So, I understand why they are moving away from half-races but it does change the pantheon a bit by giving the racial deities more power or am I mistaken? Humans have no racial deity so unless they absorbed the halves the racial pantheon just got super charged. Think we'll get an appearance from Ao to realign the Domains or a Human deity?
Of course I am probably wrong in this but it would make for an interesting adventure. All of a sudden Elven clerics get an extra spell slot and the Humans are like flipping out. Actually, this could be the reason for the Heroic Inspiration on Humans couldn't it? Like they realized the other species just got super strong and now they're extra crafty in the pitch of survival.
I have the feeling that he is overthinking things MPA. That or angling for a campaign where he can play a cleric with extra spell slots. There are some interesting parallels or ancient histories that might be developed based on Earth biology and folk lore. Biology first - to interbreed with viable offspring means you are so closely related that your really subspecies of the same species that diverged for some reason at an earlier point in time. So we have: 1) half elf - elves and humans as separate subspecies 2) half orcs but- orcs and humans as separate subspiecies 3) Dwelfs - dwarves and elves (and humans) as separate subspiecies, this suggests that there should also be half dwarves but I haven’t run across any that I can remember. 4) Goliaths - giants and humans as separate subspecies
These would be the “natural” half species or full species and sort of suggests that an ancestral hminid was the ancestor of all of them. Assuming that, then the giants were the first to branch off far enough back that the Goliaths have become a fully separate “species”. Next branching may be the dwarves followed by the elves and then the orcs. I would base this on the the idea that there are no (known) half dwarves so the dwarf- human interbreeding is not particularly viable but they are still close enough to the elves to produce Dwelves. Then orcs most recently as they seem to be able to breed with almost anything. Perhaps ogres are another even earlier human giant cross that orcs can interbreed with. perhaps more intriguing problem would be the Genasai, Aasimar, and tieflings. - outer planner crosses. Perhaps when an outerplaner creature manifests on the prime material its “genetics” manifests as roughly the same as the creature it manifests as so that interbreeding can occur. This might also apply to dragons - when they take a human form their “genetics” is also transformed allowing for the generation of half dragons..
If we look at Earthly folk lore we see some of this possibilities bly playing out. Elves as frequently described before the Victorian shrinking of them into pixies were a tall woodland savvy group that lived by a mix of farming and hunting/gathering. Possibly more reliant on the hunting and gathering than the farming. In addition they typically wore “golden” armor and were easily damaged by iron weapons. Sounds a lot like a Bronze Age group being replaced by a more agricultural centered Iron Age group. With the Bronze Age group retreating to the ever shrinking woodlands and/or interbreeding with their replacements. Similarly the Dwarves of folktales may be recording an even earlier replacement - Neanderthals by Cro-Magnon. I challenge you to put a picture of a dwarf next to a Neandertal. They were (supposedly) shorter, stockier with larger noses, possibly hairier and , like the elves retreating to the forests, retreating to the mountains and other marginal lands as they were being replaced.
So, I understand why they are moving away from half-races but it does change the pantheon a bit by giving the racial deities more power or am I mistaken? Humans have no racial deity so unless they absorbed the halves the racial pantheon just got super charged. Think we'll get an appearance from Ao to realign the Domains or a Human deity?
Of course I am probably wrong in this but it would make for an interesting adventure. All of a sudden Elven clerics get an extra spell slot and the Humans are like flipping out. Actually, this could be the reason for the Heroic Inspiration on Humans couldn't it? Like they realized the other species just got super strong and now they're extra crafty in the pitch of survival.
Idk just thinking about it.
I for one am glad that they got rid of the word Race and replaced it with Species and got rid of half species. It's too bad they kept monsters like the Orc or part monsters like Goliaths and Tieflings. I understand Tieflings are super popular, so I can understand why they kept them.
