Coming up with unusual "gender" dynamics

[Morphic tide]

Do note that non-sexually-dimorphic creatures are applicable, here (that's actually exactly what made me think of making this thread, and if I meant that, I'd use it in the title), the idea is to come up with dimorphism that's roughly analogous to sexual dimorphism and leads into fairly closely analogous "gender" roles, but has nothing to do with reproduction. In other words, there's still a mapping of man and woman (and possibly more), but not necessarily a mapping for male and female.

The example I thought up was a race of Elementals where the "men" solidify their nature, becoming stronger and more durable, while the "women" become relatively fragile but are the only ones able to make more of the race and have powerful abilities to make other sorts of tools. However, processes would exist to let either one become the other, so it's a completely interchangeable system, and the fact that only one individual is needed for reproduction means that it's not at all sexual dimorphism. A better description would be a Miner and Crafter, two general categories of work that no individual can do simultaneously, outside a few extremely old or talented individuals that refuse to differentiate. Could lead to elders that can do both and only switch to one of the specialized states when there's a dire need for an extreme concentration of one of the two categories.

[TheYell]

If your table goes in for it, maybe. I just think you're opening a can of worms here by saying, "these mutable abilities are gender roles" instead of "my guys have feat chains that can be retrained".

[Morphic tide]

If your table goes in for it, maybe. I just think you're opening a can of worms here by saying, "these mutable abilities are gender roles" instead of "my guys have feat chains that can be retrained".

Honestly, the entire point is that it's very comparable to gender roles, but flatly isn't. You can call it something entirely differently, but the point of this thread is to talk about things that have the same approximate cultural position without actually matching the way it works normally. Also, the mechanical expression idea came first, with the realization of how it's rather comparable to gender when it isn't mutable being what made me make that connection in the first place. It can be referred to with more typically abnormal non-gendered caste terminology (like Miner and Crafter), and the setup in question actually refers to an idea I had for Crysmals of all things. The vaguely-scorpion-shaped Psionic Elementals. The reason it came to mind with Crysmals in particular is because they're the only creature in the game that has explicit rules for crafting things from its corpse, and they are themselves explicitly constructed. Yet they're Elementals by default. And because the mechanical expression was being thought up in association with a monster class homebrew as a way to mechanically represent an option for them advancing past the default, I kinda needed another option and decided going whole-hog on crafting would work for the other.

...To compress it, the word you're missing is "analogous". They have a similar position, in terms of cultural function, to gender roles, but very much aren't actually matters of gender as we know it. The similarities to gender can be completely ignored. What I want to see of this thread is more stuff like the example, clear and significant differences in form and/or function that can compare in societal role to gender, but very much isn't how gender works with humans.

[ahyangyi]

I would prefer to just say they are two castes or social classes instead of genders if the race itself is asexual.

Though you could include the gender theme by adding “though asexual, the miner caste prefer masculine pronouns, and the crafters feminine pronouns, when they speak Common, though the exact preference vary for each individual”

[TheYell]

What I want to see of this thread is more stuff like the example, clear and significant differences in form and/or function that can compare in societal role to gender, but very much isn't how gender works with humans.

And when your players don't share a cultural construct of gender in humans?

[Lacuna Caster]

I would prefer to just say they are two castes or social classes instead of genders if the race itself is asexual.

Yeah, that seems more straightforward.

[TheYell]

I don't mean to argue or derail your thread. If you have people who share your view of gender then have at the experiment. I'm just pointing out many people will not agree on the concept of gender roles in society which they need to arrive at in order to enjoy a comparison of analogies.

[Becca Stareyes]

Castes may be a better fit for what you want. And there's no need to stick to two

(I think of Martha Wells' Raksura, which have both two sexes and another dimorphism -- some have wings and some don't. Winged Raksura are mostly sterile warriors, but fertile winged female Raksura have powerful mental abilities and end up the ones in charge of a given group. Wingless Raksura are all fertile and hardier than their winged siblings, and adopt the everyday tasks like hunting and agriculture and raising kids.)

