Line #79 Main/HybridOverkillAvoidance


1	[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/RustyAndCo https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Hybrid_Horror_77.png]]]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:[[PowerUpgradingDeformation This]] has its drawbacks.]]
3
4	->''"For years, we've been trying to combine the bloodlines [vampire and werewolf]. And for years, we've failed. It was useless. Even at the cellular level, our species seemed destined to destroy each other."''
5	-->-- '''Singe''', ''Film/Underworld2003''
6
7	Some people like a NinjaPirateZombieRobot, which is why making a HybridMonster that combines two fantastic creatures into one, like a cyborg-centaur or a demon-elf, is popular in fiction. However, like most good things, it can be a bit overdone.
8
9	This is especially true when an author wants to conserve as much WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief as possible; believe it or not, readers [[OxymoronicBeing might have trouble swallowing]] a half [[ElementalEmbodiment sunlight elemental]] / half [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampire]].
10
11	In a superhero setting, which is often a FantasyKitchenSink, the trope expands to include 'super-origins' as well. A character's powers, however diverse, need a single unifying theme. Logically, if aliens ''and'' FunctionalMagic are real, there's no reason magic would be restricted to the one planet Earth and there must be [[WizardsFromOuterSpace alien magicians]] ''somewhere'' in the universe, but they won't appear as main characters. Undead who are bitten by radioactive hamsters don't manifest additional hamster-related powers: they just eat the hamster.
12
13	In a game setting, this trope is used to avoid the presence of NinjaZombiePirateRobot [[GameBreaker throwing]] CompetitiveBalance [[GameBreaker right out the window]] when you can, within the rules, get any power listed on any species' charts with limited or no {{Necessary Drawback}}s. It's essentially a way for the designers or {{Game master}}s to avoid someone making an overpowered [[TheRedMage Red Mage]]. Smart game designers (or ones that have had experience like Creator/WhiteWolf, makers of ''TabletopGame/TheWorldOfDarkness'') have gone the extra mile to explain why such hybrids can't exist.
14
15	Inside the story, this is usually {{justified\|Trope}} (or at least given a decent HandWave) by having one supernatural/technological/biological "monster" or race be naturally [[TheImmune immune]] (or [[MadeOfExplodium violently]] [[WeaksauceWeakness allergic]]) to being hybridized with another. For example, a character who's been [[ViralTransformation changed]] into a werewolf can't be [[{{Mutant}} mutated]] with TheVirus since their HealingFactor protects them from further mutation. Robots won't become [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]] if they don't have a [[OurSoulsAreDifferent Soul]] in the setting.[[note]]{{Virtual Ghost}}s are doable, though.[[/note]] For whatever reason, in some settings characters can only change into one kind of supernatural critter, or only be one ''"at a time".''
16
17	Sometimes, the "immunity" is due to the idea that the character can't be changed from one type of their common category to another, such as zombies and vampires, which are different types of their common category of [[TheUndead undead]].[[note]]In fact, the two were once synonymous, with the only significant difference being that the former were from African folklore and the latter from European folklore.[[/note]] Sometimes the offspring only inherits one of their parent's types, or a few, but not all, of either's traits. Subverting this trope is usually a very big deal, it marks the [[MonsterProgenitor birth]] of a powerful and {{Unique\|nessValue}} creature that can upset the {{Status Quo\|IsGod}} thanks to OneHeroHoldTheWeaksauce.
18
19	See also HybridsAreACrapshoot, where this trope is averted with detrimental results.
20
21	----
22	!!Examples
23
24	[[foldercontrol]]
25
26	[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
27	* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Quincies and Hollows are opposite existences to one another, enabling Quincies to utterly destroy Hollows instead of cleansing them like Soul Reapers do. On the flipside, Hollowfication -- which involves fusing a Hollow's soul and/or spiritual power with a host's to create a hybrid -- empowers Soul Reapers but is extremely toxic to Quincies, with only one known case surviving due to unique circumstances.
28	* ''Anime/BNABrandNewAnimal'': While different species of BeastMan can procreate with each other, their children always belong to one of the parents' species - hybrids don't exist. [[spoiler:It later turns out that different kinds of Beastmen breeding results in offspring that are weaker. The BigBad is a pure blooded wolf beastman who wants to wipe out all of the beastmen with mixed ancestry because he sees them as inferior beings and not real beastmen.]]
29	* In ''Manga/TokimekiTonight'', protagonist Ranze's father is a vampire and her mother is a werewolf. She's apparently normal, with no traits of either, until she develops retractable fangs and anytime she bites something with them she turns into that object until she sneezes. Rinze, her five year old brother, is more or less a werewolf.
30	* ''Manga/TheDarkQueenAndIStrikeBack'':
31	** Different kinds of inhumans can interbreed, but the resulting mixed-blood offspring will only show traits of one inhuman type (and will look closer to humans than pureblood inhumans).
32	** Glorya (and apparently other Arborian Dryads) is an exception to the general rule. She can produce offspring with traits of other inhumans, though so far these are all shown to be non-sentient.
33	** [[spoiler:Tsukumo and Sumire]] are exceptions, but they're the result of experimentation rather than natural birth.
34	* ''Manga/MonsterMusume'' confirms that any child of a monster/human pairing is an apparently un-hybridised monster, this being the only thing that allows certain one-gender species to survive. [[spoiler: Mia, Papi, and Centoria]] are all examples, and near clones of their mothers.
