setting. Ultimately my explanation were that all of the races were actually in the same genus as humans, homo, but each of them were a different species. My intensely nerdy friends then jokingly started making scientific names for each of the races that were brought up. At first this was a joke, but eventually it came to mind that in some campaign settings this may actually be relevant. Due to the presence of wizards and other super geniuses, it seems safe to assume that in many D&D settings that people were intelligent enough to discover accurate scientific classification for animals. That, and the Catholic Church isn’t there in D&D land to tell them that they can’t dissect anything. To further the immersive quality of the worlds I am creating, I aimed to create scientific names for each of the races. So far I have compiled a list below, but I have not studied Latin in quite some time, so I wanted some help as to what would be accurate

tl;dr: in the campaign settings I plan on running they are going to have accurate animal classification, so I am trying to create some scientific names for all the 5e races.

I am running under the assumption that all of the races are under the homo genus. Considering that these are fantasy races which were not made with scientific accuracy in mind, a lot of them are hard to classify. Especially anthropomorphic animals are extremely difficult. I suppose that some of them were hominids or even just primates, but due to the similar thought processes shared by them I am guessing they are all in the same genus as humans.

Humanoids
Aasimar: Homo sapien angelus
Bugbear: Homo cobalus insidiis
Dwarf: Homo sapien invaluerunt
Elf: Homo sapien insomnia
Firbolg: Homo gigas druidae
Genasi: Homo sapien elementum
Gnome: Homo brevis callidus
Goblin: Homo cobalus adsignatos
Goliath: Homo gigas monticalla
Halfling: Homo brevis felix
Hobgoblin: Homo cobalus militum
Orc: Homo erectus muta
Tiefling: Homo sapien diabolus
Triton: Homo aquatilium custos

Reptilians
Dragonborn: Draco hominem maiorem
Kobold: Draco hominem luminare
Lizardfolk: Iguana hominem
Tortle: Chelonoidis hominem
Yuan-ti: Homo sapien anguis

Other
Aarakockra: Haliaeetus hominem
Kenku: Corvus hominem
Tabaxi: Felis hominem

[Aett_Thorn]

I suppose that some of them were hominids or even just primates, but due to the similar thought processes shared by them I am guessing they are all in the same genus as humans.


This is where I think that you're going to run into trouble. The standard Fantasy world that we're operating in under 5e rules (Forgotten Realms) doesn't have many of these creatures necessarily evolve, but they are created. You have literal gods making the Gnomes out of mystical gems found in the earth. Meanwhile, Dragonborn come from another version of the world, and so would likely have no similar ancestor to humans. Aarakocra (at least in 5e) come from the Elemental Plane of Air. How would they have similar ancestors to humans? Same with Tritons and the Plane of Water.

Even if evolution were the key factor here, Lizardfolk would have evolved from...well...lizards, not primates.


While you could probably do a breakdown of humans and the various planetouched races (Aasimar, Tieflings, and Genasi) as well as the Half- species (Half-Elf and Half-Orc), the fact that these races can interbreed points to a lack of speciation in them.

[the_brazenburn]

You've covered most of the PC races. How about:

Homo taurus: minotaur
Homo hyaenis: gnoll
Draconis rex: true dragon
Draconis umbrae: shadow dragon
Draconis nympharaeum: faerie dragon

I've toyed with this myself from time to time.

[the_brazenburn]

This is where I think that you're going to run into trouble. The standard Fantasy world that we're operating in under 5e rules (Forgotten Realms) doesn't have many of these creatures necessarily evolve, but they are created. You have literal gods making the Gnomes out of mystical gems found in the earth. Meanwhile, Dragonborn come from another version of the world, and so would likely have no similar ancestor to humans. Aarakocra (at least in 5e) come from the Elemental Plane of Air. How would they have similar ancestors to humans? Same with Tritons and the Plane of Water.

Even if evolution were the key factor here, Lizardfolk would have evolved from...well...lizards, not primates.


While you could probably do a breakdown of humans and the various planetouched races (Aasimar, Tieflings, and Genasi) as well as the Half- species (Half-Elf and Half-Orc), the fact that these races can interbreed points to a lack of speciation in them.

Oh, yeah...

This complicates things.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but to be able to interbreed, and create fertile offspring, wouldn't they have to be part of the same species? This would force you to add "sapiens" in between "homo" and whatever thing you put afterward.

[2D8HP]

Science?

Um...okay, check it out:

Some theft inspiration from:

http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10102/how-would-multi-race-humanoid-evolution-happen

And my own fever dreams:

"It is clear that elves, men, and orcs are members of a single species. Dwarves and gnomes, while unquestionably related, have completed speciation and do not interbreed as members of the H. sapiens subspecies do. But halflings are more closely related to elves and humans than the most recent common ancestor of dwarves and gnomes, which creates this phylogenetic tree:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/GHT9S.png

It is evident that the gigantism of humans is an innovation not present in the basal demihuman.

The only remaining issue is the placement of elves and orcs relative to humans. Casual study suggests many similarities between elves and humans, but the anthropological literature [T54] suggests that elves and orcs are quite closely related and thus these superficial similarities are merely the result of convergent evolution between elves and the human outgroup.

[T54]: J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954)."


An alternative idea from:

http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10102/how-would-multi-race-humanoid-evolution-happen

https://i.stack.imgur.com/frIK6.jpg
"After some in-depth research into the development of various humanoid races, I've developed a corpus of theory as to their development. Upon my return from their habitat, I plan to publish the following in some sort of respectable journal, perhaps the Journal of Edible Races. While snoozing off their weekly dinner of ponies, I'm sure the other dragons will enjoy reading it over:

Naturally, all the humanoid races descended from some common bipedal primate. Since then, however, they have evolved into two species, with a total of five subspecies (plus three common hybrids. Broadly, these can be divided into the larger-statured humanoids: the humans, orcs, and elves, and the smaller statured humanoids: the dwarves and halflings. These two populations are not known to interbreed and produce offspring, so they should be considered separate species, but the subspecies interbreed regularly, producing some interesting hybrids.

Homo Sapiens

Humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens)

Humans are predominantly farmers in fertile regions. They are believed to be the least differentiated stock of the homo sapiens branch of humanoids, being smaller than the hill-dwelling orcs and larger than the forest-dwelling elves. Over the past few million years, they've been engaging in low-level farming from small villages, trading regularly with both orcs and elves for resources. Recently, they've begun to domesticate some wild horses, which are driving both the development of larger societies and rapid technological improvement.

Orcs (Homo Sapiens Moria)

The orcs, unlike humans, do not rely on farming. They form hunter gatherer clans in upland regions inhabited by large animals such as oiliphants and griffins. It's believed that their hunting of these creatures has led to their evolving much stockier frames than their lowland counterparts. The breed freely with humans, producing half orcs.

