Why no Half-elf/Half-orcs?

[Desdichado]

Basically because Tolkien never wrote about one existing.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

- Humans and animals - this requires the presence of Wyld (=chaos) energies, though there's rather a lot of that at the edges of the world. Some powerful humans who have been invested with the power of a particular god (Lunars, if you know the setting) and who can transform into animal shapes have even used this to breed servant races of beastmen.
- Animals and inanimate objects: This requires even more Wyld energies. One of the sourcebook describes a "stone lion" - the offspring of a lion and a stone. I thought that was pretty cool...

I think it's quite disgusting.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think it's quite disgusting.

Well, the first one has mythologial precedents (the most famous example being the minotaur), so I don't think this was too inappropriate for the setting.

And the second example really emphasizes what a crazy environment the border regions of the Wyld are (and it doesn't stop there - the new Wyld book for Exalted has an illustration for a duck/fish/horse/wagon hybrid... thing).

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

"Thog think no half-elf, half-orc exist because combination of subpar racial abilities too deadly to survive."

More seriously, I'm not sure why everybody assumes half-orcs are the result of rape. Orcs in Eberron are a perfect example of socially acceptable orcs. Similarly, any city-living orcs, if such exist in a campaign, are likely to become more civilized.

The real reason they don't exist is that nobody has put together the mechanics for it. Half-orcs have simple enough racial stats.

Erks

+2 Dex, -2 Cha
Medium
Erk base land speed is 30'
Immunity to sleep and +2 vs. enchantments
Darkvision 60'
Elven Blood and Orc Blood
Favored Class: Any

I figure that the Con and Str penalty and bonus cancel each other out. I also thought the combo of elvish immunities and darkvision was interesting. Giving them favored class flexibility makes sense, as the combo of muscular brute and effete intellectual stereotypes could favor either side. The Cha penalty comes from the orcish side and the fact that the combination of elf and orc physiologies just looks...odd.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Basically because Tolkien never wrote about one existing.

I don't see why that would preclude them from being included in D&D. Tolkien never wrote about a monster that appeared as a bunny on a stump, but we still got the wolf in sheep's clothing. He didn't write about rust monsters, mind flayers, Abyssal lords, defiling magic, flying carpets, or a great wheel of alternate dimensions, but D&D got that stuff, too.

Tolkien was one of the many inspirations for D&D, but even the 1974 version of the game included plenty of stuff that John Ronald Reuel couldn't have dreamed up in his worst fever dreams.

 

[Darklone]

There is one in Kingdoms of Kalamar's Dangerous Denizens.

They are called Tel-Amhothlan. Very care due to the abovementioned reasons but they can be very stylish.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

There is one in Kingdoms of Kalamar's Dangerous Denizens.

True. It owes its existence to the fact that orcs will often mate with captured elves, and that the Creator of Strife [a deity of the setting] used the elven form in creating the orc race.

"And though orc prisoners in elven hands meet a swift death, the reverse is not as pleasant. Elven prisoners are tormented for long periods, with the orcs delighting in the act. In some instances, these torments (of both female and male elves) lead to the birth of bizarre creatures that the elves call "tel-amhothlan."

The elves have kept what little knowledge they have of these half-breeds to themselves. Even the ancient Codex of Dooms says nothing of these creatures, and speculation runs rampant among the few non-elf sages who know of the tel-amhothlan. It has long been thought that only humans, due to some natural adaptability, were capable of breeding or birthing half-races. "Obviously," say the sages "this is no longer true – if it ever was." The strongest supposition so far is that this breed must be connected to the Creator of Strife, who the Codex says used the form of elves to create the orc race.

Whether part human or part elf, orcs still refer to these half-breeds as "guruk-vra."
"

 

[Desdichado]

I don't see why that would preclude them from being included in D&D. Tolkien never wrote about a monster that appeared as a bunny on a stump, but we still got the wolf in sheep's clothing. He didn't write about rust monsters, mind flayers, Abyssal lords, defiling magic, flying carpets, or a great wheel of alternate dimensions, but D&D got that stuff, too.

Tolkien was one of the many inspirations for D&D, but even the 1974 version of the game included plenty of stuff that John Ronald Reuel couldn't have dreamed up in his worst fever dreams.

I'm not arguing that it can't be done, merely giving a reason why I think it hasn't been.

None of the core races (well, until 4e comes out) except gnomes were not in Tolkien.

 

[DandD]

Wait. As Orcs in Tolkien's Middle-Earth are nothing more than some kind of freak Elves tortured by some freak angel-god or so, wouldn't the Elf-Orc-Child simply be an uglier Elf/prettier Orc?

 

[Umbran]

If Elves can breed with Humans, and Orcs can breed with Humans then why not Elves and Orcs?

For a pseudo-biological reason - we must understand that genetics are not necessarily transitive.

Allow me to adapt an example from penguins: Say you have elves, living on the shore of a continent. They breed for a while, and branch off a colony that heads north. That colony eventually develops into humans (through natural or magical means) - close enough the elves to be able to at least occasionally interbreed.

Then, the humans split off their own colony, that heads even farther north. These eventually become orcs. Again, occasionally able to interbreed with humans, but with two steps of changes, they are now too different from the root race to interbreed with the elves anymore.

This is only one scenario - there are others that can have the same effect, where two branches of a line can interbreed with a third, but not with each other. Once you throw magic in, all bets are off, and you can permit or prohibit various interbreedings as you desire.