[Kenico]

I don't know if this is the right place to put this question but this is the only place it felt appropriate.

as the name implies can we create mixed raced characters (example mother was a human father was an elf)? A friend is wanting to make a character like that so I want to see if that is SR Legal?

[RowanTheFox]

Nope, there are no half-breeds in SR. The child of a human mother and an elf father will either be human, or elf.

Or their DNA may go totally bonkers and the kid will pop out an ork, a troll, or a dwarf.

[Reaver]

Not sure if I understand you:

Are you saying this person to have a half-elf race, or something similar?

If that is the case,  then "No" is the answer. There is NO Half-anythings

The way genetics works in the 6th world is that while all meta-humans can interbreed, their actual Race will be one of 3 choices.

They will be born/express as their Mother's race about 40% of the time.
They will be born/Express as their Father's race about 40% of the time.
They will be born as a normal human 20% of the time..

If both parents are the same meta-race, they will be born/express as a member of that race 90% of the time.
They will be born human 10% of the time.


If both parents are Human (and not a meta-variant) they will be born human 90% of the time.
They will be born/express as a meta-human 10% of the time.

There are many mixed race couples out there that have children that do not belong to their meta-race.... And as you can imagine, this is a root of a lot of the meta-human bias that plagues the 6th world. (On the up side, people rarely care about skin color anymore.... They only care if you have pointy ears, stumpy legs, tusks or horns...)

[Kenico]

Thank You all!! Saved me and more importantly the player a whole lot of headache!

[Kenico]

Eh, I may need some help with this player. Seeing im a newb too I may need a pro runner to help me help her make her runner :3

[RowanTheFox]

SR genetics is kinda funky. One of my characters is human, and his twin sister goblinized into an ork at puberty. Both parents were human, and racist as all hell. Which is how my character and his sister wound up in the shadows.

[忍]

Not sure if I understand you:

Are you saying this person to have a half-elf race, or something similar?

If that is the case,  then "No" is the answer. There is NO Half-anythings

The way genetics works in the 6th world is that while all meta-humans can interbreed, their actual Race will be one of 3 choices.

They will be born/express as their Mother's race about 40% of the time.
They will be born/Express as their Father's race about 40% of the time.
They will be born as a normal human 20% of the time..

If both parents are the same meta-race, they will be born/express as a member of that race 90% of the time.
They will be born human 10% of the time.


If both parents are Human (and not a meta-variant) they will be born human 90% of the time.
They will be born/express as a meta-human 10% of the time.

There are many mixed race couples out there that have children that do not belong to their meta-race.... And as you can imagine, this is a root of a lot of the meta-human bias that plagues the 6th world. (On the up side, people rarely care about skin color anymore.... They only care if you have pointy ears, stumpy legs, tusks or horns...)

Is this from a book or something?

[Medicineman]

>>>> Is this from a book or something?

Nope, not as far as I know.
There has never been any Percentages .CGL (and Fanpro before) never gave any Official Numbers.
But there are no Halfbreeds. The Child is  from either Parental Metarace or Human or (which is ImO rare) Goblinizes during Puberty.

HokaHey
Medicineman

[HobDobson]

All that said, if your player really, really wants a "half-elf", there are a couple of options for the character as a human.

There's the "Elf Poser" negative quality (p. 81, core book), for 6 karma of teen angst/nonconformance. There's also the "Metagenetic Traits" option for a Human Changeling (p. 116, Run Faster) Page 103 of Run Faster describes some of the "catches" that go with SURGE II/III changelings.

Hm. Taking "Elf Poser" on top of SURGE would really amp up the "outcast" flavor! Unless they're a scion of a meta-friendly Corp, one of the more likely outcomes would be the character being severely bullied in school - assuming they even survive freshman year. (YMMV. There are still burn marks on some of the floor tiles from the first, and last, time someone played "Jump the Freak" on my unarmed changeling character.)
 

[Jack_Spade]

Alternatively: Human Looking Positive Quality will make an elf look like a human.

[Kuirem]

Eh, I may need some help with this player. Seeing im a newb too I may need a pro runner to help me help her make her runner :3

She should try to build her first character herself, even if it ends up not perfect it's a good experience to graspe the basics of the game. Here is a document that might help. Now, I don't mind helping but she needs to lay some concept down:

• What Race does she aim for? Elf, Human?
• What would be her main role? Muscle, Face, Rigger, Hacker, Mage, Infiltration?
• What does she wants her character to do besides that? Medic, Demolition, Repair, Tracking…
• Awakened, Technomancer?
• Any fluff that might limit/influence the crunch?

[Reaver]

》》Is this from a book or something?

No, as MM says, there is no hard stats provided.

I basically pulled those from summerizing several different statements from several dizen books over the years and editions. (Which remain valid due to SR's living history).

In many books were they talk about the races abd mixed race marrages they tell you that the child is either obe of the parent's race OR is human.
In the case of the parents being the same race, the children will mostly be the same race as the parent, or sometimes human. (And even more rarely, an other meta-race).

Human parents generally have human kids, but they may express later into another race.

But, since the 2050's post birth expressions are exceedingly rare (but do still happen).

You can find this info mostly in the 2e and 3e fluff books, player companion books, and city books. New Seattle for 3e has the best, most clear descriptions of this when talking about the cities racial breakdowns per zone.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I tend to run the percentages as being much closer to 'near-certain' in favor of the same-gendered-parent's favor.  So ...

Elf mother -> daughter: 95% elf, 4% father's metatype, 1% human.
Elf father -> son: 95% elf, 4% mother's metatype, 1% human.

I tend to believe that key genome sequences are carried on the gender chromosomes, and that a male X tends strongly to be recessive when matched with a female X.  Not always, but there you go.

But like everyone's saying, there are no actual half-elves (or half-trolls, half-orks, half-dwarves, half-nagas ... don't laugh ...) in SR.

[Kiirnodel]

First up, responding to the most recent comment. Off-hand I don't think the metatype is tied to gender, that might be a personal preference, but I don't it founded in anything that is written up in the game text. At least nowhere that I recall.

And doing a cursory look into the genetics of it. First up, there is no such thing as a "male X" or a "female X." The reason for male-pattern baldness for example is because the gene that causes it is on the X chromosome, but is recessive. In males, this means that because they don't have a second X chromosome, a single occurrence of the gene is enough to cause the disorder. So, by that principle it actually means that genetics tied to the X chromosome are more likely to be passed from mother to son, not mother to daughter. But, I think it is much more likely that the genetics for metatype are probably carried on one of the other 22 chromosomes.

Now, I think Wyrm's numbers might be closer to correct, I definitely don't think the values are 40/40/20 in terms of percentage chances. I think the proposed values are much closer to single-digit chance of a child born to elf parents (for example) being born human rather than elf. And it might be much lower than that even, (~0.2% chance rather than 1%-5%). Genetic reversion (as it is referred to) is a rare occurrence. Enough so that it is mentioned in the Giant metavariant as an oddity, because there is an increased chance of genetic reversion. Apparently one-fourth of female giant offspring result in a sapiens expression, that is to say, a quarter of the daughters of giant parents are born human rather than troll.
Statistically speaking (assuming even chances of a boy/girl), that means approximately 12.5% of giant offspring result in a human rather than another giant. This is considered "unique" in its frequency, which is why I think it is probably 10-20 times more frequent than normal (if not more) making it a statistically significant event. It's even mentioned as causing newsworthy events with people trying to research the sapiens reversion.

[Helena]

Q: Are there Half-Elves in Shadowrun ?

A: Only when the Elf pisses off the Troll with the combat axe !