Race and culture: Not so cut and dry.

Though the results can be sometimes alarming, interspecies relationships are rarely frowned upon, in towns operating under Lawful society, half-orcs live alongside dwarves and Tabaxi unblinkingly. The general understanding is that if you are working towards the greater development of society, then you are part of the greater whole.

From this, a common language amongst the majority of people that live Lawfully has become commonplace and with the exceptions of those races which are incapable of inherent speech (Here’s looking at you Kenku) communication within Lawful society is simple even between territories which are continents apart, with subtle dialect inflections etc.

The races of the world are as diverse as the world in which they live; the world is old and the majority of races (essentially all except one) are extremely long lived, though not by any means are they immortal or invulnerable.

It is this longevity of life that has in part contributed towards peace between the races within Lawful society and indeed the intermingling of races.

Strange then, that we only speak commonly of half-orcs and half-elves! Are these the only races that get down and dirty outside their own kind? And if Humans have only recently come to the world and no-one trusts them; WHAT’S THE OTHER HALF?!

Well my curious bedfellow, i’m glad you asked!

In this world, racial identity is essentially controlled through imperfect co-dominance.

What does that mean?

It would be easier to explain with a flow chart, however, as I do not have one, WORD SALAD WILL HAVE TO DO.

The majority of races pass down their traits in a dominant manner. If a dwarf and an Aasimar were to produce children, some of the children would be Aasimar and others would be Dwarven. Regardless of which racial base was inherited, there would be very minor differences aesthetically that indicates the child is perhaps not a pure blood to those with determined observational skills and a nose for prying.

With the above example, An Aasimar child would perhaps be slightly short when reaching maturity or have a propensity towards thicker hair or being more stoutly built.

A dwarven child may be marginally slight for a dwarf and have certain traits such as their eyes flaring with an unnatural light when they’re angry.

They do not, however, inherit a statistical or racial centric perks such as angelic guides or flight (being a dwarf) or constitutional bonuses (being an aasimar). They are still, at heart; Dwarven or Aasimar, the differences are not dramatic or immediately obvious, they’re just a little unusual.

How then is it that Orcs and Elves differ? As co-dominant genetic expression, when an Orc or Elf breeds with a member of another race, instead of one racial base being passed to the child and this forming their base; a racial base from both parents exist. A gene from both parents is passed to all offspring and both co-exist, resulting in the half-orc or the half-elf.

Even in a state of co-existence, the orc and elf genes are dominant to that which they co-exist with. If an Orc and Elf procreate, the Orc genes take precedence and the offspring are Half-orcs. A blessing from Grummsh.

The offspring of such a pairing (Orc or Elf with ANYTHING else) is obvious to anyone with eyeballs. An Orc having paired with a dragonborn may produce an unusually large half-orc with scales in various places for example. There would be significant aesthetic variety in these offspring and the parents of both races is expressed clearly but the child is still clearly more orc (or elf) than whatever race the other parent was.

If a half orc produces children with another pure race the children will either be a pure member of that race, a pure member of the race which occupies the other side of the half-orc’s genetics or a half-orc themselves but the other half of this half-orc would be that of the other parent.

It is not possible for a half-orc with dwarven parentage to breed with a dragonborn and produce a half orc that is half-orc, half-dwarf. Any half-orcs would inherently be half-orc, half-dragonborn.

Two half-orcs can produce a pure Orc, a pure Offspring A, Pure offspring B or a half-orc mimicking either parent (with the child taking one orc gene from one parent and one other gene from the other half of the other parent)