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ZeroGear
2020-03-20, 12:21 PM
So, this question is related to my previous thread when it about giants
(https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?608154-Question-about-character-size-logistics&p=24408005#post24408005).
Going along with creating a timeline, I had this idea that the races of different eras would change as the ages passed. I’m fully aware that evolution in the real world takes millions of years to happen, which is why some of these changes would be influenced by the existence of Magic and partially driven by the influences other planes of existence would have on the material world (I’m kinda fond of Orrery Planar systems and astral orbits in my setting).
Thing is, I’m starting to have a really hard time justifying the continued existence of Orcs in some of the later ages, mainly because it feels as though their interbreeding with humans combined with their described living habits would drive them extinct pretty quickly.
Looking at our own history, fossil records have shown that there were actually multiple species of humans in our past, and DNA testing has revealed that several of them became integrated into our own genetic ancestry.
This makes me wonder if it would be a better idea to just rename Half-Orcs as just “Orcs”, and say that they are the “modern” descendants of the Orc race?
It’s mostly a flavor change, but I’m not really sure if I’d be justified in making a change like that.

Democratus
2020-03-20, 01:26 PM
Sounds like you are asking how you should build your world.

That's entirely up to you. In a multiverse with magic, gods, elemental crossovers, and planar beings - you can justify any setup you like.

Heck, half the fun is filling in backstory to explain all the weird stuff you put in your world.

ZeroGear
2020-03-20, 01:35 PM
Sounds like you are asking how you should build your world.

That's entirely up to you. In a multiverse with magic, gods, elemental crossovers, and planar beings - you can justify any setup you like.

Heck, half the fun is filling in backstory to explain all the weird stuff you put in your world.

Yes and no.
It’s more of a “do you think players would accept this” kind of question.
I know that Orcs are kinda a staple of most D&D games, and that changing anything isn’t to be done lightly.
This would be a big change from the norm, and changes the key aspect that half-orks are outcasts from both sides of their parentage. I’m just trying to get an opinion on how important this one aspect is to people that enjoy playing Half-Orcs.

Democratus
2020-03-20, 01:42 PM
You should present your world to the players before they create their characters, including allowed races.

That's when you will know if there's an issue. You know your players better than us crazy internet strangers.

My group? They are up for massive amounts of weird so long as I give them a heads up before session 1.

jayem
2020-03-20, 02:37 PM
So, this question is related to my previous thread when it about giants
Thing is, I’m starting to have a really hard time justifying the continued existence of Orcs in some of the later ages, mainly because it feels as though their interbreeding with humans combined with their described living habits would drive them extinct pretty quickly.
Looking at our own history, fossil records have shown that there were actually multiple species of humans in our past, and DNA testing has revealed that several of them became integrated into our own genetic ancestry.
This makes me wonder if it would be a better idea to just rename Half-Orcs as just “Orcs”, and say that they are the “modern” descendants of the Orc race?
It’s mostly a flavor change, but I’m not really sure if I’d be justified in making a change like that.

At that point possibly humans are themselves modern descendants of a 'human' race.

Khedrac
2020-03-20, 03:16 PM
I’m fully aware that evolution in the real world takes millions of years to happen

It can, but it doesn't have to - evolution takes a large number of generations but it doesn't be as large as most people think - thousands of years is enough for short-lived animals (or even hundreds for the very short lived).

Case in point, there are a lot of species in the UK whose entire habitat is man-made - it's not that they have adapted to live there, it's that they have evolved from a different species to live there. The Norfolk Broads are the classic example of an artificial habitat that is home to a lot of unique species but has only been about for a few hundred years!

So, back to orcs. Many people give orcs a much shorter lifespan than humans, this would go with a shorter generation length (humans are usually hald to produce a new generation every 20 years), if you make the orc generation 15 years they will evolve in approx. 3/4 the time it takes humans. As for them breeding out of existence if they can interbreed with humans, all it takes is a large dose of racial predjudice on both sides and the few cross-breeds will be sufficiently unsuccessful in reproducing that they won't affect the overall population. (That or they could be sterile like most crossbreeds.)

Except, as people say, it's your world, you can do what you want. As for the "necessity" of orcs, remind people that to Tolkein orcs and goblins were the same race ('orc' was the elvish term, 'goblin' the human and hobbit term).
There are quite a few fantasy RPG worlds out there without orcs, Glorantha and Archaeus* being two and, iirc., Athas was originally another?

*Archaeus turns out to be the world for the game Talislanta which was originally advertised as having "no elves".

ZeroGear
2020-03-20, 04:14 PM
At that point possibly humans are themselves modern descendants of a 'human' race.

Actually... yes. Part of the plan was that the “modern” humans are descended from a more primitive race of humanoids that changed with the ages. The idea was that the “humans” as we know them only really emerged during the twilight years of the Age of Giants, and didn’t fully establish themselves until the end of the Age of Fallen Leaves, after the elves started losing power (quick note: elves and dwarves in this setting are still longer lived than Humans, but don’t live hundreds of years. Everything else about them is intact though).
It’s mostly during the Age of The Waxing Earth that some of the younger races like humans and halflings become much more prominent.


*Snipped due to length*

Yes, you are correct, though breeding is only half of the reason I’m considering here.
Pretty much all the entries on Orcs say they brutalize their children and elderly, that they live in squalor, and that they enjoy tormenting most other races. It also says that Half-Orcs are much more intelligent, so my reasoning is twofold:
1) Half-Orcs are much more adapted to survival than their full-blooded relatives, and would therefore become more plentiful, establishing a more civilized culture in the process.
2) Humans, and by extension I’d wager most other races, are notorious for eliminating threats to themselves, and it’s not a hard leap of logic to imagine wiping out the “savages” to be too low on that list.

Aliess
2020-03-20, 04:45 PM
In our current game orcs and elves are basically extinct and half orcs/half elves are their descendants, although there are a few powerful individuals around.
Humans and tieflings didn't originate on this plane so don't have any ancestors (that we know of yet).
We haven't run into any of the other pc races yet.

So if it fits your idea for world history then I'd say go for it.

False God
2020-03-20, 05:15 PM
Replace them with Gith. I mean, that's literally what the Gith are, Orcs that were hyper-evolved by aliens (mind flayers).

ZeroGear
2020-03-20, 07:24 PM
@False God
Aren’t the Gith races evolved from elves/hobgoblins?

False God
2020-03-20, 07:29 PM
@False God
Aren’t the Gith races evolved from elves/hobgoblins?

Last I recall they were from orcs.

*googles* huh, none of the stuff I'm reading says one way or the other.

Either way, I think it'd be a fairly good fit. They're clearly not "big dumb stronk orks" and they come in similar colors, so a little "yadda yadda magical hyper evolution" and it would work.

LibraryOgre
2020-03-20, 08:12 PM
Replace them with Gith. I mean, that's literally what the Gith are, Orcs that were hyper-evolved by aliens (mind flayers).

I thought they were humans.

As to the original question, I don't see a problem with the base "orcs" dying out by later time, with half-orcs being their only representatives as time goes on.

Jay R
2020-03-20, 08:26 PM
Do it if you want to.

In my world, there is no half-orc society. Half-orcs either live in human areas or orc tribes (and aren't really accepted either place).

Dervag
2020-03-21, 02:04 AM
If you emphasize biological evolution, you have to address the question: how did these species ever evolve in the first place?

If orcs are persistently nasty, brutish, and antisocial, even within their own tribes, with their only real biological advantages being "marginally faster reproduction" and "noticeably but still kind of marginally greater strength and endurance," how would they survive in competition with humans?

You'd have to give them some other, really massive Darwinian advantage (e.g. near-total immunity to infectious disease, low-level regenerative ability to heal without scars). A species without such an advantage, and which was significantly inferior to humans in its ability to plan, organize, and socialize, would probably never have emerged at all in an environment where humans could exist.

Bohandas
2020-03-21, 02:35 AM
Orcs could have been created multiple times, or they could be r-strategists like Warhammer's orcs.

Kaptin Keen
2020-03-21, 03:29 AM
Yes and no.
It’s more of a “do you think players would accept this” kind of question.
I know that Orcs are kinda a staple of most D&D games, and that changing anything isn’t to be done lightly.
This would be a big change from the norm, and changes the key aspect that half-orks are outcasts from both sides of their parentage. I’m just trying to get an opinion on how important this one aspect is to people that enjoy playing Half-Orcs.

Think of the beholder.

If your players accept the existance of the beholder, anything else you throw at them is going to be acceptable.

As for evolution, although it takes a long time - it also happens in bursts (so I've heard). So when there is evolutionary pressure, evolution takes place at an accelerated pace. Basically, whatever it is that makes a tiny difference usually, makes more of a difference when the species it at risk.

For intelligent species, arguably that's more pronounced. As in, orcs may realise that their less violent, more intelligent kin do better. They may be more likely to follow non-violent, intelligent leaders.

Being bred out of existance seems unlikely to me. Orcs have a lot of things (no, not really) going for them, but being attractive isn't one of them.

Lvl 2 Expert
2020-03-21, 05:09 AM
This makes me wonder if it would be a better idea to just rename Half-Orcs as just “Orcs”, and say that they are the “modern” descendants of the Orc race?

Sounds fine. If it's too confusing call them "orcin" or something.

Alternatively, if you want to use this concept but would really like to have mechanical base orcs in the later periods, refluff them as the watered down descendants of ogres, and remove orcs from the earlier setting.


Being bred out of existance seems unlikely to me. Orcs have a lot of things (no, not really) going for them, but being attractive isn't one of them.

Well, this is a dangerous, violent world. Dating the big strong warrior race might be all the rage for "die to a house cat" human commoners. Not to mention goblins, kobolds and other races whose ideal of beauty might already be closer to that of orcs.

Kaptin Keen
2020-03-21, 08:06 AM
Well, this is a dangerous, violent world. Dating the big strong warrior race might be all the rage for "die to a house cat" human commoners. Not to mention goblins, kobolds and other races whose ideal of beauty might already be closer to that of orcs.

Heh - www.orcz4u.ru, eh?

I don't think greenskins of various sorts interbreeding would consitite being bred out of existance. I consider that to be more akin to accelerated evolution, natural selection helping to weed out the less competitive aspects of orcdom.

ZeroGear
2020-03-21, 03:22 PM
@Lvl 2 expert: that is actually a really good name, I’ll be using that from now on!

