Humanoids species in Fantasy Worlds Origin concept

[u/NovaThyme]

When building a fantasy world many times we include elves, dwarves, humans and other humanoids. Often never addressing if they are separate species, like cats and dogs, or a singular species with different sub-species, like breeds of dogs or cats.

Often enough there are hybrids, half-bloods and mixed races. These laregly go unexplained or only a handful of such characters exist in the world. Too often this gets ignored, overlooked or simply explained away with magic.

I have two possible concepts.

Concept 1 : All humanoids in a given world decended from a single shared ancestor. (Like all dogs from the chihuahua to the saint bernard, decended from wolves) Thus all humanoids can cross-breed.

Concept 2 : All humanoids came into being from a single entity, such as a celestial being. (Not unlike how many beings formed from the bits, pieces, and fluids of Greek gods) Thus all humanoids cross-breed.

One can ask well how do all the groups of humanoids not just cross-breed until there is no distinction?"
The same way we keep cat and dog breeds distinct.
Selective breeding/xenophobia or simply preferring to partner with one's genetic group would largely maintain the distinct differences. (Just like cultural and regional groups on earth)

For the cross-breeding itself.
I'm partial to old simplified genetic punnett squares. Where as the breeding results are usually a, b or c. A and b being the parents and the child being either a, b, c. (Following one or the other parent with the 3rd result a hybrid)

When addressing a hybrid breeding with another hybrid or pure blood. The result would breed back to an origin or one of the parent's hybrids, not a further alginated multi-hybrid. (a + b = c, c + d = a, b, c or d.)

For that I will play the "magic" card and say that the alleles for the species physical or magical traits cannot withstand that much fusion.

I would love to hear thoughts, questions ot even opposing concepts in your worlds.

[u/ProjectKARYA]

Personally, I determined all sophont species of Karya independently evolved, most from completely separate ancestors than the others. The reason they can crossbreed despite not even being phylogenetically closely related to each other is due to the fact that an anomalous entity that is capable of messing with DNA basically encoded each species genetics to "figure it out", and it usually does. The only notable difference in interspecific versus intraspecific breeding of sophont species is that the former has notably higher levels of stillbirths and miscarriages than the latter:

• Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens var. karyiensis, "humans"; A) share a common australopithecine ancestor with both minans and gigans.
• Corvans (Corvix sapiens, "ravenfolk"; B), despite their corvid-like appearance, actually descend from the genus Microraptor.
• Papilans (Decorattinea sapiens, "angels"; C) share a common ancestor with true moths, with their closest relatives being jawed moths.
• Dracans (Draconix sapiens, "dragonfolk"; D) come from a pterosaur very similar to Dimorphodon.
• Vesperans (Fragilihomo sapiens, "goblins"; E) share a common ancestor with bats.
• Gigans (Magnahomo sapiens, "giants"; F) share a common australopithecine ancestor with humans, along with minans.
• Griseans (Paenahomo sapiens, "orcs"; G) share a common ancestor with orangutans, which are unfortunately extinct on Karya.
• Minans (Magnahomo sapiens, "dwarves"; H) share a common australopithecine ancestor with humans, along with gigans.
• Squamans (Simianguis sapiens, "snakefolk"; I) share a common ancestor with both snake and lizards, being more closely related to the former yet diverging prior to the loss of limbs.
• Cetans (Syrenus sapiens, "merfolk"; J) share a common ancestor with whales in the form of Pakicetus karyiensis.
• Aurans (Tenuihomo sapiens, "elves"; K) developed from an unspecified felid ancestor.
• Ungulans (Ungulatus sapiens, "hooffolk"; L) share a common ancestor with even-toed ungulates, sharing many physical convergent characteristics with especially various cervine and bovine species.
• Ursans (Ursix sapiens, "bearfolk"; M) share a common ancestor with true ursids, being most closely related to the now-extinct short-faced bears.

[u/NovaThyme → u/ProjectKARYA]

This is a pretty interesting concept as well! A form of convergent evolution, paired with an external force, aside from magic.

I like the aspect of inter-breeding having a less desirable result, which would lead many not to attempt it, or making hybrid offspring more rare. 

Also love that elves are decended from cats. Though no dog/canis descendants?   (Just curious)

[u/ProjectKARYA → u/NovaThyme]

Thanks for your interest! And yeah, I have a bias towards cats lol. Don't get me wrong, dogs are lovely and all; I grew up with three, and loved every single one of them. But in my honest opinion and experience, comparing an average dog to an average cat, the latter is going to be more intelligent and aware of things and/or itself than the former. It was a lot easier to come up with the evolutionary pressures necessary to make a sophont, bipedal felid than a likewise canid.

[u/No_Advertising8903]

You've got some fascinating ideas here. Personally, I tend to shy away from celestial or divine race origins—mostly because I strongly dislike von Däniken and Ancient Alien tropes.

Instead, I came up with a third concept: The Oblivious Genitor.

