What do you get when a Half-orc and an Elf breed with each other?
Now as to a full orc and an elf....
Human... or dwarf.
No, this really happened...
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I'd say it'd depend on how much human vs orc was in the half-orc.
Orcs & Elves can't breed, as far as I know from older gamers.
However, if the half-orc is more human than orc, I can see an ugly half-elf resulting.
[Edit= changed "mate" to "breed," as orcs and elves can, quite unfortunately to the elf, mate.]
I would suggest this:
Alforc (?)
+2 to one ability score
Low-Light Vision
Hybrid Blood: Counts as both elf and orc for any effect related to race
Adaptability: Skill Focus
Keen Senses: Perception +2
Intimidating: Intimidate +2
Elven Immunities: Resistance +2 vs enchantments and magic sleep
Languages: Common, Elven, Orc
What do you get when a Half-orc and an Elf breed with each other?
A need for industrial sized quantities of mind-bleach. :P
What do you get when a Half-orc and an Elf breed with each other?
As orcs and elves can not breed, if and that is a bit if the half orc can have a child with the elf, then the child would only gain the human side making it a half elf.
You get a half-elf.
Seriously. If you go read up on the half-orc in 3.5, it listed orc/elf as a rarer combination that produced them rather than human/orc. I always hated that because the half-orc had the same stats no matter what. However, taking that and going forward, if a orc/elf produces a half-orc, then a half-orc/elf should produce a half-elf.
EDIT: Huh, I know I read that once in a WoTC book, but it's not in the players handbook (quoting from memory again). Maybe it was an alternate world book? Forgotten realms maybe?
To use anthropology terms, elves are very gracile hominids whereas orcs are extremely robust hominids. Humans are somewhere in the middle. If you crossed a pureblood orc with a pureblood elf, you'd get a hominid which would look like a slightly funky human but with the same human statblock or, on rarer occasions, an individual who took after one parent or the other and thus used the half-elf or half-orc statblock.
EDIT: Huh, I know I read that once in a WoTC book, but it's not in the players handbook (quoting from memory again). Maybe it was an alternate world book? Forgotten realms maybe?
In FR elves could not breed with orcs, the two races were not compatible enough to have children. Eberron maybe but I think they kept the "can't breed with each other" thing
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In FR elves could not breed with orcs, the two races were not compatible enough to have children. Eberron maybe but I think they kept the "can't breed with each other" thing
Yup, same thing goes with Dwarves and Gnomes, they can only interbreed with each other. Though I don't think that would (or should) fly in a pathfinder campaign setting game, Gnomes being fey and all.
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To use anthropology terms, elves are very gracile hominids whereas orcs are extremely robust hominids. Humans are somewhere in the middle. If you crossed a pureblood orc with a pureblood elf, you'd get a hominid which would look like a slightly funky human but with the same human statblock or, on rarer occasions, an individual who took after one parent or the other and thus used the half-elf or half-orc statblock.
Orcs and elves have always been around much longer than humans in just about every campaign setting -- maybe that's where humans came from all along! ;-)
To use anthropology terms, elves are very gracile hominids whereas orcs are extremely robust hominids. Humans are somewhere in the middle. If you crossed a pureblood orc with a pureblood elf, you'd get a hominid which would look like a slightly funky human but with the same human statblock or, on rarer occasions, an individual who took after one parent or the other and thus used the half-elf or half-orc statblock.
Two creatures are of the same species if they can viably procreate (viable in that the offspring is also fertile. Horse + Donkey = Mules which are unable to procreate). If the offspring can procreate (viably) then they are the same species.
Species can be divided up into sub-species or even races but these are difficult to delineate, especially in creatures with high gene flow (humans). A race (and even more so, sub-species) is a population that is isolated from their neighbors for such a dramatically long period of time that absolutely no genetic inflow occurs. As such, there is no biological race in humans (PLEASE NOTE: There is SOCIAL Race. WE all have RACE but it a social construction. It is very important to us, but no population has been isolated long enough to cause a race to occur, let alone a sub-species).
So you have to ask yourself. Are 1/2 Orcs and Elves the same species? If humans and elves can viably reproduce and humans and orcs can viably reproduce we can infer that all three are one species. As for race, if orcs and elves are "races" in the scientific sense, it would be 1/4 Human race, 1/4 Orc race and 1/2 Elf. But the fact that there is a lot of genetic flow back and forth from humans and orcs and humans and elves would likely erode any "racial" distinctions.
-ANTHRO ROB
I review my copy (can't edit the first version anymore):
Alforc (?)
+2 to one ability score
Hybrid Blood: Counts as both elf and orc for any effect related to race
Low-Light Vision
Adaptability: Skill Focus
Keen Senses: Perception +2
Intimidating: Intimidate +2
Languages: Common, Elven, Orc
An amusing thing occurs with species.
