Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Joe Mac wrote:

Falconer wrote: Yeah, and personally, I don’t imagine human/elf intercourse happening every day. Half-elves are a coherent race, with their own nations, that sprung from legendary couplings in the mythic past.

Interesting - sort of a Dunedain take on it, eh?

I've tended to think of half-elves in D&D as literal products of a mixed mating, only common (relatively so) in areas where humans and elves live side by side.

I had to question this kind of race-mix as a race of their very own, but the Greyhawk Supplement makes a good case for it when it describes Half-Elf clerics which is basically: 'there are none, except among their own kind' (paraphrased), which was the first inkling that half-elves were their own race, not necessarily a "new" half-elf git begat by father human and mother elf.

This got me to thinking that half-orcs may not have to be the mongrels as inferred in the PHB; what if they are their own race as well? Albeit, half-orc/half-human as their own race, half-orc/half-ogre as their own race, etc., but I haven't moved on either course, as I need to devote a bit more time to think on it.

I've always viewed half-Elves as like the way Spock came into being - a cross-breeding between Vulcans and Humans should be non-fertile - but in the novel The Final Reflection by John Ford, it is explained as requiring high-level gene-splicing techniques - and that the same techniques were used for the half-Klingon hybrids (like the secret Klingon-Human hybrid in the episode The Trouble With Tribbles, and all of the Klingons we see in TOS).

So both half-Elves and Half-Orcs required magic to come into being - the first probably because an Elf fell for a Human and desired a joint child, so High Magic was used to enable fertility.

The most likely source for half-Orcs would be Orc shamans, wanting agents to infiltrate Human society (or seeking half-Orc pure Clerics) - but another possibility could be evil Humans requiring go-betweens acceptable to Orc society.

Any way, once some exist, they would eventually find each other - and they would be fertile with each other - thus forming a separate "race" as described.


"New" examples of either would be very rare - most would be from long-established blood-lines/clans.

The way I see it is 1E AD&D is both a particular set of rules and perhaps more importantly, a particular setting. Part of that setting is what races and half-races players are allowed to choose from. While I'm not opposed to the occasional oddity PC and NPC, it should make sense to the general assumptions of the game (I might allow a PC to be a half ogre if he was the product of some bizarre necromantic experiment perhaps, and he'd be one of a kind, not unlike Hagrid in Harry Potter) . I wouldn't allow half breeds of monsters you'd have expected but were never mentioned (so half-goblin for instance) it just doesn't happen in the AD&D world per the MM, DMG, PH.

As for Kellri's idea of having players play humans for distant places, the closest we have come to this is allowing players to create PCs based on the MM men descriptions (using the same stats but with the added ability to go up in an appropriate class). I've thought about having different human types (the savage from the jungles, the north man) but I figure thats already part of the game and not significant if you speak common tongue (not unlike ancient Rome with many cultures and languages walking around). To draw too much attention to a player with a singular PC "jungle man" would almost suggest that its not common (which might not match a players own imaginary concept). That said, I might make up a Man monster type called jungle man (sorta like tarzan) with significant abilities (climbing, surprise, set traps, etc.). AD&D has a western dark age vibe, but it also brings in many ancient world monsters and concepts. Substituting various cultures and races is definitely the route a Conanian world would go. So I'm not sure if that works in one with dwarves, elves, gnomes and the like (that variation kind of makes human variation hardly worth mentioning).

My advice for someone that wanted to play a half-medusa is go play another game and come back to 1E when you get that out of your system. As for half-aquatic elf. Nah (Gygax had his chance to mention it and didn't), though I'd allow a player to play a full aquatic elf.

AxeMental wrote: As for Kellri's idea of having players play humans for distant places, the closest we have come to this is allowing players to create PCs based on the MM men descriptions (using the same stats but with the added ability to go up in an appropriate class). I've thought about having different human types (the savage from the jungles, the north man) but I figure thats already part of the game and not significant if you speak common tongue (not unlike ancient Rome with many cultures and languages walking around). To draw too much attention to a player with a singular PC "jungle man" would almost suggest that its not common (which might not match a players own imaginary concept).

I didn't make it clear enough...I'm not at all suggesting that "foreign" PCs should have any unique abilities whatsoever. They are just humans. The only differences would entirely be disadvantageous - social consequences of being an outsider in the dominant campaign culture or maybe a limitation on which classes they could choose (I might rule that the jungle savage could not choose to be an Illusionist or a paladin for example as they are entirely 'civilized' professions).

In the same vein, with actual demi-human characters I would favor imposing some additional disadvantages beyond the PHB. Anymore, it's very rare for a campaign to reach the point where the PCs hit the level-limit wall. If that's unlikely to become an issue, I'd argue there should be some other means of limiting those races. Don't get me wrong...I like dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc.. I just don't much like PLAYERS choosing to play a demi-human simply because they can detect secret doors, have infravision and speak Kobold and Pixie.