That's fine and all, but give worldgen a few hundred years and you get half-half-half elves everywhere.Call them Half-[race of either parent(dependent on who they live with maybe?)] for halves, then make everything after that "[Name] the Mixed Breed" or "[Name] the Mixed Blood [Dominate race]." A lineage option (family tree, in legends and profile in Fortress mode) would be nice too.
Best make hybrids sterile.
That's fine and all, but give worldgen a few hundred years and you get half-half-half elves everywhere.
Best make hybrids sterile.
That's fine and all, but give worldgen a few hundred years and you get half-half-half elves everywhere.
Best make hybrids sterile.
Sounds great, but one question:]
What will make sure my horses don't horse around with the donkeys? Say I have groups of horses and donkeys, I wouldn't want half of my horses carrying donkey children.
That sounds good, but let me switch it around. What if I want my mule monstrosity, am I seeing a Breeder skill potentially growing from this?
I think this would be simplest:If half-elves are not sterile, then that sort of breeding makes perfect sense. Essentially, "elfism" would then be just a collection of alleles (modes of genes) different from humans. Half-elves possess some elven alleles and some human, and of course the definition of what is a "human" or "elf" is pretty fuzzy when they can interbreed, just as in real life the difference between, say, "caucasian" and "asian" is quite fuzzy.
Human + Elf = Half Elf
Half Elf + Human = Human or Half Elf
Half Elf + Elf = Elf or Half Elf
Half elves would have to be defined in the raws, unless Toady wants to make the game calculate all sorts of stuff.
This form of breeding, although somewhat unrealistic, would mean that we wouldn't need raws for quarter elves and eighth elves.
If hybrids are not sterile, then what is to prevent the entire world from being composed entirely of crossbreeds?
And this all, of course, could be yet another reason for wars. Races that have [ETHIC:HALF_BREEDS:PUNISH_CAPITAL] might ire the wrath of one of the race's species if done in large enough numbers.
And yeah, to make the Half Breeds sterile, just remove the tags in their creature entry (which I'd like to see, rather than have it generated dynamically, just for more precise control) that deal with them giving birth. Bam, instant sterilisation.
And yeah, to make the Half Breeds sterile, just remove the tags in their creature entry (which I'd like to see, rather than have it generated dynamically, just for more precise control) that deal with them giving birth. Bam, instant sterilisation.
Something else I was thinking about would be having mutations. Maybe, if the breeding tags were in the [BREEDING:other creature:resulting creature:percent chance], then we could have something like this:
[CREATURE:DWARF]
[BREEDING:DWARF:DWARF:99]
[BREEDING:DWARF:DWARF_SUPER:1]
Then we could have mutations and stuff. And with some entity tags, we could make it so that these rare mutants would either be horribly oppressed, or the ruling class, or maybe even worshiped.
http://dwarf.lendemaindeveille.com/index.php/User:JT/Token_Wishlist
The other problem with half breeds is that you need a creature definition for every single one before you can add the tags to allow their existence.
horrible bestiality
Quotehorrible bestiality
Can we really consider anything the elf does as not beastiality?
After he ascended the throne of Crete, Minos struggled with his brothers for the right to rule. Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull, as a sign of approval. He was to sacrifice the bull in honor of Poseidon but decided to keep it instead because of its beauty. To punish Minos, Poseidon caused Pasiphaë, Minos' wife, to fall madly in love with the bull from the sea, the Cretan Bull.[3] She had Daedalus, the famous architect, make a wooden cow for her. Pasiphaë climbed into the decoy in order to copulate with the white bull. The offspring of their coupling was a monster called the Minotaur.
Minotaur.QuoteAfter he ascended the throne of Crete, Minos struggled with his brothers for the right to rule. Minos prayed to Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull, as a sign of approval. He was to sacrifice the bull in honor of Poseidon but decided to keep it instead because of its beauty. To punish Minos, Poseidon caused Pasiphaë, Minos' wife, to fall madly in love with the bull from the sea, the Cretan Bull.[3] She had Daedalus, the famous architect, make a wooden cow for her. Pasiphaë climbed into the decoy in order to copulate with the white bull. The offspring of their coupling was a monster called the Minotaur.
That, and all the odd something-men out there.
Between that and Three-toe's story...I can't help but think that Halfbreeds would be awesome.
Mad props, penguinofhonor...
