I always thought the only way to be an elf or dwarf was to be born that way.

Is it possible to become part-dwarf?

I thought you could never be part-anything, that the races were kept magicly distinct.

Mixed human/metahuman parentage always creates either a human or a metahuman baby, no "hybrids".
But there is the chance that a troll or ork is born in human form and goblinizes in puberty (theoretically, genetic analysis should show that the baby is in fact a metahuman whose "goblin" phenotype has not yet been expressed).
IIRC it is said somewhere that goblinization is becoming rarer compared to birth in metahuman form.

There are, however mixed metahuman metavarients. The new Seattle sourcebook (page 72) says the leader of the Black Rains (who's half Japanese) is half Ork, half Oni. As far as I know, there's no rules for it, and I really don't think there needs to be, but it was there.

Right, it still happenes every now and again but now that the races are set, regular births are more common. No one goblinized as dwarves or elves, they were born that way. probably due to the fact it would be easier for a human woman to give birth to those smaller forms than the larger blockier orks and trolls

Just Johnny: That may just be a matter of coloration rather than gamestats.

Or it's possible they are just saying that to illustrate his difficult childhood because his parents were one of each. He may be one or the other with only an odd coloring as stated above.

One of my NPCs that my PCs hang out with a lot is described as being "half-elf". She is totally human in every way, but one of her parents is an elf, and she's a major proponent of metahuman rights. But there is absolutely nothing elven about her, game mechanically or in fluff, except one parent. Also, I would imagine that that gives her higher-than-average chance of having an elven child, especially if she hooks up with another elf.

A good way to reflect this type of thing is with Edges like Night Vision, or some of the SURGE effects.

Just wondered if I missed something.

The goblininzation to a part-dwarf is in the short story Unmaking the Man on the official shadowrun site. Kind of makes it canon, or another instance of silly stuff that made it's way to print. (If published on the official site counts as 'print'.)

Makes me wonder why authors feel the need to bend (break) the rules and why it isn't halted when it is not integral to the story. (Or even if it is integral.)

Artistic License, tisoz. It happens.

I think that might have been a specific case of SURGE, which is the only damn timea normal human could become an elf or a dwarf. Have to check again, though.

No, the rules in SURGE only allow goblinization from human to trog, or metahuman to metatype. This could be an exception, as such things do tend to happen.

Hmm, would this be referred to as "downsizing"?

Uh, ES, you DO know that elves can't give birth to orks and vice versa, right? Like, ever? If you had an elf and ork couple, and they have a kid, then the kid is gonna be the mother's race.

I don't recall the rules every saying that they couldn't, only some fluff text stating that it's never been (publically) recorded. Big difference between the two.

All I know is, I never want to see a birth video of a dwarf mother having a bouncy baby trogg...

Maybe there are half-races but no PC can take them as a race.

What, you advocate making SR different from Other Game? Oh noes! We can't have that.

But seriously, the info in SR3 is pretty clear that there are NO half-races. Of course, SURGE does mess things up a bit, but not enough to really say there are half-races, just people of one metatype with some other metatype components thrown in. (Tusks, dermal plating, pointy ears, etc.)

Don't forget that parents of two different metatypes can have human children and if one parent is human and one not, the children will mostly be human.

I'm getting it from SR2 p.34, which says, "Crossbreed attempts between the elf/dwarf group and the ork/troll group nearly always produce a goblinized expression."

Presumably, "nearly always" isn't explainable by almost all of the elf+ork matings being a female ork and a male elf.

I don't have Shadowtech, unfortunately. Last time this came up (Polaris's fragging half-elf thread, I think it was), you referred me to the metagenetics section in SotA:2063, and I think I found the specific lines you were talking about (shadowtalk at the top of p.12?), but, as I said, I think that what they're saying is that elf+elf matings don't produce orks, not that elven mothers can never bear orkish children, even when the father is an ork.

(And, sorry, I probably came off nastier than I intended in my last post.)

Could be. I'll look it up tomorrow. The Shadowtech reference is about how there's no record of a troll being born to an elf mother and a few other tidbits. Like I said, not exactly useful.