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Half Elves (i.e. half humans)


Khedrac

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Before anyone says "there's no such thing with RQ/Glorantha elves" I would point out that Pavis was a half-elf...

Anyway, I even found the RQ2 stats for half elves (they are in the Questworld solo-gaming environment box).

So, my question, has anyone ever actually used half-elves in RuneQuest gaming (Glorantha or non-Glorantha) other than references to Pavis?

Personally I have not, but I am curious.

Actually, the way plants can hybridize even when the two species have different numbers of chromosomes (they double up both half sets) suggests that magical plants might well be able to attempt to hybridize with non-plant DNA, this makes the hybrids of RQ elves with humans less impossible than one might think (and certainly more plausible than all the half-dragon template creatures that 3.5D&D supports).

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Except, for elf/human crosses I think it's not supposed to be possible in Glorantha and Pavis is (probably) unique.  That does say some interesting things about Pavis' parents - they must have been pretty awesome types in their own rights, I wonder if it is possible to find out more.

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There are half-trols, human/troll hybrids, so why not half-elves?

Pavis was created as part of a magical ritual, so it isn't just a case of getting jiggy. I would think that the magical ritual was something to do with the EWF, so the knowledge might be lost. However, Pavis had a number of Daughters, so he might have used the ritual himself, which means the ritual might be known to the Pavis cult.

As to Chromosomes, you can not use real-world biology to describe Gloranthan races. Aldryami and Humans can breed because both have the Man Rune. The Flintnail dwarves seem to also have the Man rune, as Pavis fathered a daughter on one of them. Trolls and humans can breed because they share a Man Rune. Nothing about chromosomes there.

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

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As repellent as the example is, Broo show that miscegenation is possible with ANYTHING, given enough magical oomph behind it.

To answer Khedrac's original question, no, I haven't used half elves - I think in any canonical Glorantha (YGMV) they'd be pretty rare.

I could certainly even see a deliberate attempt to make them, probably from the elves' side, as a way to better understand or try to infiltrate humanity.  Humans (I'd guess) would generally find them repellent, or at least shocking.  I say it would be from the elves' side, because (thinking like a vegetable here) they're all about trying to create life here, there, everywhere but (ironically in human terms) they don't really care much about the "sanctity" of pure breeding, so if it was a failed mutation they'd just shrug.  

IMG elves aren't just people with pointy ears and wood bones, at least I try to portray them as REALLY DIFFERENT.  They're practically space aliens from humans' point of view, with their unconcern about individuals and frighteningly long-view collective perspective.  Elf Woods are terrifying places, if you're not there with their permission or an elf-friend.

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6 hours ago, soltakss said:

There are half-trols, human/troll hybrids, so why not half-elves?

Pavis was created as part of a magical ritual, so it isn't just a case of getting jiggy. I would think that the magical ritual was something to do with the EWF, so the knowledge might be lost. However, Pavis had a number of Daughters, so he might have used the ritual himself, which means the ritual might be known to the Pavis cult.

As to Chromosomes, you can not use real-world biology to describe Gloranthan races. Aldryami and Humans can breed because both have the Man Rune. The Flintnail dwarves seem to also have the Man rune, as Pavis fathered a daughter on one of them. Trolls and humans can breed because they share a Man Rune. Nothing about chromosomes there.

I see Trolls as being MUCH closer to humankind than are Elves (or Dwarves); so I don't find THAT argument compelling!  I completely agree about ignoring modern real-world understandings of biology --  "chromosomes" do not even exist in my Glorantha -- any more than, say, "miticlorions" do.

I have to say that I find your one notion VERY enticing:  a Pavic Cult secret being "The Ritual of Elwing and Earendil" or some such...  I do wonder why Pavis had ONLY daughters, among all those children...

 

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The latest Pavis book describes that those with the man rune can mate with any other humanoids with the man rune.

In the Pavis cult write up.

So elves, trolls and dwarves. It's magic...

I have never encountered a pc which was a mix of these. 

Edited by Iskallor
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Aldryami include dryads. Dryads are nymphs, able to have offspring with about any species if they want to, or parthogenetic if they need to. A mating between a human and a dryad would result in offspring, and probably happens fairly often as woodsmen are lured into copses. What species that offspring would be is another matter - probably not counted among the elves, but quite likely among the Children of the Forest.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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It's my feeling that Pavis didn't start out as as half whatever. We know he was born in Adari and escaped to the Empire after nomad raiding. Adari doesn't strike me as a centre of great magical research and I don't think he was anything other than human to start with. Whatever great magics he discovered and used on himself changed him permanently. We know that he was involved in some kind of experiment to personify the Man Rune, his magics are based round it. Perhaps it was his plan to become the source of the Man rune itself by integrating all the Man Rune types into himself. We know that Arkat started as a Man and became a troll. I suspect the method of transmuting the Man Rune species into each other was a secret known to a few, and that some in the EWF knew how to do it. There's no reason for magically produced half-elves not to exist in your Glorantha. A pocket full of magic seeds from the EWF could exist and be sown to produce them (super soldiers maybe :-) Whatever you want, perhaps they can breed true, perhaps not.