Ok, so I kinda need to bring this up as a point form our history.
My reasoning for Orcs only really existing in the earlier parts of the timeline stems from how I view them: as an equivalent to the Neanderthal.
While Orcs and Neanderthal are entirely different creatures even in this setting, one could imagine their going out of existence to follow the same logic: they were out-competed by a mode advanced and adapted member of their genus.
That being said, the reason I don’t just want to subsume Orcs into the human race the way other species of humans were in the past is because I’m imagining an element of their race containing magical influence as somewhat of a dominant gene.
More to the point, I’m reasoning that races like Orcs, Elves, Halflings, Gnomes, Goblins, and Dragonborn containing something akin to a magical “code” in their genes that allows you to trace the influence that the shifting of the material planes ambient magic had on the species.
Humans would be unique because their “code” is highly adaptable, allowing for offshoot races such as Assimar, Tieflings, Oreads, Ifrits, Slyph, and Undine to exist.

More to the point, I’m also considering the idea that goblins later evolve into Bugbears to compete with Orcs, but then progress into Hobgoblins when Humans become the dominant competition.
Similarly, I’m thinking that Lizardfolk and Nagas are descended from dragons, but later evolve into Dragonfolk.

I’d appreciate feedback on this.

Dervag
2020-03-21, 04:52 PM
@Lvl 2 expert: that is actually a really good name, I’ll be using that from now on!

Ok, so I kinda need to bring this up as a point form our history.
My reasoning for Orcs only really existing in the earlier parts of the timeline stems from how I view them: as an equivalent to the Neanderthal.
While Orcs and Neanderthal are entirely different creatures even in this setting, one could imagine their going out of existence to follow the same logic: they were out-competed by a mode advanced and adapted member of their genus.I don't think that works out too well because, as I allude to below, it invites the question of how they emerged at all and what "better adapted" even means.

...

I think you should probably just drop the word 'evolve' in your description of how these species* emerged. "A wizard/god did it" is probably applicable in a lot of cases.

Like, bugbears have at least twice a goblin's body mass. Probably more. There is no obvious reason why goblins, and not some other sapient species that's already closer to that physical size and stature, would naturally "evolve" to fill whatever hypothetical niche exists that bugbears might fill.

The origin of bugbears as an offshoot of goblins makes much more sense if you imagine "there was an amazingly powerful goblin wizard 5000 years ago, and she wanted to create supersoldiers out of her existing goblin followers, so she magically enhanced them into a breed of giant ninjas, and that's the story of where bugbears come from." Evolution may explain why they didn't go extinct in the centuries since the goblin wizard who made them disappeared, but it doesn't really explain how they emerged.

Many other sentient D&D species are like that; there's no good way to explain how natural processes of speciation gave rise to them.

_______________________________________

*(I'm not calling them 'races' because of the ease with which this gets conflated with racial groupings in real life, which in the context of the thread discussion gets kind of yikes)...



Orcs could have been created multiple times, or they could be r-strategists like Warhammer's orcs.r-strategies aren't viable for anything with a vaguely human lifestyle. They're pretty likely not compatible with sapience.

Human infants are born physically helpless and defenseless, and have to be explicitly taught the behaviors they need in order to get food* and avoid the natural hazards of their environment.** They require some kind of direct maternal care for at least a short time, and someone to 'raise' them and teach them the tool use, wilderness survival, or other skills they will need to be a functioning adult member of their species.

This immediately makes "r-strategizing" impossible. Any human infant necessarily represents a large investment of time and labor, and the death of any human child represents a major loss of resources on the part of the parent. These losses may be unavoidable but they are still losses.

Orcs are (at least in modern fantasy) generally imagined to have a human-ish lifecycle of being helpless infants who have to learn the secrets of tool use and survival in their natural environment over a period of years. They might mature a little faster or something, but it's not going to be a huge difference. With that being the case, they simply cannot function without social systems, language use, interaction with members of the species outside the immediate nuclear family unit, and so on.

They're not r-strategists to anything like the point that would let them function without a social order for which mental skills at planning, negotiation, and so on become relevant. And if they were like that, they wouldn't need sapience in the normal sense, because (like the children of r-strategizing species) they would need to be born knowing instinctively how to survive and thrive in their environment assuming nothing eats them first.
_______________________________

*(Baby must learn "these root vegetables are good to eat," "here is how to take care of a pig," or "this is how to sit still and follow directions so your employer will like you later on.")
**(Baby must learn "don't eat the orange berries," "don't go climbing in dead trees," "don't stick a fork in an electrical socket.")

ZeroGear
2020-03-21, 05:08 PM
@Dervag
I could have sworn I’ve mentioned this before, but changed to the creatures in the setting are influenced by changed to the “composition” of the world’s magic.
Even if creatures can’t actually use magic inherently, the ambience still influences their development.
That being said, if you think the word “evolve” is ill suited, I’m open to suggestions as to how better to describe these changes.

On a separate but related note:
The world I’m building has two very distinct traits that I feel are worth mentioning:

1) It has an oratory planar system where the seasons are influenced by the orbits of the elemental planes. Such orbits also play a role in the changes to the ambient magic of the world.

2) Gods only exist because beings believe they do. While divine spells are formed and cast via prayer and channeling, the gods that are prayed to are dependent on followers to actually exist.
Yes, these beings have powers that are unrivaled in the world and can grant spells to their clerics, however they only have those powers as long as there is enough belief in them.
As such, while the primal powers of divine magic will always exist, no god can outlive their adherents.

Anonymouswizard
2020-03-21, 06:53 PM
Well, this is a dangerous, violent world. Dating the big strong warrior race might be all the rage for "die to a house cat" human commoners. Not to mention goblins, kobolds and other races whose ideal of beauty might already be closer to that of orcs.

This.

I also remember one GURPS game where we took all the PC races, worked out their average default Sex Appeal skill, and put it in a list to work out the 'sexiest' race. Dwarfs topped the list, elves came at the bottom, but we never got the GM to give us the template for orcs (instead he started adding cross-species modifiers to the skill). I suspect they would have been a bit above humans though, the skill is based on Health.

Even in modern society perceptions of what's attractive differ based on life experience and just random chance. It's possible to be considered ugly by most of the population but drop dead gorgeous to a certain subset, or the other way around, and if you crunch through the data any attempt to add an 'attractiveness' stat to RPGs runs into problems relating to the fact that people's preferences just vary, with sometimes relatively equal camps considering the opposite sides of a spectrum attractive. I once managed to get it to work, but it was much more about your ability to present yourself than your looks (it was used for skills like Disguise and Acting, I eventually rolled it into the Presence stat as it just wasn't worth taking).

On the other hand in the right group and the right game Attractiveness stats can be fun, especially if buying them up or down doesn't impact your resources. But nine times out of ten they're useless.


Okay, tangent over.

For orcs not being integrated into the human population we have to ask ourselves, how much do orcish and human territories overlap, how much interbreeding is happening, what's each species evolutionary advantages, and what's the environment like.

Yes I am hideously oversimplifying here.

So, assuming both human and orc tribes have a similar amount of intra-tribe conflict going on, that both orcs and humans are willing to breed with each other, and that we're using standard 5e racial mechanics then in an environment that favours a mixture of the six stats the orcs will be outcompeted by the humans in shared or adjacent territories, while orcs will dominate in territories where Strength and Constituion are more important and Intelligence less so. Where orcs really got left behind is their negative Intelligence modifier in previous editions (do they still have that?) limited their ability to come up with ways to alter their environment to their advantage. Orcs will develop tools and agriculture slower than the other 'common' races, simply because they're not as good at thinking outside the box, although they likely aren't technologically static, just slower to advance.

Another problem orcs might encounter is their stat bonuses. Orcs are bigger and stronger than humans, and will tend to find it easier to hunt and kill(/capture) their quarry, even if they have minor difficulties in tracking it. This gives them less incentive to advance than humans again, and at a certain poimt humans begin to outcompete orcs.

Now comes the interesting part, in that orcs change even without interreeding with humans. Tribes of orcs with more intelligent and creative members start doing better as their technology begins to progress, and the genetic traits for intelligence and curiosity begin to spread.

The interesting thing is that if you keep it at such a basic level you can justify the 'humans but X' approach to intelligent races, to avoid getting outcompeted or integrated they all moved towards traits that helped them shape their environment.


One of the things I've been doing with a Fantasy AGE setting I want to run is playing with how the races developed. Elves didn't develop beyond stone age technology on their own, their high speed and good senses combined with their development of magic made it so they never needed to, but they did eventually adopt it by trading the secrets of magic for the secrets of technology. Humans were the first species to domesticate instead of tame animals, and their domesticated animals react much better to them than they do to other races. Dwarves as they are in most fantasy settings went practically extinct after the development of agriculture lead to most of them to move above ground to farm, their descendants are the gnomes who are consideredto be especially good at raising plants. Halfings wander in tribes with varying amounts of technical knowledge and skills. Orcs are (literally) what you get if you cross a human with a goblin, a bit shorter and stockier than a human but possibly the most technically-adept race on the continent, havng developed muskets, pistols, and the printing press (done not by giving them an INT boost but by changing their bonus skills and making them incredibly curious).

A side note is that the only crossbreeds to be reliably fertile are human/goblin (orc) and human/orc (as well as theoretically orc/goblin).

LibraryOgre
2020-03-21, 07:19 PM
r-strategies aren't viable for anything with a vaguely human lifestyle. They're pretty likely not compatible with sapience.

They're not r-strategists to anything like the point that would let them function without a social order for which mental skills at planning, negotiation, and so on become relevant. And if they were like that, they wouldn't need sapience in the normal sense, because (like the children of r-strategizing species) they would need to be born knowing instinctively how to survive and thrive in their environment assuming nothing eats them first.


Ok, first of all, take a look at Warhammer Orcs (https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Orks#History)... they are r-strategists, because they're essentially fungi. They don't have traditional childhoods, since much of their knowledge is genetically encoded by insane deities.

As for r-strategists not being compatible with sapience... I think that's a bit limited. Consider, for example, the krogan. While we don't get a clear idea of how they function, they have thousands of eggs that are non-viable after the genophage, and were considered a possible Malthusian threat before the genophage. They were r-strategists on Tchunka, then they leveraged their sapience to remove their reproductive stresses... and r-strategy combined with reduced predation resulted in them having a population explosion.

Jay R
2020-03-21, 09:34 PM
It seems to me that people are bringing in unnecessary considerations that are causing difficulties. The solution is not to bring them in, in the first place.

Modern ideas of evolution assume modern biology and physics without exceptions. But magic provides innumerable exceptions, which means we don’t have to assume evolution works the same way it does here on earth — especially given that we know it doesn’t. Owlbears show us that birds and mammals aren’t separate. Fairies and giants show that the cube-square law doesn’t apply. Dragons that breathe fire or cold violate conservation of energy. And many creatures just don’t fit into modern taxonomy. So evolution (if it exists at all) doesn’t have to follow our scientific laws.

I assume that evolution is much faster, that some species are created by gods, that different species can interbreed, and that nobody in my world has developed a working theory of evolution anyway.

