I think this belongs here, someone move it if I'm wrong.

So, before I get to the thing I need some help brainstorming on, I should explain about Phantoms.

One could call them my way of having stereotypical elves without actually having stereotypical elves. They are no taller than humans, but generally slimmer in build. They are all elemental. I haven't decided on all of them, but here are a few of the types and their abilities.

Shadow: Can not control any element, but can blend into anything. Black hair, black eyes, and dark complexion.

Mist: Next best at blending into things. Can make fog, given that he isn't dehydrated or in a desert, as it pulls moisture from himself and from the air. He can blend into any precipitation, and some things like trees, etc. Dark hair and eyes, slightly lighter complexion than a Shadow, but humans have a hard time telling them apart.

Wind: Not very good at much. Can control wind to cause small whirlwinds and dissipate fog, but not much more. Silver hair, blue or gray eyes, and pale complexion.

Water: That's not the final name, and there may be more than one type in this category. Water Phantoms will have control over water, naturally be able to swim and stay under for longer periods of time than a human. Not sure whether to make them have blue hair or not, it'd be awfully fun...

There are a few more I've been thinking about, a fire one, or an earth one, or something along those lines. But that is not what I'm asking for help on (although it'd be handy). I'm wondering what ya'll would think would happen if a Phantom married a human. I've determined that if two Phantoms of different types marry, some of their children will be the one type (Say, Mist) and the others would be the second type (say, Wind). The Mists would be less powerful than their Mist parent, but not have any Wind power. Same with the Wind children. But if a human married a Phantom, what do you think would happen? Simply less powerful (but still phantom) children? Half human children and half Phantom children? I have no clue, genetics mostly confused me, so I don't even know how the different types would be determined/passed down....

So, if that confused you like it did me, I will let my character, a Phantom Mist, state his version of the question.

Kai: Now?

Me: Yes, now.

Kai: Amanda wants me or Klasi to marry a human, or Roel to marry a Phantom, and have kids, so she wants to know if it sounds possible and what sort of kids one would think we'd have.

Me: Very good!

Kai: I will kill you for this.

Me: Uh-huh.

Not going to be terribly helpful here. . . but I'd say that a few of the offspring would be elemental, although most would be more or less human. I say this mostly because is "feels right" - the Phantoms seem very powerful and making power rarer makes it more powerful. Plus you already have it so that the power genes can deteriorate. I'm sure other people will be able to give you a more scientific answer!

Think about how the physical attributes would be as well - a combination of Phantom and Human.

A certain amount of this is, "whatever the author says go." If you say the Phantom's powers are so strong all offspring carry the power, so be it (Now that would be cool - a halfbreed that looks like a human but has Phantom powers. o_0 You never know who hides elemental powers. . .). If you say the power genes can only be passed on if both parents are Phantoms, so be it. Just be consistent and your readers will believer you. Whatever works for the plot.

I quite like the idea. I think it would be cool if some of the children would be totally human, and others totally phantom. Just throwing that out there Anyhow, I like the idea.

I would imagine that a Phantom who married a human would have children that were half of each. Then the children of those children would be a fourth Phantom, and so on. Perhaps if a half-Phantom married a full Phantom, their children would be 75% Phantom. Or, like Kat said, maybe the children of marriage between a Phantom and human could produce children with no power, or it could vary, as Elanor said.

Lots of good ideas here.

So, everyone so far has agreed that some of the children would be human and some would be full (or slightly less powerful) Phantoms. Very interesting, that was one of the ideas that had least appeal to me. Yet it seems most logical to ya'll... Hmmm.

I love the human-looking Phantom idea. I can imagine all sorts of trouble such a person would get into...

*grin* That was mine. I had a lot of fun thinking up subplots while I typed that out. And it's realistic! That's a plus! More realistic is more troub- I mean fun!

If it's a recessive gene (one that doesn't appear as much) a human/phantom marriage would have only human children, but the children would have the Phantom gene, just it wouldn't appear because the human gene would be stronger. Here's where it gets interesting. If the offspring of a human and a phantom had children with a phantom, 25% of the offspring would be all phantom and 75% would be half human again. If a half phantom had children with a human, 25% would be all human and 75% would be human with the recessive phantom. Now, if a halfbreed had children with another halfbreed, 25% would be phantom, 25% would be human, and 50% would be human with the recessive gene for phantoms. Hopefully I didn't make that too confusing and remember that's just what would happen in our world, this is an entirely different world.

Another idea is that the children of a human and phantom could be either more powerful or more likely, have no power at all.

^ That was the scientific post I predicted! *was to lazy to go find the information herself* Smart, Griffin.

I ran into this issue with one of my races, too...still haven't really resolved it, actually, so take my advice with a grain of salt, I guess.

I don't think anyone really knows how the genetics would work out for a human/non-human breed, since we haven't run across any aliens whose genes we can study. As long as you're consistent, your readers shouldn't complain too much.

A random suggestion for how things could go: what if half-human, half-Phantom children have some of the attributes, but not all of them? For instance, a half Mist Phantom who can blend into things but can't make fog.

I don't think I have any other ideas right now. I like the human appearance, Phantom powers idea, though.

I think you've got a lot of freedom to choose whatever you like. The main thing I would say is that half-Phantoms probably should be less powerful than full Phantoms since you said that when two different types of Phantoms marry, their children are less powerful. Unless, of course, you want human blood in some odd way to actually amplify Phantom powers...

Yah, I think I lost you a bit, Griffen, but that's fine. Methinks I got the jist, though.

I think I'm going to go with a combination of most of the ideas. The children will be varying degrees of powerfulness, having either none, one, or both of the Phantom powers. Most of them will look very human, but some may look Phantom, depending on what I need for the story. Does that sound logical?

Thanks for all of ya'll help!

