AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

I highly doubt this thread will last longer than a few questions I have to put forward, but its main purpose is to establish confirmation as to how the various species work and intermix, as applicable to Amian lore. I already posed two such queries under different circumstances, so I will quote them here.

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In bloodlines with strong draconic heritage, is it possible for children that are less than half-dragon to manifest minute physical signs, such as slitted pupils or small patches of scales, or even something less overt, or must it be unlocked first? [If so, I assume this is much more likely to happen the closer your generation is to that of the draconic ancestor? Would this principle also apply to other species?]

Quote:

Also, are half-breeds sterile? [I assume not.] Moreover, which half determines the child, or is it determined by the full-blooded parent, if any? If a half-orc and a half-elf were to mate, what race would the offspring fall under, if at all, bearing in mind that elves and orcs cannot produce children?

As an addition, and falling back on draconic heritage, is it possible for dragons of different colors to reproduce? Is the offspring a mix between the two, or does it fall solely within the bloodline of one parent?

If half-breeds were sterile, there could be no such thing as "draconic lineage." Somewhere in the ancestry of a dragon disciple, some sort of dragon coupled with some sort of non-dragon. If the offspring of that union were sterile, then how could they be anybody's ancestors?

Half-dragons are not sterile and are probably one of the most, er, productive of any magical half-breed given how relatively common the trace of their bloodline is.

Yes, minor traits are possible, but unless the PC is enhancing those traits through something like Sorcery or Dragon Disciple, they should remain extremely minute in most cases. 8 generations removed, a child doesn't just grow horns, scales, slit eyes, etc without also some palpable force of that blood coming through as well.

In terms of humanoid half-breeds, generally it defaults to one or another. If a half-elf and a half-orc were to mate, I would imagine it would just be a human with some recognizably different features. I think a half-elf can be born to a half-elf pairing because the genetic math stays the same, but once you're getting into 1/4s, things get a bit cheesy by most standards.

O, I think I misread that second question to be more exclusively about dragons than it was meant to be.

There's no such thing as a quarter-elf or quarter-orc, mechanically. The offspring of a halfbreed and a human is a funny-looking human. This doesn't apply to dragons / outsiders / elementals / etc because their blood is "magical" and whatnot. In those cases, the offspring of a half-(magical creature) and a human is a human, except in the random cases when it's an aasimar / genasi / etc.

I agree with DI, the offspring of two half-elves or two half-orcs would be another half-elf or half-orc. There's somewhere in the FR where a whole society of half-elves was intentionally founded in this way, but I'm typing from my phone and can't be arsed to look it up.

Bloodlines and How They Operate

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