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For my first PFS character, I want to play a Half-Orc Wizard whose parents were also both Half-Orcs. They lived in Varisia and had to go to work for the Sczarni (as no one else would hire Half-Orcs), but they wanted something better for their son. So they saved up and sent their son off to a wizard academy in Absalom.
So can Half-Orcs have Half-Orc parents, or do they always have to be the offspring of an Orc and a Human?
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The description of the race says that they most often come from violent unions and aren't often born of loving parents. However, this implies that a loving set of parents is possible.
Nothing says that a half-orc is sterile, so I would imagine that if two half-orcs got together, they could end up with a half-orc child and love it and hug it and squeeze it and call it...
Just as long as your half-orc is exactly that, a half-orc.
ARG says that two half-orcs produce half-orc children.
Given the amount of D20 material out there, it a bit of a mish-mosh in my head, but I certainly remember references to stable populations of half-orcs and half-elves; can't promise that is was Paizo material though. It makes sense to me me that half orc parts would have half orc children, with the occasional full or or full human sport if you see what I mean.
My mother bred siamese cats for while, and here's the thing: the siamese gene is double recessive; it happens very, very rarely, but two regular cats can have siamese kittens which are just as siamese a purebred, they just don't have any pedigree. Mind you, that's not game information.
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Yes, he's definitely going to be 100% Half-Orc. The interesting thing is that he breaks so many of the Half-Orc stereotypes. He's going to be quite intellectual and bookish.
Unfortunately for him, he needed a little help overcoming a bully during school, so he called on the local Sczarni for help, and now he's in their debt, and they're sending him no faction missions. If his mother ever found out, it'd break her heart!
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For my first PFS character, I want to play a Half-Orc Wizard whose parents were also both Half-Orcs.
Damn, you stole one of my character concepts.
You're not allowed to give him a decent charisma and the Cosmopolitan feat or I will hunt you down and say bad things to you.
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For my first PFS character, I want to play a Half-Orc Wizard whose parents were also both Half-Orcs.Damn, you stole one of my character concepts.
You're not allowed to give him a decent charisma and the Cosmopolitan feat or I will hunt you down and say bad things to you.
Well, he does have decent Charisma -- but he uses it with the Bad Reputation Sczarni Faction Trait for boost up his natural Intimidate bonus. He's good at playing the "angry Half-Orc" when the need arises. And word of what happened at school has started to get around...
Given the amount of D20 material out there, it a bit of a mish-mosh in my head, but I certainly remember references to stable populations of half-orcs and half-elves; can't promise that is was Paizo material though. It makes sense to me me that half orc parts would have half orc children, with the occasional full or or full human sport if you see what I mean.
This.
I know more Forgotten Realms lore then I do Golarion lore... But there the half-elf rules were this.
Half-elf + human = Human children
Half-elf + Elf = Elf children.
Half-elf + Half-Elf = half-elf children.
I have a Half Orc with high Charisma and the Charming trait and great Face skills.
Chicks just dig him see?
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Given the amount of D20 material out there, it a bit of a mish-mosh in my head, but I certainly remember references to stable populations of half-orcs and half-elves; can't promise that is was Paizo material though. It makes sense to me me that half orc parts would have half orc children, with the occasional full or or full human sport if you see what I mean.
This.
I know more Forgotten Realms lore then I do Golarion lore... But there the half-elf rules were this.
Half-elf + human = Human children
Half-elf + Elf = Elf children.
Half-elf + Half-Elf = half-elf children.
Hmm, I would suggest that you are either full elf/ orc, or you are "half" elf/ orc. It would take multiple generations of breeding to eliminate the human influence from the blood.
I don't believe Golarion has an official breeders guide though.
I know for certain that Pathfinder lore, at least, states that half-elves breed true; I'd imagine the same holds true for half-orcs. The term "half" is really just a simplification, and not necessarily a measure of precise genetics. While it may have initially been true (and may be true in many cases), "half" races are not necessarily one part one and one part the other.
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I'd say, let's go Mendelian (again) XD
The child of couple of half-orcs can be an half-orc (50%), a full-blooded human (25%) or a full-blooded orc (25%)
Human... Idea forming.
