"Half-Creatures" Topic

To me, it seemed originally there were just half-orcs.

Then suddenly there were half-elves, half-dwarves, and other mixes of humans with the other races.

And then suddenly there were half-dragons, half-lizardmen, and mixes of humans with some very strange beings.

And then it seemed all the other races got into it, and there were half-elf-half-orc and half-dragon-half-dwarf and all the possible combinations. Until it just got silly.

And what about three-quarters-elf-and-one-quarter-hobbit?

Where do all these halfies come from? Wild sex parties? Conquest and rape?

Are there halfies towns? societies? kingdoms? Do all the half-elves go off to form their own village? Is there a kingdom of hobbit/orc offspring?

It's magic, literally.

Suddenly? My AD&D Player's Handbook (1978) allowed both half-orcs and half elves, and Gygax was copying Tolkein with those.

But it also always seemed to me that if miscegenation was feasible with humans, orcs and elves, then it was not likely to be limited to those three races.

And don;t get started on Star Trek…

I'm not a Fantasy gamer & don't pretend my answer is definitive but I think the use of hybrid races is mainly to allow a greater diversity of characteristics in the stock characters.

Thus, in Star Trek terms you have the cold logic of a Vulcan mixed with some possibility of human emotion embodied in Spock. Yin AND Yang. Exploring the depths of the human psyche is easily done by using these hybrids (there are, of course, no elves or hobbits in Reality & just one type of human).

As for miscegenation (ugly word!),perhaps the proponents want a more peaceful (fantasy) world where everyone is a result of blending & intolerance of orcs or racial-hatred of elves is gone. I am well aware of the fact that Fantasy has its boots planted firmly in the real world & some social commentary against racism is a possibility.

Wasn't Elrond called Half-Elven? He was born well before half-orcs appear in Tolkiens stories. Half-breeds would probably appear wherever there are two populations of humanoids living and for any number of reasons war, slavery, forbidden romance, drunken fling. Its certainly true that in the distant past modern humans intermingled with other species of archaic humans on occasion. Some of these hybrids may not have been able to breed beyond the initial mating that created them.

Oh please. Miscegenation is not an ugly word. It describes a social sexual interaction. Nothing more.

Anti-miscegenation laws and practices are an attempt to control a set of social order constructs that simply don't work – else I would not be here. Race is a social construct not a biological one. Now that, besides unworkable, is a sore point to me for personal reasons but miscegenation is only negative if you make the presumption that it is.

There never has been complete social acceptance of how many "races" there are – I have found in old encyclopedias 3, 4, 5 or more declared human "races" so I prefer to consider the fantasy people's more like species or "small e" evolution at work within a proto-human (for lack of a more adequate term) species.

Either they all can cross breed and you can get blurry lines or they biologically can't and no Elrond. Or you need to justify in your fantasy which ones can and why versus which ones cannot and why.

I myself use the different groups are species variants and the ability to breed exists but because of the evolution of the various (?) subspecies there may be combinations where genetic differences make successful birth unlikely.

As for LOTR man-orcs/half-orcs there was a thread on LAF about some of Tolkien's writings on how Orcs/Goblins were procreated that never made it into the original core story. Needless to say it was macabre, asexual, and just plain creepy if I understood the process correctly.

Actually, Bill, I think half-elf preceded half-Orc in OD&D and LOTR. Originally most players pretty much stuck to human, elf, dwarf, and half-elf in all the early OD&D gaming as I recall.

Half-____ is something that comes from legends and lore. There has always been those who believed that demons or angels or fairies or other odd creatures have mated with people to produce half breed offspring. In many cultures these half breeds were looked on with awe, or reviled.

In Tolkien's works it was unusual, but people didn't think twice about the half elves. In many fantasy settings half breeds are looked on with disdain by both races. I think that for many obvious looking half breeds that would actually be the case.

Landorl – I think few "peoples" looked down on Elrond.

Some links/thoughts on inter-species breeding:

From link

Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren – No children I believe but don't quote me.

from tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Idril

"Idril Celebrindal – When Tuor, son of Huor arrived in Gondolin, Idril fell in love with him. Because Turgon had grown to love Tuor as a son (as he had his father before), and remembering the last words of Huor, he allowed Idril and Tuor to wed, thus bringing about the second union of the Eldar and Edain, after Beren and Lúthien. Idril encouraged Tuor to build the secret passage known as Idril's secret way, and thus enabled many to escape the Fall of Gondolin. In Gondolin she had a son, Eärendil. "

One child only if I remember correctly.

From link

Elves: We see two different types of interracial marriages in Tolkien's writings. We see several cases of the elf/man relationship (Luthien/Beren, Idril/Tuor, Arwen/Aragorn, Mithrellas/Imrazor), and one case of elf/Maia (Thingol/Melian). Thingol and Melian turned out pretty well, since they're both immortal. However I doubt that there are too many Maiar out there willing to marry a "lowly" elf. The elf/man relationship is difficult and painful for the same reason a relationship between an elf and a dwarf or hobbit would be – they will always be parted by death. Elves' souls remain with Arda forever, even after death. However, mortal souls go on to another fate after death.

