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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Particle_Man" data-source="post: 1583402" data-attributes="member: 892">Well, my first thought was simply to have the gods "continually create" the souls of each new generation, and that is what sets the initial alignment, until a great crisis/shift (haven't yet planned out the why's and wherefores) which results in children from then on getting their alignments largely from the cultures that they grow up in, but even then individuals might vary from their cultural norm.  (So before the shift, all orcs were CE without question; after the shift, most orcs are still CE, but some (like those raised by humans) could be of other alignments).  Humans would have become a "wild card" with alignment at first, but would have settled down into various cultures that averaged out at N.  Genetics would not play a role in determining alignment in either time period.  Natural selection on the cultural level?  Possible, but with so much magic and miracles running around, I am not sure if it would be relevant this early on (post shift) in the history of sentient life on this world.I did have an idea close to the "simulation game", but it was more to influence the N god to "see things" the way that the relevant one of the other 8 gods did (Background: eventually, time-paradoxes aside, the N god would become one of the other 8, and the 7 others would disappear).  So the gods are not trying to have their race "Win" so much as to prove a point, either through stereotypical members of their race, or through "Favored Souls", or perhaps through other means. Also, my time period (10 000 years/2 700 years ago depending on whether one counts from creation of sentient life or from the "shift") seems too short for selection on that level to occur yet, especially as there are 9 gods, each with a favorite race, who will occasionally "cheat" when it serves their interests to do so, like when their race is theatened with extinction.As for fecund orcs our producing elves, etc., I suppose one easy solution is to set the birthrates the same for all races by fiat.  Thus they could all have a reproduction rate that is slightly above replacement rate (leading to wars, etc.) Or, I could have the orcs breed more, but also be more likely to kill each other.  Maybe the relevant gods make people more fertile when needed to replace people after a famine, etc., although I would prefer a slightly more "hands off" approach (working through agents, like "Favored Souls" (which I would use rather than cleric/paladins) would be ok, though).  The idea is that the Gods might interfere with each others' attempts to interfere, resulting in a usual stale-mate, but with interesting side-effects.  But I am perhaps drifting off-thread.  Hey, this world-building is fun stuff!</blockquote>

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