We're all familiar with the "humans in D&D will bonk anything" gag. Half-elves, half-orcs, half-ogres, half-dragons; the list goes on. But, just how believable is it to have humans hooking up with non-humans in D&D? Are all halfbreeds born of broken homes, one-night stands and rape, or are there actual loving interspecies couples?
Also, any interesting plot hooks or setting building aspects you can think of featuring interspecies couples? Have you ever met any interspecies couples in your game?
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Given how the settings tend to gloss over lots and we have no real world examples either it can work however you want it to.
How creatively bankrupt are you that you can't think of simple scenarios like this? And yes, of course it's believable; it'd be literally retarded to think otherwise.
>But, just how believable is it to have humans hooking up with non-humans in D&D?
I'm just basing this on my own very generic, kind of dated, impression of D&D, but I'd say it'd vary based on a couple of species:
>Human+Orc & Human+Elf: Common & Very Common
I unironically think Half Orcs and Half Elves would be way more common than anyone else would willingly give them credit for and I don't mean because of rape or tragic backstories. There'd be entire CLANS, TRIBES, Barbarian nations and raiders marrying and allying themselves with Orcish tribes via marriage as well as just pretty standard fucking from being so close to one another. Half Elves would be a similar case, but in the instance that they'd live so long that if you even had a handful in any community they'd quickly sire over a dozen quarter-elf children simply because they're 200 and have outlived maybe 2-3 wives or husbands already... They're handsome, it'd happen.
Half Elves would be STUPID common, you wouldn't even- it'd get to a point where 1/3rd maybe of the population has pointed ears.
>Ogre+Orc: Common
This is just a matter of Orcs wanting to fuck the biggest, strongest, Orciest individual they can sire offspring with and Ogres in their own way possibly finding Orcs to be 'attractive', dashing, daring, charming, in their own comparative kind of way. These also might be more ideal or opportunistic hybridism because Half-Ogres kind of get a better of both worlds.
I don't know what else can fuck and have kids.
As for what can have kids... depends a lot on edition/setting. Off the top of my head...
Human/X
* Half-orc
* Half-ogre
* Half-elf
* Half-dwarf (Dark Sun, Kingdoms of Kalamar, Dragonlance)
* Half-gnome (Dragonlance, Kingdoms of Kalamar)
* Half-gnoll
* Half-goblin
* Half-hobgoblin
* Half-satyr
* Half-dryad
Demihuman/Demihuman:
* Dwarrow (dwarf/gnome)
* Elfling (elf/halfling)
* Dworg (dwarf/orc)
* Tel-amhothlan (orc/elf)
Racial Templates:
* Half-Dragon
* Half-Fiend
* Half-Fey
* Half-Elemental
* Half-Celestial
In my shitty homebrew elves dominated the world until humans showed up. They settled a big war by joining their races and now half-elves rule everything.
Problem I think here is that the system has "half elf" not "quarter elf" so mixed communities don't persist beyond generations
Maybe halfbreeds are sterile and it never specifically tells us this...
If we go for the "everything can interbreed with everything", my guess is inter species relationships might be quite common, at least in civilized societies where there's more variety and people can tolerate such pairings. More primitive cultures, specially if there's bad blood between species, might not be tolerant enough for the practice to be common.
Selective interbreeding could be a way of normalizing them if they bring something positive to the genepool. If this is a common practice, I guess some half-races would become independent races on their over time, having developed a big enough stockpile to not depend on their "parent species" to perpetuate themselves. Probably the first half-breeds to ever exist would e product of rape, unwanted pregnancies, slavery and such things, with the perpetrators not taking into consideration of they can really procreate with their neighboring species until they put two and two together and realize it is possible.
Isn't hybrid sterility a common thing?
Not that user, but it really is. Half-breeds are usually sterile, and I have only heard of two cases of mules (donkey/ass and horse crossbreeds) being capable of breeding.
In my setting there are only three type of hybrids; half-orc, half-ogre and orogs (orc/ogre), and it's just because orcs were made from humans, and ogres are just really big orcs (around 1 in every 300 orc births produces an ogre, and ogres are numerous enough to be considered an independent race). Everything else is possible only through powerful magic/divine intervention/dealing with devils.
I found the chart.
>Giant+Ogre, Giant+Human/Orc: Very Common, Common
I think this'd be more of a case of Fire, Frost, and Hill Giants just fucking captives and those 'fantasy genetics' breeding down into the smaller races (with it being most explicit in Ogres, consider Frost, Fire, and Hill Ogres making that 1/3rd or higher ratio in some populations due to how advantageous it is to be one). You'd most likely end up in a situation where it wouldn't be very unusual to see Humans and Orcs of varying size like how it's done in One Piece.
>Fey Mutts (Centaur, Satyr, Nymph, Sprite, Dryad): Very Common
Given how they all live innawoods (I, personally, don't think Centaurs should be feyish, live in the woods, or anything like that, but this is D&D'S demented setting) I'd imagine it'd be not just a case of neighbors and tribal manners, but also just the fact that fey are, culturally speaking: degenerates. Feyish hybrids would be most likely be exceedingly common and very weird looking due to all the possible combinations to mix and match, but I think Centaur Dryads & Nymphs could be quite neat.
