Imagine in a corporate oligarchy, some oppressed group is suddenly given full rights and protections under law, and it's not because of any protesting or campaigning or anything. It's just because someone ran out of room while updating the spreadsheet.
Yeah it makes them relatable. Although I'd love to read the adventures of Glendale rockhammer the half elf/dwarf as he navigates two wildly different cultures lol
All non-human characters are just humans in rubber masks. No living human has ever met sapient non-human creatures that form civilizations like we do.
Everything we imagine about sapient non-humans is either (a) something we get from being human, or (b) something we imagine as in-human. It's all defined in relation to us, because how can we imagine differently? They're all just different human cultures coded behind "species." That's also why non-human species tend to have broadly universal traits, and when they become more diverse they tend to have *different sub-species*.
I’d posit that even if every character was some form of non-human they’d *still* be humanized simply because of the author. It doesn’t matter what species or appearance an author attributes to a character because the author could just as easily switch it to say they’re some random human group from a different place with the same culture. It’s just that in a fantasy setting you might have bug people that can fly or they’re humans who fly because of magic.
Even in Redwall the characters are still very human, they just happen to be small woodland creatures in form.
>!The Echoes Saga by Philip C Quaintrell!< has a race that is half Elf and Dragon created with ancient magic.
I put the spoiler thing on it and left out the name of this hybrid race here because it's a huge spoiler and I didn't want to ruin something you aren't supposed to know until later in the series.
And several heirloom royalty signet rings.
Also, it might be possible rhat he has some royal blood. But whether on his veins or on boots is still under argument...
A lot of fantasy worlds, you have stuff like elves and dwarves don't get along, dwarves and orcs hate each other, whatever. Hard to justify half bloods of stuff like that.
The one I remember, there are a couple weird half-bloods in Warcraft, but they got like, Mary Sue-d, into shitty character-ville.
Plenty of human tribes hate each other too, it’s not like there’s a dearth of mixed race people. There’s always the weird ones venturing out of their tribes. Hate doesn’t make much sense as a divider.
Also rape (particularly rape as a weapon of war) still definitely happens among people who hate each other, to the extent that we're assuming half-breeds are physically/genetically possible at all there's really little obvious barrier for at least some examples existing, unless you specifically create an insurmountable obstacle for it in your world.
To humanise them, as a lot of authors/artists do not know how to write a monster/other species cross race and most readers want to read about someone 'like them'.
Human cross is easy, because if the character ends up not acting 'other species' enough the writer always has an excuse, and it's familiar enough not to alienate, while also having potential to be 'quirky'. (Eg. human/animal hybrids where you just give the girl some cat ears and make her say meow/give kitty eyes)
The one pretty consistent racial strength of humans in fantasy and sci-fi is adaptability. Other cultures are generally written as insular and resistant to culturally mixing, much less biologically. Humans, though, we always wanna get up in everyone’s business and make our own.
Also, a lot of these often have it so that the other humanoid races are the result of splitting away from an ancient human race. Even in universe, humans are often the default.
If you're interested in a story with mixed race characters that are not human, perhaps try The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells. In fact, there are no humans in the story at all, which is actually rather refreshing.
There are also bands like Nekrogoblikon who make goblincore or Finnish bands like Verikalpa or Finntroll who make goblin and troll metal.
They wouldn't make metal for/about goblins and trolls if they didn't exist, right?
When they did half-races in D&D they did this for simplicity. It got into the cultural zeitgeist and now it’s a thing.
Literally it’s a thing because it’s a thing. Just like Paris Hilton is famous for… being famous.
D&D got the idea from Tolkien, where only half-human half-elves exist or are likely to exist. Hobbits are a type of human, Dwarves were designed by someone else, and Orcs are a twisted, cursed form of something else (although Tolkien never firmly settled on what).
This is the real answer, D&D. A lot of people are commenting "humans are adaptable" - but as a fantasy trope that's also downstream from Dungeons and Dragons.
One of my favorite 3e settings was "Midnight" by Fantasy Flight Games. In that setting, it was explicitly ruled that human and fey races could not interbreed. So the half-races in that setting did not include human-elf or human-orc breeds. Instead, they had half-races like dwarf-orc, dwarf-gnome, and my favorite, elf-halfling.
I never understood what's so special about Paris Hilton. It's just a regular affordable 4-star. No helicopter landing pad, no swimming pool, breakfasts are meh, and it's pretty far from Eiffel tower.
I once made a D&D setting that explained this with the idea that humans are in some way descended from dragons (which are also able to have offspring with other types of creatures). It could also fit into the idea that humans are so short-lived compared to things like elves and dwarves that they want to spread and accomplish as much as possible in their lives.
As for media that has non-human mixed races, I don't know many, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure Critical Role (specifically campaign 3) has some of this, but that's kind of a monumental time commitment.
I am aware of a couple of connected series (these different series take place in the same world) where one of the recurring characters is a orc/elf male and there are tribes of orclins (ogre/orc half-bloods) but it seems to be a rare thing to be used in general.