You would need to create a creature file for every halfbreed- Half Elf would be it's own race just with no civilization to start with -
IMAGINE A HALF-ELF/HALFBREED RACE Starting off as children - banished and exiled -forming new cities - and then conquering their parents!
I thought about hybriding before, to fix mules.
My idea is that instead of [CANBREEDWITH:your mom] tags on each creature that can breed, there would be a [HYBRID:DONKEY:HORSE] where the first creature is the father and the second one is the mother on the hybrid creature file. That way you won't get problems with [CANBREEDWITH:your face] tags contradicting each other,and also simplifies it to a much more usable and easy to bugfix process to making hybrid creatures. The [HYBRID] tag should probably also make the creature sterile, unless theres another tag/argument added to the tag that allows it to breed. Also allows different kinds of hybrids depending on which creature is the mother/father. [HYBRID:HORSE:DONKEY] would be placed on a hinny for instance.
That way the hybridized creatures won't randomly create a new creature when they breed, which could cause major problems with misplaced tags.
You'd have to create a half-elf creature before you could see half-elves, but you'll be able to define what traits they'll have. And you'll never have to see a half-half-half-half-elf unless you make one.
Think, you could change it to Elf + Dwarf = Goblin, Kobold + Goblin = Human, and Human + Orc = Demon. Not sure why you'd want to do that, but you could.... (This may be a way to make kids cool... say two dwarves breed makes a superdwarf... You'd try to raise kids...)
DRAGON-DWARVES FTW!!!
Or we can make it so we can breed a pig and an elephant. :P
Or we can make it so we can breed a pig and an elephant. :P
Erm...like how? Anatomically that sounds kinda impossible, isn't it?..on the other hand the same is true about crossbreeding goblins and trolls.. ;D
Kirkrolling = "where da green wimmins at?"
If this were applied to demons, giving them the ability to breed with anything, it could be a lot of fun. Imagine a demon gets out of the *massive spoiler*, escapes your fortress, and goes on a breeding rampage, unleashing hordes of it's demonic flying tentacle kitten-carp children on your unsuspecting bastion of racial stagnation.
And yeah, to make the Half Breeds sterile, just remove the tags in their creature entry (which I'd like to see, rather than have it generated dynamically, just for more precise control) that deal with them giving birth. Bam, instant sterilisation.
I would think that creatures without breeding tags would only be able to breed with their own species, with a 100% chance of the offspring being of the same species, and have a new [STERILE] tag.
Something else I was thinking about would be having mutations. Maybe, if the breeding tags were in the [BREEDING:other creature:resulting creature:percent chance], then we could have something like this:
[CREATURE:DWARF]
[BREEDING:DWARF:DWARF:99]
[BREEDING:DWARF:DWARF_SUPER:1]
Then we could have mutations and stuff. And with some entity tags, we could make it so that these rare mutants would either be horribly oppressed, or the ruling class, or maybe even worshiped.
Imagine a demon gets out of the *massive spoiler*, escapes your fortress, and goes on a breeding rampage, unleashing hordes of it's demonic flying tentacle kitten-carp children on your unsuspecting bastion of racial stagnation.[/quote]Because that's what tentacles are for?
the only weird bit would be donkeys giving birth to horses and vice versa
Crossbreeding Trolls and Goblins = Gobbotroll! ;D
Seriously this suggestion is a must have. Just think about LotR and Saruman. Orcs+goblins = uruk hai! :D
One thing that doesn't seem to have come up yet is varying results in crossbreedings. A stallion and a jenny produce a mule; a jack and a mare, a hinny. Those two are pretty similar.
A lion and a tigress result in a liger, which is larger at adulthood than either of the parent species. A tiger and a lioness yield a tigon, which is not(it has a reputation of being smaller than either, but this is false).
Similarly, the token wishlist doesn't seem to have anything for specific-gender-pairing hybrids, though I may have missed it.
Part of my point is that I don't think procedurally generated hybrids are a very good idea. A good number of "natural" hybrids reliably take this trait from the mother, that trait from the father, and so on, rather than blending the whole lot and going somewhere in the middle.
But that's me.
I think we're on different wavelengths here. What I'm trying to get at is that - barring some INSANELY detailed genetic modelling of the creatures in question,
Why not just argue for generic rock and simpler body structures while you're at it?
Toady has already demonstrated a commitment to detailed realism. Just because it's a fantasy game doesn't mean it can't be consistent with reality where that fantasy allows.