So those elves that did decide to marry humans were not normal, and had to make huge sacrifices to make it work. There's no reason to believe that this type of relationship happened beyond the couples Tolkien shows us himself. There's also no reason to believe that there are any instances of an elf marrying a dwarf or a hobbit."

and

"Dwarves: We never hear of a dwarf marrying anybody who wasn't also a dwarf. Not only do they have a very closed off, secretive culture (they aren't even supposed to teach their language to outsiders), but that culture is rather different from the other races, and doesn't seem very compatible. The extreme emphasis on craft and work wouldn't be attractive to most people of the other races. Beyond that, dwarves place great value on their beards. It seems unlikely that a woman of another race (or men, except for a few especially hairy men, since elves and hobbits don't usually grow beards) would be attractive to a dwarf at all. I mean, Gimli thought Galadriel was beautiful, but that's not quite the same thing…

Hobbits: There is a mention of a rumor in the Shire that long ago one of the Tooks "must have taken a fairy wife" (a fairy would be an elf) as an explanation for their strange ways. This isn't really believed, though, and I think it's rather unlikely. Even if someone of another race were willing to marry a hobbit, the culture of the Shire is very proper, and would frown on such unusualness. I mean, if Bilbo was judged for going on an adventure and coming back rich, imagine what would happen to the poor soul who brought back a spouse who wasn't even a hobbit.

Men: Of all the races, I'd say that men (the big folk, at least) would be the most open to an interracial marriage. The elf/man pairings tended to work out pretty well for them (the line of kings started with Elros, who was basically the accumulation of all the elf/man pairings of the First Age). I'm not saying that they wouldn't sort of judge anybody who brought home a dwarf or a hobbit, but at least with so many smaller cultures the couple would have a chance to move about until they found a community that accepted them. Also, men have a history of creating symbiotic relationships with other communities (Dale and Erebor, the Glittering Caves and Rohan/Gondor, Mirkwood and Laketown, etc.) or even mixed communities, like Bree. "

Arwen is hot. That's good enough for me.
But not a very good housekeeper. Once her maids went West for the Havens, she couldn't be bothered to sweep the leaves from her room.

+1 To Mr Smith. That brought a chuckle.

the Half-Boy

Poor Horatio!
YouTube link

Racism and fantasy roleplaying games. Or, if you prefer, racism and fantasy litarature.

What a can of worms.

You have to keep in mind that Tolkein not only comes from a period when the concept of different races of human beings was a thing, but he was also inspired by ancient mythologies (mostly Old English and Norse) which posited the existence of different races of sentient beings.

Today, whether in RPGs or in heroic fantasy literature, the notion of separate and different "races" of human-like beings is an accepted trope. Each one tends to have its own origin story, or creation myth, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

But then you get things like Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies, where a dwarf-elf romance is hinted at, and that begins to open up whole realms of possibilites.

So it all boils down to what we (meaning fantasy authors, or RPG players and DMs) intend to interpret out of the multiple races trope. If multiple diffent-but-equal races are a thing, then multiple possible crossings between the bloodlines should logically also be a thing. If I can write the backstory of how my elvish mother became enamored of my dwarvish father, that should be possible within the shared fantasy universe of our RPG adventures.

Literary critics, or gaming critics (if such alien lifeforms should actually exist <shudder>) can debate on the political correctness of the multiple races trope. But within RPG universe, such things are often taken unquestioned, at face value, so the occaisonal appearance of adventurers of questionable parentage shouldn't really shock anyone.

I have found in old encyclopedias 3, 4, 5 or more declared human "races"

Might I suggest you read something printed in this century? As for "miscegenation" I fear you are being disingenuous.
A little more reading?
link

There is but one human "race" extant today. Trying to quantify a person's background with a percentage can be insulting but , fortunately, we're only talking about fantasy. Or are we?

Where do all these halfies come from? Wild sex parties?

"Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!"

And yeah, while Tolkien has a few examples, in gaming I regard it as mostly a munchkin thing to min-max a character. Rarely do I see it taken as an opportunity to roleplay social conflict, etc.

The whole point of race/species in Fanrptasy was to role play and/or make a reason in game terms (+2 Strength, -1 Charisma, blah, blah, blah,) for each group. Not to mention the whole human-Elf-dwarf-gnome thing was a reflection several popular fantasy writers when games like OD&D poured fuel on the fire.

Ochoin, not being disingenuous. I agree with your last paragraph. Perhaps because of the culture(s) I had to deal with in the 1950s I was taught as a child that the crossing of racial/ethnic/religious/class/national lines was frowned upon those who felt they had something to lose and it occurred quietly and in the shadows all the time.

Perversely despite all the kumbuya rhetoric and unneeded self-justification I still managed to pick up an anglophobic attitude so perhaps drawing lines between peoples is a product of The Fall that contaminates all humans.

Returning to Fantasy I prefer the discord between groups having more to do with cross-cultural expectations clashing and a history of conflict being the drivers of fantasy discord between groups. I have a dwarf character that is a ghetto fighter that grew up in a conquered dwarf group enslaved by Grey Elves for centuries (hey, the DM came up with the back story,) due to a political driven war (hold the pass through the mountains, control the trade.). That seems reason enough to have passive-aggressive friction between the Elf in the party and my character. No need for "race" or species to be a factor.