Elven pregnancy

[albertinizao]

How do the elves get pregnant? Is it the same as humans or is it through some mystical/magical process?
If so, are their pregnancies also similar to humans?

I have been trying to find info, but the most I have found is that elf births are rare and celebrated in communities.

Does anyone have any more information? Thank you very much!

[Franz Lunzer]

There are half-elves in Golarion. So Elves and Humans make babies the very same way us humans on Earth do.

Half-elven and elven pregnancies probably are longer than human standard 9 months, and maybe elven females get their periode less often than humans do, but I don't think that has been written down in any of the setting-books.

[Zapp]

I would rephrase the question:

What makes you think Elves don't reproduce the way humans do?

If you instead assume everything works as normal except where stated, you'll avoid having to search for info that simply isn't there.

Good luck with your game!

[albertinizao]

I ask this because, talking to my group, two of us think we remember reading something about a magic ritual with lights or something like that.

But we have read many books, and we are not sure if Pathfinder says something about that or if it was other world.

Thanks a lot!

[Zandu the Devourer]

Zapp wrote:

I would rephrase the question:

What makes you think Elves don't reproduce the way humans do?

If you instead assume everything works as normal except where stated, you'll avoid having to search for info that simply isn't there.

Good luck with your game!

I think there has been a misunderstanding here. I'm part of the same gaming group, and we share that thought —unless stated otherwise, we assume there are no differences to the usual human experience—, but some of us recalled having read somewhere that there was some sort of special ritual that did not involve human-like intercourse but some other sort of sexual reproduction system that involved magic. But then we tried to look it up again and did not find anything; thus the question.

But it seems we might have read that about elves in some other setting.

Thanks for your replies, guys!

[James Jacobs]

Elves (and all humanoids) get pregnant the same way humans do unless we specifically say otherwise.

[Zapp]

Zandu the Devourer wrote:

I think there has been a misunderstanding here.

Now that you've gotten pretty much the exact same reply from no less than Mr Pathfinder Lore himself I hope you see I did not misunderstand you and that you might want to reread my post...

Cheers!

[Nicolas Paradise]

Personally I am more curious about goblins. They mature fully in two years and are born with a full set of teeth able to eat meat. How long does it take to grow something like that?

[Zapp]

Nicolas Paradise wrote:

Personally I am more curious about goblins. They mature fully in two years and are born with a full set of teeth able to eat meat. How long does it take to grow something like that?

You clearly haven't been bitten by a human two-year old :)

[The Raven Black]

Nicolas Paradise wrote:

Personally I am more curious about goblins. They mature fully in two years and are born with a full set of teeth able to eat meat. How long does it take to grow something like that?

Based on dogs, 2 to 3 months.

[Tender Tendrils]

I wouldn't be surprised if elves conducted rituals to assist in fertility and to assist people who have gotten pregnant and so on - the rituals might not even have a noticeable magic effect (the existence of real magic does not preclude rituals and superstitions that aren't actually magical) but just be a cultural thing.

[Zapp]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if elves conducted rituals to assist in fertility and to assist people who have gotten pregnant and so on - the rituals might not even have a noticeable magic effect (the existence of real magic does not preclude rituals and superstitions that aren't actually magical) but just be a cultural thing.

It's certainly plausible to assume elves as a more magical people - where even the most average Elf have access to magical assistance (in a way that human level 0 villagers seldom are depicted as having).

Perhaps we're just talking about a richer and/or more egalitarian society, though.

[Kelseus]

Nicolas Paradise wrote:

Personally I am more curious about goblins. They mature fully in two years and are born with a full set of teeth able to eat meat. How long does it take to grow something like that?

Generally speaking gestational time is positively correlated with animal size, i.e. the bigger the mammal the longer the gestation period. So the fact that goblins are smaller than humans would strongly imply that they have a shorter gestational time, say closer to 3-4 months.

Biologically speaking, it is Humans that are the rare exception of gibing birth to completely helpless, undeveloped young. Plenty of mammals are walking within minutes of birth, and almost all are able to effectively move their limbs in a very short time.

Also, this is a game where grown adults play pretend... so MAGIC!!

[Zapp]

Kelseus wrote:

Generally speaking gestational time is positively correlated with animal size, i.e. the bigger the mammal the longer the gestation period. So the fact that goblins are smaller than humans would strongly imply that they have a shorter gestational time, say closer to 3-4 months.

Biologically speaking, it is Humans that are the rare exception of gibing birth to completely helpless, undeveloped young. Plenty of mammals are walking within minutes of birth, and almost all are able to effectively move their limbs in a very short time.

Also, this is a game where grown adults play pretend... so MAGIC!!

Biologically speaking, it is the development of the brain that makes humans give birth to helpless, undeveloped spawn.

That is, it is the fact we're intelligent that requires so big brains and therefore heads - and slow development - that the child must be born before it grows too big to pass through the birth canal.

Cooking the soup that is the brain simply requires more time than available if you follow the regular mammalian gestation recipe :) so we must take our buns out of the oven (way) before they're fully baked, so to speak.

If humans could, I don't know, deliver safe Caesareans somehow even during Stone Age conditions (anything that bypasses the hard limit on baby size), our species would likely have evolved into year long gestation periods. Just think about it - when do you consider a toddler equal to a newborn baby animal? At the age of two? Three? (Carrying a three year old child inside your belly would likely make motherhood... less popular among today's young women...)

The point here is that this would logically apply to every intelligent humanoid. You can't compare a goblin to a sheep or kangaroo or cheetah or orangutang (to just pick four animals that weigh half as much as a human on average).

I mean you totally can. Except then we would then no longer be biologically speaking, which is cool too.