Hmm. While algorithmic hybrids aren't perfect, I think they'll be the best thing to do. Unfortunately, that could lead to strange hybrids with "can latch" but no hands. Hmm.. more thought is required.
The notion of applying SCIENCE! to all of this is kinda bonkers. We don't exactly know how half-elf, half-humans would look, or why they would be able to breed, and odds are, they would fail to develop or at best be infertile. That would be great if this was a generalized biology simulation game, but it's not. It's a generalized fantasy simulation game, which means fantasy tropes such as half-breeds should be possible. (This also means that mules should be infertile, and there should be a way to specify such.)
Exactly. It's meaningless to talk about the "underlying realism" of a world with satyrs, giant cave spiders, and unicorns. If there is a certain degree of DF fantasy motivating hybridization, so what? It's part of generating completely new experiences each time you generate a new world.It's not realism anyone is after, but verisimilitude and suspension of disbelief. To kill enemies by jumping on their heads and collect coins floating in mid-air is a great set-up for a game, but DF has certain ambitions that are better served with closer identification with the world and its inhabitants.
I say probabilities should govern this, not some set value. If an Elf and a Human hook up, then a Half-Elf should just be one possibility. Something like 50% Half-Elf, 25% Human, 25% Elf. Then, in turn, the hybrids should "lock in" to their races, meaning a Half-Elf can only mate with an Elf or a Human. Their child, in turn, would be 50% hybrid, 50% Elf or Human (depending on partner).add in 00.1% abomination to be killed with fire
I'm just making up numbers as I go along, but the point is, in order to avoid hybrids from taking over, there should be some systems in place. And like the "real world", hybrids should be discriminated against by some people/groups...perhaps even wars could start over it.
well at least there not loving the trees as much? ;DQuotehorrible bestiality
Can we really consider anything the elf does as not beastiality?
Fixed for you
Y'know... I must have somehow missed encountering the fantasy settings where any random farmer could just toss any two creatures of the opposite gender together and have them produce a hybrid.
I'm not saying some commonly-encountered beings that are quite similar to one another shouldn't be able to reproduce. (The sentient races in vanilla, for instance, possibly not including kobolds, depending on just how different kobolds are supposed to be.) But the dramatic hybrids that are fantasy icons - griffins, centaurs, and the like - in every setting I've seen, have either been just "there" independently with no explanation offered, or were works of great magic or divinity that then survived on their own. They didn't come across by random breeding.
The combinatorial explosion of proportion-of-elfs would get ridiculous. Plus, none of it would make that much sense without meaningful genetics. If Toady is putting genetics in the game, I'm sure all they're going to do would be simulate a lot of dwarves' predetermined traits.Presently, yes, as far as I'm understanding.
Im in favour of the Half Elves but not a Half Kobold, Half Dwarf or Half Goblin. In all fantasy (that I have ever seen) these races did not exist. Maybe its because Kobolds and Goblins are too bestial and dwarves are too reclusive?
Does this already happen with wolves/dogs? I have a maxed population of wolves that started with only a female wolf. I guess it's possible I got really lucky and the wolf was already pregnant when I caught her...
Does this already happen with wolves/dogs? I have a maxed population of wolves that started with only a female wolf. I guess it's possible I got really lucky and the wolf was already pregnant when I caught her...
Or a wolf appeared on the same map (such as inside an Elf Carrivan) and bred with her
Just remember you're talking hyper-realism, rather than a more relaxed rule of cool or magical world.
I see no reason why in a hyper-realistic fantasy setting (DF) things wouldn't be unable to breed. It adds a lot to the game and all that is assumed is that genetics work slightly different from the "real world".
Half-elves in DF would be interesting, because from comparing the current Ethics, humans would find the whole "Killan then Eatan" repulsive, which begs the question of how a half-elf would be conceived.
The first possibility is (be mature, people ;)) rape, similar to the origins of most half-orcs in settings where there are orcs. The other is [BREEDWITHELF:SHUN]
Yeah, but they'll get shunned. Not only would the child be a social outcast, but the parents as well.
(are the social ramifications of interspecies breeding still within the topic's purview?)
I'm actually very interested as to how this sort of thing would turn out if implemented.
Had a different turn of events (AKA: The Demons deciding to enslave the dwarves or humans rather than the Goblins), then this might well be Goblin Fortress, or you might be meeting with a goblin liason rather than a human one most of the time.