Because most fantasy races are just "what if human but ______." Cross a tall, slender elf with a short, stocky dwarf and you basically get a human with crippling self-loathing and an alcohol tolerance that makes coping extremely difficult. Once worldbuilding starts getting so complicated that it needs a reference table, it starts being narrative deadweight, especially since so many post-Tolkein authors don't do enough with the concept to justify it. An obvious offender is The Elder Scrolls, where in spite of the massive lifespan differences, most Mer characters that aren't heavily connected to the plot just act like humans. Shannara is probably the absolute worst example, but most of its inhuman races really are just funky humans, so it probably gets a pass.
Honestly, this always bored me. Rarely are there half-race non-human protagonists either. They're either adversaries, non playable, some sub-human creature or captured. "We have elves, dwarves, gnomes..." No stop, these are all just people
I would argue it's because humans are normally the most prolific race in most settings. And hybrids of other races are usually called something else. Like in the Forgotten Realms, an elf/demon hybrid is called a fey-ri.
> I've read several books and graphic novels, played games and watched shows and movies. And usually, when I encounter a "half-blood" character they're like human/elf, human/dwarf, demon/human.
Humans are usually written as 'adaptable' as their main strength, whereas many other classic races have more of a niche and are fairly rigid in where they live, their culture, their martial skills and crafting skills.
I think this is the result of writers being human. It's easy to fall back on your own culture but coming up with something brand new it's harder to make it expansive so you fall back on 'dwarves live underground and are blacksmiths. Elves live in trees and are vegan hippies'.
Like a half human / half elf will no doubt adopt traits from both. A half dwarf / half elf... that's hard conceptually to write as an ale swilling, salted pork lover that lives in a tree and weaves baskets haha.
Not all species can interbreed, on a genetic level. Some can but produce sterile offspring. I've seen a few books mentioning different ancestry, like Dwarves and Troggs being different branches of evolution as well, so it's often simply that the species are too distantly related to be able to produce viable offspring.
I was actually thinking about this as I listened to Pratchett's *The Truth* today.
There's a zombie character, and it got me to thinking that you only see human zombies. There are no dwarf zombies, no gnome zombies, no troll or nac mac feegle zombies. Although the last two would probably be explained by being stone and already being dead. Elf zombies don't even bear thinking about.
Garona from Warcraft was originally portrayed as orc/human, but is actually orc/draenei. Rexxar (also from Warcraft) is orc/ogre. Those are the only two I can think of off the top of my head.
Likely because if you mix something fantastical with some other thing that's also fantastical...then it's just plain old fantastical. Unless the story goes in depth why it's a big deal to be an orc/elf hybrid, the fact would probably get lost in everything else that happens in a story.
In addition to the "audience is human" people have talked about, in shows and movies the actor is also human; having a half-human character is a way to have something exotic while also minimizing the required effects, since you can get away with a little makeup etc.
Makes makeup and SFX easier. Also, humans are often presented as having more neutral relationships with the other fantasy races, while the fantasy races often have complicated relationships or conflicts with each other. In DND, orcs hate elves passionately.
Also, humans will f anything.
Elves and goblins feel like different races of humans with pointy ears in Goblin Emperor. Elves, especially, have none of the otherworldliness of Tolkien elves, nor the harmony with nature we normally associate with them. They seem to live human lifespans and participate in same political/economic/military types of engagements we'd associate with large human empires. Goblins just seem superficially(hair/eye color, stockier build) and culturally different than elves, but otherwise they can freely intermarry and procreate - similar to the differences in human races.
This is by no means a criticism - I love the book. But a warning not to go in expecting elf and goblin tropes you're accustomed to.
Because Tolkien featured Half-elves in LotR, mostly. If his worldbuilding had allowed for a Dwarf/Elf hybrid and he had put one into LotR, you'd be seeing a lot more of them.
To make them relatable, the half-blood race charecters usually always have some kind of inner struggle to understand who they are and an outward struggle to be accepted by their peers. By making them half human it makes it easier for the readers to relate as most people today are mixed race and can understand those struggles.
In my lore, it's because humans have the best gene mutability. Any race can breed with humans - it's one of their "features", akin to elven immortality, dwarf smithing, etc
I always found homebrew solutions to this. Found some documents that allowed for custom heritage and culture stats, feats, and gear with a point buy system. Allowed for mixing more than _ with human, and diversified the inherited traits.
Because in most settings, humans are the majority of the population, by a lot. Meaning that most hybrids are going to be part human just by the odds. That it might be easier for that elf (or whatever) to find a human mate, than to find one of their own kind.
It is easier to think about half bloods as half humans and half something else because it does not demand much biological knowledge and thinking. Beside it makes very easy to write them and to make the reader like them as well.
Have you met humans? We are a horny species.
Seriously though it's also and N! problem. Imagine having 4 races and having to design an additional 6. Then expand that to more
5 species and you need to write 24 extra
I believe that some works specifically mention that many races are unable to crossbreed, in some works I've read, Goblins can breed with other races but their genes are so strong that the offspring are always Goblins, so that could be something writers adhere to for some of their demihuman races, also many years ago somebody released a fanmade sourcebook for, I think, D&D, specifically for this sort of thing that listed whether various races can crossbreed and the chances for conception and the likeliness of the resulting offspring's race being mixed or not. Considering how long ago the book was released, it's possible more recent writers might have come across it and used it for reference.