It's not known if orcs and elves would be capable of producing offspring, as they do not regularly come into contact with one another. If not, then homo sapiens is a fascinating example of a ring species.

Elves (Homo Sapiens Lorien)

Elves have adapted to forest life, with small, slight bodies but surprisingly powerful arms. They live largely in homes built in the branches of large trees and coming down to the ground to hunt for game and to collect fruit.

In general, elves undertake these activities at night, possibly due to the presence of bands of forest-dwelling humans during the day. This nocturnal/diurnal duality allows elves and humans to coexist peacefully, and has also driven the elves to develop larger ears and pronounced eyes to better sense in the dark. They interbreed with humans where their ranges overlap, but this is looked down on by both humans and elves, probably due to the facts that elven frames are poorly suited to farm labor and that humans don't operate well during twilight hours.

Homo Dwarfus

Homo dwarfus has two subspecies: the dwarves and the halflings. These two races can interbreed, with the cross generally being referred to as the gnomes.

Interestingly, unlike half-orcs and half-elves, the gnomes have formed their own societies of multi-generational gnome families. It's viewed as likely, based on this, that they may develop into what could be considered a subspecies of homo dwarfus in their own right.

Dwarves (Homo Dwarfus Dwarfus)

Short and stocky, the dwarves have evolved for life underground. Like orcs, they are commonly found in hills and mountains, but have opted for a different evolutionary path.

Dwarves build elaborate warrens beneath the Earth, bringing many families together for mutual defense and child rearing. Moving through both natural and artificial tunnels has selected for short, powerful frames with large noses for drawing in more of what is often poor quality air. Dwarves have evolved a farming culture similar to humans, but in absence of good food crops growing on the surface, the dwarves have taken to gathering nutrient poor plant materials, such as grasses, in large store rooms underground. These materials are then used to grow nutritious mushrooms, as well as to brew alcohol in great quantities.

Unfortunately, the same behavior that has brought about these fascinating behavioral changes has also given dwarves a keen interest in mineral treasures, as is known by dragons across the land who have had to deal with dwarf infestations in their treasure chambers.

Halflings (Homo Sapiens Hobbitus)

Some dwarves, however, have moved back to the surface, and evolved into a small race known as the halflings. While retaining the burrow-building behaviors of their ancestors, halflings have moved to lowland areas where they have learned to farm from nearby humans. While incapable of interbreeding due to having fully speciated, humans and halflings form intermingled societies in some areas, with halflings appreciating the protection their larger neighbors provide and humans enjoying the fact that generations of life underground have left the halflings as experts at digging and brewing a large variety of fermented drinks.

Halflings, without the pressures of a harsh life in the mountains, are generally slighter of build than dwarves, and have lost the exceptional senses that dwarves have developed for a life underground.

Unfortunately, some halflings seem to have retained the dwarven penchant for treasure. Care should be taken to make sure that any halfling populations living in the vicinity of dragons do not become a nuisance.

Gnomes

In areas where halflings and dwarves live somewhat close together, they occasionally crossbreed, giving birth to hybrids known as gnomes. Gnomes retain dwarven senses, but with the slighter builds of halflings. In many areas, they've taken up roles as go-betweens for these two groups, as well as trading with any humans, orcs, and elves in the area.

In their wide exposure to many cultures during their lives as nomadic, traveling merchants, the gnomes have also picked up a penchant for combining and improving upon inventions created by the other humanoid races. They've also gained some sense in their travels, rarely pilfering from the homes of dragons, though this fact should be well known to anyone in posession of one of their excellent anti-dwarf horde security systems"

My theories aren't crazy at all!
Just because those blind fools at the Mages Guild roll their eyes, and won't admit the truth!
I'll show them! All show them all!

First, the half-elves, and half-orcs among us show that elves, humans, and orcs are in fact the same species! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?481829-Why-the-Sentient-Species-Don-t-Make-Mutts)
Humans are actually descendents of long ago Elves and Orcs.
Don't walk away! In your heart you know it's true!

Also the reason Elves have low light vision like Dwarves and Gnomes, is because they too originally lived underground. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475794-Drow-the-original-Elves) Clearly these rumors of "Dark Elves", sometimes called "Drow", point towards the inescapable conclusion that "surface" Elves are in fact descended from Elves who were exiled from the Underdark because they were insufficiently badass! And in fact the day star bleached them! That is why Wood Elves who lived under the shade of their forest homes are darker hued. Either that or the reliance on magic among the so called "high elves", makes them both lazy and pasty!

In fact this overuse of Magic by some may doom us all!
The ruins of the Ancients all around, in the wastelands and underground shows the truth!
Long ago the Elves
used up all the magic causing the fall of their civilization! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?487606-Magic-Lost-and-Reborn)

Overuse of Magic in one place leeches the Mana from the Earh, leaving desolate wastelands in it's absence!
The ancestors of the Elves having squandered all the magic fled underground, with a few remnants learning to survive in a world without magic. Yes humans and orcs! The Orcs who infest the ruins are the savage descendents of the Elves too stupid to leave. We humans are the descendents of those who didn't hide underground, or stupidly stay amongst the ruins, but instead pioneered new lands and made new tools.
Why else would it be humans who invented the crossbow, the plow, sailing ships, and windmills? Only in times without Magic would anyone bother to build such things! That's why so many of us still toil on the land and in our smithies, instead of just learning Wizardry, were not too stupid to learn Spellcraft! Nay, deep in our souls we feel the warning that it can't last!

That is why these tomb robbing Adventurer's have lately been finding magic items littering the ruins. For centuries there was insufficient environmental Mana for those items to be worth picking up!
That is why there are Sorcerers now born among us when previous generations had none!
The return of Magic to the wastelands is why suddenly all these magicsl monsters now infect our lands! Do you think our ancestors could have survived long if they'd always existed?

We have forgotten and grown soft!
We must conserve what Magic is left and learn from the Gnomes ways to make wonders without the Arcane arts. Too much reliance on and use of Wizardry will doom us!

We must learn to grow our on food and distill water, without relying on Create Food and Water Spells, and if these Magic-User's continue to waste the Magic away in trivial goals, we must learn to fight off without spells, the bears, wolves and other beasts that threaten us, else we fall to claws and fangs!

Take these pamphlets and spread the word before it's too late!

[Pronounceable]

but I have not studied Latin in quite some time
What is this Latin you speak of?
...
Also fantasy races aren't hard to scientifically classify, they're impossible to scientifically classify. A snakey legless egglayer can't possibly be close relative to a bipedal cat or an extradimensional six limbed bird. You'd be mutilating real world science beyond recognition anyway, at which point you might as well make up an entirely new type of fantasy biology.

