Rethinking the roles of Goblins, Orcs, Kobolds and so on

[mythusmage]

Real world evolution beat you to the punch, Alan. Humans are "advanced" chimps - the third chimpanzee, if you will.

On Dragon Earth halflings and goblins are even more closely related. The former being practically siblings of chimps, and goblins half-siblings. This making humans the fifth chimpanzee.

This would make orcs the sixth chimpanzee, elves the seventh, and dwarfs the eighth. Though dwarfs for some reason tend to be creationists, and thus more than a bit touchy about the subject. (Never get between a dwarf and a dragon discussing evolution.)

 

[Desdichado]

i thought this odd and went and looked it up....and what do you know, it is odd
[...]
thanks for the info dyal

Hey, you can always count on me to give you some odd little bit of info. Or, some equally odd little graphic:

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Well other than dealing with divergent evolution, another thought is the role of half-breeds and others with mixed heritage in such a world. We got things like Orogs and Ogrillon, Orc and Ogre crossbreeds, not to mention the standard Half-Orcs in which a lot of people don't cover the issues over, Half-Ogres and Mongrelfolk (using the 3e naming scheme, as things seem to go) of what you get when too many things interbreed.

I can't ever see Mongrelfolk getting accepted into many societies anyways, because to the way they are. They would always be shunned and despised, and probably have to live in ghettos in just about everywhere. The rare exception being isolated communities specifically composed of Mongrelfolk.