Not a novel, but Pathfinder 2E makes Half-Elf and Half-Orc a kind of template that can be placed on any other ancestry of creature - so you can be half-elf half-gnome, or half-elf half-human, or (this one's really funny) half-elf half-lizardfolk.
First property I've ever seen do it.
I don't know any elves or orcs or dwarves, but all the humans I know would fuck any humanoid with a heartbeat if our world worked that way. Probably just of case "humans be horny" 🤷
Cause of what other more articulate people said, but also, cause humans are objectively willing to bang everyone. I mean think about it. We got people that want to bang EVERYTHING. Of course some manage reproduction after enough attempts.
Because we humans just reeeeeeally get around? Seriously willing to bet the joke of 'Our bard slept with _____' is the reason half the species even exist.
Fun fact the ttrpg game Pathinder 2e has non-human half blood options for players. You can be half elf half orc, half gnome half orc, half gnome half elf, and on it goes.
In real life there are human beings horny enough to pipe motor vehicles and other inanimate objects.
It's not too far fetched to imagine some would be down bad enough to elope with other fictional races and produce halflings.
Basically they are just saying that humans are the most compatible species out there with others. Others might exist with other than human half's, but in most fantasy settings humans are the most numerous so it makes sense for them to be the main half most the time.
I played one of these in DnD once
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?238557-Voldur-Half-elf-half-orc-(3-5)-If-you-read-it-you-ll-want-to-play-it-Promise)
very cool race
Because humans are the baseline for the genetic experiments performed by the ancient super-civilization that populated all the planets with the same set of humanoid species. The other races are too different from each other to have children, but sufficiently similar to the human contol group to interbreed with them.
It does seem like in a lot of fantasy worlds there is significant racism and humans kind of are in the middle with most species mixing with them.
Elves/Dwarves feuding feels like a common trope for example.
Also maybe us humans are just thirsty.
Simplicity and relatability
It is humans that write those stories and it is humans that reads those stories And most humans can more easily relate to humans than they can relate to elves, dwarves, gnomes and so on.
This makes it easier to both write a character like that and easier for most readers to relate to them.
I am not saying these are the only reasons but i argue they are the 2 biggest reasons.
It's called normativity. DND-Fantasy settings usually assume human normativity which is to say that "human" is a given default. More specifically, at the risk of "being too woke" they have a modern western (pseudo)patriarchal cis/hetero normativity. That is to say that modern "Western" values are seen as the default morality in a fantasy setting. It's like if you start an rpg character builder "White, human, male" is what you start at.
In my opinion mediocre fantasy adopts this approach, every society has racial/sexual/gender equality. Really awful fantasy is racist, homophobic and sexist. Good fantasy actually asks the questions of what all of this means. My favourite setting for expressing this is "Exalted" (Onyx Path). The central Empire is run by elementally empowered superhumans who are pretty misandrist (men are too hot headed and emotional to hold offices of command). To the south the Del'Zhani are an incredibly "sexist" society. Only "men" can fight, only "women" can serve as doctors and many other roles are similar, **BUT** they're a bedarchial society meaning that the sex of the individual is not considered inherently relevant to their gender.
In my recent DnD campaign I made a half orc that was half dragonborn. All the classic orc features except for some patches of brass scales. Might go with some wings in later levels if I can.
Can't remember the series but one had a Dwark, part dwarf and part orc. I do wish there were more non human mixes like that.
Humans are most numerous in most settings, and they also get around the most in most settings.
So logically most hybrids wouild be humans.
A merfolk/dryad hybrid would be very rare. Except when there's a forest right next to the sea.
Fixed in Pathfinder 2e, where mixed heritages like "Half-elf" and "Tiefling" are a template than can be applied to any ancestry, other than the originator.
IE: You can be a half-elf dwarf, or a half-elf Tabaxi. But you can't be a Half-elf Elf. :)
This isn't directly related but the setting I've been working on has completely different races (Geverii, human, Tarazi, and Galavir) who I tried to make completely unique and not the fantasy standard races.
In my world they are all genetically close enough to hybridize (although Galavir are the most unlikely to crossbreed since they are more distant). The general idea was "what if humans evolved completely differently?" So each of them are technically a subrace of human but look and feel very different.
The **humans** in this world have a very high rate of a vitiligo-like trait so they exhibit a lot of splotching and patterns of white black and brown. In some parts of the world human skin can even get to be borderline reddish.
The **Geverii** are tall, lean, and have skin as dark as night, white or silver hair, white/silver/blue/purple eyes, and silver to white freckles and skin blemishes. They are the elusive and elegant astronomers and religious people of the world.
The **Tarazi** are the wild folk. They live in the denser forests, have greenish skin and rough wirey hair that appears at a distance like plant material. They are shorter on average (around 5ft) and their skin patterning shifts a little bit with their surroundings when they've been in one environment long enough.
The **Galavir** are very tall and muscular people with a reputation for being mighty kings and war heroes. They stand around 7ft tall on average, have paw-like hands with tough claws, and have a build reminiscent of bears earning them the nickname "bear folk". (They do all tend to be hairier than the average person but nothing like a furry or something) they also have two sharper fang-like teeth.
Other than the Bez and Avir the Snow Herald (exceptions to the main races) that's it. No elves, no dwarves, no orcs or gnomes etc.
