[4e] Issues of Genetics

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Some of the player races have convenient explanations when it comes to breeding. Any race breeds with their own kind, they get another of their own kind. Any race breeds with a tiefling, they get another tiefling. Devas don't breed at all, instead reincarnating in a different location in a full adult body without knowing the full details of their previous life. A human and an elf make a half-elf. A human and an orc make a half-orc. The problem is, that only covers a few of the combinations.

What happens when a human breeds with a dwarf? Or a gnome with a halfling? What happens when a half-elf breeds with an elf? If a few of the races are genetically compatible with others, why don't we see half-dwarves? Half-orc-elves? Eladrinlings? Apart from cultural mores, it doesn't seem like there's anything preventing any member of a player race from breeding outside its own race. So why aren't there more varieties of crossbreeds, besides the two we do have?

Furthermore, can these crossbreeds breed true? Are half-elves and half-orcs sterile, like mules? Or can they produce offspring? If so, what are there offspring like if they don't breed with their own? What if an elf and half-elf have a kid? The child would be three quarters elven then, wouldn't they?

Also, what about skin tone? I know humans are supposed to have the same range of hues as normal people do, but what about the other races. Are there black dwarves and elves? Or is every non-human a pale shade of pink?

It boggles the mind to see how little biology homework WOTC seems to have done in designing these races!

[Colmarr]

Also, what about skin tone? I know humans are supposed to have the same range of hues as normal people do, but what about the other races. Are there black dwarves and elves? Or is every non-human a pale shade of pink?

Unless I'm mistaken, both elves and dwarves are addressed in the PHB. If not, then both are certainly dealt with in the FR player's guide.

Specifically, there are dark skinned dwarves (Gold Dwarves in FR), but not (IIRC) elves.

[Asbestos]

Furthermore, can these crossbreeds breed true? Are half-elves and half-orcs sterile, like mules? Or can they produce offspring? If so, what are there offspring like if they don't breed with their own? What if an elf and half-elf have a kid? The child would be three quarters elven then, wouldn't they?

They most certainly breed true. Check out the half-elf racial backgrounds in the PHB2 and the stuff for the half-orcs as well. Also, apparently when a half-orc and an orc have a kid, its a half-orc. My guess is that half-elves are the same.


Oh, and on skin tones, read the racial descriptions! Colmar is right in that they are defined, they all are. Heck, even Eladrin can be dark skinned.

[magellan]

It boggles the mind to see how little biology homework WOTC seems to have done in designing these races!

Lets not forget that WOTC didn't design them but inherited them from gygax & arneson, who ripped them off of tolkien who ripped them off of norse mythology :P

[Oracle_Hunter]

You're complaining about biology in a game where Dragons could mate with pretty much anything?

[Colmarr]

Oh, and on skin tones, read the racial descriptions! Colmar is right in that they are defined, they all are. Heck, even Eladrin can be dark skinned.

I knew I remembered reading it, but wasn't sure whether it was in Races & Classes or the PHB. Thanks.

[Kris Strife]

You're complaining about biology in a game where Dragons could mate with pretty much anything?

If its alive, a dragon can hit it... Including plants according to the 3.5 Draconomicon...

I want to see someone make a half dragon potted plant PC now...

[TheOOB]

Barring sterile breeds, there are three out comes when two races breed, no child, a mixed breed, and one of the parent breeds.

Aside from elves, eladrin, orcs, and tieflings, none of the pair are delt with in the main books. I would probably say halfling's and humans just make short humans(and halfling and elves make short half-elves), and most other combinations do no produce viable offspring.

[Nightson]

Making D&D biology make sense is a pretty crazy feat but it's certainly possible to try.

Halflings, Gnomes, Dwarves, Goliaths and Dragonborn are all fully distinct species, they can only breed with members of their race.

Devas don't breed.

Tieflings, being mostly human, can still mate with humans to produce children, presumably the infernal genetic change has rendered them unable to mate with the other species that normal humans can mate with. They breed true, always producing tieflings.

Shifters function the same way, they can breed with other shifters or with humans and breed true. The two shifter strains are genetically incompatible.

Elves, Eladrin, Humans and Orcs (And drow for good measure). Oh my, here's the real tangle. What's the origin of humans, eladrin and orcs?