Orcs could have developed underground, or in a land that didn’t interact with humans until recently. In my world, orcs are primarily parasites, and can only thrive on the outskirts of a larger civilization. The basic unit of orc society is the raiding party.

But mainly, don’t ask questions about the origins of the species that cannot help your game, and can hurt it.

The orcs are attacking. Don’t theorize; fight back!

Dervag
2020-03-22, 12:04 AM
@Dervag
I could have sworn I’ve mentioned this before, but changed to the creatures in the setting are influenced by changed to the “composition” of the world’s magic.OK, but I'm not clear on how or why that works, but it's clearly a relevant factor that may impact which intelligent species survive and thrive- though not necessarily in the obvious ways.

Especially if the planes aren't just oscillating between polar extremes of fire and water, or earth and air. What if they're also oscillating between, say, love and war, brains and brawn, or nature and 'cityfication?'

Note that it COULD cut both ways. For example, if 3000 years ago the world was more influenced by 'love' and less by 'war,' then that might favor species that get along together well and have high social skills.

On the other hand, I could see it having the exact opposite effect- maybe the orcs, with high natural combativeness, were well adapted to that environment and had the right balance of 'love' and 'war' within themselves. But when 'war' is more prevalent, they become so warlike that it actually impairs their ability to cope with their environment.


That being said, if you think the word “evolve” is ill suited, I’m open to suggestions as to how better to describe these changes.Words like "emerge," "develop," and "appear" are probably better suited to describe the origin of species in this setting, because that setting may well have been catalyzed by artificial selection in a lot of cases.


2) Gods only exist because beings believe they do. While divine spells are formed and cast via prayer and channeling, the gods that are prayed to are dependent on followers to actually exist.

Yes, these beings have powers that are unrivaled in the world and can grant spells to their clerics, however they only have those powers as long as there is enough belief in them.
As such, while the primal powers of divine magic will always exist, no god can outlive their adherents.So, like, there will always be a fire god, or a bunch of fire gods revered in different places, but no one fire god is guaranteed to outlive the civilization that revered them at its hearth-altars.

Cool. I like that, and it contributes to the idea of a 'churning' world that has existed for a long time in a more or less cyclic state.


Ok, first of all, take a look at Warhammer Orcs (https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Orks#History)... they are r-strategists, because they're essentially fungi. They don't have traditional childhoods, since much of their knowledge is genetically encoded by insane deities.Warhammer 40k orks are indeed like that- but they're not D&D orcs.


As for r-strategists not being compatible with sapience... I think that's a bit limited. Consider, for example, the krogan. While we don't get a clear idea of how they function, they have thousands of eggs that are non-viable after the genophage, and were considered a possible Malthusian threat before the genophage. They were r-strategists on Tchunka, then they leveraged their sapience to remove their reproductive stresses... and r-strategy combined with reduced predation resulted in them having a population explosion.The thing is, the krogan don't seem to be r-strategists, they just kept breeding at what would probably be normal rates for (say) Iron Age humans... while being biologically nigh-immortal.

Each individual krogan baby still apparently needs years to grow to maturity and is presumably effectively helpless until they learn a bunch of stuff from their parents or community. Or am I wrong about that?

But with that being the case... In the biology sense of the term, they're not r-strategists. Krogan!Mom is still investing great resources in each individual child.

GreatWyrmGold
2020-03-22, 06:32 AM
My advice: Don't make different races different species. Make different races just...different races, if that. The biological and cultural differences between native Americans and European colonists were historically more than enough for the latter to justify treating the former worse than orcs and humans treat each other in most settings.

I'd say that cultural differences, e.g. worshiping Grummsh instead of Pelor (or whoever the default orc/human gods are in Faerun), would be enough to justify the hostility (and, over the short term*, maintain culturally-enforced reproductive barriers), and point to the Crusades as an example...
...except that neither side of the Crusades was actually a unified army representing their culture, because it turns out you don't really need cultural differences to justify the kind of raiding and periodic warfare that typifies orc-human relations in most settings. In fact, even a unified cause isn't always enough to justify not fighting your nominal allies! (The Crusades were a mess, guys. The Crusaders picked fights with the Byzantines when they weren't crossing a river fast enough.)

There's also the fact that emphasizing the biological differences between different D&D races...well...it's not racist, per se, but it makes your setting sound more like how racists describe the world. I don't want to get into an argument about how fiction representing a given worldview (intentionally or not) affects the audience's worldview, so I'll leave it at "Doesn't that make you feel kinda icky?"

When defining the differences between different races, I'd focus more on resources and history. For instance, maybe the orcish homeland has crappy farmland, forcing them to adopt a nomadic lifestyle akin to the Mongols, and encouraging them to raid human lands for goods you can't produce from horseback. The orcs see this as a righteous way to exchange goods (think of the Ironborn's "iron price" from A Song of Ice and Fire, or maybe just generic "might makes right"), but humans see it as vanilla banditry.
You might also see the odd orcish warlord who detests the hypocrisy of human nobles calling orcs thieves for claiming what is theirs by right of conquest, before turning around and stealing from those same peasants without so much as an open challenge. This fuels the warlord's passion, which attracts orcs (who love fighting for a righteous cause almost as much as they love not starving) for proper invasions. These invasions keep humanity paranoid about the "orcish threat," which leads to them pre-emptively attacking any orcish clan which gathers "too much" power...which is seen as more hypocrisy, which fuels more warlords, and so on.

*Centuries, or more if orcs and humans have geographical barriers assisting, but not any meaningful amount of time in an evolutionary sense.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-22, 06:47 AM
Perhaps there is at least one small environment that is mostly isolated from the rest of the world, and is habitable to Orcs, but humans and other races find it too hostile? Like a mountain valley where Humans find it too cold and too difficult to grow food, while Orcs primarily focus on hunting or growing crops in small, indoors enclosures.

Or perhaps Orcs primarily live on one or more islands that are for the most part cut off. and since their populations are so small and their environment so consistent, they don't need to change too much.

i myself was planning on having Orcs act out a raider / viking-type role in the world. they live on an island but can't or won't produce everything they need. so they go off, raid some settlements, then come back with the goods, leaving the settlements alone for a few decades to recover.

Half-Orcs could even be intentionally created for their intelligence and wit, allowing more advanced inventions and ideas to pop into existence that the Purebloods then adopt. Perhaps half-orcs are treated as second-class citizens, are sterilized at a young age, or don't pass on their intelligence to any quarter-human offspring they have. these combined with the idea that there are only ever three or fewer half-orcs in any Orc settlement at a time could prevent the Orcs from being utterly replaced.



More to the point, I’m also considering the idea that goblins later evolve into Bugbears to compete with Orcs, but then progress into Hobgoblins when Humans become the dominant competition.
I feel like Goblin-to-bugbear might be a bit of a drastic change all things considered. Perhaps Goblins evolved first into Hobgoblins, who then intentionally or not, branched themselves off into a Bugbear subspecies / brute caste?

Perhaps Bugbears Goblins and Hobgbolins are all the same race, with Hobgoblins being the norm, Goblins being a pigmy worker caste, and Bugbears being a brutish warrior caste?

GreatWyrmGold
2020-03-22, 07:19 PM
Half-Orcs could even be intentionally created for their intelligence and wit...
Hoo boy. Remember what I said earlier about writing the way racists think? This is really bad on that front. You've got your eugenics, your dominant-race supremacy, and given how orcs generally "create" half-orcs, you've got some lovely black brute imagery in there, too.

Guys. Racial coding is part of fantasy. It's been there from the start—deliberately for Tolkien and many other authors, unconsciously or plagiaristically for others, but present nonetheless. Ph yeah, and we call them races. Please, think about the implications of this sort of idea before using them in your world.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-22, 07:58 PM
Maybe for you. Personally i intentionally seek out things that are radically different from reality because that's the point of Fantasy fiction, it's different, it's strange, it's not real.

For me at least, saying some race, species, breed, or what have you has a second-class caste isn't an attempt to push some nonexistent agenda, it's just an attempt to explore a different world and culture without needing to actually be in a situation where such a thing would exist.

For most people, referring to orcs elves and humans as different Races is just an easier way to say "They are not the same" then "Species". it's not some eugenics scheme or whatever it is you're thinking of, it's just better wordplay. exact same reason why Pokemon are referred to as having there Gender be male or female rather then their Sex, which would be more technically accurate. Gender is just the more comfortable way of saying the information in that context.

you're the one making things about Dominant-race superiority and other icky stuff. not us.

Anonymouswizard
2020-03-22, 08:31 PM
It seems to me that people are bringing in unnecessary considerations that are causing difficulties. The solution is not to bring them in, in the first place.

Modern ideas of evolution assume modern biology and physics without exceptions. But magic provides innumerable exceptions, which means we don’t have to assume evolution works the same way it does here on earth — especially given that we know it doesn’t. Owlbears show us that birds and mammals aren’t separate. Fairies and giants show that the cube-square law doesn’t apply. Dragons that breathe fire or cold violate conservation of energy. And many creatures just don’t fit into modern taxonomy. So evolution (if it exists at all) doesn’t have to follow our scientific laws.

Blargh, *because magic* is the worst excuse ever for dropping an idea.

Evolution is a set of rules that boil down to 'random mutations happen, the least fit for the environment tend to die out'. I really don't see how the presence of magic changes that unless it changes:

How traits are passed from parents to their offspring.
How new traits enter a population (random mutation or breeding with other populations that produce viable fertile offspring).
The environmental pressures on a population.
A creature's fertility.
Some other things I'm not sure about because I'm not actually a biologist.


Although note that unlike the others 3 probably won't stop evolution entirely, just change what traits are seen as 'least fit'. Although I also want to point out that this isn't survival of the fittest, environmental factors (and I believe population size to an extent) remove those who can't avoid or mitigate them. Bunnies aren't fast because the fastest escaped from foxes, they're fast because the slowest didn't escape from foxes.

Now there's a lot magic can do to change the specifics of evolution, but beyond a point you have to resort to 'wizards create a lot of weird animals' to work out how an owlbear exists. Although come to think of it, they probably don't in a setting where the creator is trying to use a vaguely-realistic version of evolution.

Now there's nothing wrong with throwing out evolution entirely, especially if you're going for an explicitly deity-constructed world, but if you want to include it then there's nothing wrong with actually putting in some effort to make it work.

GreatWyrmGold
2020-03-23, 12:39 AM
Maybe for you. Personally i intentionally seek out things that are radically different from reality because that's the point of Fantasy fiction, it's different, it's strange, it's not real.

For me at least, saying some race, species, breed, or what have you has a second-class caste isn't an attempt to push some nonexistent agenda, it's just an attempt to explore a different world and culture without needing to actually be in a situation where such a thing would exist.
Oh, for...I've made it bloody clear that I'm not accusing you of being racist, that you're just writing a world that maps to racist thought patterns. I really don't want to get into a flame war about why this matters, but if that's what it takes to stop you from putting words into my gods-darned mouth...that's another matter.