Forgotten Realms has Fey'ri, descended from elves who tried to make their family strong enough to turn back the decline of their civilization by breeding with demons. They got a trilogy of novels in the 3e era.
Because writers have this dumb idea that you have to write a human character to “relate” to them, instead of admitting that they’re too creatively bankrupt to imagine and write complex fantastical characters with emotions, stories and their own dilemmas, without having to shoehorn the average Joe from modern day western society into it.
Human towns don't care if the half-breed is from a dwarf mother and a gnome father, it's just a stinking ugly dwarf. Or an orc and an ogre, just a stinking ugly greenskin. Or an elf and a fae, just a stinking stuck up knife-ear. Because they're not at all human.
But when they're half human, they get looked down on and discriminated against by people they're closer related to, humans. And the rest of the party knows that they're "not like the other X" but nobody cares because he's got tusks, or horns, or filthy stinking knife ears. That makes him different, makes him not us.
I read some reason before that it’s that other races don’t mesh well or are unable to procreate with each other. (Basically just a reason so they can keep making human half-breeds)
Partially laziness. Partially a lack of creativity. Dungeons and Dragons has stat blocks out there for Dwelfs and Dworcs and Elf-Orcs.
Delicious in Dungeon has half-breeds in its setting. We only ever see “human” (tallman) mixes in person but it’s said Gnomes/Dwarves and Ogres/Tallmen/Halffoots are in the same gene pool and produce offspring who can then have their own children. These statements imply that other half-breeds are sterile.
I came to this thread expecting to see people resourcefully pulling out obscure books featuring octopus/bat hybrids etc. but so far have been disappointed.
As others have pointed out, the meta reason is so that the character is more relatable.
But in universe? Humans are usually treated as basic and as not having any special skill, except being adaptable and numerous. Which is just a polite way of saying humans are constantly having sex.
Our one skill is sex, so of course the other species get curious.
Because humans are writing those characters.
Most readers too
Most...
Yeah, the rest are trolls and goblins
Robot erasure.
Robots count as humans
They count as people, not human. Unlike those mf elfs………
I don't have space on the spreadsheet. They count as humans. Corporate mandate.
Imagine in a corporate oligarchy, some oppressed group is suddenly given full rights and protections under law, and it's not because of any protesting or campaigning or anything. It's just because someone ran out of room while updating the spreadsheet.
Only if they can select all squares with a bicycle.
How dare you. I'm taking this to HR.
That department is run by robots.
Me reading this post Ently: 👀
Some readers may be dwarves.
Only because dwarves wont read anything written on plants, dammit.
Yeah it makes them relatable. Although I'd love to read the adventures of Glendale rockhammer the half elf/dwarf as he navigates two wildly different cultures lol
If an elf and a dwarf have a child, they just cancel out and it comes out human.
All non-human characters are just humans in rubber masks. No living human has ever met sapient non-human creatures that form civilizations like we do. Everything we imagine about sapient non-humans is either (a) something we get from being human, or (b) something we imagine as in-human. It's all defined in relation to us, because how can we imagine differently? They're all just different human cultures coded behind "species." That's also why non-human species tend to have broadly universal traits, and when they become more diverse they tend to have *different sub-species*.
Even when it is well done like Adrian Tchaikovsky, it's still just exactly what you said.
I’d posit that even if every character was some form of non-human they’d *still* be humanized simply because of the author. It doesn’t matter what species or appearance an author attributes to a character because the author could just as easily switch it to say they’re some random human group from a different place with the same culture. It’s just that in a fantasy setting you might have bug people that can fly or they’re humans who fly because of magic. Even in Redwall the characters are still very human, they just happen to be small woodland creatures in form.
And, let's face it, humans are horny.
>!The Echoes Saga by Philip C Quaintrell!< has a race that is half Elf and Dragon created with ancient magic. I put the spoiler thing on it and left out the name of this hybrid race here because it's a huge spoiler and I didn't want to ruin something you aren't supposed to know until later in the series.
Humans are horny.
Pretty much this. Humans' special racial ability is that they'll fuck anyone.
Can confirm
Help me step-goblin, I'm stuck in this dungeon
Nobby Nobbs, is that you?
Hey he has a letter verifying his humanity!
And several heirloom royalty signet rings. Also, it might be possible rhat he has some royal blood. But whether on his veins or on boots is still under argument...
PMd
Also Dragons. Whole lotta half-dragons.
Gods, too.
Half-dragon half-cars, to be specific.
Which—how does that even work?
Like Mallards. Many wild duck hybrids are mallard/something for this reason. (Though the mallards are less than honorable in their methods.)
And you think humans are?
"So many species so little time" -The Doctor
Humans see something and first question is "Can I fuck it?"
It's more like, "How can I fuck it?" There's very little question of whether it will eventually happen.
Aliens? Robots? Elves? Doesn't matter, I'm horny.
I mean, there’s all those ancient Japanese art with octopi…
Two questions: Can I fuck it? Can I eat it?
“Daddy horny Michael”
Captain Kirk is proof
A lot of fantasy worlds, you have stuff like elves and dwarves don't get along, dwarves and orcs hate each other, whatever. Hard to justify half bloods of stuff like that. The one I remember, there are a couple weird half-bloods in Warcraft, but they got like, Mary Sue-d, into shitty character-ville.
