On Racial Phylogeny

> by Bishop Enmelos’in Bamai,
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> Published on 13th Pursea, 170 H.E.
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It had come to my attention, and that of my colleagues, that in spite of the extensive information found in tetrical canon, and the discoveries of many dedicated Clergy of Harvest, there is still no official consensus on the classification of the races, their genealogy and the veracity of extra-canonical claims on the subject. After extensive debates, complemented with practical experimentation, a council of Halazhen’s dioceses have finally reached a consensus, which is to become the Pontifical See’s official stance on the subject. What follows is a documentation of our findings, authored after receiving approval from the High Pontiff.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, we must draw a distinction between the known races, between those who were born into this world and those who were projected into it; the mundane races and the otherworldly races. Those who posses an otherworldly origin, such as the spirit races, or the various breeds of outsiders, are inherently different from the mundane races that populate the globe. I must note two interesting exceptions, however, as although Centaurs and Shedim also owe their births to an otherworldly influence (those being the blessings of Gaia and the demonic essence of Igaleth, respectively), they must still be counted among the mundane races, the reason for which will be made clearer later on on this book.

Any mature form of categorizing the various living beings that inhabit our world, such as essence or anatomical comparisons, as well as blood-seeking (all of which were used throughout multiple sets of experiments), have wielded the same result: just as is the case with the various breeds of dogs, despite the large differences between the multitude of mundane races, all of them belong to a single species. This is because, just like in any other group at which we have applied the concept of species to, all of the mundane races bear fertile offspring when paired with one-another. The term, “bear offspring”, is key here, as it seems that race is a matrilineal characteristic. True, one can very well see when a person is of dual lineage, as they'll possess some characteristics found only in other races, but we found it an unfailing pattern that a person’s race is always the same as that of their mother, and never as that of their father. At most, a child with parents of different races will inherit a trait inherent to their father’s race, such as an elf’s proclivity with magic, or a gwarf’s astounding endurance, as well as some degree of physical characteristics typical of said race.

The pattern also seems to apply in the conception of members belonging to the various otherworldly races. This, as postulated by many respected theologians, such as St. Philesious of Erens and Emperor Aeron the Holy, may be due to a mirror phenomenon caused by Lady Gaia’s own existence, or even her direct influence, imprinted upon every being on the genesis of all creation.

However, oddities start to show themselves when a member of an otherworldly race, and a person of the mundane races manage to conceive. These oddities and freak cases are incredibly meaningful, as they reveal very consistent patterns upon examination, and seemingly contradict all that we have presented this far.

The fact that the elven races are able to copulate with the spirit races, thought very rarely, suggests that these races share some sort of lineage with the spirit races. I find this a good chance to remind the reader that the origin of the elven races is barely understood. Tetrical cannon speaks of the emergence of the first elves, mentioning that they were a tribe of ancient peoples that were “blessed with the third sight of higher myth, the seed of totality”, a trait that granted their kings an understanding of all things, which was highly coveted by the prelapsarian dragons.

The prevailing interpretation is that the elves were originally an offshoot of the human race, a tribe, or federation of such, that were among the first signing the covenant between men and the holy pantheon. This honor was then affirmed trough the blessings of the All-Scribe, giving them greater purity of body, sharper ears and the aforementioned “third sight”. When the dragons demanded their “sight” and council, the elves retreated to the primordial forests or were forced into servitude, their distinct characteristics becoming more and more pronounced due to their isolation from the rest of the ancient peoples, resulting in today’s races of elves. Yet, it is with the fairies and yourdles that the elves find a closeness of blood, not the humans that they supposedly split from. This suggests that the elven race results of an intermingling between the ancient, mundane peoples and some otherworldly species. However, their mundane ancestors could not be human, as otherwise they would have an easier time copulating with humans than with gwarves or gnomes, and that is not the case. On the other hand, this race could not be wholly distinct from humans, as otherwise they would not be able to reproduce at all. Finally, the otherworldly counterpart of this union could not be from divine blessing, as otherwise they would also have some ease in copulating with the ogres and thersians, which, again, is not the case.

