Greetings!

Yes, a very interesting idea. Evidently, SCIENCE!--has figured out that historically, we have had different species of Humans; I.e, Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals, and of recent scholarship, Denosovians. These human species were capable of interbreeding--and the scientists believe that apparently there was lots of interbreeding going on, on a constant basis, for a very long time. These different Human species each possessed distinctly *different* physical, social, and intellectual capabilities.

That all seems to be firmly established FACTS.

Human beings then, are not originally-speaking, homogenous, the same, or equal in many different aspects.

Have you developed different Human species in your campaigns?

The idea is certainly ripe with many intriguing possibilities!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

It would make a lot of sense to do this in an early Paleolithic setting, maybe something like Osprey's Paleomythic https://www.amazon.com/dp/147283481X/?coliid=I3454L24FZYTR&colid=1TX4UZOED51DK&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it.

I'm not sure if that game has anything of this sort, but I can certainly see it as a possibility.

I've considered adding this a bunch of times in recent years when working on homebrewed settings, but I haven't gotten around implementing it in actual play. But I've worked on "beastmen" races related to humans, pygmy humans instead of halflings or giant human races inspired by Denisovans.

I wonder how much impact these would have, though, given the over proliferation of non-human races these past few years (decades?) and the fact that a lot of them are very human-like, or even descend or interbreedable with humans. Plus, considering a lot of fantasy world characters don't know anything about genetics, claiming that these races are really humans might be nothing but an interesting factoid from a player's point of view. But in practice, pygmies would still be regarded as "halflings", while beastmen might be indistinguishable from orcs.

Quote from: BronzeDragon on July 22, 2022, 06:44:43 PM
It would make a lot of sense to do this in an early Paleolithic setting, maybe something like Osprey's Paleomythic https://www.amazon.com/dp/147283481X/?coliid=I3454L24FZYTR&colid=1TX4UZOED51DK&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it.

I'm not sure if that game has anything of this sort, but I can certainly see it as a possibility.

Greetings!

That's an interesting book, BronzeDragon! I should get that one sometime here soon.

In the campaign, though, what if the different species of humans survive and thrive beyond the paleo times? Like into the standard ancient/medieval eras of most campaigns.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

My main science fiction setting has only humans and various sub species of humans due to purposeful mutations to let colonists survive on distant worlds and gene altering that occured during wars long winded past. Not to mention purpose built slave races by great empires to live on hostile conditions without having to invest in terraforming whole worlds.

Without living subjects, we can't know the extent of these differences. They might have been largely irrelevant. Like Star Trek's rubber forehead aliens.

Closest I've come is replacing races with different human cultures. The only "race" in the setting was human, but players picked a culture. The northern tribes were comprised of stronger, heartier people, but lacked the social grace of other "more civilized" cultures (so basically half-orcs without the stigma). Other cultures developed near anomolous magic zones, and after generations have become more magical attuned/resistant. Et cetera.

For historical early homonids to persist into modern, or even medieval, times, they'd need to have been isolated or insular. Especially if the prospect of interbreeding is a thing. Because the truth is, those species didn't vanish, they just became us. Most Europeans have neanderthal DNA; some people living in France and Spain have Cro-magnan genes; many African tribes show traces of yet another early homonid that no one else in the world does. Evidence suggests that early humans (homo sapiens) were prolific conquerers, and just out-bred /interbred with everyone else.

Alternatively, you can use the conceit of multiple realities converging, like Paladium Rifts... or Sliders.

Quote from: SHARK on July 23, 2022, 11:28:30 AM
In the campaign, though, what if the different species of humans survive and thrive beyond the paleo times? Like into the standard ancient/medieval eras of most campaigns.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Well, if we take what we know about Neanderthals, they tended to be slightly larger and more muscular, Cro-magnons are as close to identical to us as you can imagine, and Denisovans may have ended up as the Australian Aborigines, so we have a basis for what they looked like, distinctive but not really functionally different.

A Neanderthal civilization might evolve pretty much similar to Sapiens, perhaps a little more violent (though there's little to no evidence of this IRL) due to their larger size and more muscular body.

IRL it seems that we essentially fucked the Neanderthals out of existence, given the fact that we have some quantity of their genes in our own populations, as Effete pointed out.

QuoteYes, a very interesting idea. Evidently, SCIENCE!--has figured out that historically, we have had different species of Humans; I.e, Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals, and of recent scholarship, Denosovians. These human species were capable of interbreeding--and the scientists believe that apparently there was lots of interbreeding going on, on a constant basis, for a very long time. These different Human species each possessed distinctly *different* physical, social, and intellectual capabilities.

Sub-species. And Cro-Magnons were Homo sapiens sapiens - just more admixed with neanderthals than nowadays in Europe.

