Half-Elf
Half-Elves are a hybrid fantasy race originating with - or at least associated with - Dungeons & Dragons who, alongside gnomes, have the dubious honor of being regarded as one of the most superfluous and "do we really need this race?" races in fantasy gaming. As their name suggests, half-elves are born of the union of human and elf - unlike most D&D races, they have only the most tenuous and marginal of claims to an origin amongst the works of Tolkien; whilst Middle Earth does allow for humans and elves to interbreed, the fruit of such unions choose whether they embrace their elven blood or human blood, and through this decision become functionally identical to either humans or elves.
In contrast, the D&D half-elf is basically a watered-down elf. They have some semblance of elven vigor and longevity, but their lifespan is nowhere near as long as an elf's. They have an innate knack for magic, but it's not as strong as an elf's. They do tend to be physically stronger and heartier than elves, but they're noticeably physically frailer by human standards. All in all, they just generally tend to come off as either humans with a dash of special snowflake or less fancy elves, so they mostly survive in D&D due to weight of tradition.
Much like their fellow old-school half breeds, the Half-Orcs, half-elves originally labored under a presumed grimdark backstory. The expectation was that half-elves would be outcasts, shunned by their elven kin and yet unable to fully integrate with humanity either. It was even supposed that, just like half-orcs, most half-elves would be conceived through rape (remember, D&D was invented in the early 70's, so interracial relationships weren't as widely accepted then as they are now) - although in their case, humanity would be the rapist rather than the victim. In fact, the most iconic half-elf character during the days of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Tanis Half-Elven, was a wangsty bastard born when a female elf noble was attacked and raped by a vicious human mercenary as she went about her business in the forest. What's likely another result of these social attitudes is the included chart for family trees that have a lot of half-elves getting with full humans or full elves. For whatever reason, it was a lot easier for humans to breed out the elf than it was for elves to breed out the human.
But... this idea didn't last. Those might have been the days before monstergirls had truly taken root in the budding D&D group consciousness, but even so, the idea that half-elves had to be rape-babies made no sense; unlike the slavering, porcine-featured orcs of those days, elves were handsome, charming, and elegant figures; easily believable as seducing humans voluntarily. And, this time inspired by Tolkien's writings, many players could easily see tragic love blooming between virtuous human adventurers and female elves. And as half-elves lost their assumed origins by rape, they also began to lose their outsider status, until their abilities began shifting to represent their new depictions as possessing unparalleled flexibility and a natural diplomatic streak that allowed them to bridge their two races.
...until 5e came around, which says that half-elves are good at being diplomatic brokers between a wide variety of groups except between humans and elves, as each one lumps half elves in with the other. "To humans a half elf looks like an elf, but to elves a half elf looks like a human."
From a scientific standpoint, half-elves generally suffer the same problems as all other D&D half-breeds. In most settings, they are fully capable of having children of their own, which would mean that humans and elves are technically the same species in that setting (like cro magnon and neanderthals), but even then a half-elf's breeding with a full-blooded individual rarely has accurate results; generally you have stuff like "a human and a half elf produces a full blooded human," when in reality it'd work more like breeding different breeds of dogs together: you get a 1/4 elf, then a 1/8 elf, then a 1/16 elf, and so on.
If, however, humans and elves were separate species of hominid but still in the same genus (the level just above species), then half elves could exist, but would themselves be infertile like mules. If humans and elves were in entirely separate genre (plural of genus) then half elves would be almost entirely impossible without the aid of magic. One other thing about inter-species hybrids that most writers aren't aware of is that a mom of species X and a dad of species Y gets you an entirely different creature than if X were the dad and Y the mom. Mules, for example, only occur when the dad is a donkey and the mom a horse; if the dad is a horse and the mom a donkey then you get what's called a hinny.