35	[[/folder]]
36
37	[[folder:Comic Books]]
38	* ''ComicBook/MarvelZombies'':
39	** The series overall toys with this. The entire premise involves the fact that the zombie virus affects essentially all superheroes, which naturally leads to superhero zombies, as well as zombies based on all manner of other superhero-adjacent entities (such as Morbius becoming a vampire zombie). However, it's also shown that becoming a zombie can sometimes shut down aspects of a hero's powers--for instance, heroes with HealingFactor abilities lose those abilities, since zombies can't heal. The plague also can't affect anything fully robotic.
40	** ComicBook/WerewolfByNight gets infected with the zombie virus, but because his biochemistry changes when he transforms the disease remains limited to his human form. So hitting the human zombie with magically created moonlight gives back a healthy (but feral) WolfMan.
41	* Exploited in ''[[Creator/VertigoComics The New Deadwardians]]'', in which the upper class of post-Victorian England protect themselves from a [[ZombieApocalypse zombie plague]] by taking "the cure". What is "the cure"? Why, vampirism.
42	* Post-Crisis ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' comics say that Kryptonians couldn't have children with normal humans but could theoretically breed with humans or aliens with similar powers such as ''Franchise/WonderWoman'' or Maxima.
43	** Before the ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' Kryptonians could breed with humans but the child would be half as powerful, with each generation's powers being halved the more they breed with humans.
44
45	[[/folder]]
46
47	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
48	* The ''Film/Underworld2003'' movies have this trope justified through biological incompatibility. [[SubvertedTrope Once they find a guy who has the genetic traits allowing for both werewolf]] ''[[HybridMonster and]]'' [[HybridPower vampire genes, however...]]
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Folklore]]
52	* The hippogryph was considered a mythological creature by the standards of mythological creatures. Gryphons (lion-eagle hybrids) eat horses, so the idea of a lion-eagle-horse was deemed completely impossible.
53	[[/folder]]
54
55	[[folder:Literature]]
56	* Averted in the Literature/{{Xanth}} series in a several ways:
57	** To begin with, each succesive human generation has a chance of becoming less human and more magical than the last, evolving into all sorts of humanoid things like goblins, dryads, fairies, and metal-people.
58	** Any humanoid or human-ish thing can succesfuly hybridize with any other humanoid or human-ish thing.
59	** '''Any''' two species of '''any''' sort who simultaneously drink from a [[LovePotion love spring]] ''will'' copulate, and ''will'' subsequently issue hybrid progeny. (Horse + human = centaur is the usual example given. {{Squick}}.)
60	::The only reason that there are still humans in Xanth at all is that successive waves of immigrants from the mundane world keep coming into Xanth and replenishing the gene pool before it disintegrates.
61	* ''Literature/MyVampireOlderSisterAndZombieLittleSister'': Vampires and zombies are unable to infect each other. There is one occasion where a human is bitten by both simultaneously, but they die (of injury) before either infection can take hold. It's worth noting that the two races also have different means of infection: vampires need to specifically suck out a lethal amount of blood, while zombies can infect with just a bite. As a result, it would probably be difficult for someone to be infected by both, even if it was possible.
62	* Done differently in different places in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Elves and humans can reproduce, but their descendants have the choice of whether to be human or elven. For example, Elrond chose to be an elf and remained immortal (despite being given the epithet "half-elven"), while his brother chose to be human and died having lived not much longer than other humans. Arwen, Elrond's daughter, later chose to become human when she married Aragorn, despite having already lived a couple of millennia as an elf.
63	** The uruk-hai, on the other hand, are hybrids of orcs and humans, and are bigger and stronger than both while not suffering from weakness to daylight like regular orcs.
64	* In one of the ''Literature/AnitaBlake'' novels, a character reacts with surprise when he hears about a vampire who is also a pedophile because it is supposed to be impossible to be more than one kind of monster at a time.
65	* In ''Literature/TheWarGods'' the 5 races of man are 5 different human subspecies. While its possible for any two to have a child together, the resulting hybrid usually is infertile.
66	** Half-elves are the main exception as a TrueBreedingHybrid, with the Purple Lords trying to make Half-elves recognized as the sixth race. However, if Half-elves have children with a human, the children are purely human. Half-elves can only product half-elf children with elves and half-elves. Enough half dwarves have also existed that some dwarf-blood is common in the Axemen.
67	** However, the biggest issue appears to be how the species ties to the magic field. Elves tie into it for immortality (but used to be a MageSpecies). Dwarves have stoneworking magic, Hradani get stamina and antimagic, Halfings their dexterity. Only Human and Human-Hradani hybrids can become wizards however.
68	* There was a werewolf in ''Literature/TheSouthernVampireMysteries'' who was bitten by a vampire and lost the ability to transform into a wolf. Sadly given the FurAgainstFang setting, he's hated by both groups.
69	[[/folder]]
70
71	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
72	* The "Jefferson Starships" from ''{{Series/Supernatural}}'' were hybrids of various monsters that have appeared in the series. However, since they were unstable experiments created by [[BigBad Eve]], they had all died by the time they were encountered (and named) by Sam and Dean.
73	* In ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' [[spoiler:this has been imposed on Klaus, who is a werewolf vampire. Because the resulting hybrid would be too powerful, witches cursed him to suppress his werewolf side, preventing him from transforming at the full moon. His goal is to break the curse, allowing him to create his own master race.]]
74	** Furthermore, a witch who becomes a vampire [[DiscardAndDraw immediately loses his or her connection to nature and the powers along with it.]] The in-universe explanation is that vampirism is an abomination against the balance of nature, and in any case a vampire is (un)dead anyway. The meta reason is of course that witches are already super-overpowered and giving them the powers of a vampire on top of that would make them untouchable.