>Aasimar(Demigods?) (Celestial/Fiend+Anything): Situational
This needs to be mentioned not because I think you'd see them popping up, but because I think you'd see them pop up in very particular or important instances where in a Celestial or Fiend thought it of strategic importance to breed and or impregnate a mortal species in order to sire offspring. For Celestials I figure this would be an extremely prudish but important decision.. for Fiends, though, I think it'd be just another day.
>Dragon+Kobold, Dragon+Human: Uncommon
I'm only mentioning this one because I believe much in the same way that Celestials and Fiends would occasionally produce Aasimar, so to would Dragons sire or impregnate others for just such purposes: influence cultures and reward followers.
Come on guys, we have a chart for this!
From memory: nymphs, dragons, demons, and celestials can breed with pretty much anything.
There's apparantly evidence that modern humans have a significant amount of Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that there is plenty of real world precendent for interspecies relationships.
Have you been to /d/? Humans WILL bonk anything, not just in D&D.
Even leaving fetishists aside, visually elves are pretty much just attractive humans with pointy ears. That stay young and attractive your whole life.
The only reason there wouldn't be interspecies couples would be racial tensions.
Half elf + half elf = half elf
Or, depending on how elf chromosomes work a child with 2 half elf parents could be anything between full human and full elf.
Those are basically all I could think of, so with those in mind I think a Dnd world would be different in the sense that:
-Too many Half-Elves, so many, so very many Half-Elves; more than you'd ever know what to do with.
-You would have entire tribes of mixed Orcs, Half-Orcs, and barbarian Humans, they'd most likely be a serious problem and would have roving hordes. You'd still have 'Half-Orc rape', but it'd be the minority source of Half-Orcs and only really a big shit storm for more civilized folks.
-Hill/Frost/Fire Ogres would be a thing and they'd be awesome and I love it.
-There'd be hordes of terrifying mix-breed fey roaming around innawoods with no consistency and while some would be weird and disturbing, others would no doubt be incredibly beautiful and fetish-bait for a lot of sexually confused farmers.
That's all I got.
Not in mythology, which is basically how fantasy styles itself.
This chart isn't canon, it's 3rd party, by the way. Before people start treating it like it's law.
>just how believable is it to have humans hooking up with non-humans in D&D?
The rates of bestiality across the world are surprisingly high. And that's for creatures who can't even speak our language or give consent. We have roughly 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, which indicates quite a bit of boning a lot of demihumans. There is a strong possibility of humans having boned many of the other hominid subraces that humanity was close to, the denisovans and such.
So stick humanity in a fantastic world with near human races, one of which is considered rather beautiful for human standards, and of fucking course we're going to bone these races. Hell, we'll form relationships and communities with them.
God I hate that chart. It's so fuckign shit from a design perspective and its rules are a jumbled mess and also fucks up 3.5 crossbreeding rules in multiple areas, considering it's the homebrew setting chart for the terrible setting the Erotic Fantasy book was using.
Also centaurs are Monstrous Humanoids in D&D, not Fey. Though Fey/centaur mixes would probably happen since they tend to be closer to nature and thus closer to the fey. Aasimar are literally just humans with minor amounts of celestial (angel, guardinal/agathion, eladrin/azata) blood in them like tieflings are minor fiend, not demigods. Not even half breeds. Celestial mixes tend to happen from godly blessings, loving relationships, and being too close to magical artifacts or regions while pregnant. Celestials are not in the business of simply boning someone due to duty or wanting to craft special warriors, that's not a good way of doing this. And fiends do it because it ruins families and kills people, something they like.
The fey are weird and also metaphysical creatures, they don't really mix but instead give birth to whole members of the various fey "races". They explicitly do not function on genetics, like celestials, fiends, and dragons.
How the fuck can someone be half elemental? Did his dad fuck a tree or something?
Magic. Or breeding with "elemental kin" like genies. Or having elementals that aren't just semi-sentient masses of elemental matter. Take your pick.
>image board chock-full with literal furries
>are interspecies couples believable?
Tell me this is bait, OP. Please let this be bait.
IRL humans will want to bonk anything not much abstraction is needed there when bestiality laws exist to stop people from bonking non human things as well as furry communities organized on the concept of humans bonking non human things. For other races you'll have to define how human like they are or how unified (or lack thereof) their social out look is on other races.
Does anybody have the screencap of the user explaining the homebrew RPG his friends played in elementary school? The part I remember was how by the game rules your character could only be a human (and since they were uncorrupted by the Internet, they all assumed that you would play a male human). Normally it was impossible to have a nonhuman PC, but if your character laid with a nonhuman woman, your next PC could be the son of the current PC. That was the only option for playing a nonhuman.
Anyone have this screencap?
Picture of a female to get your attention.
Wraithworld I think it was called.
I've made several interspecies NPCs over the years.