The least illogical you can get with this sort of thing (without making up an entirely fictional fantasy biology) is grouping up the human with fake nose PC races into one family of related critters, most likely created by the same or related gods (assuming your gods are DnDish create in my own image dudes). You'd have elfoids, cos they're always the goddamn elder race for some dumbass reason (aka chronic unoriginality) and why the hell would they be called humanoid when that's the case?, plus their cousin goblinoids. That's likely because Moradin and Corellon and Gruumsh and Maglubiyet and Garl and whoever else are all relatives themselves. Then there'd be the fifteen billion types of reptilian humanoids in their own family (or possibly clade, I don't know how you'd go about differentiating these things) with their own pantheon of gribbly deities. Afterwards, you have your hugeass laundry list of giantkin, who're basically contractually obligated to have been created by titans, that may or may not also be related to basic elfoids and/or elementals and/or outsiders.

Both those words, btw, mean nothing in any classification sense beyond their plane of origin and I don't even know what you're gonna do about all the elementals and genies and mephits and demons and devils and devas and slaadi and modrons and fairies and pixies and sprites and redcaps and trillions of other extradimensional critters. You're most likely better off limiting yourself to mortal creatures and not even touching that multiversal mess.

Overall, it's a good idea to say your basic PHB races are related and stop before madness.

[Requilac]

This is where I think that you're going to run into trouble. The standard Fantasy world that we're operating in under 5e rules (Forgotten Realms) doesn't have many of these creatures necessarily evolve, but they are created. You have literal gods making the Gnomes out of mystical gems found in the earth. Meanwhile, Dragonborn come from another version of the world, and so would likely have no similar ancestor to humans. Aarakocra (at least in 5e) come from the Elemental Plane of Air. How would they have similar ancestors to humans? Same with Tritons and the Plane of Water.

Even if evolution were the key factor here, Lizardfolk would have evolved from...well...lizards, not primates.


While you could probably do a breakdown of humans and the various planetouched races (Aasimar, Tieflings, and Genasi) as well as the Half- species (Half-Elf and Half-Orc), the fact that these races can interbreed points to a lack of speciation in them.

Keep in mind specifically what I said in my original post. These are scientific names meant for homebrewed campaign settings, not Forgotten realms. In the table that I was explaining this too, all of the other humanoid non-human races were the result of biological tampering by insane wizards. There were only humans to begin with, than all the great old one warlocks decided to muck everything up by transmuting humans beyond physical recognition. All of them once shared the common ancestor of normal human, but then they were altered. So in this case, they do all have a common ancestor. And that is not including the ones which were crafted out of clay and given a semblance of biological life, as is the case with most of the elemental creatures.


Oh, yeah...

This complicates things.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but to be able to interbreed, and create fertile offspring, wouldn't they have to be part of the same species? This would force you to add "sapiens" in between "homo" and whatever thing you put afterward.

No, creatures do not need to be of the same species to breed. Dog is just a genus, and all the other "breeds" of dog are just fancy words for species, and it does not matter what species a dog is pretty much all of them are capable of breeding with each-other (but some of them are just awful ideas to decide to breed, which is why chihuahua and great Dane mixes don't exist). This can also be seen in mules, the hybrid of a donkey and a horse, which are also different species.


What is this Latin you speak of?
...
Also fantasy races aren't hard to scientifically classify, they're impossible to scientifically classify. A snakey legless egglayer can't possibly be close relative to a bipedal cat or an extradimensional six limbed bird. You'd be mutilating real world science beyond recognition anyway, at which point you might as well make up an entirely new type of fantasy biology.

The least illogical you can get with this sort of thing (without making up an entirely fictional fantasy biology) is grouping up the human with fake nose PC races into one family of related critters, most likely created by the same or related gods (assuming your gods are DnDish create in my own image dudes). You'd have elfoids, cos they're always the goddamn elder race for some dumbass reason (aka chronic unoriginality) and why the hell would they be called humanoid when that's the case?, plus their cousin goblinoids. That's likely because Moradin and Corellon and Gruumsh and Maglubiyet and Garl and whoever else are all relatives themselves. Then there'd be the fifteen billion types of reptilian humanoids in their own family (or possibly clade, I don't know how you'd go about differentiating these things) with their own pantheon of gribbly deities. Afterwards, you have your hugeass laundry list of giantkin, who're basically contractually obligated to have been created by titans, that may or may not also be related to basic elfoids and/or elementals and/or outsiders.

Both those words, btw, mean nothing in any classification sense beyond their plane of origin and I don't even know what you're gonna do about all the elementals and genies and mephits and demons and devils and devas and slaadi and modrons and fairies and pixies and sprites and redcaps and trillions of other extradimensional critters. You're most likely better off limiting yourself to mortal creatures and not even touching that multiversal mess.

Overall, it's a good idea to say your basic PHB races are related and stop before madness.

Ah yes i see, the Disciple of Snuggles, great to have you around. I was never going beyond races though keep in mind, I am not going to even try to classify extraplanar creatures such as demons and genies. Your idea of actually creating my own fantasy biology though is actually something I would be quite interested in. I would have no idea where to begin with such a project though. That was my original intent actually, but I realized too soon that my knowledge of biology was not well developed enough to do such a thing. Keep in mind my first paragraph in my post though as you are thinking about this. That being said, I am going to re-evaluate the names for the more strange creatures, specifically the anthropomorphic animals.

[the_brazenburn]

No, creatures do not need to be of the same species to breed. Dog is just a genus, and all the other "breeds" of dog are just fancy words for species, and it does not matter what species a dog is pretty much all of them are capable of breeding with each-other (but some of them are just awful ideas to decide to breed, which is why chihuahua and great Dane mixes don't exist). This can also be seen in mules, the hybrid of a donkey and a horse, which are also different species.


Yes, but mules are sterile. As far as I know, Tanis, Elrond, and the other half-elves are capable of having children.

[Requilac]

Alright, I have re-avaluated some of the anthropromorphic animals to be better suited. The only one I have not changed yet are the yuan-ti, because the concept of trying to find out whatever genus best fits them makes me want to cry.

reptilians
Dragonborn: draco hominem maiorem
Kobold: draco hominem luminare
Lizardfolk: iguana hominem
Tortle: chelonoidis hominem
Yuan-ti:XXX hominem

other
Aarakockra: Haliaeetus hominem
Kenku: corvus hominem
Tabaxi: felis hominem

[Lombra]

Reading that much homo doesn't feel right, most humanoid races intuitively belong to entirely different species, some are born magically, while others are interbred, and others are fertile mutations.

