Questions on races.

Aram will have to answer this, of course, but so far the players have met or discussed humans, high elves, wood elves, dwarves (of two different sorts: those of Gal-Hadir and those of the southern lands), halflings, treents (on the decline), dragon turtles, gnomes (Flissa from episode #007) orcs and dragon-like creatures which circle the Worldstorm — not to mention constructs like golems or animals like bears, pigeons, chickens, foxes, ferrets, pigs and turtles. There are certainly more to meet: should we survive to do so. Half-elves and Half-orcs were done away with in the game (note: no one ever created the "half-dwarf"), and rightly so. These different species, created through different means and through different old gods' powers. Two separate species could never reproduce, no matter how often they tried. We don't have dragonborn or tiefling introduced in our game as of yet. If they do exist, it is not readily apparent to the Player Characters.

Outside of the game, in "meatspace", separate species reproduce together all the time.  Tigers and Lions are classified different species but they can interbreed (though in that case the resulting "ligers" are infertile).  If orcs/elves and humans have the same number of chromosomes and roughly the same anatomy then there's very little scientific reason why they couldn't interbreed.  Hybrids like that are surprisingly common in nature.  In fact, modern homo sapiens is such a hybrid.  I think most people know that our Cro Magnon progenitors cross bred with Neanderthal but going back even further it seems there were some intermingling with certain "proto" species of gorilla.

It is, of course, perfectly fine if DM Aram wants to remove playable hybrids from his game.  He's shown a few not-conventionally playable hybrids (dragon turtles?) but I'd say that also falls under DM's prerogative.  It's just that the reasoning that was explained during the show isn't entirely accurate for meatspace.  Perhaps genetics are a bit more simplistic in the Godsfall world.

 Maybe since the races are born from different gods that's what makes them incompatible. 

All right smarty pants. You win the gold star. You got me. It's a sad day for me, because I also have a masters degree in microbiology, was a research scientist on Cis-loop receptor activity [specifically Glycene receptors (GlyR) using electrophysiology techniques to chart gating activity when exposed to various agonists] at GW and likely took the same classes you have (though I'm a photojournalist these days). I should have been more clear: as explained in this game, the elves sprang from the trees as a creation of one God, dwarves were fashioned by another, and humans, halflings, orcs and gnomes were hyper-evolved from beasts with the tampering of the gods, or something like that. They are analogues that have gone through convergent evolution in the sense that they have two legs, two arms, two eyes and intelligence, but outside of this, they have vastly different internal structures. Notions of genetics, heredity, microbiology and recombinant DNA are completely foreign to this world (as of yet), but think of elves and humans like a robin and a bat. Yes, they both have wings, but they came by them in different ways and they would certainly not be capable of having offspring without the use of magic (in Godsfall). While you are correct IRL that certain different species close enough in base pair lineups in all the right places can interbreed and produce viable offspring, the intelligent races in Godsfall are not among them. Largely because, unlike as you say in "meatspace," in which all extant and extinct creatures were evolved from the same group of prokaryotes, some of whom were gobbled up and used by eukaryotes and then evolved with modification and then through natural forces, the creatures of Godsfall were all LITERALLY created by different gods. (Which we find fun and interesting, as Aram and I are both evangelical atheists in real life). It would be interesting if a modern team of humans were to punch a hole into the Godsfall dimension and then run some polymerase chain reactions and map the different creatures' genomes. Alas, it wouldn't make for a very good podcast, probably.

Oh, not at all. I thought it was funny given my background (which you couldn't possibly have known) and that I hadn't been precise. In our previous game that Aram, Doug (Dorro) and I played, I was the Storyteller. It was a highly-modified Vampire: the Masquerade game that we played for seven years. I threw in TONS of anatomy & physiology as well as microbiology and how it related to vampirism and how all the powers worked, and what the different tissues within a vampire's body were made of and how they worked in a system, etc. It was fun detail.

I bet! I haven't played Vampire in more than a few years but I can imagine how it would lend itself well to that level of detail.

I suspect you are right! We haven't had much interaction with gnomes yet (the only one was one of Aunt Rosia's "Ladies of the Night" in the Bluffs, and she seemed atypical), but I imagine that your idea absolutely happened somewhere. Of course, there is no magic right now (except for the players and a select few NPCs), but if, say, she's tied to the God of Invention . . . only time will tell.

Also, I just realized — there hasn't really been time enough for any meaningful evolution among macro species. The elves have basically gone through three generations if Aram keeps his current timeline without modification as seen here. If elves indeed came into the planet in 1519 and the Godswar happened in 4123 (with an additional 98 years since that time to the current day), elves have only been around for 2,702 years. If they live to be 900-1000, that's only a few generations. Phryane likely doesn't have a great, great grandfather, as her great grandfather was likely one of the first elves created. Four generations is not long enough for genetic variability to occur on any population (without "help"). Humans have basically had the time since the height of the Roman Empire to the modern day, and we see how little (if at all) humans have changed in that time. Yes, we live longer and are taller, but that has more to do with food distribution and access to medical technology than any natural selection forces. Sure — I'm sure that bacteria have evolved. Microevolution can be synthesized in a laboratory with single-celled organisms (and I used to do that all the time), but the type of timescale involved in macroevolution simply hasn't been met in this world. So, the different species in the world are truly distinct and unrelated. Darwin would have to go back to the drawing board in Godsfall.