A problem with exploring the same themes about differences between groups as racists which shouldn't be too controversial is that it's not interesting. It's been done to death already by blatant racists, well-meaning liberals, and everyone in between. Exploring "What if one group of people was inherently superior to another?" through fantasy is at least as old as Tolkien (https://www.thefandomentals.com/tolkien-race-original-sins/), and whether it's older or not has more to do with how you define "fantasy" than how deep you look for examples.

And you know what? There's not actually that much to explore. If one group is just plain superior to another, people in that group are just plain superior. If one group is better at X but worse at Y, then members of that group make good X's and bad Y's. Inherent differences are boring, partly because they are (by nature) inevitable, and partly because they are arbitrary. Whether they're something you can overcome with enough effort an insurmountable disadvantage is up to the author, and there's not much you can say with "Orcs can be good wizards if they try hard enough, because that's how I wrote the orcs."


For most people, referring to orcs elves and humans as different Races is just an easier way to say "They are not the same" then "Species". it's not some eugenics scheme or whatever it is you're thinking of, it's just better wordplay. exact same reason why Pokemon are referred to as having there Gender be male or female rather then their Sex, which would be more technically accurate. Gender is just the more comfortable way of saying the information in that context.
Well, also the fact that "gender" and "sex" were used interchangeably much more often back when the early generations were localized, since transgender people weren't something most people were cognizant of. But that's irrelevant to your point and mine.

There are two possible interpretations of "It's not some eugenics scheme". The first (and easier to debunk) is that orcs breeding with humans to increase the collective intelligence of their community isn't eugenics, which...it literally is. If this is actually your point, I apologize and will address it later, but I'm only bringing this possibility up because of my chronic autopedantry.

The second is that you're saying "The terminology used to describe different genetically-distinct groups within D&D worlds is not indicative of racist beliefs". Which...no duh. Remember when I said that "it's not racist, per se, but it makes your setting sound more like how racists describe the world"? Do you see how I started the segment with "It's not racist" and emphasized "sound," as if I was trying to make it abundantly clear that I wasn't attacking anyone's character but rather criticizing the end result of their work? Because that's exactly what I was doing.

In the end, only audience remains. It doesn't matter if a story about orcs breeding with human women to produce children of superior intellect was written out of a genuine curiosity about what a world with orcs and humans might look like or out of a desire to write a story about the Untermensch plotting to steal or defile everything good about the Ubermensch's society; the end result is the same, a story which mirrors distinctly racist stories in our culture's collective consciousness. You might as well argue that "ironically" terrible prose is somehow distinct from plain old bad writing.

Once the author puts down the pen, they are dead, and only the text remains. Make sure it's a good text.

Also, pro tip: Notice how this part of the discussion revolves around orcs and humans interbreeding, causing gene flow between the two groups. This is common among fantasy races. Sometimes the children are sterile, but they usually aren't. Orcs and humans aren't distinct species, they're subspecies. And you know what a mildly archaic synonym for "subspecies" is? Race. (To say nothing of attempts to categorize humanity into distinct subspecies, because...well, most of the attempts tend to be more racist than scientific, and apparently talking about the racist-sounding elements of a story is accusing someone of being Hitler.)


you're the one making things about Dominant-race superiority and other icky stuff. not us.
I'm not the one who said that humans are genetically more intelligent than orcs and proposed that orcs use eugenics to take advantage of this. Which is, incidentally, not the only reason one genetically-distinct group can have different mental performance than another. There's plenty of environmental or cultural reasons that could explain a lower e.g. Intelligence score...and since those can be more flexible and less arbitrary than inherent origins of such difference, they open themselves to more storytelling options than "All orcs are X".

Also, the whole "race has literally always been part of fantasy races" thing. If I was trying to get into this, I'd be starting with "fictional things are never just fictional things," but I'm trying to get out of it, so I'll settle for a Tolkien quote (https://pawneeland.wordpress.com/2015/03/25/the-least-lovely-folk-of-middle-earth/) (haven't read the article, it was just the first non-Wikipedia source of the "(to Europeans) least lovely Mongol" quote I Googled).



-snip-
I'm sick of disagreeing with people, so I'll just say: Preach it! Evolution is not dependent on the specific conditions of our planet! Magic does not let you arbitrarily discard real-world science in a world which largely functions like our own!

ZeroGear
2020-03-23, 01:59 AM
@Dervag
You're exactly spot-on when it comes to the planar systems.
I'm kinda building this world from scratch, and am drawing heavy influence from the planar system of Eberron. Case in point, the planes of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air have the most direct impact on the world, as their orbit causes the seasons to change, however there are many other planes out there in much more eccentric or lengthy orbits.
For example, my setting will have a plane similar to the Beastlands, a wild and primal place where everything is more savage and chaotic than the material world. In theory (which I'm kinda considering doing as it's the perfect explanation) when that plane is closest to the material, life seems to become more rough. Species seem to develop in more muscular forms, with many more dire animals emerging than normal.
Imagine this is the time where the strongest rules, and races such as Wild Elves, Orcs, Neanderthal, Bugbears, Lizardmen, and Gnolls were the norm.
I know it's not a perfect explanation, but it's one that's believable enough to work.

@GreatWyrmGold
I understand what you're getting at, and will take your opinion into consideration, but you really need to back off on this one.
Please understand, this IS a fantasy setting, and, quite frankly, while Eugenics doesn't fly in the world we live in, nor is it a belief that anyone should support, the beings of the world I'm building ARE genetically different.
Maybe not to a large degree, but and Orc is as different from an Human as a Terrier is from a Dingo. Yes, they probably share some ancestry, but in the end they are different species.
And quite frankly, your language is not something I'm willing to tolerate. No one on this thread wrote about Eugenics, and it probably didn't cross anyone's mind until You brought it up. And I will not let a thread I made be the platform for preaching of any kind, wether intended or not.
You're free to continue to express your opinion on this thread as long as it's relevant to the topic at hand, but please refrain from bringing in real-world issues. There are other threads related to such topics.

Dervag
2020-03-23, 02:04 AM
My advice: Don't make different races different species. Make different races just...different races, if that. The biological and cultural differences between native Americans and European colonists were historically more than enough for the latter to justify treating the former worse than orcs and humans treat each other in most settings.

I'd say that cultural differences, e.g. worshiping Grummsh instead of Pelor (or whoever the default orc/human gods are in Faerun), would be enough to justify the hostility (and, over the short term*, maintain culturally-enforced reproductive barriers), and point to the Crusades as an example...

...except that neither side of the Crusades was actually a unified army representing their culture, because it turns out you don't really need cultural differences to justify the kind of raiding and periodic warfare that typifies orc-human relations in most settings. In fact, even a unified cause isn't always enough to justify not fighting your nominal allies! (The Crusades were a mess, guys. The Crusaders picked fights with the Byzantines when they weren't crossing a river fast enough.)

There's also the fact that emphasizing the biological differences between different D&D races...well...it's not racist, per se, but it makes your setting sound more like how racists describe the world. I don't want to get into an argument about how fiction representing a given worldview (intentionally or not) affects the audience's worldview, so I'll leave it at "Doesn't that make you feel kinda icky?"The big problem is that D&D is a very stat-heavy game, and people want to build characters with stats.

It's hard to break out of that mindset of "elves are quick and clever and delicate, and dwarves are tough and gruff, and orcs are... uh... giant thug-men...*, and this impacts my play choices because I want to play a quick, clever, delicate character!"

*(Orcs really get the ****ty end of the stick here)
________________________________

If I were just doing backstory for a setting, I'd honestly seriously consider going with your idea- the functional differences between humanoid species tend to be pretty minimal unless the species in question are visibly very different on the level of bulk anatomy or biochemistry, probably to the extent of not being able to interbreed and reliably produce fertile hybrids.

But that's awkward when you try to mesh it with the pressure to create backstory for a mechanics-heavy roleplaying game, which is why some of the YIKES stuff in D&D has persisted well into the 21st century.


Maybe for you. Personally i intentionally seek out things that are radically different from reality because that's the point of Fantasy fiction, it's different, it's strange, it's not real.Except that our choices of what to say about deliberately-constructed 'not real' worlds still mirror our own ideas about how reality works. And the comfort zone we deliberately craft for ourselves.

There's a relationship between what we choose, not only to imagine, but to propagate to others and to play with ourselves for years at a time... And what we actually believe and accept and what our values are.


For me at least, saying some race, species, breed, or what have you has a second-class caste isn't an attempt to push some nonexistent agenda, it's just an attempt to explore a different world and culture without needing to actually be in a situation where such a thing would exist.Except that the idea that this logically would 'exist' is itself an idea rooted in assumptions that we make.

Like, what exactly is passing through the mind of these orcs. They're supposedly "making" half-orcs (strongly implied that this is big brutish orc males forcing sex upon human females) because they're "weaker but smarter and useful" and the society is sterilizing them and... like... whut. This is a level of deliberate, society-wide eugenics that strongly implies a few things:

1) That the orcs are borderline totalitarian in their cultural attitudes towards 'racial hygiene.' That's... actually very rare in real life. Our concept of racial boundaries is fairly new, as are laws against 'miscegenation.' Most societies throughout history just didn't have the concept, nor did such a concept benefit them, so these orcs having it makes them very strange. OUR society has it because Europeans and Americans built entire social orders around hierarchies of power that defined black/brown people as slaves or colonial subjects and then needed to justify a power structure in which, effectively, every single white person was categorically different/better/separate from every single black/brown person. Without that kind of global intercontinental imperial dominance or racial slave-based economy, such firm conceptions do not emerge.

2) That the orcs KNOW they are the 'strong, stupid' species and actively embrace this. This is the kind of thing that seems psychologically unlikely, unless you write orcs as "inferior subhumans who know they are inferior and embrace this definition to the point of feeling inadequate and fearful around their betters." Which is not a headspace decent people with a healthy worldview want to spend a lot of time floating around in because of how deeply bull****ty it is and how much it can warp perspectives.


For most people, referring to orcs elves and humans as different Races is just an easier way to say "They are not the same" then "Species". it's not some eugenics scheme or whatever it is you're thinking of, it's just better wordplay. exact same reason why Pokemon are referred to as having there Gender be male or female rather then their Sex, which would be more technically accurate. Gender is just the more comfortable way of saying the information in that context.The thing is, "race" isn't really a more comfortable way of saying "species" on a sentence-by-sentence basis.

If anything, it's less comfortable. Well, unless you've deliberately staked out ground on the hill of "people worrying about racism are crazy/foolish/part-of-a-conspiracy and I will have none of it." And that's not a hill I want to take my stand on because it's a hill where a lot of terrible people have buried the bones of a lot of good people.

