: Okay, here's my take on it. As you said, the Oghre and
: Maul are definately related. They are almost certainly
: not Oghre young or anysuch thing. However, I think you
: discarded the "neanderthal vs. humans"
: analogy all to fast.
: The reasoning for this is thus: First it does say (AFAIK)
: that Trow commited the act of genocide. That means
: they destroyed the race completely. This means no
: surviving Oghres.
: Second, 'modern man' and neanderthal man coexisted for a
: pretty long time until the more evolutionarily modern
: man exterminated his lesser brethren. If you look at
: Mauls vs. Oghres I think they're more likely a
: distinct predessesor race. It says in the manual that
: evolution did take place since the Trow watched the
: other races "evole," so it could be that the
: Maul are the weaker, smaller and less intelligent
: cousins of the Oghre. When the Trow enslaved the
: Oghre, they enslaved only the Oghre, not the random
: nomadic tribes of proto-Oghre living in the Steppes.
: When they exterminated them, they had no reason to
: turn their wrath towards the filthy pig-midgits living
: in caves off in some godforsaken eastern tundra.
This is horribly off-topic, but I wanted to point out that Cro-Magnons aren't really more "evolutionarily modern" than Neanderthals. Neanderthals were, if anything, more distinct from the common ancestral Homo Sapiens than Cro-Magnons were. It seems like they probably weren't as good at language as us, but that's not really an objective inferiority and for all we know their other mental faculties may have been superior. Their brains were actually proportionately larger.
In fact, I'd say Neanderthals are a good analogy for the model where the Mauls *did* evolve. Why are they smaller, stockier, and tougher-looking and more thickly-muscled than the Oghre? Because they're Oghre after a thousand years of a grueling and extremely COLD life, without medical care or nice polar fleece parkas. (Not that the Trow were necessarily keen on health benefits for their slaves, but at least their land's probably a little bit warmer and they have some vested interest in keeping their slaves healthy.) These are the same physical adaptations the Neanderthals developed in order to survive in cold, hostile regions without the benefit of comparatively advanced technology. To some degree, the Inuits have developed them as well.
I myself don't have a strong opinion on what MJ thinks the relationship is between the two races...I think we'd need some direct info on Mauls in Myth III to have such on opinion. But I think Mauls being evolved Oghres is certainly possible. Creatures do evolve in a thousand years, both in our world and in the Mythworld. MJ said as much about the Ghôls.
--SiliconDream
