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The Leading Species

While the characters may not look it, they are part of the same biological species. What we would call "humans" are refered to as Zeikauko (Zeh-Eeh-Kah-Ooh-Koh) or Rogteo*-Nem** (Rog-TEH-Oh), depending on what language you speak between Kolzni or Tepnem-Rho, respectively.

The scrambled phenotype happens due to naturally occurring interference of ambient Khen-Rho in the world messing around with fetal development. As such, genetic inheritance doesn't play as much of a role because a lot of a person's phenotype is determined by a magical lottery that gives way for preternatural variety in the species.

There is such a thing as an average variety, in that the majority of people will still conform to a bipedal structure with two arms and a head, featuring mammal-like anatomy, somewhere between 4 and 8 feet in height; with maybe a third of children being born who extensively break away from that model.

In most cases, Khen-Rho will not intrude upon an individual's ability to survive and thrive as a lifeform. Which means there is a certain level of consistency to be found across the anatomies of multiple people. Essential features such as the ability to breathe, sense, locomote, reproduce, consume food and expell waste can be safely expected to reoccur across the masses, but they may not always subscribe to the same criteria. Rarely will a child be born without one of these vital traits resulting in death, or an extremely unfortunate existence.

Separation From "Animals"

Due to the mechanics of Khen-Rho, other species, what we would call animals, are more unified and easily recognizeable as a collective. The key component believed to affect a species' variety potential is attributed precocial vs altricial development.

Precocial species, the ones that are born and within hours operate as fully functional members of the species, force the ambient Khen-Rho to obey more rules so as to preserve the young's survivaility.

Altricial species, the ones that are born and must learn to exist over a much longer period of time while relying on the adults for survival, have fewer inherent rules in their development and the Khen is free to play in the sandbox.

It stands to reason that the Rogteo species is one of the most altricial, and thus have the most variety to offer.

For people it is relatively easy to tell themselves apart from other animals by noting qualities like their ability to communicate with each other, even if they speak different languages, where trying to communicate with an animal ends up being futile for most part.

Reproduction and Gender Dynamics

Reproduction

Reproduction is a lot simpler than it might appear at first glance. As mentioned earlier, there are two elements at play that facilitate this process. One is that ambient Khen-Rho does not affect precocial entities to nearly the same extent as altricial ones, which means pre-conception organisms are largely left alone. Secondly, ambient Khen-Rho does not intrude on an individual's ability to survive and thrive, so a developing youth is still highly likely (although not necessarily guaranteed) to have some form of reproductive compatibility with other people.

Much like with humans in our world, there is a baseline expectation that there wil be egg carriers and fertilizers, although with more variables in between.

Personal Note: I want everyone to know, for my own manic amusement, that this world features unparalleled levels of genital diversity!

Gender

Due to the highly unpredictable nature of the morphology at play, attempting to predict anyone's sex, let alone their gender is, at best, completely unreliable and at worst, an exercise in futility. Functionally, this means that there is no reasonable expectation of gender that can be conceptualized in any way that matters.

The closest idea that approaches this notion comes from Kastina. In their early history, there was an era in which a delicate necessity to regulate reproduction was at play. They had to make sure it happened enough to sustain a limited population while not letting it happen so much that overpopulation became an existential threat.
At this time, new borns were inspected and marked by name as either an egg carrier or a fertilizer, and were subject to strict expectations about their social lives and bodily autonomy. This practice became a cultural maladaptation that has plagued the Kastinian peasantry for centuries, long after it ceased to be necessary. In contrast, the Rhonum nations and the Galarantes islands (Tanni-Hal's homeland) have had no reason to acknowledge any such discrepancies, and Kastina's tradition is ultimately alien to them.

In theory, most people who can fit together in some way have a higher chance of being attracted to each other, but in practice that isn't always the case. Since it's near impossible to discern sex or gender from looks or attitude alone, categorical groupings of sexual attraction, such as heterosexuality or homosexuality, are fundamentally meaningless and it is up to the individual to discover their own allures, wherever they may find them.

Personal Note: So, this concept is something that has always been part of the comic on some level, but only in the last year or so did I realize how foundational it is to the entire setting. It's never been lost on me how often Kheil, Fallan, Thotzev and sometimes Al are "misgendered" by new readers, even though in the characters' minds there would be nothing to misgender because that's just not something they would think about. At this point, I find that I still call them he/she purely from force of habit, but in the context of the comic, that doesn't really mean anything. In the future I might make adjustments to the dialog to reflect this. It could be a neat subtle difference that signals when characters are speaking Kolzni or Tepnem-Rho, since the latter doesn't actually have any kind of gendered syntax.

Clothing and Tailoring

There is never a shortage of tailors in the world. Due to the vast variety of bodies that exist, custom tailoring is an extremely lucrative career path for just about anyone who is willing to take up the job. Many take pride in being able to provide stylish and fashionable clothes for clients that go way out of the "average" bipedal model. In a lot of cases, clothing is likely to be more of a status symbol than anything else.

However, by necessity, these cultures have very nonchalant standards of decency when it comes to clothing or lack thereof, and if an individual just finds it impractical or uncomfortable to try and clothe themselves, it is unlikely anyone would bat an eye at it.

In essence, clothes serve a limited number of purposes:
1) Protection from environment.
2) Showing social status.
3) Concealing or accentuating features others will find attractive.

Meta: What this means, in essence, is that nudity shame/embarrassment doesn't exist in this world.



* Speakers of Tepnem-Rho will more likely refer to themselves as Rho-Nem instead of Rogteo. This is because much of the broader levels of nomenclature in the language goes back to giving their god, Rho, ownership of everything. In that sense, Rho-Nem is colloquially used to describe the species as a people, while Rogteo is the term that more precisely identifies them as separate from other animals.

**Formally speaking, Nouns in Tepnem-Rho are identified by a Num or Nem suffix. Nem, specifically, labels the subject as a person rather than an animal or object. Most of the time, the suffix is implied and only applied when more clarity is necessary. More on this in the future when the language entries become available.