Setting Differences[edit]
Though the above is the most common description, half-elf fluff is all over the place when it comes to setting specifics. In Dragonlance and Dark Sun, for example, the old lore of half-elves as unwanted outcasts remains true, thanks to elves being racist elitist pricks in the former and shunned, treacherous, backstabbing thieves in the latter. In Birthright, elves tend to be alright with them, since they're still elfish enough to count, but humans tend to shun them for being different, to say nothing of the fact that elf-human tension is a major component of that setting to begin with. In the Forgotten Realms, half-elves tend to be more neutrally regarded. In Eberron, half-elves were born of noble elves marrying into wealthy human families for increased financial power, only to realize, whoops, they were actually compatible after all, leading to a distinct "upper middle class" origin for half-elves as a whole that blends well with the Khorvairian tendency to regard nation as more important than species. Unlike most settings, there is an emphasis on half-elves with two half-elf parents as these individuals are the majority of House Lyrandar and House Medani. In the Nentir Vale, half-elves are valued and respected for their status as living links between humans and elves. In Exandria's setting, it really bounces between. Vax and Vex are treated like shit by their prick of a noble dad, but Keyleth is treated like any other elf, so go nuts there, I guess.
Tolkien[edit]
As with most things with Elves, the idea of a Half-Elf-Half-Human has its origins in Tolkien. The thing is in Tolkien, they sort of exist, sort of don't exist, at least as we know them today (funnily enough Luthien was technically half-angel and half-elf). It's complicated.
Origin[edit]
Half-elves were pretty much invented for Dungeons & Dragons. However, they weren't originally a part of OD&D, or BECMI; this was partially due to the "race as class" assumption that those versions of D&D operated on, but may have also had something to do with the way that half-elves operated in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, where they basically chose whether to embrace their human or elfin heritage. Gary Gygax invented the half-elf for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and they hit the ground running; they've been in the Player's Handbook from AD&D 1e through to D&D 5e, and probably won't be going anywhere any time soon.
PC Stats[edit]
BECMI[edit]
Whilst half-elves didn't begin in OD&D/BECMI, that didn't mean they weren't added in later.
The first version of the concept was the Forester; a gish class introduced in Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia. The basic idea was that this was a human who either had enough elfin blood to inherit the ability to wield magic and martial skills together, or else who had trained in the elfin fighting styles. Mechanically, this was handled by taking the Elf Class and forsaking the Infravision and Immunity to Ghoul Paralysis. Simple, easy to understand, and effective.
The Elves of Aelfheim splatbook claims that half-elves in the AD&D sense do not exist on Mystara; humans and elves are interfertile, but the child fundamentally takes after one race, though its appearance and its innate abilities may not match. To quote the segment of the book itself... "As far as can be told, the elven traits are inherited through the female line. The product of a union between human female and male elf is always human. Moreover, the male children are always stillborn. When female elf mates with male human, the male children are always elves, the female children always human. Of course, all of these female 'human' children have the potential for growing up to bear elf children of either sex." If you need a little help deciphering this, you're not alone.
The second version of a Mystaran half-elf, and the one closer to the AD&D "human-elf hybrid" in lore, appeared in the serial "The Voyage of the Princess Ark". Debuting in issue #178 of Dragon Magazine, the "true" Mystaran half-elf is native to the land of Eusdria on the Savage Coast, and is the result of divine meddling by the Immortals Fredar and Fredara (better known to other lands as Frey and Freya), who created them in an effort to promote and increase homogeneity in the land that worshipped them. The trait is mostly dominant - a child with a half-elf parent has a 65% chance of being a half-elf itself, although it doesn't clarify if this only applies to half-elf/human couples, or if it means a half-elf/pure-elf breeding has a 65% chance of a half-elf and a 35% chance of a pure elf. Mechanically, half-elves are treated as humans, allowing them to take any class open to humans and achieve unlimited levels - their elven ancestry manifests in having the Elfin Infravision racial trait alongside increased longevity (they use the halfling aging table instead of the human one), bonuses for which they pay by suffering a -5% penalty to their Experience Points.
AD&D 1e[edit]
- Ability Score Minimum/Maximum: Strength 3/18, Dexterity 6/18, Constitution 6/18, Intelligence 4/18, Wisdom 3/18, Charisma 3/18
- Ability Score Adjustments: None
- Racial Class & Level Limits: Cleric 5, Druid Unlimited, Fighter 8, Ranger 8, Magic-User 8, Thief Unlimited, Assassin 11
- Half-elves can only achieve 8th level as Fighters or Rangers if they have Strength 18; Str 17 caps their level at 7, and a Str lower than that caps their level at 6.
