Orc-elf hybrids

Pretty sure there are, in some editions of D&D.

They're as you'd imagine, lithe, agile, athletic orcs. They logically have some pretty good racial bonuses.

I respond to bait. See this guy for one reason, also because the legitimate questions that arise like OPs. Why also not half-dwarf? Half-halfling? Half-lizardman? Half-orcs filled a mechanical niche, stronger, dumber humans. Half-elves happened because Tolkien. We don't necessarily need half-orcs, another race could fill this niche. Half-elves don't need to be there.

Well, she was dead when they found her. Whatever actually killed her was never revealed, as far as I can remember.

Amazon?

Trip Dubs confirm Lovecraft is amongst us

>human x elf exists because humans, the writers, want fapbait
>No, it exists because Tolkien put them there.
>implying Tolkien didn't put them there for fapbait.

I just love how defensive and autistically sciencey this issue always gets Veeky Forums.

>NOOOOO HALF-ELVES CAN'T EXIST BECAUSE MUUUUULES
I AM INTELLIGENT AND ENLIGHTENED AND KNOW SO MUCH BETTER THAN ALL YOU UNEDUCATED HEATHENS

The fuck are you even doing here? Clearly fantasy and wonder are foreign concepts to you.

>Why also not half-dwarf?

Because dwarves came from a different god, whereas humans and elves were created by the same one. Hence the dwarves are too different.

>Half-halfling?

Never explored but could entirely be possible: it's mentioned in text how one halfling once wed an elf. Humans and halflings could happen just the same, therefore.

>Half-lizardman?

Mammals and reptiles, with entirely different evolutionary origins. Impossible.

I'm pretty sure my magical realm is supported by literally the vast majority of all fantasy. It's just you getting all antagonistic about it.

YOU fuck off.

Are you talking about Tolkien? Then explain half-orcs.

Uruk-hai.

Orc and Elves can't produce children.

The Orc/Elf impregnation fetish was started as a sexual deviation by a small class of Elves and perpetuated by humans as an attempt to lead Orcs to an evolutionary dead end.
It also fucks over Elves, so bonus!

Never confirmed a direct offspring between a human and an orc. Probably some black magic.

>Orc and Elves can't produce children.

Why not?

Orcs and humans can produce children. Elves and humans can produce children. So why can't orcs and elves?

You're basically just being contradictory without providing any legitimate evidence to support your argument.

In Pathfinder, they do mention that a Half-X could be any number of things including an ElfXOrc, and they say you should just pick one and fluff out the rest.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of Half-breed fantasy races.

>That being said, I'm not a huge fan of Half-breed fantasy races.
RACIST

Actually half-elves used to be a thing long before Tolkien did it. You had all these fairies and changelings and shit, and back in the day elves used to be legitimately magical and weird and vicious instead of the pleasant almost-humans we get these days.

Biological science had fuck-all to do with it, and we liked it that way.

I can't recall half-orcs mentioned in fairy tales, though. Maybe products of dark magic or curses or whatever.

>So how come I've never heard of orcs and elves having children?

Because most non-erotic fantasy media tends to be human-centeric and even then the erotic stuff still tends to be mostly humancenteric.

In my setting half-orcs and half-elves are exceptions. Some races like elves and orcs can interbreed, but it will either be an orc or an elf. If a human and a halfling want to make babies, the babies will either be humans or halflings. Sure, you can throw in something like "the human child is slightly shorter" or "the halfling has less hairy feet" but they would be essentially the same race

>Human x Elf = Half-Elf
>Human X Orc = Half-Orc
>Elf x Orc = Human

You're missing user's point in a totally retarded way, friend.

Fantasy settings rarely if ever treat Elves as a divergent genetic subspecies of hominid ancestors. That's because fantasy peoples are traditionally created by Gods or wizards and Elves are enchanted fucking fairies from an alternate dimension. Trying to argue about compatible genomes is stupid, because they don't matter to the story.

The standard explanation of why no orc/elves is that the two races hate each other so much, even violent hate-fucking is too distasteful to contemplate.

Tolkien said that the magic of the elves means can't be raped, because they simply die and return to Mandos before one can even get their legs open.

Or you could also say that making babies is MAGIC and doesn't work between orcs and elves, and you don't need to explain shit. Or maybe there are tons of orc-elves. It's your own made-up story, so tell it however you want.

Are you retarded? A human and elf, scientifically, would still be more similar to each other than a human and chimp are. You know, because they both share the same hominid adaptions and look closer to modern humans than other types of real humans (Neanderthals). In fact they're called races, not species.

