Quote
Yeah, I messed up. I meant Large, not Huge. I sometimes get those mixed up. That's why I mentioned Ogres, which are Large creatures. But based on what they've found Denisovans had huge teeth, like twice as large as modern humans and bigger jaws, so they were probably larger homo sapiens sapiens, which should give them different stats.

Actually not. They had bigger molars and stronger jaws - but they were no larger than Homo sapiens sapiens. More robust, and with well big boney jaws, that rarely can be find today (though for instance among Papuans who had denisovian ancestry you will more often find strong robust jaws, than among Australians).

It's more like that



Give them +Con and better bite damage

That picture...Holy shit! I'm a Neanderthal!

Quote from: Wrath of God on July 25, 2022, 09:53:04 AM

Quote
Yeah, I messed up. I meant Large, not Huge. I sometimes get those mixed up. That's why I mentioned Ogres, which are Large creatures. But based on what they've found Denisovans had huge teeth, like twice as large as modern humans and bigger jaws, so they were probably larger homo sapiens sapiens, which should give them different stats.

Actually not. They had bigger molars and stronger jaws - but they were no larger than Homo sapiens sapiens. More robust, and with well big boney jaws, that rarely can be find today (though for instance among Papuans who had denisovian ancestry you will more often find strong robust jaws, than among Australians).

It's more like that



Give them +Con and better bite damage

IDK, that still looks larger than human. Maybe not large enough to make it to the next size category (still don't know about that, and there's not enough fossil evidence to make "absolute" determinations either way), but large enough to at least get a STR bonus on top of that CON bonus, cuz otherwise, how tha hell are they even gonna move that huge skeletal structure?

Not even close to be Large. This is still modern Homo sapiens size category.
But they were robust - average Neanderthal adult male weighted 80 kgs significantly higher than his contemporary H.s.s. (Height on average below 170 cm, though probably genetic potential for more).
So yeah I think +2 Con would be deserved modifier. Dunno about Strength as is DnD it's not only pure Weightlifting but also part of overal Agility not covered by Dex. So considering they were probably not that fast in this regard, they would not make really better melee fighters (maybe some bonus for brawling or smth).

And remember we have modern men as robust as neandies.

QuoteThat picture...Holy shit! I'm a Neanderthal!

Plenty Europeans and not only had Neanderthal ancestors, so backward chins and protruding faces are not unheard about.

As this thread is full of wrong, allow me to venture my own knowledge and opinions.

Humans feature a very unique mutation which makes interbreeding with other great apes impossible. Specifically, chromosomes 2 and 3 are fused. This is a very complex, multi-step mutation. Chromosomes have telomeres at their ends (which tell the DNA duplicator to stop) and a centomere in the middle which allows the duplicator to proceed. For the chromosome fusion mutation to happen, you have to deactivate the centomere which was in the middle to make what is effectively a new telomere, and then activate the telomere which is now in the middle so it now serves as a centomere. So this mutation has three steps (a structural mutation and two point mutations) which must occur simultaneously or else you make one or both chromosomes useless.

Now here's the stretch; this mutation is effectively God's DRM key on humanity. It completely stops all possibility of natural interbreeding with an ape or chimp which doesn't have this mutation because the DNA is formatted differently. For this mutation to not instantly die off, you need a minimum of two people (a male and a female) to have the exact same mutations (same two chromosomes fused, same orientation, same telomere and centomere alterations) and for those two to live close enough in time and space to have children.

We can infer that all that actually happened purely from the fact we are alive and our DNA has this extremely strange mutation and this mutation could not exist otherwise.

My point is that it's meaningless to call any human subspecies which can interbreed with homo sapiens anything other than another homo sapiens. You have to be on this side of this mutation to interbreed.

Quote from: Fheredin on August 08, 2022, 08:48:33 PM
As this thread is full of wrong, allow me to venture my own knowledge and opinions.