As a first point, I think it's important not to place too much stock in the stock universe, since I'm not very attached to it and really would like to use it as a springboard for more varied, generated civilizations and so on over time. That said, some of the mechanics that persist will likely take sides one way or another in nature vs. nurture arguments and various historical determinism paradigms and all that.<P>Right now, and it's likely to continue more or less in this way for a long while, the creature definition says what part is nature, and the entity definition says what part is nurture. For instance, at this point, a kidnapped elf will still use the elven personality definition to determine their personality profiles, and in this way, an elven leader for a goblin civilization will behave differently from a goblin leader, even though the elf still has the goblin culture. At this time, the post-kidnap process is entirely unspecified -- whether or not that should have impact on an elf's personality or self-image and so on is all up in the air. I don't think it's a given that an elf would feel bad about being an elf in a goblin civ, since kidnapping is such an important part of goblins society, and in that way elves are valued in goblin society -- they could very well feel at home among the other elves there, and made to feel as if they belong, but nothing is decided here. Certainly the stock creatures will have pliable minds when it comes to goblin indoctrination -- there'd be no point for the kidnapping mechanic otherwise, though it would certainly be interesting to have their individual personalities affect the outcome, leading to conflict with the more obstinate ones, etc.<P>"Alignment" is something I'd like to avoid. I'd rather deal with specific universe metaphysics, which I'd hope to have generated. It would be a fair mechanic to have some sort of "evil" associated to creatures like demons that is inherent to their nature, and as it stands, the stock demon in the raws would receive any such concept that arises, but the custom world map fields and creature variables that come up don't have to be alignment-driven. As it stands in the raws at this time, there's a basically unused [EVIL] tag for demons and goblins (which is sort of a placeholder for their underworld status), and the evil of goblins is cultural -- aside from their negative personalities, which are inherent traits. The demon in particular has a very nasty personality, and it's always set to extreme values on certain traits -- this is a natural property in that all demons generated will be this way, though we have no idea what the underworld was like... perhaps it affects demons in horrible, horrible ways.<P>I think racial loyalty/xenophobia could work as both a creature (natural) and an entity (cultural) parameter. Ideally, for modding purposes, every parameter would be handled that way, so that you could set a xenophobia value wherever you think it should be for humans, and then have some of their societies modify that value. Wherever I'd stick that on the DF humans, I think the system should probably be set up to allow that sort of wiggling.<P>As for leaders and good vs. evil ones etc., there really isn't a lot of interaction at this point between the leader's personality and their overall culture. Of course, that sort of thing is a drama/conflict goldmine and should be exploited, but we aren't there yet. In general though, instead of good vs. evil, it would have to handle the creatures personality and ethical framework vs. the personality and ethical framework of the host culture -- that would just have to be handled a step at a time. An elf enslaved from its formerly tree-loving society and placed in the role of a woodcutter currently feels no conflict -- I basically have to go through all of the professions and teach it more about each one so that critters can better judge their situation.<P>I'm sorry this is all sort of vague/rambling/dodging, but like I said, the core response here is that I'd like to have the game designed to answer most of the questions in more than one way. I don't really have a desired direction so much as I'd like a robust system. Of course, this is a lot of work, so many of the issues will fall squarely on one side of the fence or the other and choices will be made, but it's not something I can really anticipate for a given DF civilization, since I don't have strong feelings about it.<P>The same holds for all the metaphysical/deity stuff -- I'll put in as much as I can put in, and for magic and religion in particular, I'm not planning to do much with stock DF at all -- it really should be world dependent (though the already-defined religion spheres such as "fire" and so on will certainly constrain the outcome in stock DF a bit). Some of the religions should be fake (they are all fake now), and some of them should be real (probably has to wait for magic, though some elements can be put in early). Right now, religious groups can build temples and convert people within sites, but there aren't any attempts to convert outside of that, and there's no general notion of cultural diffusion or anything like that. This will start to come up more with the caravan arc when civilizations start to have non-violent dealings with one another.<P>... I have to get back to work. I apologize in advance for the lack of proofreading.
@half-elves: well, if I read their(elfs')ethics right, killing someone TO eat them is verboten. Only enemies are safe eats.I don't think you did. EAT_SAPIENT_KILL appears to mean eating people you killed (for any reason), while EAT_SAPIENT_OTHER means eating people who died some other way. Elves consider the former ACCEPTABLE, and the latter UNTHINKABLE, so apparently they think it's okay to eat people only if you kill this yourself.
half elf half tree hybrids FTW
The combinatorial explosion of proportion-of-elfs would get ridiculous. Plus, none of it would make that much sense without meaningful genetics. If Toady is putting genetics in the game, I'm sure all they're going to do would be simulate a lot of dwarves' predetermined traits.Presently, yes, as far as I'm understanding.