Instead, it is the consensus of this council that the elves, and indeed all of the races, descend from an ancient humanoid species with an extremely high ability to adapt and change to suit their environment, allowing populations of said race to diverge trough various incidents or simple time and isolation, which resulted in the diversity of races seen today. The elves would then be the descendants of those ancients that intermingled with spirits, which were much more common during the times of the despotic dragon empire, and explains why unions between the elves and the other mundane races are less fertile than the union between other different mundane races. Only after this initial interbreeding would the elves have attracted Lord Kvasir’s attention, following into what is written in the holy Tetricon.

As for this hypothetical ancient race of humanoids, there are many leads. As mentioned before, tetrical canon speaks of a certain ancestor-race of men, and indeed, the great adaptability of the human race is most similar to what was hypothesized for the ancient race’s. If humans truly are the closest relatives to this ancestor race, their unique ability to quickly adapt to their environment and diversify into various distinct ethnic groups might have been directly inherited from the ancestor race. This ability would have expedited the ancestor race’s divergence into the various mundane races, although this might have also solely to do with the graces of the most holy. My experience on the subject inclines me toward the latter. The more human-like stotensons, who originate from the interbreeding of various mundane races, may be the race that is closest in appearance to this ancestral men.

The least earthly of the mundane races also derived from this ancient men in some way or the other. Goblins originated from the aberrant curse wroth by the Green Man when he broke into Feywild, which caused every babe unfortunate enough to be born into that time to shrivel and mutate into the first goblins. This aberration seems to have influenced the forces of life at a fundamental level, as the goblins are able to reproduce with every known race, be it a mundane race or an otherworldly.

Similar to the goblins, the ogres, thersians and centaurs are also mundane races that owe their existence entirely to the work of a deity upon that ancient race of men. Experiments into the cross-breading portent of centaurs yielded the exact same results as those performed on humans, even if they originated from any other mundane race. The reason for this goes deep into Lady Gaia’s mysteries, which cannot be delved into carelessly, or touched upon so lightly that they can be pondered in this book.

As is common knowledge, Ogres were created by the God of War Himself, making their impossibly fine-tuned, almost modular anatomy more believable. Indeed, even in the case of the two-armed variant of ogres, their skeletal and muscular structure seem ready to accommodate an extra pair of arms, if such was added. After numerous trials, it has been confirmed that if an extra pair of arms is transplanted into the two-armed variant, they become fully functional. The two-armed variant does not develop any characteristics common in the four-armed variant, such as lesser intelligence or stronger physique (at the very least, not in at scale of an ogre).

Thersians are a special case even among its unique peers. The race was created by Lord Acteon well into the great war, and the clads in which they be categorize cause many peculiarities in their reproduction. When two thersians of different clads mate, the child will inherit the mother’s clad entirely, as predicted in the council’s stance. However, when a female thersias is paired with a member any other race, the result is a more human-like thersian, though still of its mother’s clad. This odd thersian will lose some of its fur or scales and its anatomy will approach that of a human more. Should this thersian also be a female, and is again paired with another race, its child will be even closer to a human in terms appearance. This trend continues for up to two more generations, with the final generation being almost indistinguishable from humans, only having some remnants of their ancestor’s clad’s appearance, such as some patches of scale, fur, eyes, an extra set of ears equal to that of their clad’s, a tail, as well as fangs and claws. For convenience, these therisan derivatives are named as GenI, GenII, GenIII and GenIV thersians.

In respect to the otherwordly races, frankly, we simply don’t understand enough to reach any form of consensus. Perhaps, that’s for the better. What is know, however, is that outsider species can only reproduce with other species of outsiders. Strangely, that also applies to species who are anatomically dissimilar from their own. Some particularly abhorrent outsider species are thought to be able to circumvent their natural limitations trough diabolism, magic or ritual, or some other unknown methods. Theoretically, this would allow them to reproduce with the other races, but thankfully, there are no reports of such events ever taking place.