I'd say, let's go Mendelian (again) XD
The child of couple of half-orcs can be an half-orc (50%), a full-blooded human (25%) or a full-blooded orc (25%)
This is of course assuming that race is a single co-dominant gene.
To get the full statistics, you take those percentages for each gene that is affected by race (darkvision, teeth, and hundreds of others, if not thousands) and combine them all. So any given child of two half-orcs is very likely to be close to 50-50 human-orc. Some leaning to either side is expected, but becomes exponentially rare the closer you get to one side. I'm ignoring all the variants of dominance here.
To make it worse, this is assuming no linked genes. If groups of racial genes are in close physical proximity, they're less likely to be separated during gamete formation, and it's possible for more complicated combinations. Like a half-orc with a more human nose almost always also has more human blood types.
Short story, it's really complicated and you're right to just say, yeah, the kids are also half-orcs.
I'd say, let's go Mendelian (again) XD
The child of couple of half-orcs can be an half-orc (50%), a full-blooded human (25%) or a full-blooded orc (25%)
A black-skinned man or woman mates with his/her white-skinned counterpart. 9 months later a male baby is born.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, the same happens. Except the baby is female.25 years later, the grown up male and female mate among themselves.
Do their children have any chance of being completely black-skinned or white-skinned?
(It's not sarcasm, I'm really asking. Just, as far as I know, there's no such chance. But if anyone can answer with precision, they're welcome.)
I pretty much rule that halforc means that some of your ancestors were orc and some were human or half-orc.
Halforc means some human and orc blood
Halfelf means some human and elf blood.
Halfelf + Halforc = either halfelf or halforc
Halforc + Human = human looking halforc
Halforc + orc = orcish halforc
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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The problem is that you are thinking of normal human genetics. When you start crossing with orcs things get more complicated. If there is a pair of orc genes and a human gene, they drag the human gene off into a dark ally and it gets shived. Human genes are only safe in pairs.
This is also why there are no elf/ orcs. It's not that they can't breed, it's that the elf genes are so effet and decadent that none of them survive the orcish genetic invasion.
Personally, I'd look at it more along the lines of Blood Quantum rather than DNA.
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This is also why there are no elf/ orcs. It's not that they can't breed, it's that the elf genes are so effet and decadent that none of them survive the orcish genetic invasion.
Nah, its because orc-on-elf action usually concludes with the phrase "I've ripped this elf in half...bring me another!"
I tried playing an intelligent half-orc in a 4e (bleh!) campaign and my DM would say things like "You're a HALF-ORC, you aren't supposed to be witty!" :/ Where's the fun in that?
I tried playing an intelligent half-orc in a 4e (bleh!) campaign and my DM would say things like "You're a HALF-ORC, you aren't supposed to be witty!" :/ Where's the fun in that?
Isn't that kind of 4th edition in a nutshell.
I tried playing an intelligent half-orc in a 4e (bleh!) campaign and my DM would say things like "You're a HALF-ORC, you aren't supposed to be witty!" :/ Where's the fun in that?Isn't that kind of 4th edition in a nutshell.
Yes but I didn't know any better at the time.
I'd go with half-orc + half-orc means you get another half-orc, myself. Though given how wacky Golarion genetics can be (maybe one of them has a dragon or fiend or celestial in the family tree), you can justify practically anything if you try hard enough.
I'd say, let's go Mendelian (again) XD
The child of couple of half-orcs can be an half-orc (50%), a full-blooded human (25%) or a full-blooded orc (25%)A black-skinned man or woman mates with his/her white-skinned counterpart. 9 months later a male baby is born.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, the same happens. Except the baby is female.
25 years later, the grown up male and female mate among themselves.
Do their children have any chance of being completely black-skinned or white-skinned?(It's not sarcasm, I'm really asking. Just, as far as I know, there's no such chance. But if anyone can answer with precision, they're welcome.)
Human beings don't have completely white or completely black skin. It's not a single-gene trait and can be very random.
If you're asking whether the child of two mixed-race parents could have a skin tone identical to one of the parents' "pure-race" grandparents, the answer is yes, it's entirely possible.
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A black-skinned man or woman mates with his/her white-skinned counterpart. 9 months later a male baby is born.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, the same happens. Except the baby is female.