[Morphic tide]

Okay, people seem to be misunderstanding the point. It's to have dynamics that are analogous to gender while clearly not being gender. The problem of there being people who reject a conceptualization of gender is irrelevant because, for one, such people are actually extremely rare and tend to have little to do with tabletop gaming, and secondly, the entire point is things that are similar to but are not gender. Call 'em castes if you want. Call 'em whatever you feel like, but the reference point I decided to go with is gender. You're the ones bringing genderqueer baggage into this, I just want to see some creature concepts where the nearest analogue to gender is fundamentally different in ways that are genuinely important.

[TheYell]

So you want me to make up a race where there are no men and women, but there's two gender analogues, but its not linked to reproduction, and they're interchangeable, because that's how gender works, only we're not talking about gender?

OK.

The Smurfs.

[Morphic tide]

So you want me to make up a race where there are no men and women, but there's two gender analogues, but its not linked to reproduction, and they're interchangeable, because that's how gender works, only we're not talking about gender?

OK.

The Smurfs.

It's just "gender analogues", or biological castes that have some similar properties to gender roles if you really demand it be divorced from actual gender. Nonspecific in number. My example case does have reproduction tied to one of them. Interchangability isn't necessary, either. Just "gender analogues".

[theVoidWatches]

I came up with some for most of the player races a while back. Let me see if I can remember what they were...

Elves live so long that if they were heteronormative and bred at the same rate at humans, they would have overpopulated the world ago. This is normally dealt with by giving them low fertility and/or a low libido, but I propose homonormativity instead. Hetero folks are rare, and generate very large families. They're viewed as making an unfortunate sacrifice to ensure the existence of the species. Same-sex couples can have kids as well, with the help of powerful magic, but tend not to create such large clans - more commonly they adopt from hetero couples. Gender-wise, the chief elvish god Corellon is genderfluid, and elves have a similarly loose take on gender. Members of other races often view elves as being androgynous due to their lack of defined gender roles and expectations. Thanks to high general proficiency with magic, trans elves usually transition completely with the help of transmutation spells.

Half-elves assume the attitudes of whichever parent raised them.

Dwarves have a rigid social structure, but both genders can take any role. Not that you'd know, as they have basically no sexual dimorphism. All dwarves look like hirsute bearded folks (the beard is part of the rigid social structure, and not having one is considered shameful). As a result of this difficulty in figuring out actual genders, most dwarves end up not caring - after all, they've already fallen in love by the time they find out if their partner is male or female. Once again, hetero couples create the largest clans of dwarves, and same-sex couples tend to adopt and have smaller families. The dwarven language does not have gendered pronouns (it has pronouns based on rank, but that's another matter), and most dwarves who don't really look into the matter end up with male pronouns in other languages as a result of assumptions regarding beards.

Halflings have a very loose social structure in comparison to dwarves, and strongly defined gender roles in comparison to the elves. However, their physical sex has nothing to do with their gender expression. In fact, a single halfling often bounces between male and female depending on what role they're filling at the time. They don't really care if you're baking but you were a guy yesterday, what's important is that you're a gal now. For this reason, there are only hetero couples in halfling society - however, which person is male and which is female often changes even within the same couple.

Gnomes are much like halflings, with the added benefit of natural illusion magic to help them change genders when necessary - halflings need to be satisfied with changing clothes and pronouns.

Tieflings are all born from members of another race, and tend to adapt that society's views.

Dragonborn are much like dragnos dragons in that they can produce children with any race or sex. Their eggs are produced magically, through a melding of their magic with that of another, and thus they actually have no sexual organs or separate genders. As a result, dragonborn tend to be panromantic asexuals, although there are of course exceptions, as with any race. When asked which gender they identify with, most dragonborn (as with most dragons) respond with a bemused "no thanks". They usually take they/them pronouns or the equivalent in other languages, viewing it as the best translation of draconic's lack of any acknowledgement of gender (Draconic has pronouns for "dragon" and "not dragon", but not for gender).

Half-orcs grow up with their non-orc parent and learn the attitudes of that parent.

Humans have similar societies to real life, except that the existence of transmutation magic means that trans people are more accepted and gender roles are less rigid.

Aasimar, like tieflings, are born from other races and absorb their attitudes.

Goliaths don't have physical sex or, generally, gender. They also are unable to reproduce without magic. Specifically, they carve statues which are then animated by a trial shaman into fully grown goliaths, which are then raised (so to speak) by the tribe. It usually takes 50-some years before a goliath is considered adult. Goliath language does not have gender, and few goliaths bother with one either, until they go out into the world and pick one, sometimes at random and sometimes taking the gender that others assume.

