#1: Origin of the Species

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/thethree/thethree1.phtml

Summary:

The problems of fantasy races.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/thethree/thethree1.phtml) for more information.

[torbenm]

I like the column, since I'm one of those that always seek reasons for the way things are in Fantasy worlds (and quite often find that none are given).

You can easily mix several origin stories in one world. There are many examples of this, including Talislata, where all of the origins you suggest are used for different species/races.

One other origin that doesn't quite fit you categories is uplift: The races were created by augmenting animals with intelligence and modified body structure (allowing, say, upright walk and use of forelimbs as hands).

Regarding species, it is true that diferent speciaes can't interbreed (IFAIR, this is pretty much the modern definition of species), but there are exceptions: Related species might be able to interbreed, but the offspring will be sterile. For example, a mule is cross between a horse and a donkey and a liger is a cross between a lion and a tiger. Mules are definitely sterile, and I think ligers are too.

But even within one species, you can have a great deal of variance in looks and qualities. Just think of dogs: They are all able to interbreed, but the difference between a chihuahua and a saint Bernhard is (on the surface) greater than the difference between different species such as jaguars and leopards.

So, you could have "races" in fantasy be like different breeds of dogs: They can all interbreed, identifiable "races" are kept distinct only by selective breeding (selection may be due to preference, isolation or outside forces), and lots of mixed breeds exist. Races can be specialised to specific environments or specific functions (much like dogs are). If you postulate a past master race that kept the modern races as pets and worker stock, they may have bred specialised races for different purposes without keeping them geographically isolated. After the master race leaves, these races may find it natural too keep to the functions they were bred for (after all, that is what they are good at).

An advantage of having a single species with diverse breeds is that you can have an unlimited number of different "mongrels", allowing players to create their own by defining what properties thay have, but offsetting this my reduced status. For example, public offices may require you to be of a specific breed, and mixed breeds might be considered low class or even un-caste, with many prohibitions and genrerally outside the protection of law.

Combining a Hindu-like caste system with such breeds might go a long way towards explaining how breeds keep "pure" over time.

[brianm]

The rifts theory has always been my favorite, and I blatantly steal from American Indian myths in that regard. I also use the "uplift" theory for some of the more animal-like critters, especially gnolls.

As for crossbreeding goes, I've used a number of theories. In the past, I've said that humans, elves, orcs, and ogres were all descended from a common ancestor, which explains why they are able to bear children. More recently, and due to a darker edge in my gaming and the example of recent history in more troubled parts of the world, I've written up orcs and ogres as magically-created races built specifically for war. As such, they were given the magical ability to cross-breed with almost anything, allowing them to replenish their numbers at the expense of nearly any conquered population.

- Brian

[Hunter Green]

A MUD (http://www.lusternia.com/) I play in has an interesting variation on #1 (The Gods Did It) that I think works well and addresses the flaws in that variation. Of the many Elder Gods that used to exist, some splintered, each one turning into a race of people that bear some of the traits of that Elder God. That's what makes people different from animals -- animals are merely creations of the Elder Gods, but people are actually shards of one of the Elder Gods. It also explains why it's possible for people to aspire to near-godhood themselves under certain circumstances. Each race has its own origin and can boast of the virtues of the god from which it was created, and which it, collectively, still is, in a sense.

[easypeasy]

A MUD (http://www.lusternia.com/) ....Of the many Elder Gods that used to exist, some splintered, each one turning into a race of people that bear some of the traits of that Elder God. That's what makes people different from animals -- animals are merely creations of the Elder Gods, but people are actually shards of one of the Elder Gods.
Wow...What a cool idea!

[MrWilli]

Anyone looking for a more natural explanation for how different species could evolve may want to do some research into human evolution. There have been several different branches of hominids (i.e. upright-walking apes like us) in the past few million years, often occupying the same environments at the same time. What if some of these early linages continued to evolve along their own evolutionary paths? In fact, during the last Ice Age there may have been Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Homo floresiensis all living at the same time. (The last ones are the small hominid fossils found in Indonesia, which have been nicknamed "Hobbits" -- ironic for our purposes). You could quibble whether Neanderthals and "Hobbits" are truly different species, but for gaming purposes assume they are. You also could assume they can interbreed because of their evolutionary relationship to one another, with perhaps the offspring being infertile like mules.

I remember that Terry Brooks' Shanara books had a similar premise, with dwarves, gnomes, trolls and ect. having evolved from humans (in this case, after a nuclear war). Only the elves were special because they were fairy creatures.

