Alicornutopia

kuuskytkolme wrote:So all pairs only get children in the genders they themselves are?

That's my current design, yes. (As the usual condition; trans, intersex, and other surprises may not respect that rule.) I'm not strongly attached to it but I like more of its consequences I've thought of than I dislike.

Edit: discounting elf/elf, which requires a third elf before you get your elf baby.

How magic is elf hair? If an elf encounters someone from another universe can they still do the thing?

My intuition says yes for otherworldly humans and approximately-humans, no for the fully general case of, like, aranea or Thilanushinyel dragons or Devices or what have you.

Kobold fur, as an edge case?

Hmm.

Hmmmm.

... You get a baby-plant that only gives kobolds and not elves. I wasn't expecting that.


(By the way, a baby-plant often gives fraternal-twins or triplets, but only ever one harvest.)

Why only kobolds and not elves?

The baby plant can't handle children of two unrelated species at once, it has to be for one or the other; and the elf hair in the seed isn't chiefly for the making the babies part, it's for the growing a plant part, so it loses out.

I'm a little worried that the elf reproduction might be distractingly complex.

Elf reproduction is awesome, but it does seem like it is markedly of a different kind than the other three.

Agreed; they hardly seem like just another gender this way.