75	* Vampires in ''Series/{{Being Human\|UK}}'' are unable to feed on and, by extension, turn werewolves because werewolf blood is toxic to them. Werewolves who attack vampires while transformed are more inclined to kill them outright rather than turn them. No explanation has so far been offered as to why vampires and werewolves don't become ghosts, although one ghost has dismissed the idea of werewolf-ghosts as 'ridiculous' without further explanation.
76	** There was a werewolf ghost at one point but they immediately crossed over so we don't know if any of the 'wolfiness' carried over to their spirit form or not.
77	* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', the titular Slayer is considered a human monster by some (having been infected with demonic power by the Shadow Men, the first Watchers). In one episode, while Sunnydale is caught inside a boy's psychic nightmares, Buffy is temporarily turned into a vampire, making her a Slayer/vampire hybrid and more than twice as strong as either is shown to be separately. However it's left unsure if this could happen in the "normal" course of events in the Buffyverse, as most vampires would prefer to kill a Slayer than turn her.
78	** It's notable that a one-shot episode villain in season 4 who easily beat Buffy was going to be explained away as a vampire/Slayer hybrid, only to be cut for time and pacing.
79	** According to WordOfGod, the reason Buffy's sister Dawn isn't a Potential Slayer despite being a magical clone of Buffy is that there was no room for the Slayer essence given that Dawn was created to be the human form of the Key, a much older spirit. [[invoked]]
80	* In ''Series/WizardsOfWaverlyPlace'', both [[FurAgainstFang vampires and werewolves]] exist and come into conflict, but they cannot infect each other. Instead, a vampire bitten by a werewolf [[AgeWithoutYouth reverts to their biological age]] while a werewolf bitten by a vampire turns into a mundane, non-sentient wolf. These fates befall [[spoiler: Alex's werewolf boyfriend Mason and Justin's vampire girlfriend Juliet.]]
81	[[/folder]]
82
83	[[folder:Tabletop RPG]]
84	* ''TabletopGame/TheWorldOfDarkness'' games enforce this trope for balance issues. Though hypothetically any supernatural that can be changed back to human could then be turned into another type, they can't be both at the same time.
85	** ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'':
86	*** [[TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem Vampires]] are dead humans resurrected to unlife by an as yet unexplained but likely magical force. [[TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost Arcadia]] will not mutate them because, to borrow a line from ''Series/DoctorWho'', they are facts, in the metaphysical sense: they cannot change. They are stuck the way they are, and nothing (about the twisted nature of the Fae realm - let's just ignore the Ordo Dracul for the purposes of this discussion) will ever change that. They were human; they were not created, whether [[TabletopGame/PrometheanTheCreated by man]] or the [[TabletopGame/DemonTheDescent God-Machine]]. They already have powers, so the desperation to take up [[TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil the vigil]] never comes to them. [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheForsaken While Luna may be mad]], she does not bestow her gifts upon the undead, even if they were wolf-blooded in life. Similarly, [[TabletopGame/GeistTheSinEaters geists]] bargain with the newly dead they can restore to life, rather than the undead. [[TabletopGame/MummyTheCurse The Rite of Return]] was last enacted over six thousand years ago, and there's no one alive who knows how to perform it - not to mention the question of whether it would work on the undead. Lastly, not having the spark of true human life anymore, they can't [[TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening awaken to true magic]], and have lost the deep connection to the Primordial Dream that would [[TabletopGame/BeastThePrimordial allow a primal nightmare to replace their soul]].
87	*** Likewise the reverse is true. Only an ordinary mortal human with a human soul can become a Vampire. Even attempting to feed off a supernatural creature, a necessity for the Embrace, will most likely lead to the Vampire getting torn to pieces, magically fried to a cinder, or worse. Like being more prone to raging and giving into the Beast (Werewolf blood), having a bad acid trip (Fey or Mage blood) or other effects.
88	*** Werewolves are... well, it depends on your interpretation of the "scriptures," really, but the fact is they are physical spirits. They don't die; they ethereally recycle, so to speak. This means they can't be embraced as vampires, nor can they make the bargain to become geists. They are natural occurances, not created beings like Prometheans or demons. They are not human, so they can't become mages, nor can they be altered by a spirit realm like Arcadia, which their supernatural "biology" is already adjusted to (to say nothing of their psychologies, which may be less resilient). As mentioned previously, the Rite of Return is long forgotten, so they can't be transformed into a mummy. And again, no human desperation equals no vigil.
89	*** Wolf-''blooded'', however, are a rare exception to this trope. The book explicitly states that a wolf-blood can be turned into other sorts of supernatural, and will retain his Tell and associated abilities when he does so.
90	*** Vampires, werewolves, Prometheans, changelings, mummies, demons, Beasts and ghosts can't Awaken as mages because they're not human and/or not alive. Mages who become vampires or ghosts lose their mage-ness in the process.
91	*** Technically, you ''can'' make a Promethean out of anything's ''corpse'' (if it wasn't a straight-up human, though, it's kind of tricky). But that's exactly what you get -- a Promethean. Not a Promethean-werewolf, not a Promethean-mage, not a Promethean-changeling -- a Promethean. None of the other powers carry over, because they all went away the first time the body died.
92	*** Prometheans who complete the Pilgrimage lose nearly all Promethean abilities, essentially reverting to ordinary humans. While this means they can theoretically become vampires or mages, the books advise that you only do this for a ''very good'' reason -- and the RuleOfCool doesn't qualify. This is quite a good way to add on a bittersweet ending, a Promethean becomes a human again? Oh, but wait...he's cursed to live among the undead for the rest of his days. It's the sort of thing that should only really be used for the most grimdark of chronicles.