Humans feature a very unique mutation which makes interbreeding with other great apes impossible. Specifically, chromosomes 2 and 3 are fused. This is a very complex, multi-step mutation. Chromosomes have telomeres at their ends (which tell the DNA duplicator to stop) and a centomere in the middle which allows the duplicator to proceed. For the chromosome fusion mutation to happen, you have to deactivate the centomere which was in the middle to make what is effectively a new telomere, and then activate the telomere which is now in the middle so it now serves as a centomere. So this mutation has three steps (a structural mutation and two point mutations) which must occur simultaneously or else you make one or both chromosomes useless.

Now here's the stretch; this mutation is effectively God's DRM key on humanity. It completely stops all possibility of natural interbreeding with an ape or chimp which doesn't have this mutation because the DNA is formatted differently. For this mutation to not instantly die off, you need a minimum of two people (a male and a female) to have the exact same mutations (same two chromosomes fused, same orientation, same telomere and centomere alterations) and for those two to live close enough in time and space to have children.

We can infer that all that actually happened purely from the fact we are alive and our DNA has this extremely strange mutation and this mutation could not exist otherwise.

My point is that it's meaningless to call any human subspecies which can interbreed with homo sapiens anything other than another homo sapiens. You have to be on this side of this mutation to interbreed.

Greetings!

Sounds good, Fheredin!

You are aware that all of the Paleontologists, Archeologists, and Anthropologists at all of these dig sites and at the uber elite universities have all formed a *consensus* that historically, there have been different human species, and that somehow, they intermixed and interbred with each other?

*Shrugs* That I just what I have read in the academic literature, and seen in the documentaries where they interview "Professor X" and "Scholar Y".

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Funnily enough, dwarfs in my low-magic fantasy game are actually directly descended from the Neanderthals.  Neanderthals are already shorter and stockier on average than Homo Sapiens, and after thousands of years within the mountains of the northern reaches this gradually became exacerbated, their brains became more developed, and they were taught the arts of metalworking by a race of giants. 

Of course, none of my players know this, not even the one currently playing a dwarf, my game is largely based on early medieval (10th century-ish) eastern Europe, and quite frankly, I don't expect medieval Greeks and Russians to know jack shit about other human species.

Quote from: Fheredin on August 08, 2022, 08:48:33 PM
As this thread is full of wrong, allow me to venture my own knowledge and opinions.

Humans feature a very unique mutation which makes interbreeding with other great apes impossible. Specifically, chromosomes 2 and 3 are fused. This is a very complex, multi-step mutation. Chromosomes have telomeres at their ends (which tell the DNA duplicator to stop) and a centomere in the middle which allows the duplicator to proceed. For the chromosome fusion mutation to happen, you have to deactivate the centomere which was in the middle to make what is effectively a new telomere, and then activate the telomere which is now in the middle so it now serves as a centomere. So this mutation has three steps (a structural mutation and two point mutations) which must occur simultaneously or else you make one or both chromosomes useless.

Now here's the stretch; this mutation is effectively God's DRM key on humanity. It completely stops all possibility of natural interbreeding with an ape or chimp which doesn't have this mutation because the DNA is formatted differently. For this mutation to not instantly die off, you need a minimum of two people (a male and a female) to have the exact same mutations (same two chromosomes fused, same orientation, same telomere and centomere alterations) and for those two to live close enough in time and space to have children.

We can infer that all that actually happened purely from the fact we are alive and our DNA has this extremely strange mutation and this mutation could not exist otherwise.

My point is that it's meaningless to call any human subspecies which can interbreed with homo sapiens anything other than another homo sapiens. You have to be on this side of this mutation to interbreed.

But we're not homo sapiens, we're homo sapiens sapiens.

It's easier to understand if you think of us as humans, Neanderthal were human, just like the hobbits from that island, and since we of european descent do carr neanderthal DNA they could clearly interbreed.

Just as canis lupus familiaris and canis lupus can interbreed.

So, everyone mentioned "humans" from the past, what about the future? Morlock and Eloi would work fine in D&D games.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 28, 2022, 04:30:41 PM
So, everyone mentioned "humans" from the past, what about the future? Morlock and Eloi would work fine in D&D games.