You should establish a base nomenclature to address these types of origins, and work the different species around it, in a world where magic is a thing, science exists differently from what we see in the real world.

You can use existing lore to aid you in choosing names, ask yourself where a race comes from and how is it related to other races. I can't directly help you because thats work I don't have the strength to do, but I think it's the right way to do it.

Edit: commonly reptiles are referred to with the word "saurian", which comes from the greek "sauros", which fits better than iguana for the lizardfolk I think

[Requilac]

Reading that much homo doesn't feel right, most humanoid races intuitively belong to entirely different species, some are born magically, while others are interbred, and others are fertile mutations.

You should establish a base nomenclature to address these types of origins, and work the different species around it, in a world where magic is a thing, science exists differently from what we see in the real world.

You can use existing lore to aid you in choosing names, ask yourself where a race comes from and how is it related to other races. I can't directly help you because thats work I don't have the strength to do, but I think it's the right way to do it.

Homo is not a species, it is a genus. And just to clarify, are you suggesting that I start making my own classification system?

[Aett_Thorn]

No, creatures do not need to be of the same species to breed. Dog is just a genus, and all the other "breeds" of dog are just fancy words for species, and it does not matter what species a dog is pretty much all of them are capable of breeding with each-other (but some of them are just awful ideas to decide to breed, which is why chihuahua and great Dane mixes don't exist). This can also be seen in mules, the hybrid of a donkey and a horse, which are also different species.


Not to get too far off track here, but dog "breeds" aren't species. All dogs are the same species, which is why they can breed with each other. Get a ladder or a ditch, and a Chihuahua and a Great Dane could breed just fine.

Which is why I agree that you need to break up your species a bit. Certainly, if it's part of the backstory of your world to have them all come from the same place, then it's fine, but it the more generic worlds, a human couldn't breed with a Lizardfolk, since the Lizardfolk lay eggs.

[Requilac]

Do the lizardfolk actually lay eggs? I had always assumed that at the end of the day were mammals, extremely distorted mammals, but mammals nonetheless. They are called that because they have lizard-like features, not because they actually evolved from lizards. This can clearly be seen in all the art depictions of those monsters by WotC. The female yuan-ti pureblood represented in the MM has breasts, indicating that she also has mammary glands, which is a thing that only mammals have.

[Lombra]

Do the lizardfolk actually lay eggs? I had always assumed that at the end of the day were mammals, extremely distorted mammals, but mammals nonetheless. They are called that because they have lizard-like features, not because they actually evolved from lizards. This can clearly be seen in all the art depictions of those monsters by WotC. The female yuan-ti pureblood represented in the MM has breasts, indicating that she also has mammary glands, which is a thing that only mammals have.

Or maybe they are vestigial breasts, or maybe they're pure fanservice, hard to find a correct answer based on just a drawing. In the end for homebrew campaign purposes anything goes as long as it is for the better of the setting.

[Millstone85]

Do the lizardfolk actually lay eggs? I had always assumed that at the end of the day were mammals, extremely distorted mammals, but mammals nonetheless. They are called that because they have lizard-like features, not because they actually evolved from lizards. This can clearly be seen in all the art depictions of those monsters by WotC. The female yuan-ti pureblood represented in the MM has breasts, indicating that she also has mammary glands, which is a thing that only mammals have.The yuant-ti are humans who, through dark rituals and sacrifices to the snake gods, have acquired ophidian traits. The purebloods are actually low in the yuan-ti hierarchy, having received the least of this "blessing".

Lizardfolk are lizardfolk, like they were in the time of dinosaurs.

[Requilac]

The yuant-ti are humans who, through dark rituals and sacrifices to the snake gods, have acquired ophidian traits. The purebloods are actually low in the yuan-ti hierarchy, having received the least of this "blessing".

Lizardfolk are lizardfolk, like they were in the time of dinosaurs.

That is what I said. At the end of the day the yuan-ti are just humans who have acquired reptilian traits, not reptiles themselves.

[Joe the Rat]

Do the lizardfolk actually lay eggs? I had always assumed that at the end of the day were mammals, extremely distorted mammals, but mammals nonetheless. They are called that because they have lizard-like features, not because they actually evolved from lizards. This can clearly be seen in all the art depictions of those monsters by WotC. The female yuan-ti pureblood represented in the MM has breasts, indicating that she also has mammary glands, which is a thing that only mammals have.

Lizardfolk definitely are reptilian.

Yuan-ti are difficult because you are dealing with an RMO (Ritually Modified Organism): H. sapiens yuantis. Since the original ritual patent was millenia ago, Dendar the Night Serpent no longer has exclusive rights to Yuan-ti production, hence the generic appellation.

3rd Edition Dragonborn were the same, with a bahamutus subspecies applied to the base race. 5th edition, as a free-standing race, are dragon-derived. Dragons can interbreed with everything, lay eggs, sport mammaries (in some forms), tolerate all sorts of strange climes, about half are aquatic, and some varieties have acid or poison-producing features.

Clearly they are monotremes.


Honestly, I think we're missing an important opportunity: Roadrunner Cladistics.
Wood Elf (Treehuggus sylvan)
High Elf (Treehuggus cannabis)
Halfling (Minimus hungrii)
Human (Homo generic)

etc.

[Millstone85]

Some 5e lore regarding oviparity and viviparity.
Young dragonborn grow quickly. They walk hours after hatching, attain the size and development of a 10-year-old human child by the age of 3, and reach adulthood by 15. They live to be around 80.
All yuan-ti can interbreed. Females usually lay clutches of eggs, which are stored in a common hatchery, although live births aren't uncommon. A mating between yuan-ti of different types almost always produces eggs that hatch into yuan-ti of the weaker parent, so most choose partners of the same type in the interest of maintaining the strength of their personal bloodline.
Still, if other creatures prove useful to lizardfolk, those creatures can trigger a protective response made all the stronger by their apparent weakness. The lizardfolk assess such beings as hatchlings, young ones incapable of protecting themselves but who might prove useful in the future if they receive care.

[Nargrakhan]

High Elf (Treehuggus arroganti)

Fixed it for ya. :smallwink:

[Alkerite]

High Elf (Treehuggus arroganti)


Fixed it for ya. :smallwink:

I'd like to throw out
Slyvan Arroganti Cannibis

or

Yutyrannus Huali

[Millstone85]

That is what I said. At the end of the day the yuan-ti are just humans who have acquired reptilian traits, not reptiles themselves.You said that of the lizardfolk, then mentioned the yuan-ti.