As for gods and goddesses, 5e has only stated monsters as deities (I haven't seen all of the supplements, maybe I'm wrong): Bahumat and Tiamat. Why they chose to leave out the humanoid types is probably question someone should have asked Crawford. But if we use those two as a template, it means gods can be killed both away and on their home planes.
In D&D One they're moving back to Grayhawk which is cool, but they could have given us a bit more on their pantheon then. Especially since very few people played a character on Oerth.
Greyhawk is the sample setting in the DMG for starting to make your own campaign content. It's not the default setting for 5e as a whole (that would be the Multiverse, which includes Greyhawk, FR, and every other published setting.) Since every world in the multiverse treats the gods differently, picking just one of those to showcase a pantheon for in the core product would be counterproductive.
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No idea what your question is here.
I have the feeling that he is overthinking things MPA. That or angling for a campaign where he can play a cleric with extra spell slots. There are some interesting parallels or ancient histories that might be developed based on Earth biology and folk lore. Biology first - to interbreed with viable offspring means you are so closely related that your really subspecies of the same species that diverged for some reason at an earlier point in time. So we have:
1) half elf - elves and humans as separate subspecies
2) half orcs but- orcs and humans as separate subspiecies
3) Dwelfs - dwarves and elves (and humans) as separate subspiecies, this suggests that there should also be half dwarves but I haven’t run across any that I can remember.
4) Goliaths - giants and humans as separate subspecies
These would be the “natural” half species or full species and sort of suggests that an ancestral hminid was the ancestor of all of them. Assuming that, then the giants were the first to branch off far enough back that the Goliaths have become a fully separate “species”. Next branching may be the dwarves followed by the elves and then the orcs. I would base this on the the idea that there are no (known) half dwarves so the dwarf- human interbreeding is not particularly viable but they are still close enough to the elves to produce Dwelves. Then orcs most recently as they seem to be able to breed with almost anything. Perhaps ogres are another even earlier human giant cross that orcs can interbreed with.
perhaps more intriguing problem would be the Genasai, Aasimar, and tieflings. - outer planner crosses. Perhaps when an outerplaner creature manifests on the prime material its “genetics” manifests as roughly the same as the creature it manifests as so that interbreeding can occur. This might also apply to dragons - when they take a human form their “genetics” is also transformed allowing for the generation of half dragons..
If we look at Earthly folk lore we see some of this possibilities bly playing out. Elves as frequently described before the Victorian shrinking of them into pixies were a tall woodland savvy group that lived by a mix of farming and hunting/gathering. Possibly more reliant on the hunting and gathering than the farming. In addition they typically wore “golden” armor and were easily damaged by iron weapons. Sounds a lot like a Bronze Age group being replaced by a more agricultural centered Iron Age group. With the Bronze Age group retreating to the ever shrinking woodlands and/or interbreeding with their replacements. Similarly the Dwarves of folktales may be recording an even earlier replacement - Neanderthals by Cro-Magnon. I challenge you to put a picture of a dwarf next to a Neandertal. They were (supposedly) shorter, stockier with larger noses, possibly hairier and , like the elves retreating to the forests, retreating to the mountains and other marginal lands as they were being replaced.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I for one am glad that they got rid of the word Race and replaced it with Species and got rid of half species. It's too bad they kept monsters like the Orc or part monsters like Goliaths and Tieflings. I understand Tieflings are super popular, so I can understand why they kept them.
As for gods and goddesses, 5e has only stated monsters as deities (I haven't seen all of the supplements, maybe I'm wrong): Bahumat and Tiamat. Why they chose to leave out the humanoid types is probably question someone should have asked Crawford. But if we use those two as a template, it means gods can be killed both away and on their home planes.
"Was" is the operative word there.
Greyhawk is the sample setting in the DMG for starting to make your own campaign content. It's not the default setting for 5e as a whole (that would be the Multiverse, which includes Greyhawk, FR, and every other published setting.) Since every world in the multiverse treats the gods differently, picking just one of those to showcase a pantheon for in the core product would be counterproductive.