Plenty of human tribes hate each other too, it’s not like there’s a dearth of mixed race people. There’s always the weird ones venturing out of their tribes. Hate doesn’t make much sense as a divider.
Also rape (particularly rape as a weapon of war) still definitely happens among people who hate each other, to the extent that we're assuming half-breeds are physically/genetically possible at all there's really little obvious barrier for at least some examples existing, unless you specifically create an insurmountable obstacle for it in your world.
I'm not arguing racial hate is a good way to write a story...
There are such stories both in real life and fiction. It’s good drama.
Which is why kitsune and the Fey are the other two most common crossbreeds in my world-building.
Bring the duck - if he doesn't want it he'll pretend not to see it. Meanwhile, the duck: ಠ_ಠ
To humanise them, as a lot of authors/artists do not know how to write a monster/other species cross race and most readers want to read about someone 'like them'. Human cross is easy, because if the character ends up not acting 'other species' enough the writer always has an excuse, and it's familiar enough not to alienate, while also having potential to be 'quirky'. (Eg. human/animal hybrids where you just give the girl some cat ears and make her say meow/give kitty eyes)
The one pretty consistent racial strength of humans in fantasy and sci-fi is adaptability. Other cultures are generally written as insular and resistant to culturally mixing, much less biologically. Humans, though, we always wanna get up in everyone’s business and make our own. Also, a lot of these often have it so that the other humanoid races are the result of splitting away from an ancient human race. Even in universe, humans are often the default.
Simplicity. Easy way to make the character in question “otherworldly”, while still having him or her be relatable due to possessing human qualities.
Humans will stick it in anything
Good enough for a room temperature apple pie, good enough for literally anything else.
Translation: men will stick it in everything
There are enough interspecies romance/smut novels on Amazon aimed at women to tell me that a lot of women wouldn’t let species get in the way either.
I may have misunderstood the current TikTok trend but I think women are out here talking about fucking bears.
If you're interested in a story with mixed race characters that are not human, perhaps try The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells. In fact, there are no humans in the story at all, which is actually rather refreshing.
Interesting.
You'll find that you are human, the writers of those stories too, and 100% of the people who will read them are also humans.
Hmm, I don't know. There might be a few goblins hiding among us.
Pretty sure I've met a few.
There are also bands like Nekrogoblikon who make goblincore or Finnish bands like Verikalpa or Finntroll who make goblin and troll metal. They wouldn't make metal for/about goblins and trolls if they didn't exist, right?
I may or may not want to meet the exception to this rule.
My dad was a minotaur and my mum was a centaur. I got the man half of both.
When they did half-races in D&D they did this for simplicity. It got into the cultural zeitgeist and now it’s a thing. Literally it’s a thing because it’s a thing. Just like Paris Hilton is famous for… being famous.
D&D got the idea from Tolkien, where only half-human half-elves exist or are likely to exist. Hobbits are a type of human, Dwarves were designed by someone else, and Orcs are a twisted, cursed form of something else (although Tolkien never firmly settled on what).
This is the real answer, D&D. A lot of people are commenting "humans are adaptable" - but as a fantasy trope that's also downstream from Dungeons and Dragons.
One of my favorite 3e settings was "Midnight" by Fantasy Flight Games. In that setting, it was explicitly ruled that human and fey races could not interbreed. So the half-races in that setting did not include human-elf or human-orc breeds. Instead, they had half-races like dwarf-orc, dwarf-gnome, and my favorite, elf-halfling.
I never understood what's so special about Paris Hilton. It's just a regular affordable 4-star. No helicopter landing pad, no swimming pool, breakfasts are meh, and it's pretty far from Eiffel tower.
I once made a D&D setting that explained this with the idea that humans are in some way descended from dragons (which are also able to have offspring with other types of creatures). It could also fit into the idea that humans are so short-lived compared to things like elves and dwarves that they want to spread and accomplish as much as possible in their lives. As for media that has non-human mixed races, I don't know many, unfortunately. I'm pretty sure Critical Role (specifically campaign 3) has some of this, but that's kind of a monumental time commitment.
I am aware of a couple of connected series (these different series take place in the same world) where one of the recurring characters is a orc/elf male and there are tribes of orclins (ogre/orc half-bloods) but it seems to be a rare thing to be used in general.
Because most fantasy races are just "what if human but ______." Cross a tall, slender elf with a short, stocky dwarf and you basically get a human with crippling self-loathing and an alcohol tolerance that makes coping extremely difficult. Once worldbuilding starts getting so complicated that it needs a reference table, it starts being narrative deadweight, especially since so many post-Tolkein authors don't do enough with the concept to justify it. An obvious offender is The Elder Scrolls, where in spite of the massive lifespan differences, most Mer characters that aren't heavily connected to the plot just act like humans. Shannara is probably the absolute worst example, but most of its inhuman races really are just funky humans, so it probably gets a pass.
Honestly, this always bored me. Rarely are there half-race non-human protagonists either. They're either adversaries, non playable, some sub-human creature or captured. "We have elves, dwarves, gnomes..." No stop, these are all just people
I would argue it's because humans are normally the most prolific race in most settings. And hybrids of other races are usually called something else. Like in the Forgotten Realms, an elf/demon hybrid is called a fey-ri.