Kenku relationships are similar to human ones. While homosexuality is not taboo, it is also not common. Same-sex couples adopt eggs from hetero couples.

Tabaxi also do normal relationships, by which I mean they all meet up twice a year to go into heat, have wild drunken orgies, then deal with the consequences. Outside of this they tend to be biromantic and settle into committed relationships involving little sex. Sometimes both partners have kids after the orgy, which tabaxi view as too many kids, so one of them is adopted by a couple that got no kids. No one knows who's related, but tabaxi tend to travel enough that this isn't an issue.

Tritons are just elves but in the water and we all know it.

Orcs are made up of three main groups - fertile men, fertile women, and infertiles (both men and women). Fertile women spend their time protected by fertile men, while all others are sent out in war parties, which kidnap men and women of other species to attempt to produce half-orcs. Any who manages to produce a half-orc is sent back to the home camp in honor, while the non-orc parent is released with their child and compensation for their trouble. Orcs view it as not worth a confirmed fertile orc's time to **** a non-fertile. The war parties themselves are often filled with orgies in which women keep careful track of which men they have slept with, because if they manage to have a child by another orc then they both get to go home. Orcs tend to be pansexual and aromantic. They also tend to use they/then pronouns until proven fertile, at which point they assume the pronouns of their gender. This is because orcish essentially identifies three genders: mother, father, and child, and you remain a child until you have one of your own.

Kobolds don't do sex or romance. They do externally fertilized eggs. Children are raised by the tribe and never know who their parents are - and those parents could be anyone, as all eggs are collected together and male kobolds attempt to fertilize them in order of rank.

Goblins treasure their women and keep them in protected home camps. Any female children are sent away, traded to other camps, while men get to stay and, on reaching maturity, participate in a ceremony in which the women pick out goblin men to be their husbands. This results in goblin women each having many husbands, who raid in search of things to present to their wives when they reunite (and only the best, because they're competing with their brother-husbands).

Hobgoblins are pseudo-spartans. They have what appears to be a rigid heteronormative society, except that when they go off to war, suddenly everyone is ****ing everyone in order to bond. Also, the role of women in a society where men go to war for months or years at a time is to run everything. Even when the army returns and the chief is given his power back by his wife, it's customary to ceremonially decline it, leaving her in charge. Meanwhile, women often form relationships of their own while their husband are away. The result is a society in which husbands and wives (paired up in arranged marriages by their parents) have little to do with each other except making kids - most of the time, the women are in committed homosexual relationships and the men are in loose, polyamorous homosexual relationships.

Yuan-ti, like kobolds, don't do sex. Unlike kobolds, they do do relationships. They have low sexual dimorphism and gender roles mainly boil down to who takes what part in a yearly ceremony of egg-laying and fertilization. A second ceremony several weeks later has couples (which are same-sex as often as not) come and pick out eggs to adopt.

TL;DR

Elves are homonormative and very accepting of trans folks. Dwarves are agender bisexuals. Halflings and gnomes have rigid gender roles but are all genderfluid. Dragons and dragonborn are all agender asexual panromantics. Goliaths are asexual, reproduce asexually, and don't bother with gender unless pressed. Tabaxi are biromantic and only do sex twice a year when they go into heat. Orcs have gender roles but you don't get to have a gender until you're a parent. Kobolds are aroace and raise eggs as a tribe. Goblins have a polyandrous society. Hobgoblins are spartans and are all gay, with men being polyamorous. Yuan-ti have no gender roles and all adopt from a communal egg pile. Half-elves, half-orcs, tieflings, and aasimar end up with the views of whoever raised them.

[Lacuna Caster]

I came up with some for most of the player races a while back. Let me see if I can remember what they were...

Elves live so long that if they were heteronormative and bred at the same rate at humans, they would have overpopulated the world ago. This is normally dealt with by giving them low fertility and/or a low libido, but I propose homonormativity instead.

This... does somewhat raise the question of why they'd either evolve or have been created this way, though. I mean, by default the hetero folks would have the lion's share of actual offspring, so the darwinian implications are pretty straightforward.

Half-elves assume the attitudes of whichever parent raised them.

...Right, because straight conservative parents never ever raise gay kids.

