Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Treantmonklvl20 Jul 19, 2015 19:58:20	Saw THIS and thought it was pretty interesting.  Thoughts?
#2 Jordan175 Jul 19, 2015 22:16:18	I thought the Mul (half-dwarf) from Dark Sun was the mule of D&D?   To answer the text question at the very end, the reason half-elves and half-orcs are a thing while half-dwarves are not is part of the JRR Tolkien book The Silmarillion: Elves and Humans were made by Eru Illuvitar, the creator of the universe, while Dwarves were made by Aule, a god of mining and crafting, and one of Erus children. So Elves and Humans can interbreed because they were made by the same deity based on the same plans, wheras the dwarves were made from a different mold. Orcs were originally elves who were twisted by the evil magic of Morgoth (Saurons boss), but retained enough of Illuvitars design to make half-orcs.   Can't say I agree with Lindybeige on the idea of "inability to reproduce = no sex drive" but the society aspect could be an intersting one to explore. Half-elves don't seem to carry a ton of stigma in LotR, as Elrond himself was a half-elf with two half-elf parents. Aragorn is also noted as having a small fraction of Elf-blood in him.
#3 cowleymen Jul 20, 2015 5:05:02	Jordan175 wrote:
#4 akr71 Jul 20, 2015 6:47:49	As a DM, if one of my players comes to me with a concept of a PC born to half-elf and elf parents I allow it.  I take half-elf to mean anyone of mixed elf/human parentage - so I'd use the same rules whether they are 1/4 or 3/4 elf.  I would do they same with half-orc.   If someone wanted to play a character born to a gnome/halfling union, I would allow that too.  In fact it would be preferable to dragonborn, tiefling, bird-men or genasi - I'm not a big fan of those as player races.
#5 Marandahir Jul 20, 2015 8:32:32	I'm a big fan of the half-races, and make it a point to make a lot of the races into cross-breeds. What is a Gnome? It's Half-Dwarf, Half-Elf! But yeah, the Mule idea is only for Half-Dwarves in my game; Half-elves are a key race akin to that of the Men of Dol Amroth or the Numenoreans in Tolkien – Men with Faerie ancestry; these are contrasted against the Goliaths (Men with Giantish ancestry). By grouping races into either half-races, or related groups (in my game, Halflings, Orcs/Half-Orcs, and Minotaurs are related races), I've severely cut down on the Mos Eisley Cantina effect, while retaining a "worldly" amount of different cultures.
#6 rgoodbb Jul 20, 2015 10:00:52	Are people happy to subscribe to the view that half-orcs and half-elves might be half something other than human for flavour reasons?(no mechanical differences just traits and what-not, If so what would be a cool mix?
#7 TenaciousJ Jul 20, 2015 11:02:30	rgoodbb wrote:
#8 cowleymen Jul 20, 2015 21:03:25	TenaciousJ wrote:
#9 crimfan07 Jul 23, 2015 8:38:25	In my now 20 year old campaign world, the original races of the world were fae: Elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, and firbolg. Humanity were interlopers from another world, which was one way I explained the congeries of human cultures that vaguely resembled real world cultures. They were actually from our world, but different times. Humans could breed with everybody and were very fertile compared to the fae races, which were affected by a Far Realm gate they'd opened several thousand years before. Goblins were unusual in that they remained fertile, but this was a mystery to some degree.    Orcs had been altered in times past from goblins and humans by Far Realm taint and were essentially unnatural. (Eventually they were wiped out in the game due to the course of events, when the gate to the Far Realm was permanently closed.) Half-elves in the recent timeline of the campaign world had started to identify with each other as their own race; previously they had been largely stuck in between the two worlds or were enslaved by some human cultures.
#10 Tempest_Stormwind Jul 23, 2015 14:54:12	TenaciousJ wrote:
#11 RogerWilco Jul 23, 2015 15:26:25	I think that most people playing RPGs don't really focus on getting offsplring.   I also think that the source of the half-elf is people like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, who's certainly supposed to be fertile. The whole concept is just copied verbatim from Tolkien into most fantasy.   I find it much more interesting to focus on the differences in lifespan and speed of aging, leading to different outlooks on life.   I find that for example http://www.errantstory.com has an intersting take on half-elves.
#12 TenaciousJ Jul 24, 2015 12:33:51	Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
#13 Hebitsuikaza Jul 24, 2015 14:40:33	I think half-elfs and half-orcs are rather poor remnants from the earliest editions that the designers don't have the guts to get rid of.   Half-elf has always been a bit of a lame concept given that elves in D&D are also a PC option... so they must live alongside humans, trade with humans and have good relations with humans... at that point, you can't have a half-way point that is rejected by both societies. Humans and elves are not remotely alien to one another.   Half-Orcs are just a way to have good guy Orcs-- because... well... I guess being half-human can make you a good guy and the mentality of D&D in those early days was too simplistic and small-minded to grap the idea that any non-human race could have both members that are good AND evil while still being the same race. Apparently only humans were flexible enough to have their own morality rather than one dictated by their species.   But even by third edition, both should have been done away in favor of the option of having a human character be able to choose a feat at first level (or something similar in 4E) that would give them the heritage of some other race-- be it elf, orc, dwarf, etc.   And then just have Orcs be a regular player race while noting that 90% of the Orcs in the world are out-of-control violent barbarians who constantly kill people and that should color people's reactions to them.... but... then again... that is sort of understood with the half-human ones anyway which tend to just be written as just plain Orcs.
#14 Chaosmancer Jul 26, 2015 13:13:31	I've gotten in the habit of just hand waving and saying Half-orcs are "orcs" just different, perhaps culuturally perhaps figuratively from the MM version of orcs.   It started becuase I had a player who did not approve of the implied origin of half-orcs (pillaging and what follows) and I always make allowances for things that make my players uncomfortable at the table. But, it also frees up some creative space for me and is simply more interesting, because we already have so many cultures of "marauding hordes of unstoppable barbarism" in DnD that I like moving orcs out of that space.   As for the idea of messing with half-elves. Eh. I don't know. Part of me wants to increase half-breeds for increased believability in story terms, another part of me wants to get rid of all of them for simplicities sake. Mostly I try to say they are rare enough that I don't bother with them unless they are a PC, and then take cues from their backstory.
#15 rczarnec Jul 26, 2015 16:00:53	Chaosmancer</a> wrote:
#16 the_move Aug 19, 2015 8:34:36	Sry for bringing this up again, but...   According to the D&D Murder in Baldur's Gate Campaign Guide Alan Alyth, the current owner of the Elfson Tavern is the son of a female half-elf (the former owner of the tavern) and a human male. It is further told that he has run the tavern for decades and that his mothers half-elf heritage has kept him  living longer and looking better than full-blooded humans. Otherwise he seems to have no elven features like pointed ears.   Hope that might answer the question.