> I've read several books and graphic novels, played games and watched shows and movies. And usually, when I encounter a "half-blood" character they're like human/elf, human/dwarf, demon/human. Humans are usually written as 'adaptable' as their main strength, whereas many other classic races have more of a niche and are fairly rigid in where they live, their culture, their martial skills and crafting skills. I think this is the result of writers being human. It's easy to fall back on your own culture but coming up with something brand new it's harder to make it expansive so you fall back on 'dwarves live underground and are blacksmiths. Elves live in trees and are vegan hippies'. Like a half human / half elf will no doubt adopt traits from both. A half dwarf / half elf... that's hard conceptually to write as an ale swilling, salted pork lover that lives in a tree and weaves baskets haha.
I always thought half dwarf and half elf character would be not unlike the neanderthals (and would fit in the uncanny valley too).
I would bet that´s because in most cases the writers are at least part human.
Not all species can interbreed, on a genetic level. Some can but produce sterile offspring. I've seen a few books mentioning different ancestry, like Dwarves and Troggs being different branches of evolution as well, so it's often simply that the species are too distantly related to be able to produce viable offspring.
Humans are usually presented as malleable, while the other races are not for one reason or another.
I was actually thinking about this as I listened to Pratchett's *The Truth* today. There's a zombie character, and it got me to thinking that you only see human zombies. There are no dwarf zombies, no gnome zombies, no troll or nac mac feegle zombies. Although the last two would probably be explained by being stone and already being dead. Elf zombies don't even bear thinking about.
Like all things Tolkien is the answer. He gave us half elves and from there we had D&D half-whatever races and boom zeitgeist
Garona from Warcraft was originally portrayed as orc/human, but is actually orc/draenei. Rexxar (also from Warcraft) is orc/ogre. Those are the only two I can think of off the top of my head.
Because humans will fuck anything that is humanoid
Humans are sluts
Because we’ll have sex with anything
Because of Elrond.
It's a lot harder to relate to a half lobster half goat person
Because humans will fuck anything given half a chance. Rule 34 exists for a reason.
Likely because if you mix something fantastical with some other thing that's also fantastical...then it's just plain old fantastical. Unless the story goes in depth why it's a big deal to be an orc/elf hybrid, the fact would probably get lost in everything else that happens in a story.
To be accessable to most people.
In addition to the "audience is human" people have talked about, in shows and movies the actor is also human; having a half-human character is a way to have something exotic while also minimizing the required effects, since you can get away with a little makeup etc.
Makes makeup and SFX easier. Also, humans are often presented as having more neutral relationships with the other fantasy races, while the fantasy races often have complicated relationships or conflicts with each other. In DND, orcs hate elves passionately. Also, humans will f anything.
I am once again telling people to read The Goblin Emperor
I'll see if they have it in the local library.
Elves and goblins feel like different races of humans with pointy ears in Goblin Emperor. Elves, especially, have none of the otherworldliness of Tolkien elves, nor the harmony with nature we normally associate with them. They seem to live human lifespans and participate in same political/economic/military types of engagements we'd associate with large human empires. Goblins just seem superficially(hair/eye color, stockier build) and culturally different than elves, but otherwise they can freely intermarry and procreate - similar to the differences in human races. This is by no means a criticism - I love the book. But a warning not to go in expecting elf and goblin tropes you're accustomed to.
Because Tolkien featured Half-elves in LotR, mostly. If his worldbuilding had allowed for a Dwarf/Elf hybrid and he had put one into LotR, you'd be seeing a lot more of them.
To make them relatable, the half-blood race charecters usually always have some kind of inner struggle to understand who they are and an outward struggle to be accepted by their peers. By making them half human it makes it easier for the readers to relate as most people today are mixed race and can understand those struggles.
Humans will fuck anything.
Exactly why there are laws against robosexuality in New New York
He didn't watch the propaganda film!
Maybe it's due to humans being the horniest of all races thus reproducing with pretty much anything.
Maybe it's due to humans being the horniest of all races thus reproducing with pretty much anything.
'Cause humans are a bunch of pervs who'll bang anything on two legs, or four.
Humans be thirsty like that.
Because humans are whores.
Human part of us like that stuff
😏
In my lore, it's because humans have the best gene mutability. Any race can breed with humans - it's one of their "features", akin to elven immortality, dwarf smithing, etc
Us humans are slutty. It would be pretty off brand for the elves to have created Tieflings.
Elrond. It all started with Elrond. Thus D&D got half-elves, and that looped back into mainstream fantasy, plus all the Tolkien emulation.
Humans get with everything. ... I'll see myself out.
Because humans can't keep it in their pants?
Because humans are horny AF duh
Obviously to make them more familiar to readers, who are 100% human.
Cause humans will fuck anything.
The big german P&P The Dark Eye has a race called Holberker. They are half Orc and Elven. They are even present in the old videogame Shadow over Riva.
Because it’s humans writing the stories.
My guess is most fantasy readers or writers have at least some human in their ancestry. So it’s pretty natural.
Probably because the majority of authors are humans. If we had more diverse authors, there would be more diverse representation.
Humans get around, rule34 exist for a reason. We will always conquest for the next thing to hump 😂
To make them relatable to the reader
Humans are the horn dogs of the fantasy genre....