Droid is definitely right on this one: whatever you say, so long as you are consistent, your readers will accept.
Judging by the result of two different Phantom types inter-marrying, I would suspect that a Phantom-human intermarriage would result in a powerless being. Since a Phantom's appearance is humanoid, just different complexion, hair, and eyes, physical appearance would work like it does for us, a mix. Just look at the result of someone of one human race here intermarrying with another race: something in between.
The fun part comes in how genetics works like Griffin explained, though I have my own application. Suppose we have a half-breed marrying another half-breed. Since they have normal appearances, they may not even each know that the other is a half-breed. Approximately 25% of the time, depending on various factors which Griffin mentioned a little, you will get a full-blown Phantom from two half-breeds! Just how awesome would that be? Two totally normal looking, magic less beings have a child that is different looking and has magical powers!
Another interesting application would be to see the result of the mixing of Phantom and human genes. It is possible that the two would interact in some unpredictable way... which you can make up
As to blue hair, I think that would be kind of cool. I could accept blue hair in any of this sort of color, but probably not this.

Also, that might not happen at all, even in our world. For instance, when you breed a tiger and a lion, you don't get 25% lion, 25% tiger, and 50% liger, you just get ligers! So you can totally disregard my former post if you want.

The problem with thinking about it genetically is that in humans children don't get some of their parents' DNA, they get a complete set of each parent's genetic information. I've played with this idea in real life (I'm 1/4 Mexican and wonder what my kids would be if I married a half-breed) and the fact that I trip up on is that genetic information never disappears, so it's technically for two separate races to ever produce offspring that are 100% of either race, the other genetic information would always be there, even if it does not physically manifest. The other thing is that you talk about being whole-phantom as if the powers are the only thing that make phantoms different from humans so if they have powers they're phantoms if they don't then they're not. It would make sense if phantoms thought this way and could create an interesting cultural response to mix-breeds. Again, this just looking at how heredity works in humans, it need not apply to your world if you don't wish it too.

On a side note, your phantoms are NOTHING like elves, which is a high compliment in my book

First dealing with the side notes...

Reiyen-- That was what color of hair I was thinking of too, pale, not manga-ish. (in case you don't know, manga characters have this tendency to dye their hair bright, weird colors. Dunno why. )

Seer-- Lol, thanks!

Secondly dealing with the genetics...

All three of you -- Mostly, you lost me. Don't feel like it's your fault - I mentioned genetics confused me, remember? So, what I'm getting out of what ya'll are saying is that I've got free reign as author, and genetics doesn't matter tons in a fantasy story, but I may want to take it into account occasionally. And a Phantom with powers could come up suddenly, several generations away from any full-Phantom parents. (which makes for a nice plot. )

Thirdly, more questions.

Seer, you mentioned that the only difference I made between Phantoms and humans is the power that they have. There's also the hair coloring for some of them, but is that enough? I mean, do they just seem like humans with powers or another whole race?

Ugh... I had another one, but forgot it. It was important too, one Kai was going to kill me for. Argh.

Thanks again for ya'll's help and for putting up with my lack of understanding about genetics.

Well, culture will solve most of the humans-with-powers problem(Basically if powers are common for phantoms, the way they live and interact with the world should reflect that it's common place for them). One of the easiest mistakes to make when creating a race with abilities that humans don't have is to have that race act like a character's power is something new and unheard of. If it's truly a common trait in that race, they should live like it.

If your phantoms share common ancestry with humans, then the powers and hair colors being the only major differences is ok. But if they're a totally different race altogether, then it's kind of like lions and tigers mating. Lions and tigers are totally different creatures with completely unique DNA, so their offspring have totally unique DNA. I know you don't get genetics, but I think that should make sense.

Let's see if I can better illustrate it with human races. When people of two different races have children, the children have a variety of their parents' different traits besides just unique skin color. For instance, the child of a White parent and Black parent, have different skin color, unique hair texture (some have the Black parent's kinky, curly hair, some have the White parent's smoother hair). These along with several other traits make it plain that the individual has unique parentage.

So, with your Phantom-Human offspring, you can add a few other features that set them apart from the rest like musculature, cheek bones, hands/feet proportions, etc. Also, in most cases where two unique kinds of creatures have children together, the offspring are usually sterile. This is all stuff from our world, your world can have totally different rules if you so choose. Hope that didn't further confuse you.

In Christ,
Jordan

P.S. - Yes, it's very legitimate for a distant descendant of a full-blooded phantom to manifest phantom powers.

I will remember to add that to the equation of their culture. Thanks!



Didn't confuse me too bad. Rather; it was very helpful. Now I can get on with plotting my character's demise.

Those Phantoms sound really cool! And that's all I have to say. Well, maybe I have one thing...
You know how if a male donkey and a female horse mate, the offspring is a mule? Well, I read that sometimes mules are fertile, and if a female mule and a male horse mate, the offspring will be 100% horse. I don't know where I read that, or if it is totally accurate, but it's cool.

Thanks.

That is cool!

Those would be the genes I was talking about. (Assume a college professor like tone) A-hem, see, the mule is fifty percent horse and fifty percent donkey, so when it mates with a mule, 75% would be practically all horse and 25% would be horse with recessive donkey genes that don't manifest themselves.

Right.
Amanda, which story are the Phantoms in? Oh, and why exactly are they called Phantoms?

They're in my story "Battle for Arr'etta". My only novel-length story currently, actually. They got their name because of the Tennebrae, who can pass through objects. I'm still trying to find a better name for them, a name that they call themselves. I think I had one floating around in my Gdocs a while ago, but I can't remember what it is....

Do you have that story posted on here somewhere?

Yupyup, right over here. viewtopic.php?f=117&t=2875 I need to update it.

Cool, thank you!