93	*** Also theoretically averted in a sense by any supernaturals who could turn into [[TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil Hunters]] and become members of a Conspiracy, where they could then gain Endowments. Of course, if the ''other'' Hunters found out who they were, in many groups they'd be on fire in seconds. This only works if A: the DM [[LoopholeAbuse accepts the letter of the rules]] and not [[ScrewTheRulesIHavePlot the spirit invoked by the flavor-and-backstory text]], or B: [[MillionToOneChance the character has a very short conscription into becoming a Hunter and a somewhat-to-very long transformation into a supernatural which reached the point of no return before the full-fledged-Hunter immunities kicked in]].
94	*** Somewhat more averted with the endowments of Task Force Valkyrie: their endowments require a special chip implanted in their agents to function, so if the chip was taken out and implanted in another suitable creature, presumably they could make use of some of their technology as well. And some Endowments, like specially created bullets, don't even need the chip to be used.
95	*** The above aversion also applies to Aegis Kai Doru's Relics. You only need to know the correct way to activate relics to use them, so anyone, supernatural included, could potentially use them.
96	*** Fan gameline ''TabletopGame/LeviathanTheTempest'' has a soft version of this. It ''is'' possible, and even common, to have a [[HalfHumanHybrid Hybrid]] who draws their inhuman heritage from multiple Strains of Leviathan, but there's no advantage to doing so. In fact, Lahmassu (Hybrids who are descended from only one Strain) have certain advantages over "mutt" hybrids: they get some minor bonuses based on their ancestral Strain and have to take fewer [[SuperpowerDisability Genetic Conditions]].
97	** The ''TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness'' has similar rules to the above to prevent gratuitous crossover, and to encourage players to make their characters distinctive through good character development and not just (to quote one of the designers) [[SpecialSnowflakeSyndrome "having a grab bag of powers no one else has"]]. Generally speaking, at most they can get one of the secondary splats associated with another gameline (i.e. they can be ''Vampire'' ghouls, ''Werewolf'' kinfolk, ''Changeling'' kinain, or ''Mage'' sorcerers who practice 'static magic').
98	*** Only humans have Avatars, so only humans can Awaken to become Mages. Becoming undead of any kind gets rid of the Avatar, nixing that option. Shapeshifters were born as shapeshifters, Umbral spirits in fleshly form, even if they resemble humans or animals at birth, so they lack Avatars. When they die they go to a different kind of afterlife than human dead, so they can't become [[TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion wraiths]], zombies, or TabletopGame/KindredOfTheEast.
99	*** Shapeshifters ''can'' go to the Dark Umbra if they're corruption-tainted and severely unlucky...but they'll be functionally no different from any other human wraith.
100	*** Similarly, only humans are selected for the [[TabletopGame/HunterTheReckoning imbuing]], since their entire purpose is to stand on humanity's behalf against the forces of the supernatural. Becoming imbued grants immunity from becoming a supernatural, save in one case: extremist imbued who have given themselves over to the hunt can become servants to [[TabletopGame/DemonTheFallen demons]]. By breaking the extremist's will, the demon can take over their body, but the process destroys the extremist's soul, and the newly embodied demon retains none of the extremist's powers save those they themselves granted.
101	*** Within ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' exists rules that prevent Kindred from being a hybrid of two or more vampire clans. Should more than one kind of vampire's blood be used in an embrace attempt, the blood with the lowest generation, highest age, and greatest potency will overwrite the rest.
102	*** One exception is a [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade vampire]]-[[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse werewolf]] hybrid "abomination," extremely tricky but possible. Werewolves are violently allergic to vampire blood so if you try to 'embrace' one, he gets a roll to see if he died peacefully or in horrible pain. Unless they're out of all Willpower, they get to die automatically. A hybrid is created only if you [[CriticalFailure botch]] that roll. A hybrid does have access to all the powers of both but has to watch the KarmaMeter very carefully - from a spiritual point of view, werewolves and vampires are pretty much opposites (one being a nature spirit that just happens to have flesh while the other is a dead shell with barely any spiritual presence) so straining too far will be detrimental to all spirit-related powers. Their Gnosis now functions like a normal vampire's Humanity and goes down from actions unbecoming of a Garou. They retain their old Gifts but can no longer learn any new ones except from corruption spirits. And if their Gnosis runs out, they go into a mindless rage until someone or something inevitably puts them down. That's if they get to that point, of course - plenty of both vampires ''and'' werewolves will put them down just for existing, especially the latter, and they're also not unlikely to be depressed enough about their new nature to do themselves in, either directly or SuicideByCop.
103	*** Several other Changing Breeds either can't be embraced, or make the embracer wish he'd never tried. Kitsune (were-foxes) explode in fire if embraced as kind of a TakeThat to players' obsession with making abominations. Corax (were-ravens) die come dawn... even if they're never exposed to sunlight. [[LizardFolk Mokolé (were-lizards/crocodiles)]] enter a murderous rage, assume their most powerful form, start rampaging, and ''then'' die at dawn. Rokea (were-sharks) survive, but lose most of their personality and become relentless [[HunterOfHisOwnKind vampire-eating]] horrors. Bastet (were-cats) immediately start losing their Gnosis stat, which cripples their supernatural abilities and erodes their ability to mentally function as anything but near-mindless blood-suckers. Ratkin (were-rats) are embraced with no less trouble than Garou, but then start to decay like a normal corpse.
