Shower thoughts: the dragonboobs argument on dragonborn

[Ralanr]

Kinda a dead topic, but something kinda bothered me: how come people don't complain about cat girls only having pair of breast? Cats normally have three total pairs, yet no one is bothered by cat people having only one pair.

Almost as if arguing anatomy in games where Dwarves as a race should have some issues with the sun given how they are depicted as staying underground in their cities or where elves probably stand out like a sore thumb in forests is a completely meaningless argument?


Granted I wouldn't mind if dragonborn sexual dimorphism was less human (body types could just be slimmer for example) but the boobs argument is arguably pointless.

Just wanted to share some boring shower thoughts.

[Psyren]

I was just trying to stay current!

[Millstone85]

Other than these races not exactly being evolved from cats or dragons, there is the possibility of saying that catfolks do have six nipples but only the upper two get to be on noticeable breasts.

[Ralanr]

I was just trying to stay current!

Oh my god I forgot about that one. Lol.

[Bohandas]

Kinda a dead topic, but something kinda bothered me: how come people don't complain about cat girls only having pair of breast?

I have on occasion

[Nifft]

how come people don't complain about cat girls only having pair of breast? Cats normally have three total pairs, yet no one is bothered by cat people having only one pair.

1e "catgirls" got you covered:

Spoiler: Weretiger

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Regarding Dragonborn, in their original 3.5e body-horror incarnation, they were the result of a humanoid voluntarily changing into a dragon-person. The boobs would be the atavistic remnants of the character's original form.

IMHO, 4e and 5e dropped the ball by making Dragonborn a generic race of dragon-people.

[Mastikator]

Other than these races not exactly being evolved from cats or dragons, there is the possibility of saying that catfolks do have six nipples but only the upper two get to be on noticeable breasts.

Isn't it more likely that they evolved from humans? I mean they share more characteristics with humans than with cats/dragons/what have you. They are basically hominids.

[Millstone85]

Isn't it more likely that they evolved from humans? I mean they share more characteristics with humans than with cats/dragons/what have you. They are basically hominids.

Shifters are descended from weretigers or werewolves, and kind of ill-named since their whole race is stuck mid-shapeshifting. And there is probably a few races of animal people whose ancestors were druids. I guess that counts as fantasy evolution.

[Mechalich]

Isn't it more likely that they evolved from humans? I mean they share more characteristics with humans than with cats/dragons/what have you. They are basically hominids.

There is no evolution in D&D. All known settings were specially created by deities. Evolutionary arguments do not apply. The gods chose to create catfolk and lizardfolk and whatnot in their current forms for some reason - perhaps they created humans first and then just tweaked that model a lot (or if you believe the elves, tweaked that model) to save time.

[Nifft]

There is no evolution in D&D.

D&D 3.5e Rules Compendium, p.130 ... uses the term metaphorically.

All known settings were specially created by deities. Evolutionary arguments do not apply.

Not my settings, and probably not Eberron -- which has dinosaurs explicitly because it did not have an ice-age mass-extinction event.

Greyhawk might have evolution.

Dark Sun? Dunno.

Ravenloft? Maybe if it made things worse, somehow.

Dragonlance? Kender are evidence of inbreeding, so probably yes.

Forgotten Realms? I think their ancient progenitor reptiles snarfed the PC races as slaves from some other world(s) anyway, so presumably there's no conflict with evolution.

[warty goblin]

Dragonlance? Kender are evidence of inbreeding, so probably yes.

Your Dragonlance is off. Most of the sapient species on Krynn were created by the gods in their current forms; exceptions being kender, gnomes and draconians. Kender and gnomes are dwarves altered by the Greygem of Gargath, and draconians are, well, draconians. None of them evolved.

There is I think a passing reference to adaption to cold making white dragons stupid in Dragons of Winter Night, but that strikes me as more one of Weis & Hickman's side jokes than anything else.

[Nifft]

Your Dragonlance is off.

No doubt -- I've never played there.

Thanks.

[Keltest]

Your Dragonlance is off. Most of the sapient species on Krynn were created by the gods in their current forms; exceptions being kender, gnomes and draconians. Kender and gnomes are dwarves altered by the Greygem of Gargath, and draconians are, well, draconians. None of them evolved.

There is I think a passing reference to adaption to cold making white dragons stupid in Dragons of Winter Night, but that strikes me as more one of Weis & Hickman's side jokes than anything else.

Its been a while since ive read that book, but isn't that specifically a character (a dragon I think, or possibly a dragon rider) making a disparaging remark about the legitimately stupid whites?

[Knaight]

There is no evolution in D&D. All known settings were specially created by deities. Evolutionary arguments do not apply. The gods chose to create catfolk and lizardfolk and whatnot in their current forms for some reason - perhaps they created humans first and then just tweaked that model a lot (or if you believe the elves, tweaked that model) to save time.

All known settings were created by deities a minimum of thousands of years ago, and it's often at least tens of thousands. This removes the possibility of a single shared ancestor for all life*, and it reduces the likelihood of speciation for complex organisms pretty dramatically. Allele shifting is still very possible, and judging by how these settings routinely have distinct ethnic groups of humans emerge after the creation point it appears to happen.

*With obvious caveats for aliens and the like.

[Coidzor]

The principle error is that dragonborn are only sexy to flurries.

Cat girls are sexy to about everyone up until a certain point in the human:animal ratio where it crosses into furrydom.

[Bohandas]

IIRC Eberron explicitly has guided evolution as a thing that exists. IIRC the way the daelkyr create aberrations was explained as through use of a machine that 1.) creates mutated copies of creatures and then makes further mutated copies of the more interesting mutant duplicates and 2.) dialates time in such a way that millions of years of selective breeding can be fit into an afternoon; or something like that.

