One often-overlooked detail in homebrew setting design is the way that social structures work. Usually, we pay attention to the details that make a setting distinct from the reality we know and don't pay much attention to the things that we take for granted--basic ideas about how people interact with each other and themselves. But these are some of the key building blocks of how our worlds function; without a solid grasp on the ways that people fit together in the homebrew setting, we lack a complete understanding of how individuals and society coexist (or come into conflict). One of my favorite aspects of worldbuilding is this kind of social mechanic.
In recent posts, I've devoted time and space to details like these: things like romantic and sexual relationships, parenting styles, and funeral rites. In an upcoming post, I'll be tackling friendships as well. Details like these may seem small, but each of them reveals more than we might realize right away. Relationships inform the ways that individuals form close bonds, and they determine the way that NPC romances (a common thing in TTRPGs) might play out. Parenting tells us about the values and expectations placed on people in society, and the have a big impact on the way adolescent characters (also very common in TTRPGs) view the world. Funeral rites imply a lot about how different groups perceive death and legacy, and they can guide how scenes with the loss of a character (very common in TTRPGs) may occur. Similarly, gender will tell us how society treats individuals and how people define themselves, and they allow players to design characters with more freedom (a meaningful element of TTRPGs). So let's get started: how do the different groups in my homebrew setting think about gender?
Daltoners:
This ancestral line of humans is known for extremely conservative social ideals, and gender is no different. To Daltoners, gender is something given by their version of the sun god Pelor when someone is born, and that gift must be accepted, or else one risks offending the vengeful deity. Daltoner men are taught to celebrate their manhood by embracing masculinity, and women are taught to embrace femininity in a similar way. In Daltoner society, masculinity means strength, power, and boldness bordering on (and sometimes spilling over into) aggression. Conversely, femininity to Daltoners means quietness, deference, and docility. This dynamic means that Daltoner men hold the power in society while women hold little to none; this is reflected in basically every aspect of life. Some commentators outside of Daltoner society have speculated that contact with other groups who have less strict confinement placed on women would lead to Daltoner women agitating for greater rights and representation in society, but this has not materialized in any significant sense, largely due to the existence of this gender dynamic in the Dalton Church of Pelor, which has codified faithful and devoted behavior from women as submitting to men, and the power of the Church in Daltoner society has prevented any true dissent.
One effect of this dynamic has been the widespread acceptance of violence against women. As Daltoner men are taught to be aggressive and that women ultimately hold a secondary place in society, and as Daltoner women are trained to accept any abuse they may receive in the name of piety, violence--especially abuse by romantic partners--has greater potential to occur and little to prevent it. This is not perceived in Daltoner culture to be a shameful thing; in fact, Dalton Church of Pelor sermons mention a woman's obligation to suffer the blows of the men around her in the name of glorifying masculinity and even being grateful for the benefits that masculine boldness and strength bring to their society. Because men and women experience such vastly different roles in society, most close emotional connections in Daltoner society exist between people of the same gender. Both men and women conceive of the roles they play in society as being heavy burdens that can only be understood by others who bear the same weight. And due to this division, there is fairly constant distrust between men and women, although this is only spoken about with members of the same gender, and only in privacy.
Gender identity in Daltoner society is defined as rigidly (or even more rigidly) as gender roles. Men who do not embrace masculinity--and very few do due to social pressure--are publicly mocked and even formally punished for "severe transgressions" such as unashamedly partaking in women's hobbies and crafts. Something like wearing a woman's clothes even in private would earn a man time in prison. Consequences for women behaving in "traditionally masculine" ways like interrupting a man in conversation or taking a job are comparatively relaxed--social judgment in most cases with only repeated "offenses" earning true shame. Dressing in men's clothing is viewed as inappropriate and indicative of mental disturbance, but formal punishment is not a real consequence in most any case. The idea of defining one's own gender identity in an concerted way is viewed as an affront to Pelor, and results in either being counseled by one's local religious official or given a Daltoner mental health treatment such as enforced isolation or severely restricted food, both of which are considered methods of torture by other groups. The concept of a nonbinary gender or being transgender simply does not exist in Daltoner society outside of the bounds of things which are forbidden by the Dalton Church of Pelor.