104	*** Faerie-blooded, including [[TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming changelings]], can occasionally be embraced, but it robs them of any fae-related powers or memories they may have had. However, the Curse of Caine is not untouched by mixing with the blood of the fae; the new vampire becomes one of the Maeghar, gaining access to the Disciplines of Mytherceria or Necromancy, but also gaining a physical mark identifying their fae nature, a vulnerability to cold iron, and a psychological aversion to drinking directly from mortals, requiring a container instead. (Interestingly, this seems to have mutated over time in-universe; in the ''Dark Ages'' setting, they didn't have Necromancy or the psychological aversion to drinking from mortals).
105	*** Another exception is fomori, the fusion of a spirit of corruption with a material host. The most powerful of such spirits can pull it off on a supernatural host, specifically vampires, werewolves and most shifters, [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension mages]], and [[TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming changelings who've forgotten what they are]]. Long, long ago, the vampire Set spawned the dread [[TabletopGame/MummyTheResurrection Bane Mummies]] through corrupt magic, and found they had their own agenda; fortunately for everyone else, Set wisely decided not to try again, and no one else seems capable of it either. Most every other major supernatural is immune, including two of the Changing Breeds: the Corax were-ravens (thanks to their unique creation ritual) and the Nagah were-snakes (since they're a spiritual blind spot). And while being a fomor may offer the occasional benefit, they're far, far outweighed by the downsides of being possessed by an evil spirit.
106	*** There's at least one example in canon of a Werewolf becoming a Mummy after death, the Silent Strider Wepauwet. After the Striders were cursed to be cut off from their ancestor-spirits, Wepauwet sought immortality so he might serve as a living repository of the Striders' history. Unfortunately, he learned the Rite of Return didn't have the same effect on Garou it did on mortals - he only got to return from death once, and if he died again he would be cursed to wander the Umbra as a fleshless spirit, denied both his living people and his Umbral Tribal Homeland. He presently resides in the Strider Tribal Homeland, where he serves as a link between the Striders and their lost ancestors, and has learned how to enable a rare few mortal Striders to circumvent the curse and call upon their ancestors.
107	*** Also averted by the infamous Samuel Haight who was a ghoul-werewolf-true mage. Until he died, became a ghost, and was soulforged into an ashtray. It's worth noting that the ashtray fate came about when people asked White Wolf where Sam Haight was in the ''[[TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion Wraith]]'' line, after he'd been worked into all the others via hybridization. Staff response was to retort that he'd been soulforged into an ashtray to keep him from being a major player in the line. This in turn led to fans creating missions for ''TabletopGame/{{Orpheus}}'' to incorporate the ashtray. Entries can be found [[http://ravil.rooms.cwal.net/flatline/samhaight.html on CWAL.]]
108	* Some templates in the 3rd Edition ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' game can only be applied to specified creature types, or to creatures with specified traits. This restricts some abuses, but an imaginative DM can still do some crazy things.
109	** Only living things can become undead, so no NinjaPirateZombieRobot (flesh golems are constructs, not undead).
110	** Constructs cannot breed, and thus cannot be half-dragons or any other inherited type.
111	** Undead are immune to disease, and thus cannot become lycanthropes.
112	** Undead flesh may not retain all the natural abilities it had in life, and skeletons have no flesh at all.
113	** Lycanthropes and vampires can only convert humanoids, not animals, constructs, abberations, [[TheFairFolk fey]] or any variety of dragon (draconic or mind flayer vampires use a different template).
114	** Lycanthropes can become undead, but most undead types would lose the ability to shapeshift (though [[RequiredSecondaryPowers vampires do not]]). It is therefore possible to create a vampire werewolf, but only if you apply the templates in the right order.
115	*** Namely, a living werewolf can be turned into a vampire, but a vampire cannot contract lycanthropy due to the undead immunity to disease.
116	** Undead that take class levels would almost certainly be prohibited from taking levels in [[FriendToAllLivingThings Druid]], and even if they could they couldn't use the [[VoluntaryShapeshifting Wild Shape]] ability (except vampires again). Besides, Druids in Wild Shape lose any physical attributes of their base form for the duration.
117	** Dragons, celestials, and fiends can breed with just about anything, but only if it's living, and the results of such breeding may not convert well into useful undead.
118	** It is possible to [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul graft construct parts onto a living creature to make a half-golem, but the result risks becoming a construct (there are saves involved -- succeed and you keep your original type and alignment, fail...) and thus no longer counts as living]], which restricts the ability to apply other templates, and they do not breed true, if they can breed at all.
119	*** The ''other'' way of grafting construct parts onto a living creature (using a subsystem based on items instead of templates) did not have any type-changing involved, but was written in a way that implied it only worked on a ''living'' creature, had rules against having too many, and had rules against combining different ''types'' of grafts (so you could have a couple of construct grafts, but not a construct graft and a plant graft).
120	*** This makes possible the [[GameBreaker Half-black-dragon, half-iron-golem troll]], which is immune to damn near everything, but would require a black dragon (acid-breathing and acid-immune) to breed with a troll (vulnerable only to fire and acid), and the offspring to be converted to a half-golem at great difficulty and expense, probably against its will. Neither the victim nor its parents are likely to be pleased.
121	*** Taking the above even further is [[http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101587 The Emerald Legion,]] an attempt at a magical SuperSoldier which (among other things) also makes the troll a quasi-{{Dhampyr}} and has it bitten by multiple lycanthropes of different species.
