Human and Spirit Hybrids

[xela_nut]

There is a topic that I've been thinking of for a while:
What would happen if a human and a spirit reproduced?

There are basically two parts for this: is it possible for a human and a spirit to have a child and what would that child look like?

As for whether or not it's possible, I know that the answer is: if the GM says it's possible, then it is.

But does this have any basis in the actual lore? In 1e, the Infernal supplement had human/demon children, but while demons are spirits, their nature is fairly ambiguous beyond that. And I'm not certain about Infernal's canonicity in 2e. The Lucifuge seems to indicate that humans and spirits can have children; however, the Lucifuge's abilities affect demons with the Infernal Dread Power. Spirits don't have dread powers, so the demons are physical beings. Even if they are spirits, demons are clearly different from other spirits due to their connection to Hell.

As for whether or not spirits could do the deed with humans at all, spirits of lust and reproduction probably could. They'd have motivation to by their nature as well. Spirits that look like humans likely could as well. Though, spirits don't create more spirits like how humans create more humans. Even the spirits that do create other spirits don't do it through the same method humans do. Though, Luna and Father Wolf had children together, this could be due to a difference between Pangeans and spirits or they might have used a method humans don't. Spirits could want to have children with humans for any number of reasons.

Now, assuming the GM decides it is possible, the next question is what would these children be like? Both in lore and mechanically. The Lucifuge could be a good basis, but I'm not certain about that since many of their powers are based around Hell, regardless of the edition. So, I'm not sure.

[Snowsong]

The Sundered World has a brief mention of people claiming "river blood" as descendants of people who wed river spirits for a time, and they were seen as likely to Awaken as mages of the Path of the Sea / Moros. Whether that remains possible today with the Gauntlet up and Pangaea lost is up to the ST. What they would be like is anyone's guess, though I'd take inspiration from Wolf-Blooded Tells and various supernatural merits to find some suitable gift or curse to saddle them with, likely a mimicry of their nonhuman parent's ban or bane alongside some control of their Influence.

[xela_nut]

The Sundered World has a brief mention of people claiming "river blood" as descendants of people who wed river spirits for a time, and they were seen as likely to Awaken as mages of the Path of the Sea / Moros. Whether that remains possible today with the Gauntlet up and Pangaea lost is up to the ST. What they would be like is anyone's guess, though I'd take inspiration from Wolf-Blooded Tells and various supernatural merits to find some suitable gift or curse to saddle them with, likely a mimicry of their nonhuman parent's ban or bane alongside some control of their Influence.

That sounds like a pretty good idea for a starting point.

[Satchel]

Biology is weird in the Chronicles, as most capably demonstrated by the breadth of example Variations from Mutants in Deviant. Claiming and other long-term possession could conceivably give enough of a magical tilt to the host body's genes to be passed along to any offspring they manage to produce, Numina and Dread Powers are broad enough in conceptual impact that a Materialized ephemeral being could do similarly through stranger or more direct channels, and of course ritual magic and Fortean phenomena can manage all sorts of weird shit.

Questions of whether the offspring in question are human enough at birth to get a soul and/or suffer the effects of soullessness or deal with other hungers of their condition would need to be answered, as may the issue of whether supernatural qualities are present from birth or "activate" like demon-blooded or Genotypal Remade in response to particular stimuli.

It's known that the effects of powerful magic can be genetically heritable and that magical entities strong enough to be considered godlike beings can generally manage effects with greater staying power, but also typical spirits aren't called "ephemeral beings" for the enduring quality of their works and "everything has a spirit" tends to be less granular in execution than "the denizens of the Shadow absorb the spiritual impressions of just about everything that stands out across the Gauntlet" — spirits of lust and reproduction act in line with the nature of those concepts, which does not necessarily mean they will be attempting to couple and/or reproduce with humans instead of playing meat-fairy matchmaker with the teens at Makeout Point.

The Shadow and the magic related to it are diverse enough that "what would hypothetical spirit-hybrid children be like?" is a question that needs narrower contexts to answer without just shotgunning random examples at the wall; an alchemist whose mother worked out how to invite a Paracelsian gnome to inhabit a cluster of egg cells in an incubator is going to work differently than a feral child born of the frenzied union between a backpacker and a minor god of the hunt, who in turn won't have much in common with the pseudo-vampires from a clan of mediums so Open to the spirits of the night that bits of its substance run through their veins.

[xela_nut]

Biology is weird in the Chronicles, as most capably demonstrated by the breadth of example Variations from Mutants in Deviant. Claiming and other long-term possession could conceivably give enough of a magical tilt to the host body's genes to be passed along to any offspring they manage to produce, Numina and Dread Powers are broad enough in conceptual impact that a Materialized ephemeral being could do similarly through stranger or more direct channels, and of course ritual magic and Fortean phenomena can manage all sorts of weird shit.

Questions of whether the offspring in question are human enough at birth to get a soul and/or suffer the effects of soullessness or deal with other hungers of their condition would need to be answered, as may the issue of whether supernatural qualities are present from birth or "activate" like demon-blooded or Genotypal Remade in response to particular stimuli.

It's known that the effects of powerful magic can be genetically heritable and that magical entities strong enough to be considered godlike beings can generally manage effects with greater staying power, but also typical spirits aren't called "ephemeral beings" for the enduring quality of their works and "everything has a spirit" tends to be less granular in execution than "the denizens of the Shadow absorb the spiritual impressions of just about everything that stands out across the Gauntlet" — spirits of lust and reproduction act in line with the nature of those concepts, which does not necessarily mean they will be attempting to couple and/or reproduce with humans instead of playing meat-fairy matchmaker with the teens at Makeout Point.