I don't think the lizardfolk are anything like the yuan-ti. In FR at least, it seems that the lizardfolk existed long before humans.
Tens of thousands of years ago, empires of reptilian, amphibian, and avian peoples--known in Elvish as Jqua'Tel'Quessir, the creator races--dominated the world. They built great cities of stone and glass, carved paths through the wilderness, tamed the great lizards, worked mighty magics, shaped the world around them, and warred upon each other. Those were the Days of Thunder.

The age of the creator races came to a sudden end some thirty thousand years ago. Perhaps their wars reached a terrible and inevitable crescendo, or they tampered with forbidden forces. For whatever reason, the world changed, and their vast empires vanished. All that remains of them are ruins and the scattered lizardfolk, bullywug, and aarakocra tribes, barbaric descendants of those who once ruled the world.

[Requilac]

So the yuan-ti can give birth to live young and lay eggs, but dragonborn and lizardfolk just lay eggs. That makes sense in a weird kind of way.

[Requilac]

reposting new classifications for reptilian creatures

reptilians
Dragonborn: draco hominem maiorem
Kobold: draco hominem luminare
Lizardfolk: iguana hominem
Tortle: Chelonoidis hominem
Yuan-ti: homo sapien anguis

[SaurOps]

Rules of Linnaean bi/trionomial nomenclature, for those using them for some reason: Genus is always capitalized, species and subspecies names are always completely lowercase, and the entire name is in italics if in type (the present medium). Hence, correct terms would look like Tyrannosaurus rex, Crotalus atrox, Homo sapiens sapiens, Draco volans, etc. On its own, a genus is also capitalized and italicized. Species names are not typically used on their own, as they are trivial. Terms more inclusive than Genus are written capitalized, such as the Order Reptilia, but not italicized.

A family ends in idae, and members are -ids, ex. Canidae and canids. A superfamily ends in oidea, and its members are -oids, ex. Tyrannosauroidea and tyrannosauroids. An Infrafamily or Subfamily ends in inae, and its members are ines, ex. Viperinae and viperines.


Oh, yeah...

This complicates things.

Species definition is complicated enough in the real world that there's an entire branch of study devoted to it. You're wandering into warped dreamland full of disused names (that are then reused again due to bureaucratic technicalities, such as in the case of Brontosaurus, which doesn't refer to the Brontosaurus that you think it does but is no longer a nomen dubium) and unresolved polytomies.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but to be able to interbreed, and create fertile offspring, wouldn't they have to be part of the same species? This would force you to add "sapiens" in between "homo" and whatever thing you put afterward.

That would be the biological definition of species, which falls flat when it comes to defining some organisms (asexual reproduction, for example, means that a species would slip through the cracks of the biological definition and fail to qualify as a species, for example). There are alternate paradigms for determining species based on anatomy, genetics, ecological roles, and cladistics, each with different qualifiers, though some share a few. What you're essentially going after with any of these paradigms is an evolutionary relationship, however, so if you're using a setting that has lots of ex nihilo creation, it's not likely to be something that people make that takes hold beyond folk taxonomies, which are already present in how D&D folds fungi into plant-type creatures. The monsters.

[Spore]

Calling everything 'homo' that is classified as humanoid feels like the wrong call. Demihumans like Aasimars and Tieflings, sure. But dwarves? Elves? Those are usually (depending on the setting) ancient races that have nothing to do with humans.

It gets a bit problematic however because elves are 'nympha' or 'dryadalis' in latin and dwarf becomes 'pumilus'

[Asmotherion]

Science?

Um...okay, check it out:

Some theft inspiration from:

http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10102/how-would-multi-race-humanoid-evolution-happen

And my own fever dreams:

"It is clear that elves, men, and orcs are members of a single species. Dwarves and gnomes, while unquestionably related, have completed speciation and do not interbreed as members of the H. sapiens subspecies do. But halflings are more closely related to elves and humans than the most recent common ancestor of dwarves and gnomes, which creates this phylogenetic tree:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/GHT9S.png

It is evident that the gigantism of humans is an innovation not present in the basal demihuman.

The only remaining issue is the placement of elves and orcs relative to humans. Casual study suggests many similarities between elves and humans, but the anthropological literature [T54] suggests that elves and orcs are quite closely related and thus these superficial similarities are merely the result of convergent evolution between elves and the human outgroup.

[T54]: J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954)."


An alternative idea from:

http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/10102/how-would-multi-race-humanoid-evolution-happen

https://i.stack.imgur.com/frIK6.jpg
"After some in-depth research into the development of various humanoid races, I've developed a corpus of theory as to their development. Upon my return from their habitat, I plan to publish the following in some sort of respectable journal, perhaps the Journal of Edible Races. While snoozing off their weekly dinner of ponies, I'm sure the other dragons will enjoy reading it over:

Naturally, all the humanoid races descended from some common bipedal primate. Since then, however, they have evolved into two species, with a total of five subspecies (plus three common hybrids. Broadly, these can be divided into the larger-statured humanoids: the humans, orcs, and elves, and the smaller statured humanoids: the dwarves and halflings. These two populations are not known to interbreed and produce offspring, so they should be considered separate species, but the subspecies interbreed regularly, producing some interesting hybrids.

Homo Sapiens

Humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens)

Humans are predominantly farmers in fertile regions. They are believed to be the least differentiated stock of the homo sapiens branch of humanoids, being smaller than the hill-dwelling orcs and larger than the forest-dwelling elves. Over the past few million years, they've been engaging in low-level farming from small villages, trading regularly with both orcs and elves for resources. Recently, they've begun to domesticate some wild horses, which are driving both the development of larger societies and rapid technological improvement.

Orcs (Homo Sapiens Moria)

The orcs, unlike humans, do not rely on farming. They form hunter gatherer clans in upland regions inhabited by large animals such as oiliphants and griffins. It's believed that their hunting of these creatures has led to their evolving much stockier frames than their lowland counterparts. The breed freely with humans, producing half orcs.

It's not known if orcs and elves would be capable of producing offspring, as they do not regularly come into contact with one another. If not, then homo sapiens is a fascinating example of a ring species.

Elves (Homo Sapiens Lorien)

Elves have adapted to forest life, with small, slight bodies but surprisingly powerful arms. They live largely in homes built in the branches of large trees and coming down to the ground to hunt for game and to collect fruit.

In general, elves undertake these activities at night, possibly due to the presence of bands of forest-dwelling humans during the day. This nocturnal/diurnal duality allows elves and humans to coexist peacefully, and has also driven the elves to develop larger ears and pronounced eyes to better sense in the dark. They interbreed with humans where their ranges overlap, but this is looked down on by both humans and elves, probably due to the facts that elven frames are poorly suited to farm labor and that humans don't operate well during twilight hours.

