what I really wanna know since learning about Ivine, is what the heck's going on with their gender expression... like something to do with all the magicians identifying as male?
Okay so the initial worldbuilding for Sosa was taking a lot of concepts from things that I enjoy and just sort of mushing them all together into a big ball until it was somewhat original again. Like the Coalition has some Bioshock Infinite to it, the Source shares some similarities to the One Power and the Fracture was a lot like the Breaking of the World in Wheel of Time. I tried to take high-level concepts and then work the details until they felt like something new, but also, this is an RP, not a novel or anything, so I didn’t fret too badly.
Something that happened with the Ivine Empire too, in that I’ve always been fascinated by Alethi gender roles from Stormlight Archive but... kind of wanted to do it backwards. I wanted to find a way to take some of our world’s conceptions about gender expression but make them interpret those things as making different genders suited to very different things.
So, for instance Ivinians believe that women are better than men at working together, social skills, and communication. That’s somewhat similar to our world’s view of women, but the Ivinians have taken these assumptions and have decided that this means women make much better soldiers than men. “Men are hotheaded and impulsive,” they’ll tell you, “you want obedience, cooperation, and discipline from soldiers and those are feminine things, not someone who’s going to run off and do what they think is best, or let their tempers get in the way of the mission.” So most of the guards and soldiers in Ivine are women. War is seen as feminine.
Women are considered better at organization and understanding other people, which means that management and strategic positions are often female-dominated. Even in the “masculine” south, a good chunk of the Emperor’s governing staff would be ladies.
On the other hand, Ivinians also believe some of that “men naturally have more stamina and endurance than women” and while those things are good in a soldier, Ivinians believe it would be a waste not to use them on magic instead. The magic users in Mevined, known as Arcants, are almost all men, because magic is seen as something that strains the body greatly and that men are more suited to handling this.
It should be noted, while the player characters don’t tend to find magic very stressful, most of them only have one or two foci. Most Arcants have upwards of seven attuned at all times. Scholarship and deep study are also seen as masculine persuits because “men are better at compartmentalizing, which allows them to focus more singularly than a woman could.”
Now, they’re not as strict about gender stuff as the Alethi. There are male soldiers and female arcants, and while it isn’t scandalous, it is rarer and they tend to have a difficult time, as people give them grief for picking a “bad” profession for them.
There are people who vary from Ivine’s prescribed gender binary, as is expected. This tends to get mixed reactions from people. There’s some who are okay with accepting transgender individuals... so long as they ascribe perfectly to the gender they profess to be. These individuals tend to be watched more closely than others, hoping to ensure that they really are “what they say they are.”
Genderfluid identities are somewhat more common in Ivine than other places. Though genderfluidity can create somewhat of an “outcast” feeling, as one doesn’t wholly ascribe to either of the two Ivinian binaries, there are some professions which are seen as most suitable for a genderfluid individual, and for the most part if someone is using genderfluidity to provide a function “between” genders, it’s alright. “We’re okay with what you are as long as it’s useful,” sort of thing. Agender individuals usually also fall into this societal niche.
Larhh Kastramov, the Sun’s Heart navigator, is a genderfluid individual from Ivine.
All in all, Ivine is... really not the greatest of places in Sosari, all things said and done, and I think a lot of their rigidity is the cause of this. Whether in the north or south, Ivinian culture likes things that are “as they should be” and believes everyone works best when everyone remembers their place. For those who don’t fit what they “should” be, for any number of reasons, Ivine isn’t a terribly hospitable society.
Obligatory disclaimer that the GM is straight and cis. My intention in branching into gender culture in worldbuilding is an attempt to stretch myself regarding an aspect of societies that I don’t have as much experience in. Still learning, of course, and I highly doubt I’m perfect in this area. Please bear with me!