As for non-human sentient creatures, go the Lovecraft/Howard route and have different humanoid species represent different stages of evolution. The amphibian creatures would come first, representing the animal kingdom's transition to land. Intelligent reptiles come second, representing the Age of Dinosaurs. Sentient bird-like beings could evolve from the earlier reptile race, representing modern theories about bird origins. Next comes mammals and man. Human-animal hybrids could be accounted for through human shapechanging, or perhaps as the youngest of races. Gnolls, for example, could be the equivalent of our cavemen, having just emerged from the savanna. That may account why they are so savage and not very bright.

Anyway, good column. It got me thinking.

[cfc]

Um...

Literally billions of unique species evolved here on Earth. Just because there's only been one successful species that's developed civilization that we know of, there's no reason why there couldn't easily have been more. Why did you completely ignore the simplest, most obvious, and easiest answer: Plain old evolution.

[smascrns]

Another explanation for the different species in a world with magic is simply the impact of magic. If there's elemental magic, then humanoids change according to the influence of the element dominant on the place they live in or they evolve from species existing in the environment. Dwarves live in mountains, so they get the rough and hard features of stone; ents are wood creatures; and so on.

To make things a little more complex one can have an "objective" explanation for the different human species (evolution, for instance, or import from another world) and a different "cultural" explanation (people X explains the different species as the workings of different gods; people Y explains it as the result of a magical misuse; and so on).

[Snoof]

The fantasy/steampunk game Arcanum has a fairly detailed explanation of how the major species occurred (both natural and magical selection) as well as explaining why interbreeding is possible. IIRC, 'protohumans' and 'protodwarves' (gracile and robust forms of the same basic species) diverged as species a long time before the present, the 'protodwarves' diverging into gnomes (hill-dwellers) and dwarves (mountain-dwellers) later on (a futher gracile/robust divergence), while halflings were a magically-selected offshoot of gnomes. The fact that dwarves and gnomes were 'naturally' occurring species was used to explain their affinity with technology rather than magic, although humans had no such issue.

On the other side, the protohumans were magically altered to become elves and giants (the magic on giants degenerating over the course of millennia, causing them to shrink throughout successive generations and eventually produce ogres) and much later on orcs were magically created from humans (deliberately, it was implied). Thus humans could interbreed with ogres, orcs and elves because they were the 'root stock' from which these three species came, and elves (and to a limited extent, orcs) were capable magic users because it was incorporated into their biology to an extent. Ogres theoretically could be, but were too stupid in practice.

I personally quite like this 'few basic species, many others created by magical intervention from basic forms' for fantasy races and have used it in a couple of other settings, although not using the same specifics.

Looking back, that's way too many parentheses. Oh well.

[JRM]

As far as the humanoid races in my own fantasy campaign go, for most of them I use the same approach as torbenm - they're just different breeds of Homo sapiens.

As for how they came about, my favourite theory is that magic allows Lamarckian Evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism) to work. For those unfamiliar with it, Lamarckism is the theory that an animal's offspring can inherit traits in acquired during its lifetime - so an antelope that spent a lot of its time stretching to reach higher leaves has kids with a longer neck.

If you have a universe with magic, where the will of sentient organisms can influence its surroundings, it seems very plausible that if a creature thinks "I wish I could do X" long enough it may develop talent X and pass it to its offspring.

Furthermore, it neatly explains why there are so many sapient species in a typical D&D-type fantasy world. Those creatures with higher intelligence are more likely to change themselves through Lamarckian magical evolution, and hence will speciate faster.

[Gaming Poet]

A game master of mine once had a unique take.

All infants and children were of the same root species (which wasn't human). At the Coming of Age magical ceremony, an adolescent united with those patron spirits who were most attracted to him or her based on his or her personality, accomplishments, etc.

So an adolescent whose personality was earthy and pragmatic would attract the spirits of the mountains and caverns and transmogrify into a dwarf. However, if the spirits of woods and wind were attracted instead, the adolescent became an elf. If the adolescent attracted spirits of beast and bone, a human was the result. Etc.

An adolescent who refused the ceremony remained physically a child until he or she finally accepted the ceremony. The creature remained permanently zero level, could never gain experience points, and could never wield magic or call on clerical aid.

I don't remember if the game master let half-elf characters exist in that campaign.

It also explained why, for example, dwarves tended to be gruff and gnomes tended to be high-spirited -- because only gruff personalities attracted the spirits of the caverns and mountains whereas high energy cheerfulness attracted instead the spirits of the hills and fields.

It worked for that campaign world. I don't know how easily it could be imported into any other, though.

[JRM]

A game master of mine once had a unique take.

All infants and children were of the same root species (which wasn't human). At the Coming of Age magical ceremony, an adolescent united with those patron spirits who were most attracted to him or her based on his or her personality, accomplishments, etc.

