Sub-Demons making babies

[Axelmania]

I was curious about something regarding the NGR baddies. For simplicity I have always assumed the following:
*male Gargoylite + female Gargoylite = baby Gargoylite
*male Gurgoyle + female Gurgoyle = baby Gurgoyle
*male Gargoyle + female Gargoyle = baby Gargoyle
*male Gargoyle Lord + female Gargoyle Lord = baby Gargoyle Lord
*male Gargoyle Mage + female Gargoyle Mage = baby Gargoyle Mage

Is it possible more complicated than this? Dealing with the 3 larger winged species for a start:
*could Mage + Mage produce a normal gargoyle or a Lord?
*could Lord + Lord produce a normal gargoyle or a Mage?
*could normal + normal produce a Mage or Lord?

Or...
*could a normal + Mage reproduce?
*normal+Lord?
*Lord+Mage?

Then going outside the winged guys...
*can a tall Gurgoyle and a short Gargoyle make a baby? how does the species of the mom or dad affect chances of the baby's species?
*ala Tito and Georgette from Oliver and Company, is it possible for a confident male Gargoylite to charm a female of one of the larger species and have children together?

It's never really been clear. Usually the rule is that you can only breed with your own species, but when it comes to this group of sub-demons I'm not really sure if they're considered distinct (infertile towards each other) or if they're just variants of one species (like Xiticix) and can mix.

Does anyone recall any books clarifying this somewhere? Perhaps some NPC example?

May as well throw in the 'Demongoyle' from Nightlands for consideration too. Can't recall if they made it into Dark Conversions.

I remember with Summoners in PF2 that Lords/Mages are considered 'greater beings' so I'm wondering if they might be on another tier or not regarding reproduction.

[Blue_Lion]

Well PB has a no half bread stance. So in theory only members of the same race could make babies.
I always assumed the gargoyle lord and mage where random mutations of gargoyle babies.

[SolCannibal]

Well PB has a no half bread stance. So in theory only members of the same race could make babies.
I always assumed the gargoyle lord and mage where random mutations of gargoyle babies.

My impression too, specially when one compares the similarities between a Gargolyte and a Gargoyle Lord - it's pretty much like one is a stunted unfinished version of the other.

[Axelmania]

Okay to review the lore "A Note on Biology" made it into CBrevised 41 and explicitly outlaws the following:

elf and human
human and Simvan
dragon and unicorn
vampire and dragon
titan and grackletooth
mutant dog and mutant cat

The language is "sexual partners must be of the same species" so I'll zero in on that last word.

We have some inclusion:

an intelligent, alien canine, such as the Wolfen and a mutant Dog Boy, might successfully mate and bear offspring .. They can have sex with a Dog Boy, or other intelligent mutant canine, Coyle or Kankoran, and produce healthy offspring

and then further exclusion:

"a dragon of one species cannot breed with a dragon of another species and produce offspring (i.e. an Ice Dragon and a Thunder LizarD) because each is so different from the other

So the question is... are Gurgoyle/Gargoyle differences closer to those between Wolfen/Psi-Hounds, or closer to those because Ice Dragons and Thunder Lizards? Here it describes dragons as explicitly "another species" which seems why it isn't allowed... So presumably "dragon" is another step up, like perhaps Genus or Family or Order? Not sure.

Page 4 of DB10(Hades) has a table of contents where "The Gargoyle Species" on 32 has the Lites, the Wingless, the Lords and Mages all as sub-bullets... so it sounds like it is one collective species, so I guess these 4 are considered "subspecies" sort of like the Javan Tiger is of the subspecies P. t. sondaica while tigers are overall of the parent species P. tigris

Also interesting, is we can see on page 31 is the heading "Demons by Species" though the context here isn't clear to me as to what other groups that might arrange.

Page 38 "Of all the Gargoyle species, the Mage is most likely to leave the flock" reinforces being part of a collective species too.

Pg 40 clarifies some separation for others:

The following are the Lesser Demons who call Hades home, starting with the least known species who seldom
leave that dimension of Hell, and are not well known throughout the rest of the Megaverse: the Demon Bat, Demon Fly, and Taursis
..
Possibly one of the only species of demons to rise from Fallen to Minion

Pg 100 is also interesting:

Each has a Netherbeast that is clearly unique, but from the same species.