QuoteWell, if we take what we know about Neanderthals, they tended to be slightly larger and more muscular, Cro-magnons are as close to identical to us as you can imagine, and Denisovans may have ended up as the Australian Aborigines, so we have a basis for what they looked like, distinctive but not really functionally different.

Neanderthals were bulkier, alas IIRC not taller. Cro-Magnons were H.s.s with more H.s.n admixture - so they were generally taking correction on dietary limitations heavy, tall, muscular modern people - the kind that with proper rich diet would turn into strongmen let's say. And this paleolithic blood is strongest nowadays in Scandinavia, Northern Poland, Baltic Lands, parts of Russia - exactly where most strongmen came from. Australians lack Denisovian blood, but Papuan Melanesians have up to 10% of it - and if you watch various photos of Papuans vs Australians I think phenotypical differences may fit that.

Palladium books has the Ogre race essentially be a human race offshoot.  They're bigger, just as intelligent, but more crude, and tend to be selfish to full evil on the morality alignment scale.   The Ogres biggest fault is that most of the their children are born male, including when the mother is a normal human woman.  So, add all that up and you get an Ogre culture based on raiding and taking human women by force.

Quote from: Wrath of God on July 24, 2022, 09:02:46 AM

QuoteWell, if we take what we know about Neanderthals, they tended to be slightly larger and more muscular, Cro-magnons are as close to identical to us as you can imagine, and Denisovans may have ended up as the Australian Aborigines, so we have a basis for what they looked like, distinctive but not really functionally different.

Neanderthals were bulkier, alas IIRC not taller. Cro-Magnons were H.s.s with more H.s.n admixture - so they were generally taking correction on dietary limitations heavy, tall, muscular modern people - the kind that with proper rich diet would turn into strongmen let's say. And this paleolithic blood is strongest nowadays in Scandinavia, Northern Poland, Baltic Lands, parts of Russia - exactly where most strongmen came from. Australians lack Denisovian blood, but Papuan Melanesians have up to 10% of it - and if you watch various photos of Papuans vs Australians I think phenotypical differences may fit that.

Denisovian were apparently also larger than even Neanderthals, probably were the legends of giants come from. So they were probably ogre sized. I'd say that would make them functionally different from humans, in that they would probably qualify as Huge creatures in terms of Size category. Neanderthals probably had a racial bonus to STR in D&D terms. Homo floresiensis were also halfling sized. All these differences set these races apart from H.S.S., enough to give them different game stats.

The first edition AD&D Monster Manual has Caveman stats, listed under Men (That word we've used for hundreds of years for all humans regardless of sex).

1e Greyhawk had multiple ethnic groups, but they were identical except for physical description and clothing. ("My character has to wear plaid because he's a f—cking Oeridian...")

2e Greyhawk gave them each slightly different ability score modifiers, which was really stupid.

This new/fake nutSR Star Frontiers knockoff has the ridiculous Eugenics study. And get this...it's a 5e clone so nutSR isn't even OSR.

The original Star Frontiers that I played when it first came out had no separate ethnic groups.

Here's an idea for a species of Homo-Superior to go along side all your Neanderthals.

QuoteDenisovian were apparently also larger than even Neanderthals, probably were the legends of giants come from. So they were probably ogre sized. I'd say that would make them functionally different from humans, in that they would probably qualify as Huge creatures in terms of Size category. Neanderthals probably had a racial bonus to STR in D&D terms. Homo floresiensis were also halfling sized. All these differences set these races apart from H.S.S., enough to give them different game stats.

I'm quite sure they were not. Both Denisovian and Neanderthal were Medium creatures (definite not Huge - come on - Huge is Hill Giant size, category above Large). They were more robust so +2 Con or +2 End depends of game. So generally no - they were not that different functionally from modern humans.

Quote2e Greyhawk gave them each slightly different ability score modifiers, which was really stupid.

It would be totally fine to use some +1/-1 between subgroups of humanity, while keeping bigger modifiers for non-humans.
Just to flip one to professional woke anti-racists.

Here your Japanese get +1 Int, this minor difference make him totally superior to -1 Int Texan, therefore making game unplayably nazi one.

Quote from: Wrath of God on July 25, 2022, 08:39:12 AM

QuoteDenisovian were apparently also larger than even Neanderthals, probably were the legends of giants come from. So they were probably ogre sized. I'd say that would make them functionally different from humans, in that they would probably qualify as Huge creatures in terms of Size category. Neanderthals probably had a racial bonus to STR in D&D terms. Homo floresiensis were also halfling sized. All these differences set these races apart from H.S.S., enough to give them different game stats.

I'm quite sure they were not. Both Denisovian and Neanderthal were Medium creatures (definite not Huge - come on - Huge is Hill Giant size, category above Large). They were more robust so +2 Con or +2 End depends of game. So generally no - they were not that different functionally from modern humans.

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.