So an adolescent whose personality was earthy and pragmatic would attract the spirits of the mountains and caverns and transmogrify into a dwarf. However, if the spirits of woods and wind were attracted instead, the adolescent became an elf. If the adolescent attracted spirits of beast and bone, a human was the result. Etc.
It worked for that campaign world. I don't know how easily it could be imported into any other, though.

That's an interesting approach, kind of an extreme form of the magical pseudo-Lamarckism mentioned in my last post. It reminds me somewhat of Shadowrun, where the people turn into elves, orcs etc at adolescence, according to inherit traits - genetic in the case of that gameworld.

Such a 'many varieties appear from one base-stock' society is one decent answer to the big question as to why so many types of sapient humanoids co-exist relatively peacefully - in a society were this is a common event so you Uncle Arthur is an orc and Aunt Beryl is a dwarf, such beings would presumably be viewed as perfectly normal, not the exotic and potentially hostile Other.

It does raise a few questions - presumably some cultures would encourage their offspring towards a particular form by reinforcing appropriate behaviour traits - "Be grumpy Sidney, or you'll never grow up to be a dwarf" and what happens to adolescents who turn into beings at odds with their native environment & culture - would their be a system of exchanging young adults with your neighbours, so the wood elves give their orc-kids to the swamp-orcs in return for the swamp-orcs elf offspring?

[malladin_ben]

If we're quoting Darwin in that title, tchincially it should be "On the Origin of Species", or dropping the "on" from the start "The Origin of Species"...

or possibly for given the article itself you coudl adapt it to "The Origins of Species"...

Cheerio,

Ben

[1nfinitezer0]

I have to agree that using a modified evolution in some form is a good way to explain the divergence. Speciation could happen between humanoid groups if given a high rate of drift/mutation, selection pressure (harsh local conditions) or minor magical nudges within a hundred thousand years.

I don't really like the idea of having species be different without the influence of evolution at all, but then I'm an evolutionary biologist so ID irks me. The use of Gods influence upon ancient histories and lineages is a great part of backgrounds though, but I like to use it as a cultural point of intrigue in my campaigns. I simply adore indigenous creation myths, and animistic or shamanic groups always feel strongly connected to these myths. The more hermetic and academic folks trace the paths of evolution. It's a point of debate and pride between the two schools of thought, but neither really converts even if they can embrace them both as being possible (y'know Gods guiding evolution n all that).

Also, a modification of theory three could exist:
Modify the panspermia theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia) so that microbes, bacteria or viruses came to the planet leading to accelerated diversion.

---
and.... I cannot help myself but offer some nit picky clarifications since I've spent so much time learning about evolution.

Races is not even genetically linked in humans. It has been dropped from the anthropological lexicon and is almost considered rude. It only really applies to pre-subspecies in plants or animals, a shorthand for regional variation, though varieties is the preferred botanical term.

Subspecies do possess the same common ancestor, and very recently. Usually they refer to populaions that could interbreed but do not. An example is a species of bird which shows a redder plumage in the southern regions of its range, and more yellow in the northern, but birds from the far ends of each population don't mix.

To refine the species concept a little (while fairly presented in the article, is not complete), it refers to two populations which are separated from crossbreeding. Not that they CANNOT interbreed, but that they are isolated by some mechanism. Species separated by a geographic obstacle (mountain range to an insect, oceans to mammals, etc) could crossbreed if they had there spermy bits implanted into female bits. There's also reproductive isolation, and a few other debated specifics.

But.... that's pretty anal and probably irrelevant to most campaigns. Evolutionary histories might be useful to tie into inter-species relationships. e.g. is the fact that half-elves can be produced a source of contention or camaraderie between the two species? Racism sucks in our world, but it can be a good plot device.

[Gaming Poet]

I don't really like the idea of having species be different without the influence of evolution at allA wonderful thing about removing evolution from a fantasy world is that you end up with a fantasy world and not a scientific parody of a fantasy world.

If species come into existence only by way of a god, then all species exist as either divine mandate or divine caprice. Think of the difference it makes if the player-characters know without hope of a doubt that leeches, maggots, poisonous snakes, and fire ants all exist specifically because one or more gods wanted them to!

Could enough clerics pray a new species into existence?

Would designer breeding (e.g. using eugenics to create different types of dogs) be considered hubris against the gods?

There is a lot to be gained when we create a fantasy world which follows fantastic principles instead of defaulting to our real world scientific theories, such as our real world recognition of the process of evolution.

It's always annoyed me when people say they want their fantasy realms to be grounded in science, which makes about as much sense as having SF planets grounded in faerie enchantment.