Does anyone know the gender of the 4 Horsemen's Netherbeasts? Well, 3 Horsemen, since Pestilence's is a beetle. There is

pg 19 Bones (belonging to Death)
pg 23 Cyno (belonging to Famine)
pg 33 Carnage (belonging to War)

I can't find any references to gender. "used to telepathic commands from its master" and "from the tip of its snout to the end of its tail " both sound gender-neutral, as does Carnage's "it has curled ram ' s horns" and "it kills for the sheer pleasure" or "a long range
plasma cannon on both sides of its body" or "when War is seated on the beast or standing next to it"

I guess I shouldn't assume that demons necessarily have genders at all, they might be asexual creatures. The lack of gendered pronouns for Bones/Cyno/Carnage seems to make this a possibility, as opposed to the horseMEN who are all clearly male.

It would be neat if there was 1 male and 2 girls and then little baby apocalypse beasts could be born to help ruin planets.

Getting back to DB10, pg 164 says "various species of Worms of Taut", and then on 180 I encounter a dilemma:

Gargoyles are by far the dominant species in the Scorched Lands . They are closely followed by Gurgoyles and then Gargoylites.

Pg 180 makes it sound like they are different species, giving some context to interpret pages 4/32/38. Part of the problem is that the plural of a singular species is also spelled "species" so we need examples like that to understand.

Pg 32 refers to "five types of Gargoyles" which includes Gargoyles...

The best match I can think of this is how the western gorilla is called "gorilla gorilla". It seems like "gargoyle" is both the name of a species as well as a genus which includes the gargoyle species, as well as the gurgoyle species, the gargoylite species, the gargoyle mage species and the gargoyle lord species...

PF2 has some interesting parts to consider as well

313L "Gargoyles are a sub-class of demons, perhaps the result of genetic mutations in the demons' evolution"
313R "a strange, squat version of the gargoyle lords, further evidence of the varied gargoyle evolution."
314L "Gurgoyles are a smaller, wingless species of gargoyle"
314R "about one out of every 15,000 gargoyles is a mage"

Dragons and Gods pg 219 "Gargoyle Leaders" is a place worth consulting. Erloc is a "gargoyle lord" while his queen Leeves is an earth warlock, which sounds a lot like she is a gargoyle MAGE, but I don't know if they actually have any children. It might be that Erloc has a second wife who is a Gargoyle Lord for siring offspring?

Leeves is listed as being able to turn invisible while Erloc is not. This matches how PF describes mages as being able to go invisible but doesn't describe lords that way.

DB10p184 has further shipping of the male Lord + female Mage concept:

Sekloc is a fierce warrior and Gargoyle Lord
..
Sekloc is fiercely loyal to Lady Leeves and secretly yearns to be her mate

"Mate" sounds rather reproductive in nature, no? Doesn't exactly convey "let's be lovers who cannot make eggs together"

Further down the page reinforces this...

he is quite obsessed with Lady Leeves and siring the next generation of Gargoyles.

There seems a strong implication here that the next generation he wants to sire is with HER, no? This would be a strange thing to say if he actually meant "with some female Gargoyle Lord"

But if Lords/Mages and reproduce with each other, I can't see any grounds for preventing Gargoylite/Gurgoyle or Gurgoyle/Gargoyle mixing because they're all listed with equal distinction, aside from their names where there is no "gar" in gurgoyle, or "goyle" in "goylite"

Powmer, also a mage, is described as "the oldest living gargoyle"

DB10p196 refers to:

"a wingless Gargoyle who goes by the name of Anadax. He was a promising young Gargoyle Lord who resided in the Citadel to the east. One of Erloc's many children"

but doesn't specify who his mother is. It then mentions "an example to the rest of Erloc's children" and "the treachery of his siblings" so there's a minimum of 3 children of Erloc, probably a lot more than that.

197 actually says "all his brothers and sisters" so minimum 2 bros and 2 sis = minimum 5 children of Erloc. The other 4 might be Gargoyle Lords too... I would probably assume that was the case until I know otherwise. Trying to find if there's more info on Erlocin in the PF world books.