Edited by David Scott
damn autocorrect!
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11 hours ago, David Scott said:

It's my feeling that Pavis didn't start out as as half whatever.

I am fairly positive that he did.

11 hours ago, David Scott said:

We know he was born in Adari and escaped to the Empire after nomad raiding.

Not quite - we know that he spent at least part of his childhood there. Given the lack of elf forests within half a day's walk from Adari, I doubt that this was his birthplace. In my opinion, a dryad's grove was involved.

I am a bit curious whether Pavis was a life birth or whether he grew from a seed.

11 hours ago, David Scott said:

Adari doesn't strike me as a centre of great magical research and I don't think he was anything other than human to start with.

His father was one of the researchers of this project, and the project somehow managed to get a female aldryami (and her community) to cooperate.

If you really insist, it may have been some weird form of rebirth in the child, similar to the Kralori account of Hsang Sha mhnbc's origins in the west.

11 hours ago, David Scott said:

Whatever great magics he discovered and used on himself changed him permanently. We know that he was involved in some kind of experiment to personify the Man Rune, his magics are based round it. Perhaps it was his plan to become the source of the Man rune itself by integrating all the Man Rune types into himself.

This was a breeding project, not unlike the one that produced among others Hon-eel and Jar-eel (breeding Lunar divinity into the Eel-ariash clan).

The EWF Meliorare project (nodding to Foster's Flinx here) had other expressions, too, like the death-avoiding contest mentioned in King of Sartar.

11 hours ago, David Scott said:

We know that Arkat started as a Man and became a troll.

Arkat underwent the Kyger Litor rebirth ritual (possibly devised to grant "superior trollkin" dark troll twin births full troll status, assuming that the quest that resulted in multiple births occurred during the life-time of Nysalor).

We know other ways to become a darkness creature, following the Kitori path.

Another (unpleasant) ritual of rebirth is practiced by the Bagogi.

11 hours ago, David Scott said:

I suspect the method of transmuting the Man Rune species into each other was a secret known to a few, and that some in the EWF knew how to do it.

I don't think that there is such a generic magic. There is only one other (fertile) case of half human, half something else that is not a chimeric combination. The Aramites turned into the Tusk Riders during the EWF, at about the same time as we see Pavis born. Their moniker as "half-trolls" is a bit dubious, though. They don't appear to be part of the Kyger Litor lineage, and probably never were, either. They might be an emulation of the darkness demon slain/bound by Aram, amalgamated with the great Tusker spirit/godling.

It is possible that the Remakers (who also created Pain Centaurs, and Manticores, and who may have summoned satyrs and minotaurs through their experiments) were involved in the Pavis project, at least as scientific advisors.

11 hours ago, David Scott said:

There's no reason for magically produced half-elves not to exist in your Glorantha. A pocket full of magic seeds from the EWF could exist and be sown to produce them (super soldiers maybe :-) Whatever you want, perhaps they can breed true, perhaps not.

The cult of Hon-eel might be privy to such a secret. After all, she mated with an elf deity to bring Maize.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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@Joerg I'm going to have a look back at the sources for Pavis. I've already done a bit of this for the Prax book, but I'd like to see what is actually out there. His early history is obviously not that important to Prax but some of his later motivations are - such as why he chose that particular place to down the Faceless Statue, given his Man rune emphasis, etc. I'll start a new thread later.

Edited by David Scott
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46 minutes ago, David Scott said:

@Joerg I'm going to have a look back at the sources for Pavis. I've already done a bit of this for the Prax book, but I'd like to see what is actually out there. His early history is obviously not that important to Prax but some of his later motivations are - such as why he chose that particular place to down the Faceless Statue, given his Man rune emphasis, etc. I'll start a new thread later.

There are astonishingly few sources on Pavis the hero. The Pavis cult in Cults of Prax, the Pavis history in the Pavis box, and King of Sartar. All other sources appear to be reprints of those texts.

I notice that I got his parents wrong (once again) - a human mother and an aldryami father, according to King of Sartar p.164.

The Faceless Statue resting place is easily explained - he merged it with Paragua's fence. While Pavis was in no way a fan of the God Learner cradle robbing business, he was out to avenge the destruction of his family and his childhood home against Waha. On the other hand, Joraz Kyrem was the successor of the Pure Horse Folk who had helped establish Robcradle, and it was his tribal magic that sent the giants packing rather than the Faceless Statue. Pavis used that exclusively against the Praxians and their god.

