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Message: <blockquote data-quote="firstkyne" data-source="post: 9113591" data-attributes="member: 6805928">Neither defending or attacking the decision, but -as I understand it- the logic for binning half-orcs is: according to long-standing dnd lore, half-orcs are the progeny of rape during interracial war. In early drafts, Orcs were mindless, homicidal and chaotic evil monsters, intended for use in games where monsters were simply monsters. Players could vicariously act out defeating and/or killing those monsters, and overcoming evil, without being burdened with the complicated feelings that come with a more nuanced gameworld premise, where there are no simple 'monsters'.What's changed? Well, the idea of creatures being innately evil derives mainly from fairy-stories and religious texts. As western society has become less religious, this conception of evil has been revealed as divisive, out-dated and dangerous.Characterising the opposition as monstrous is a common mainstream media propaganda technique when the military industrial complex requires a war. The simplistic conception of monsters has echoes in the language of colonialism, which is widely held to be a bad thing (it's benefits having been largely expunged from public discourse and text books).More recent fantasy yarns and gameworlds have tried to go against the grain and describe stories of love between orcs and humans resulting in biracial children (Warcraft, for example). This has necessitated a change in the conception of Orcs: they have become a race understandably hardened by their environment, with values that can be admired, such as bravery, a code of honour etc.This conception of orcs has permeated DnD in more recent drafts, so that orcs are no longer portrayed as viking-style rapists and pillagers, and so it is incongruous to have half-orcs (unless they are the result of loving parents).Presumably, WotC will change the lore such that orcs and humans are no longer able to cross breed.Ironically, this may enable some players to revert to portraying orcs as the monsters of fantasy past, should they wish.In the case of half-elves, I think the concept is being expunged from dnd because half-orcs are going! happy to be corrected on that! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So, don't take it personally, I guess?</blockquote>

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