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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9735169" data-attributes="member: 6796468">For the sake of argument, let's move it off "Male and Female" 'cause, y'know, transness is a thing. Let's go for snake hair.So the identifying characteristics of a Medusa are:1) Snake Hair2) Petrifying Gaze3) FemaleWe're gonna change that to:1) Reptile Hair2) Petrifying Gaze3) FemaleSo now you can have a Medusa whose hair is Monitor Lizards. Not their heads, just the ENTIRE MONITOR LIZARD dangling off her head, attached by the tail to her scalp.When you look at her, having a cultural expectation that she'll have snakes for hair, will you see her and go "Oh, that's a medusa"?How about if it's just Alligator Heads attached to her scalp facing in all directions? How about Geckos so she can have a nice 'pixie cut' in comparison?No. Having Snake Hair is an identifying characteristic. Taking that identifier and broadening it doesn't mean you can't have the "Classical Medusa", for sure, but the others don't look like what we think Medusa looks like as a cultural expectation.Dark Sun is the same way. You could "Expand" an element to allow for more variety, but Dark Sun loses some of it's tightness and definition in the process. And the more elements you "Expand" for variety, the less like Athas the world is going to look.</blockquote>