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Morithias
2012-08-18, 07:42 PM
If some mage for some reason cursed all the noble houses to be unable to create male heirs (aka blue-blood = daughter), I'm assuming their train of thought would be that by forcing them to breed with the middle and lower class it would create a more...fair social class system.

Do I have this correct? I'm trying to think of a legit reason for why there are a ton of princesses and no princes (the campaign concept revolves around a giant festival that is about trying to impress the princesses and win their hearts, kinda like a dating sim), and this is all I could come up with, but I want the end result to be somewhat sensible/make sense, and I don't want the mage to be seen as a villain, an extremist maybe, but not an evil person.

Edit: BTW the reason it's princess and not prince is because we have no females in our gaming group, not due to stereotypes or sexism.

Pyromancer999
2012-08-18, 07:46 PM
If some mage for some reason cursed all the noble houses to be unable to create male heirs (aka blue-blood = daughter), I'm assuming their train of thought would be that by forcing them to breed with the middle and lower class it would create a more...fair social class system.

Do I have this correct? I'm trying to think of a legit reason for why there are a ton of princesses and no princes (the campaign concept revolves around a giant festival that is about trying to impress the princesses and win their hearts, kinda like a dating sim), and this is all I could come up with, but I want the end result to be somewhat sensible/make sense, and I don't want the mage to be seen as a villain, an extremist maybe, but not an evil person.

Edit: BTW the reason it's princess and not prince is because we have no females in our gaming group, not due to stereotypes or sexism.

It'd actually probably just shift from a Patriarchy to a Matriarchy instead. Nobles would most likely not want to have those with the blood of commoners amongst them, so they'd probably just change it to having females be the heirs and rulers of the noble houses. Other than that, this would be an acceptable way for there to be all princesses and no princes.

Morithias
2012-08-18, 07:47 PM
It'd actually probably just shift from a Patriarchy to a Matriarchy instead. Nobles would most likely not want to have those with the blood of commoners amongst them, so they'd probably just change it to having females be the heirs and rulers of the noble houses.

Yeah, but since there are no male nobles anymore, they have to breed with the lower class or else they'll die off due to lack of children.

Pyromancer999
2012-08-18, 07:47 PM
Yeah, but since there are no male nobles anymore, they have to breed with the lower class or else they'll die off due to lack of children.

Depends. Is this a recent curse?

Morithias
2012-08-18, 07:49 PM
Depends. Is this a recent curse?

I haven't thought that far ahead, but tell me what your train of thought is...I don't need my players tearing apart the campaign concept from the get go...

Edit: In case you can't tell this is still heavily in "concept" stage. As in "Read about a videogame with a similar plot and want to experiment with the concept".

Pyromancer999
2012-08-18, 07:53 PM
I haven't thought that far ahead, but tell me what your train of thought is...I don't need my players tearing apart the campaign concept from the get go...

Well, the thing is also that they would probably not breed with lower class people anyways. There are plenty of wealthy elites who are not nobles, so it is more than likely that male candidates would be drawn from those families, after they would finish using up all the remaining males of the noble houses(as they would most likely even marry old men to the younger women, as that is not uncommon, at least historically, or even have men take on multiple brides), which would work for a few generations or so, until they moved onto using the wealthy non-noble elites.

Morithias
2012-08-18, 07:56 PM
Well, the thing is also that they would probably not breed with lower class people anyways. There are plenty of wealthy elites who are not nobles, so it is more than likely that male candidates would be drawn from those families, after they would finish using up all the remaining males of the noble houses(as they would most likely even marry old men to the younger women, as that is not uncommon, at least historically, or even have men take on multiple brides), which would work for a few generations or so, until they moved onto using the wealthy non-noble elites.

Touche...well I'm pretty sure if I say the curse is old enough to require that, my players aren't going to complain about being upper-class born. lol

Deophaun
2012-08-18, 08:00 PM
If you have the wealthiest class universally affected by a cure, that curse will be undone pretty darn quick. After all, this was just a mage that did it, not a deity. Mortal magic can be undone by mortal means, and if anything these are mortals of means.