- Half-elves can only achieve 8th level as Magic-Users if they have Intelligence 18; Int 17 caps their level at 7, and an Int lower than that caps their level at 6.
- Racial Multi-Class Options: Cleric/Fighter, Cleric/Ranger, Cleric/Magic-User, Fighter/Magic-User, Fighter/Thief, Magic-User/Thief, Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User, Fighter/Magic-User/Thief
- 30% Resistance to Sleep and Charm Spells
- +1 bonus language for each Int point above 16.
- Infravision 60"
- 1 in 6 chance to detect a concealed door when passing by, 2 in 6 chance to detect a secret door when actively searching, 3 in 6 chance to detect a concealed door when actively searching
Unearthed Arcana used the new rules for extraordinary ability scores (18/00 to 20) to heighten some of the half-elf's level limits; by having the right stats, they could reach up to 12th level as Clerics, 13th level as Fighters, and 15th level as Rangers.
2e[edit]
In the change to 2nd edition AD&D, half-elves remained mostly the same as before, just with a few minor tweaks:
- Now, half-elves could become specialist wizards, when they had been denied access to the Illusionist class in 1e.
- They lost their favored classes in the Druid and Thief; ironically, half-elves now capped at as 9th level druids (compared to 14th level clerics) and 12th level thieves. Instead, they gained the ability to become Bards of any level. Their other class limits were set to Fighter 14, Mage 12, and Ranger 16.
- Finally, half-elves had a slight tweak to their innate ability to detect secret/concealed doors:
- Merely passing within 10 feet of a concealed door (one hidden by obstructing curtains. etc.) gives the half-elven character a one-in-six chance (roll a 1 on Id6) of spotting it. If the character is actively seeking to discover hidden doors, he has a one-in-three chance (roll a 1 or 2 on Id6) of spotting a secret door (one constructed to be undetectable) and a one-in-two chance (roll a 1, 2, or 3 on 1d6) of locating a concealed door.
3e[edit]
Much like the Half-Orc, the half-elf of 3e is generally regarded as being really, really shortchanged. Really the only use for Half-Elf is qualifying for Elf-only stuff without a Constitution penalty. See also the insane aelfborn variant.
- Medium
- No ability score bonuses
- Base speed 30 feet
- Immune to magical Sleep.
- +2 racial bonus on saves vs. enchantment spells and effects.
- Low-light vision
- +1 racial bonus on Listen, Search and Spot.
- +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy and Gather Information.
- Elven Blood: Half-elves count as pure-blood Elf for effects that specifically target race.
- Favored Class: Any
4e[edit]
4th edition half-elves took a serious level in badass compared to what they were working with in 3e. This edition really sold the image of the half-elf negotiator and diplomat, but also gave them a certain jack-of-all-trades feel.
- Ability Scores: +2 Constitution, +2 Wisdom or Charisma
- Size: Medium
- Speed: 6 squares (30 feet)
- Vision: Low-light
- Skill Bonuses: +2 Diplomacy, +2 Insight
- Dual Heritage: You can take feats that have either elf or human as a prerequisite (as well as those specifically for half-elves), as long as you meet any other requirements.
- Group Diplomacy: You grant allies within 10 squares (50 feet) of you a +1 racial bonus to Diplomacy checks.
Initially, half-elves had the Dilettante racial trait, which let them pick an at-will power from a different class and use that as an encounter power. But, after Essentials rolled out, half-elves could switch that racial trait/power for a new one; Knack for Success, a racial encounter power which can affect either the half-elf or an ally within close burst 5 (25 feet); the target can either make a saving throw, shift up to 2 squares as a free action, gain a +2 power bonus to his or her next attack roll made before the end of his or her next turn, or gain a +4 power bonus to his or her next skill check made before the end of his or her next turn.