122	** For player characters, the main mitigator is Level Adjustment, a virtual inflation of the character's effective level imposed by most beneficial templates. For example, a half-dragon has an effective level adjustment of +3. A 1st level half-dragon character is thus theoretically as powerful as a 4th level character, and thus not legally playable in a group starting out at any level below 4th (and s/he would start out at only 1st level in one that was). The level adjustments of all templates on a character are additive. Level Adjustment also makes it more difficult for a character grow stronger, as its Effective Character Level (Level Adjustment plus any class levels) is what determines [[ExperiencePoints experience gains]] and the amount of experience needed to level up. As a result, Level Adjustment is actually an even bigger mitigating factor at higher levels, and it can easily get to the point where the bonuses conferred by the template are outweighed by the drawback of slower EXP gain.
123	** All of which leads to a joke in one of ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' comics for Magazine/{{Dragon}} magazine (paper version) about a vampiric half-dragon, half-troll, lycanthropic, fiendish snail. The snail had a challenge rating of 14 (meaning it would be capable of challenging four level 14 characters by itself), despite being small enough to step on. "Tremble at my illogical glory!" indeed.
124	*** In the main webcomic, a vampire cleric is later introduced who mentions that being a vampire (with a whopping +8 level adjustment, and another +1 adjustment as a lizardfolk) makes it difficult for him to find level-appropriate opponents and thus he hasn't gained any relevant amount of EXP in years. This ends up being relevant to the plot; the gods of the setting need high-level clerics to participate in certain events, but some of the evil gods have only undead clergy which are effectively prevented from leveling (turning a high-level cleric is one obvious solution, but high level clerics are the best fighters against undead).
125	** The ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' setting has a significant number of rules standing in the way of doing anything too unusual with dragonmarks, heritable magical symbols that confer aptitude for certain skills and have been combined with certain magical items and legal effects to give the dragonmarked houses near-monopolistic power in the Khorvairian economy. The genetic lines of descent only reach so far, meaning that highly divergent subraces (drow, duergar, deep gnomes etc) don't manifest it. Becoming something else will negate your dragonmark, so a dragonmark heir who is turned into a kind of undead will lose that power (much to the frustration of Erandis d'Vol, whose incredibly powerful Apex Mark of Death has been reduced to just a permanent tattoo with her lichdom). Nor can you have two dragonmarks, with the child of two dragonmarked heirs being more likely to develop a unique and potentially dangerous aberrant dragonmark than either individual mark. Heritability across playable race boundaries is a tricky one: only half-elves (who breed true in this setting) can bear two of the marks, but the half-elven child of a marked human or elf, or a changeling born from a liaison between a marked member of any species and a changeling, can't inherit a dragonmark from either side of the family...but both half-orcs and humans ''can'' inherit the Mark of Finding. There has also been at least one documented half-dragon inheriting a mark - indeed, an extraordinarily powerful one - but that was part of a deliberate breeding experiment with the goal of creating someone capable of bearing that mark, may not work similarly in the case of individual [[InterspeciesRomance consensual encounters with dragons]], and was considered such a problem that the family line that attempted it was exterminated to such a degree that their mark no longer exists.
126	* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has rules to prevent most forms of supernatural mix-and-match. Not only were most non-human races genocided in the Primordial War, but all mortal races have distinctly different souls. Exaltation only works on humans. The main non-human races, [[DinosaursAreDragons Dragon Kings]] and Mountain Folk, reincarnate upon death, so they can't become ghosts either. On the other hand, ''Exalted'' has a remarkably lax definition of "human," so most Wyld Mutants and half-animal Beastmen count and can exalt. God-blooded (people with one human parent and one parent who's a god, elemental, demon, fae, exalt, or ghost) are likewise human enough to exalt, but half-exalts become normal exalted with no special traits, and the other kinds gain new powers painfully slowly after exalting.
127	** Digging down into "Exaltation only works on humans", this was primarily intended to emulate something like mistletoe killing Baldr in Norse mythology; the Primordials didn't think to protect themselves against something as insignificant as humanity, and the gods took advantage, exalting humans to give them the power they'd need to take the Primordials on. Third edition establishes there was at least one nonhuman species that got its own exalted, the now-extinct Spoken, demonstrating that humanity wasn't unique, but happened to be in the right position at the right time to be the gods' primary choice.
128	* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' has virtually no "hybrid" types (although there were a few in its very earliest editions, which have been scrupulously removed). Elves, Dwarfs, Humans, Ogres, Skaven etc. are separate species and can no more breed with one another than a man can with a horse (and Centaurs are a completely different species again). The Orc races do not reproduce sexually. Daemons do not breed at all. Vampires all began as humans (their curse derives exclusively from human blood) and so on. Indeed, the prevalence of hybrid types in many other famous fantasy universes (especially D&D) is what caused the designers of ''Warhammer'' to eschew them entirely. The closest ''Warhammer'' gets anymore is certain one-off Chaos mutants, which are simply members of one species with an aesthetic resemblance to another (and this is not dwelt upon anymore, precisely because it might dilute the strong racial archetypes that are being maintained).
129	** Skaven Rat-Ogres are another possible unnatural version - being crafted from parts of Ogres and Skaven by the frankenstein-esque mad scientists of Clan Moulder. They behave as a completely new (and almost entirely mindless) creature, however.
130	** The basic, mindless undead can be created from any corpse, if the battlegame's Regiments of Renown are to be considered a canon source -- but they're just corpses animated by necromancy and there's isn't much special about them.
131	** Likewise, species in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' are incapable of interbreeding naturally (though in the very first edition there were hints at human-eldar hybrids, which have been zealously purged in the quest to keep the most humanoid of 40k's alien races as alien and inhuman as possible). Some Tyranid organisms do incorporate DNA from other races to achieve certain effects however, like the spore-firing Biovore (Orks) and highly psychic Zoanthropes (Eldar).