Expect a loosening on the laws regarding necromancy, particularly those practices that turn a willing subject undead. If the males cannot sire heirs, then they will dispense with the need for heirs.

Otherwise, expect a whole new set of social norms and ideals to regulate who can marry into a noble house from the outside. This will be just as locked down as the previous system in no-time.

(Edit: Now that I think about it, that's how this will go. All males will have a concubine to produce their male heir. Curse solved.)

Plus, you have to deal with the fact that extra-marital activities likely mean that a significant chunk of the non-noble population can no longer bear male children, either. You now have the inverse problem that China has.

tomandtish
2012-08-18, 08:08 PM
Well, the thing is also that they would probably not breed with lower class people anyways. There are plenty of wealthy elites who are not nobles, so it is more than likely that male candidates would be drawn from those families, after they would finish using up all the remaining males of the noble houses(as they would most likely even marry old men to the younger women, as that is not uncommon, at least historically, or even have men take on multiple brides), which would work for a few generations or so, until they moved onto using the wealthy non-noble elites.

This. Historically it was quite common for noble families with poor income to marry eligible children off to wealthy merchent families. While much rarer among royalty, if it is a princess doing the marrying, the only debate is how much power the new "prince" gets as a result of the marriage.

Note: The children will presumably be nobility and will bring new blood in, but the spouse may not be considered nobility (even though he may have married into it).

Morithias
2012-08-18, 08:25 PM
Hmmm, this plot has more holes than I thought it would've....prehaps I should just apply the MSTK3 mantra and just say "for some weird reason the noble families all had girls, don't think about it too hard".

I mean the plot is about the princess tournament not the curse right.

Knaight
2012-08-18, 08:29 PM
Hmmm, this plot has more holes than I thought it would've....prehaps I should just apply the MSTK3 mantra and just say "for some weird reason the noble families all had girls, don't think about it too hard".

You could also go with "there was a recent war, it pretty much wiped out the fighting age male population among the nobility". Correct me if I'm wrong, but the assumption is a highly patriarchal society with pseudo-traditional gender norms, and as long as that is in play you can have a largely male fighting class.

QuidEst
2012-08-18, 08:40 PM
I'd go with a gradual shift towards matriarchy. If we're going to take England's laws as an example (or at least what I know of them), then a male heir isn't required. The queen weds somebody, and he becomes a duke. Other options include adoption at a young age (Julius Caesar adopted Octavius, who later became Caesar Augustus, although both very carefully avoided the term "king"), civil unrest if a male heir is required and there is none (resulting either in a new royal family or the old one making a sudden jump to matriarchy), or something like that.

I would just make it traditional- the king and queen are of roughly equal status, but heritage is traced through the mother, and so it's the eldest daughter who becomes queen. Have them competing with wealthy merchants and their relatives, but with a few adventures under their belt so that it's on an equal-ish footing.

vulcanbardmoon
2012-08-18, 11:34 PM
What if you just use a smaller scale? Instead of 'oops all the noble houses can't produce male heirs' to 'the three most powerful houses can't produce male heirs. Limit the number of available noble suitors (wars, few noble houses in general etc.) and the big 3 (note: just inventing a number oh houses) might be forced to open up the games to rich non noble merchant "princes" just to have a pool of decent suitors to pull from.
That even sets up all sorts of back tension as non nobles try to jokey their way into power and nobles try to keep it in the family as it were.

Hallavast
2012-08-19, 12:30 AM
What constitutes a Noble? Nobility is a social mechanic in and of itself. If you own no land and are penniless are you still a noble? What if you piss off the king? Can he strip you of your nobility? Can you achieve nobility? Nobles were created with swords. Does that mean anyone with a sharp enough sword can be a noble? At what point does a wealthy merchant family who marries into nobility become a "noble" family?

Too many unanswered questions.