On the flip side, it'd be possible to just make all those creature tags act as genes, and maybe throw in some Mendelian (or semi-mendelian) interactions, which aren't at all hard for diploids.
or ENTShalf elf half tree hybrids FTW
So basically dryads?
If you wanted to go the boring elves and dwarves and humes are all subspecies the same way black and white are on Earth...
IRL, hybrids ae either sterile or their kids are.
I'm not sure what all of those are. There are probably exceptions, but given the definition of a species they're very, very rare.
I'm not sure what all of those are.
There are probably exceptions, but given the definition of a species they're very, very rare.
We can all have our separate opinions on this issue. It's kinda pointless to argue about reproductive barriers between elves and dwarves, ya know?Quote
I'm not sure what all of those are. There are probably exceptions, but given the definition of a species they're very, very rare.
I've always considered dwarves and orcs or elves and humands to be separate races, not species. more like the difference between a terrier and a rottweiler than the difference between a lion and a tiger.
I'd prefer it if half of the raws of each parent were randomly chosen for each child than a new one is created for each half race. it would take a lot more work to figure out but it would be a lot more flexible. not everything should randomly chosen, it should be based on logic, and there should be some raws controlling what could mate with what and how often it happens. maybe each tag could have a separate percentage on how often its chosen. so immortality would be rare but pointed ears would be common if you're dealing with half elves. maybe be considered similar to dominant and reccessive genes. though a bit simplified.Ugh, the way you described it sounds horrible. You'd have things like dwarf/elves that aren't alcoholic or nature-loving, or cat/people that can only be quadruped or humanoid, or wingless-but-flying birdman/people. Oy vey.
So, yes, after a while the world would be made up entirely of hybrids, but whats the difference between a human and a human who likes fighting. the fighting tag/gene could come from an orc or whatever, but after ten generations they'd look like humans and have the stats of humans, it'd just be a random genetic trait.Even assuming that dwarves and humans COULD interbreed freely and produce 100% fertile young, you're taking some liberties.
Thank you.I'm not sure what all of those are.
Cattle + Buffalo
Rainbow trout + cutthroat trout
False killer whale + dolphin
[canids]
A flower of some sort
Excellent. So we only need to define inter-species hybrids and figure out if the main races (here defined as dwarves, elves, humans, and goblins) are one highly-differentiated species (like domestic dogs), four species (there are separate species MUCH more similar than elves and dwarves), or what.QuoteThere are probably exceptions, but given the definition of a species they're very, very rare.True, they are, and can be safely ignored in simulations.
Excellent. So we only need to define inter-species hybrids and figure out if the main races (here defined as dwarves, elves, humans, and goblins) are one highly-differentiated species (like domestic dogs), four species (there are separate species MUCH more similar than elves and dwarves), or what.
I'm not sure if species work like that. I suppose there's no reason they couldn't, but I can't think of why they should. If it works like that, we could discuss that.Excellent. So we only need to define inter-species hybrids and figure out if the main races (here defined as dwarves, elves, humans, and goblins) are one highly-differentiated species (like domestic dogs), four species (there are separate species MUCH more similar than elves and dwarves), or what.
What about the possibility that they're connected by a "chain" of closeness? One species is close enough to another, which is close enough to another, and so on.
For example Elf -> Human -> Dwarf -> Goblin (as an example). So in this chain elves could breed with humans, who could breed with dwarves, who could breed with goblins. An elf could never breed with a dwarf or a goblin, but maybe an elf-human hybrid could breed with a dwarf, or even a dwarf-goblin hybrid.
Also, what about sentients that aren't part of the major civilizations? Even if it wouldn't happen normally, I can imagine benefits to forcing out dwarf-beastmen hybrids for their predatory nature or amphibious merdwarves. It would introduce a whole new category of crimes against nature.
I'm not sure if species work like that. I suppose there's no reason they couldn't, but I can't think of why they should. If it works like that, we could discuss that.Excellent. So we only need to define inter-species hybrids and figure out if the main races (here defined as dwarves, elves, humans, and goblins) are one highly-differentiated species (like domestic dogs), four species (there are separate species MUCH more similar than elves and dwarves), or what.