Faninites:
These humans have a much freer society than their Daltoner counterparts, and that translates into much looser definitions when it comes to gender. Faninites define sex and gender separately; to them, sex defines who is able to procreate and little else, while gender defines one's role in society and perception by others. Faninites are not a people who have traditionally dabbled much in the magical arts or in advanced alchemical studies, so there were not many means in Faninite society to change one's sex prior to contact with the other groups--instead, gender is the predominant factor in social relationships, and gender is defined by the self. As a result, Faninites opt into gender roles rather than being assigned them in any meaningful way. A rite of passage in adolescence is experimenting with what gender roles a Faninite feels the most comfortable in, and young Faninites are known to try different gender expressions on in an effort to determine what feels right to them. Faninites do not traditionally have a sense of a nonbinary gender, and while that is changing as they have encountered other groups, for the most part, Faninites choose to either be male or female depending on their personal preference.
One defining feature of Faninite gender roles is that childrearing is generally a task associated with men, and as a result, Faninites who feel themselves called to be closely-involved parents tend to align themselves more with male gender roles. This, however, is a loose generalization that has begun to change over time. Beyond childrearing, gender roles in Faninite society are not strictly defined in any sense, and that means that the majority of experimentation with gender is centered on physical appearance, mostly via the medium of clothing. Faninite women often wear loose gowns and dresses; their men tend to wear tunics and breeches. By the same token, women usually sport long hair while men wear shorter cuts. These two factors--clothing and hairstyle--are used as a social shorthand for the gender presentation a Faninite chooses for themselves. Thus, regardless of body type or facial structure, a Faninite in a long dress with lengthy hair is assumed to be female, and a Faninite in a tunic with short hair is assumed to be male. This means that deciding on a gender presentation is relatively straightforward for Faninites, as buying or making clothes and getting one's hair into the right shape are simple tasks.
Because gender identity is a somewhat flexible notion for Faninites, it is not uncommon for a Faninite to live as different genders at various points in their life. There is even an increasingly popular trend in the last century for the parents of children to switch gender presentation when their life situations change and demand a change in who is the dominant parent. Because of this, Faninite children may alternately call a parent "mother" or "father" several different times in their life, switching the terms of address and pronouns for the parent as the parent changes their presentation. In general, though, the expectation in Faninite society is that once a person has reached adulthood, they will have a good idea of which gender presentation they prefer; changing presentation in adulthood is not a matter of being judged by any means, but it is generally believed that only a major life event might be the cause for a change in presentation after reaching adulthood. This is to say that gender in Faninite society is malleable but not exactly fluid. Among Faninites, respecting one's chosen gender is a matter of fairly grave importance, and essentially no Faninite believes that one's sex at birth should have any bearing on the gender they live as. As a result of this, Faninites have become fairly outspoken opponents of the restrictive gender roles and identity politics of Daltoners, and runaway Daltoners who wish to embrace another gender have come to be adopted by Faninites with some regularity.
Dwarves:
Dwarven culture places a heavy emphasis on a division of gender roles in society, with men working outside the household and women working within it, although a recent movement has seen a rise in popularity of a switching of these roles. In this sense, they have a basic set of beliefs about gender not unlike those of Daltoners. But at the same time, dwarves are not as set when it comes to sex and gender being a fixed concept. There are several important stories in dwarven mythology that tell of men bearing children and women impregnating people, for instance. The important detail to note here is that gender or sex changes are not entirely embraced by dwarves; rather, they believe that especially mighty dwarves are able to transcend those categories by means of their special power as individuals. So while not every dwarf is invited to defy gender roles and expectations, being able to do so is attached to a notion of great personal power. And even here, this concept has subtle details to consider: defying a gender or sex expectation does not necessarily make a dwarf powerful, but being immensely powerful is required to be able to defy those expectations. Thus, many dwarves generally believe that being able to do something that exists outside of the scope of their gender requires "earning" the ability to defy society, at which point the power of the individual is recognized.
Practically speaking, this means that any kind of gender transition or sex change is out of reach for the majority of dwarves. Most powerful dwarven spellcasters and alchemists are unwilling to help with changes unless significant money is offered, and even then, the spellcaster/alchemist may fear social retribution for helping in the process. As a result, dwarves who wish to undergo gender transition leave their community behind and reinvent themselves on the road before beginning again somewhere new, oftentimes in a community with more accepting beliefs about gender. While this belief may be restrictive, dwarves do culturally accept the notion of being nonbinary or agender. To dwarves, gender roles are a choice, even if that choice seems to be made for them at birth. Rather than being forced into a lifestyle (or choosing the other gender's lifestyle), a third option is presented: opting out of the system altogether. For nonbinary and agender dwarves, the consequences are substantial; dwarven society does not allow these dwarves to form close bonds with male- and female-aligned dwarves, especially in the realm of romantic relationships, essentially making them social outcasts who are still included in society's mechanisms at large, especially the economy. As a result of this, small communities of nonbinary and agender dwarves have sprung up across dwarven settlements, and the bonds between these dwarves are intense given their shared understanding of one another.
