We have HAlf Elves and Half Orcs...why no Half-Dwarves?
No self-respecting dwarf would have a relationship with anyone but his beard.
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We don't talk about it. Don't even consider it. This thread will probably even be deleted in 5... 4... 3...
I will answer your question nicely, plusonetshirt, because a person should never be made to feel guilty for seeking knowledge and fun.
In the circles I've gamed in, I've often heard that humans and dwarves ARE capable of producing offspring. However, the half-dwarf is sterile, and incapable of reproducing. This is why many humans and dwarves don't bother marrying. Keeping the family line going is very important for some peoples in a fantasy setting.
This by no means is set in stone (pun intended). You can feel free to create and play half-dwarves however you wish. I hope this helps and happy gaming!
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Also, muls in the Dark Sun setting were the first place I heard of sterile half-dwarves.
Bastards of Golarion has a sidebar on this. It basically says that dwarves, gnomes, and halflings and biologically incompatible with other races and thus cannot cross breed without the aid of magic.
As stated, dwarves require magical means to cross breed. Luckily, magical means are readily available. Wizards have been cross breeding creatures since the beginning of time. If they can figure out how to mix an owl and a bear, I'm sure they could mix a dwarf and a human/elf/etc. if they put their minds to it. What are they waiting for?
I find it amusing that Paizo denies the existence of Half-Dwarves and other non-standard half-Human races when the very existence of the Racial Heritage feat strongly implies that Humans can interbreed with any other humanoid race. If there is no such thing as a Half-Dwarf, then what is the ancestry of a Human with the Racial Heritage (Dwarf) feat?
The half-elves and half-orcs in the game I believe originate with Tolkien, who did not create any half-dwarves or half-hobbits (or as some call them quarterlings). Gnomes were added to the game much, much later, so no half-gnomes exist either.
The Game had enough problems in the early days due to media misrepresentation of it. Adding humans interbreeding with a whole host of other species would have caused more problems. That's my opinion as to why they said no to half-breeds, including all the possible human-dwarf-elf-hobbit-gnome-orc-goblin-ogre-hobgoblin combinations you could think of.
The general unspoken rule in most all games is they are simply not cross-fertile. Perhaps the gods prefer it to be that way.
I find it amusing that Paizo denies the existence of Half-Dwarves and other non-standard half-Human races when the very existence of the Racial Heritage feat strongly implies that Humans can interbreed with any other humanoid race. If there is no such thing as a Half-Dwarf, then what is the ancestry of a Human with the Racial Heritage (Dwarf) feat?
Dwarf breeds with dragon to get you a half dragon dwarf who then breeds with a human. Therefore you have dwarf DNA in a human genepool.
Racial Heritage feat does not mandate that all of a character's ancestors were strictly human from the point of the dwarven ancestor. An outsider or fey could have mated with the dwarf and then their offspring mated with a human.
the other way this has been delt with is in some settings the gennetics of the mother deturmin the race of the offspring in these matings, so dwarf mom, dwarf baby, human mom, human baby.
said offspring may have traits of the father, such as a human that is below average height and more muscular but for all intents still human or something similar in the reverse.
I have some homebrew stats for dwarflings (half-dwarf, half-halfling). I daresay that making a half-dwarf half-human wouldn't be that hard.
The old Forgotten Realms book Dwarves Deep had half-dwarves in it. They were like normal dwarves, a foot or so taller, and bred true with regular dwarves. IIRC a certain part of the dwarven population pre-Thunder Blessing considered this as a possible way to reverse the decline of their people.
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I was just wondering about that myself. There is a thread on that very topic HERE. There are other threads.
I asked this question in the "Ask JJ" thread, and he replied pretty swiftly that the in-world reason is that dwarf DNA doesn't mix with any other humanoid DNA but dwarf DNA, and that the company-line rules-wise reason was they already have so dang many 0HD creatures, that if they make a new 0HD, they don't want it to be a hybrid. I read a bit upthread and found out the only reason they carried over half-elves and half-orcs was for legacy purposes.
Still, this leads to the in-world fact that humans are more capable of breeding with the undead and producing a dhampir than they are with a dwarf, which is incredibly disturbing to say the least.