25 years later, the grown up male and female mate among themselves.
Do their children have any chance of being completely black-skinned or white-skinned?(It's not sarcasm, I'm really asking. Just, as far as I know, there's no such chance. But if anyone can answer with precision, they're welcome.)
OK, I've got some time to kill.
The number I've seen for the number of genes controlling the amount of melanin in your skin is six. There may be more, but this accounts for most of it. Some have more effect than others, but it doesn't matter, since you wanted all or nothing.
Capital: darker skin, lower-case: lighter skin, assuming Medelian distribution (big assumption).
G1: AABBCCDDEEFF x aabbccddeeff -> AaBbCcDdEeFf for all offspring
G2: AaBbCcDdEeFf x AaBbCcDdEeFf
This is a nightmare of a Punnett Square, but we only care about the AABBCCDDEEFF and aabbccddeeff results. And there is only 1 way to get each of them.
There are six genes, two copies of each to distribute. Each allele has a 50% chance of being picked. So it's pretty simply .5^12 = 0.000244, which is 0.0244% or 1/4096 to get either one-sided result.
There's all sorts of things wrong here, since I'm simplifying and not looking things up, but this gives you an idea.
A black-skinned man or woman mates with his/her white-skinned counterpart. 9 months later a male baby is born.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, the same happens. Except the baby is female.
25 years later, the grown up male and female mate among themselves.
Do their children have any chance of being completely black-skinned or white-skinned?(It's not sarcasm, I'm really asking. Just, as far as I know, there's no such chance. But if anyone can answer with precision, they're welcome.)
Yes.
It has happened, that two seemingly white persons had a child together and the child was black.
At once he suspected she cheated on him, but when they investigated they found out that both of them had a black grandparent they didn't know of. So they both were in fact 1/4 black.
Hey I saw this post and LOVED the questions it raises! So I am whipping up some rules for hybrids in general, Basically I am taking the racial traits, breaking them down in a grid, trying to determine which are dominate and which are not based on the information already available. For example Creatures with Dark Vision tend to have offspring with Dark Vision when they mate with humans, we see this in orcs and others.
So the first step was to take Orc and Human and make sure the rules will correctly predict an offspring that is a half-orc. For example +2 to any ability score for example seems to be dominate, we see this in half-elves, half orcs etc. Or at least they are dominate over the orc and elven racial modifiers.
So my goal is to make up grids for the races that can be used to show inherited traits, Mind you it won't be anywhere close as REAL genetics. Its a complicated subject and different genes in real life turn on others, and some genes are only expressed when certain circumstances are met etc. So this will be way simplified but it should have a little bit of realism in there.
I just started about 30 minutes ago, and I already noticed one problem. The Half-Orc racial trait Intimidating! Neither humans nor Orcs carry it, and if its a recessive gene, then you get half-orcs that sometimes have it and sometimes don't which doesn't match the game, as they all get it (or a similar trait that replaces it). So I am thinking Intimidation potential might be carried in both Humans and Orcs but only expressed with you combine Orc Blood and the humans +2 to any skill. Which makes sense, Orcs for all their fury have terrible social skill modifiers.
I suspect ill find more issues like that as I continue. Also Languages, Its a racial trait in the game but I can't buy them being inherited. I did include Orc Weapon Familiarity as a inherited trait, but you might decide its a social trait instead of genetic, Makes sense that it would be. But I don't know, maybe Orcs have a built in knack for axes or something?
Anyways I made up two Half-Orcs using the rules (which have the same stats as the ones from the book) and I am 'breeding' them now. The first kid is done and hes an half orc! Got all the half orc features. Working on the second now.
A black-skinned man or woman mates with his/her white-skinned counterpart. 9 months later a male baby is born.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, the same happens. Except the baby is female.
25 years later, the grown up male and female mate among themselves.
Do their children have any chance of being completely black-skinned or white-skinned?(It's not sarcasm, I'm really asking. Just, as far as I know, there's no such chance. But if anyone can answer with precision, they're welcome.)
Yes.
It has happened, that two seemingly white persons had a child together and the child was black.