132	*** One of said human-eldar people was [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/File:1255136711848.jpg not only]] a HalfHumanHybrid, he was also a SpaceMarine, ''and'' the Chief Astropath of the Ultramarines, ''and'' their Chief Librarian as well.
133	* In Machinations of the Space Princess, you get three species-like traits for free (water-borne, cyborg, gaseous mass, and so on). Picking a fourth drops your CHA by an appreciable amount, and a fifth even moreso, because CHA is more a gauge of your relatability than anything else and the more hodge-podge your character is, the harder it is for other species to click with them.
134	* In ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'', [[BeastMan Vectors]] have "mutt-reduction protocols" written into their genomes that normally allow different species to interbreed without hybridizing, instead producing offspring of [[RandomSpeciesOffspring one species or the other]]. But on rare occasions hybrids are produced, and are almost always sterile.
135	* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', the four [[HumanSubspecies Metatypes]] (Elves, Dwarves, Orks and Trolls) can freely interbreed with each other and with baseline humans. However, such unions always result in children who possess one of their parents' metatypes (for example, an elf can be the sibling of a dwarf).
136	[[/folder]]
137
138	[[folder:Video Games]]
139	* Through DevelopersForesight in ''[[VideoGame/{{Creatures}} Creatures 2]]'', it ''is'' possible for the cute and fuzzy norns to interbreed with the pesky ettins and grendels if a mod is applied to change breeding behaviors, but the offspring (which will have [[MixAndMatchCritters different body parts from each parent]]) will almost always die at birth. Averted in ''Creatures 3'', however; there's even a Splicing Machine to ''force'' crossbreeding.
140	%%* Averted in ''VideoGame/PaladinsQuest'' and the sequel, VideoGame/LennusII. There are many sapient races, and they can all interbreed. Hybrids are called Lubbots, and are considered a race of their own because interbreeding is taboo in most societies. There's an entire village of hybrids in one part of the world.
141	* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls''
142	** In the lore, two different races reproducing will result in a child with the race of the mother, with a few of the father's traits sprinkled in, such as a slightly taller Imperial due to an Altmer father. On its own the trope is played straight, but interbreeding over thousands of years between the Direnni Aldmer (biologically Altmer) and Nedic humans (essentially proto-Imperials) resulted in the magically talented but otherwise human Bretons.
143	** Throughout the series, [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampirism]] and [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Lycanthropy]] are both [[TheVirus diseases]] which can be spread like any other. However, each makes you [[IdealIllnessImmunity immune to all other diseases]], making them [[OneCurseLimit mutually exclusive]].
144	** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'''s ''Dawnguard'' DLC, becoming a Volkihar Pure-blooded vampire will forcibly cure you from Lycanthropy. Becoming a Pure-Blooded Vampire however means consuming the blood of another Pure-Blooded Vampire, forcibly "overwriting" Lycanthropy's 100% disease immunity feature. This vampirism can later be overwritten by another dose of werewolf blood offered by [[spoiler:Aela]]. Alternatively, you can take advantage of a [[GoodBadBugs nifty exploit]] that involves having [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Serana]] turn you, becoming a werewolf, and immediately becoming re-infected to become a true monster hybrid.
145	* With the exception of ghosts, the various supernatural/occult/sci-fi life states in ''VideoGame/TheSims3'' (vampires, werewolves, aliens, etc.) are deliberately coded to be mutually exclusive. [[GoodBadBugs (Or at least, they should be.)]] This was done because it was entirely possible to combine ''all'' the life states into one sim in ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' and it was [[https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Hybrid kind of ridiculous.]]
146	* Humans in ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' are capable of interbreeding with orcs, elves and ogres, resulting in [[HalfHumanHybrid half-orcs, half-elves and half-ogres]], because those races are descended from humans who were mutated by exposure to large amounts of magic in the ancient past and share enough human DNA to create viable offspring. The other races in Arcanum (dwarves, gnomes and halflings) have their own family tree and cannot interbreed with humans.
147	%%* Averted by ''VideoGame/AdventureQuest''. You can become a werewolf or vampire, and then become a hybrid called a Werepyre. For added fun, Werepyre characters can add Dragon blood to the mix, becoming a monster known as a Dracopyre.
148	* In ''VideoGame/StarCraft'', this is the justification in-game for the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Zerg]]'s ability to [[ViralTransformation infest Terrans]] not working on [[HigherTechSpecies Protoss]]: since Zerg and Protoss pretty much are polar opposites down to the genetic level, it's impossible for their DNA to be combined, and as such for the former to assimilate the latter. One of the major plot points involves the GreaterScopeVillain's [[TheDragon Dragon]] finding a way around this and trying to create a new, powerful race of Hybrids.
149	* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'', if you marry Corrin (a half-dragon) off to a Kitsune or Wolfskin, their children will be a mix of human, dragon, ''and'' Kitsune or Wolfskin. However, said children can only transform to either beast or dragon, and will have weaknesses to ''both'' anti-dragon and anti-beast abilities.
150	* In ''Monster Girl Quest'', a monster and human will almost always have pure monsters as children, with a rare chance of having a human with a trace of monster blood. There is only one case of an angel-human pairing, which resulted in a half-human half-angel (angels are normally produced by means other than natural reproduction). Both monsters and angels are [[OneGenderRace all-female]], so they can't interbreed, and this is reinforced by the incompatibility between the dark energy of monsters and the holy energy of angels. One of the villains' goals is to find a way for [[YinYangBomb one being to use both dark and holy power]].