Guys. Orc-elf hybrids exist. In 3.5 they get a bonus feat at first level and an extra skill point every level.

I imagine if you had Orc + Elf it would end up pretty close to a Warcraft style Troll.

Other way around. You've been consistently told why your viewpoint makes little sense through popular fantasy works (down to behavior and divinity), their narrative purpose, what they would be taxonomically relative to real life, and real life examples of what happens when very different hominids or ethniticies meet. Yet you still stick your fingers in your ears and go "Laalalalalalalala! I can't hear you! None of that matters only my headcanon belief in...some non existent setting!"

Face it. You're just salty that people find attractive people with pointy ears attractive.

>some non existent setting

Is there even a setting at all where half-elves are mules?

Veeky Forums's magical realm full of sterile half-elf prostitutes (male).

Because you don't look hard enough.

From a quick googling
>The Lady Penitent series by Lisa Smedman had a half-drow/half-orc.

>Das Schwarze Auge has a race of Half-Orcs/Half-Elves called Holberker/Holberkian.

>In 2006 Ed Greenwood was asked about half-orcs (and other half-goblinoids) born of voluntary unions in the Forgotten Realms, to which he not only expressed how those born of violence would be exceedingly rare for a variety of reasons, but also gave two examples of voluntary unions.
>One of which involved a female moon elf whose life was saved by an outcast orc. The two fell deeply in love and they spent a few years together. She unfortunately died in childbirth, because she refused to let him take her to a priest or mage who could help ease the pregnancy, out of the rightful fear that they would try to force her to abort the child or bring harm to her lover upon learning she's carrying an orc's child.

I now imagine a Wolf and cub style adventuerer of a Becalmed and wise Orc barbarian with his little half-elf daughter/son

Ring species.

>Why also not half-dwarf? Half-halfling? Half-lizardman?
Because some species being compatible doesn't mean all are. There are probably some that are compatible, but aren't likely to happen and so aren't going to figure in any system or narrative.

>Fantasy called "The Dwarfs"
>Bad things happen to an Elf
It's like pottery.

By what contrived logic should orcs and elves be more compatible than humans and dwarfs? I can only think about Tolkiens orcs being corrupted elves, but not all orcs are Tolkien orcs.

>By what contrived logic should orcs and elves be more compatible than humans and dwarfs?

Because orcs used to be elves while dwarfs came from an entirely different deity, and element.

It's like, elves and orcs are different races of human (black and chinese maybe), while dwarfs are apes.

Tolkien again, awesome. Or is there something else?

>Half-Dwarves
Midgets.
Alternatively:
Human women don't like Dwarves because
>Fucking manlets. When will they learn.
and human males don't dick-down dwarf females because
>>Fucking a woman with a beard.

Not really, just Tolkien setting the trend and everyone else aping him. That's about it.

There doesn't have to be a specific logic, any more than I have to explain to you how one plant happened to evolve with poisonous fruits, and one not.

In any setting with a bunch of related species, some will be able to interbreed and some won't. The reason for this won't be obvious from the coarse adaptations of any of the species involved, including appearance or behaviour.

This is just how real life works. Complaining about this on the pretext of caring about "science" or "realism" just makes you look like a retard.

In tolkien, orcs were the results of torturing and mutilating elves, so it sorta makes a kind of sense that they cant interbreed, they are not just a slightly different species, but a total mockery and abhorrent anathema of elves.

I respect his work, but don't think we should copy it one-to-one all the time.

I don't even need "science" or "realism" and don't know where you got this. It just appears to be lazy world building and I would suspect some meta reason, basically you want elves and orcs compatible, but such things as humans and dwarfs not because...?

I may be wrong cause its been a while, but I remember some pretty explicit exposition in the books that pegged them as halfs with magic tomfoolery thrown in on top of it. One thing I know with absolute certainty is that there were half orc half man hybrids from Isengard that were not Uruk Hai that took over the shire, and then the adventures came back and Merry and Pippin kicked their asses.

Tl;dr pretty sure there us evidence in the books for half human half orcs.

>I respect his work, but don't think we should copy it one-to-one all the time.

I do too, and me neither, but that's what happened and now they've become a trend.

It's by Markus Heitz

Wait, tolken elves as un rapable sounds wrong. I vaguely remember a pair of elves who had a serious hate-on for x evil thing cause it had raped their mother. Course I haven't read those in a looong time, so I could be wrong.

...how do you figure that user? I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I just don't see it.

That is pretty awesome.

