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Old 06-05-2019, 10:13 PM   #10
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: What if Fantasy Races weren't "Races"?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2 View Post
In many DnD-esque worlds, there are "races" like Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, etc. each one is assumed to have some racially-pure homeland and unique culture. This affects every aspect of worldbuilding such realities.

So let us remove that assumption ... What if these "races" didn't breed true?

Assume that there are ... let's say seven "races" in a fantasy world. But they are not "Races" - we'll call them "types" for now.

Any couple of the same Type has a 25% chance of producing offspring of the same Type as themselves, but a 75% chance of producing offspring of any one of the other six Types.

Any couple of two different Types has a 25% chance of producing a child of the same Type as one of the parents, and a 75% chance of producing offspring of any one of the other Types.I

In this circumstance, Types lose the distinctions that make fantasy races. A large enough family can have all Types. A pair of Fraternal Twins could be an Elf and an Orc.

The concept of "Race" would have no biological component. Instead the definition of "Race" would be entirely cultural, much like people sometimes speak of "the German Race" or "the French Race". There would be no "Dwarf Nation" or "Elf culture" because there is no way to guarantee the next generation will have the same Type.

How would this affect the design of a typical fantasy milieu?
Shadowrun, at least in some versions, is something like this. All the 'metatypes' are actually Homo sapiens, but in the presence of high enough mana levels latent traits emerge and elves, orcs, trolls, etc. start being born to baseline humans. This happens whenever the mana level gets high enough, and it's why those forms are legends from the past, it's happened before.

When the mana level drops low enough, all the other 'races' vanish in one generation, because suddenly they all give birth to baseline humans.

In at least some versions of Shadowrun, IIRC, there's no guarantee that two members of a given 'race' will produce the same race, though that's the strong tendency. Humans can give birth any of them as the mana level first passes the critical point.
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