>A Halfling x Kobold merchant couple.
They run a roadside trading cart where the halfling maiden plays saleswoman for customers while the Kobold behind the curtain cooks, cleans, tracks, manages, and works backstage so that Mrs Halfling is always one reach 'offstage' for whatever she happens to need. They had been stockpiling gold to pay for the ownership of a cave just off a major roadway. Cover story being that they wanted to make a shop but it turns out they have a green dragon egg and were preemptively planing for the hatching and raising process.
Easily the best moral dilemma/sollution happened when i let the party uncover this.
One player advised them to place their adopted egg in the cave and leave it be. One wanted to kill it for being a danger to the public and take the couple to the authorities
Two were totally on board with the couple's plan of raising it and the last guy just wanted to teleport it the wizard's collage for study.
Eventually after a half hour and one dogpiled party member the group decided to go ahead with raising the egg but actually secured them a place to do it at the wizard's collage on the grounds of it being an "experiment."
>A bickering elf and dwarf couple who live in the forest as big game hunters.
Players met them while the pair were hunting down owlbears and they offered to let us camp outside their cabin which the Players declined.
This chart has zero logic, is third party, and is 100% counter to the general "canon" of D&D when it was published. Why the fuck is Corellon banning Elves from knocking up halflings but not humans?
In the real world, we have people falling in love with and FUCKING GODDAMN TRAINS
Sometimes it comes down to weird kinks, sometimes a disorder or, since in dnd we're talking about other sapient races, it might actually be consentual love or yeah, just a one night stand. And then there is still rape.
So, everything is possible.
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com
Found it, thanks user!
Half-elf plus human yields half-elf. In this manner the magical legacy of their divine founders is preserved.
Muslim girls in Pakistan/India will fuck Hindu boys knowing for a fact they will be stoned to death if they're caught. Humans really will fuck anything.
Broadly speaking, there is little reason for it to not happen.
There may be more specific cultural barriers, but that's up to you.
Humans make for good breeding fodder. Every half breed I've seen gains more than it looses. Half Orcs graduate from smashing sticks together to having something resembling intellect. Half Elves get all the natural skill of elves, with a human fire lit under their asses.
Something to remember, if you are going by the standard "medieval" fantasy, loving marriages the way we know them did not exist. Marriages were largely out of strategic or else opportunistic utility.
If you are a strapping human lad, and the neighbors have a gnome daughter, and the next family is a 6 hour walk away, guess who is probably getting married.
> Are interspecies couples believable in D&D?
I can't see why not, if hybrids like half-elves and half-orcs are possible and especially if those hybrids breed true (which they do).
>But, just how believable is it to have humans hooking up with non-humans in D&D?
Immensely, as all of those fictions about humans hooking up by non-humans have been written and read by humans, thereby making a strong case that a significant number of humans want to bang non-humans.
>Something to remember, if you are going by the standard "medieval" fantasy
...then you should kill yourself or play another system.
That is absolutly adorable.
I don't judge. I just advise.
Being mildly autistic for a moment...
If you mean inter"species" procreation, no. That's not how this works. Speciation is literally such an extreme gulf in genetics that children are either not possible or are infertile mules. Interracial procreation, though? Yeah, definitely.
If you mean for pure sexual pleasure w/o the possibility for reproduction? Yeah, totally believable.
Here's the thing:
Fuck realism.
No, seriously, I'm sick of hearing this brought up in every topic about the birds & bees when the setting is explicitly Dungeons & Dragons.
This is the same world where dragons fly and breathe fire, illithids subsist entirely on brain tissue, and wizards have the power to create entire planets and rewrite history.
Saying that humans and elves/dwarves/gnomes/orcs can't have kids because "it's not realistic" is a completely puerile argument in the face of everything else in D&D that gleefully shanks realism in the face and then kicks it in the ribs as it lays dying in a ditch.
But what if I just like that they can't have kids?
Things like speciation and genetics may or may not have any relevance in a fantasy world where, for example, the mechanism of the origin of species may be divine will rather than evolution.
But Half-Elves tho
...
One drop.
>How believable is it?
Very, if mythology is any indication.
>Are there actual loving interspecies couples?
Again, going off of mythology, yes.
These are the same sort of people who say 'well of course I can invent gunpowder like I literally have the ingredients' or 'lol fire isn't an element but nitrogen is'
No ability to actually conceive what a world with fundamentally different physics could be like.
Genies count as elementals
Damn, you guys bit hard. You missed the bit about interracial procreation, didn't you? Yeah. Just fluff your elves/dwarves/etc to be racially/sexually compatible with humans. Maybe they aren't compatible with eachother, though, just the humans. Maybe humans have some god-given properties that make them fertile with everything. Damn, dude. It's just a game.
>Half-knife-ears
>Not half-orcs
This guy.
One of my nations is an island where there used to be dragonborn, elves, and humans. A plague swept across the island and the three peoples came together to help each other out. Nowadays everyone is classified as a half-elf.
I've set it up as a chinese dynasty derivative.
Then you're not appealing to realism and you're fine.