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In 2e Muls were produced by the union human females and male dwarves.

The human mother almost always died in childbirth.  (Though not always, Neava from the PP novels survived the birth of her son Rkard, though this could have been because she was not in bondage and had access to proper midwives and her husband, an elemental cleric to help her through it.)

Since the woman generally died in childbirth, these unions generally only happened when a slavemaster forced one of his dwarf slaves to stud with his human female slaves.

It is likely that this was often a form of punishment for disobedient females, "If she won't work we gotta get some use out of her" being the mentality.

Muls in 2e were stated to be sterile and universally depicted as male. (My conjecture was that any female muls that were born were not as "useful" as their brothers, and possibly "non viable" for some reason.  Though there is no reason to think that perhaps the artists just didn't draw any because big burly girls don't sell books like elf chicks in chainmail thongs)

Of course Mules and Ligers and other hybrids that are often sterile in the world of reality do manage to breed occasionally, so I don't think it would completely our of bounds for a Mul to be able to have a kid... just very very unlikely.

Also I assume dwarf females and human males didn't work out because, well... dwarves are "too short".  (use your imagination)

In 4e it is stated in several of the city entries that muls make up a sizable minority in several of the city states, if the 2e stuff was still cannon, then this wouldn't seem sustainable.  There are also more (as in > 0) depictions of female Muls in the 4e books.

Thus I expect that in 4e cannon Muls are not sterile and breed true amongst their own kind.

How much of this was because WOTC didn't want to explore the issue of forced slave rape... who cares...

Personally I prefer the 2e depiction, but I won't be bashing my players over the head with it very often if at all, because while I don't exactly "cringe" at these sort of topics and do feel that they help create the proper background atmosphere or set the scene, explicit depictions of sex acts isn't really what D&D is about for me. 

Sure I might mention that a group of goblins are raping some captive in the back of their lair in order to encourage the players to DO SOMETHING about it, and play up how EVIL the goblins actually are... or if some player decides his character is going to retain the services of a prostitute or have a real good time getting drained by a succubus... I'll "let that happen".  

...but I'm not going to spend more than a sentence acknowledging it, and certainly won't spend 20 minutes explaining it in graphic detail... because that isn't what D&D is about IMHO.

Obviously if i were playing with a mixed age group at a store or convention, I won't even go that far, because my role as GM isn't about traumatizing my players into a coma.

Do whatever makes sense for you (and your players) in your own games.

I don't have my PP novels because a player is reading them currently, but the sterile bit is in the original 2e wanderer's journal... some of the other stuff said (re women dying in childbirth, etc) is supported in general by what it says there as well, but is not explicitly stated, I THINK that stuff is mentioned in the Novels, but idk.

As stated this stuff is mentioned nowhere in the 4e material so far (other than them being dwarf/human hybrids), and IMHO is pretty much discounted by some of the other fluff regarding how many muls there are in some cities. 

Aug 30, 2010 -- 11:20PM, cudmaster wrote:

Thus I expect that in 4e cannon Muls are not sterile and breed true amongst their own kind.

I was surprised to note that muls being sterile was not mentioned, but I am not opposed to the idea.  It certainly makes them more sustainable as a race, without the whole "forced breeding" issue.