Homo Dwarfus

Homo dwarfus has two subspecies: the dwarves and the halflings. These two races can interbreed, with the cross generally being referred to as the gnomes.

Interestingly, unlike half-orcs and half-elves, the gnomes have formed their own societies of multi-generational gnome families. It's viewed as likely, based on this, that they may develop into what could be considered a subspecies of homo dwarfus in their own right.

Dwarves (Homo Dwarfus Dwarfus)

Short and stocky, the dwarves have evolved for life underground. Like orcs, they are commonly found in hills and mountains, but have opted for a different evolutionary path.

Dwarves build elaborate warrens beneath the Earth, bringing many families together for mutual defense and child rearing. Moving through both natural and artificial tunnels has selected for short, powerful frames with large noses for drawing in more of what is often poor quality air. Dwarves have evolved a farming culture similar to humans, but in absence of good food crops growing on the surface, the dwarves have taken to gathering nutrient poor plant materials, such as grasses, in large store rooms underground. These materials are then used to grow nutritious mushrooms, as well as to brew alcohol in great quantities.

Unfortunately, the same behavior that has brought about these fascinating behavioral changes has also given dwarves a keen interest in mineral treasures, as is known by dragons across the land who have had to deal with dwarf infestations in their treasure chambers.

Halflings (Homo Sapiens Hobbitus)

Some dwarves, however, have moved back to the surface, and evolved into a small race known as the halflings. While retaining the burrow-building behaviors of their ancestors, halflings have moved to lowland areas where they have learned to farm from nearby humans. While incapable of interbreeding due to having fully speciated, humans and halflings form intermingled societies in some areas, with halflings appreciating the protection their larger neighbors provide and humans enjoying the fact that generations of life underground have left the halflings as experts at digging and brewing a large variety of fermented drinks.

Halflings, without the pressures of a harsh life in the mountains, are generally slighter of build than dwarves, and have lost the exceptional senses that dwarves have developed for a life underground.

Unfortunately, some halflings seem to have retained the dwarven penchant for treasure. Care should be taken to make sure that any halfling populations living in the vicinity of dragons do not become a nuisance.

Gnomes

In areas where halflings and dwarves live somewhat close together, they occasionally crossbreed, giving birth to hybrids known as gnomes. Gnomes retain dwarven senses, but with the slighter builds of halflings. In many areas, they've taken up roles as go-betweens for these two groups, as well as trading with any humans, orcs, and elves in the area.

In their wide exposure to many cultures during their lives as nomadic, traveling merchants, the gnomes have also picked up a penchant for combining and improving upon inventions created by the other humanoid races. They've also gained some sense in their travels, rarely pilfering from the homes of dragons, though this fact should be well known to anyone in posession of one of their excellent anti-dwarf horde security systems"

My theories aren't crazy at all!
Just because those blind fools at the Mages Guild roll their eyes, and won't admit the truth!
I'll show them! All show them all!

First, the half-elves, and half-orcs among us show that elves, humans, and orcs are in fact the same species! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?481829-Why-the-Sentient-Species-Don-t-Make-Mutts)
Humans are actually descendents of long ago Elves and Orcs.
Don't walk away! In your heart you know it's true!

Also the reason Elves have low light vision like Dwarves and Gnomes, is because they too originally lived underground. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475794-Drow-the-original-Elves) Clearly these rumors of "Dark Elves", sometimes called "Drow", point towards the inescapable conclusion that "surface" Elves are in fact descended from Elves who were exiled from the Underdark because they were insufficiently badass! And in fact the day star bleached them! That is why Wood Elves who lived under the shade of their forest homes are darker hued. Either that or the reliance on magic among the so called "high elves", makes them both lazy and pasty!

In fact this overuse of Magic by some may doom us all!
The ruins of the Ancients all around, in the wastelands and underground shows the truth!
Long ago the Elves
used up all the magic causing the fall of their civilization! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?487606-Magic-Lost-and-Reborn)

Overuse of Magic in one place leeches the Mana from the Earh, leaving desolate wastelands in it's absence!
The ancestors of the Elves having squandered all the magic fled underground, with a few remnants learning to survive in a world without magic. Yes humans and orcs! The Orcs who infest the ruins are the savage descendents of the Elves too stupid to leave. We humans are the descendents of those who didn't hide underground, or stupidly stay amongst the ruins, but instead pioneered new lands and made new tools.
Why else would it be humans who invented the crossbow, the plow, sailing ships, and windmills? Only in times without Magic would anyone bother to build such things! That's why so many of us still toil on the land and in our smithies, instead of just learning Wizardry, were not too stupid to learn Spellcraft! Nay, deep in our souls we feel the warning that it can't last!

That is why these tomb robbing Adventurer's have lately been finding magic items littering the ruins. For centuries there was insufficient environmental Mana for those items to be worth picking up!
That is why there are Sorcerers now born among us when previous generations had none!
The return of Magic to the wastelands is why suddenly all these magicsl monsters now infect our lands! Do you think our ancestors could have survived long if they'd always existed?

We have forgotten and grown soft!
We must conserve what Magic is left and learn from the Gnomes ways to make wonders without the Arcane arts. Too much reliance on and use of Wizardry will doom us!

We must learn to grow our on food and distill water, without relying on Create Food and Water Spells, and if these Magic-User's continue to waste the Magic away in trivial goals, we must learn to fight off without spells, the bears, wolves and other beasts that threaten us, else we fall to claws and fangs!

Take these pamphlets and spread the word before it's too late!


This is the kind of stuff I like.

I mostly toy with these theories myself:

Elves, Gnoms and Half Elves all share some Fey Ancestry, and are decended from the first Fey Creatures who took mortal forms. In the Half Elves case, they are the result of Fey breeding with local Humanoids and in some Worlds may be a ceparate Race on their own (I my world, I use this idea a lot).

Dwarves are distant relatives to Giants and Giant Races, thus their longuevity and Strength. They are called Dwarves because they are so relativelly short to other Giant Races, despite being Medium in size.

Humans are decended from apes that were made as an experiment of some unknown factor to become a race through the aid of magic and selective breeding (thus their lack of innate magic and longuevity). The reasons behind it are unknown, but the most probable reason is that they are compatible to breed with divine beings, in order to bring their children into the world (Aasimar), a fact abused by Fiends as well in order to create their own Race (Tieflings).

Halfings are decented from all Humans who went to the Feywild as children and were blessed with longuevity, but at the cost of their bodies aging diferently and never becoming taller. This trait was passed down to their children as well. After thousands of years of this spontaneous phenomenon happening to relativelly young children lost in the forest, they started to identify themselfves as a race, the "Halfings", refearing to their size, and embracing it with happiness, as a blessing and not a curse.