For an example, take birds A, B and C. (I can't remember the specific kinds of bird for which this occurs)
A and B can produce viable offspring. B and C can produce viable offspring. A and C cannot. Are A and C the same species?
a game designer
Ya know in FR anyhow humans and drawf's could crossbreed, it was rare but did happen. Athas, same thing
Mostly its the human part that allows the crossbreeding, now in some cases {human/dwarf} it is unlikely the mother or child goes full term, the body is just to large for most humans to survive birthing.
Now we know orc and elves can not crossbreed, but humans can with both races, so that lets you know something in both races are not compatible with each other, but they are with humans.
So everything published points to humans {like dragons} will bang damned near anything and can have offspring with at lest three humanoid races{ well there is a few cases of human/goblins as well and ogres}
So yeah still sticking with if the half orc and elf can breed, {Huge f!$+ing if, most likly would call for magical aid} no orc traits would pass on as they are not compatible with the elven DNA as it were
An amusing thing occurs with species.
For an example, take birds A, B and C. (I can't remember the specific kinds of bird for which this occurs)
A and B can produce viable offspring. B and C can produce viable offspring. A and C cannot. Are A and C the same species?
The species you're thinking of is gulls. Gulls are fertile with the gulls next to them but the far ends of the chain cannot breed.
If orcs and elves can't breed, then it's just a matter of hominids being like gulls, and the next question to answer is whether an elf can successfully breed with a half-orc and whether an orc can successfully bred with a half-elf.
Ditto with halflings and dwarves.
Or it could just be because humans are like 3.5 dragons and are magically fertile with everything, meaning that elves and orcs are actual separate species and the fact that they're fertile with humans means nothing as humans and horses produce centaurs, humans and vultures produce harpies, and so on.
More along the line of Elves and Orcs both carry incompatible genetic marks that does not produce a viable fetus. While humans do not carry either of these markers, making it possible to breed with both races.
Orc <-> Half-Orc <-> Human <-> Half-Elf <-> Elf
Actually, that works out much like the gulls thing. Breeding on this scale works for up to two steps away and produces the result in between them. Orc + Human -> Half-orc, obviously. As well, half-orc + half-elf -> human. Half-orc and elf are a bit too distant to accomplish anything.
OK, so do you think that you could conceivably attach a D% to the chance of success in such (or in general) pregnancy occurring?
Would the different races have varying fertility rates, that could also be represented on a D% die?
Need more (PF/D&D) breeding info...
I would not no. They simply can not breed. Humans and dwarves however would be possible, but rare..Athas was an exception as it was done by force and breed like animals.
FR there is at lest two half dwarfs both from the north, described as tall has a human but burly and strong as horses.
It is possible that like the Muls of athas Half dwarves in FR were also sterile as neither left any famil at all behind even though they had time and one was well off enough and long lived enough to have done so.
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It is all part of the human adaptability that humans can breed with most humanoid species. Humans both biologically (I hate using science terms in fantasy) and sociologically are quite adaptable according to 3.5 rules (I don't remember if PF has the same description or not). It is why you have elves nearly always living in forests, orcs living carnivorously in huts, dwarves living in mountains, and the drow underground. Humans usually can be found in each of those settlements, but not to many non-human species willingly living in another's domain. It carries onto the humans biological adaptation.
Half orc + elf = half-elf with the racial heritage (orc) feat. Done and done.
Half orc + elf = half-elf with the racial heritage (orc) feat. Done and done.
*golf clap*
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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What do you get when a Half-orc and an Elf breed with each other?
A Quarter-Orc?
Seriously, though, why couldn't this happen? Sure, RAW may say an elf and orc can't breed, but based on GM fiat, it could be allowed in a homebrew setting.
I'm a firm believer in the "what if" scenarios of cross breeding. If there can be a half human, half elf race, why can't there be a half orc, half elf race? Humanoid interbreeding can open up a lot of role-playing and creature options in any campaign.
So, instead of providing reasons why it can't happen, I'm going to provide some advice for what may have occurred when it does happen.
I believe, technically, you will end up with a variation of the Half-Elf race. The offspring would probably have some of the Half-Orcs traits, such as Darkvision and Orc Ferocity. I would also give them either the Elven Immunity to magic sleep effects OR the +2 saving throw bonus against Enchantments (but not both) from their Elven heritage. I'd also suggest keeping the +2 to any ability score common to both the Half-Elf and the Half-Orc races. It also wouldn't be out of line to give a bonus to Intimidate checks (+2) and a penalty to Diplomacy checks (-2) based on the physical appearance of the character.
Hope this helps!