Heler's ability

[AlexS]

Thanks @French Desperate WindChild for starting this thread and @Qizilbashwoman for sharing these insights.

As I mentioned in another thread, I’ve been working with a couple of other authors on a resource book for incorporating cultural and place-based variation more fully into RQG character generation. This includes working on Gloranthan cultural understandings of sex and gender – but although one of my co-authors is involved in trans rights activism he does not himself identify as trans, so we are basically three cis het men trying to write about this.

The book includes a guide to key terms, and I have pasted below the current draft of the entry on sexual and gender identity (also referenced in the section on social initiation, which we treat as separate from cult initiation). It is deliberately (a) simplified and (b) compatible with our understanding of ‘core RQG’ assumptions, which include the differentiation of sex and gender and the location of both within the framework of a fantasy Bronze Age theistic setting (i.e. one that is kin- and community-centric and leans heavily on mythically referenced socially ascribed gender stereotypes). However, it does try to make space for fluid as well as binary trans identities as well as ‘opting out of gender’ and delinking sexuality from gender roles. It would be great to know what people in this forum (particularly trans people) think about it.

·        Sexual and Gender Identity: the preferences and ways of behaving that societies ascribe to people who are differentiated in terms of sex (the reproductive biology with which they were born) and/or gender (the social and family roles that people assume in adult life). In Glorantha a person’s sexual and gender identity is usually described in terms of mythic archetypes, such as Heler and Jernotius for non-binary people in Dragon Pass and Peloria respectively. According to the core rulebook, in Dragon Pass, Prax and Kethaela the most common forms of sexual and gender identity are the Heortling ‘four sexes’ (shaped like a man, shaped like a woman, shaped like both and shaped like neither) and ‘six genders’ (Allfather, Allmother, Nandani, Vingan, Helering and agender). Neither sex nor gender determines a person’s sexuality (the people they desire as sexual and/or life partners), and same-sex / same-gender desire is commonly found among people of all genders in Orlanthi society (see RQG p. 80).

For the Esrolia volume in the series we’ve also been experimenting with identifying characters’ gender (not sex) in terms of a greater variety of mythic archetypes linked to the dominant Earth Pantheon. This applies to ‘ways of being female’, e.g. having ‘Avenging Daughter’ or ‘Spring Maiden’ as gender descriptors even if that person doesn’t actually follow Babeester Gor or Voria. 

We also apply this approach to male gender identification, but in our Esrolia these ‘ways of being male’ are linked to family roles: Occasional Lover, Husband Protector, Noble Brother, Dutiful Son. Again, Orlanth Adventurous could be a gender identity synonym for Occasional Lover, Orlanth Thunderous (or Argan Argar, Yelmalio et al. depending on the particular Esrolian cultural tradition) for Husband Protector, Irillo for Noble Brother and Barntar for Dutiful Son – but that doesn’t mean that people who are gender-identified in those ways actually belong to those cults. 

We’re not yet sure whether to keep this in the final version of the Esrolia book. On the one hand, it helps with world-building, and illustrates how a matriarchal society might impose ascriptive gender roles on men in the same way that our patriarchal societies impose roles on women. On the other, it might end up feeling too mechanical and gender-determinist to be enjoyable for players, even if we emphasise that these are ascribed social roles, not obligatory stereotypes for role-playing.

Feedback welcome…

Edited October 25, 2023 by AlexS

[David Scott]

18 hours ago, Joerg said:

There are bloodlines of Helering descent with a good number of Heler-initiated helering-gendered people.

Is there a source for this?

[Cassius]

3 hours ago, AlexS said:

We’re not yet sure whether to keep this in the final version of the Esrolia book. On the one hand, it helps with world-building, and illustrates how a matriarchal society might impose ascriptive gender roles on men in the same way that our patriarchal societies impose roles on women. On the other, it might end up feeling too mechanical and gender-determinist to be enjoyable for players, even if we emphasise that these are ascribed social roles, not obligatory stereotypes for role-playing.

I can't speak for any other player or GM than myself, but I've never seen a world setting or game mechanics as a mandatory prescription, but as a proposal. If it doesn't suit me for one reason or another, I change it. I would therefore be inclined to think that you should propose what you think is right, and trust your readers' ability to adapt.

[Qizilbashwoman]

I want to start by saying: I think we need to remember that we should provide for a wide acceptance of physical sex markers separate from gender. The question is: how do they relate? Well, differently in Esrolia than in Orlanthi society, and traditional Pelorians have a different ideal than either of those, and the Zzaburi? No idea, sir.

One thing to note about matrifocal/gynofocal societies is that they aren't inverted patriarchy. They're quite different in structure. The center of community is based on birth. Women and their politics are central to communities, which are typically organised into large housing structures for women. Men live with their birth families, and while they may have important ritual roles in some societies, like the devoutly Muslim Minangkabau, they are sidelined in governance and society. Marriage is often not established; the Mosuo, for example, have basically sleeping chambers at the periphery of the big houses where women can meet their lovers at night; men arrive and leave in secrecy only at night, no matter how long the relationship has existed, and have no contact or relationship with any children that might be theirs. Instead, a woman's brother[s] are the "fathers" from the time of birth on.

Men are expected to face outward; they travel outside the community to earn status and money, to prosecute raids or wars (which are declared by women, who rule, but appoint males as war leaders), and engage in trade routes. (The Prophet Muhammad was hired in his youth by Khadijah bint Khuwaylid to run her company's trade routes into Syria Palaestina; an example from a non-matriarchal society of this exact process. She later proposed marriage based on his acumen and skill and provided shelter for him when he received revelation and began preaching much later on.)

4 hours ago, AlexS said:

but that doesn’t mean that people who are gender-identified in those ways actually belong to those cults

If you want to look at some systems, Judaism theorises as six-sex system. It has two well-established gender roles, male and female, but classifies people under six sexes, and these adhere to the gender roles as appropriate. The sexes are zakhar "male" ("outie", i.e. has a ßenis), nqeva female ("sheath", i.e. vagina), androginos (a Greek loanword that indicates someone that is neither male nor female), tumtum (a person who is indeterminate; they may have male appearance or female appearance, like a genderfluid person but for sexual appearance), aylonith ("little ram"; apparently female, but does not undergo female puberty; google güevedoces for an example of how a kind of aylonith exists in the Latin society of the Dominican Republic, because it is a real thing), and saris (apparently male, but does not undergo male puberty, either naturally or because of eunuch status. This is a loanword from Akkadian sha rish, "one who leads", and meant a eunuch in that language).

These sexes have been theorised by the rabbis to establish how they fit into the very established two-gender system of Judaism, which places great importance on circumcision of males and nidda or "family purity rules" that apply to people who menstruate.

We need to think about how this might affect a strongly matriarchal society like Esrolia, where there is definitely a strong focus on uterine family and gynofocality like we see in the Mosuo/Iroquians/Minangkabau. I also think it is interesting to this about how sex roles might be reproduced in a six-gender system based on the Elemental Runes. I can see different ways that cults of the Gorites would accept a wide array of, say, Jewish-style sexes as appropriate to the role: sure, nqevoth are "women", but tell me there aren't people who masculinise their bodies by resculpting their breasts magically (or not, I guess), or sarisim, who might have been thought "male" but are now not. Most Fire cults tend the opposite, accepting only "men", although I'd bet the Weeders and their "dirty" volcano lord accept anyone. Air cults might not care. Water definitely doesn't care!

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, David Scott said:

Is there a source for this?

Red Cow village has one. Blue-skinned folk, fisherfolk,

Spoiler

possibly involved in that naiad trouble

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Joerg