Given all this, dwarven society has a complicated dynamic between the three perceived gender identities. Dwarven men are observed to be at the top of the social pyramid, but all dwarves acknowledge the immense social pressure and obligation under which they live: male dwarves are granted economic and political power over everyone else, but they are also demonized when the dwarven empire fails, stagnates, or otherwise does not excel, often to the point that dwarven men report feeling physically unsafe during times of struggle for the empire--they are also losing out on some of that economic power to dwarven women given the recent social shift toward historical structure. Dwarven women lack social and political power but have the power of the household over dwarven men, which has been very effectively wielded throughout history; at the same time, recent changes have seen the rise of female economic power, which has led to open discussion of the need for female political power. And nonbinary and agender dwarves are ostracized in many ways socially but retain economic and political power; due to their exclusion from rigid social structures and especially the demanding social responsibilities of dwarven society, dwarven men and women often envy them for their escape from the intense pressures of dwarven social dramas and weights. The result is a sort of "grass is always greener" scenario in which each group recognizes what they lack in the other groups, leaving no one entirely content in their situation.
Orcs:
In orcish society, the division between men and women is fairly minimal; there are basically no different expectations for male and female orcs, but the highest positions in society are stratified. The highest position in male society is the warchief--while not strictly forbidden to women, there is an unspoken expectation that the warchief be an orcish man, and very few warchiefs have historically been female orcs. Conversely, the wise woman position, perhaps the highest position in any clan, is strictly a position for orcish women. This creates a slight tension in orcish society in that warriors with the highest aspirations for themselves align themselves as masculine, while those who aspire to be known as wise and community-driven align themselves as feminine. In practice, since there is no real divide between men and women in orcish culture, this means that only those who strive for the highest positions in their clans have any real stake in gender identity. As a result, only a small few orcs ever consider gender to be a meaningful concept in their lives, and those who do only have a 50% chance of feeling any sense of gender dysphoria. So for orcs, gender is only a real idea to a small number of the population, and only the orcs with a real chance to be elevated in society ever question their gender. For this reason, sex is not genuinely thought of as having any bearing on the life of an orc.
For those few orcs who aspire to be a warchief or wise woman, being transgender is an option. There is a common notion in orcish society that some future warchiefs and wise women are born with one extra rite of passage (gender transition and/or sex change). The greatest spellcasters in orcish society are often wise women, and they are known to grant sex changes and assistance in gender transition to orcs who aspire to these highest of callings. Traditionally, wise women require a kind of formal commitment from the orc wishing to transition, usually in the form of embracing the role they aspire to: a great feat of combat for warchiefs or a significant deed of service to one's community for wise women. It is worth noting that sex change is not required or even expected of these transitioning orcs; that step is voluntary if and only if the orc in question feels it would grant them greater inner peace. Once an orc has proven their potential to the wise woman of their clan, the wise woman takes the orc under her wing for a period of a few years, training them (sometimes with existing warchiefs) to learn the role. Even in this case, the transition is less about an actual change in gender roles since orcs have no meaningful definition of them--rather, it is more of a training period. This training period is expected of cisgender orcs as well, though the training period tends to be slightly shorter; it still requires a proving test but lacks the additional component of transition. It is generally believed in orcish society that the best warchiefs and wise women result from gender transition, as the additional training helps to mold them into a better leader.
From an outside perspective, it is sometimes argued that most every orc is a kind of nonbinary; unless one becomes a warchief or wisewoman, all orcs basically identify as being at neither extreme end of the spectrum. Because of the commonness of this experience, the orcs lack a word for it and often reject the notion that something like a nonbinary identity exists at all--rather, not feeling inherently masculine or feminine is taken for granted. This social construction, paired with the high instance of pansexuality in orcish culture, has always meant that orcs are not very concerned with gender in any real way. Instead, orcs are judged by their individual strengths and identity. The fluidity of gender when it comes to gendered positions like the warchief and wise woman reflects this too--gender is not a fixed trait to orcs, but rather a kind of training which any sufficiently determined orc can undergo. After sustained contact with other groups, the orcish notion of nonbinary gender has been used as a model and often as a sociological study in the notion of gender--to outside observers, the lack of direct terminology or belief around it makes it a curious example of division between sex and gender, but without a direct cultural rejection of the notion.