Morithias
2012-08-19, 01:56 AM
What constitutes a Noble? Nobility is a social mechanic in and of itself. If you own no land and are penniless are you still a noble? What if you piss off the king? Can he strip you of your nobility? Can you achieve nobility? Nobles were created with swords. Does that mean anyone with a sharp enough sword can be a noble? At what point does a wealthy merchant family who marries into nobility become a "noble" family?

Too many unanswered questions.

Yeah that's seriously why I'm debating about throwing that plot out, it doesn't help that most of the Princesses do not act like the princess classic, you have a merchant princess, a warrior princess, a cleric princess, blah blah blah.

Thanks for stopping me before I went too far and did something really stupid.

I'm thinking it'll just be some giant festival like valentine's day, and the princesses are the ones the most people go for cause, well, they're bloody nobles.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-08-19, 02:43 AM
...You could just have the girls start marrying each other...

*runs away from mob with pitchforks and torches*

Yora
2012-08-19, 03:41 AM
But that doesn't adress the problem of getting new children. :smallwink:

Craft (Cheese)
2012-08-19, 03:47 AM
But that doesn't adress the problem of getting new children. :smallwink:

Alter Self allows you to genderbend, right? Get some scrolls made. Problem solved.

Reluctance
2012-08-19, 03:54 AM
It's an interesting idea, although I'd have the "curse" be self-inflicted. Standard discussion about the differences between proving matrilinearity vs. proving patrilinearity.

If you don't want to go with that, though, there are two directions you can go. You can do the "don't think so hard about it" route. Alternately, say that by tradition, noble offspring are encouraged to seek mates from the best commoners. (To keep the line strong, to encourage commoners to be at their best, to keep the royal family grounded in the affairs of their citizens. It's not too much of a stretch.) Then, say that there are princes and women seeking to woo them. They're just bit parts in the background, due to your players all playing princess-seekers.

gkathellar
2012-08-19, 08:22 AM
Honestly? Assuming a genuinely patriarchal system of government, they'd suck it up and marry wealthy merchants. It would be a political inconvenience, but since it'd be a political inconvenience to everyone: no harm, no foul. And while it would be a strike against the family pride, marrying mercantile would work out pretty well for everyone involved.

Or hell, they might dodge the issue entirely by allowing sanctioned bastards a certain amount of legitimacy.

Glimbur
2012-08-19, 08:53 AM
Depending on how high magic the setting is, the nobility might just cheat. They also might import nobility from another country that can have male nobles... which causes a different set of problems. Marrying rich merchants, as mentioned earlier, is also possible.

Are you planning on using the Wuthering Heights (http://www.unseelie.org/rpg/wh/index.html) system for this? Because this is one of the few times I can endorse it.

Friv
2012-08-19, 01:01 PM
The nation the players were in was founded when its people rebelled against an old imperial government, and some influential peasants became lords for helping fight them off. Now, in a nod to their supposedly egalitarian roots, the third daughter born to any noble house is not allowed to marry a nobleman; she must marry a commoner instead. Every several years, when a bunch of third daughters are in and around marrying age, there is a great festival to do this.

The whole thing is totally symbolic, because there aren't that many third daughters around, and it's not like the husband of a third daughter is going to get much power. But it helps offset inbreeding, makes the peasantry feel like they can become lords one day, and is a tradition that no one in the nation wants to break.

By chance, this festival is going to have slightly more daughters than usual, though! There are, like, eight or nine of them!

WildPyre
2012-08-19, 01:10 PM
But that doesn't adress the problem of getting new children. :smallwink:

Reminds me of a game I ran where a female elf and a female half elf ran a tavern with their young half elven daughter.

Half my players just figured "Well one if a bard, the other a sorceress, niot gonna think about it too hard." while the other half were like "But... how?" I got a good laugh out of it anyway.

HKR
2012-08-19, 01:15 PM
Are there other feudalistic nations close by? Are they affected by the curse? If they´re not then the daughters of the cursed nobles will probably be married to those foreign noblemen. This could result in some conflicts as the influence of foreign noble houses increases in the realm.