5e[edit]
In 5e, the dev team got out bottles and bottles of anabolic steroids. They are easily the most powerful race in the base book, and just for comparison, look at what they get compared to the poor dragonborn:
- Ability Score: +2 Charisma, +1 two ability scores of choice
- Size: Medium. Range from 5 to 6 feet tall.
- Speed: 30 feet walking.
- Darkvision
- Fey Ancestry
- Skill Versatility: Immediately gain proficiency with two skills of your choice. Can be swapped out with Sword Coast Adventurers Guide Variant rules for one Elven Trait.
- Languages: Common, Elvish, one bonus language
SCAG Variant rules for half-elf provide rules for swapping your Skill Versatility for the following:
- A half-wood elf can take Elf Weapon Training, Fleet of Foot, or Mask of the Wild.
- A half-high elf can take Elf Weapon Training, or a know any one wizard cantrip
- A half-drow can take Drow Magic.
- A half-sea elf can take a swim speed of 30 feet.
- Any half-elf can take Keen Senses. (Because this does literally nothing but grant proficiency in the Perception skill, and Skill Versatility grants already proficiency in any two skills, including Perception, this is literally trading down in every way and no one does this.)
Anchorome[edit]
In the Anchorome setting, there are two distinct lineages of half-elf, both deriving from the native Poscadari elves. Those born to the human traders of the Azuposi culture in the trade city of Elfmeet are implied to be "normal" half-elves, save for being able to take the Poscadari Elf Heritage option. Then there are the Pagunki; those half-elves born of unions between Poscadari elves and Minnenewah. These half-elves are treated like shameful outcasts by both sides of their parentage, and typically leave them both behind and head for the Pagunki region of the Adusgi Forest, which is home to an exclusively half-elf half-minnenewah community, upon reaching sufficient maturity to do so. Being an Anchorome half-elf gives the following racial heritage options:
- Minnenewah Heritage: Swap Skill Versatility for Minnenewah Wisdom (Advantage on Wisdom saves vs. magic).
- Poscadari Heritage: Swap Skill Versatility for either Poscadari Weapon Training (shortbow, longbow and tomahawk weapon proficiencies), Survivalist (Advantage on Survival checks made when in a natural environment) or Plains Camouflage (You may attempt to hide even when only lightly covered by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist and other natural phenomena when in a plains environment).
Pathfinder[edit]
Like half-orcs, in comparison to their under-powered 3e versions, half-elves enjoy a lot of the versatility of humans in Pathfinder, with a floating +2 bonus to any stat they like, free skill focus in any one skill, and the ability to select multiple classes as "favored" for the purposes of multiclassing, while getting elven bonuses to their Will saves and low-light vision. One particularly cool alternate ability lets them trade in skill focus to gain training in any one exotic weapon they like, just in case you always wanted to try an urumi or falcata but didn't wanna spring the feat for it. Another alternate racial ability is Blended View, which trades their multiclassing bonuses for darkvision. Since the excellent Eldritch Heritage feat (gives a bloodline like a Sorcerer, even if you already are a sorcerer) requires skill focus and a high charisma, half-elves are commonly seen in charisma based classes.
Since half-elves are immune to sleep (which is very bad for a summoner as it unsummons their eidolon), can trade their favored class bonus for extra evolution points, and (as mentioned above) have easy access to Eldritch Heritage, half-elves are by far the best race for Summoner. This is pretty much the only time in the game humans aren't the best race for something that doesn't require another race.
A survey of characters determined that Half-Elves were the second most common race in the game. Unlike the third and fourth (Elf and Half-Orc, which were overwhelmingly concentrated on intelligence based classes and beat stick classes respectively), Half-Elf characters had a respectable spread of class focus. Like humans they occupied roughly the same percentage of characters on every class with the exception of, oddly enough, the classes where full elves were viable options.
Starfinder[edit]
In the Hazy Greyness of the Far Future, Half-Elves retain their floating bonus and free skill focus, but also gain the Elven immunity to sleep effects. They can swap out the Skill focus for a +2 bonus to Culture and a free re-roll on Diplomacy, or swap out Low-Light vision for Full Darkvision.