Half-dragon

>I don't even need "science" or "realism"
You got that right, jackass.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

Sometimes a population can breed with another, but sometimes they can't; you can't explain why based on gross observable characteristics.

Dragons need to be magical to even exist. They might as well be magical enough to be able to reproduce with everything.

>"You got that right, jackass."
>gives me a wikipedia article with a shitton of science and realism
You just use whatever fits your assertion, don't you?

>"I don't know where you got this"
>shows where they got this
You just like to complain, don't you? What kind of logic are you looking for, if it's uncoupled to reality and science? An emotional one? Those exist in reality, too.

Hey assholes, you sound like you're good for nothing but arguing pointlessly, so let me help.

user whining about orcs and elves not being capable of cross-breeding:

What do you need? What sort of logic are you looking for, if not the kind that explains why some species can cross-breed, but others can't?

I just follow common sense. For instance, humans and elves are pretty close to one another in every conceivable way, elves are just a bit thinner and live longer and are kind of pansies, so they could probably conceivably interbreed. Humans and dwarves are a bit farther away from one another so that's a bit less likely in my mind, but could still be done perhaps with magic of a true-love quest or something.

Orcs are just ugly humans so they go fine too. If orcs and humans work, and elves and humans work, then obviously so do orcs and elves.

Lizardmen are right out because they're lizards and we're mammals.

No need to read about the exact sciences behind all this shit - what I don't know or can't figure out with a bit of thought, I don't need to know.

You probably argued with a lot of people, but I never stated that science and realism should stop elves and orcs from interbreeding. I just said that when they can, other races like humans and halflings should. Because aside from Tolkien, I see no reason for that really making sense. But if they can, than at least be consistent and let the others interbreed too, don't just handwave it, don't just say "lol magic I guess", don't just say "whatever, this is how it is."

I don't say it must be based on science, but if it is, fine. You agreed, and at the same fucking time based your agreement on a wikipedia article that is all about science and realism. So what is it now?

>Orcs are just ugly humans
I thought they were corrupted elves? It almost seems like this really depends on the setting.

Yeah but elves are like prettier thinner humans, so if you corrupt them you get ugly humans.

It's that easy.

All this being said, I do wish all the fantasy races were a bit different from humans than usual. It's boring this way.

>common sense
>not related to reality or science
Okay, I don't know how to talk to you.

>If orcs and humans work, and elves and humans work, then obviously so do orcs and elves.
But that's just wrong. It's just a fact that there are plenty of cases where A can mate with B, and B can mate with C, but A and C cannot breed.

And if you don't mind if a fantasy convention ignores reality, then what are you complaining about? There's nothing internally inconsistent or genre-breaking about the idea.

Basically, you're like a guy who can't do math asking "why does [everyday math thing] work the way it does in generic fantasy? that doesn't fit my common sense idea!" and when the reason is explained, they go "fuck that! I don't care about reality, I just want a logical reason!"

This. Do you think the two gulls in this picture can produce viable offspring? Based on what?

>exact sciences
There's nothing "exact sciences" about it. Sometimes things can make babies, sometimes they can't. Just because thing 1 and thing 2 can have a baby, and thing 2 and thing 3 can have a baby, doesn't mean that thing 1 and thing 3 can have a baby.

>common sense
>not related to reality or science

I just don't care about the whole mule thing. Like, I am of course perfectly aware mules can't interbreed, but I don't know if that would be some sort of a common sense that not only everyone would know but would also instantly know to apply it to fantasy races without skipping a beat.

>But that's just wrong. It's just a fact that there are plenty of cases where A can mate with B, and B can mate with C, but A and C cannot breed.

Again, science. I don't know about science. I just think that it would stand for a reason that A and C should be able to breed as well.

Turns out they can't, but hey, that's no reason this should still be a thing in fantasy.

>Basically, you're like a guy who can't do math asking "why does [everyday math thing] work the way it does in generic fantasy? that doesn't fit my common sense idea!" and when the reason is explained, they go "fuck that! I don't care about reality, I just want a logical reason!"

Math is easy as hell. You can figure it all out on your own without ever opening a book. I don't think you could come up with the mule thing all on your own without having someone or something tell you about it.

>Based on what?

Based on both being birds, looking in fact so similar that if I didn't know better I'd say they would be the exact same species?

Scientifically speaking I'm probably completely wrong. But as fantasy logic goes, I find it perfectly viable.

>If Mary John can have babies, and Mary and Michael can have babies, then obviously so can John and Michael.

No they can't, because John and Michael are both men. Everyone can tell that much.

Are you stupid?