It certainly wouldn't bother me if the direct offspring of a human and a dwarf was ruled to be a human with Racial Heritage (Dwarf). But Paizo chose to rule that the two races cannot interbreed directly, with the result that most Humans with the Racial Heritage feat require native outsider ancestry as well as a "buffer" of sorts.
It also would present no difficulty to extend the rules given in Bastards of Golarion for that purpose. I wonder whether they might be trying very hard to steer clear of anything like the numerous half-human races in "Races of Ansalon"?
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They already did a book of classes that are the bastard children of two other classes, I dunno why they can't do a book of the bastard children of other races.
C'mon, you know you wanna see the "Drunken Mistake" playable race. Half Elf and half Dwarf.
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I asked this question in the "Ask JJ" thread, and he replied pretty swiftly that the in-world reason is that dwarf DNA doesn't mix with any other humanoid DNA but dwarf DNA, and that the company-line rules-wise reason was they already have so dang many 0HD creatures, that if they make a new 0HD, they don't want it to be a hybrid. I read a bit upthread and found out the only reason they carried over half-elves and half-orcs was for legacy purposes.
Still, this leads to the in-world fact that humans are more capable of breeding with the undead and producing a dhampir than they are with a dwarf, which is incredibly disturbing to say the least.
It seems like it would have been perfectly reasonable and overall easier for him to say that half-dwarves aren't common enough to really be considered their own race proper but the ones that do exist can be represented as a Human with Racial Heritage (Dwarf).
In this post in another thread , I proposed that most of the Core Races (the "True Humanoids", including Humans) are Homo sapiens derivatives, while the Goblinoids are Homo neanderthalis/Home heidelbergensis derivatives, but Dwarves are actually Goblinoids that are culturally but not genetically True Humanoid (but don't try to tell them that), and Orcs are actually descended from hybrids between True Humanoids and Goblinoids. Normally "True Humanoids" and "Goblinoids" don't interbreed very well, and the few resulting hybrids are ALMOST sterile (like mules), but at some point in the distant past, somebody managed to generate hybrids and get enough together to generate second-generation hybrids that eventually bred true, and Orcs were the result; Orcs count as both "True Humanoid" and "Goblinoid", and can interbreed freely with both "True Humanoids" and "Goblinoids" even though these 2 types of Humanoids are very impaired with respect to interbreeding directly with each other; this result of "True Humanoids" and "Goblinoids" interbreeding also discourages "True Humanoids" and "Dwarves" from interbreeding, because on the rare occasion that an offspring results, it is physically VERY much like an Orc).
It seems like it would have been perfectly reasonable and overall easier for him to say that half-dwarves aren't common enough to really be considered their own race proper but the ones that do exist can be represented as a Human with Racial Heritage (Dwarf).I asked this question in the "Ask JJ" thread, and he replied pretty swiftly that the in-world reason is that dwarf DNA doesn't mix with any other humanoid DNA but dwarf DNA, and that the company-line rules-wise reason was they already have so dang many 0HD creatures, that if they make a new 0HD, they don't want it to be a hybrid. I read a bit upthread and found out the only reason they carried over half-elves and half-orcs was for legacy purposes.
Still, this leads to the in-world fact that humans are more capable of breeding with the undead and producing a dhampir than they are with a dwarf, which is incredibly disturbing to say the least.
Because either the race exist as an actual race just like the other races or they do not. What you are proposing is fine from a flavor perspective but it is not an actual race and having a pseudo-race would likely cause more problems than it would fix. It is just easier and simpler to say "it doesn't exist".
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The half-elves and half-orcs in the game I believe originate with Tolkien, who did not create any half-dwarves or half-hobbits (or as some call them quarterlings). Gnomes were added to the game much, much later, so no half-gnomes exist either.
The Game had enough problems in the early days due to media misrepresentation of it. Adding humans interbreeding with a whole host of other species would have caused more problems. That's my opinion as to why they said no to half-breeds, including all the possible human-dwarf-elf-hobbit-gnome-orc-goblin-ogre-hobgoblin combinations you could think of.
The general unspoken rule in most all games is they are simply not cross-fertile. Perhaps the gods prefer it to be that way.