GreatWyrmGold
2020-03-23, 08:08 PM
Alright. Normally, I quote people who disagree with me and deconstruct their arguments point-by-point, but that seems like a recipe for frustration, especially since multiple people are disagreeing with me in similar ways. So instead I'll break down the posts into individual ideas, and respond to each of those. If you feel I'm ignoring or misrepresenting one of your points, please point that out to me so I can respond properly.

Also, I'll be posting links to various videos and essays and whatnot on the internet written by people far better at arguing this kind of thing than me. I'll try to summarize what's important to my point about it. For instance:

"Racial coding is inherently part of fantasy races, whether that's intentional or not. Lindsay Ellis's video on Bright (https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8?t=1444) has a good explanation of this."

I'm not going to demand that you watch/read every single link I post or surrender to my superior set of references, but...I'd appreciate if you at least glanced at ones supporting points you take umbrage with.

1. "Nobody was thinking about race/eugenics/whatever until you came in."

Yes, I know. That's the problem.

There's an anecdote in one of Hello Future Me (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFQMO-YL87u-6Rt8hIVsRjA)'s videos that I wanted to link, but I couldn't find it in the one I thought it was in, so I'll have to paraphrase it and you'll have to trust that this isn't just a ridiculous hypothetical I made up.

He describes a story he wrote when he was young and dumber, which he wanted to be a pro-multiculturalism story where the protagonist had to learn from a foreign culture in order to handle the problem facing his own culture. He also made the protagonist of the story a person of color, because that also seemed inclusive.
So he wrote a story where a POC can't save his homeland until white people teach him how to. He didn't intend t, but he basically wrote a White Savior narrative from the perspective of a native.

As I said: In the end, only audience remains. It doesn't matter what your intent is, whether you meant to parrot racist themes or not. What matters is what you write. That's why you need to think these things through.

Why? I mean, assuming you don't care whether your work is indistinguishable from KKK crap, which seems like enough reason to me but maybe it's not to you.

Cultivation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqxEFNFOVTw) theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultivation_theory).

To keep it brief: Cultivation theory suggests that the media we consume affects us. For instance, there's a study which suggests that Harry Potter fans are less sympathetic to racist beliefs than people who haven't read/watched the series. (If anyone happens to know the title or have a link or something, I'd appreciate it. I thought I had a link somewhere in my bookmarks but I can't find it and it's a useful study to have for this kind of thing.)

Without getting too deep into the weeds, the theory is not that kids reading about Harry Potter fighting Voldemort consciously recognized the books as proof that racism is wrong, but rather that empathising with characters in an oppressed minority and seeing their oppressors framed as wrong (in both the "villainous" and "incorrect" sense) influenced their ability to sympathise with real-world oppressed minorities and how they viewed comparable ideologies in the real world. (Boy was that a run-on sentence.)

Imagine if Harry Potter was not a half-blood raised in secret as a Muggle who fought pureblood supremacists, but rather the scion of two dead pureblood houses raised in secret to protect him from the mudblood elites who seek to destroy wizarding society. Do you think the effects would be the same, even if basically everything else about the series was unchanged?

And here's the kicker. Imagine if JK Rowling wrote Bizzarro Potter unironically. He's not the scion of mage fascists, he's the non-monarchical equivalent of a Rightful Prince who needs to take the throne from these nasty bad guys. Do you think Rowling's intent would change her hypothetical story's effect on the reader?

But Rowling didn't write Bizzarro Potter. She thought about the implications of what she wrote (if not as thoroughly as she could have, e.g. how Fenrir Greyback interacts with the queer subtext around Lupin). She didn't accidentally write a story about the genetically righteous were restored to power and put the powerless back in their place. She wrote a story about bloodline purists who sought to oppress those they considered inferior, and a child sympathetic to the "inferiors" who restored equality to the land after they briefly installed their corrupt leader.


2. "But races are that genetically distinct in this world! That's just the truth in this world!"

This world you wrote.

I'm sure there are some of you who already have a response ready as soon as I say "Thermian argument" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk). I'm not sure any of those responses will actually be relevant, because the Thermian Argument is all about irrelevant arguments.

I say that writing as though orcs are genetically inferior to humans is bad. You reply that orcs really are genetically inferior to humans. They're different species, it makes sense, blah blah. You haven't really addressed my points when you say this, any more than "Hurting people is wrong" is a counterargument to "Policy X will hurt people". It's an argument in an entirely different playing field.

"Orcs and humans are actually different species" is not a counterargument to "Orcs shouldn't be portrayed as genetically inferior". It can be part of a counterargument, supporting a core point that's actually relevant to what I was arguing...but I'm pretty sure it's going to be some variation of "it's not actually the same as the real-world situation, so you can't apply the same rules". Ergo:

2.5. Some variation of "it's not actually the same as the real-world situation, so you can't apply the same rules"

Animal Farm is not an allegory for the Soviet Union's rise and fall from grace. The animals and the farmers aren't different classes, they're different species. How could you possibly read them as being equivalent?

Okay, that's an extreme example. But the point still stands; people can and will draw connections between thematically parallel situations, regardless of Watsonian differences. This isn't always so blatant and conscious as in outright allegory. To quote Lindsay Ellis, "an alien is never really just an alien." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srul5Xd2kT4)

3. "Orcs breeding with humans isn't eugenics."

Quick Googled definition: "The study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable," followed by historical notes. Now, unless you want to go all pedant and argue that orcs aren't a human population, it should be obvious that breeding with humans with the specific intent to make half-orcs due to their desirable intelligence is literally eugenics.

It doesn't matter that it wasn't intended as eugenic. It's still literally eugenics.

4. "D&D is a stat-heavy game, and races need stat bonuses/penalties."

Point A: Why? Backgrounds don't. Are you saying that farmers aren't stronger and hardier than musicians and clerks?

Point B: My issue is not with the mere fact that orcs have penalties to intelligence. It's with how those penalties are justified in-universe. The core rulebooks don't take a stance on the issue, and while that's not ideal, it's the core rulebook for Dungeons and Dragons, not Epidemics and Educators, so I'm fine with it just leaving it at "orcs are less good at Intelligencey stuff".

That changes if you have orcs breeding with humans specifically to get half-orcs for their superior intelligence and creativity. If you write that, you are explicitly saying that orcs are genetically dumber than humans.

Either address these sorts of things, e.g. by implying that orcs are only "less intelligent" than humans because they don't have access to the same resources and educational systems as humans, or just don't have aspects of your setting/story rely on why orcs have a lower Intelligence score than humans.

5. "Don't bring in real-world issues."

That's impossible.

People like to imagine that fantasy can be a canvas free from all the biases of the real world, living in its own little dimension. It isn't. Even putting aside the unconscious biases that both author and audience bring to the table, even putting aside the history of authors deliberately including real-world issues and having their work incorporated into the greater pantheon of fantasy tropes (remember the "least lovely Mongols" quote?)...that's just not how fiction works.

Fiction cannot be created without an author. That author cannot create anything separate from the cultural context they were raised in, or the one they were writing in. That's just not how people work.
Fiction cannot have meaning without an audience. That audience cannot understand anything separate from their own upbringing and current context. That, too, is just not how people work.
Just because the author metaphorically dies when they lay their pen down doesn't mean they can be equally dead while writing the piece, and it certainly doesn't mean the audience can be dead for the entire performance.

Why do some characters resonate with us, while others feel flat and artificial? Why do some conflicts feel organic, inevitable, tragic, and others phoned-in or arbitrary? Hell, why does anyone care about logical consistency in stories? Why is verisimilitude a desirable quality in a fantasy story? Because the story only has meaning relative to our own experiences...and those experiences can only provide meaning in context.

I could nitpick, pointing to individual posts where real-world issues were brought in. From demographic shifts and romantic preferences to the very concepts of race and evolution, every post in this thread brings in real-world issues, because fantasy has no meaning without reality.

The difference is that you thought my real-world issues were being brought in to call you racist, and that makes you uncomfortable in a way that r-strategists and suspension of disbelief don't.

ZeroGear
2020-03-24, 12:34 AM
SNIP

Ok, NO. I'm going to stop you before point one.
Your posts are not relevant to the topic being discussed. This is a discussion on how sentient beings would develop in in a timeline to a fantasy world that I'm building. Please DO NOT bring Eugenics into this discussion.
As stated before, you are welcome to stay if you wish to contribute ideas how one form of Genetically Distinct Sentient Inhabitant of a Fantasy World changes and developed into a different form, but you are NOT going to start crytisizing people on their language.
If you don't like the terms we're using, then feel free to leave. No one is forcing you to argue your point, and quite frankly, it's not a point that's welcome in THIS discussion.
Thank you kindly.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-24, 02:29 AM
Right, so in hopes of getting this topic back on topic, here's a "family Tree" of the nine major races i planned on using in a probably-never-going-to-happen campaign. i don't know if it will help or not, but hopefully it will, or at least give you some ideas.

https://i.imgur.com/VjmaKOg.png

So, in this particular Tree, Goblinoids, Humanoids, and what i'm calling Dwarvenoids all stem from a single ancestor that branched off multiple times through the ages.

the earliest offshoot lead to the Goblinoids, who kept their more primate-like features longer then the rest of the Tree. this then split into two as one group became taller, while one remained shorter, with the shorter branch eventually becoming Goblins. The Taller branch eventually separated as well, some keeping their fur, and some loosing it (among other changes of course) becoming Bugbears and Hobgbolins respectively.

Dwarvenoids and Humanoids have a much closer common ancestor, only splitting off when one group left the treetops for one reason or another, following a similar evolution path into what we ourselves followed to become humans. At some point during that evolution, a branch broke off and began adapting to harsher environments to become Orcs. more recently Something (and i'm still not 100% sure) caused another split on the Human/elf common ancestor, leading some to become longer-lived (but not immortal / thousands-of-years) Elves, while the other branch followed a path more like our own to become Humans.

The fact that Humans, Orcs, and Elves are all fairly closely related when compared to the other kingdoms is how i personally justify Half-orcs and Half-elves being possible, while you'll almost never see a half-dwarf.

the Dwarvenoid line is a bit more interesting. When the branch that split from the Humanoid ancestors finally leaves the Trees, they remain relatively short and stubby where the Humanoids grew taller. Some of those short, stubby Dwarvenoids began living more and more underground to become Dwarves.

