Bilogical Tree of D&D creatures

[Vlos]

Ok, this sort of spawned from another thread, "Why are Pixies so large".

I started a reply, but then got myself talking into the whole Biological tree if a Fae which I thought was a bit off topic, so started this topic. Then in typing of this different topic I sort of expanded beyond just Fae to think about the other creatures, Dragons, Undead, Aberations.

I know D&D never goes into the full biological tree, but what is the Biological Tree for creatures and related? Can we get a general tree started?

Maybe if we started with Pixie as compared to a Faerie, but then got me thinking of the terms/classifications of Seelie/Unseelie, Fae. Then try and start adding other creatures in.
? Quickling
? Brownie
? Satyr
? Elves (do they fall in here?)

Even though WoTC has a classificaiton of Magical Beast, I think Fae are Magical Creatures, so I started the tree off (Kingdom) with Magical Creature which is includes both Magical Beasts and Fae. I would suppose that Dragons probably fall under here as well, but maybe not. What about Undead? Aberations?

I started with the basic tree which I was going to post in the previous post and a Pixie. Not sure if its right or even close as I am not a Biology major (probably one of my worse subjects when I went to school over 20 years ago).

Bilogical Tree
Kingdom (Magical Creature)
Phylum ()
Class (Fae/Magical Beast/Dragon)
Order ()
Family (Seelie/Unseelie)
Genus ()
Species (Faerie)
Kind[race] (Pixie/Quickling/Brownie)

Anythoughts, or should I just do my work like I am suppose to be doing instead of browsing D&D posts?

 

[DMH]

I am a biology person and this idea is making my head hurt. You can not classify abberations since that is just a catchall term. Undead and constructs are not alive and thus can not be classified. Fey are magical beings that spontaniously arose from human imagination- I doubt you could come up with a working system.

Work on plants, animals, magical beasts, dragons and monstrous humanoids. They can be given a classification scheme. Heck the latter 3 could be phyla of the animal kingdom.

 

[DMScott]

I think a fantasy version of the Linnaean taxonomy (which is what you're describing) would be difficult to produce, because default D&D has a very different biological history than our own world. In a standard D&D setting, you often have various competing gods dropping creatures on the world, wizards breeding weird hybrids, extraplanar creatures dropping in and out, etc. And creatures of what are probably completely different kingdoms can breed successfully (i.e. half-dragons). It'd be hard to shoehorn that sort of setup into a system developed from our own world unless you're running a fairly realistic setting where many of the D&D critters don't exist and those that do can't interbreed (Harn, perhaps, might develop a similar classification system).

What might be interesting would be to establish some custom classifications and sort critters into those, based on how they came about in your own campaign setting. Name the whole system after whatever sage/priest/etc. invented the thing. In your example, I think the first step would be to ask "where do fae come from?" - in my campaign, the answer is their own magical otherworld, so I'd put them all in a large category called "Otherworld creatures", then probably subcategorize by intelligence, then subcategorize the intelligent creatures by malevolence (Seelie/Unseelie), then by a final type approximately equivalent to species. This wouldn't mimic age of development (as in the Linnaean system) since quite large changes can occur at any point, but rather observed characteristics (traits and behaviour).

Actually, I like that idea - I think I'll go work on some names. Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[Ry]

D&D's taxonomy: type, subtype, name. Name can be broken into templates.

Does it hold up under experimentation? Sure - look at the spells.

 

[shilsen]

D&D taxonomy - things you kill, things you run away from, things you talk to. Biology, forsooth!

Hmm - suddenly I feel like Hong

 

[Fenris]

Part of the problem is that every one has differnt ideas about the origins or relatedness of species.

But here is the phylogenetic tree for my homebrew world. This represents how species are related in my world. It reflects those species that evolved from common ancestors (which happened in my world) but not divinely or arcanely created species.

 

[Olibarro]

I've come up with minor ideas of relatedness between sentient humanoid species for an old campaign of mine, but it's very specific to the world. And I think that coming up with a taxonomy for a specific world is probably about the best you can do.

In standard D&D, there are so many things that defy standard biology, that I don't know how you would do it. When virtually all basically humanoid shaped things can naturally interbreed and produce viable offspring (including things simply able to temporarily take a humanoid shape), then you're really out in far-off territory. As others said, add onto that, aberrations (whole species simply altered by magic or other forces), magical hybrids, plus Celestial, Fiendish, Anarchic, Axiomatic and countless other versions of "standard" creatures. Ah... it's too much for my little head.

 

[Umbran]

Anythoughts, or should I just do my work like I am suppose to be doing instead of browsing D&D posts?

My thought is that such classification is meaningless for creatures who aren't undergoing something akin to evolution. In a world where many of the creatures are created by magic, there is no basis for a tree-style classification, because one animal does not generally arise from a related anscetor in any way that is reflected in their gross body structure.

When you have dragons and outsiders that can breed with just about anything, and those children are not sterile, all best at making a tree are pretty much off.

 

[Gez]

You can make a biological graph, but it won't be a tree. (A tree is a special kind of graph where there is only one path from the source (root) to any particular end (leaf).)

For example, take a Gryphon. It is descended from both birds (giant, or at least large, eagles) and lions.

Up to (or down to, if you prefer) eagles and lions, you have a biological tree. If you go toward the root, you'll see both converge toward a same origin, since they're both vertebrates.

But, upon arriving at Gryphon, you have two branches of the tree that are merging into one! And then, at Hippogriff, a third branch (horse) merges in, too!
But it's not all, since you have the Sphinxes, which, biologically, are close to the griffons (same lion body, same eagle wings). But the sphinxes have a head that's either human (andro-, gyno-), ovine (crio-), or avian --specifically, falcon-- (hieraco-). So, sphinxes are descended from gryphons (hence lions and eagles), humans, rams, and falcons.

And then, you have the Lammasu, which could probably be put in the Sphinx family. But the Shedu, which are said to be cousins of the Lammasu, have a bovine body!

 

[fusangite]

Linaeus, of course, comes before evolution. In a sense, he exists in a middle position between the pre-modern Chain of Being concept and modern evolution/genetics.

I agree with others that there is no evolutionary chain connecting the creatures of D&D and that to construct one is quixotic and ridiculous.

However, the poster does raise the interesting question of how one would organize a D&D chain of being. One could order it in terms of proximity to godhood or one could order it in terms of sentience or perhaps based on some other principle. Thoughts?