I've always been suspicious about Hobbies myself. Take a look at the movies Elrond Halfelven has pointy ears but looks fairly human. Then consider Elves have pointy ears, dwarves are short of stature and Hobbies are pointy eared and short of stature. I believe the entire Hobbit race is the result of elves and dwarves interbreeding.
I've had Dwarrow in my home brew since 2e, in Pathfinder they mechanically look like this:
<skip flavor text that describes the Dwarro's place in the world, mythic origins and "modern reality".>
Standard Racial Traits
Ability Score Racial Traits: Dwarrow gain +2 bonus to one ability score of their choice at creation to represent their varied nature.
Size: Dwarrow are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Type: Dwarrow are humanoids with the dwarf and human subtype.
Base Speed: Dwarrow have a base speed of 30 feet.
Languages: Dwarrow begin play speaking Common and Dwarven. Dwarrow with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Ancient Tharian, Giant, Gnome, Goblin, Orc and Dragon.
Defense Racial Traits
Stubborn: Dwarrow are as stubborn as their dwarven kin. They receive a +2 racial bonus on Will saves to resist spells and spell-like abilities of the enchantment (charm) and enchantment (compulsion) schools. In addition, if they fail such a save, they receive another save 1 round later to prematurely end the effect (assuming it has a duration greater than 1 round). This second save is made at the same DC as the first. If the dwarrow has a similar ability from another source (such as a rogue's slippery mind), he can only use one of these abilities per round, but he can try the other on the second round if the first reroll ability fails.
Relentless: Dwarrow are skilled at pushing their way through a battlefield, tossing aside lesser foes with ease. They receive a +2 bonus on combat maneuver checks made to bull rush or overrun an opponent. This bonus only applies while both the dwarrow and his opponent are standing on the ground.
Feat and Skill Racial Traits
Integrated: Dwarrow are social, and rarely suffer much stigma in either dwarven or human communities. Dwarrow gain a +1 bonus on Bluff, Disguise, and Knowledge (local) checks.
Outdoorsmen: Dwarrow are at home in the wilds and receive a +1 racial bonus on Perception and Survival checks.
Heart of the Mountains: Dwarrow are skilled at negotiating heights and precipices. They gain a +2 racial bonus on Climb checks and Acrobatics checks to move on narrow surfaces and uneven ground. Furthermore, they are considered acclimated to the effects of high altitude.
Bonus Trait: Dwarrow select one extra Trait at 1st level.
Senses Racial Traits
Low-Light Vision: Dwarrow can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
Other Racial Traits
Dwarf Blood: Dwarrow count as both dwarves and humans for any effect related to race.
Hill Stride: In mountains and hills, Dwarrow can move through natural difficult terrain at their normal speed. Magically altered terrain affects them normally.
Favored Class Options:
Barbarian Add +1 to the barbarian's total number of rage rounds per day.
Bard Add +1 to the bard's total number of bardic performance rounds per day.
Cleric Add +1/3 to the amount of damage dealt or damage healed when the cleric uses channel energy.
Druid Add +1/3 to the druid's natural armor bonus when using wild shape.
Fighter Add +1 to the fighter's CMD when resisting a bull rush or trip combat maneuver.
Monk Add +1 to the monk's CMD when resisting a grapple and +1/2 to the number of stunning attacks he can attempt per day.
Paladin Add +1/2 hit point to the paladin's lay on hands ability (whether using it to heal or harm).
Ranger Add +1 hit point to the ranger's animal companion. If the ranger ever replaces his animal companion, the new animal companion gains these bonus hit points.
Rogue Add a +1/2 bonus on Bluff checks to feint and Diplomacy checks to gather information.
Sorcerer Select one bloodline power at 1st level that is normally usable a number of times per day equal to 3 + the sorcerer's Charisma modifier. The sorcerer adds +1/2 to the number of uses per day of that bloodline power.
Wizard Select one arcane school power at 1st level that is normally usable a number of times per day equal to 3 + the wizard's Intelligence modifier. The wizard adds +1/2 to the number of uses per day of that arcane school power.
and yea! - I got the spoiler tag to work