Okay, moving away from things that interest me to things actually directly related to the 7 years of university I took. . .
What are the Val's?
Well, we know that the Val's are--from a species perspective--humans, as they are completely (as far as we are aware) able to interbreed with regular humans (as well as Dark-kin, Kio, and even Dwarves and Gnomes!) and produce viable offspring. In that regard, from a core, genetic level, Val's are humans.
That said, how do Val's remain so consistent in their features? All Val's bear a family resemblance to their kin within a current family, even if born to widely desperate branches of the family. For example, a val'Dellenov born in Sylvania in Milandir will look very much like a val'Dellenov born in Panari in Coryan. As far as we are aware, a val'Dellenov born in the First Imperium looks much like a val'Dellenov born in modern times. While to some this may seem evident (after all, they all have the same family name, right?), considering the wide range of difference in appearance that would be introduced by the non-Val parent (and we know there are at least some of those over the past 5,000 years of the Val race) should have eroded their 'typical appearance' to almost nothing within a few generations, yet the Val's look disturbingly uniform even to this day! Even more strange, some of the Val families (notably the val'Emman and val'Virdan) contain traits such as Red hair, which are recessive traits and--while they're sure to pop up occasionally--should be suppressed in all their progeny by the 'dominant' genes for other hair colours, yet they remain the soulless gingers to the last.
So why is this? Well, for one we're going to have to look at the evolution of the Val race between the 3.5 edition of the rules set and the modern ARPG rules set. In the original version of the rules, Val's ALWAYS bred true. Period. If you have a Val and ANYTHING else, you make a Val, and a Val of that family (in the case of two Vals of different families breeding, you get one family or the other). The only exception to this--as far as I can tell, within the races they can interbreed with--are Dwarves and Gnomes as the Curse of Illiir seems to apply there. This suggested that the Val's were Val's by some sort of Divine intervention which supersedes normal human genetics.
Fast forward to the modern time from those Dark Days, we now have written that Val's no longer breed true. In fact, the ARPG now states that the Val trait is a recessive trait in humans. Of course, a passing knowledge of Mendelian genetics shows that the Val trait cannot be a recessive trait, as it would mean that the Val's would be the exception, rather than the rule: The result of either two Val's breeding or a freak occasional occurrence between two humans who carry the recessive genes. For recessive genes to manifest themselves, you need two copies (one from each parent) of the necessary genes, and if a person has even one of the non-Val genes (herein called alleles), you'd get a normal vanilla human. As this goes completely against what has been established in the universe--as well as that which we as PC's have witnessed--I think it is fair to say that the Val gene is RARE, and no longer always breeds true, but is not recessive.
By switching the word "recessive" to "dominant", it makes much more sense. In this case, anyone who carries the "Val Gene" (let's call it V) would be a Val of the appropriate family, while everyone else would carry the "Not-Val gene" (let's call it v). As a person only needs a single copy of a dominant gene to display the dominant trait, that means that Val's can either be VV or Vv in their genetics (remember, one copy each from each parent). As such, we get a few interesting combinations at this point:
VV + VV = VV (Homozygous Dominant), creating a Val.
VV + Vv = 50% VV, 50% Vv, with both cases creating a Val, but one is Homozygous Dominant, the other is Heterozygous (contains both alleles).
Vv + Vv = 25% VV, 50% Vv, 25% vv. In this case, 3/4 of the kids (statistically) will be Val's, but only 1/3 of them will be Homozygous for the trait. In this case, there is a 1/4 chance of two Val's making a normal, vanilla human.
Vv + vv (human) = 50% Vv, 50% vv. In this case, half of their statisical progeny will be Heterozygous Vals, the other half will be normal humans.
We know (by common sense if nothing else!) that Vals have bred with humans over the last 5,000 years, if for no other reason than the fact we know that Val's are just as prone to inbreeding as normal humans (there was even a Feat for it in the 3.5 days) and each family would need an injection of 'new blood' every now and then. In this case, at least a portion of the modern Val population MUST be Vv (heterozygous) Vals. In fact, we have an example of this with Senator [not sure what his first name is] Tensen-Balin: We met his son Cassicus val'Tensen in the very first Arcanis Mod of the "Year of Ill Harvest", and we get to meet another one of his kids in "Strange Bedfellows" from A1: Crusade! in the form of General Aphineas Tensen-Balin. This means that the Good Senator's val'Tensen wife was a Vv (Heterozygous) Val.
