Will you make transsexual Elves canon in your games ?

[Ganymede81]

In a culture where its members can change sex at will, I'd imagine that a notion like sexual orientation wouldn't even exist. Elves would just fall in love with one another (assuming that notion even exists for elves as it does for humans) and, if they wanted a child, they'd morph to the appropriate sexes for that goal.


I don't really get the "its political" critique, though. Sci-fi and Fantasy is politics to its core. When the party is mulling whether to trust the renegade orc or put it down like the rest of its kind, when the party is choosing whether the rightful but depraved king is to be supported over the well-meaning but illegitimate rebel, or when the party is doing literally anything similar to any episode of Star Trek, Game of Thrones, or any other similar property, they are dealing in political matters.

I'd be more disinclined to allow it because of some ridiculous sessions I saw go down involving the sex changing portal in the Tomb of Horrors, but that was years ago.

 

[Yaarel]

In a culture where its members can change sex at will, I'd imagine that a notion like sexual orientation wouldn't even exist. Elves would just fall in love with one another (assuming that notion even exists for elves as it does for humans) and, if they wanted a child, they'd morph to the appropriate sexes for that goal.

I assume sexual orientation does exist, requiring one to become the sex that a certain individual prefers if wanting to date that person.

Worth noting, orientation and gender are separate variables. A feminine female might only find other feminine females attractive. And so on, with the rest of the permutations.

 

[akr71]

M'eh. If one of my players wants to play an elf that way, they are free to do so. Its not a big deal either way... I mean we have male characters and we have female characters, but gender, sexuality and reproduction is not something that comes up for discussion at our table. Not because its taboo, but because we're too busy adventuring.

Don't get me wrong - I fully support inclusion, but we're a group of straight, married, 40-something parents.

 

[dave2008]

Hello,

I've seen the Jeremy Crawford interview where he talks about Elves as portrayed in the Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes - specifically, some of them can now change sex after a long rest, so they're transsexual in practice.

What do you think of it ?

Corellon has always been trans so I kinda assumed all elves had this trait somewhat.

From 1e Deities and Demigods:

 

[dave2008]

Worth noting, orientation and gender are separate variables. A feminine female might only find other feminine females attractive. And so on, with the rest of the permutations.

So many people miss that point.

 

[Ganymede81]

I assume sexual orientation does exist, requiring one to become the sex that a certain individual prefers if wanting to date that person.

Worth noting, orientation and gender are separate variables. A feminine female might only find other feminine females attractive. And so on, with the rest of the permutations.

It sounds like you are talking about humans. I was talking about elves, specifically elven cultures with Corellon's blessing.

 

[Draegn]

Hmmm.



A pregnant elf who switches to male:

The uterus vanishes, and the placenta attaches to and draws nutrients from the intestinal tract. The father requires a caesarean section if not switching to female at the time of delivery..

I would go along with mythology and have the elf stuck in female form until the child was born. As Loki could not resume his form when changed into a mare while carrying Sleipnir.

 

[flametitan]

Obviously the solution is that elves lay eggs

 

[AmerginLiath]

Since I play in Dragonlance, I don’t see where this will come into play for that world (except perhaps in some odd individual case) without Corellon, but I do like some of the ideas that folks have spitballed here.

In terms of elvish language, I think that it would work similar to Finnish or Hungarian: there’s no gendered pronouns, but there are gendered affixes (for both male and female) that can be added to some base nouns (in this case, referring to the elf in current mode — although I could see some only using the base word without any gendered suffix as a sort of personal affectation).

 

[Yaarel]

Obviously the solution is that elves lay eggs

Actually, in my campaigns, fey elves reproduce magically, via rituals. The elf might give birth ‘naturally’ with a mother conceiving and birthing, insofar as this ‘birth’ refers to a spirit in a spirit realm. Or the parents might do a ritual that sculpts a statue and makes the statue come to life. Or might build a kind of magical nest to incubate the child born out of the blood of many parents, or so on.

Now that I think about it. Even according to the 5e Forgotten Realms setting cosmology, *all* elves were born magically from the blood of Corellon without sexual reproduction.

So elves that are in the Feywild, are spirits that come into existence in the ways that spirits do. This birth can resonate the physical world, especially to the degree that the elves are fertility spirits. But they are also spirits that personify magic itself.

It seems elves choose become males and females, because male is a way of being beautiful, and female is a way of being beautiful.