And as it turns out, Half-Elves can also be born from Ryphorians as well as Humans. Half-Ryphorians have the same resistances as Transitional Ryphorians(regardless of the state of their Ryphorian parent) in exchange for the free Skill Focus, and have the Ryphorian trait instead of Human.
Pathfinder 2e[edit]
Half-Elves are a Human Heritage, meaning they use Human as a base. The half-elven heritage adds the Elf trait and grants Low-Light Vision. That's not much, but it's par for the course on heritages. More advantageously, it allows half-elves to take Human, Elven, and Half-Elven racial feats.
Half-Drow[edit]
You may be curious; given that the drow are still elves, even if they are evil slave-taking bastards, can they interbreed with humans too? Well, ironically, D&D never really gave that angle much attention - even though Gygax probably would have agreed if you'd pointed it out that half-drow would make far more believable PC options than pure-blooded drow, being neither as overpowered as old-school drow were nor able to advance in the drow's twisted society and thus less likely to drink the kool-aid & be evil themselves. So, for the most part, half-drow have been ignored throughout D&D's history.
The very first mention of the idea was in Unearthed Arcana for AD&D 1e. Here, half-drow were described as literally nothing more than standard half-elves, but with the drow's sunlight vulnerability trait slapped on top (in short, whilst exposed to sunlight, you suffer -2 dexterity and a -2 penalty on your to-hit rolls, and your foes get a +2 bonus to their saving throws against your attacks - this decreases to a -1 to hit penalty and a +1 save bonus if you're in shadow but your victim is in direct sunlight). Not exactly the kind of thing to make people interested.
Half-drow appeared in 3e in the Forgotten Realms splatbook, Races of Faerun. Here, they are treated as half-elves who have Darkvision 60 feet and the trait "Drow Blood", which causes their race to be treated as Drow for the sake of any special effects or abilities that specifically target or otherwise key off of race. It's unclear if this supplements the normal Elf Blood racial trait (meaning half-drow can thusly use human, elf, and drow items & classes), or replaces it entirely; most DMs will probably come down on the latter side, though. The setting neutral 3e version of Drow of the Underdark would clarify that, yes, Drow Blood is basically Elf Blood with the added addendum of also counting as a drow for drow-specific effects. It also added a new feat to allow half-elves to function the way half-Drow originally should have been written:
- DROW LEGACY
- The drow blood in your veins runs true and grants you some abilities from that heritage.
- Prerequisite: Half-elf "with drow ancestry" (whatever the fuck that means).
- Benefit: You have a +2 racial bonus on Will saves against spells and spell-like abilities. You have darkvision out to 60 feet. You receive Exotic Weapon Proficiency (hand crossbow), as well as Undercommon and the drow dialect of Elven as automatic languages.
- If you have an Intelligence score of 13 or higher, you also gain the following spell-like abilities, each usable once per day: dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire. Your caster level equals your class level.
- Normal: A half-elf with drow ancestry normally just receives the half-elf racial traits as described in the Player’s Handbook.
- Special: Taking this feat also causes you to have light sensitivity: You are dazzled (–1 circumstance penalty on attack rolls, saves, and checks) in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.
Alternatively, page 191 of the Player's Guide to Faerun details an optional rule called "Lesser Drow", which allows players to play as a severely nerfed version of a Drow with no level adjustment. It's actually a lot like a half-elf with the Drow Legacy feat, except that you don't have to waste a feat slot. Since this is basically what players are looking for in a half-Drow anyway, you can just ask a DM to let you play a Lesser Drow reskinned as a half-Drow.
Perhaps the best the poor half-drow have ever had it has been in 5th edition, where a half-elf can trade their two free skill proficiencies for the drow's racial spell-like abilities; it's not much, but at least it's something to represent drow ancestry, and it's decently beefy. The same can't be said for the half-drow option for World of Farland 5e, which trades the two free skill proficiencies for Darkvision 90 feet and a watered-down version of the drow's racial spell-like abilities (Dancing Lights cantrip, Faerie Fire 1/day at 3rd level).
