Benjamin Franklin wrote, “The Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted.” Dude didn't think Swedes were white enough. Let that sink in for a minute. We have a modern concept of whiteness that may not have been shared by all our ancestors.
As much as I understand your POV, I do disagree.
Even that strikes me as iffy, for no other reason than a proliferation of hybrid and crossbreed racial options tends to be among the most common materials to be released in supplements, third-party products, DM's Guild materials, etc.
It was something that came up when my wife was discussing her family's history of immigration from Slovenia. But at one time Italians, Greeks, Poles, Hungarians, Slavs and other European groups were not considered "white". Even in the first part of the 20th century you had to be from England, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany and Scandinavian countries to be considered white*.
Right, but fantasy races are rooted in objective qualities of birth rather than being socially constructed as the real-life concept of race is. Which in my opinion makes race a poor word to describe groups of fantasy peoples.
Orcs and humans aren’t descendants from a common ancestor though, nor are they believed or presumed to belong to the same stock. Orcs were created by Gruumsh, and... well, the origin of humans is left unclear, but they sure aren’t believed to have been created by Gruumsh.
Again, I don’t think we can apply the same taxonomic standards to a world where creatures are directly created by gods rather than emerging through evolution by natural selection. Orcs and humans might be able to produce viable offspring, but so can dragons and humans, and I don’t think anyone would try to argue they’re the same species, so clearly breeding compatibility is not a reliable indicator of species in this setting. The fact of the matter is, there is no shared lineage between orcs and humans, so calling them the same species doesn’t make sense.
en.wikipedia.org
We like to put things into neat little piles and ordered lists but nature doesn't always work that way. It would be even less clear in a world where you have mixed genera much less different species.
A Long-Busted Myth: It's Not True That Animals Belonging To Different Species Can Never Interbreed
Every time we learn that humans interbred with other species such as Neanderthals, the cry goes up that different species are supposed to be incapable of breeding. But this is not truewww.forbes.com
The whole premise that a species is a group of animals that can interbreed is false. Orcs and humans aren't the same species, no more than Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens were the same species (there is some controversy on the topic of neanderthals being a different species, but I believe they were.)
Yes, evolutionarily, there's no definition of species. There is no one point on the evolutionary tree in which we stopped being a fish and became a human. We know we're different, but we can't draw a line at where we changed.
We are actually agreeing here; the definition of race is that you must have a common ancestor or belong to the same stock. Orcs and humans do not, so they are not the same "race." This same standard does not apply to "species" meaning all you need to do is be able to procreate.
A geneticist would likely disagree with this. If an alien came to earth, and had a baby that could in-turn have more babies, it would actually be evidence that the humans and the alien are the same species, regardless of their origin.
That's... not what the article says... it specifically points out that many species are separated by geography, because if two animals are on two different continents, they can't breed unless outside of nature. However, if those two continents collided and the two animals began intermingling with 100% breeding efficiency, they may be reclassified (see polar/grizzly bear thing I posted above).A Long-Busted Myth: It's Not True That Animals Belonging To Different Species Can Never Interbreed
Every time we learn that humans interbred with other species such as Neanderthals, the cry goes up that different species are supposed to be incapable of breeding. But this is not true
The whole premise that a species is a group of animals that can interbreed is false. Orcs and humans aren't the same species, no more than Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens were the same species (there is some controversy on the topic of neanderthals being a different species, but I believe they were.)
Yes. There's no perfect definition of species. Orcs and Humans are definitely different species in my opinion, and half orcs technically a different species as well. There are Mul, which are half-dwarves, half-humans, and Half-Orc, half-humans, but there's no lore that I know of that says Dwarves and Orcs can breed, and would be considered different species from each other, but somehow the same species as a human at the same time.
As you say, not an exact science. I do find the idea of ancestry completely unimportant in fantasy, as the humans of Greyhawk are created by a different god than the humans of Forgotten Realms, yet we wouldn't say they are different species. But maybe a geneticist would think so, because travel between these two worlds is relatively uncommon.
Considering dragons mate with other non-dragons via magic and not their genetics being similar, probably not.
But according to the lore orcs are also magically fertile. Which means they can be a separate species as well.
Oh! I didn't know that. Then yes, that would be true as well.
The 5E Monster Manual actually does use a Dwarf-Orc hybrid as an example of a non-Human Half-Orc. Half-Orcs are half Orc, not Human-Orc hubrids. The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount also discusses Dwarf-Elf children, and Half-Elves of non-Human heritage I'm general.
