Biology Is Not Destiny

Xavier Frost
Jun 9
3 min read

“You are not your code. You are how you rewrite it.”—The Archivist, Fragment 03.4

In most tabletop RPGs, your character’s species—often labeled "race"—is one of the first decisions you make. That decision traditionally comes front-loaded with sweeping assumptions: elves are elegant and wise, orcs are brutish and angry, dwarves are stubborn and loyal. And often, those assumptions bleed directly into how the world treats your character—mechanically, narratively, morally.

That’s where Einsol’s Razor draws a hard line.

⚙️ Why We Rewired the System

We knew early on that if we were building a setting about hacking reality, questioning divinity, and reclaiming agency, we couldn’t keep legacy mechanics that perpetuate bio-essentialism. Too often in TTRPGs, the baked-in implication is that your biology—your “race”—defines your value, your destiny, even your moral compass. That’s not just lazy worldbuilding; it's dangerous storytelling.

Instead, we created a dual system: Genotype and Lineage/Splicing. It lets players reflect biological variety without reinforcing stereotypes or deterministic tropes.

Let’s break it down:

🧠 Genotype: The Body You Were Born In

Your Genotype reflects your biological chassis. It’s your physical and genetic baseline—your form, your environmental adaptations, the systems your body runs. It might describe whether your skin can refract light, if your lungs filter toxins, or if you metabolize memory like food.

This is not a moral or cultural label. A Genotype doesn't tell anyone who you are. It’s just the hardware.

You might be:

Cryogenic-Blooded: Evolved from deep-void survivors.
Neo-Amphibian: Born of swamp reclamation zones post-Sundering.
Carbon-Woven: Spliced with polymer lattices in pre-collapse labs.

Genotype matters—yes. It affects how you interact with the world. But it doesn’t dictate how you think, who you fight for, or who you become. That’s the player’s story to tell.

🧬 Lineage / Splicing: The Echoes in Your Code

Once you choose your base Genotype, you can Splice or Add Lineage. This represents genetic tinkering, adaptation, or inheritance—not unlike real-world epigenetics.

A Splice might reflect:

Ancient mutations passed down from pre-collapse ancestors.
AI-assisted genome injections from a corporate blacksite.
A nano-plague that rewrote your immune system into a weapon.

Some of these Splices offer new abilities. Some add narrative texture. None of them say whether your character is heroic, noble, evil, or “monstrous.”

❌ No “Evil Races.” Period.

This system is our way of shutting the door on one of the worst habits in fantasy design: the idea that a sentient species can be inherently good, bad, noble, or savage. We don’t do that here.

If a character’s actions matter in Einsol’s Razor, it's because of their choices, not their biology. That includes the villains. That includes the “Mal’akh.” That includes you.

🌐 What This Means for You

You can be a cybernetic hydra-person from a flooded terraformer arcology and still be the party's empathic healer.
You can be a genetically spliced fungal host-body who debates philosophy and keeps a vegan kitchen in your hovervan.
You can be anything—because identity is something you build, not something written in your bones.

📡 Tell Us Your Lineage

If you’ve played in one of our beta test campaigns or built a Genotype + Splice combo you’re proud of, drop it in the Discord or tag us on social. We want to highlight player builds and show the breadth of stories possible when biology is a foundation—not a fate.

Next Time on the Dev Blog:“Playtest Diaries: Beta 3 Broke the System (and We Loved It)”We’ll talk about chaotic combat math, why Morale rules are fun to abuse, and the player who solved a hostage crisis with fake memory implants.

Cut deep,—The Crew of Einsol’s Razor