Where the real fun bit happens is where Gnomes originate. In this world, Magic is linked to the soul, and grows stronger with age. So at some point, primitive tribes waged battle in an isolated valley, one particular combatant using a sharpened stone that at some point attuned to it's wielder and became magical, a little less then your basic +1 weapon. This user then used that weapon to kill an enemy atop a rock, cracking the stone weapon, and leaving it buried into the stone where the enemy lay dead. For whatever reason, the weapon was abandoned. and because of the crack, the magic inside of it began to slowly leak out into the Valley around it. At some point around this time, some members of the Gnome/Halfling common ancestors moved into this valley while it was safe, remaining there for thousands of years as the magic from the weapon aged and grew more and more powerful. This eventually created a valley filled to the brim with a potent magical aura, something that normal creatures can't live in without being torn apart. But because the ancient Gnomes moved in while there was almost no magical aura in the valley, they were able to adapt to the slowly growing magical aura, eventually becoming Gnomes. All this born from the single question of "How can i have Gnomes in a low-magic setting without outer planes?" and working with the rules of "Magic ages like a fine wine" and "Magic is connected to the soul".

The ancestors that didn't move into this valley. eventually became what are now Halflings.


In terms of geography, i'm mainly picturing one primary continent with a chain of islands not too far away. the Dwarvenoids and the Gnomish Valley primarily inhabit the northern regions, while the Goblinoids inhabit the southern. the wide open areas of the continent allow each group to spread out and live entire lifetimes without seeing one another by pure chance. The Humanoids on the other hand live on the Islands, likely one or more Peninsulas that broke off the primary continent and drifted away carrying them along for the ride. Because of the water barrier between the Elves, Humans and Orcs, they don't have easy times interacting with one another either, allowing them to diversify in their own ways without intermixing and re-merging the species.

Firest Kathon
2020-03-24, 04:53 AM
Disclaimer: I'm sorry if this idea has been been brought up before, I just cross-read the thread and may have missed it.

An idea why other humanoid races still exists besides humans could be that there is no human species. Instead, "human" is a term given to cross-breeds of different races. If the cross-breeding is relatively recent, they will still show traits of their parent race(s) (half-*, genasi, ...), but further cross-breeding will just muddle the traits into the general human "race".

In world terms, that would explain the lack of a genetical magic code in them (I think you said this at some point). In mechanical terms, this is also a nice explanation for the human race boni (bonus to any one stat, more skills, bonus feat). Changes to pre-humans* (e.g. neanderthals) could be explained by an influx of cross-breeds with a new species (maybe whatever was prevalent in the respective age).

* Talking about the setting here, not real life!

ZeroGear
2020-03-24, 06:23 AM
i don't know if it will help or not, but hopefully it will, or at least give you some ideas.


Definitely! Probably not going to copy your chard exactly, and I know it's going to end up a lot more complex than your image, yet this is exactly the kind of idea that I'm looking for!


Disclaimer: I'm sorry if this idea has been been brought up before, I just cross-read the thread and may have missed it.

An idea why other humanoid races still exists besides humans could be that there is no human species. Instead, "human" is a term given to cross-breeds of different races. If the cross-breeding is relatively recent, they will still show traits of their parent race(s) (half-*, genasi, ...), but further cross-breeding will just muddle the traits into the general human "race".

In world terms, that would explain the lack of a genetical magic code in them (I think you said this at some point). In mechanical terms, this is also a nice explanation for the human race boni (bonus to any one stat, more skills, bonus feat). Changes to pre-humans* (e.g. neanderthals) could be explained by an influx of cross-breeds with a new species (maybe whatever was prevalent in the respective age).

* Talking about the setting here, not real life!

It hasn't been brought up, but it's a point that I've been thinking about.
The only real consideration is that while "humans" could easily be a race that comes about as the result of combining genres from at least Halflings, Dwarves, and Elves (There is a myth in a 3.5 Races of Destiny setting that plays off this idea), I'd kinda rather come up with an alternative to this first.
I'm not against it, and it would make a lot f sense, but it kinda is a bit of a boring route to take, and I feel like there are more interesting avenues that could be tapped first.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-24, 06:28 AM
Definitely! Probably not going to copy your chard exactly, and I know it's going to end up a lot more complex than your image, yet this is exactly the kind of idea that I'm looking for!

Sweet, glad i could be of help then!:smallbiggrin:

Jay R
2020-03-25, 08:44 AM
I don't think Anonymouswizard and I disagree nearly as much as he thinks we do. He just thinks I hold a simplistic, one-dimensional position that is not supported by my words.


Blargh, *because magic* is the worst excuse ever for dropping an idea.

Fortunately, I never said anything as simplistic and one-dimensional as "*because magic*".

There is a very simple test for determining if I have written something. If you block-copied it from my post, with relevant context, then I wrote it. But if you had to type it in yourself because those words are not found anywhere in what I wrote, then I did not write it.

In this case, I gave several reasons modern laws of biology do not inherently work in a D&D world. Some of them involve magic, but some do not. Owlbears are not inherently magical, but they demonstrate that taxonomic divisions in our world are not preserved in D&D. Giants are not inherently magic, but they really show that the cube-square law in our universe does not apply. Certainly some examples I gave are inherently magic (like dragons), but I never said or implied anything as over-simplistic as "*because magic*"

More importantly, I gave a clear specific reason for dropping the idea, and it wasn't "*because magic*". I will give it again:

But mainly, don’t ask questions about the origins of the species that cannot help your game, and can hurt it.

Please do not claim again that my reason was anything other than a desire to not hurt the game.


Evolution is a set of rules that boil down to 'random mutations happen, the least fit for the environment tend to die out'.

You skipped several steps, including genetic recombination of DNA to carry heritable traits to the offspring. And our understanding of DNA makes it impossible for different species to interbreed, as they do in D&D. In short, evolution will be different in a world in which the laws and environment are different.


I really don't see how the presence of magic changes that unless it changes:

How traits are passed from parents to their offspring.
How new traits enter a population (random mutation or breeding with other populations that produce viable fertile offspring).
The environmental pressures on a population.
A creature's fertility.
Some other things I'm not sure about because I'm not actually a biologist.


Don't be silly. Magic can change the environment faster than evolution changes the gene pool. Specifically, travel through planes means that many creatures exist in environments that their forebears – even their parents – never experienced. Spells like "awaken intelligence", "plant growth", "baleful polymorph" and others do in fact change how creatures get traits, and there is no clear answer to whether they breed true. The fact of inter-species, and even inter-clade, breeding is a huge change to fertility. So you are absolutely correct that:


Now there's a lot magic can do to change the specifics of evolution, ...

And once you've accepted that, you no longer need to eliminate orcs just to make your evolution work. Thanks for supporting my main point. I really don't think we have much disagreement.


Now there's nothing wrong with throwing out evolution entirely, ...

Again, I never suggested "throwing out evolution entirely". I specifically wrote, "I assume that evolution is much faster, that some species are created by gods, that different species can interbreed, and that nobody in my world has developed a working theory of evolution anyway." I'm not saying evolution won't happen -- just that it doesn't necessarily have to happen the way it does on earth. Inter-clade breeding alone probably means that DNA isn't involved, and whatever replaces it is very different in effect.


... but if you want to include it then there's nothing wrong with actually putting in some effort to make it work.

If it helps the game, and if it doesn't hurt the game. In this case, he's considering getting rid of orcs, not because it will help the game, but just because of an evolutionary theory. There has been no consideration of whether this decision is good for the game. That's the approach I'm arguing against.

The number one consideration should be what's good for the game. If the OP doesn't want orcs, no problem. But if he wants orcs, then he shouldn't dump them, just invent an ecological niche where they are better off than humans. This can be as easy as making them nocturnal, or cave dwellers. But the decision should be made based on what's good for the game.

Again, I don't think Anonymouswizard and I disagree nearly as much as he thinks we do.

In 45 years of role-playing, I've never heard a single player say, during or after a melee with orcs, "This is no fun. Orcs should have been eliminated by natural selection."

The orcs are attacking. Don’t theorize; fight back!

ZeroGear
2020-03-25, 02:43 PM
I
The number one consideration should be what's good for the game. If the OP doesn't want orcs, no problem. But if he wants orcs, then he shouldn't dump them, just invent an ecological niche where they are better off than humans. This can be as easy as making them nocturnal, or cave dwellers. But the decision should be made based on what's good for the game.

I think you’ve hit on a very important point here, and it’s definitely something I might need to clear up:
See, I don’t mind the idea of Orcs, it’s just that they don’t really “fit” in the setting I’m building for that given era.
The whole reason I came up with this was because I wanted to actually build a setting where you could pick an era and say “here’s what things were like at this point” and have it feel very different than picking a different era entirely.
This goes back to my other thread (see first post for link) in that I had this idea that if the ancient ruins of the world were created by giants, then it would make more sense for me to let the players chose giants as their race and scale to world to their size.
The working idea for my world is that after the giants civilization collapses, smaller races full the niches that were left and develop accordingly.
Thanks to a lot of the feedback from this thread, I’m thinking that the age after the giants everything is more primal and brutish, and hardier races such as muscular wild elves, orcs, bugbears, Neanderthal, and lizardfolk would be the norm.
Later, as the planes shift, these beings would change into new forms that had a higher focus on intellect with a much more complex culture developing in the process.

Heck, the big reason I started this train of thought is because almost every entry for Orcs describes them as living in squalor, among other things, and seemed as though they would be outpaced by any other civilization.
As such, it made more sense to me to find a way for them to exist in the timeline instead of cutting two races entirely.
I’m sorry if that led to any misunderstandings about my intent.

GreatWyrmGold
2020-03-25, 04:40 PM
Ok, NO. I'm going to stop you before point one.
Your posts are not relevant to the topic being discussed. This is a discussion on how sentient beings would develop in in a timeline to a fantasy world that I'm building. Please DO NOT bring Eugenics into this discussion.
As stated before, you are welcome to stay if you wish to contribute ideas how one form of Genetically Distinct Sentient Inhabitant of a Fantasy World changes and developed into a different form, but you are NOT going to start crytisizing people on their language.
If you don't like the terms we're using, then feel free to leave. No one is forcing you to argue your point, and quite frankly, it's not a point that's welcome in THIS discussion.
Thank you kindly.
You do not get to assert that none of my points are relevant to this thread without actually addressing any of them. You also don't get to blame me for bringing eugenics into the discussion when I'm not the one who said:

Half-Orcs could even be intentionally created for their intelligence and wit
At the very least, you need to address my point explaining why that's eugenics before you say I'm the one who introduced it to the discussion.


I'm not trying to be an *******, here. I'm just pissed that you're dismissing my points out of hand and going on to do the same crap.


And for the record, I'm not criticizing you on your language. I'm criticizing you on your ideas. Claiming that you can write "Genetically Distinct Sentient Inhabitant of a Fantasy World" without even considering the baggage from genetically distinct sentient inhabitants of the real world (without accidentally writing something horrifying once that baggage comes crashing in) is staggeringly idealistic, even without considering how the GDSI of the real world shaped every aspect of fantasy GDSI's.