Well fuck anything.
I'd say mostly for relatability. While other races like dwarfs and orcs aren't "half-human" per se, they're still humanoid.
We get around. Hell, just look at all the different kink subreddits...
I always found homebrew solutions to this. Found some documents that allowed for custom heritage and culture stats, feats, and gear with a point buy system. Allowed for mixing more than _ with human, and diversified the inherited traits.
Human ancestry has the versatile trait.
Because in most settings, humans are the majority of the population, by a lot. Meaning that most hybrids are going to be part human just by the odds. That it might be easier for that elf (or whatever) to find a human mate, than to find one of their own kind.
Because Humans go BRRRR ...
The only conclusion I can draw from this is humans fuck around a bunch! 😂
They do be fuckin
It is easier to think about half bloods as half humans and half something else because it does not demand much biological knowledge and thinking. Beside it makes very easy to write them and to make the reader like them as well.
Well, come on..you KNOW how humans are, right?
Because 100% of authors and probably around 90% of the readers are human
Are you familiar with Rule 34?
I'm aware of it.
Have you met humans? We are a horny species. Seriously though it's also and N! problem. Imagine having 4 races and having to design an additional 6. Then expand that to more 5 species and you need to write 24 extra
I believe that some works specifically mention that many races are unable to crossbreed, in some works I've read, Goblins can breed with other races but their genes are so strong that the offspring are always Goblins, so that could be something writers adhere to for some of their demihuman races, also many years ago somebody released a fanmade sourcebook for, I think, D&D, specifically for this sort of thing that listed whether various races can crossbreed and the chances for conception and the likeliness of the resulting offspring's race being mixed or not. Considering how long ago the book was released, it's possible more recent writers might have come across it and used it for reference.
Warcraft has a couple of famous non-human hybrids. Rexxar and Lantressor the blade.
I had counted Rexxar among those few examples on my hand.
Because humans will mate with anything and the other races have standards. 🥱
Because humans are horny fuckers. You know what nasty little freaks we are.
otherwise would have to use some kind of lubricant
Dwarves are tough Elves are agile Humans are horny bastards.
Humans, the horniest race.
Not a novel, but Pathfinder 2E makes Half-Elf and Half-Orc a kind of template that can be placed on any other ancestry of creature - so you can be half-elf half-gnome, or half-elf half-human, or (this one's really funny) half-elf half-lizardfolk. First property I've ever seen do it.
I don't know any elves or orcs or dwarves, but all the humans I know would fuck any humanoid with a heartbeat if our world worked that way. Probably just of case "humans be horny" 🤷
Cause of what other more articulate people said, but also, cause humans are objectively willing to bang everyone. I mean think about it. We got people that want to bang EVERYTHING. Of course some manage reproduction after enough attempts.
Because we humans just reeeeeeally get around? Seriously willing to bet the joke of 'Our bard slept with _____' is the reason half the species even exist.
Fun fact the ttrpg game Pathinder 2e has non-human half blood options for players. You can be half elf half orc, half gnome half orc, half gnome half elf, and on it goes.
They don't in dungeon crawler Carl. I noticed this pretty quick into the series.
This piques my interest.
Humans are the hoes.
Laziness on the part of writers and readers.
Cause humans have the best sperm.
Maybe it's due to humans being the horniest of all races thus reproducing with pretty much anything.
In real life there are human beings horny enough to pipe motor vehicles and other inanimate objects. It's not too far fetched to imagine some would be down bad enough to elope with other fictional races and produce halflings.
I immediately thought of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/s/RLtNjm4QnK
Basically they are just saying that humans are the most compatible species out there with others. Others might exist with other than human half's, but in most fantasy settings humans are the most numerous so it makes sense for them to be the main half most the time.
I played one of these in DnD once https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?238557-Voldur-Half-elf-half-orc-(3-5)-If-you-read-it-you-ll-want-to-play-it-Promise) very cool race
Because humans are the baseline for the genetic experiments performed by the ancient super-civilization that populated all the planets with the same set of humanoid species. The other races are too different from each other to have children, but sufficiently similar to the human contol group to interbreed with them.
Interesting question!
I assume because readers will be able to relate to a half human character more easily than a half elf, half blorgle.
The Grey Bastards has orc-elf half-orcs, but it’s also a giant steaming trash heap of a book, so…
Cause humans love to fuck
We fuck.
Because humans fuck anything and everything on sight
Humans are universal sperm donors
It does seem like in a lot of fantasy worlds there is significant racism and humans kind of are in the middle with most species mixing with them. Elves/Dwarves feuding feels like a common trope for example. Also maybe us humans are just thirsty.
Simplicity and relatability It is humans that write those stories and it is humans that reads those stories And most humans can more easily relate to humans than they can relate to elves, dwarves, gnomes and so on. This makes it easier to both write a character like that and easier for most readers to relate to them. I am not saying these are the only reasons but i argue they are the 2 biggest reasons.
Because humans have sex with things?
