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[Timeless Bob]

Yes, I'm necroing here, but your "spawning pits" idea has been rattling around my head for awhile and I just though of a new twist that might... just... work...

Suppose your female caste were unable to live on land, but were instead aquatic only?  "babies" would be aquatic and "children" would be amphibious, but also learn their "swimming" skill during this phase.  Once a "child" became a peasant, it would either become a vanilla dwarf land dweller (if male) or the fully aquatic type (if female).  Food may be something of an issue, since stockpiles don't generally exist under water, but I expect the breeding pits might have a division with the breeder's food supplies in it that can be pumped out, which might explain why dwarves are so good at pumping liquids all over the place while none of the other races use any such devices.  The females might also just be really good at catching and eating water creatures too.

Anyway, it was a thought.

[silverskull39]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes, I'm necroing here, but your "spawning pits" idea has been rattling around my head for awhile and I just though of a new twist that might... just... work...

Suppose your female caste were unable to live on land, but were instead aquatic only?  "babies" would be aquatic and "children" would be amphibious, but also learn their "swimming" skill during this phase.  Once a "child" became a peasant, it would either become a vanilla dwarf land dweller (if male) or the fully aquatic type (if female).  Food may be something of an issue, since stockpiles don't generally exist under water, but I expect the breeding pits might have a division with the breeder's food supplies in it that can be pumped out, which might explain why dwarves are so good at pumping liquids all over the place while none of the other races use any such devices.  The females might also just be really good at catching and eating water creatures too.

Anyway, it was a thought.

this would result in drowned babies, mostly. when a child is born it is assigned a caste based on their pop ratios. if you just have male and female its 1:1, a fifty fifty chance for either or. the females are aquatic, so if it's born female the baby is fine. but if it's born male... well. dead baby. unless you make the females aquatic and the males amphibious, but this is all ignoring the larger problem. dwarven pathfinding doesn't like water, even if they're aquatic. plus theres the issue of getting the females into a pool before they "drown" in the firstplace, which is...problematic. sorry to rain on your parade.

[Hugo_The_Dwarf]

Technically you can have interaction that makes females sterile but requires a certain bodypart to function (say add in a bodypart called "nobreed" or something like that, and make it out of functional tissue) but then have another interaction that when in water it is used, which disables this "anti-birthing" organ which then stops the "sterile" interaction thus allowing birthing, but this water interaction also transforms the female into an aquatic female form that is not born naturally, however the issue is that females born in the water, will instantly transform (good or bad) these spawners could also have the [PET] tag in the caste so they breed without marriage, making males the only thing able to live out of water, and die as cannon fodder

[Timeless Bob]

Hugo: That's basically what I was thinking - that the males were the canon fodder and the females were the breeders.  I suppose the three-gender system used by hive insects might be better, with one female, a select few "breeder" males and the rest being non-reproductive drones.  The drones do almost all of the hauling, building and maintenance work while the males exclusively tend to the female and the female pretty much keeps on chugging out a steady supply of new drones and replacement males. (incidentally, the males are often a fall-back in case the female is unable to continue her duties.  Expose a male to "royal jelly" and they soon become the new female.)

Nobles are basically worthless - they'd take the place of the male insects in the above scheme.  I really don't see much functionally different between dwarves and termites/ants anyway.

[Flarp]

A caste-changing syndrome-inducing contaminant could be created and released into a specially-designated water supply. Squads of males can be restricted to the royal jelly burrow for mass gender reassignment in times of crisis.

[Solon64]

Good god, this topic is horrendous.

Continue, good sirs, with all of my blessings, continue.

[Deon]

Why, Solon? If we are talking about animals and pets, it's okay. The nature is much more varied than human ethics allow it to be. It's not like we are making a mermaid baby farm...

[Gargomaxthalus]

Why, Solon? If we are talking about animals and pets, it's okay. The nature is much more varied than human ethics allow it to be. It's not like we are making a mermaid baby farm...

IDEA!!!!!!!!!! ROFL