Elves:
Elves recognize sex in terms of the notion of procreation and otherwise leave the idea behind, opting instead for a system of five distinct genders. Two can be generally associated with masculinity and femininity, though there are distinctions that complicate this view well beyond simple notions of male or female energy. They are, in no hierarchical order:
- Illhan - This identity values physical strength and dexterity as well as awareness of one's surroundings. This is defined by elves as being similar in energy to animal life.
- Dellhan - This identity prizes nurturing energy and passivity as well as connection to living things. This is defined by elves as being similar in energy to plant life.
- Ordhin - This identity cherishes industriousness and ingenuity as well as creativity. This is defined by elves as being the energy of progress.
- Lordhin - This identity values the past and order as well as connection to the outer self, including society. This is defined by elves as being the energy of tradition.
- Plesshin - This identity prizes freedom and knowledge as well as connection to the inner self. This is defined by elves as being the energy of the future.
These gender identities have much less to do with traditional gender roles, in large part a reflection of the fact that elves eschew notions of differences between people along those lines, instead opting for a system that reflects one's views on life. And rather than selecting one gender identity, elves tend to choose several which collectively represent their outlook on life.
The elven system of gender roles, then, has much less to do with one's sex and much more to do with the way that one fits into society. Certain fields seek concentrations or mixtures of certain genders in a pursuit of balance or strength; university professors tend to embrace a combination of ordhin, lordhin, and plesshin individuals, while the most sought-after elven gardeners embrace dellhan and ordhin identities. Many outsiders argue that elves simply have no gender identities at all, and that their version of gender is more a societal construct of self-identification, but elves counter that sex-based gender identities are much the same idea. What is certain is that each gender identity tends to have associated presentations: illhan elves wear orange and grey robes, dellhan elves wear green and brown, ordhan elves wear red and yellow, lordhan elves wear white and black, and plesshin elves wear blue and purple. These sorts of visual presentations are paired with an elaborate system of hairstyles, jewelry, and footwear, and elves express combinations of their identities by combining colors and these other styles in ways that suit their individual tastes. Elven romantic and platonic relationships are often started based on the way that elves perceive each others' individual styles, using them to decide how compatible their beliefs systems are via their physical appearances.
Some elves do philosophically object to the notion of a gender system that has so great a role in society and societal perceptions of who an individual is and opt for the labels jerhan (all genders in combination) or merhan (no genders in any meaningful sense)--these labels exist and are understood universally among elves, but there remains social pressure to opt into the five-gender system of identification. In terms of sex, there is the somewhat common experience of sex change among elves, and this decision is solely undertaken when their preference for sexual activity does not match their sex at birth. There are more male-to-female sex changes among elves than the other way around given a social cherishing of the notion of carrying a child via pregnancy. These changes are often performed by powerful spellcasters, though elven alchemists have also devised a generally cheaper but more gradual method via a series of escalating potions. There is no social judgment attached to these procedures; elves recognize sex as a fundamentally personal thing and place no criticism on those who feel disconnected from their sex any more than they assign judgment to elves who realign their gender identities as they age, which is a very frequent phenomenon.
Half-elves:
Half-elves, created from Faninites and elves, borrow some key ideas about gender from both of their parent groups. Faninites believe in malleable (if not fluid) gender identities, while elves believe in a sprawling system of multiple highly flexible genders; half-elves broadly believe that gender and sex are not inherently connected like both of their parent groups, and half-elves believe that gender is more complicated than masculinity and femininity as well as the notion that none of a person's identity is fixed. But half-elves, as in most things, borrow certain ideas from other groups as well. Beyond this conception of gender identity, half-elves believe that sex is also important beyond notions of procreation, and they recognize that notions of one's sex can affect one's gender identity. For that reason, half-elves are the group most passionately interested in sex change procedures, which they argue allow an individual to embrace their gender identity more fully, especially in a world where some groups attach sex and gender. As a result, the foremost experts on sex changes in Evanoch are half-elves. Borrowing surgical notions from the gnomes and alchemical and magical procedures from the elves, half-elves have largely perfected the sex change procedure and usually offer it at a fairly reasonable rate to anyone who is interested.