The Shadow and the magic related to it are diverse enough that "what would hypothetical spirit-hybrid children be like?" is a question that needs narrower contexts to answer without just shotgunning random examples at the wall; an alchemist whose mother worked out how to invite a Paracelsian gnome to inhabit a cluster of egg cells in an incubator is going to work differently than a feral child born of the frenzied union between a backpacker and a minor god of the hunt, who in turn won't have much in common with the pseudo-vampires from a clan of mediums so Open to the spirits of the night that bits of its substance run through their veins.

Okay, I'll clarify things. What I mean is the hybrid of a human and a spirit through reproduction like how humans reproduce. If the example needs to be very specific and incredibly narrowed down, maybe we could go with this example that I just came up with:
A spirit of knowledge that looks at least somewhat like a human wants to know what it's like to be a parent, whether humans and spirits can have children, what a human and spirit child would look like, and it wants a pawn in the material world that would be more loyal to it than the typical humans it recruits are. So, this spirit of knowledge reproduces with a human. Because the child is born in the material world and the spirit's plans for the child are based in the material world, the human in this situation is female and will give birth to the hybrid child, assuming one is produced.

[TheStray7]

Okay, I'll clarify things. What I mean is the hybrid of a human and a spirit through reproduction like how humans reproduce. If the example needs to be very specific and incredibly narrowed down, maybe we could go with this example that I just came up with:
A spirit of knowledge that looks at least somewhat like a human wants to know what it's like to be a parent, whether humans and spirits can have children, what a human and spirit child would look like, and it wants a pawn in the material world that would be more loyal to it than the typical humans it recruits are. So, this spirit of knowledge reproduces with a human. Because the child is born in the material world and the spirit's plans for the child are based in the material world, the human in this situation is female and will give birth to the hybrid child, assuming one is produced.

Do you want Genotypal Coactive Remade? 'Cause that's how you get Genotypal Coactive Remade. (well, one of many ways, but I imagine numerous Genotypals are the result of "close encounters of the sexy kind")

[xela_nut]

Do you want Genotypal Coactive Remade? 'Cause that's how you get Genotypal Coactive Remade. (well, one of many ways, but I imagine numerous Genotypals are the result of "close encounters of the sexy kind")

So, a Coactive Remade can come as a result of a human and a spirit reproducing? I think that answers my question of what a human and servant hybrid through reproduction would look like. Thanks. Or is that just for this specific spirit and not spirits in general?

[TheStray7]

So, a Coactive Remade can come as a result of a human and a spirit reproducing? I think that answers my question of what a human and servant hybrid through reproduction would look like. Thanks. Or is that just for this specific spirit and not spirits in general?

Deviants are basically the "make shit up for origins" of the splats, and can have just about any justification for their Variations as you can get your Storyteller to agree to without their eyes rolling into the back of their skull. So yes, a Coactive Remade is one possible result. You could also use the Horror rules to build them, granting them Numina as their Dread Powers. Or you could make them automatically Claimed. There's numerous paths you could follow mechanically to get to a "human-spirit hybrid"

The real question is "what is this being's story purpose?" not "can it happen ever?" The answer to "can it happen" is always "if the Storyteller wants it to," so it's not a very interesting question.

I know this is a very Doylist take, not a Watsonian answer, but I feel it's important to distinguish if we're coming up with a PC backstory, an STC, or just theorycrafting.

[21C Hermit]

So, a Coactive Remade can come as a result of a human and a spirit reproducing? I think that answers my question of what a human and servant hybrid through reproduction would look like. Thanks. Or is that just for this specific spirit and not spirits in general?

There’s probably not a ‘general’ answer to this, unless the Storyteller dictates such.

If you want it so, that same knowledge-spirit’s first son could be a Deviant, the first daughter a Wolf-Blooded, the second son a Medium (with the Supernatural Merit), and so on.

[Stupid Loserman]

There’s probably not a ‘general’ answer to this, unless the Storyteller dictates such.

Seconding this.

The genotypal deviant (wow that phrase looks bad without the style guide Game Concept Capitalization) is absolutely a good possibility for an outcome from intercourse between a human and a spirit. So is a Wolf-Blooded. So is just a normal spirit, or a hunter with Endowments based on reflavored Castigations, or a human with unique supernatural quirks not covered by any established splat. So is stillbirth, or stranger outcomes like the birth releasing not a child but a natural disaster that afflicts both flesh and spirit world. Lots of options to choose from based on what best fits the use case in game, like whether it's a player or non-player character.

The Chronicles of Darkness are full of strange things and odd one-off stories, and the game's air of mystery benefits from remaining flexible and undefined for edge case events that don't come up often enough to need to detail regularly. Particular societies of sorcerers and mad savants can probably gain insight over time as to trends and associations from these things, but y'know, my personal home table probably wouldn't be enthusiastic about a plot hook involving mages running spirit eugenics breeding programs, not every story has to be told. Outside of such organized efforts, characters who come to know these events often are only familiar with one or two strange incidents. They tell the immediate details of each circumstance without knowing what underlies the phenomenon. It's a world of campfire stories and urban legends.

[xela_nut]

Understood, and thank you. So, to boil everything down:
It all depends on what the storyteller decides, and there are a massive amount of possibilities for how it could work.
Is that correct?

[21C Hermit]

Certainly seems so. Unless it’s something really wonky, like a spirit’s child being a changeling. (Becoming a changeling later on, on the other hand…)

[ArcaneArts]

Understood, and thank you. So, to boil everything down:
It all depends on what the storyteller decides, and there are a massive amount of possibilities for how it could work.
Is that correct?

More directly, the published material so far has not been very particular on spirit/human offspring, so what's available is what you're willing to create.

[xela_nut]

More directly, the published material so far has not been very particular on spirit/human offspring, so what's available is what you're willing to create.

Ah, I see. Thank you. And thank you to everyone else too.