Dragonborn are the result of a Female Dragon breeding with a non-Dragon humanoid, which will hatch a Dragonborn From the Egg, instead of a Wyrmling. The offsprings will also be Dragonborn. For referance, a Male Dragon has Dragonic Origin Sorcerer offspings who are not Dragonborn, because they do not hatch from an Egg. They are whatever race the Dragon was shapeshifted into at the time.

Orcs could be a failed first attempt at creating humans in the faywild. After the project was abandoned (as it was not becoming what was expected of it), Gruumsh finished creating them, and claimed he was their creator. He then put them into his path of chaos and destruction. They eventually were released in the Prime Material to Destroy in his Name. Half Orcs were born after breeding with local races.

Tieflings were born around the world with many ways. A Warlock made a pact with a Fiend, and his child was born a Tiefling; All it's decendants will also be Tieflings as well. And that +2 to Charisma makes sure they will be having a good chance to have Children despite their fiendish appearance, that will look like a guilty charm. Somewere else, a woman met a guy, who turned out to be an Incubus, and her child was a Cambion. The Cambion's children were all Tieflings, as well as their children. Despite their appearance, they were not born evil, but society discriminates against them; this made them to eventually consider each other a race, but at the same time suspect each other just as much as other humanoids suspect them about turning to evil. In the end, they know they can really only trust their friends, reguardless of race.

I think I covered the PHB races for now.

[Cespenar]

Didn't Shadowrun already did this?

Elves are Homo sapiens nobilis.

Orcs are Homo sapiens robustus.

Etc.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Dang every ones beat me to mine. Well I would change dragon to Ignus lacerta

[Requilac]

Dang every ones beat me to mine. Well I would change dragon to Ignus lacerta

Not all Dragonborn breathe fire, and kobolds have no features related to fire, so putting them in the Ignus genus seems weird to me.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

But i'm just referring to dragons in general and yes i'm aware that dragons in d&d breath other things like cold and acid. As for the kobolds they don't need the ignus part.

[Requilac]

But i'm just referring to dragons in general and yes i'm aware that dragons in d&d breath other things like cold and acid. As for the kobolds they don't need the ignus part.

Let us stick to races for the classifications, I am not even going to try to classify other creatures, that would require a new system of fantasy biology.

[Pronounceable]

would require a new system of fantasy biology
I was attempting to motivate you to do it, not scare you off. Reverse psychology failed me.

Oh well. Lemme post my own made up fantasy "biology" for My DnDTM instead. We're all looking for the slightest of provocations spill our homebrew anyway.

The human is the first of the regular mortal races, as evident from the name humanoid. Pelor made orcs, dwarves and elves later on to improve on his base design, to help them fight against the giants who were the first rulers of all worlds. Later, after giants were defeated, Gruumsh beat up his younger brother Pelor and took orcs away from him. Elves, being racist pricks, went for some historical revisionism to distance themselves from orcs and said Gruumsh made them anyway and Pelor decided to roll with it instead of putting his defeat down in the annals of history. Much later on, Yondalla made halflings using bits and pieces of all four humanoids, for a grand total of 5 interbreeding races in the mammalian humanoid family. No gnomes cos **** them. Also no half-whatevers cos that's ****ing dumb, just play a goddamn orc, this ain't Middle Earth, the humanoid child is always of the mother's race.

The other major mortal branch is the abomination family, each one made by Tiamat the eldest. She laid claim to Plane of Water and made all of the weird gribbly beastly races from aboleths to lizardmen. Every one of these weirdsexual races later created their own gods in their own image, from Sekolah to Ilsensine. All these abominable godspawn are the embodiment of perfection envisioned by their race and are partly or wholly alien to humanoid biology and psychology without any major overlapping properties anywhere (beyond being amphibious), cos Tiamat thinks not starting from scratch every single time is lame and boring and lazy and no true creator god would suck that much (hear that, little bro?).

Then you have animals, lizards, birds, fishes and vermin. Only what we'd call mammals are animals, because those are the only ones created by Pelor for humanoids' benefit. Lizards and fishes were also made by Tiamat and are technically abominations but not really cos they lack the sentience to spawn their own abominable gods. Birds just appeared without any apparent divine intervention, so who knows what their deal is. And the mindlessly destructive, evergrowing insectile vermin are the expression of the supreme goddess Ruinous Overmother's hatred of everything and spontaneously pop into existence in dark, dank and dismal places to plague other living creatures.

On the other brach, the first two great titans, as extremely powerful elemental spirits that spawned in the empty interplanetary space, had billions of babies the regular way and populated the worlds. The giants are therefore somewhat elemental in nature and aren't really bothered when laws of physics claim they can't exist. Sadly for them, the great prehistoric empires of giants were toppled by Pelor's physically feasible fakes thousands of years ago and their descendants are now mostly semi barbaric tribes, with Giantmother dead and Giantfather imprisoned in Tartarus. They also aren't a colorful ice cream buffet of three dozen different flavors cos that's also ****ing stupid. Ogres are giants too, even though they're retarded both physically and mentally in comparison to the real deal due to Araushnee's curse cos she didn't appreciate Corellon cheating on her with Giantmother.

On the other other branch, when Silvanus saw how pretty all that nature stuff his dad made on Material Plane's worlds, he wanted to make his own and grabbed some elemental spirits from Inner Planes to mutate them into various fairies. Thus the fey family came about, as strange mixtures or distortions of mortal races and animals. Being immortal elemental creatures, the fey didn't care at all about all that cycles of nature crap so Silvanus abandoned them to their strange obsessive compulsive behaviors in Feywild to teach hippiehood and treehuggery to mortals.

On yet another branch is the actual elementals. Spawned in Elemental Chaos and mindlessly drifting into the four regular elemental planes, the ordinary elemental spirits are nonsentient animalistic creatures without any needs whatsoever and tend to sit still for hundreds of thousands of years until they evolve into genies. The four types of genies are dependant on what element their presentient spirit bond and are the only native sentience of Inner Planes. Unlike the elemental scrubs (giants and fey), the four genie races can exert control over lesser elemental creatures (and even reality itself to a degree) thanks to their fundamentality and are the biggest and baddest mofos of the multiverse.

On the extradimensional branch, you have the Outsider kingdom where even the loosest classifications start to break down. Each aligned Outer Plane uses its alignment essences to naturally spawn one exemplar race embodying and feeding on some sort of abstract concept like hatred for demons and industriousness for kami, plus a whole bunch of other non or semi sentient creatures (except for Gehenna, where even the plane itself is greedy and refuses to spend its evil essence to spawn anything except its exemplar daemons). Souls of dead mortals also end up on Outer Planes as petitioners and, under right circumstances, can transform into exemplars OR regular outsider creatures. And then nonexampler outsider critters spread randomly through portals into other planes until it becomes impossible to tell what's originally from where.


