~Half-breed, How I Learned to Hate the Word~

I don't like half-breed characters. They are in the rule book so I make allowances for them but I do have some serious issues about the whole thing.

not the least of which.

For one, I'm becoming less and less keen on using the word 'race'. It is a politically loaded and biologically incorrect term that should be confined to the past. I prefer 'species', and the scientifical part of my brain knows that different 'species' don't generally interbreed. That is the part of the actual definition of the actual word. Then there is the fact that I can't help but things like a half-turtle/half-cat PC to be inherently ridiculous, even in a fantasy setting (now Gammaworld or TMNT is a different cauldron of mutants entirely). And finally, it is just cheap, fucking power gaming.

Half elves I am okay-ish with. They are Tolkien cannon, and in my gameworld elves are highly magical anyway, so you can handwave some of the biology. Since elves are so-long lived anyway, I figure that they have ways of controlling when and if they have offspring. That means most half-elves are the result of at least a short-term (sometimes a very-short term) relationship.

Half-orcs are another matter. In fantasy media, Orcs are almost always the bad-guys, at war with the 'good' special and people of the world. This makes the origin story for most half-orcs ...problematic at best. If you're okay with that kind of thing, that's fine. Play your game your way. But my real-world job puts me in contact with people who have been sexually assaulted and I have no desire for all that pain, anger and confusion bleeding into the game I use to escape some of that. Consent in general has become a BIG part of my game. House rule #1 is you can't charm/control another player, or start a PVP fight unless BOTH players agree to participate*. If one side says they don't want their character to do that, it doesn't happen. Agree or get the fuck away from my table.

To get back to the topic at hand, my first idea was that half-ocs could be a people unto themselves, like the Metis. The side effect of two clashing civilizations who eventually come together and build their own culture. You'd have to stop calling them half-orcs, but that isn't a bad thing.

But here we run into my specific problem. I don't use 'orcs' in my game. I just have lots of goblyns of different sizes and shapes, Labyrinth style. I did this mostly for clarity, but also to keep the players on their toes. They never know exactly what KIND of goblin they might be facing.

"Is this the kind that slings flaming poop at us again!?"

So how do I get half-orcs? It took me a bit to figure this out, and if I didn't have a player choose to be a half-orc fighter I might have not even addressed the issue. But after some thought, I decided that half-orcs are actually just small Ogres (which are a species of giant). Like my goblyns, ogres come in many different shapes and sizes and some are born a little smaller, a little smarter than their parents. Ogres don't care much for their offspring anyway and once they've been taught to hunt they have to fight for their place or face abuse, forced servitude or might even be eaten. As a result, the smarter, smaller ogres run away where they sometimes find smaller creatures to dominate. These are the ones that become the head of a goblyn or kobold tribe. Some might encounter someone smarter and more powerful who is in need of a minion or two. Others gravitate towards pockets of civilization. There they they pick up enough skills to become mercenaries and labourers etc.  

None of this might never come up in-game, but I don't really care. It clears up a problem I have with the game, and it adds a detail to my world that I like. And for me, the real joy of being a DungeonMaster is the world-building.

*this does not include combat effects like a confusion spell that is intended to take an opponent out of the fight for a few rounds. But it does include things like the DM (me) using a Domination spell on a PC and then using that PC to attack another player or betray the party. I would only do that with the player's permission.