It's just "gender analogues", or biological castes that have some similar properties to gender roles if you really demand it be divorced from actual gender. Nonspecific in number. My example case does have reproduction tied to one of them. Interchangability isn't necessary, either. Just "gender analogues".

Oh, sorry, I missed that bit. Okay, so one of the genders is capable of asexual cloning and the other is more physically robust, and individuals can swap between the two over time?

Yeah, I guess that works fine. It might not be dissimilar to the people of gethen from The Left Hand of Darkness, or fish species that change sex based on changes in the social hierarchy?

[Morphic tide]

Oh, sorry, I missed that bit. Okay, so one of the genders is capable of asexual cloning and the other is more physically robust, and individuals can swap between the two over time?

Yeah, I guess that works fine. It might not be dissimilar to the people of gethen from The Left Hand of Darkness, or fish species that change sex based on changes in the social hierarchy?

In my example case, yes (well, it's building, not cloning, but it's still asexual reproduction), though you could also go with non-sexual dimorphism where biological sex is present and of low importance due to having much less impact than the other dimorphism(s). Like some interpretations of the Nerubians from Warcraft, who explicitly aren't fully centralized reproduction (though canon hasn't dove in on it and the fanfiction scene is barren compared to the playerbase size, hence "interpretations"). In particular, I recall reading a fanfic where one of the author's notes or an expository dialogue segment explicitly points out that the biological sexes have no social implications because the biological castes take up those social roles.

Also, regarding theVoidWatches' block of relatively standard fantasy races, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm not looking for monomorph creatures or standard genders with progressive overlays that make no thematic sense in the usual settings (how the heck does a whole society of genderfluid people even count as genderfluid, anyways? By all sane societal development, they wouldn't have gender, they'd end up with a fluid caste system where people who do certain jobs are expected to have certain traits, completely divorced from the idea of gender. And given they, presumably, have sexual dimorphism mostly like humans, the existence of such a thing without a fixed anchor point of gender makes no bloody sense), I'm looking for alternative morphisms that substitute biological sex as a driver of social roles.

[Lacuna Caster]

In my example case, yes (well, it's building, not cloning, but it's still asexual reproduction), though you could also go with non-sexual dimorphism where biological sex is present and of low importance due to having much less impact than the other dimorphism(s). Like some interpretations of the Nerubians from Warcraft, who explicitly aren't fully centralized reproduction (though canon hasn't dove in on it and the fanfiction scene is barren compared to the playerbase size, hence "interpretations"). In particular, I recall reading a fanfic where one of the author's notes or an expository dialogue segment explicitly points out that the biological sexes have no social implications because the biological castes take up those social roles.

Barren for Warcraft in general, or the Nerubians specifically?

If these elemental creatures are assembled rather than born, it does sorta raise the question of why there wouldn't be a variety of other castes/genders related to other economic or social niches, though. The idea that inorganic life would use femininity as a defacto analogue to 'person-manufacturer' is interesting, but in principle you could also have niches for science & research, or external diplomacy, or scouting and exploration, or various different types of heavy industry. How much control/finesse do they have over the 'birthing' process, exactly?

[Morphic tide]

Barren for Warcraft in general, or the Nerubians specifically?

In general. Actually, a rather disproportionate amount brings up Nerubians in more depth than canon, given they have about three missions in Warcraft Three and a handful of quests in one World of Warcraft expansion. Granted, in both cases, they had some rather heavy impact on the fanbase (Anub'arak is still a beloved character, and Wrath of the Lich King was the most played expansion. To the tune of twelve million subscribers, which is why I call it relatively barren for fanfiction)

If these elemental creatures are assembled rather than born, it does sorta raise the question of why there wouldn't be a variety of other castes/genders related to other economic or social niches, though. The idea that inorganic life would use femininity as a defacto analogue to 'person-manufacturer' is interesting, but in principle you could also have niches for science & research, or external diplomacy, or scouting and exploration, or various different types of heavy industry. How much control/finesse do they have over the 'birthing' process, exactly?

It's more a developmental difference than an initial assembly one, and the reason behind the differences in outcome is how the same underlying Elemental nature is attached to the body, so there's actually no differences in mental characteristics. The "Miners" are practically Golems with the elemental spirit in charge, with the internalization of power causing them to lose most capacity for external expressions of power, but conversely having much more elementally-derived durability. And Psionic reinforcement. Meanwhile, the "builders" go the opposite direction, getting their spirit less attached to the physical minerals and thereby letting them have more externalized power, letting them easily infuse objects with Elemental and Psionic power, including the form of doing so involved in making more Crysmals.