First question, are half-orcs a result of natural breeding between humans and orcs or is it result of divine intervention? Divine intervention makes things pretty simple, they're a created species that can breed with both humans and orcs. So we'll go with the more complicated natural breeding option.

Eladrin are the progenitor race for elves and drow at the minimum, so let's posit that they're the progenitor race of humans and orcs as well. The timeline would go something like this.

-Eladrin split, drow form, elves form
-Drow become separate species from Eladrin
-Elves become separate species from Eladrin
-Elves give rise to Orcs
-Elves give rise to Humans
-Genetic drift renders Orcs and Elves unable to mate
-Humans still capable of mating with both Elves and Orcs (hopefully not at the same time, that might be awkward)

Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are the only crossbreeds. They could be sterile, it's possible, but assuming they're not.

There's three possibilities here:
One, they breed true, simple, Half-Elf offspring are always Half-Elfs.

Two, the follow some sort of very basic Mendelian genetics. Two Half-Elves have a 50% at another Half-Elf, a 25% for a Human and a 25% for an Elf. Half-Elf with a pure race would give 50% Half-Elf, 50% pure. This one seems like a lot of fun, so it's the one I'd pick.

Thirdly, the traits are graduated, a half-elf that mates with a human is more elfy then a normal human but less elfy then a normal half-elf. With he complete lack of mechanical support this one seems best avoided.

And then only one question left! Can Half-Elves mate with Half-Orcs? I would lean towards the answer being almost. Although they can get pregnant, they don't produce viable offspring. But such a neat plot hook in that almost part.

[TimeWizard]

If its alive, a dragon can hit it... Including plants according to the 3.5 Draconomicon...

I want to see someone make a half dragon potted plant PC now...

I think it should be called Audrey.

[Sebastian]

What is this "genetic" you are talking about? It is another word for magic?

[Dhavaer]

Also, what about skin tone? I know humans are supposed to have the same range of hues as normal people do, but what about the other races. Are there black dwarves and elves? Or is every non-human a pale shade of pink?

In 3.x, dwarves were mostly dark-mid brown, gnomes mid-light brown, halflings tan and elves pale. Half-orcs were grey. This changed for different subraces, of course.

In 4e, dragonborn are some shade of red/gold/brown, dwarves are as human with the added options of grey and red, eladrin are as humans with a greater tendancy towards pale shades, elves are as humans with a greater tendancy towards tans and browns, half-elves and halflings are as humans and tieflings are as humans with the added option of red.

It's not that hard to find, just check the race description.

[Totally Guy]

I had a black Elf NPC recently that I used. I ended up up saying "Dark Elf" several times when I meant plain old skin tone which confused the group.

Then there was the time when we encountered Drow and Duegar working together. The party came up with a plan for the black Cleric character to pretend to have captured the rest of the party, then the Cleric could claim to be a Dark Human in order to gain the trust of the Dark Elf and Dark Dwarf... We reasoned that we were merely exploiting inherent racism within the system rather than being racist ourselves.

[Kurald Galain]

What happens when a human breeds with a dwarf? Or a gnome with a halfling? What happens when a half-elf breeds with an elf? If a few of the races are genetically compatible with others, why don't we see half-dwarves? Half-orc-elves? Eladrinlings?

Unless you want a really bizarre campaign with half-everythings, I'd suggest one of the following:

(1) crossing any two races (other than human/elf or human/orc) does not produce offspring, ever. This has a few implications for the campaign world... note how in many fantasy novels, characters have sex all the time and yet contraception is never addressed? This would solve that issue.

(2) crossing any two races does produce some kind of offspring, but it is (almost always) malformed or stillborn. This has different implications, particularly in the direction of "don't do that, ever!" and social stigmas.

(3) a crossbreed takes after either parent; thus a human/dwarf crossbreed is either a full human or a full dwarf, possibly with appearance leaning a bit to the other parent.

(4) human/eladrin and human/drow offspring are half-elves. After all, eladrin and drow are a kind of elf, yes?

(5) two common options: "real" crossbreeding means that human x half-elf gives either human or half-elf, and half-elf x half-elf gives 50% chance of half-elf, and 25% chance each of pure human or pure elf. This is true according to high-school level genetics, although of course real genetics Don't Work That Way.

(5b) the alternative is "pureblood" crossbreeding, which is to say that human x half-elf always gives human, half-elf x elf always gives elf, and half-elf x half-elf always gives half-elf. That is to say, the children can only be less elven than their parents, not more. This assumes the Our Elves Are Better trope.