The nation the players were in was founded when its people rebelled against an old imperial government, and some influential peasants became lords for helping fight them off. Now, in a nod to their supposedly egalitarian roots, the third daughter born to any noble house is not allowed to marry a nobleman; she must marry a commoner instead. Every several years, when a bunch of third daughters are in and around marrying age, there is a great festival to do this.

The whole thing is totally symbolic, because there aren't that many third daughters around, and it's not like the husband of a third daughter is going to get much power. But it helps offset inbreeding, makes the peasantry feel like they can become lords one day, and is a tradition that no one in the nation wants to break.

By chance, this festival is going to have slightly more daughters than usual, though! There are, like, eight or nine of them!

Also this! Really nice idea.

HeadlessMermaid
2012-08-19, 02:45 PM
It'd actually probably just shift from a Patriarchy to a Matriarchy instead.
Not necessarily.

First, it's entirely possible to have a society that's at the same time partriarchical and matrilinear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilinear). In that scenario, I would imagine that the last generation of male "trueblood" nobles would hastily change laws (and customs), and make sure that their daughters' lowborn husbands will not take power and privilege away from the family. "Go ahead, young groom, move into the castle, have your servants and luxuries and privileges and whatever, but you're NOT the prince - you're merely the princess's consort. Now, your first-born son, he may be the offspring of a noble and a non-noble, but since his mom is the princess, he's the legitimate heir."

Of course, if the curse works so that the minute someone is declared "legitimate noble" by law of the land (and not due to noble ancestry as previously determined), he/she becomes incapable of producing female offspring, then it gets complicated. But that sounds just wrong. A supernatural force (a curse) taking into account something so mundane as man-made law... I just can't picture it.

Alternate scenario: The last generation of male "trueborn" nobles will hastily change the law, and simply grant nobility titles to a bunch of wealthy families. They might define two distinct tiers of nobility, the "ancient" one to provide daughters and brides, and the "new" one to provide sons and bridegrooms. To keep their Houses in the game, they will forbid intermarriage between two new bloodlines - one parent (the mother, obviously) HAS to be from an ancient bloodline to produce a legitimate heir.

And it's business as usual. You'll suddenly have a lot more players, sure. But - as others pointed out - they won't be common farmers, neither will they be elected or anything. They will simply be the upper tier of the wealthy middle class, who suddenly got promoted to nobility.

Slipperychicken
2012-08-19, 03:11 PM
I'm thinking it'll just be some giant festival like valentine's day, and the princesses are the ones the most people go for cause, well, they're bloody nobles.

Why can't the PCs just compete with the noblemen? Of course, the nobles might cheat have advantages because they're powerful.


Maybe it was traditionally a nobles-only competition, but some recent happening (like a Princess wanting her non-noble/army hero boyfriend involved) opened it to everyone.

Morithias
2012-08-19, 03:15 PM
Why can't the PCs just compete with the noblemen? Of course, the nobles might cheat have advantages because they're powerful.


Maybe it was traditionally a nobles-only competition, but some recent happening (like a Princess wanting her non-noble/army hero boyfriend involved) opened it to everyone.

Cause I realized some of my designs aren't going to really work as actual blue-blooded princesses, (for example the lady thief, or the merchant/harvest god, the shrine maiden, the witch, etc)

Hiro Protagonest
2012-08-19, 07:22 PM
Alternate scenario: The last generation of male "trueborn" nobles will hastily change the law, and simply grant nobility titles to a bunch of wealthy families. They might define two distinct tiers of nobility, the "ancient" one to provide daughters and brides, and the "new" one to provide sons and bridegrooms. To keep their Houses in the game, they will forbid intermarriage between two new bloodlines - one parent (the mother, obviously) HAS to be from an ancient bloodline to produce a legitimate heir.