Half-elves themselves are one of the most frequent patients of these procedures. Half-elves are generally perceived as outsiders by all, even their parent groups, and half-elves tend to embrace twin strategies in dealing with this: (1) embracing a combination of what others do to appeal to everyone, and (2) going in radically new ways that their lack of distinct tradition makes possible. In this case, half-elves opt for the second choice, choosing to embrace the outsider identity and do as they see fit regardless of judgment from others. The ease, affordability, and internal acceptance of sex change in addition to flexible gender identity means that a large portion of half-elves identify as transgender and pursue complete transition, and judgment from groups with less open-minded perspectives on that idea are largely ignored. This is generally the case, but there are still lots of transgender half-elves who choose to undergo transition as surreptitiously as possible, and the skill of half-elven transition experts means that these more stealthy transitioners are able to do some undetected, especially when moving to a new town--a tendency that the nomadic half-elves tend towards already.
In terms of gender roles, half-elves are mostly divided. A small debate has been sparked in the half-elven community: some argue that embracing oneself and ignoring societal judgment means ignoring gender roles altogether, making something like transition a purely cosmetic function, while others argue that embracing a gender transition is one of the most socially radical things one can do, and embracing the gender role that feels right is the thing that best fits the culture. Over time, the second of these perspectives has become more popular, but there is still a significant portion of the half-elven population that takes the more philosophical first approach. The debate boils down to practicality for most, and while the debate has been consistent for several centuries, there is no genuine animosity among the contention; half-elves recognize that they need each others' support more than they need to "win" the debate, and so it remains a fairly calm and insulated conversation rather than an argument. Half-elves do agree that gender roles are to be chosen, and many of them embrace the highly complex method of their elven parents even as they pursue satisfaction with their sex in different ways.
Gnomes:
For gnomes, sex and gender were long linked together in much the way that Daltoners perceive them to be, but without judgment--more a sense that nature provided a clear enough answer, and they chose to not consider the question much further. However, when contact with the other groups was established after the dissolution of the kingdoms, gnomes gained access to other groups' perceptions on the topic and quickly changed their system of beliefs. Where before intellectual thought had been reserved for matters like innovation and hard sciences, contact with other groups raised the question of what gnomes had missed. Suddenly, gnomish scholars had a new field to consider, and they took to studying sex and gender quite closely. Within a few generations, the consensus became that sex is a function of biology whereas gender is a function of sociology. Biologically speaking, gnomes led the charge on studying intersex individuals--people born with ambiguous sex characteristics--and gnomish biologists were soon preaching the importance of allowing time to pass before casting judgment on these individuals. At the same time, gnomish sociologists began to study the effects of gender transition on other groups and concluded that signs of transgender gnomes had been ignored for centuries. Today, gnomish research continues to push the boundaries of gender and sex identity, constantly revising their understanding of the way these two concepts operate individually and together.
With their practical understanding of the world, gnomes were the first group to seriously practice surgery, and when gender transition and sex change became a part of the conversation, surgical methods were quickly developed to allow for medical (rather than magical or alchemical) sex change procedures. With their understanding of and respect for intersex people, they also used the medical procedures to allow people the option to become intersex through surgical means. Today, an intersex identity and the associated surgical procedure are a popular phenomenon in gnomish society; many gnomes, who tend to associate outsider identity with wisdom and societal value, believe that being intersex is a sign of enlightenment and balance. Further, a transgender identity is usually perceived by gnomes as a symbol of freedom and individuality. As a result of these attitudes, gnomes have a high rate of identifying as transgender or embracing intersexuality. There is no sense of privilege attached to these identities--gnomes are well-enough studied to recognize that these are distinctly personal things which should not be embraced without sincerity and seriousness--but there is certainly no sense of judgment, either.
In gnomish society, gender roles do not exist in any meaningful way. In relationships, these is a slight divide between men and women in the sense that men are encouraged to attend to work while women are encouraged to attend to finances; however, this is complicated by two factors: (1) to outsiders and even many gnomes themselves, these are overlapping fields of responsibility to the point that the division is practically nonexistent, and (2) gnomes relish bucking societal expectations (with the exception of serving one's community, which is universally embraced), so a very significant portion of gnomish relationships deliberately avoid this arrangement. No societal expectations have meaningfully developed around intersex gnomes, leading some to speculate that part of the identity's popularity among gnomes has to do with the refusal to accept societal expectations altogether. For gnomes, the individual is truly free to be themselves without fear of reprisal so long as they serve society in some sense, and gender and sex roles are no different. Gnomes are said by outsiders to do what they please and rationalize it later, and gnomes themselves acknowledge that there is some truth to this, and they say so with pride.
