D&D General Creating a Pride Flag for my D&D setting

[Yaarel]

Elven Pride Flag (Yaarel 2022)



I am creating an elven Pride Flag for my D&D setting. In it, the feywild elves (especially eladrin) celebrate an annual sacred revelry: the Revelry.

A bit like Star Trek vulcans, the fey elven court cultures tend to spend the entire year obsessively pursuing magic − research, spells, rituals, items − and searching and innovating new theoretical and practical magical applications. But once a year, these fey elves overflow into romance and wild partying. The mood of the Revelry is a bit like US Valentines Day, Brazil Mardi Gras, Scotland Edinburgh Tattoo, and Israel Purim − rolling into one megacelebration. The Revelry lasts 15 days, from the new moon to the full moon. All of the various local and regional elf courts gather from the far reaches of the multiverse to join in the fun − and celebrants from other races join in as well.

During the Revelry, Bards and Druids use illusions and elemental magic for spectacular magical cinema entertainment, including hologram conjurations, animate elementals, and first-person virtual-reality experiences. Wizards duel to the death as a sporting event, where the vanquished resurrects after the duel. Other kinds of events pervade the celebrations. Adults can enjoy various magical intoxicants, and potions in the form of superhumanly gorgeous foods. The eladrin also utilize this sacred gathering for massive, collective, epic level, world altering, rituals.

But mostly, the Revelry is for romance.

The various community events are for participants to show off their prowesses to attract their prospective mates.

Culturally, the Revelry is when the fey elves conceive children. Despite being fey − thus ethereal − spirits, these elves can birth children "naturally" via pregnancy, or magically such as bringing a statue to life. Because of magic, it is also possible for a group of elves to become the "biological" parents of a single child, and all share in the parental responsibilities as the child matures. All conceptions involve some means of exchanging a drop of elven blood from each parent. The resulting parental bonds are instinctive and fierce. It takes about 20 years for an elf child to reach full adulthood − physically and emotionally − but thereafter the elf remains eternally youthful. Even so, elven cultures dont recognize the "adulthood" that comes from diverse experiences until an elf reaches the real age of 100 years. Then there is a kind of initiation rite of passage into adulthood, traditionally during the Revelry of the hundredth year. Elven parents are normally one or more centuries in age. The elves often make the pilgrimages to the Revelry as a family traveling together among the other families from their own particular court or other community.

There are no gods per-se in this setting. However Corellon is an ancient epic level elf. Various elven communities who descend from them view them as somehow both ones own deeply loved grandparent and ones own rebellious teenager. Originating from their personal − now cultural − values of Corellon, the nonbinary identities enjoy a culturally celebrated status. It is an example of the community a whole being holy.

The Revelry romances can involve any combinations of individual identities. Moreover, magic empowers any adult individuals to sire a child together.



For my setting, I find it fun for the various prospective mates to have a way to identify oneself as well as the prospective mate that one is seeking, during the Revelry.

Accordingly, this Pride Flag for the elven romances represents the diverse identities of all of the participants of the Revelry. Moreover, each color of the elven Pride Flag has a specific meaning, whose combinations of colors can function like a coat-of-arms to identify an individual. The combinations can represent oneself, or who one is seeking.

The flag has nine colors.

• The three reddish colors (purple, crimson, and orange) represent Woman.

• The three yellowish colors (yellow, white, and green) represent Nonbinary.

• The three bluish colors (aqua, sky, and indigo) represent Man.

Specifically, each triad distinguishes into anatomical body, psychological gender, and community fellowship.



• The crimson is the community of Woman, and its members tend to correlate the pronoun "she".

• The white is the community of Nonbinary, and its members tend to correlate the pronoun "they".

• The sky is the community of Man, and its members tend to correlate the pronoun "he".



Most elven individuals self-identify with one of these three identity communities via their anatomy and-or their gender. But some identify with more than one or none.

Note, during the year the elven cultures are typically strictly egalitarian. Individuals focus on the pursuit of magic. During the Revelry especially these colors adorn the joyous celebrations of identities and love.



The Woman community (crimson) includes individuals who associate their own female anatomy (purple) with ones womanhood, as well as individuals who associate their own feminine gender (orange) with ones womanhood.

Importantly, an individual can self-identify with the colors orange-aqua-crimson as a feminine-male-woman. An other individual elf woman can identify with orange-purple-yellow-aqua-crimson, being a woman who maintains a prominent femininity (orange) while her anatomy shapeshifts between female (purple), intesex (yellow), and male (aqua). An other elf woman might self-identify with the colors orange-yellow-crimson, a feminine intersex woman. Alternatively, many other identify permutations of woman are possible.