You can see there's no Latin, cos what is this Latin you speak of? Also it's far from a rigorous and comprehensive listing because, as mentioned above, real life biology is all about evolution and there's no such thing as evolution (as science understands it) in DnD.

[Regitnui]

Let me throw a wrench into the gears by pointing out that Draconic is the language of scholarship in most D&D worlds... It's what spellbooks are written in, after all. So all these Latin binomials are only slightly more helpful than measuring toe sizes.

But, to get into the spirit of things:
Homo sapiens sapiens
Homo sapiens sarumis
Homo sapiens nymphus
((Despite their prevalence or lack, there are no official binomials for the specimens resulting of a crossbreeding among these three))
Homo aurārius sapiens
Homo dimidium sapiens
Alfa mundanus (Homo sapiens nymphus appears to share some relation with this species, though exact ancestry is uncertain)
Homo infernalis

I had a little fun with Google Translate here... :smallgrin:

[Requilac]

Do not get me wrong, I really like the idea of creating my own fantasy biology, but I would need time to create something like that. My interest has been piqued though, so I will look into making such a thing. But a project like that does not belong in the 5e sub-forum, it should probably go in the world building sub-forum inhomebrew design. For now let us stick to our current knowledge of biology just for this thread. Give me a couple of days or even weeks if so necessary, and I can present you all with something over in world building. Until that point, I am using normal, Latin, real world classifications.

[Asmotherion]

Let me throw a wrench into the gears by pointing out that Draconic is the language of scholarship in most D&D worlds... It's what spellbooks are written in, after all. So all these Latin binomials are only slightly more helpful than measuring toe sizes.

But, to get into the spirit of things:
Homo sapiens sapiens
Homo sapiens sarumis
Homo sapiens nymphus
((Despite their prevalence or lack, there are no official binomials for the specimens resulting of a crossbreeding among these three))
Homo aurārius sapiens
Homo dimidium sapiens
Alfa mundanus (Homo sapiens nymphus appears to share some relation with this species, though exact ancestry is uncertain)
Homo infernalis

I had a little fun with Google Translate here... :smallgrin:

It is true that one of the most pottent of the arcane languages is Dragonic (I'd like to argue the most pottent), but only the most effective spellcasters and scholars are able to translate it, not to mention speak it frequantly. I like to think of it as it is presented in "The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim", being a very powerful magical dialect that can, when focused, be used for magic, or to just speak (as depicted when dragons speak without killing each other), but difficult to use and needing a lot of study to master (unless you are a dragonic creature and have an innate ability to get a shortcut to learn it).

Or it might just be me, liking to make pseudo-lore like that.

[Finback]

No, creatures do not need to be of the same species to breed. Dog is just a genus, and all the other "breeds" of dog are just fancy words for species, and it does not matter what species a dog is pretty much all of them are capable of breeding with each-other (but some of them are just awful ideas to decide to breed, which is why chihuahua and great Dane mixes don't exist). This can also be seen in mules, the hybrid of a donkey and a horse, which are also different species.


just to note that this is very backwards. Canis is the genus, the common domesticated dog is Canis familiaris (familiaris)*, while the timber wolf is Canis lupus, the coyote is Canis latrans, etc. Breeds of the common dog are just that - breeds, not species.

The problem here stems from the fact that some genera are very "plastic", which allows a lot of hybridisation - dogs can cross with wolves, you can cross dogs with coyotes. Then there's debate over where a boundary is for some (the * above) - is the dingo Canis dingo, or Canis familiaris dingo? It can hybridise with common dogs, so logically, same species. But they are distinct enough in their own right - the definition of a "race" or "subspecies" is usually that all members of that clade are genetically closer to each other than to another clade.**

the other thing is, species is NOT entirely defined by whether something is genetically compatible. You could have the same species on both sides of a planet - they cannot interbreed *physically* because of location, but in the same location, they can. Classically, sometimes species were defined by location before we had any idea of genetic similarity, etc. Likewise, you can have a hugely divergent phenotype, but maintain a genetic compatability - eg dogs. An alien observer might assume bulldogs are a separate species from greyhounds, unless they looked at the DNA. And using your example above, a chihuahua and great dane may be physically incapable of breeding, but this does not preclude them being the same species.

tl;dr version - species be cray cray




** this is why the concept of "human races" is false; studies have been done. There is more diversity within some "races", than between themselves are others. The "African" race is massively diverse, because it is also one of the oldest - there is more genetic diversity between someone from, say, Egypt, and someone from the Kalahari, than between the Egyptian person and someone from, say, Europe or south-east Asia.

[Finback]

Only other thing is, I once cobbled together my own "evolution happened" take on it. Let's just say this:

elves descended from birds
halflings from lagomorphs
dwarves from badgers
Yuan-ti and lizardfolk both originate from mosasaurs, yuan-ti are just more specialised
dragonborn and kobolds both originate from reptiles similar to synapsids, explaining the weird quirks of biology

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Orcs and dwarfs are clearly more closely related to Neanderthals than to us. Monstrous humanoids and possibly giants could fit in near Gigantopithecus. Or put the giants in the gorilla branch or better yet as their own offshoot of Homo erectus/habilis to get a nice contrast. Hobbits are of course related to hobbits, Homo floresiensis.

[Requilac]

I apologize for my apparent lack of information when it comes dog biology. Everyone I met had always called used breed or species interchangeably, so that threw me off quite a bit. People I have talked to always called dog breeds species, and nobody every challenged them on that, so I guess I got indoctrinated with false information. Don’t quite know what else to say on that matter.



...except for reposting the edited list of all of the race’s re-evaluated scientific names

Humanoids
Aasimar: Homo sapien angelus
Bugbear: Homo cobalus insidiis
Dwarf: Homo sapien invaluerunt
Elf: Homo sapien insomnia
Firbolg: Homo gigas druidae
Genasi: Homo sapien elementum
Gnome: Homo brevis callidus
Goblin: Homo cobalus adsignatos
Goliath: Homo gigas monticalla
Halfling: Homo brevis felix
Hobgoblin: Homo cobalus militum
Orc: Homo cobalus muta
Tiefling: Homo sapien diabolus
Triton: Homo aquatilium custos

Reptilians
Dragonborn: Draco hominem maiorem
Kobold: Draco hominem luminare
Lizardfolk: Iguana hominem
Tortle: Chelonoidis hominem
Yuan-ti: Homo sapien anguis

Other
Aarakockra: Haliaeetus hominem
Kenku: Corvus hominem
Tabaxi: Felis hominem