Offshoot Races[edit]
Obviously, the default half-elf is an elf-human hybrid. But there have been a few other elf hybrid races out there which would technically fall under the half-elf umbrella:
- Tel-Amhothlan Elf crossed with Orc
- N'djatwa Elf crossed with Ogre
- Celadrin - Elf crossed with Eladrin (Firre)
- Fey'ri - Elf crossed with Tanar'ri
How they differ from real-life hybrids[edit]
Half-elves rarely work the same way real life hybrid creatures do.[1] Some differences are well-known, others less so.
[edit]
In real life, two species can only make a hybrid if they are still in the same Genus, the taxonomic level just above Species. This is why horses can have babies with donkeys, but not with dogs. In fact this is how we determine whether two species are in the same genus or not: if they can have grandkids together, they're the same species, at most different subspecies; if they can have kids, but those kids are themselves infertile (more on that later), they're the same genus, but different species; if they can't have kids period, they're in different Genre and we'll have to do other, more time-consuming procedures to figure out how they're related (which is what we have to do from the get-go in the case of organisms that don't reproduce sexually, such as bacteria).
In most fantasy settings this isn't a problem, since elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc. usually look exactly as different as you'd expect another species in the Homo genus to look, however it also means that if humans and elves can have kids, then all other possible combinations should produce a kid as well.
That said, there's a little-known phenomenon that could be used as a partial workaround: Ring Species. A ring species is one that's in the process of diverging into multiple distinct species but isn't quite there yet, such that individuals of population A can have grandkids with those from B, B can have grandkids with C, but A cannot have grandkids with C. So it could work if dwarves were A, humans B, and elves C, but only for a setting where elves and dwarves are completely isolated from one another somehow; this arrangement would never arise in a setting where elves, humans, and dwarves are frequently found together in the same city.
Infertility[edit]
As mentioned earlier, two species can produce a child if they're in the same genus, but the child will themselves be infertile. The reason for this is a bit complex and has to do with the way genes are swapped around during the production of gametes. So you know how all your chromosomes come in pairs, one set from mom and one from dad? Well during the production of a gamete, each chromosome shuffles genes with it's partner at random (with the exception of the XY pair in men, for reasons we'll get to in a bit), which is the reason a married couple doesn't pop out the same baby every time the condom breaks.
Now, if two organisms are genetically distinct enough to be different species, then their DNA has done enough mutation that a chromosome in one wouldn't be able to line up properly with the corresponding one from the other. So when their kid starts making gametes of their own, gene A gets swapped with a gene B instead of another gene A, resulting in the genetic equivalent of unreadably corrupted data (in the case of parents from different genre, the other chromosome doesn't even have gene A).
Real hybrids come in pairs[edit]
Something not well known by lay people is that Real-life types of hybrids actually come in pairs, depending on which species is the mom and which the dad. Mules, for example, only happen when the horse is the mom and the donkey the dad; if the horse is the dad you get what's called a hinny. So if elves existed in real life, A human mom and an elf dad would produce something with entirely different stats than the child of an elf mom and a human dad.
So all in all, a setting with humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings would have 12, types of hybrids... which probably explain why nobody ever does it this way, now that we mention it.
The second, non-biological possibility[edit]
Tolkien directly stated that, as far as half-elves were concerned, the difference between human and elf was more a matter of divine patronage than genetics (which again weren't even fully understood yet at the time); since Half-Elves had claim to two possibilities of such patronage, and such patronage was usually exclusive, they needed to choose between them. The Dresden Files setting has something similar going on for Changelings (half-Fae).
In other words, in these settings, half-elf is (1) a purely transitory state; either they go fully human, or fully elf, and (2) a matter of belonging to two somewhat mutually exclusive groupings, a bit like how some people have Dual Citizen status.
A third possibility[edit]
The obvious third possibility is that "half-elf" is the game system's way of saying "midway between elf and human"; if you're more human than this, you get classed as "human", and if you're more elf, you get classed as "elf". The only system this editor knows of that almost pulls this off is Pathfinder 2e, where half-elf is just a sub-Ancestry/subrace of human, with the presumption that if a half-elf and an elf have a kid, it'll probably be classed as an Elf (it'd help if there was a "human blooded" Elf Heritage, but there are valid counter-arguments to that possibility).
