marsden_online: RPG log icon for this character (Arthur)
So I was lying awake at 5am one morning and my muse decided to get stuck into the fact that most fantasy races have the same sexual binary as humans, despite in a world with magic and elementals and active gods and so forth the options are far broader. This is the third in a short series, previous entries: Dwarves Orcs

These are written with a lot of D&Disms but the principles should hold elsewhere.

This is less of a full article and more short jottings on a variety of the woodland inhabitants.

~~~
Elves are one of the first races, created with the world to act as caretakers and guardians. Perhaps the world was never intended to last or perhaps the creators never thought that far ahead but the elves were created un-aging and undying (to last as long as the world) but without sex or the means to reproduce.

Over millennia mischance and conflict whittled away at elven numbers until it became clear that if something was not done the race would eventually die out. Centuries more passed while the elves studied the reproduction of every race and species eventually reaching the conclusion that the two-sex paradigm shared by much of the animal kingdom (including the young race of humans) would best match their existing physiology and culture. Then the right magics had to be developed and perfected, a process of much trial and regrettable error.

Eventually the process was "close enough" and majority of the elven race underwent the magical transformation to either male or female, in even numbers.
There may still be some of the original elves left, carefully protected in hidden places at the centre of elven civilisation, keeping the lore and guiding their younger brethren but only visiting the outside world in cases of dire necessity.

With the ability to reproduce also came the onset of aging. Although elven lives and vitality are still measured in centuries the biological mechanisms required to grow from seed to babe and from young adult to adult while slow compared to other races nevertheless continue. With mortality also came a greater susceptibility to disease and a subtle change in mindset, new emotions and new concerns. Elven conception remains difficult and if a child is intended every possible step, natural and magical, will be taken.
The emergence of half-elves has led some to argue that the elven template was patterned too closely on humans and the few non-elven sages with any inkling of the event to speculate darkly on just what sacrifices were required to achieve the transformation. Others suggest it is a deliberate fallback introduced so that something of elven kind might be preserved even if the great change ultimately failed.

The gendered personifications of the elven gods suggest they may have
  • supported or even initiated the change
  • as is sometimes the case with fantasy deities had the change forced upon them by the actions and beliefs of their followers
  • supplanted some earlier divinities if the elves had any or
  • ascended to divinity as part of the quest for a solution in order to access the power of divine magic for the transformation

Elven appearance was mostly unaffected by the transformation. A few more curves here, a few more muscles there. Elves remain graceful, attractive humanoids. Similarly the day-to-day of elven society was also for the most part unaffected - male or female continues to play little-to-no part in an individuals suitability for any task or duty. There are probably only a few elven generations (millennia) between the great change and the present day in most fantasy worlds so the long-term social consequences have yet to play out. Although elves certainly experiment with the expressions of gender in fashion and clothing as practiced by surrounding cultures the social segregation based on sex displayed by many races puzzles and confuses them. When dealing with such cultures many elves will simply take on the trappings of the dominant sex/gender regardless of their own.

~~~
In a magical world sentience is not restricted to those races who can move of their own accord. Plants and even locations may be intelligent and rightly concerned with their own survival. These individuals are usually also highly magical and it is from them that the Fey (dryads, nymphs, sprites, and fairies) come; serving as protectors, emissaries/avatars, and pollinators or self-determining seeds.

Reproduction for these entities usually falls into one of 2 categories. Many (such as the oak usually associated with a dryad) require an exchange of pollen or seed with another of their kind. Since they may be spread far and wide wind and insect based pollinators are unreliable at best, most likely to waste the pollen on simple natural plants nearby. There are two common solutions to this problem.
1. "recruit" an intelligent, mobile being to seek out a suitable plant and either deliver or return with some form of incomplete seed which can be completed and planted nearby.
Example: a dryad charms an adventurer into taking what resembles an acorn and planting it at the foot of another sentient oak. Here it is either infused with the magic of the second parent or grows and flowers to be pollinated, another adventurer is then charmed to transplant the young oak to some other place where the tree will either shed it's fertilised acorns before dying or will awaken to sentience over the next season.

2. create pollen carriers of it's own with enough mind to seek out a suitable other tree. This is the origin and usually fate of the smallest of fairies - birthed from a flower or fruit to spend their short lives in the air eventually perishing from exhaustion or upon finding a suitable other deliver their precious cargo and spend the rest of their lives tending to the host.

For an intelligent plant it is only a small step from these tiny servants to budding slightly larger ones who stay close and tend to it, or if successful perhaps fairies stay and grow into the larger sprites or even into a dryad associated with the new seed.
Of course in any world with magical carnivorous plants (and D&D has no shortage) it is to be expected that the ecology will rapidly develop barely-sentient or even non-sentient plants designed to mimic a fully sentient tree long enough to prey on these morsels.

Satyrs are universally "male" and often said to party/mate with nymphs and dryads - is this another method of pollination or are these the "cuckoos" of the intelligent plant world?

~
Intelligent locations rarely have any interest in physical reproduction but often have a wider array of material to work with when constructing servants. It may even be that they wish to trade for material or convey information to another location by means of a physical object which can be assimilated and "read" by the recipient, if this results an an extension of personality then it could be considered a form of memetic reproduction.

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios