The Worst Kobold Chapter 7: Storyweaver Interlude #3 - Everything You Wanted To Know About Kobold Gender Roles

Read chapter 7 of The Worst Kobold by Thalaas on NovelPedia.

I'm going to interrupt this story again to go over a bit about kobold culture in regard to gender roles and basic kobold biology. No giggling. I hope you're mature enough so we can talk about this subject like grownups. Many of you may know the rough strokes but it's good to have more insight for the sake of the story. Many societies have different roles for genders. Sometimes the rules are unwritten, sometimes there are actual laws. Humans tend to be more male dominated, though the Ashen Kingdom tends to treat women more equal than some others. Women serve in the military, work as wardens, and the king has several high ranking women advisors. The land is ruled by a king, but the current king has been advocating sweeping changes to change from a monarchy to a ruling council. Other kingdoms though won't even allow women to work, let alone have a say in how their lands are ruled. The nomadic orcs, as another example, have fairly strict roles for the men and women. The men would hunt and trade while the women would stay behind with the children and infirm. Not because the women were physically weak. Far from it. To be left in the camp as a protector for those who couldn't defend themselves was considered an honor. And? An orcish mother defending her family was more deadly than a dozen men. If a male orc wishes to stay and guard the children? He had to defeat his wife in combat to prove he was worthy enough to guard his kin. It happened. Rarely. Few wanted to fight a berserk orc matriarch. Kobolds tended to have the most equality among genders than any race. The males and females were quite equal in size and strength. Even outwardly they looked similar with maybe the women having a tendency to be slightly taller and males having thicker tails. There were no traditional roles for either gender. A kobold working in the nursery raising the hatchlings, or bravely serving as a scout on long patrol, was just as likely to be either sex. A kobold's role in life was primarily driven by what they were most skilled at and what professions were in most dire need of filling. Now, kobolds are not like humans or most mammals when it comes to biological sexes. I mean one look at them should tell you that. They hold a lot more similarities to reptiles. They are hairless, and their skin is actually composed of tiny scales if you look close enough. Having children is completely different too. The female will carry an egg for around three months, and then lay it where it will be raised in a hatchery for another four months by nursery attendants until the baby emerges. After which the hatchling is raised both by the parents and by the colony as whole. A kobold hatchling will often have both biological siblings, and also what are called hatchery siblings. These are the kobolds who are raised in the same age group. In case something happens to both parents and they have no close relatives, as in Fluke's case, the youth is adopted and raised into the colony as a ward. They usually still have one or two primary caregivers. Kobolds also don’t nurse their young so their women don’t have breasts. And also like many reptiles? There also is no visible external way to tell a male from a female. Both sexes have internal genitals similar to that of a snake or lizard. Most humans would not be able to tell a kobold’s gender even if they were fully unclothed. Fluke wasn’t a human though. He recognized both Griffon’s gender and her beauty. For the first time he could see the entirety of the thick scar that ran down the side of her face and across the left side of her body ending at the side of her thick tail. There also was a deep ugly purple bruise that had shown up in full force which was now covering half of her chest. None of that distracted from her in shape body honed from years of hunting and training. A perfect mix of warrior and feminine beauty. And if there is one thing that would stop an all-powerful dragon in its tracks? It was his secret crush sitting nu