Jay R
2020-03-25, 05:02 PM
I think you’ve hit on a very important point here, and it’s definitely something I might need to clear up:
See, I don’t mind the idea of Orcs, it’s just that they don’t really “fit” in the setting I’m building for that given era.
The whole reason I came up with this was because I wanted to actually build a setting where you could pick an era and say “here’s what things were like at this point” and have it feel very different than picking a different era entirely.
This goes back to my other thread (see first post for link) in that I had this idea that if the ancient ruins of the world were created by giants, then it would make more sense for me to let the players chose giants as their race and scale to world to their size.
The working idea for my world is that after the giants civilization collapses, smaller races full the niches that were left and develop accordingly.

I understand. In a recent D&D session, my party found the ancient ruins of a hill giant village, including a tomb for the great hero who slew a T. Rex.

[That's why I suggested not changing the rules in your earlier thread. I'd rather play a giant-sized giant against a full-sized T.Rex than a human-sized "giant" fighting a small, wimpy T.Rex. I think the flavor would be more fun. "Will it feel like the PCs are giants fighting real dinosaurs, or will it feel like they're humans against shrunken dinosaurs? If they are playing giants, don't change the rules to make the giants feel ordinary. Let them be giants, and send them worthy challenges for giants. "]


Thanks to a lot of the feedback from this thread, I’m thinking that the age after the giants everything is more primal and brutish, and hardier races such as muscular wild elves, orcs, bugbears, Neanderthal, and lizardfolk would be the norm.
Later, as the planes shift, these beings would change into new forms that had a higher focus on intellect with a much more complex culture developing in the process.

Sure. And just as the feel of the dominant races will change, the feel of the marginalized races will change. That's doesn't mean there won't be any marginalized races.


Heck, the big reason I started this train of thought is because almost every entry for Orcs describes them as living in squalor, among other things, and seemed as though they would be outpaced by any other civilization.

Probably true. As the more civilized races advance, so would they, staying a little behind them. Or maybe they would become the dominant race for awhile, maybe in the transition between the primal and civilized era. Afterwards, they would fall behind again.


As such, it made more sense to me to find a way for them to exist in the timeline instead of cutting two races entirely.

That makes sense. I see them as raiders -- basically parasites on a larger, more developed civilization. [This idea comes from Tolkien, more or less. His orcs didn't like being part of a large conquering army. They just wanted to be in a small raiding group.] Like hyenas, they will always be overshadowed by a larger group, but also like hyenas, they will always do well as long as there is a larger group doing better to raid from.

The modern orcs could fit in, if you want them to. They are an underclass, living in caves or villages away from town. Perhaps some of them live in town, where great strength makes them useful for some hard labor.

Tribes who aren't as civilized as the rest have existed forever, but based on the time period, they might be more like Ostrogoths, Vandals, Huns, or Cossacks. For the fantasy flavor, they could be like Tokien's Pukel-men, Rowling's giants, Gilgamesh's Enkidu, Burroughs's Tharks, or others in different fantasy works.

Another idea: the human word "orc", like the Greek word "βάρβαρος" (barbarian), could just mean people who don't speak our language. In different eras, the enemies called orcs could be dwarves, goblins, elves, ogres, or even just different tribes of humans.

If you don't want them, just drop them; there's nothing wrong with that. But do it for the game; you can always adjust your history to justify anything you want to use.


I’m sorry if that led to any misunderstandings about my intent.

No problem. The ability to go over the same ground again and again until we iron out what each of us means is how internet discussions work at their best.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-25, 05:06 PM
this is not a thread about eugenics. it has NEVER been a thread about eugenics. can we please stop talking about eugenics?

Literally the only reason i said half-orcs could maybe be intentionally created was because i was trying to come up with interesting or at least plausible ideas for how and why orcs were still around in the modern age and what their lifestyle may be like. i also said they could be living in mountains or serving as viking-like raiders. don't see you whining about those now do we?

holy hell man it's FAKE. it's FICTION. it's SPECULATIVE. None of this is real so can you PLEASE calm down!? Holy ****ing hell man it was a stinking IDEA that was being thrown out into the wind! something to think about or consider or throw away like yesterdays news, that's really all it ever was or ever has been!

And before we get into it, YOU'RE the one who said

and given how orcs generally "create" half-orcs, you've got some lovely black brute imagery in there, too.
which is something i NEVER alluded too. you jumped onto that assumption for yourself. For all we know this hypothetical very-fake-and-not-real clan of orcs is on good trade relations with at least one human settlement and has political or romantic relationships between them all the time. That's the point, it's a fake, vague as heck idea for interpretation and consideration before discarding.

If you want to push the blame on who started all this, then i'm sorry, but that is squarely on you. the rest of us read it for what it was, a random idea thrown at the wall among many others to see what sticks. you just decided to get all twisted up about it because you needed something to complain about and this just flipped a switch in your brain or something. Now please, with all due respect, calm yourself down, we are DONE with this discussion, and if you really want to flip your tits about it, go make your own thor-blasted thread. this one is off-limits.

daryen
2020-03-25, 09:19 PM
As stated before, you are welcome to stay if you wish to contribute ideas how one form of Genetically Distinct Sentient Inhabitant of a Fantasy World changes and developed into a different form, but you are NOT going to start crytisizing people on their language.
If you are going to use real-world terms like above, you get to deal with their real-world ramifications. If orcs are genetically different to humans, there can be no half-orcs. At which point the complaints evaporate.

If however, there ARE half-orcs, the orcs are, fundamentally humans. At that point, you can call selective breeding whatever you want, but it is what it is.

So, why not skip the whole half-orc minefield, which already has been done to death anyway, and figure out how orcs evolved within their own genetics to be something new? Why not just have them figure out that the old ways aren't working anymore and they figure out new ways?

jdizzlean
2020-03-26, 03:47 AM
The Mod Life Crisis: Please return to the discussion at hand and discontinue anything along the lines of a eugenics discussion. Please discuss things politely.

ZeroGear
2020-03-26, 05:03 AM
So, why not skip the whole half-orc minefield, which already has been done to death anyway, and figure out how orcs evolved within their own genetics to be something new? Why not just have them figure out that the old ways aren't working anymore and they figure out new ways?

I have no problem with that, and it's probably what I'm going to end up doing. This means I'll just re-flavor Half-Orcs as Orckin (credit to Lvl 2 Expert for that one), and remove Half-Elves (since they're kinda not really needed).

Now I have to pose the question:
Should I keep the "elemental" races (Oread, Undine, Ifrit, Slyph, Assimar, and Tiefling) as they are, or re-flavor them as beings that became what they are due to their environment being unusually close to naturally occurring planar portals?
Mostly asking because I'm heavily considering just removing "Half-" templated races altogether (Helf-Elemental, Half-Celestial, Half-Fiend, etc).
On the one hand, it would tie in better with the theme that the elemental planes influence the development of life on the material plane.
On the other hand, creatures with the ability to shapeshift (such as Dragons, Outsiders, and Aberrations) need to be taken into account. (Much as I hate glossing over explanations with "because magic", spells and spell-like abilities that allow transformations really complicate explanations).

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-26, 06:24 AM
Should I keep the "elemental" races (Oread, Undine, Ifrit, Slyph, Assimar, and Tiefling) as they are, or re-flavor them as beings that became what they are due to their environment being unusually close to naturally occurring planar portals?
some creatures such as Fetchlings (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-fetchling/) and Shadowbeasts kind of go through what you're suggesting here. some humans / other animals got stuck on the plane of a show, managed to survive and have kids, and after a few generations and some assistance from the magical environment and energies of the plane, adapted to it.

Perhaps your unines and ifrits could be similar situations. Undines were a population of humans that got stuck on or settled near your world's equivalent to the plane of water, their evolution accelerated by the magic and energies that poured out of it. on normal-earth, it'd take millions of years for humans to become anything like an Undine. in a magical world, it may only take a hundred generations or so, as the magical energies attune to and mutate every new generation to better suit it's environment.

kind of like... rather then humans having a random chance to be better suited to the environment, the environment itself is directing the population's evolution... Intelligent design minus the intelligence, via evolution.

my best advice for dragons: just remove the shape-shifting. if you need a shape-shifting dragon, have it be caused by an item or something. Dragons themselves are just naturally in their Draconic state 24/7. (i was never a fan of intelligent shape-shifting dragons. i may be biased :P)

daryen
2020-03-26, 08:00 AM
Now I have to pose the question:
Should I keep the "elemental" races (Oread, Undine, Ifrit, Slyph, Assimar, and Tiefling) as they are, or re-flavor them as beings that became what they are due to their environment being unusually close to naturally occurring planar portals?
Mostly asking because I'm heavily considering just removing "Half-" templated races altogether (Helf-Elemental, Half-Celestial, Half-Fiend, etc).
On the one hand, it would tie in better with the theme that the elemental planes influence the development of life on the material plane.
On the other hand, creatures with the ability to shapeshift (such as Dragons, Outsiders, and Aberrations) need to be taken into account. (Much as I hate glossing over explanations with "because magic", spells and spell-like abilities that allow transformations really complicate explanations).
In the case of Outsiders, there doesn't need to be any "breeding" going on. Tieflings in particular are noted as having been "polluted" from the lower planes, but that doesn't mean it has to be through offspring with those Outsiders. Simply having one of your ancestors with a tainted/compromised soul is enough to cause a Tiefling to appear. The same could happen with any of the outsiders.

For a Sylph, maybe one of your ancestors did too much with air elements, thereby changing their very nature. Maybe a group of humans spent too much time on the elemental plane of air (like Fetchlings on the plane of Shadow) and their descendants are now Sylphs.

So, with Outsiders, you get a whole new set of options. Plus, this all ends up simply being "what happens" rather than "selective" and intentional.

As for shapeshifters, I just don't see it. If shapeshifting makes you physically into that creature, you are then that creature and any offspring you make are simply that creature regardless of what you "really" are. If, however, you are always what you really are and are just wearing the other creature's form, then you can't have any offspring with those other creatures. So, if you have a dragon shapeshifted into an actual human having a child with a human, you get a human that likely gets to have a draconic origin to their sorcerous power, not a half-dragon.

Honestly, if you want to inject actual genetics into your world, all half-species pretty much has to stop. You can be "tainted" or modified by magic or outsider-ness, but you can't mix actual species. The only way to get a half-species (e.g. owlbear) is from particularly awful magic users doing particularly awful things, not through the "normal course of events". So having a half-dragon half-human means that a nasty magic user did horrific things to some dragons and humans to produce an abomination, not that a dragon and a human got frisky.

EDIT: As for dragonkin, they'd just be reptilian humaniods with draconic traits. They would simply be their own species that may or may not have any common ancestors with dragons.

ZeroGear
2020-03-27, 02:30 AM
kind of like... rather then humans having a random chance to be better suited to the environment, the environment itself is directing the population's evolution... Intelligent design minus the intelligence, via evolution.