What does this mean? Well, we know that the Val families generally do not 'adopt' humans into their families, which means that the human offspring of a Val are TECHNICALLY not his kids. In fact, in the Year of Ill Harvest (well, moreso in Year 6), there was a major plot-point of a human born of two Vals (then impossible) being disowned for not being a Val. To this end, such a child--at least if born to a noble-born Val--would likely be fostered off to one of that Val family's Vassal Families. In fact, it is entirely possible that this very occurrence is what created the Vassal families in the first place!
Now, what does this mean for inter-Val matings (ie: val'Sheem and val'Assante'?). Well, from canon examples it appears that you cannot create 'mixed-Vals', blending traits of both families. In this case, each child would either be one family (with the appropriate traits), the other family (again, resembling that family), or a human (presumably mixing the traits) depending on the genetics involved. Does the Val chosen have to do if one Val is Heterozygous for the trait or not? Do certain families take precedence over another (ie: Sheem would take precedence over a Mehan, as Larissa is Sarish's mother?)? This we do not know, but there is some precedents in human genetics for what could happen.
As most people I'm sure know, sex in humans is determined by Chromosome 23 in our genetic code, also known as the "Sex Chromosomes." These come in two different forms: The X Chromosome and the stunted version of that chromosome, known as the Y chromosome. If you get a person who is XX, you get a woman. The reason why I use the term 'stunted' for the Y chromosome is it is, for all intents and purposes, an incomplete X chromosome (only about 1/3 the size). As such, men have only a single copy of certain genes as the Y chromosome only has a small selection of the genes found on the X chromosome. This is the reason why you have so few women afflicted with baldness, because the "Baldness Gene" is a recessive gene on the X-chromosome, so men don't have a dominant gene to counter it because the Y chromosome lacks that gene. Women, on the other hand, have 2 X chromosomes, each with a selection of X-linked traits. However, in EVERY cell, one of the X chromosomes goes dormant, becoming what is called Barr body in a process called lyonization. Could a similar process be active when you get two "Val" genes, meaning only one of them is activated and the other is sequestered and inactivated?
Okay, if we can track most of this via genetics (at least the general trends), can we also do something like this with the Val physical appearances? We saw before in an above paragraph that if a val'Sheem and a val'Assante' were to have a Val kid, that offspring would be either a val'Sheem or a val'Assante', and look like that family above their other parents features. Well, what if the traits associated with the Vals (blond hair for the Assante', red for the Emman, Amazonian proportions for val'Dellenov's, etc.) was directly linked to a chromosome or a gene? Well, we know in our genetics that every gene in our body preceded by a short stretch of DNA called a "promotor element", which acts as a docking site for proteins called transcription factors. Depending on the stimulus, the body makes transcription factors which travel to the part of the genetic code with the matching promotor, causing that gene to be selectively activated. Could something like this be active in the Vals? Could the "Val" gene actually be for a specific Transcription Factor which is linked to specific traits (size, hair colour, "val eyes", etc) in that Val's genetic code? If the one Val gene is lyonized or otherwise deactivated, and if a Val's trait is linked with the promotor for only one Transcription Factor, then theoretically only one of the Val's traits would be expressed. The Val would have the GENES for the other traits, but they would not be expressed.
It has also been suggested by some that the Vals are nothing but a disease, passed on by a virus of some sort like a sexually transmitted disease. While there is some merit to this argument, I personally like the above explanations better. The problem with diseases is that they are not terribly specific. Sure, you can in theory custom tailor a virus to go after a certain family, or even possibly a specific person, but we're talking about the passage of MILLENNIA. All genetics change over time (at a remarkably predictable rate), and this is true for diseases too. The E. coli we use now is genetically different then the E. coli found a thousand years ago. Hell, it is believed that HIV didn't evolve into its present form until less than a century ago! Additionally, if it were a STD vs. a genetic trait, the disease would be passed every time a val had sex, potentially 'infecting' their partner (possibly making THEM a Val too!).
Now, there is much more to being a Val than just having a certain hair or eye colour: There are all those funky powers and Psionic spells and abilities which are different in every family. As much of this starts edging into the supernatural aspects of magic, divine energies, and the like, I will refrain from figuring out how THEY work. That said, if Val-ness is inheritable, than these powers must have some sort of physical basis. We know that Valinor have a unique organ which grants them powers (as seen in "The Year of Ill Harvest"), and presumably Val's have a similar (if less developed) organ or tissue which allows them to manifest their powers. Similarly, Psionics being a mental discipline, perhaps this organ can be found either in, a part of, or connected to the brain.
_________________ Cody Bergman Legends of Arcanis Campaign Staff Initial Author Contact/Adventure Vetting
Haakon Marcus val'Virdan, Divine Holy Judge of Nier Ruma val'Vasik, Martial Crusader and Master of the Spear Jorma Osterman, Arcane Coryani Battlemage
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