Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="arscott" data-source="post: 1868740" data-attributes="member: 17969">I'd say that evolution is the primary cause, at least if you look at it from a which-happened-first point of view.Therefore, the best (biological) classification system can probably be built by first removing the magic, then adding it back in when everything else is done.So lets say you start with the linnean system that we've got.  then add in the species and subspecies whose form was dirived through natural means.  Then do the magic seperatelyas an example, let's classify the phb races:While the genus homo encompasses several species, only one exists on earth today:  Homo Sapiens Sapiens. (Latin translations--Homo: man, Sapiens: wise)Except for special cases like mules and ligers, a member of a species can only interbreed with other members of that species.  Since half-elves and half-orcs are capable of having children (unlike the vast majority of those aforementioned exceptions), elves and orcs must be members of the species human.  Thus we have:Homo Sapiens SapiensHomo Sapiens Silvanus (silvanus: pertaining to the forest)Homo Sapiens Orcus (orcus: hell)Then we add dwarves and halflings as seperate species:Homo Minusculus (minusculus: small)Homo Ferrarius (ferrarius: blacksmith)Then there are the gnomes.  You could put these as a seperate species, but they're really just halflings with innate magic.  And that's where the fun begins.  rather that come up with a seperate species or subspecies designation (which would just cause a lot of headaches in the long run), it would be better to have a seperate system set up to indicate magical interference.  And since the species names above were arrived at via five minutes at the U. Notre Dame website, I'm going to switch to english rather than pretend any knowledge of the scholar's tongue.So let's designate gnomes as:Homo Minusculus [Inherent-Illusion(faint), Animal(incedental)]That breaks down into parts the Linnean classification and the description of magical nature.  The magical nature describes the effect (a school or domain), it's power level (incidental, faint, moderate, strong, and overwhelming), and the means by which the power was aquired(Inherent in this case, meaning that it's simply a racial trait.  Other possibilies here include Lycanthropic, Created, and Imbued).Finally, the Magical Halfbreeds.  This is handled similarly to the innate magic.  A Half-Dragon and Gryphon appear below:Homo Sapiens Sapiens [Bred-Draco Argent(parent)]Panthera Leo [Artificial-Haliaeetus Leucocephalus(Head, Wings, Talons)]The half dragon entry indicates that two creatures who were otherwise unable to breed (in this case a human and a silver dragon) were allowed to by means of shapechanging or some other magical effect.  the (parent) bit indicates how much ancestry the creature has.  Someone with a smaller connection, such as a tiefling, would have (grandparent), (great grandparent), or (ancestor).Things like Gryphons, on the other hand aren't an even mix of two creatures.  They result when some wizard with too much time on his hands chops off bits of one creature and attaches them to another.  The description therefore indicates which creature (in this case, a bald eagle), and which bits.That should do it for your more common fantasy creature.  Just don't ask me to classify an aboleth.</blockquote>

Verification