You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with this. While the concept didn't start out this way, I've pretty much settled on the idea that the biggest influence on the creatures of the material planes is the "gravitational pull" of the other planes on the ambient magic of the realm.
Simply put, and I think it's been mentioned before, the world I'm building follows an oratory planar alignment where the outer planes orbit around the material plane like moons around a planet.
Additionally, one of the themes I love using is that each of the elemental planes causes the seasons to change: Summer comes when the plane of Fire is Waxing and leaves when it's waning, Fall follows as the plane of Earth waxes and wanes, Winter comes and goes with the plane of Water, and Spring relies on the plane of Air.
On top of this, there are other planes that have more eccentric or longer orbits, measured in hundreds of years, and depending on their alignment have a different effect on the ecosystem.
More to the point, magic and nature are two parts of the same whole, and both following a set of rules that can be understood in their context, and these rules are what dictate the formation and development of life on the material plane.



As for dragonkin, they'd just be reptilian humaniods with draconic traits. They would simply be their own species that may or may not have any common ancestors with dragons.

So... I'm going to put fourth a strange idea, and I really would like to know if it's something that the average player would find acceptable:
While "modern" dragons (Chromatic and Metallic True Dragons) are far more powerful and intelligent than their ancestors were, it's very feasible that their progenitors were much shorter lived and branched several times, thus creating offshoots such as Wyverns, drakes, and eventually pseudo-dragons. One of these branches may have lost the ability the fly, becoming a small humanoid species that learned to scavenge and use tools on its own, eventually becoming what we think of as a Kobold.
During the Age of Giants, these little creatures lived at the heels of the giants, just as the other humanoid proton-races did, scavenging scraps until the fall of the Giant civilization.
As the planar alignments shifted, Kobolds changed in much the same way as other races did: becoming larger, bulkier, with more muscles and adaptations to suit their new swampy habitat, becoming lizard folk as a result.
As the ages wore on and the flow of ambient magic changed once again, this race began to refine itself, inventing a more complex culture and developing a more compact form that the modern inhabitants recognize as a Dragonborn.

In short, just as I proposed the change from Goblin to Bugbear to Hobgoblin, I'm also proposing the change of Kobold to Lizardman to Dragonborn. What do you all think? Feasible, or am I talking crazy?

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-27, 05:25 AM
kobold > lizardfolk > Dragonborn sounds like it's make sense for the most part. can't really think of any reason why it wouldn't.

Considering Dragonfolk have a lot of scale colour variations, i'm imagining Lizardfolk and kobolds were very colourful too.

ZeroGear
2020-03-28, 01:26 PM
I don’t see why not.
And, bit of a technicality as I’m not sure where I should fit them in, would Naga develop from Kobolds, Lizardfolk, or emerge from a separate branch?
Kinda want to make sentient reptiles related, but nagas are kinda an oddball here.

Draconi Redfir
2020-03-28, 03:26 PM
i could probably see Naga as either a branch-off or cousin from lizardfolk, just focusing in more snake-like things rather then lizard-like. Might be a good place to include some magic intervention, a wizard spell that went horribly wrong and turned an entire village into snake-people maybe.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-03-28, 04:36 PM
If naga are related to reptilian humanoids at all (as opposed to being part of an entirely separate "really big magical snake" group with couatls and boalisks and such), it's probably by way of yuan-ti, as they're a single (albeit very diverse) race containing humanoid, ophidioid, and hybrid "subraces"--both yuan-ti and naga are considered to be part of the "serpentfolk" family in FR, after all, and yuan-ti halfbloods are quite similar to dragonborn (the 3e version, anyway, not the 5e version which are closer to draconians) in a "cosmetically draconoid/reptiloid but structurally humanoid" kind of way.

ZeroGear
2020-03-29, 03:48 PM
You're hitting on a very interesting point that, since I'm not overly familiar with the FR setting, hadn't been considered.
Now I'm thinking that when Kobolds were running around as the ancestors of lizardfolk, they were also living in the same era Couatls, which would end up being the ancestors of the Naga (who emerged in the same era as the Lizadfolk), and then became the Yuan-Ti.

The more we discuss this, the more I'm pulling together a complete picture of the early era I'm building. As it stands, the picture pained here feels like there's a divide when it comes to intelligent life in the Age of Giants:
You have the Giant races, who dominated the world and built civilizations of which ruins are found hundreds of years later, and then you have the smaller lifeforms, ancestors to most "modern" races. Here I'm imagining something akin to a small halfling-like being whose path splits into several different outcomes:
One prance remains on the surface, eventually becoming Wild Elves, Neanderthal, Orcs, and proto-halflings; the other group begins living underground, becoming Sweifelbein and Druegdar.
Similarly, Couatls, along with ancient dragons, dominate the lands and war with giants, as the little Kobolds scavenge and compete with their goblin and pre-halfling contemporaries at the heels of the larger races.

How does this sound so far?

Big Edit:
this is me just now finding out that I can't use Yuan-Ti since they're not in Pathfinder. That being said, there are Serpentfolk, whom I can use as a suitable stand-in.
In this case, It could easily go from Couatl to Naga to Serpentfolk to Lizardfolk.

D&D_Fan
2020-03-30, 02:47 PM
What time period is it set in and how advanced is society?

In futuristic settings like in the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers people are able to change the nature of their genes. In settings like the continent of Faerûn in the Forgotten Realms based off of 14th (I think) century Europe with magic, the only ways to change your genetics permanently are reincarnate and wish. To change time the only ways are through wish, time stop, and time ravage all 9th level spells. Even today on 21st century earth it is possible to tweak genetics slightly, and breed animals to be more useful to humans.

ZeroGear
2020-03-30, 10:34 PM
What time period is it set in and how advanced is society?

I'm kinda glad you asked that, because the answer is kinda complicated.
In the timeline I'm building, the level of the civilization will vary based on what era it's in and what the dominant races are.
The most ancient civilization, Dragons, though intelligent didn't create any structure more complicated than a shaped stone cavern. Instead they carved their knowledge onto shed scales or into the walls of their homes.
During the Age of Giants, I'm picturing the giant civilizations to be about iron-age or early steel-age level of civilized. This is mostly me picturing the ancient giants as having a nordic-like culture that built vast structures out of petrified trees or an aztec-like culture carved great houses out of mountains. During this time, the "little" races ran around and scavenged, barely above the level of stone-age hunter-gatherers.
After the "Grand Fall" when the ancient civilizations of the Giants crumble, the descendants of the giant races regress into a much more primitive culture. Meanwhile, more brutish and savage races develop, and the Age of Walking Ice begins. Here, the tribes of Wild Elves, Bugbears, Orcs, Neanderthal, Bruskers (proto-halflings), Lizardfolk and Nagas compete in the cold and unfeeling wastes while Duergar and Svirfneblin hollow out caves beneath the surface.
The first real bronze age level civilizations don't emerge until the Age of Waking Green, which sees the emergence of Humans, High Elves, Halflings, Gnomes, Orckin, Serpetfolk, Dragonborn, Dwarves, and Hobgoblins as full races, with a few Giant-descended races coming into their own.
From here, the race composition doesn't really change that much in the Age of Twin Moons, aside from some Elves making an exodus underground after an event known as the Sunder, and becoming the race later known as Drow. During this time, cultures generally advance to about iron-age level (equivalent to ancient Greece in our own history).
This is followed by the Age of Elements, which is approximately equivalent to our own Middle Ages, which marks a far more widespread occurrence of elemental races such as Slyphs, Assimar, Tieflings, Oreads, Ifits, and Undine within existing cultures.
Finally, we reach the Age of Glyphs, which is roughly equivalent to the modern Industrial revolution, and races are pretty much set from here.

This is pretty much a rough outline of what I'm planning on fleshing out, and I haven't accounted for several factors, such as shifting landmasses and individual cultures on faraway islands or civilizations in unlikely places such as deserts or rainforests.
Was this insightful, and do you have any suggestions?

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-03-30, 11:33 PM
As it stands, the picture pained here feels like there's a divide when it comes to intelligent life in the Age of Giants:
You have the Giant races, who dominated the world and built civilizations of which ruins are found hundreds of years later, and then you have the smaller lifeforms, ancestors to most "modern" races. [...]
Similarly, Couatls, along with ancient dragons, dominate the lands and war with giants, as the little Kobolds scavenge and compete with their goblin and pre-halfling contemporaries at the heels of the larger races.


The most ancient civilization, Dragons, though intelligent didn't create any structure more complicated than a shaped stone cavern. Instead they carved their knowledge onto shed scales or into the walls of their homes.
During the Age of Giants, I'm picturing the giant civilizations to be about iron-age or early steel-age level of civilized. This is mostly me picturing the ancient giants as having a nordic-like culture that built vast structures out of petrified trees or an aztec-like culture carved great houses out of mountains. During this time, the "little" races ran around and scavenged, barely above the level of stone-age hunter-gatherers.
After the "Grand Fall" when the ancient civilizations of the Giants crumble, the descendants of the giant races regress into a much more primitive culture. Meanwhile, more brutish and savage races develop, and the Age of Walking Ice begins. Here, the tribes of Wild Elves, Bugbears, Orcs, Neanderthal, Bruskers (proto-halflings), Lizardfolk and Nagas compete in the cold and unfeeling wastes while Duergar and Svirfneblin hollow out caves beneath the surface.

This sounds pretty similar to the Age of Giants in Eberron, in that the giants had an advanced civilization while the smaller races were still primitive, the dragons constantly warred with the giants (eventually wiping them out), and after the giants' fall they regressed to a primitive state as the smaller races advanced. I'd definitely recommend reading through Secrets of Xen'drik for flavor inspiration, if you haven't already.

ZeroGear
2020-03-31, 12:00 PM
This sounds pretty similar to the Age of Giants in Eberron, in that the giants had an advanced civilization while the smaller races were still primitive, the dragons constantly warred with the giants (eventually wiping them out), and after the giants' fall they regressed to a primitive state as the smaller races advanced. I'd definitely recommend reading through Secrets of Xen'drik for flavor inspiration, if you haven't already.

It’s definitely part of the inspiration for the setting I’m building. Eberron is the first real setting I immersed myself in, and it’s what made me consider giants as an ancient civilization to begin with.
The other half of the idea is that everything was much bigger in the past. As much as I enjoy inserting logic into fantasy (when it makes sense), it’s always important to remember that these worlds do have their own rules. In this case, the development of life does parallel that of our world, but it’s not quite the same as sapient species emerged much earlier than in reality.
As such, if other lifeforms, such as dinosaurs, were larger in the far past, then any humanoid races that existed at the same time would naturally be the same size, with a few being small scavengers that lived off the “crumbs” of the dominant giants.