What about the possibility that they're connected by a "chain" of closeness? One species is close enough to another, which is close enough to another, and so on.
For example Elf -> Human -> Dwarf -> Goblin (as an example). So in this chain elves could breed with humans, who could breed with dwarves, who could breed with goblins. An elf could never breed with a dwarf or a goblin, but maybe an elf-human hybrid could breed with a dwarf, or even a dwarf-goblin hybrid.
Also, what about sentients that aren't part of the major civilizations? Even if it wouldn't happen normally, I can imagine benefits to forcing out dwarf-beastmen hybrids for their predatory nature or amphibious merdwarves. It would introduce a whole new category of crimes against nature.
And we could also discuss kobolds, trolls, or animalmen breeding with the four main races, but it seems improbable.
I'm not sure if species work like that. I suppose there's no reason they couldn't, but I can't think of why they should. If it works like that, we could discuss that.Excellent. So we only need to define inter-species hybrids and figure out if the main races (here defined as dwarves, elves, humans, and goblins) are one highly-differentiated species (like domestic dogs), four species (there are separate species MUCH more similar than elves and dwarves), or what.
What about the possibility that they're connected by a "chain" of closeness? One species is close enough to another, which is close enough to another, and so on.
For example Elf -> Human -> Dwarf -> Goblin (as an example). So in this chain elves could breed with humans, who could breed with dwarves, who could breed with goblins. An elf could never breed with a dwarf or a goblin, but maybe an elf-human hybrid could breed with a dwarf, or even a dwarf-goblin hybrid.
Also, what about sentients that aren't part of the major civilizations? Even if it wouldn't happen normally, I can imagine benefits to forcing out dwarf-beastmen hybrids for their predatory nature or amphibious merdwarves. It would introduce a whole new category of crimes against nature.
And we could also discuss kobolds, trolls, or animalmen breeding with the four main races, but it seems improbable.
Good point, I guess it's conceivable to me that it could work like that but I have no idea if it actually does. Another idea would be making some sentients highly differentiated members of the same species, but not all of them of the same species. I have no idea what the actual groups would be, but for example humans and elves, and maybe even dwarves, are at least relatively similar; maybe they could be organized into one species and other senients are organized with roughly similar sentients into other species? You'd have to figure out how to organize them of course, but it might be better than an "all one species or all different species" approach to sentients.
All of this sounds great, but there is one thing I'm wondering (If it's been asked and answered in another post, I'm sorry)
Producing offspring between two entity members requires a marriage
Producing offspring between two animals does not
While an animal-animal hybrid wouldn't need a marrige, and a sentient-sentient hybrid would, how would an animal-sentient hybrid, such as those between, say, an elf and a tigerman, work?
Would the sentient force a marriage on an animal, or simply not care as long as they aren't in their own marriage? When the human caravan shows up, will your cow herd give birth to minotaurs in 9 months from the humans? Even if that would be hilarious as that would be right as the elves show up to your fort, how would that be handled?
...Until cheating on a spouse is implemented.
If you don't want to be able to breed magical creatures like griffons and chimeras and such naturally, simply make slightly-edited raws that create magical/blessed/something variations of said animals that are untamable. These creatures could even be modded to not appear at all in normal games but still exist, but that's not as interesting.I'd rather there be tighter controls. Maybe magical hybrids can only be created from a few choice creatures in the raws, barring some rare worldgen events* or something.
Best make hybrids sterile.
Best make hybrids sterile.
or make the chances of getting a hybrid very low that only decreases with each generation. that way we can still get some more interesting breads but without getting out of hand.
I think if interspecies breeding for sentients is included, I think goblins and kobolds wouldn't be able to mate with the other races. Their DNA is too different.One of Threetoe's stories includes a romance between an Elf and a goblin.
Oh, I like this idea... even if toady restricts it to making cabbits
And changing the thing so that crossbreeds are possible is in fact non-trivial because it challenges the entire conceptual level in a roguelike of the term "creature type" and any and all code that is reliant on the concept of "creature type" being a non-mutable thing is now suspect and needs to be tested again or rewritten.Well, you could just have a special creature type hybrid that derives its properties from the parents. Deciding how races react to them (i.e., treat a half-elf dwarf as a dwarf, yet also as elf) is an extra matter, but it's not like anyone really cares about race yet, beyond breeding.
And what about breeding with demons, or other magical creatures?