151	* ''VideoGame/SlimeRancher'' will let you hybridize two Slimes by feeding one Slime the plort of another Slime. This results in a Largo Slime, which will have visible traits from both parent Slimes, can eat anything they could have, and pops out both types of plorts when fed. Trying to increase the effect by feeding a Largo a different plort will result in a Tarr -- a massive, carnivorous monster that eats Slimes (and will even try to snack on you), and instead of giving plorts, will just split in two every time it feeds.
152	* [[FusionDance Merging]] the titular [[PowerCrystal magic gems]] in ''VideoGame/{{Gemcraft}}'' to create a more powerful one is a core gameplay mechanic, and fusing together two pure gems of different colors creates a dual gem with larger stat bonuses as well as the specials of both colors. Merging more colors into it, however, negates the bonuses altogether.
153	** This varies a bit from game to game, explained by the different protagonists expressing the magic of gems and colors in different ways. Later games will usually let you mix any set of colors, in any available proportions, and get a gem which technically inherits all of its ancestors' traits. The power of specials does always drop off sharply with each new color mixed into a gem, and it's very possible for the effects of a color to diminish to an extent that the gem info no longer bothers to mention them (even though the traces are still there). It's still sometimes worth doing things this way.
154	* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', the three mutually exclusive Ascension Paths grant the empire a unique species bonus: Cyborg for the Synthetic path; Psionic for the Psionic path; and a series of powerful unique traits for Genetic. Due to the way genetic modification worked, it was possible with some tweaking to get traits from two or all three paths on a single pop and then spread it to their entire race. Paradox stepped in by making it so unique traits such as Cyborg and Psionic could no longer be added or removed for a pre-existing pop, curtailing the player ability to create these hybrids.
155	* In ''VideoGame/EndlessSpace2'', the Horatio's Gene Hunter ability allows them to sacrifice pops of other races living in their empire to enhance the main Horatio pops. This is limited by the fact that each use of the ability permanently increases the required sacrifical pops by two. While two pops is easy to provide, after just a few uses it will take the populations of entire ''planets'' and later ''systems'' to gain new boosts. Eventually it simply becomes impractical to try and supply enough pops of even the most useful race instead of just replacing them with Horatios.
156	[[/folder]]
157
158	[[folder:Web Comics]]
159	* The vampires in ''[[http://lastblood.keenspot.com/ Last Blood]]'' are immune to zombie bites, making them unlikely defenders of the remnants of humanity. Of course, that has to do with [[spoiler:zombies being created from a starved vampire's bite]].
160	* ''Webcomic/RustyAndCo'' [[http://rustyandco.com/missives/critical-missives-4/ warns]] about the consequences of allowing players to multiclass freely in a system that has "monster classes", as the picture above shows. [[http://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-16/ He gets worse.]] [[https://rustyandco.com/comic/critical-missives-54/ Much worse.]]
161	* ''Webcomic/SlightlyDamned'': All five races of Medius can breed with each other no matter how different they are, although their offspring will usually be infertile. It has been confirmed by WordOfGod that demons cannot breed with Medians, and the same is probably true for angels and Medians. It currently is not clear if demons and angels can interbreed, though one pair has tried without success, although this might be due to both races having fertility issues. More likely, this is probably due to the way that souls work in the setting. Medians have souls made by all three of the gods, while angels and demons each get their souls from only one of the gods, Gaia for angels and Syndel for demons. So a hybrid where one or both parents were an angel or a demon probably couldn't exist unless the gods made a new kind of soul.
162	* ''Webcomic/{{Zoophobia}}'''s Zill is a demon/dragon/chimera-mutt, though the only obvious physical characteristics of these are his retractable wings and snake tail.
163	* In ''Webcomic/SkinDeep'' pretty much any two species can interbreed (using the [[TransformationTrinket human-form medallions]] if necessary), but [[SingleSpecimenSpecies under normal circumstances]] the kids will simply be one species or the other.
164	[[/folder]]
165
166	[[folder:Western Animation]]
167	* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', the various species of ponies can (apparently) interbreed; however, it seems that crossing pegasi and unicorns results in either pegasi or unicorns, not both, and (allegedly) there are earth ponies who have pegasus and unicorn ancestry, which can come out if two with sufficient ancestry get together. In the one example from the show of this actually happening the only pegasus ancestor the father knew of was related ''by marriage'', not direct descent. It is unclear whether this dilution of bloodline impacts the potency of the children, or whether they get any of the enhanced strength and endurance of earth ponies. Alicorns - ponies with both unicorn horns and pegasus wings, and indeed, typically speaking -larger- versions of each - do not seem to be natural creatures, instead being a sort of PhysicalGod and far more powerful than either pegasi or unicorns. It seems that the status comes with sufficient power, though the exact criteria are unclear. [[spoiler:Twilight Sparkle becomes one at the end of the third season, growing a pair of wings. Season five introduces [[GooGooGodlike Flurry Heart]], daughter of Princess Cadence and the first natural-born alicorn in Equestrian history.]]
168	[[/folder]]
169
170	[[folder:Real Life]]
171	* Many real-life hybrids (mules, hinnies, zorses etc.) are themselves sterile. With big cat hybrids, this is actually {{Zigzagged}}: while male hybrids are sterile, some females can be fertile and produce UnevenHybrid offspring with either of their parent species, resulting in li-ligers, ti-ligers, li-tigons and ti-tigons. Hybrids of the common bottlenose dolphin and false killer whale are also fertile, as are dog, wolf and coyote hybrids.
172	[[/folder]]
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Context Main / HybridOverkillAvoidance