Half-orc dad, half-elf mom --> 'human' child?

[Torm]

Actually, if genetics mattered, the closest real world analogy is what happens when you have two couples, each with one brown eyed and one blue eyed. In both cases, their kids are probably going to have brown eyes - brown eye genes are dominant over blue. BUT, when their kids get together to have children, each kid would donate one of their two chromosomes to their sex cells, resulting in 3 out of 4 combinations being brown-eyed, but 1 out of 4 being blue-eyed.

Since the Orc and Elf characteristics tend to be dominate in their respective half-offspring, one would imagine that there are four main possibilities for offspring, each with about a 1 in 4 chance of occurring: 1 Half-Elf (received Elf chromosomes from Half-Elf parent, human ones from Half-Orc), 1 Half-Orc (the opposite of the previous), 1 Half-Orc-Half-Elf (received the respective chromosomes from both parents, with no or few human ones involved, and 1 Human (both parents donated human chromosomes.)

Of course, since you're actually dealing with quite a few chromosome pairs, you could still end up with a few minor attributes of the other progenitors cropping up, but for the largest part, it would map as above...

 

[Rasyr]

Wouldn't work.
Real-world example:
My mom is half german and half irish
My dad is half german and half danish
So I am half german, quarter irish and quarter danish.

For your half orc/half elf couple a child produced would be:
Half human, quarter orc and quarter elf.

The above quote pretty much mirrors what I was going to say (Note: in HARP such a combination IS possible, just ask Teflon Billy)

 

[takyris]

If I were going to rule on this, I'd do it quick and dirty and go with the Punnet Square, as other people have mentioned, using the one little trick I remember from biology 31 (in which Tacky was successfully weeded out of pre-med):

If "O" is Orc, "H" is human, and "E" is elf, than:

OH x EH =

25% each of:

OH -- half-orc
HE -- half-elf
HH -- pure human
OE -- Orc/Elf hybrid, which, as the DM, I'd rule meant that the conception failed, with the fertilized egg dying in just a few weeks.

The resulting statistics would never show an Orc/Elf hybrid, and, to someone not familiar with the Punnet Square, it'd look like fewer births than usual, with the births that did occur being one-third half-orc, one-third half-elf, and one-third human. (25% of each, and 25% null result from failed conception)

But, as others have mentioned, this is taking the basic concept of genetics and applying it far too broadly. Probably fine for the average game, but even in the D&D universe, elves and orcs are probably more genetically complex than fruit flies...

 

[arscott]

But using a basic extension of Punnett Square ratios and Mendelian genetics, he is correct.

Not really. The basic punnett square conept only applies for characteristics that are determined by one gene from the father and one gene from the mother. And given the vast differences between orcs, elves, and humans, that's not going to be likely. The human genome has 23 chromosome pairs, one set inherited from the mother, and one set inherited from the father. And since our fictional elves and orcs are capable of interbreeding with humans, the same must be true of them.

So this hypothetical half orc PC has 23 pairs of chromosomes, one of each pair being a human chromosome and the other being an orcish chromosome. Any children he has have a 50-50 chance of inheriting each. The same applies to the half elf.

So in order to inherit all human DNA, the hypothetical child would have to get all 46 human chromosomes. The chances of that happening is 1 in 2^46 (which is 70,368,744,177,664)

to put that in perspective: if your couple had over ten thousand times as many children as there are people living on earth, chances are one of them would be fully human.

And this ignores the almost certainty of crossover, a phenomenon whereby portions of information are transferred between two chromosomes in a pair, which makes full human bloodedness even more unlikely.

 

[fanboy2000]

I love fantasy genetics. I'd allow it because it adds to the flavor of fantasy logic that permeates my D&D worlds.

As others have noted, creating a fertile child from the mating of two diffrent species is impossible in the real world. No accurate comparison exists. The closest I can think of are dog breeds.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I remember the game Arcanum - one of the characters was called Gar - Garfield Thelonius the Third or something. An orc.. of pure human stock.

And he liked tea, and spoke as a proper imperialist would.

Think less of his race - I'd suggest using a human for his stats, though - and more of how he's raised than anything - that'd be defining of his character and statistics.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Isn't there a campaign setting where humans are the descendands of orc-elf relations?

If not - there should be

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

So in order to inherit all human DNA, the hypothetical child would have to get all 46 human chromosomes. The chances of that happening is 1 in 2^46 (which is 70,368,744,177,664)

On the purely genetic level - the very fact that the half elf and half orc are viable means that they are the same species - so it doesn't matter which chromosomes they get they should still live. So the child should be 50% human alleles, 25% elf alleles and 25% orc alleles.

On game terms I'd argue go with human stats and give him a few minor traits that point to the elven & orc heritage (little tusks, pointy ears, etc.)

 

[arscott]

On the purely genetic level - the very fact that the half elf and half orc are viable means that they are the same species - so it doesn't matter which chromosomes they get they should still live. So the child should be 50% human alleles, 25% elf alleles and 25% orc alleles.

On game terms I'd argue go with human stats and give him a few minor traits that point to the elven & orc heritage (little tusks, pointy ears, etc.)

25-50-25 is about how it should work out. the 1 in ungodly number is the chance of having 100% human alleles assuming no crossover has taken place.

gamewise though? human stats would probably work out. but the kid won't look human, with one exception: The one thing that both half-elves and half-orcs have in common is better night vision than humans.

There's an Initial feat in d20 Modern: Urban Arcana called Shadow Heritage. Basically, it says that the character in question is mostly human but has some shadowkind (i.e. non-human) ancestry. It grants low-light vision and a bonus to any one save. That might be appropriate in this case.

 

[Driddle]

... there are four main possibilities for offspring, each with about a 1 in 4 chance of occurring: 1 Half-Elf (received Elf chromosomes from Half-Elf parent, human ones from Half-Orc), 1 Half-Orc (the opposite of the previous), 1 Half-Orc-Half-Elf (received the respective chromosomes from both parents, with no or few human ones involved, and 1 Human (both parents donated human chromosomes.)

I guess that's the expert opinion I'll run with, as strange as it seems. So a fully human child is possible from the mix.

Thanks!