Page 86 of Dark Conversions has another interesting wrench:

Gargoyle Lords are so named because they are the natural leaders of the Gargoyle species

I guess that doesn't explicitly mean they are MEMBERS of the Gargoyle species though... but then it is followed by:

One out of every hundred Gargoyles is a Lord

I guess that could mean "100 members of the Gargoyle genus" rather than SPECIES though...


Pg 87:

the Gargoyle Lord's ability to turn into living stone suggests Gargoyles, as a race, may be related to Eleemnetals. Gargoyles just accept their abilities without question, consider themselves to be demons, and do not worship Elementals.

Only about one in 20,000 Gargoyles is a "Mage." They look exactly like any other winged Gargoyle

Gargoyles seem to be collectively considered a "race", and phrases like "the human race" make "race" and "species" sound like synonyms...

The recurring "of all the gargoyle species" on Dark Conversions 88, I'm still not sure if that's meant to be singular or plural...

88 also has this for the Gargoylite though...

Gargoylites are misfits among the giants of the Gargoyle species

[/list]

So does that mean they are part of the "Gargoyle species" or merely a different species of related misfits who live among them?

WB31 (Triax 2) pg 14

All species of Gargoyles, including the wingless Gurgoyles, lay eggs

The preceding "all" definitely makes "species" plural here! Supporting the "gargoyles are also a genus" interpretation. Pg 16 mentions "the Gargoyles and Gurgoyles are likely to flitter and run about in a frenzy of confusion and terror as they rush to protect the eggs" which makes it sound like even if there is species distinction that the Gar/Gur cohabitation means they may keep their eggs close together.

Still not really anything totally explicitly as to a yes or no about who can breed with who, just general guess that they're all separate species and thus can't...

This means there'd be pretty limited partner selection for reproducing Gargoyle mages though. It might be considered some kind of sacred duty for female Gargoyle Mages to be pregnant as much as possible so as to prevent their most-rare species from going extinct. Female gargoyle mages should really be the most precious resource of any gargoyle community and be heavily guarded!

[Blue_Lion]

Looking for breading logictics from PB is a wasted effort. It is not something they typically feel the need to discuss.

[SolCannibal]

Looking for breading logictics from PB is a wasted effort. It is not something they typically feel the need to discuss.

Except as a convenient tool to extrapolate one's own bits and pieces of lore, i guess. Using fragments such as these as evocative springboard to expand and improvise from, it's what we all do some of as GMs.

[Axelmania]

To abbreviate, I think Erloc being a Gargoyle Lord married to Leeves (a Gargoyle Mage) and Sekloc (also a Gargoyle Lord) implied as wanting to make babies with Leeves, implies that Lords/Mages are able to reproduce with each other.

Extrapolating from that, since Gargoyle Mages are as big as a standard Gargoyle, I don't see any problems with normies/Lords or normies/Mages reproducing with each other either.

Controversy comes when you have Gargoylites/Gurgoyles to consider, mostly. These 2 RCCS are no more distinct from the other 3 RCCS, as even without 'Gargoyle' in their name they are considered part of the Gargoyle collective, referred to as brothers, etc.

[SolCannibal]

As an aside, what sub-demons do we have around beside Gargoyles & Brodkill?

Or could basically any MDC mostly marauding/predatory race of D-bees or creatures of magic be considered a sub-demon? because of late i've been tempted to just equate it with the "a demon of the rifts" one might see with relative frequency in some of the older soucebooks and such.

[Axelmania]

Psyscape pg 115, the Vyarnect "Average Life Span: As a sub-demon, it is presumably immortal." I don't understand that presumption, as gargoyles are also sub-demons and NOT immortal...

DB10pg16 "Daemonix and similar low-powered supernatural beings are relegated to the category of Sub-Demon."

breading logictics from PB

How to use Create Bread and Milk to feed a planet with Techno-Wizardry or Fleshsculpting.

[SolCannibal]

Psyscape pg 115, the Vyarnect "Average Life Span: As a sub-demon, it is presumably immortal." I don't understand that presumption, as gargoyles are also sub-demons and NOT immortal...

DB10pg16 "Daemonix and similar low-powered supernatural beings are relegated to the category of Sub-Demon."

The Daemonix i did remember, but the Vyarnect reference in keep forgetting for some reason...