Unlike most traditional ARPGs, Amaria Rising uses real science for their genetics system.

If you ever had to take a biology class, you may remember things like Mendelian genetics and Punnett squares. This document will go over some of these terms and how they fit into the Amaria Rising genetics system.
 

Word Definitions

 

Allele

One of two or more alternative forms of a gene that arise by mutation and are found at the same place on a chromosome.

Individuals receive two versions of a gene, known as alleles, from each parent.

 

Heterozygous

Has two different alleles of a particular gene or genes.

 

Homozygous

Has two identical alleles of a particular gene or genes.

 

Dominant

In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and the second recessive.

 

In Amoux, a dominant morph shows the same regardless of if it is heterozygous or homozygous.

(Examples: Socks, Tag.)

 

Incomplete Dominant

In genetics, this refers to a circumstance in which the two alleles combine so neither dominates the other. This creates a new phenotype, and in short is when neither allele is completely dominant, and in return creates a brand new trait.

 

In Amoux, any morph that has an alternate form (Examples: Tabby, Belly) is considered incomplete dominant. The heterozygous form is a less “extreme” version of the homozygous form.

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Co-Dominance

In genetics, this refers to when both alleles are dominant, resulting in a combination of the traits.
An example of co-dominance would be breeding a red flower to a white flower and getting pink flowers.

This is not a feature in our main genetics system, but can be seen in some things to an extent such as with coat mutations, the maned mutation variants, and color mutations.

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Recessive

In genetics, a type of allele that when present on its own will not affect the individual. Two copies of the allele need to be present for the phenotype to be expressed.

 

In Amoux, any recessive marking has to be homozygous to be expressed on the phenotype.

Examples of this are mutations like Piebald, Axanthic, and Hypomelanistic.

 

Amoux that are heterozygous for a recessive trait will be labeled as so. These do not show on the phenotype, and the Amoux will otherwise appear normal. 

Examples would be Het Piebald or Het Xanthic.

 

Possible Hets

Since recessive traits are not visible when there’s only 1 copy of an allele, you’re not guaranteed to know for sure if an animal is het for something..

The ONLY exception is with a visual recessive paired to anything else -- it will always pass on one copy since it is homozygous. 

Example being a visual piebald x non-piebald. All offspring will be 100% het piebald.

 

Possible hets come into play when the following two pairings are bred:

Het x Non-het/hom - Approximately half of the offspring will carry the het.

Het x Het - Approximately 2/3rd of the offspring will carry the het.

 

Possible hets are currently not a feature in Amaria Rising, but I hope to add it in the future to spice things up a bit.

 

Mendelian Inheritance Patterns in Amoux

“Mendelian inheritance refers to the kind of inheritance you can understand more simply as the consequence of a single gene. So in human genetics, for instance, when you look at a condition like Huntington's disease, and you see that it follows this pattern where an affected person who passes that to a child, the child has a 50 percent chance of being infected... That's dominant Mendelian inheritance. Hemophilia, where you see a condition where the female seems to be unaffected but there's X-linked inheritance, that's also Mendelian. Or cystic fibrosis, where it's autosomal recessive, you can model that also by Mendel's rules of the consequence of a single gene.”

Reference: https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Mendelian-Inheritance

 

Most other traditional ARPGs use predetermined numbers to calculate how breedings are rolled. These systems typically have rarity tiers for their markings/genes, and of course rarer markings are harder to reproduce, even with the right pairings. 

 

Amaria Rising is one of the few ARPGs that does not use that type of system. Our genetics system uses Mendelian inheritance patterns. 

 

Because we use a more realistic genetic inheritance pattern, it’s actually far easier to produce the results you want, as long as you pair the right Amoux. No marking is considered “rarer” than another, and they all use the same pass rates.

 

nn x nn = Does not pass anything

 

Nn x nn = 50% het, 50% does not pass

 

Nn x Nn = 25% does not pass, 50% het, 25% hom

 

NN x nn = Passes all het

 

NN x Nn = 50% het, 50% hom

 

NN x NN = Passes all hom