Generally the womanly colors use the colors purple-crimson-orange, but normally add a field of white to include the other, infinite, possibilities that are difficult to fit inside a color scheme of identities.



The Nonbinary community (white) includes individuals who associate their intersex anatomy (yellow) with their nonbinaryhood, as well as individuals who associate their genderqueer gender (green) with their nonbinaryhood. Genderqueer is an umbrella term that includes bigender (simultaneously both-feminine-and-masculine), thirdgender (a distinctive gender that is neither-masculine-nor-feminine), agender (sometimes referred to as gender-blind, finding gender itself personally meaningless), and genderfluid (shifting between two or more gender possibilities including, masculine, feminine, one of the genderqueer genders, or other.

In some cases, the intersex color, yellow, might in the context seeking out a mate or signifying ones own personal anatomical shapeshifing fluidity, refer to anatomy-blind. Compare a pansexual community, who form relations regardless of whatever ones anatomy may be.

Some yellow anatomical intersex Nonbinary members may still feel a strong sense of personal gender. Likewise, some green genderqueer Nonbinary members may still feel a strong sense of anatomical bodily self-identify.

The white color represents the Nonbinary community. This white color also does double-duty to represent innocence and a transcendence that exists beyond any opposites. White can include the infinite possible identities of all humanity − or rather the endless potential of elven identities.

The Nonbinary colors of yellow-white-green are inherently inclusive. These colors associate with Corellon personally, a fluid shapeshifter. Likewise, elven cultures often use yellow-white-green as the sacred colors for their elven court systems of self-government.

The Nonbinary community tends to include individuals who self-identify via their intersex anatomy and-or their genderqueer gender. But any permutation of combinations are possible within the Nonbinary community. Moreover, white can add to other color combinations to signify the presence of any unique individuals who might not self-identify with any of the nine culturally prominent identities.

Because magic can permanently shapechange a body, the elves can have whatever anatomy they want to be ones "true form". Nevertheless, besides fluid explorations, elves rarely choose a true anatomy that differs from ones birth. The elven cultures appreciate and strongly encourage the infinite possibilities of unique individuals. One notable exception is, individuals who − as a culturally sacred institution − adopt their grandparent Corellon as a household head of ones new adopted family. There is no requirement, but many individuals of the House of Corellon voluntarily adopt a permanent intersex "true form".



The Man community (sky) includes individuals who self-identify with manhood via their male anatomy (aqua) and-or their masculine gender (indigo). But any permutations of identity are also possible within the manhood. For example, an individual can display the colors indigo-purple-sky, when self-idenfying as a masculine-female-man. Likewise, the orange-aqua-sky colors for a feminine-male-man can self-identify with the Man community. And any permutations are possible.

Generally, the manly colors are aqua-sky-indigo-plus-white.



Sometimes an individual adds the colors of black for romantic-only (asexual) and-or of gray for sexual-only (aromantic). Combining black-and-gray represents no bonding, neither romantically nor sexually, but one can still form close relationships with friends and colleagues, of course. The black-and-gray individuals usually also self-identify with the anatomy, gender, and-or community of one or more of the nine colors in the elven Pride Flag.

The colors of celestial love (angelic, platonic) are simply white Nonbinary with black Romantic. As noted earlier, the sacred colors of the elven government courts are the Nonbinary yellow-white-green.



Note, the colors of the flag derive from technical considerations. They are 8 equidistant hues forming a compass on the Munsell color wheel, where "north" and "west" are a warm yellow and a crimson red, respectively. All eight hues result from this orientation. These eight colors adapt to the irregularities of RGB digital hues, and for its HSL system, each Hue is always 100% Saturation and 50% Luminance. In addition to these eight hues, the ninth color, white, adds.

The eight hues are "complementary colors", meaning, if you stare at the elven Pride Flag and then look at a blank white background, the afterimage is an other Pride Flag with the reverse colors.



I am mentioning the elven Pride Flag for my setting, here, because I want it to be as inclusive, useful, and as sensitive as possible. Any thoughtful comments about this Pride Flag and its fey elven cultures generally, are welcome.



In sum, here are the meanings of the nine colors of the elven Pride Flag (Yaarel 2022).

