D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Minigiant]

You realize that is dwelling VERY close to the language used by segregationists less than a century ago, right? The whole "like should stay with like" was the foundation of Jim Crow?

It's not a good look and I'd rather WotC stay silent than say "some species should stick with their own kind."

As a Black American, I get that.

But also as a Black American, I can understand the base game that a crocodile and a bunny not being able to have offspring isn't a crazy idea.

 

[Remathilis]

But they very much do in Eberron. Khoravar half-elves are a major population block all across Khorvaire and make up two of the Dragonmarked Houses (although one prefers not to identify as Khoravar), and many very specifically reject the notion that they are something less than distinct people unto themselves - they are not humans, they are not elves, they are Khoravar.

Without their own mechanics, there is no distinct Khoravar identity - we can have a discussion about making those mechanics more significant and impactful than previous iterations may have been (I'm not going to pretend the '14 half-elf statblock was especially exciting), but removing them entirely and splitting all Khoravar in the setting down the middle into "really an elf" and "really a human" camps only robs them of the identity they had.

You brought up matters of memories of past lives and the ability to shift gender as possible aspects that help define the sense of elven identity - do those pass on to half-elves that use the elf statblock? Are they denied to half-elves that use the human stat-block? Are any upcoming book authors going to bother asking or answering those questions if all mixed-ancestry characters are shoved into a single sidebar in the PHB from now on?

Tieflings in past editions were (more explicitly) mixed-ancestry characters as well, with both fiendish and mortal blood - should we shoe-horn them into the same mold and make tiefling players choose between using the human mechanics or telling them to go pick out a fiend statblock from the Monster Manual?

The Khorvar could be a unique species presented in the Eberron book, next to Kalahatar and warforged. (Eberron lost shifter and changeling to the base generic game, they can claim their version of half-elf as unique).

Tieflings can half a half-fiend origin, but the text does say they can arise by a character being born near lower planar energy or as a result of dark magic. You can make a half-elf by conceiving a child in elven lands...

Hmm... What if you could? Make the half-elf into a fey-touched race that appears both as the offspring of fey ancestry species but also children born by fey portals, children snatched by the fey, etc. You can keep the whole awe/fear elements due to people's opinions of the fey, and it could open the design space to include options not tied to elves or humans.


Meanwhile, the half-orc was only ever a backdoor way to play an orc PC from when orcs were monsters. The full orc fills nearly every unique niche the half-orc does except for the icky implications of their conception. I'm fine with losing them.

So maybe fey-touched absorbing half-elf and orc replacing half orc would work.

 

[Bagpuss]

Why don't we move forward? Make half elf and half orc like tiefling and give them their own cities states, countries, empires, societies, and cultures?

Well I've always played "race" as species (using the old meaning of the word), so half-races were always infertile which it makes it hard for them to develop a independent society.

Can we stop with the tangents and go back to how this is a huge "you don't exist" to all mixed-race people? (which includes the whole Latino population?)

Remember in D&D race means species. There are no mixed-species people you would be taking human-gorilla crosses, (well technically there was interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans with modern humans). Mixed-race people are all part of the human race, they aren't a separate species like humans and orcs.

 

[cranberry]

I think it would help if half orcs and elves were viewed as their own separate species rather than a sub species or a hybrid.

None of the playable characters in D&D were ever really races. Just like dogs and cats, they are separate species.

 

[Bagpuss]

It's not a good look and I'd rather WotC stay silent than say "some species should stick with their own kind."

Look if you want to try breeding with dolphins or gorillas that's up to you, but personally "species should stick to their own kind" isn't that offensive.

 

[Remathilis]

As a Black American, I get that.

But also as a Black American, I can understand the base game that a crocodile and a bunny not being able to have offspring isn't a crazy idea.

My point is that such language could very easily be used for the same purpose, especially when dealing with sentient peoples and not animals, and I don't trust WotC to not step in their own vomit trying to say that.

Besides, this is a game where magic allows owls and bears to make a hybrid. Anything is possible when magic is involved.

 

[Bagpuss]

Besides, this is a game where magic allows owls and bears to make a hybrid. Anything is possible when magic is involved.

The Children of Different Humanoid Kinds literally starts.

"Thanks to the magical workings of the multiverse" - They are making it clear different species are only having children due to magic, it's not something that normally happens.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My senior capstone class for histor was all about the historiography of witchcraft. Once our professor asked if witchcraft was a real crime and I got some funny looks from the class when I answered in the affirmative. But you can quite clearly see that the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563 clearly outlawed witchcraft, sorcery, and necromancy. So, yes, it was a crime.

One of my favorite courses in college was on witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. It got into the Salem witch trials too but those were considered minor compared to the scale of the European witch craze so the bulk of the class covered the former (though the craze in New England was more than just the 1692 trials—-there were other instances of it happening).

 

[Alzrius]

One of my favorite courses in college was on witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. It got into the Salem witch trials too but those were considered minor compared to the scale of the European witch craze so the bulk of the class covered the former (though the craze in New England was more than just the 1692 trials—-there were other instances of it happening).

A while back I bought a copy of Matthew Hopkins' book, The Discovery of Witches, and was quite amused at how contemporary its self-serving Q&A format seemed for something written in 1647.

 

[Remathilis]

The Children of Different Humanoid Kinds literally starts.

"Thanks to the magical workings of the multiverse" - They are making it clear different species are only having children due to magic, it's not something that normally happens.

Which doesn't matter when it comes to making hybrids. If a PC wants to play a dwarf/dragonborn, it doesn't matter if magic was involved in the conception or not. The result is the same.

So the whole "this combo is off limits because they can't breed naturally" is a non-issue. Magic trumps it. Next.