Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8872387" data-attributes="member: 58172">The problem with the terms &quot;heritage&quot; and &quot;ancestry&quot; is they can apply to a group of humans. For example, Indigenous Americans have cultural heritage, and a Black American might have an ancestry going back to Angola.The term &quot;heritage&quot; means an inheritance. It can mean a genetic trait, but it normally means a cultural tradition. Sometimes a family traditions. In this sense, &quot;heritage&quot; can work for any D&amp;D species. For example, a heritage can refer to the cultural tradition of building new generations of Warforged.Regarding &quot;ancestry&quot;, even a Warforged can say one has an ancestor, in the sense of a predecessor.The problem is, their use in reallife usage to refer to certain humans and not others.The term human &quot;species&quot; unambiguously means every human alive today.D&amp;D has many examples of transformational origin: Simic Hybrid magically infuses a Human, Elf, or Vedalken with sea animal traits, Tiefling descend from Humans that were infused with Fiend traits, Dragonborn are a magically altered normal Dragon to develop bipedal Humanoid traits, Vampire reproduces by means of infusing Undead planar Shadow traits via blood exchange, Elan reproduces by means of psionically alterating an adult Humanoid with Aberration traits, etcetera. I view this as equivalent to gene splicing. The &quot;ancestors&quot; happen to include more than one species − so not so different from any other hybrid species.The Kalashtar seems like two species in a symbiotic relationship. Compare Star Trek, the Trill and Symbiont relationship. Each species has its own genetic lineage. The Background of the Symbiont is significant because of preserving the memories of multiple Trill persons.Even when speaking about unusual and complex origins, I notice the term &quot;species&quot; helps to get the point across and keep things clear. Perhaps &quot;Species&quot; is especially helpful for the many different fantasy concepts.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Yaarel, post: 8872387, member: 58172"] The problem with the terms "heritage" and "ancestry" is they can apply to a group of humans. For example, Indigenous Americans have cultural heritage, and a Black American might have an ancestry going back to Angola. The term "heritage" means an inheritance. It can mean a genetic trait, but it normally means a cultural tradition. Sometimes a family traditions. In this sense, "heritage" can work for any D&D species. For example, a heritage can refer to the cultural tradition of building new generations of Warforged. Regarding "ancestry", even a Warforged can say one has an ancestor, in the sense of a predecessor. The problem is, their use in reallife usage to refer to certain humans and not others. The term human "species" unambiguously means every human alive today. D&D has many examples of transformational origin: Simic Hybrid magically infuses a Human, Elf, or Vedalken with sea animal traits, Tiefling descend from Humans that were infused with Fiend traits, Dragonborn are a magically altered normal Dragon to develop bipedal Humanoid traits, Vampire reproduces by means of infusing Undead planar Shadow traits via blood exchange, Elan reproduces by means of psionically alterating an adult Humanoid with Aberration traits, etcetera. I view this as equivalent to gene splicing. The "ancestors" happen to include more than one species − so not so different from any other hybrid species. The Kalashtar seems like two species in a symbiotic relationship. Compare Star Trek, the Trill and Symbiont relationship. Each species has its own genetic lineage. The Background of the Symbiont is significant because of preserving the memories of multiple Trill persons. Even when speaking about unusual and complex origins, I notice the term "species" helps to get the point across and keep things clear. Perhaps "Species" is especially helpful for the many different fantasy concepts. [/QUOTE]

Verification