Both are included on my Pulp OSR game.

It is kind of odd that the idea of multiple human races hasn't had that much exposure in the fantasy RPG sphere, because if you scratch the surface of fantasy literature, it's pretty common. Tolkien, of course, has the Numenoreans, who might as well be a different species from normal humans, but IIRC the Melniboneans in Michael Moorcock's universe are explained as the last survivors of a proto-human race. Pretty sure Howard and Lovecraft both flirted with the idea, too, and From Software has also engaged with it. e.g., the Pthumerians in Bloodborne, or how the Irythillians in Dark Souls III are implied to be a subtly different race, due to their long interbreeding with the Gods of Anor Londo (and the general blurring of the lines between men and gods in that series).

I've been messing with the idea a bit for a Souls-inspired setting I'm half-heartedly working on. I think it's a good addition to a human-only setting, and helps to give a setting a sense of deep time.   

There's also the popular (though poorly evidenced) anthropological theory that stories of ancient humanoid races (such as the Fomorians and Tuatha De Danann in Irish mythology) represent a much-eroded memory of interaction with other human species like the Neanderthals.

EDIT: I didn't even think to mention Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars, in which the Red, Yellow, and Black men of Mars are implied to be divided by more than just skin-tone and culture.

The only published RPG I can think of that really engages with the idea of multiple human races is Hyperborea, which does imply that certain races, such as the Hyperboreans and Amazons are quite different from other humans, but doesn't go so far as to stat them differently. Modiphius Conan has a talent which you receive if any of your stats exceed normal human limits at character creation, and which denotes that your character has some blood from a pre-human race, but that's not much.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 28, 2022, 06:56:32 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on August 28, 2022, 04:30:41 PM
So, everyone mentioned "humans" from the past, what about the future? Morlock and Eloi would work fine in D&D games.

Both are included on my Pulp OSR game.

Neat!

Quote from: ForgottenF on August 28, 2022, 08:20:26 PM
The only published RPG I can think of that really engages with the idea of multiple human races is Hyperborea, which does imply that certain races, such as the Hyperboreans and Amazons are quite different from other humans, but doesn't go so far as to stat them differently. Modiphius Conan has a talent which you receive if any of your stats exceed normal human limits at character creation, and which denotes that your character has some blood from a pre-human race, but that's not much.

Ancient bloodlines in Modiphius Conan are questionable.

For a more solid difference, Rolemaster has both high men and common men. So too does Against the Darkmaster. FFG Star Wars had humans, Corelli humans, and Mandalorian humans each under a different species entry. Clones were also a distinct species despite being clones of a (Mandalorian?) human.

Although I loathe the wokeness that SJG has descended into, two GURPS sourcebooks go somewhat into this: GURPS: Ice Age and GURPS: Dinosaurs (both GURPS 3rd ed) deal somewhat with this.

At any given time, there were several human species living on earth at the same time.  Homo Erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, Denisova hominins, Homo floresiensis (so-called "Hobbits") and good old Homo Sapiens all existed at the same time, some even in the same geographical region.  There probably were others waiting to be discovered.  And earlier, there were probably some Australopithecus species at the same time as some members of the Homo genus.

Generally speaking, Neanderthals and Denosovians are physically stronger, have larger body mass, but are shorter and stockier.  Socially, they seem to have lived in smaller groups than homo sapiens, which probably was a factor in us out-competing them.  But there was some inter-species action--here's an interesting news item about one such individual they've found: <link>https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/24/denisovan-neanderthal-hybrid-denny-dna-finder-project</link>

My son has toyed with some world-building using the various Homo species evolving into analogies of the various archetypical fantasy races in a earth setting.  He was working on it some during the summer, but now that school's starting up again he's setting it aside for awhile.  But an alternate history where multiple human species sounds fascinating (though probably unlikely)--maybe something like the STTNG episode where a planet had two intelligent species, but the less intelligent one were treated like second-class citizens.