as long as we are on half-orcs and half-elves..

[rinesin]

A good example of that is "Santa's Elves" They look a lot more like gnomes in most illustrations than the Tolkien/D&D elf.

 

[Lela]

No self-respecting Dwarf would mate with the lesser races..

And there aren't that many humans who would go through all the trouble and pain of getting together with a Dwarf.

Also, in most settings weren't dwarves origanlly birthed from gems? I think a heritige of rocks would cause trouble with getting a human-dwarf birth.

Plus, there's the fact that dwarven women grow hair faster and thicker than a human man. This implies hormonal differences that could (and likely would) cause trouble during the pregnancy. More so with an elven or halfling mate.

Of course, Angel (TV) had a child with another vamp--which is a lot less likely. Anything can happen in your spicific world.

 

[Tewligan]

In the campaign I ran, the party ran into a band of ogres led by an ogre/frost giant crossbreed. He was a lot bigger than his comrades, and marginally less stupid. I think that ogres make pretty good "breeding stock" for the giant races - kind of like how humans are to the medium humanoids.

 

[Sodalis]

N Hammer: No self-respecting Dwarf would mate with the lesser races..

that is not true. In colonial days (and years after) Europeans felt that they were superior to Africans (or any other "race"). But a horny slave owner never saw it beneath him to sleep with a slave. It was almost a given that all slave masters did this.

So it is one thing to consider yourself above or superior to another race, but it is another to say that you will never breed with it.

 

[alsih2o]

not to mention the astonishing array of fetishist out there....

 

[Fenris]

It is almost unknown outside of Tolkien and Tolkien derivatives to make any distinction between a elf and a dwarf, an orc and a goblin.

In fact elves, fairies, sprites, pixies, leprechauns, dwarves, goblins, gnomes, dryads are all usually classified as fey in mythical material.

Not sure about orcs, never saw the word until I read Tolkien. Maybe I can find it in the OED? Dictionary.com refers to grampus from Milton, grampus is apparently a Killer Whale or something of the kind.

Sometimes people make distinctions such as fairies and goblins, fairies being nicer than the ugly goblins, but that is inconsistent. You usually find that when someone is imposing a Christian derived moral dualism on fairy.

All these names are usually just different names for the same beastie. Every culture had a mythical creature in their culture. One unifying theme as Ridley's Cohort has pointed out is the imposition of Christianity. In pagan times the fey were usually larger, more evil (or at least malicious) and lived more openly. The longer Chrisitianity was around, the smaller, more miscevious, and secretive the fey became. Nordic pagan elves were human sized (although confused with dwarves often). By the renessaince they had become small house elves doing the odd job around the house and by victorian times they were wee fairies only spied in the most secluded of places.

 

[Olive]

i know most people (myself included) don't really care about FR, but in a 2e Dwarf source book thingy for FR (can't remember the name), it talks about dwarf/human crossbreeds, in the context of dwarven infertility. basically it says that they end up looking like dwarves, sometimes a bit taller, but essentailly dwarves for stat purposes.

 

[Reprisal]

...grampus is apparently a Killer Whale or something of the kind.

Yeah, that would make sense, the native word for Killer Whale is "orca."

 

[Tonguez]

Not sure about orcs, never saw the word until I read Tolkien. Maybe I can find it in the OED? Dictionary.com refers to grampus from Milton, grampus is apparently a Killer Whale or something of the kind.

The Great Sea Ork (with a K) is a huge sea monster from English legend - its that creature drawn on old "medieval" world maps which is said to devour ships that vere too close to the edge of the earth (its probabaly based on the Biblical Leviathan)


Tolkien says Orc is the hobbitish word for Hobgoblin (ie hobgobs and orcs are the same in MiddleEarth)
Gary the creator claims that he came across Orc in an old Latin manuscript and that it refers to an Ogre

So perhaps the Great Sea Ork is a legendary-feindish-kaiju-sea ogre!

 

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

Y'know ... Lidda's pretty cute. I've always been fond of short brunettes.

Anybody know if she's single? We can try for a Halfling/Heap crossbreed.

Then again, as far as humans go, I think I'm probably half ogre, anyway ... 6'8" of brown-red furred beast.

So, y'know, a Lidda/HT cross breed is, while not impossible, probably illegal in most states. We'll have to build a love nest in Mexico. They don't care about a three foot height difference in Mexico...

--HT