[cobaltstarfire]

The principle error is that dragonborn are only sexy to flurries.

Cat girls are sexy to about everyone up until a certain point in the human:animal ratio where it crosses into furrydom.

Being sexually interested in anthropomorphic creatures is not a defining characteristic of furries.

[Millstone85]

Cat girls are sexy to about everyone up until a certain point in the human:animal ratio where it crosses into furrydom.

Like this 4e shifter versus this 5e tabaxi.

Spoiler: Meow!

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[Bohandas]

Also IIRC some of the stuff from the fiendish codices implies that some kind of material life preceeded the gods (in addition the the obryiths, yugoloths, ancient baatorans, and elder evils preceeding the gods as well)

Also it's strongly implied in many places that the gods aren't just empowered by mortal belief, but actually generated from it.

[BeerMug Paladin]

The principle error is that dragonborn are only sexy to flurries.

Cat girls are sexy to about everyone up until a certain point in the human:animal ratio where it crosses into furrydom.

This sentiment amuses me.

[Mechalich]

All known settings were created by deities a minimum of thousands of years ago, and it's often at least tens of thousands. This removes the possibility of a single shared ancestor for all life*, and it reduces the likelihood of speciation for complex organisms pretty dramatically. Allele shifting is still very possible, and judging by how these settings routinely have distinct ethnic groups of humans emerge after the creation point it appears to happen.

*With obvious caveats for aliens and the like.

Well yeah, but that's not going to get you from humans to catfolk or from cats to catfolk. And the ability of magic to cause macro-scale shifts in form and body type is a much more potent in the context of D&D than any evolutionary process.

IIRC Eberron explicitly has guided evolution as a thing that exists. IIRC the way the daelkyr create aberrations was explained as through use of a machine that 1.) creates mutated copies of creatures and then makes further mutated copies of the more interesting mutant duplicates and 2.) dialates time in such a way that millions of years of selective breeding can be fit into an afternoon; or something like that.

Such ridiculous kludges are not a point in Eberron's favor, and simply illustrate that when you try and shoehorn evolution into an explicitly mythical setting it quickly becomes stupid.

[Keltest]

Such ridiculous kludges are not a point in Eberron's favor, and simply illustrate that when you try and shoehorn evolution into an explicitly mythical setting it quickly becomes stupid.

I dunno, it sounds like the Eberron version of "a wizard did it." Sure, ok, its a machine instead of a spell, but is that really so much worse just because its got levers or buttons instead of spiderwebs and bat poop?

[Mechalich]

I dunno, it sounds like the Eberron version of "a wizard did it." Sure, ok, its a machine instead of a spell, but is that really so much worse just because its got levers or buttons instead of spiderwebs and bat poop?

At D&D's level of magical power, if you're going to manufacture new creatures by magic, just do that. Don't go about using magic to alter the flow of time and somehow breed your way to new creatures in the same time frame. It's still 'a wizard did it' because the explanation is nonsensical, but it's 'a wizard did it Rube-Goldberg style for no reason.'

[cobaltstarfire]

An easy answer to the OP is D&D Dragonborn aren't based on animals known to lactate at all, but Catfolk are.

Though one could just as well argue that catfolk shouldn't have visible mammary glands most of the time either, unless they've recently given birth or are nursing.

[warty goblin]

I dunno, it sounds like the Eberron version of "a wizard did it." Sure, ok, its a machine instead of a spell, but is that really so much worse just because its got levers or buttons instead of spiderwebs and bat poop?

Wait, you're saying there's things that aren't better with spiderwebs and bat poop?

Huh, maybe this explains why everybody seems to hate my cooking.

[Coidzor]

@Mechalich: Well, the point was less creating new species ex nihilo, because it wasn't creating new species ex nihilo.

It was painfully and gruesomely mutating and physically mutilating base creatures into others. Like when they took two goblins, smooshed them together, and then doubled-down on the insanity that initial smooshing would have produced.

IIRC Eberron explicitly has guided evolution as a thing that exists. IIRC the way the daelkyr create aberrations was explained as through use of a machine that 1.) creates mutated copies of creatures and then makes further mutated copies of the more interesting mutant duplicates and 2.) dialates time in such a way that millions of years of selective breeding can be fit into an afternoon; or something like that.

And Humans look like them and can breed with just about every sapient race. Which scared the patoots out of the surviving goblinoids when they came to Khorvaire.

[Winter_Wolf]

I dunno, it sounds like the Eberron version of "a wizard did it." Sure, ok, its a machine instead of a spell, but is that really so much worse just because its got levers or buttons instead of spiderwebs and bat poop?

Duct tape: "because we ran out of spider webs and bat poop."

[Mastikator]

There is no evolution in D&D. All known settings were specially created by deities. Evolutionary arguments do not apply. The gods chose to create catfolk and lizardfolk and whatnot in their current forms for some reason - perhaps they created humans first and then just tweaked that model a lot (or if you believe the elves, tweaked that model) to save time.

In that case there is no reason to question why lizardfolk would have boobs or not or why catfolk only have two boobs. All those features are artistic decisions, not the result of natural processes.

[Psyren]

Humans are very rarely the first humanoids in most settings, which makes the term a bit humorous when you think about it.

[Keltest]

Humans are very rarely the first humanoids in most settings, which makes the term a bit humorous when you think about it.

They are, however, typically the ones to create the common tongue. From that perspective it makes sense they would name things after themselves and in relation to themselves.