• Purple: female anatomy
• Crimson: Woman community
• Orange: feminine gender

• Yellow: intesex anatomy
• White: Nonbinary community
• Green: genderqueer gender

• Aqua: male anatomy
• Sky: Man community
• Indigo: masculine gender


In addition to this Pride Flag representing elven diversity generally, individuals use one or more specific colors to express ones own identity or to signal to a prospective mate who one is seeking. An elven household often displays a flag or banner with sections for the colors of each headofhousehold mate.

In the setting, a historical local eladrin court innovated the elven Pride Flag and its usage for various coat-of-arms. But these days, most elven courts embrace it. The colors are especially prominent during the romantic flourishings of the annual sacred Revelry. Additionally, many of the cultures of other races have also adopted it.

 

[Yaarel]

I hope to hear comments from forumers who are LGBTQ and allies.

Within this setting, is the approach to gender (and to some degree orientation) workable enough? Are there any issues that I might not realize?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I am not all together sure that elves would operate in any way like humans in terms of gender and sexuality. My own opinion is that elves would need some native way turn on and off reproduction and I am not at all convinced that they would have gender roles or be sexually dimorphic. The sexual dimorphism of fantasy art is, imo, a product of human sensibilities.

My view would be that elves could naturally or magical swap gender (may be not at will) and perhaps they would explore this over the course of their lives.

 

[Yaarel]

The issues you raise are worth looking into more deeply. In this post, is my first thoughts about them. But I will continue to explore them.



Personally, it is impossible for me to look at D&D elves except thru the lens of my own ethnic perspectives. Generally "Old West Norse" perspectives inform my perception of what an "elf" is.

Generally, the Norse nature beings emulate typical Norse culture, assumptions and customs. And the Norse elves do gender divide. Indeed the ones that become nornir (fates) are exclusively feminine.

Norse culture exhibits two genders, and the culture is highly gender-divided. The gender roles seem mainly reinforced by the anatomical males being expected to fight as warriors as part of the family militia to defend the extended family. Meanwhile, the sacred traditions are feminine, and the only traditional spiritual leader is a vǫlva who is a shaman who is required to be a female.

That said, it is also the case that individual Norse can choose which gender they want to be part of. The are examples of females who serve as warriors (and skalds), and the culture respects them for their masculine skills. Likewise there are examples of males who serve as shamans. (But the "office" of the vǫlva itself appears to be always female.) Moreover, there is some blending of gender roles. For example, the berserkar reuse feminine shamanic traditions in ways that fulfill masculine warrior obligations and values.

So, while the culture has strong gender division, there is still freedom for individuals to pick which side they want to be on. This individual choice also extends to the cultural borders between masculine and feminine enjoying some fluidity.

(My impression is, various Indigenous American tribal communities enjoy a similar gender-division that includes individual freedom of choice.)

So for me an "elf" gender-divides − yet there is real genderfluidity too.

I am not all together sure that elves would operate in any way like humans in terms of gender and sexuality.

Regarding the D&D 5e elf, I will reread some of the source materials. My current impression is.

Players have official freedom to choose whatever bodytype they want for their own character. Defacto, this means, elven anatomy varies considerably from ultra female women to ultra male men. In other words, a full spectrum from "elf babes" to "bodybuilders" and everyone in between. Likewise, there are elves who are short and tall, thin and broad, and so on. Of course, pretty much any skin color exists.

The focus in the original post, is the elves in the feywild. The elves in the material plane have their own cultures in play. Moreover, at least the uda drow culture strongly gender-divides. The focus is mainly on the eladrin cultures that are in the feywild, but the setting has noneladrin elven cultures present as well. In the feywild, each "court" is an autonomous government for a unique culture. But the fey eladrin share much in common.

My understanding of the blessing of Corellon is, the capability to shapeshift between male anatomy, intersex anatomy, and female anatomy, implies both that the fey elves are high anatomically dimorphic − or rather trimorphic − and implies that the intersex enjoys special sacred status. So similar to the way Roman Catholics have males representing the sacred, and Norse have females representing the sacred, the eladrin have intersex representing the sacred.

So, it seems to me, the fey elves and any elves who maintain connections with their ancestor Corellon, value the cultural recognition of the thirdgender that is neither male nor female, which is more specifically genderfluid.

There are some reallife cultures that have the thirdgender in addition to the masculine and feminine, and I keep these in mind when looking at the fey elves.

My own opinion is that elves would need some native way turn on and off reproduction

It occurs to me. All elves in this setting reproduce by means of exchanging a drop of blood from each parent. This is a nod to the lore that the original descendants of Corellon likewise developed from drops of their blood. So, this is generally how elves still do reproduction.