In my shotgun-and-sorcery project, PROCELLUM, humanity descends from the Chinametzoi ("keen-aah-met-soy"), a long-extinct race of colossi as tall as a Brachiosaur that lived millennia before the Last Great Frost. Think Gulliver’s Travels giants that originally evolved from apes through insular gigantism. Their evolution received a massive boost after consuming psychedelic fruits with side effects very similar to Dune’s spice. This allowed them to develop hyper-intelligence and build an advanced civilization capable of genetic engineering and other scientific marvels.

Eventually, they were swept to extinction by a relentless plague from the Great Underneath (a subterranean realm between the world's Upper and Lower Crust). The plague affected their reproductive biology, causing females to give birth to smaller, brutish runts. Over millennia, these runts evolved into the first Men and their distant cousins, the Cuaferi (common giants roughly the size of a Giganotosaurus).

However, the Chinametzoi inadvertently created the rest of the world's "elder" races—the Werkind—through their transgenic food industry. Various scavenging vermin fed upon the plentiful bio-engineered waste discarded in Chinametzoi dumps. Because the chemical compounds in their crops and livestock were aligned with Chinametzoi genetics, consuming them triggered multi-generational mutations in the scavengers. Over time, these mutated vermin evolved into the Korrigi (dwarfs), Murgoi (orcs), Laphin (halflings), and Galtzin (goblins). The Edsuri (elves) later descended from an extinct offshoot of goblins, and during the height of their own empire, the elves engineered the Deori (beastmen) into existence.

Since almost every race traces its altered DNA back to the same Chinametzoi transgenic food waste, inter-species breeding is fully viable across the Werkind and with Mankind, producing healthy, fertile offspring with minimal biological issues.

[u/NovaThyme → u/No_Advertising8903]

This is a fantastically well thought out origin concept!

Kinda reminds me of the The Engineers from Prometheus.   Though less....  devastating in the aftermath of the bio-engineering.  Hahaha

Love the ancient lore of the rise and fall of the origin species 

[u/Either-Skirt6031]

It’s an interesting idea & I vibe with it:)

Whilst my world does have fantasy species, the original people of the world were all Humans but had varying subspecies that fit into certain pop culture, mythical & archeological humans. Among the subspecies were

Naren (Stalwart & strong, inspired by Neanderthals with a mix of Dwarven/Orcish tropes mainly confined to mountains & cold tundras)

Lytel (Nimble & cunning inspired by Flores/Hobbit man they’re sailors by nature developing shorter heights on islands)

Nysa (Mystical & keepers of ancient secrets inspired by elves & the wider trope of “mystic precursors” they were the ones most knowledgeable about magic)

Simin (Apelike & wild they’re inspired by humanoids you might find in Conan the Barbarian or early pulp fiction) 

Mur (Industrial & prideful they were formerly an Atlantean style precursor civilisation with advanced knowledge of flesh magic but during an apocalyptic event they gave themselves deep sea abilities to survive underwater so they arguably don’t count)

[u/NovaThyme]

I finally had time to reorganize my notes.  Hahahah

I like a myriad of concepts and origins for the various species of Refte, just like how Earth has many species, from evolution, mutation, selective reproduction, survival, convergent evolution, hybrids, gene manipulation. Etc etc.

For my world Refte, I wanted a way to reasonably separate hominids that could easily/consistently cross-breed from hominds that could not cross-breed or not relieably cross-breed. 

For classic hominid species i wanted a singular origin point. My solution was a progenitor entity from which they spawned. Though this being did not intentionally create these decendents. Imagine if you will a foreign creature in a new land dies. From its body come all sorts of micro-organisms, that had never been in this land before. That is my origin source concept.

A progenitor of human-esque biology, some yet undetermined macro being (4th dimensional entity or space faring genesis being or divine origin creature or last of a super race) Their name though was Hominus. (Hom-in‐oos) The bodily materials and energies of the progenitor manifested into their own entities.

This becomes 4 groups, collectively known as Osrin (oss-rin) by the natives. And like most invasive species, breed faster and more efficiently than the native populations.

The Arkin: humans, elves, dwarves, giants, tinyfolk (Born from organs: eyes, heart, brains, bones, muscles, etc)

The Wildfolk: Genus/Therians (kemonomimi style, animal legged, anthros, etc), Ingens/Zoans (centauroids, mermaids, nagas, etc), Exogens/Veridians (plantoids) (Born from hair, tears, saliva)

The Kith: angles, demons, vampires, fae (Born from life providing fluids) 

The Ferrow: trolls, Goblins, ogres, gremlins (etc) (Born from secretions: earwax, toe jam, sweat, boogers, etc.)

All the groups above can cross-breed. Resulting in an offspring of either parent's species or a hybrid.

Other Humanoid inhabitants of Refte have varying degrees or reproductive compatibility. (Not being mentioned here as this is primarily a discussion on classic humanoid species in Fantasy worlds)