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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8695519" data-attributes="member: 58172">This fey setting has been around since 4e. But only recently, am I thinking about the roles of genders that are implicit within the setting. This 5e update is still a bit of a work in progress.Hopefully soon, we will have a clearer idea of what the mechanics for the drow will be, with its different cultures in play. So far, it seems the Uda drow will be something like the 5e Players Handbook, but updated for things like choice of ability score improvements. Meanwhile Aeven drow are especially a culture of Wizards, and the Loren drow are especially a culture of Druids (Wisdom nature magic). So it is possible to reconstruct the stats for a proto-drow culture, who never left the feywild and is still around in some smaller communities. Most drow are Uda, but not all.The moon drow are eladrin, the same ones found in Mordenkeinens Monsters of the Multiverse.Presumably, the Spelljammer setting will have the astral elf, that we saw in the UA. Because of its skyey themes, its radiant light, its innate spellcasting, and immortality, it might be suitable as stats for the Norsesque sun elf. We will see. If so, the astral elves exist in the wildspace, including near the sun and in its shapes of sunlight, such as the solar corona and lunar reflection. Meanwhile, these ageless elves also inhabit the feywild in its upper sky above the clouds, where children can age to physical adulthood.I am tentatively adding a Scot-esque elf, here called a "sith", a Scottish variant of sidhe, mainly witches and fairie knights.The cultures of these fey elves, include the following culturally assigned institutions:<table style='width: 100%'><tr><td></td><td>WOMAN</td><td>NONBINARY</td><td>MAN</td></tr><tr><td>Sun elf</td><td>Bard</td><td>"Psion" (Warlock)</td><td>Paladin/Cleric</td></tr><tr><td>Moon elf</td><td>Druid</td><td>Wizard</td><td>Bard</td></tr><tr><td>Fey drow</td><td>Warlock</td><td>Druid</td><td>Wizard</td></tr><tr><td>Sith elf</td><td>Bladesinger (Wizard)</td><td>Warlock</td><td>Druid</td></tr></table>I might continue to tinker with the cultural assignments. There is some tension between modeling closely the sources for each culture, versus having the cultures show an interesting diversity compared to each other. Important in the table, is how a culture utilizes a gender in order to organize institutions of magic. These traditional specializations are useful for cultural survival.Consider how, a fey drow uses the Wizard class to express his manliness. Not a football player, not a military soldier, not a hunter. Wizardry is HOW a drow is masculine.Contrast how the moon elf Wizard is nonbinary. D&D often visualizes the Wizard as androgynous, in long hair and long robes, where men lack muscularity and women (such as 3e Mialee) lack curves. Indeed, this moon elf Wizard tradition correlates well with Corellon a nonbinary patron of the arcane arts.But not so for the fey drow. Here the Wizard is likely in manly garb, perhaps in crew cut hair, appearing more like a jock or a soldier, or a suited business man, in ways typical of mens wear to emphasize manly characteristics. This genderized institution invites DMs and players to think about the masculine ways to portray a Wizard: perhaps also aggressive, valiant, with bravado.Similarly, the sun elf Bard is womanly, while the moon elf Bard is manly. The magic will tend to differ, as well as the appearances and styles of the mages. And so on with the genderization of other classes.The elves are mythic, but not alien. There is always some telltale hint that they are actually some feature of nature and not really human. But they adopt human forms and human ways. They are feminine, genderqueer, and masculine, in the same ways that humans are.Imagine what that culture is like, when the magical communities are how the culture celebrates its genders and anatomies.</blockquote>

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