[Eldan]

One of my explanations was that, due to some kind of cosmic prank, human genetics were all wonky. Basically, some god decided that, to balance near-immortal elves, super-stealthy halflings, master-crafter dwarves and high-tech gnomes, humans had to be able to adapt to everything.
So, only a few thousand years later, you have half-human everythings. Tieflings, Aasimar, Genasi and other planetouched from every plane humans ever went, along with half-elves, half-orcs and a few other, homebrewed half-races.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What is this "genetic" you are talking about? It is another word for magic?

NO! NYO! The existence of magic in the game does not constitute throwing the basic laws of biology out the window! That is a copout! There needs to be versimilitude within the gameworld or else willing suspension of disbelief gets thrown out the window!

I'm playing a half-elf paladin who is going to get a lot of female admirers from different races, and I want to know what his kids would be like.

I also play a mutated human who's dating a dwarf chick. They want to have kids. What are those kids going to be like (aside from navy-blue skinned with black wings?)

[Archpaladin Zousha]

You're complaining about biology in a game where Dragons could mate with pretty much anything?

I have yet to see half-dragons in 4e, so I don't know.

[hamishspence]

Draconic Creature template in Draconomicon- can represent a half-dragon or a magically modified creature. Has wings.

[Morty]

NO! NYO! The existence of magic in the game does not constitute throwing the basic laws of biology out the window! That is a copout! There needs to be versimilitude within the gameworld or else willing suspension of disbelief gets thrown out the window!

I'm playing a half-elf paladin who is going to get a lot of female admirers from different races, and I want to know what his kids would be like.

I also play a mutated human who's dating a dwarf chick. They want to have kids. What are those kids going to be like (aside from navy-blue skinned with black wings?)

As much as I agree that magic isn't a convenient excuse for stuff not making sense, there's little point in dwelling on it. Since there are no rules for it, just go with what feels most sensibe to you. In my setting, I listed sentient humanoid species into "groups" that can interbreed because they're "close enough". It shouldn't be too hard to make something like this up in D&D.

[Alleine]

There needs to be versimilitude within the gameworld or else willing suspension of disbelief gets thrown out the window!

I agree with this to a point. The world needs to seem realistic, but do you really think the game designers are going to flesh out every last little thing down to genetics? They're trying to sell a product, not recreate a whole new world.

In response to your first post, there is a 3.5 race that pretty much covers this sort of thing. You could probably convert it to 4E if you wanted. They're called mongrelfolk and are basically a mishmash of all the major humanoid races. They're in races of destiny if you want to look at them.

[Little_Rudo]

I've always assumed the human's ability to breed with anything is an expression of their adaptability; humans in D&D (and fantasy in general) tend to be portrayed as the most adaptive of the races, in part to explain why they're a dominant (and often the dominant) race in a world of longer-lived races. Therefore, human's tend to be able to breed with anything that has even remotely humanoid biology. Sure, it doesn't explain a lot genetically, but I don't need lengthy discussions on the biological ramifications of half-elves to enjoy my games. :)

Also, this really isn't a 4E issue, or a WotC issue. It just happens to be one of the more recent occurrences of this, which is very, very common in fantasy in general.

[Draz74]

NO! NYO! The existence of magic in the game does not constitute throwing the basic laws of biology out the window! That is a copout! There needs to be versimilitude within the gameworld or else willing suspension of disbelief gets thrown out the window!

Hmmm. That's entirely setting-specific, IMHO.

Someone (The Alexandrian?) recently pointed out to me that it's entirely feasible, in a fantasy world, for mice and rats and maggots to be spontaneously generated by stored food, just like people in real life thought was true until the late 1700s or 1800s (Pasteur?).

You can go crazier than that. Maybe Aristotle's laws of physics are actually right in some fantasy worlds. Rocks fall because they "like" being in their "natural" state of being close to the earth, not because of any weird concept like "gravity." And if you roll them, they stop because said "natural" state involves standing still, not because any weird "inertia" concept is eventually overridden by "energy loss to friction or collisions."

Science is full enough of uncertainties in the real world; why try to mesh it with other worlds too?

[ColdSepp]

Hmmm. That's entirely setting-specific, IMHO.