At once he suspected she cheated on him, but when they investigated they found out that both of them had a black grandparent they didn't know of. So they both were in fact 1/4 black.That's interesting. I think a lot of black americans have some white ancestors. Let's postulate that two black people are married and each have a white grandparent.
Does that mean that they have the possibility of producing an offspring with white skin? Whatever that would mean exactly?
They do actually! But Skin color itself is controlled by a complex system of genes as I understand it. Which is why you tend to see Americans (especially African-Americans) of all shades. So in practice you tend to get a chance for offspring with lighter skin, as opposed to looking as lightly colored as a caucasian person would.
Okay ! So i was just playing with this, I made up some half orcs and the results were interesting so I tried it with Half-Elfs
Following the rules I used earlier, Low-Light vision is dominate to Normal vision, Elven (Keen) senses are dominate over human (normal) senses etc. The only place the rules needed to be fudged was on the Half-Elf adaptability and Multitalented traits. Adaptability is a free skill focus feat,and Multitalented lets you have two favored classes. I decided these were the equivalent of Human's bonus feat and human's bonus skill point respectively. Though I could see how someone could decide differently.
I decided these were how the traits expressed themselves when mixed with Elven features. So I fudged it and added Adaptability and Multitalented as the dominant version of those traits in half-elves. We could fluff out a reason why but that gets more complicated than need be. I also gave half-elves Elven Magic as a recessive trait they inherited it from their elven parent but one copy of the trait isn't strong enough to do anything. I also gave the males an X and Y, and the females two Xs, Y is dominant over X. (just to determine random gender)
So I took a half elf female and a half elf male and set them up as the happy couple and randomly generated some off spring! for each trait a 1d2 is rolled, (or a coin flip or whatever) 1 means it inherits the dominant version of that trait from the father, 2 means the recessive trait is inherited, then I do the same for the mother. I continue this for all traits including gender and I end up with a child!
I did this for four children and the results were fun, 3 boys and a girl! The first child was basically a half-elf exactly like the parents. the second was basically human female, not even having elven immunities or blood, BUT did have Adaptability and Multitalented. The third, a boy was a half-elf essentially but with normal vision and the human extra feat.
The forth was another boy This was basically a half-elf but with normal vision and Elven Magic! Inheriting it's Elven grandparent's magically talent, but its human grandparent's eyes! Wonderful!.
So where do we go from here? Well I did the same thing, except this time it was a lucky little human lady making special friends with a half-elf male!
Now this was interesting because now we are getting into much more human 'half elfs' This lucky couple had three children. 2 boys and 1 girl. The oldest boy has +2 to any stat (human), Multitalented (half-elf), low llight vision, Adaptability, and keen senses. but with out elven immunity, weapon familiarity or blood. Interesting!
The second boy was essentially human, but picked up Elven Immunity and Keen Senses and Elven Weapon Familiarity. A true hybrid, this guy inherited all the good stuff, except low light vision.
The final child was a girl, she is completely human, except for her keen Senses. Indeed the ONLY elven trait she has, dominate or Recessive are her keen senses. Fascinating.
So this makes for a really interesting way to create some more randomized characters. Of course its a lot more work, And special rules might need to be devised for different combinations but its kind of fun.
Could you post your rules, please? They seem really interesting.
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A black-skinned man or woman mates with his/her white-skinned counterpart. 9 months later a male baby is born.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, the same happens. Except the baby is female.
25 years later, the grown up male and female mate among themselves.
Do their children have any chance of being completely black-skinned or white-skinned?(It's not sarcasm, I'm really asking. Just, as far as I know, there's no such chance. But if anyone can answer with precision, they're welcome.)
Yes.
It has happened, that two seemingly white persons had a child together and the child was black.
At once he suspected she cheated on him, but when they investigated they found out that both of them had a black grandparent they didn't know of. So they both were in fact 1/4 black.That's interesting. I think a lot of black americans have some white ancestors. Let's postulate that two black people are married and each have a white grandparent.
Does that mean that they have the possibility of producing an offspring with white skin? Whatever that would mean exactly?
Yes actually, I had a friend in college who was african american and all 3 of his siblings had a white complexion while the rest of their features were distinctly african. At my current school I have seen another guy who is the same way with very pale white skin and blond hair so yes it does happen and apparently quite often around where I live lol.
