Species taxonomy

Demi-human species taxonomy, often more tersely referred as species taxonomy, is the science and art of understanding and classifying the otherwise diverse and unbounded category of demi-humans in the world of Offetstine.

History

Early history

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Paris-Warszawski Standard

The first formal standard created for species taxonomy was the Paris-Warszawski Standard, sometimes abbreviated the Paris Standard, developed by half-angel Melville Paris and human Leopold Warszawski in the late 1800s, as a means of "classifying the children of God who must otherwise cower from Their light". Unlike the later Émile Standard, the Paris Standard was primarily phylogenetic, and attempted to trace the roots of magic of each species under its scope.

The standard fell out of use early after its introduction, as the religious undertones turned away many would-be contributors and the research proved broadly unhelpful. Few demi-humans were interested in a taxonomical classification tool at the time, especially one that so desperately lacked diversity in the ranks of its founding members, and the standard was broadly recognized as doomed from the very start.

The nomenclature of the Paris Standard was not standardized across languages. During their first publication cycle, the pair wrote and translated various technical documents between English, Polish and French, maintaining no version to be strictly canonical out of fear of discrimination. In practice, though, the subtle inconsistencies between the documents and necessary liberties of translation harshly impacted the precision of the Paris Standard.

After four years and nine publications, three of which annual journals on the state of demi-human taxonomy authored by Paris and Warszawski themselves, and only three of which authored by third parties, the Paris Standard died a quiet death.

Émile Standard

The Émile Standard was developed by human illustrator Constance Émile in the early 1990s, and spread primarily through online bulletin-board communication over the course of the next few years. Unlike the earlier Paris Standard, the Émile Standard focused on phenotypical traits and aimed to help demi-humans understand themselves better.

Further unlike the Paris Standard, the Émile Standard was nomenclaturally, though not functionally, inspired by Linnean taxonomy. Recognizing that the lack of consistent terminology was a significant component of the downfall of the Paris Standard, Émile proposed a naming convention based on mock Latin, interspersed with morphology derived from Latinized forms of Greek, English and others.

Rather than attempting to trace the history and origin of various demi-human species, following roots through the willful realization of fiction, the folly of avant-garde mages and the simple natural variation of magic that underpinned and facilitated demi-humanity, the Émile Standard proposed a simpler three-tiered classification that described the kingdom, order and subspecies of a given species based on their existential relation to mundane humans, and the extent to which magic affected their powers and behaviors.

To that extent, even though many species that shared similar characteristics hailed from vastly different magical sources, they were usually classified similarly. For example, most species that roughly mimic the folklore conception of the European vampire are classed Infernalis Sanguis.

To accommodate the possibility of half-breed species, Émile proposed the prefix Dimidium (abbrev.: Di.) in the same spirit as the real-world prefix Candidatus (abbrev: Ca.) for bacterial phyla that are yet uncultured. Whereas the common Eris vampire is classified Infernalis Sanguis Erisi (abbrev: S. Erisi), the respective dhampir is classed Di. S. Erisi. Classifications are usually derived from folklore, and when a species is best described as a hybrid, especially if members do have hybrid ancestry, the taxon is usually described as a concatenation of prior gena's names.

Other early proponents of the standard included the vampire demon and Coalition member Caterina Alemagna, and TODO.

Mechanics

The modern Émile system uses a three-tiered classification modeled after Linnean taxonomy. Following the analogy, the uppermost tier is often referred to as the kingdom, while the lower two tiers are referred to as the genus and subspecies (as opposed to Linnean "species") respectively.

While the genus and subspecies are dynamically allocated based on common folklore and have no specific system, there are a fixed set of four kingdoms which all other taxa inherit from, as follows:

• Mundanus, typically referencing species such as animal-folk which are indisputably demi-human, but usually whose demi-humanity only confers superficial traits. Demi-humans of the Mundanus kingdom are more often mages than regular humans, but are not usually affected by their nature very much.

• Infernalis, species typically associated with the underworld, as if from hell. Such species as demons and vampires are included in this kingdom, who despite their provenance are most often not inherently ideologically biased in any way, but are prone to inherently chaotic natures and who often subsist on humanity.

• Aetherius, species that may be considered ethereal, such as spirits and some species of elves. Aetherius species are more commonly in touch with nature than some other taxa, and more commonly have magical powers extending beyond the superficial traits of their species than any other kingdom.

• Caelestis, species typically associated with gods and deities, as if from heaven or the afterlife. While comparatively rare, species of the Caelestis kingdom are usually among the most powerful and often have a strong connection with nature and humanity.

Further subdivisions are usually designated based on the common name or source mythology of a species or subspecies, occasionally on the national origins of the species. Traditionally, names are derived from Hellenic or Latinate words, the subspecies name usually being set in the Latin genitive.

Real life

The art of demi-human species taxonomy is not to be confused with real-life taxonomy schemes for identifying real-world species, neither does species taxonomy in the world of Offetstine displace the in-universe study of real-life taxonomy.