[Lacuna Caster]

In general. Actually, a rather disproportionate amount brings up Nerubians in more depth than canon, given they have about three missions in Warcraft Three and a handful of quests in one World of Warcraft expansion. Granted, in both cases, they had some rather heavy impact on the fanbase (Anub'arak is still a beloved character, and Wrath of the Lich King was the most played expansion. To the tune of twelve million subscribers, which is why I call it relatively barren for fanfiction)

Anub-Arak? Really? I mean, the only Warcraft character I have a particular fondness for is Rexxar, mainly because that mini-campaign was rather fun, but the big beetle guy just seemed to be kinda... there? What was the attraction?

It's more a developmental difference than an initial assembly one, and the reason behind the differences in outcome is how the same underlying Elemental nature is attached to the body, so there's actually no differences in mental characteristics. The "Miners" are practically Golems with the elemental spirit in charge, with the internalization of power causing them to lose most capacity for external expressions of power, but conversely having much more elementally-derived durability. And Psionic reinforcement. Meanwhile, the "builders" go the opposite direction, getting their spirit less attached to the physical minerals and thereby letting them have more externalized power, letting them easily infuse objects with Elemental and Psionic power, including the form of doing so involved in making more Crysmals.

So... kinda like the internal vs. external martial arts, if that makes any sense?

What are you looking for more specifically? Do you have any details on their habitat, origin story, etc.? What blanks are you looking to fill?

[Grek]

An alien species I used once in a scifi setting had two sexes: queens and drones. Queens lay large clutches of haploid eggs which hatch into servile haploid drones if left unfertilized. If a drone fertilizes an egg (each drone can only fertilize one egg) it will hatch into a new diploid queen. As a result, 'excess' drones are sent off on quests to find another colony and impress the local queen in hopes of siring a new hive. Queens are large, sessile, philosophically inclined and fed by their drones; drones are dexterous and swift, but typically a bit dim. The entire species communicates via innate radiopathy (they can both sense produce radio waves, with queens having a range of several dozen miles) and upon arriving on Earth were very interested in knowing where our queens were and how it is that they are silicon based while we 'drones' are carbon based.

[Morphic tide]

Anub-Arak? Really? I mean, the only Warcraft character I have a particular fondness for is Rexxar, mainly because that mini-campaign was rather fun, but the big beetle guy just seemed to be kinda... there? What was the attraction?

Combination of nostalgia and standing out really well, as did basically every character in WC3. Blizzard did a great job with keeping major characters distinct in that game. Helps that they didn't have many characters they needed to use and minimized reuse.

What are you looking for more specifically? Do you have any details on their habitat, origin story, etc.? What blanks are you looking to fill?

Well, I'm not looking to build out one case in particular (I provide my thoughts on pseudo-gendered Crysmal society as an example), but rather to explore the overall concept of social roles driven by morphisms of creatures that don't neatly map to conventional sexual dimorphism.

[Dusk Raven]

I'll give a stab at this, if I'm understanding the premise correctly:

In one of my sci-fi settings, there's a alien species with a notable dimorphism. The Redracoids - a species used as elite soldiers by an alien empire centuries back, and may have been genetically engineered for that purpose - are divided into two "genders." The "male" one can reach 10-12 feet tall when standing on two legs, though they don't always like to do so, and are the most physically powerful sapient species in the setting, having . The "female" type is shorter, around 7-8 feet tall, and weaker than the "male," but still monstrously strong by human standards. They are also much more comfortable standing on two legs, and have better manual dexterity. While both enjoy fighting, and both essentially enter a frenzy while doing so, the "females" tend to have more patience and self-preservation.

There is merit to calling the types "male" and "female," (aside from human stereotypes about gender), because males are usually of the larger type, and females of the smaller. However, around 15% of the "male" type are actually female, and vice versa - and the Redracoids themselves cannot tell the difference without close inspection. And, perhaps more importantly, they don't care. Indeed, sex (in any sense of the word) is completely irrelevant to them outside of mating season. To them, their species is divided not into males and females, but "those who charge into battle" and "those who hang back."