Gallery[edit]
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A ranger
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The half-elves of Ravenloft mix the styles of their human & elven lineages.
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A bard
Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Races | |
---|---|
Core | Dwarf • Elf • Gnome • Half-Elf • Half-Orc • Halfling • Human |
Dark Sun | Aarakocra • Half-Giant • Mul • Pterran • Thri-kreen |
Dragonlance | Draconian • Irda • Kender • Minotaur |
Mystara | Aranea • Ee'ar • Enduk • Lizardfolk (Cayma • Gurrash • Shazak) • Lupin • Manscorpion • Phanaton • Rakasta • Sollux • Tortle • Wallara |
Oriental Adventures | Korobokuru • Hengeyokai • Spirit Folk |
Planescape | Aasimar • Bariaur • Genasi • Githyanki • Githzerai • Modron • Tiefling |
Spelljammer | Dracon • Giff • Grommam • Hadozee • Hurwaeti • Rastipede • Scro • Xixchil |
Ravenloft: | Broken One • Flesh Golem • Half-Vistani • Therianthrope |
Complete Book Series | Alaghi • Beastman • Bugbear • Bullywug • Centaur • Duergar • Fremlin • Firbolg • Flind • Gnoll • Goblin • Half-Ogre • Hobgoblin • Kobold • Mongrelfolk • Ogre • Ogre Mage • Orc • Pixie • Satyr • Saurial • Svirfneblin • Swanmay • Voadkyn • Wemic |
Dragon Magazine | Half-Dryad • Half-Satyr • Uldra • Xvart |
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Races | |
---|---|
Player's Handbook 1 | Dragonborn • Dwarf • Eladrin • Elf • Half-Elf • Halfling • Human • Tiefling |
Player's Handbook 2 | Deva • Gnome • Goliath • Half-Orc • Shifter |
Player's Handbook 3 | Githzerai • Minotaur • Shardmind • Wilden |
Monster Manual 1: | Bugbear • Doppelganger • Githyanki • Goblin • Hobgoblin • Kobold • Orc |
Monster Manual 2 | Bullywug • Duergar • Kenku |
Dragon Magazine | Gnoll • Shadar-kai |
Heroes of Shadow | Revenant • Shade • Vryloka |
Heroes of the Feywild | Hamadryad • Pixie • Satyr |
Eberron's Player's Guide | Changeling • Kalashtar • Warforged |
The Manual of the Planes | Bladeling |
Dark Sun Campaign Setting | Mul • Thri-kreen |
Forgotten Realms Player's Guide | Drow • Genasi |
Pathfinder Races | |
---|---|
Player's Handbook | Dwarf • Elf • Gnome • Half-Elf • Half-Orc • Halfling • Human |
Advanced Race Guide | Aasimar • Catfolk • Changeling • Dhampir • Duergar • Drow • Fetchling • Gillman • Goblin • Grippli • Hobgoblin • Ifrit • Kitsune • Kobold • Merfolk • Nagaji • Orc • Oread • Ratfolk • Samsaran • Strix • Suli • Svirfneblin • Sylph • Tengu • Tiefling • Undine • Vanara • Vishkanya • Wayang |
Bestiaries | Android • Astomoi • Caligni • Deep One Hybrid • Gathlain • Gnoll • Kasatha • Munavri • Naiad • Orang-Pendak • Reptoid • Rougarou • Shabti • Trox • Yaddithian |
Adventure Paths | Being of Ib • Kuru |
Inner Sea Races | Ghoran • Monkey Goblin • Lashunta • Skinwalker • Syrinx • Triaxian • Wyrwood • Wyvaran |
Ultimate Wilderness | Vine Leshy |
Blood of the Sea | Adaro • Cecaelia • Grindylow • Locathah • Sahuagin • Triton |
Planar Adventures | Aphorite • Duskwalker • Ganzi |
- ↑ But then, real life hybrid creatures don't always work the same way real life hybrid creatures do. You've got hybrids from different genera, hybrids from different families, fertile hybrids and other such things. But there's no need to overcomplicate things yet.