In other words, elves do indeed have a "native way" to decide if they want to have kids or not.

and I am not at all convinced that they would have gender roles or be sexually dimorphic.

I view the elves as echoing humanity with the normal spectrum from human anatomy from female to male and everyone in between. But the culture views those individuals near the center of the spectrum as enjoying special sacred status. In the sense of cultural recognition, the eladrin are "trimorphic". Just like human cultures divide up the colors in the spectrum of the rainbow differently, the eladrin divide up the gender spectrum into three main colors, with some fluid borders between each color.

The sexual dimorphism of fantasy art is, imo, a product of human sensibilities.

The full spectrum of anatomical appearance is also official rules.

My view would be that elves could naturally or magical swap gender (may be not at will) and perhaps they would explore this over the course of their lives.

Yeah. Shapechange is part of elven culture. This does have real impact on how the culture works. This anatomical freedom of choice is also why the intersex enjoy sacred status, because in some ways they physically represent the fluidity of all elves.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

My thoughts on this matter are my own but based on the assumption that something like evolution happens in fantasy worlds. It is not deeply informed by any lore nor have I ever really developed it to any extent. I mostly run published material and do not go in for elaborate world building .
I just thought I would throw it out there if anyone wanted to run with it. It is a way to get a fantasy species further away from humans in funny hats.

Players have official freedom to choose whatever bodytype they want for their own character. Defacto, this means, elven anatomy varies considerably from ultra female women to ultra male men. In other words, a full spectrum from "elf babes" to "bodybuilders" and everyone in between. Likewise, there are elves who are short and tall, thin and broad, and so on. Of course, pretty much any skin color exists.

WoTC or any commercial designer worth their salt is not going to define a fantasy species too narrowly. They want players of all types to play any playable creatures. Otherwise they are throwing away sales. They are also not going to deviate (particularly in a successful franchise) too far from established norms.

On the topic of Norse lore, I know enough to be dangerous but not to really comment on your take.

I have also toyed with the idea that elves lay eggs that hatch when incorporated in to the roots of trees and become dryads. When their tree dies the dryad metamorphoses into an elf. Weird eh!

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Within this setting, is the approach to gender (and to some degree orientation) workable enough? Are there any issues that I might not realize?

There may be a little push-back about calling it the Elven Pride flag rather than the Elven LGBTQ+ Flag.
Pride in our world originates from riots and demonstrations of LGBTQ+ against a society that refused to recognise them, or even actively discriminated against them. Even where the parades are accepted today, there is a strong sense of commemoration of the events where society changed, and remembrance of victims from when society didn't.

It sounds like the LGBTQ+ community in your elven setting is, and always has been accepted by the Elven society. Thus the Revelry would lack the sense of rebellion and defiance than some may feel make Pride events, Pride.

Players have official freedom to choose whatever bodytype they want for their own character. Defacto, this means, elven anatomy varies considerably from ultra female women to ultra male men. In other words, a full spectrum from "elf babes" to "bodybuilders" and everyone in between. Likewise, there are elves who are short and tall, thin and broad, and so on. Of course, pretty much any skin color exists.

Player character Elves have the capability to look like whatever the player chooses, right up to being indistinguishable from a very masculine (or feminine) Human or Dwarf for example.
However it is worth noting that by the rules, an elf that chooses to change physical gender is still recognisable as the same elf.
Whether that means that many elves do not have extreme dimorphism, or that a very masculine male elf changes to a similarly very masculine-looking female elf etc is up to the player and the DM.

 

[Steampunkette]

I... would not do this.

Like I get the impetus, particularly since canonically lots of elves are nonbinary, genderfluid, and have a sliding sexuality over the course of their long lives.

But:

1) Pride exists because of oppression. It is a celebration in the face of people who want to remove LGBTQIA+ people from society and/or existence.
Unless elves are trying to kill off "Women, Nonbinary People, and Men" they don't need a pride flag to wave in the face of their oppressors to say "Here I am, even though you don't want me to be!" which, of course, would be practically every member of Elven Society.

2) Making it about Reproduction both goes against a large swath of the LGBTQIA+ community and makes the event -specifically- a chance to get laid.
LGBTQIA+ people are often called perverts because cisnormative and heteronormative people tend to at least initially view our identities and existence through the one lens they understand: Sexual. And assert rumors and theories about how everything is just sex for the community. That we're perverts grooming children, doing kink at all times, and that trans women must "Get Off" by wearing women's clothing. Particularly that Trans Men are just "Confused Lesbians" who need to be 'corrected' by either the right straight man or the right lesbian. And, of course, the LG portion of the community (which includes at least a segment of the T4T and heterosexual portions of the T community) cannot reproduce without intervention, so this also kind of sticks its tongue out at them (us).