Someone (The Alexandrian?) recently pointed out to me that it's entirely feasible, in a fantasy world, for mice and rats and maggots to be spontaneously generated by stored food, just like people in real life thought was true until the late 1700s or 1800s (Pasteur?).

You can go crazier than that. Maybe Aristotle's laws of physics are actually right in some fantasy worlds. Rocks fall because they "like" being in their "natural" state of being close to the earth, not because of any weird concept like "gravity." And if you roll them, they stop because said "natural" state involves standing still, not because any weird "inertia" concept is eventually overridden by "energy loss to friction or collisions."

Science is full enough of uncertainties in the real world; why try to mesh it with other worlds too?

That sounds really neat, I have to say.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Hmmm. That's entirely setting-specific, IMHO.

Someone (The Alexandrian?) recently pointed out to me that it's entirely feasible, in a fantasy world, for mice and rats and maggots to be spontaneously generated by stored food, just like people in real life thought was true until the late 1700s or 1800s (Pasteur?).

You can go crazier than that. Maybe Aristotle's laws of physics are actually right in some fantasy worlds. Rocks fall because they "like" being in their "natural" state of being close to the earth, not because of any weird concept like "gravity." And if you roll them, they stop because said "natural" state involves standing still, not because any weird "inertia" concept is eventually overridden by "energy loss to friction or collisions."

Science is full enough of uncertainties in the real world; why try to mesh it with other worlds too?

Because otherwise I find it hard to maintain my willing suspension of disbelief.

[Fostire]

Halflings, Gnomes, Dwarves, Goliaths and Dragonborn are all fully distinct species, they can only breed with members of their race.

In the second edition setting "Dark Sun" there existed a half dwarf half human race called Muls which, as their name suggests, were sterile. They were usually bred to be used as slaves in gladiatorial arenas.

[Draz74]

Because otherwise I find it hard to maintain my willing suspension of disbelief.

Odd. I'm a physicist; I'm not used to other people having science more integral to their worldview than it is to mine. Au contraire, usually I drive people nuts by describing everyday things in physics terms. But dropping much of that in fantasy doesn't bother me.

[FoE]

It makes sense that tieflings can breed with humans. After all, they used to be humans. It's only that dang infernal legacy that keeps them from producing halfbreeds.

Zousha, open up the Monster Manual. By our standards, virtually everything in there can't exist. Not just shouldn't, but can't. I mean, big flying lizards that spit fire? Pretty well the definition of im-f***ing-possible.

Myself, I would rather not see the Player's Handbook clogged up with a bunch of info on which races can breed with which and what kind of children they would produce.

There are some questions your DM has to answer. This is one of them.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Odd. I'm a physicist; I'm not used to other people having science more integral to their worldview than it is to mine. Au contraire, usually I drive people nuts by describing everyday things in physics terms. But dropping much of that in fantasy doesn't bother me.

I'm an English major, and according to everything I've read about fantasy, if you don't make sure your world makes sense, it's sloppy writing and not publishable. A rule I read in a book on writing fantasy is to ONLY HAVE ONE KIND OF MAGIC. You can have people who shoot fireballs from their fingers or you can have people who sold their souls to demons to become a new race, but DON'T HAVE BOTH IN THE SAME STORY! That ruins a reader's willing suspension of disbelief, and may cause them to disregard the entire work as implausible. Just because there's magic doesn't mean the laws of the real world no longer apply!

[Saintjebus]

That ruins a reader's willing suspension of disbelief, and may cause them to disregard the entire work as implausible. Just because there's magic doesn't mean the laws of the real world no longer apply!

Because otherwise I find it hard to maintain my willing suspension of disbelief.

Wouldn't that be you own choice?*willing* willing suspension of disbelief is the choice to suspend disbelief. If you choose to be unwilling for certain subjects, i.e., genetics, that is your perogative. After that, you can make up any reason at all for genetics to work, but the final ruling over whether the justification is "sufficient" is up to you. You are choosing what is "ok" to suspend disbelief over.

Also, the fact that there is magic does mean that the laws of the real world no longer apply. It's the definition of magic.

[Kurald Galain]

Also, the fact that there is magic does mean that the laws of the real world no longer apply. It's the definition of magic.

The point is that there is a difference between worlds with other laws that are nevertheless thought out (and not necessarily explained in advance), and worlds with no laws other than the haphazardness of "whatever is convenient at the moment".

This is, essentially, the difference between a good fantasy novel, and the average story on fanfiction.net.