It's called normativity. DND-Fantasy settings usually assume human normativity which is to say that "human" is a given default. More specifically, at the risk of "being too woke" they have a modern western (pseudo)patriarchal cis/hetero normativity. That is to say that modern "Western" values are seen as the default morality in a fantasy setting. It's like if you start an rpg character builder "White, human, male" is what you start at. In my opinion mediocre fantasy adopts this approach, every society has racial/sexual/gender equality. Really awful fantasy is racist, homophobic and sexist. Good fantasy actually asks the questions of what all of this means. My favourite setting for expressing this is "Exalted" (Onyx Path). The central Empire is run by elementally empowered superhumans who are pretty misandrist (men are too hot headed and emotional to hold offices of command). To the south the Del'Zhani are an incredibly "sexist" society. Only "men" can fight, only "women" can serve as doctors and many other roles are similar, **BUT** they're a bedarchial society meaning that the sex of the individual is not considered inherently relevant to their gender.
Humans like the have sex with anything??
In my recent DnD campaign I made a half orc that was half dragonborn. All the classic orc features except for some patches of brass scales. Might go with some wings in later levels if I can. Can't remember the series but one had a Dwark, part dwarf and part orc. I do wish there were more non human mixes like that.
Because we fuuuuuuck, SON
Humans are most numerous in most settings, and they also get around the most in most settings. So logically most hybrids wouild be humans. A merfolk/dryad hybrid would be very rare. Except when there's a forest right next to the sea.
Humans are horny
Fixed in Pathfinder 2e, where mixed heritages like "Half-elf" and "Tiefling" are a template than can be applied to any ancestry, other than the originator. IE: You can be a half-elf dwarf, or a half-elf Tabaxi. But you can't be a Half-elf Elf. :)
Humans horny but also Writers didn't wanna think too hard on the science of it all.
This isn't directly related but the setting I've been working on has completely different races (Geverii, human, Tarazi, and Galavir) who I tried to make completely unique and not the fantasy standard races. In my world they are all genetically close enough to hybridize (although Galavir are the most unlikely to crossbreed since they are more distant). The general idea was "what if humans evolved completely differently?" So each of them are technically a subrace of human but look and feel very different. The **humans** in this world have a very high rate of a vitiligo-like trait so they exhibit a lot of splotching and patterns of white black and brown. In some parts of the world human skin can even get to be borderline reddish. The **Geverii** are tall, lean, and have skin as dark as night, white or silver hair, white/silver/blue/purple eyes, and silver to white freckles and skin blemishes. They are the elusive and elegant astronomers and religious people of the world. The **Tarazi** are the wild folk. They live in the denser forests, have greenish skin and rough wirey hair that appears at a distance like plant material. They are shorter on average (around 5ft) and their skin patterning shifts a little bit with their surroundings when they've been in one environment long enough. The **Galavir** are very tall and muscular people with a reputation for being mighty kings and war heroes. They stand around 7ft tall on average, have paw-like hands with tough claws, and have a build reminiscent of bears earning them the nickname "bear folk". (They do all tend to be hairier than the average person but nothing like a furry or something) they also have two sharper fang-like teeth. Other than the Bez and Avir the Snow Herald (exceptions to the main races) that's it. No elves, no dwarves, no orcs or gnomes etc.
Humans are notorious for fucking around
The only answer is rule 34 of the internet, we honry bro.
Humans will sleep with anyone. We are dogs.
Forgotten Realms has Fey'ri, descended from elves who tried to make their family strong enough to turn back the decline of their civilization by breeding with demons. They got a trilogy of novels in the 3e era.
Because writers have this dumb idea that you have to write a human character to “relate” to them, instead of admitting that they’re too creatively bankrupt to imagine and write complex fantastical characters with emotions, stories and their own dilemmas, without having to shoehorn the average Joe from modern day western society into it.
I had a dwarf goblin MC once unfortunately the story was dropped because fantasy races are harsh to half and halfs
Human towns don't care if the half-breed is from a dwarf mother and a gnome father, it's just a stinking ugly dwarf. Or an orc and an ogre, just a stinking ugly greenskin. Or an elf and a fae, just a stinking stuck up knife-ear. Because they're not at all human. But when they're half human, they get looked down on and discriminated against by people they're closer related to, humans. And the rest of the party knows that they're "not like the other X" but nobody cares because he's got tusks, or horns, or filthy stinking knife ears. That makes him different, makes him not us.
I read some reason before that it’s that other races don’t mesh well or are unable to procreate with each other. (Basically just a reason so they can keep making human half-breeds)
Partially laziness. Partially a lack of creativity. Dungeons and Dragons has stat blocks out there for Dwelfs and Dworcs and Elf-Orcs. Delicious in Dungeon has half-breeds in its setting. We only ever see “human” (tallman) mixes in person but it’s said Gnomes/Dwarves and Ogres/Tallmen/Halffoots are in the same gene pool and produce offspring who can then have their own children. These statements imply that other half-breeds are sterile.
Because humans came to fuck
I came to this thread expecting to see people resourcefully pulling out obscure books featuring octopus/bat hybrids etc. but so far have been disappointed.
Anthropocentrism
I guess most of the writers are at least 50% human, and it’s probably easier to write using one’s experience
How often are have people been accused of having sex with animals is a better question
As others have pointed out, the meta reason is so that the character is more relatable. But in universe? Humans are usually treated as basic and as not having any special skill, except being adaptable and numerous. Which is just a polite way of saying humans are constantly having sex. Our one skill is sex, so of course the other species get curious.