Half Orcs... Does it matter which gender was the orc?

[Jonny Nexus]

Whilst reading the "Alternate" half orc backstories thread, a thought occurred to me:

Does it make a difference if it was a male human and a female orc, or a female human and a male orc?

Why do I ask this?

Well if you breed a male donkey and a female horse, you get a mule. When you breed a male horse and a female donkey, you get a hinny - and they're different.

Hinnies are not similar to mules in that they are generally more intelligent than horses, and more cooperative than donkeys.

Hinnies are on average slightly smaller than mules. Hinnies are smaller because donkeys are, for the most part, smaller than horses, and the growth potential of equine offspring is influenced by the size of the dam's womb. Mules, however, have horse females as mothers, so they can be as large as the size of the largest breed of horse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny

Similarly, if you breed a male lion and a female tiger you get a liger, where the other way round you get a tigon. Tigons are around the same size as lions and tigers, but ligers are huge:

They are the largest cats in the world... Jungle Island in Miami is home to a liger named Hercules, the largest non-obese liger, said to weigh over 900 lbs,[9] over twice the size of a male lion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger

I've also heard stories about the sizes of cross-bred dogs. Supposedly, like mules and hinnies, the dogs' size is determined by the mother's size (otherwise she might end up exploding if the pups are bigger than her!) So if a male Alsation breeds with a female Jack Russell, you'll get Jack Russell sized Alsation-Jack Russell crosses.

Given that Orcs and humans are *very* different, far more so than different "races" of humanity, could the gender makeup not make a difference? Now size isn't so different:

According to the SRD, an adult male orc is a little over 6 feet tall and weighs about 210 pounds, whereas a human male (on average) is 5' 9" and weighs 175 pounds.

But I could still imagine a situation where half-orcs with a orc mother are bigger than half-orcs with a human mother. Secondly, personality. I could quite believe that personality could be different, with perhaps (say) those with Orc fathers being more violent than those with Orc mothers.

What do you think? Interesting setting twist?

Or am I thinking about this too much?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Secondly, personality. I could quite believe that personality could be different, with perhaps (say) those with Orc fathers being more violent than those with Orc mothers.

If I was going to predict a difference on that side it would be the opposite one - fetal development and some personality traits can be linked to womb environment (which it why it is accurate in different ways to say that an egg donor and a surrogate mother are both the same child's "biological mother".)

an interesting topic which I will get into with boring bio/genetics talk when not late for a hearing test...

 

[Voadam]

Orc with the half-human template to represent a different hybrid mix? (from Book of Templates)