Halflings:
Halflings have a strongly matriarchal society, one in which women are solely responsible for childrearing (and in which men are not allowed to participate). Gender roles in halfling society go beyond this--women are trusted more than men among halflings, making certain positions in society difficult if not impossible for halfling men. Halflings generally believe in anarchy as a political system, and the halfling "capital" of Curagon is in fact an anarcho-collective, and so women do not exclusively hold political power as there is not political power to be had. However, halfling neighborhoods tend to organize around a local facilitator who mediates disputes which cannot be handled by those involved, and these facilitators and mediators are almost exclusively women due to public trust. Some other groups have questioned the halfling way of life: Daltoners question why women should hold so much power, for instance, and the several more egalitarian groups question why any one group should hold power over another; halflings reply to these arguments that they have been historically well-served by their matriarchal society, and the "why" of things is not an entirely important question. Halfling women also argue that the lack of societal and family obligations that halfling men have frees them to do as they please, while halfling men argue that responsibilities, when denied, become privileges. Nevertheless, there is more acceptance of this set of gender roles within halfling society than in the Daltoner and dwarven systems, which also feature unequal distribution of responsibilities.
There has been a longstanding history of transgender halflings over time. The division between lifestyles available to men and women in halfling culture was the initial impetus for this development; halflings who wished to have certain responsibilities or the lack thereof would socially transition in order to obtain the lifestyle they preferred. But as social transition became a widespread phenomenon, halflings began to collectively realize the larger ramifications of the practice. As halflings who transitioned began to notice other effects such as gender euphoria and increased inner peace, it became clear that social transition was not just about one's ability to achieve their goals in life, but also to more fully embrace themselves as individuals. It is argued by halfling scholars that the notion of being transgender originated with the halflings and made its way to other groups even before the dissolution of the kingdoms led to increased contact between groups. It is true that more halflings who were assigned a male sex at birth transition to being female in society than the other way around, but a still significant portion of female at birth halflings transition to being male in society. Contact with other groups led to the widespread use of magical and alchemical means to produce sex changes among transitioning halflings, and these remain the preferred methods of sex change given the opportunity to bear children; halflings remain one of the most frequent customers of sex change procedures.
Contact with other groups led halflings to consider new ideas about gender. Key among these were the dwarven notion of being nonbinary in gender--halflings quickly adhered to the idea that gender was not an either/or proposition--and the elven system of multiple genders--halflings especially have come to identify as dellhan (nature) and plesshin (freedom), but usually in addition to masculinity or femininity. Because halflings are so individualistic, especially compared to the other groups, the notion of one's gender is not considered a fundamentally societal issue, but rather a personal one. Most halflings dress rather androgynously and have little difference in vocal tones between sexes, and so it is a fairly common experience for halflings and outsiders alike to know a halfling for a significant period of time without knowing either their sex or gender, and halflings tend to prefer it this way, instead wishing to be known as an individual person without the social weight of gender or sex being imposed on them. It is a custom that halfling mothers abandon their children in early adolescence to provide the child the opportunity to figure the world out for themselves; during the period of time immediately after the abandonment, it is customary for halfling younglings to experiment with their gender identity and ideas about gender--doing so earlier would be considered tainted by the mother halfling, and the individuality of this questioning period is believed to be a solely lone duty for the child.
There you have it: a pretty complete guide to gender identity and gender roles in my homebrew setting. I knew very little of what I would write what I sat down for this guide--I knew that Daltoners would be conservative and old-fashioned and that other groups would have freer attitudes, but it was only in the process of writing that I really figured out who believed what and how those beliefs connected to their societies. I'll admit that this was something of a self-indulgent article to write; as someone who cares deeply about gender expression and identity, this may be something that interests me more than the average reader. And yet, I am gearing up to run a campaign with a collection of transgender and nonbinary friends, and I think that this guide will be the kind of thing that interests them and helps them to connect to the world more completely. That's a key lesson I've learned as a GM: appealing directly to your players is a crucial and rewarding experience.
That's all for now. Coming soon: guides to clans amongst the Daltoners, Faninites, and dwarves. Until next time, happy gaming!
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