3) Inserting biological sex distinctions into a pride flag is just gross.
The Trans flag is pink, white, and blue to represent people who are girls, people who are boys, and people who are both, neither, or each at different times. It doesn't pose the question of what is inside someone's pants because that's no one's business except the person wearing the pants and whomever they want to take them off with. (Or skirts, but, y'know, pants is also a term for underwear so it works either way unless you go commando) Also Important: because Intersex people exist and might be women, men, neither, both, or slide around the spectrum independent of the variety of genital, genetic, and gamete configurations they might have.

4) You present Nonbinary people as sometimes feeling strongly binaristic based on their genitals configurations. Gross.
I don't think I need to explain why this one is bad.

5) You present gender/sex as opposites and nonbinary as transcending the opposites
Male is not the opposite of Female any more than Cat is the opposite of Dog. They're just different configurations of Humanity. Nonbinary people just don't fit in a binary understanding of gender because a binary understanding of gender is inaccurate, they don't "Transcend" anything.

What you've created, here, is a 'flag' that coopts pride to create a complex method of categorizing people based on their gender, their genitals, and their gender a second time for... some reason. And it essentially turns all nonbinary identities into a single monolithic "Third Gender" which is also for Intersex people. It's not even an actual -flag- because you don't use the whole thing to represent yourself, but pick and choose between 0 and 3 colors to make your own flag that the "Head of Household" chooses to hang. Which is a whoooole other can of worms...

So yes. I would not do this.

 

[kolya]

So many thoughts and feelings that I can't articulate. But in general this framing make me feel uncomfortable. Steampunkette does a good job of articulating some thoughts.

So I will instead ask a practical question.
If offspring are created through a ritual involving combining drops of blood, why do these elves even have genitals or dimorphic biologies? Did they used to make babies the human way and then just... stop at some point?

 

[Mercurius]

Obviously an idea with a lot of thought put into it, and I appreciate the intention behind it. My view kind of riffs off something @Steampunkette said--that Pride exists because of oppression. Although not being LGBTQ, I'm coming from a different angle - more of a "worldbuilding perspective."

My impression is that your idea is "too human" - or rather, too much a product of our own world. Instead of thinking how to apply something that is very much the product of our own history and culture into what could be a rather alien, fantasy culture, I would think in terms of how an elvish race that embodied such gender and sexual diversity would naturally and organically evolve.

Now there can, of course, be oppression involved, whether in the past of elvish history or from outside sources. But if not, if this is just how elves are, and without any history of oppression, then I would take a different approach. This gives you an opportunity to think big, even idealistically: In your mind, how would a culture and species look that has always embodied such diversity? Would it need a flag at all, or would it just "be"?

Meaning, you can take the basic approach of envisioning a culture as (you think) it "should" be - and not in reaction to anything else, not involving oppression, just a natural and organic expression.

For instance, the Revelry could be a very uninhibited expression and ritual of sexuality and romance unencumbered by our own hang-ups and notions. In that sense, I'll diverge from Steampunkette a bit here (even though I get their point about over-sexualizing LGBTQ people): Maybe elves don't have the embedded sexual hang-ups that we do, which are largely derived from religious roots and taboos?

In the end, it all depends upon what you want to accomplish. It is your world and your elves! My main point is to pull away a bit from our world, and think in terms of how such a culture would evolve within the context of your setting, and how elvish tradition and culture and history would look in your world. As I said, it is an opportunity to, in a sense, envision a "better world" than our own.

 

[Steampunkette]

For instance, the Revelry could be a very uninhibited expression and ritual of sexuality and romance unencumbered by our own hang-ups and notions. In that sense, I'll diverge from Steampunkette a bit here (even though I get their point about over-sexualizing LGBTQ people): Maybe elves don't have the embedded sexual hang-ups that we do, which are largely derived from religious roots and taboos?

The idea of the Revelry as a big celebration of sex and romance and makin' babies isn't actually a problem. LOTS of cultures have fertility rituals and celebrations and stuff. Plus we all know what a Saturnalia is.

The only issue I have is trying to tie such a thing specifically to the LGBTQIA+ community through the flag.

Ditch the flag and have Revelry be the horndoggiest celebration outside the prime material plane!

So we don't really differ -there-...