Re: Bestiality in Prax?

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_v2Bipc2zst3dxOPEw-sDM5JBhOcvrzZ_q-f3grBBN73_CCs8-m75hmi6tjJv6jgD>
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:10:51 -0000

Guy asks:
> If Praxians prefer to marry members of their own tribe, wouldn't inbreeding
> eventually be a big problem? I can't imagine that Prax supports enough
> genetic diversity per tribe to avoid nasty genetic issues cropping up
> (assuming that's a concern in Glorantha).

I think that Glorantha can't work the same way as the real world on this topic. At the dawn, most communities were tiny remnants of a few hundred people at most. If inbreeding caused such huge genetic problems, then humanity would have expired. Of course, perhaps there were such genetic problems all the defective genes were quickly bred out, somewhat like the Ptolemies. Or maybe there were lots of communities that didn't survive and the survivors are the ones that bred out the defects. Or maybe the situation was somehow like whatever happened to real world humanity 70,000 years ago, when that supervolcano so reduced humanity that the remaining maternal genetic lines were reduce to under 1000 people worldwide. But tor me, MGF says it's just not a problem.

Chris