Could you post your rules, please? They seem really interesting.
YEah let me clean up my notes and reorganize them, My thought process is weird. Essentially its taking racial traits and organizing them like they are traits to be inherited Full humans, full elves, full orcs all get two copies of each trait. Where as half-variants get one trait from each parent.
for example low light vision is a trait which elves get two copies of, humans get two copies of normal vision, Low Light vision is dominant over normal vision, so half elves with low light vision end up with one dominant low light vision and one recessive normal vision, when choosing traits for an off spring one of the two is randomly selected for each possible trait (including gender for fun) from each parent, and given to the off sprint. So you end up with 4 possibilities in half-elf half-elf off spring.
A) two copies of Low Light Vision, B)having one copy of low light one copy of normal, or C) having both copies of normal vision.
And you repeat this for all the traits. You could even include size if you wanted. Where it gets tricky is deciding what traits are dominant and which are recessive. So you do have to make up some rules. But very easily you can produce some randomized off spring. Ill lay it all out in a bit once I find a way to word it easier.
I did a game where halflings, humans, and hill giants were all the same race, with the halfling gene and the giant gene both being double recessives, which made it so that halflings and giants were continually popping up in human populations, especially in families where the parents, instead of being HH, were both hg, meaning that on average one in every four kids would be a halfling and one in every four a giant.
You could also do the orcish skin color a similar way where a double dose of the gene gives you dark green skin and a single dose gives you light green. Tusks and pointed ears could be likewise tracked the same way.
I did a game where halflings, humans, and hill giants were all the same race, with the halfling gene and the giant gene both being double recessives, which made it so that halflings and giants were continually popping up in human populations, especially in families where the parents, instead of being HH, were both hg, meaning that on average one in every four kids would be a halfling and one in every four a giant.
You could also do the orcish skin color a similar way where a double dose of the gene gives you dark green skin and a single dose gives you light green. Tusks and pointed ears could be likewise tracked the same way.
The same mechanic can be applied in a psuedo realistic manner for tracking things like hair and eye color of off spring if you ever had the need to generate a child for a PC or NPC.
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This makes me wonder about other hybrids such as Aasimars and tieflings.
Think about it a family of 2 humans have 4 kids, each kid as a child by another species, 1 half orc, 1 half elf, 1 tiefling and 1 aasimar. Think about the family reunions!
Then think ok on 1 side my grandparents are a half orc and a human while on the other side is a human and a tiefling. Fiendish and Orc blood flow through a pure human!
So you're doomed to become a crossblooded sorcerer!
Well, nearly the entire half-elf population of Khovaire in the Eberron setting is decended from half-elf parents. They are a stable, true breeding race with their own traditions. Many of the half-orcs in the Shadow Marches are from half-orc parentage. So, in 3.5e, the rule was they breed true. In Rberron, they even ruled that a half-elf & an elf still produced another half-elf. Once diluted, the elven blood never bred true again.
This is a rule I never agreed with, since 2E.
This is a rule I never agreed with, since 2E.
In 2e, you didn't have it as a hard fast rule on all of the game worlds. It was possible to play 1/4 blooded races in Dragonlance. They never created a hard rule on how to create them, but the had said it was possible. And while I made that comment about Eberron, there were apparently ways never really discussed to be elf-blooded. After all, the Inspired were supposed to have elven blood, but not half-elven.
I was under the impression half-orcs/elves do not breed true, but work like dog breeds (so much more divergent than humans.)
In this model, half-elves are people who display a significant proportion of traits of both races, and kind of shade off into humans and elves at the edges, with a bright line imposed by game mechanics. In fact, in this understanding two humans could produce a half-elf child, a throwback to elven ancestors in both lines.
The basic scenario where elves can breed with humans, and humans can breed with orcs, but elves and orcs cannot produce viable offspring together basically sets up humanoids as having a similar genetic pattern to gulls. In the real world, there is only one species of gulls, but each type of gull crossbreeds with its neighbors to either side. However, the gulls at the far ends of the chain are too genetically different to be able to crossbreed.
What's more interesting is that, following this model, if you mate a half-elf with a half-orc, what you should end up with is basically a human.