D&D 5E MTOF: Elves are gender-swapping reincarnates and I am on board with it

[Sunseeker]

Who said dragonborn don't nurse? The art department certainly thinks they do.

It's not that they couldn't do both. Duck-billed Dragonborn...or something.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Dragonborn are draconic, after all: D&D Dragons are not necessarily Reptiles, they have Mammalian and Avian features as well.

And dragonborn have more mammalian features than true dragons. Because, y'know, they're humanoids.

 

[Eltab]

If the young are fed by a team of adult child-raisers, then they might never know who laid their egg, let alone who fertilized that egg; they would form loyalty to the clan as a collective.

If it was important, somebody could keep track. Maybe because of kingship-like concerns, or a deliberate breeding program - either to bring out strengths or to move away from a weakness. For IRL instance, the horses at the Kentucky Derby got too gracile, light, fast, and fragile. Broken legs on the track are a bad sign indeed. The breeders have had to look more at robust horses that can take the stresses of start / stop and recover from injury quicker.
In the Dragonborn case, the elders might know that you come from the line of Hyrax Broken-Arm 5 generations ago and you will not be allowed to breed with any of his other descendants; in fact they would prefer to find you a breeding mate from the line of Thacoe Plague-Proof both to spread his good traits and so the next generation bone strength will 'tend back towards the mean'.

A period of free-form play might serve to acquire a number of tasks at once that the clutch doesn't teach specifically. Chiefly muscle tone, and practicing the bare-bones of the stuff an adult will eventually teach you on purpose. If you can't sneak up on prey, you guarantee the first few hunts you come along on, will fail.

 

[Riley37]

If it was important, somebody could keep track.

True. Whoever laid the eggs, could keep track of those particular eggs, if she chose to, even in communal hatching rooms/caves, and she could take an interest in the young who hatched from those eggs. Heck, egg-layers or fire-tenders could mark eggs, perhaps with wax if they don't have felt-tip pens. I figure that's a matter of each clan's traditions and taboos. Clans which associate closely with mammals might be influenced by mammal values.

Whether dragonborn pair-bond, and whether each pair has its own house with its own kitchen, is an open question. When pairbonding is the standard way to form a "household" which is the primary venue for raising children, then there's pressure to pair-bond. Without that pressure, there are other options.

A period of free-form play might serve to acquire a number of tasks at once that the clutch doesn't teach specifically. Chiefly muscle tone, and practicing the bare-bones of the stuff an adult will eventually teach you on purpose. If you can't sneak up on prey, you guarantee the first few hunts you come along on, will fail.

On one hand, I assume that newly hatched young pass through a period when free play is all they can do, learning basics of coordinated movement, wrestling with each other, along with basics of language. Apprenticing to an adult task requires at least some ability to focus on that task. Perhaps varying by task; accidents as an apprentice weaver are one thing, accidents as an apprentice blacksmith are another.

On another hand, when you say clutch, do you mean this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clutch_(eggs)

 

[Lanefan]

Who said dragonborn don't nurse? The art department certainly thinks they do.

Maybe.

Or maybe the art dept. is suggesting these creatures have built-in water or nourishment storage analagous to the humps on a camel... ?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Maybe.

Or maybe the art dept. is suggesting these creatures have built-in water or nourishment storage analagous to the humps on a camel... ?

Ah, yes, the humps that only female camels have, because male camels of course have no need to store nourishment...

 

[Eltab]

On another hand, when you say clutch, do you mean this

So far the discussion hasn't gotten too into details. I'm using "clutch" for all the eggs laid by all the dragonborn in the group and tended together, also for the young that hatch at about the same time (regardless of parent). A bit broader than the wiki definition.
(And by implication I'm working with a Neanderthal-era level of technology, plus the tribe has a fixed point of reference -a safe cave or something - and roams the territory around it.)

 

[Sunseeker]

If it was important, somebody could keep track. Maybe because of kingship-like concerns, or a deliberate breeding program - either to bring out strengths or to move away from a weakness.

Even for more simple reasons: Are there as many eggs here today as there were yesterday? And to determine when you expect the young to hatch.

From there it's just a matter of refining the counting method:
4 eggs were laid Wednesday.
-2 of them were from Ygara and 2 were from Jakeria.
--1 of them was blue, 2 were red and 1 was sparkly.
---3 of them looked healthy, 1 did not.
----that one was from Ygara.
-----it was the sparkly one.

Advancing along as society finds these things matter. It's likely that whoever is watching the eggs would likely be trained to determine the apparent health of the egg and would be familiar with how long it takes to hatch +/-X days. So we could probably assume that there would be tracking for when an egg was laid and its health. Even if the latter was not reported to birth-parents, it's likely the clan would need to be made aware assuming an unhealthy child was born that might be a drain on society.

 

[Hussar]

I really don't get these arguments. I guess I'm too selfish. I look at it like this: Does this new lore cost me anything? Is it going to make me do any more work or impact my game? No, it isn't. A player who wants to use these rules is free to do so and it's his or her character. They can fill their boots and good on them.

Which brings me to the second question - does it make other people happy? Yup, apparently it does. So, since it costs me nothing and makes other folks happy, what's the problem here? The mechanics are such that any world builder can easily ignore it - it is a rare trait after all. It doesn't cost you a single thing to add this to the game. And it makes other folks happy. What's in it for me to oppose that? What am I gaining? Or, better yet, what are you gaining by opposing this?
[MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] talks quite extensively about the change in elven lore. Thing is, it's not really a change. 1e limited elves to 12th level magic users. Until 3e, elves were NEVER the greatest wizards in the game. In 3e, baseline elves didn't gain an Int or Cha bonus at all, so, nope, other than some campaign specific variants, elves were not the greatest wizards in the game. It wasn't until 4e with Eladrin that the lore and the mechanics actually matched - eladrin wizards were among the best in the game. But, we don't HAVE eladrin in 5e. Not in core anyway. Core 5e elves fit best with 1e to 3e elves. So, his entire complaint ignores what's actually written in the game.

So, I'll ask again, what is the cost to you to have this in the game?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ah, yes, the humps that only female camels have, because male camels of course have no need to store nourishment...

That’s how the Dragonborn matriarchy got established. The females control the water...