>>95876468
>How would races like this come about? Did that hippoman evolve from normal hippos?
In my setting there are both races that evolve more ‘naturally’, like in our world, and races came to be due to how the setting spiritual mechanics works
In a simplified way, what is called soul or spirit isn’t a singular unchanging fundamental substance, it is instead a composite of many components or aggregates. Souls can absorb components, shed components, fuse with other souls, split due spiritual mitosis, bud lesser souls, be shattered and so on. Components can also mutate due exposure to different energies, experiences of profound psychological or spiritual intensity or by absorbing too many spirit fragments.
It's important to note that there’s no clear-cut division between the biological and the spiritual body, so changes in the soul/spirit can cause biological changes and biological mutations can induce spiritual mutations.
Taking the Hippoman as an example, there are a few ways that they may have come to be.

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