Paragua's city might have been more than just a giant encampment - check King of Sartar p.13 for who introduced the Elder Races.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

 I think Delecti made some Hybrids in his time if I remember right, but his methods where not for the faint of heart. Same with the God Learners. Again their methods would not meet approval to anyone with a conscious .

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I love all of the info and theories posted here. I'm always hesitant to use things like half-elves because it brings to mind D&D like approaches where players choose them to get advantages like "a human that lives longer and has a higher DEX and slightly pointy ears". As for Delecti, he probably has some undead creations that include Aldyami. He makes use of whatever visitor/adventurer/victims that end up within his grasp. 

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Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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40 minutes ago, Falconer said:

By any chance can you give a page reference, please? Thanks!

Booklet: Lord Skypen's Mansion

Page: 3, bottom sidebar.

Interestingly although the front cover of the box says "9 Gateway adventures) i.e. non-Glorantha, the sidebar mentions Aldrya's cult. In factall of the mentioned cults are Gloranthan

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5 minutes ago, Khedrac said:

Booklet: Lord Skypen's Mansion

Page: 3, bottom sidebar.

Interestingly although the front cover of the box says "9 Gateway adventures) i.e. non-Glorantha, the sidebar mentions Aldrya's cult. In factall of the mentioned cults are Gloranthan

From what I remember there is an opening to Glorantha and that Questworld has been settled by people from there.

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From the Questworld boxed set, Lord Skyppen's Mansion book, page 3 boxed text:

Half Elves
Occasionally human and elf wed. The children of these marriages are half-elves, combining some of the attributes of both races. There never have been many of them, and they do not form a racial community among themselves; rather, they live among their parent's community (usually that of their father). They are not tied to the forest as are elves, nor can they make an elf bow easily; they must use the non-native elf procedure if they initiated into the elf cult. Children of a half elf and a full-blooded individual of either race have only a small chance (10%) of being half-elf themselves; usually they will be of their other parent's race. A marriage of two half elves gives equal chances of having either human or elven children, again with only a 10% chance for a half elf birth. Their charisma is a -5 when measured against either elf or human, and remains at -10 against all other races, at least until such time as a member of another race would lose this modifier, such as being initiated into Aldrya's cult.

Characteristics  
STR  2D6+3
CON  3D6
SIZ  2D6+3
INT  3D6+2
DEX  3D6+2
CHA  3D6

Move 8    TF 12    Defense 05%

Skills and Spells - will be as normal for humans and elves, depending on where the character was raised. This will also determine his native tongue; he will speak his other parent's tongue at half that.

Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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Thanks for posting that, Rick!

I think the point of Gateway products was always to be “non-canon” and “anything goes,” rather than specifically scrubbed of anything Gloranthan. Most if not all of the Judges Guild RQ products referenced Gloranthan cults, and of course monsters and races from the RQ rulebook which we might think of as Gloranthan were fair game.

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For me, the Judges Guild licensed RuneQuest products fall into two slightly different categories. While every product JG produced for RQ was labelled as "Gateway", some strike me as slightly Gloranthan. The mostly Generic supplements (Hellpits of Nightfang, City of Lei Tabor) I would have a harder time fitting into Glorantha. The slightly Gloranthan adventures (Duck Pond, Duck Tower, Broken Tree Inn) would be easier to fit into "somewhere in Sartar" with a little less adjustment. As a side note, Jaquays and Kraft did several "work for hire" projects for Chaosium over the years. Regardless, I have a soft spot for most of the JG RQ supplements.

Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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It is known that Broken Tree Inn was originally material that was cut from Snake Pipe Hollow—but perhaps it was just the Inn itself, and all of the other adventuring material in that book was written specifically for the JG publication? Do you know any more details about this?

I’ve thought Hellpits of Nightfang could be placed in the Gork Hills in the Elder Wilds, in case anyone wants to investigate the rumors that a Vampire lairs there.

An only-slightly-related question about Griffin Island: Where it differs from Griffin Mountain, are those differences based on an older, pre-Goranthified manuscript, or were they all new ideas?

Since you have a soft spot for the Judges Guild products, would you ever doing a licensed reprint (to make the beautiful RQ Classic set complete)?

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Given that one of the man differences betweenn Griffin Mountain and Griffin Island is that trolls are repalced by sorcery using orcs - and I know that RQ3 sorcery was new and fairly unlike RQ2 sorcery and I don't remember orcs in RQ2 I would be very surprised if any backwards developemnt was done to go from GMountain to GIsland.

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