Okay you seem to think that people are arguing that orcs and elves can't crossbreed in any setting, ever. This isn't the case.

You asked "well why doesn't it happen more"? And you were given the reason, and you don't care about them. Cool, cool.

But what you are left with is "yeah, if you ignore the reasons for saying they can't, sure they could or they couldn't".

So why are you still insisting on a reason?

Psst. The point of that example is to show how stupid that person's logic was, by using an example that everyone can recognize.

Now you know.

I don't know. You might be confusing me with a different user. I just came in to the discussion halfway through, saw "men and elves shouldn't be able to crossbreed because science" or something, and went from there.

No, I really don't know.

There's a man and there's a woman. They're both mammals and look pretty much the same. They're both fertile. So, says a layman with no biological education or at least no desire to apply it to his fictional entertainment, why couldn't they have babies?

Psst. That "example" of yours is called a strawman, which is pretty mich universally recognized as the shittiest argument you could possibly make.

Now you know.

if were talking d&d orcs then ive always fluffed as any child of a orc fucking a vaugley mammalian race is a half orc cos of the whole grummush wanting them to take over the world and fuck over every other race so their orc nature is the strongest in the child

A strawman doesn't actually reflect the argument it derides.

The post in question reflected the structure of the other guy's logic pretty exactly. "But there are reasons why that's wrong!" apply just as well to one as the other.

Make a dumb argument, and someone can call you out on it by highlighting the part of your argument that doesn't hold up.

This is different from a strawman. So don't just learn about fallacies through word of mouth or jpg's from your favourite online community.

How is it a dumb argument, though? If they look so much like the same species, why shouldn't they be able to breed? It stands to common sense that they should be.

Because lots species look alike and can't breed. Taking it as some kind of guarantee isn't common sense thing to get asspained about, but more of a "oh, they can't? huh."

Yeah, but you can't tell that at first glance - you need to be informed by another person or maybe a book. And the actual truth of things will actually fly against the common sense, the initial assumption.

In fantasy, none of that will apply unless you like to show off your intellectual superiority or deliberately subvert common fantasy tropes.

Common sense is assuming that bluejays and robins can't breed just because they're both bird.

The initial assumption is "those things aren't the same race/species? why would they be able to reproduce together?"

In the kind of fantasy that this thread has discussed, if half-elves exist canonically, that doesn't overturn the whole "like with like" rule.

Like, dogs and cats can't breed despite both being smallish quadropeds with fur, claws, and whiskers.

You're also forgetting the fundamental way of learning: you can learn things just from seeing them in the world, instead of being told or reading it in a book.

In fantasy, nothing has to apply if you don't want it to. If you're just saying "I don't want it to", then there's nothing left to say.

Orc/elf hybrids are largely indestinguishible from orc/human hybrids

Same species? Perhaps not. But same race? Certainly. Different human races can always reproduce fine, after all.

And fantasy races are nearly always described like that - races. Not species.

user's put you in an impossible position, user. You can't argue something logically without referencing the real world or how things work. They can trip you up over the meaning of words, but if you get into it they can accuse you of debating semantics.

You're fucking dumb. Demand to argue on a level field or not at all.

Even if two species aren't normally biologically compatible, there's this thing called 'magic.'

It probably wouldn't even be a very high-level spell to let two incompatible creatures have a baby together.

The difference between a species and a race is more of a science thing than a common sense thing.

The central question here is "how different is different ENOUGH?" and there is no common sense answer to that; people just feel how they feel.

As for why they're called races, your answer is in your question. Humans are used to being the only sapients on earth, and we call our different categories "races". Fantasy use of the term is likely not done on a scientific basis, and doesn't really indicate a principle of cross-fertility like you suggest.

Race mixing is fucking disgusting and makes no sense

I personally NEVER allow mutts in my games

I sort of imagine they'd look like Araki's earlier stuff. Big and muscular but also kind of gay.

Shut the fuck up you racist hick piece of shit

Samefag, troll, etc.

>You must me 18 to browse this site.'

Come back when you're not so obvious.

Nothing I said was racist. I was talking about FANTASY races, as in mixing dwarf and elf

It's disgusting, basically beastiality, and has no place in fantasy

>muh Veeky Forums culture
>muh anonymous detective

Shut up fuckcock

Gays have no place in a medieval fantasy setting

Fantasy races are among other things an analogue for the various human races. You can't really separate the two.

But totally hetero man-butt fuckers do, right? It's only gay if you like taking the dick.

It's only gay if it doesn't hit the prostate

It's only gay if the balls touch. And elves don't have balls.