And it's business as usual. You'll suddenly have a lot more players, sure. But - as others pointed out - they won't be common farmers, neither will they be elected or anything. They will simply be the upper tier of the wealthy middle class, who suddenly got promoted to nobility.

In this scenario, though, the new nobles will quickly run out of men. They'll have to have their women marry commoners. So either commoners will get more status, or the new rule about having to marry into an old bloodline is ignored or not passed and the old houses will just dwindle away as the men who marry into them steadily drain the wealth until they're minor players and not worth marrying into unless you're actually in love.

QuidEst
2012-08-19, 08:39 PM
Cause I realized some of my designs aren't going to really work as actual blue-blooded princesses, (for example the lady thief, or the merchant/harvest god, the shrine maiden, the witch, etc)

Okay- so drop the bit about being blue blooded and go get some good guilds. I'd probably pass on the lady thief still, because… Thieves' Guild. :smallannoyed: Guild leadership isn't hereditary, exactly, but being the son or daughter of a guild leader means you'll be getting the best training in the trade. So their kids are pretty high up on the "eligible" list. There are a lot of guilds, and any "princesses" happen to be the ones that are of marrying age. As for "princes" (guild leader sons) well, the PCs might be competing with a few.

Kitten Champion
2012-08-19, 10:58 PM
There wouldn't be many princesses around regardless of curses or cultural conventions, very few people in general are a direct blood relation to the ruling monarch. Quite a lot of monarchs dying at once would be more than a small issue, you'd most likely see numerous civil wars before line of succession can be calmly observed. Though it would depend on the competency of the royal women and the legal or cultural understandings which pervades. Queen Elizabeth for instance, was herself a political genius in a relatively progressive society that wanted stability desperately. She was also the institutionalized head of the state's largest religion, and didn't have to contend with the mandates from Rome or local Church officials for legitimacy.

There are plenty of women in an aristocratic society without the need for a hand-wave but they're countesses, duchesses, margraves, and dames.

Marnath
2012-08-19, 11:40 PM
If you want there to be mostly princesses, you don't need a curse you need a tragedy. "Seven years ago, disaster befell our great nation. The dark wizard Lord Brighton Esoc, through sorcery most foul, summoned a demon of the Abyss at the Gentleman's Ball on midsummer eve. Out of the dozens of young noblemen attending the event, only the heir of House Gaerad managed to escape harm. Today, the daughters of the great Houses will choose husbands of integrity and worth from among the lower classes so that they might be raised to their rightful station and restore leadership to our people."

crazyhedgewizrd
2012-08-20, 12:40 AM
This curse that effects the nobles, does it also effect the Aristocracy and gentry? only the current noble houses in the political system or future noble houses as well?

Because if it doesn't affect the lower noble houses, you will start to see new high noble houses that are not effected by the curse.

Should mention the thousands of dead commoners across the country when the people try to clam the titles of the affected noble houses.

Ravens_cry
2012-08-20, 12:59 AM
Is this a world wide thing? Marrying the sons of unaffected nobles from other countries might also be a solution.

Morithias
2012-08-20, 01:04 AM
Is this a world wide thing? Marrying the sons of unaffected nobles from other countries might also be a solution.

Well it was going to be a one shot campaign where "other country" would basically equal "across the sea".

At this point the curse has kinda been thrown out. lol Thanks for the help though people.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-08-20, 03:09 AM
...I still think an all-female nobility where the girls marry each other and have babies through magic would be pretty awesome...

Morithias
2012-08-20, 03:14 AM
...I still think an all-female nobility where the girls marry each other and have babies through magic would be pretty awesome...

I don't disagree but I need to get the PC's involved somehow, and they won't all play girls. I'm usually the token girl in our group.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-08-20, 04:15 AM
I don't disagree but I need to get the PC's involved somehow, and they won't all play girls. I'm usually the token girl in our group.

Well then, it's obviously time for Eith, the Goddess of Genderbending, to decide to turn a random group of male adventurers into girls just for the lulz!

Seriously though, the best suggestion in the thread has been to just let them compete with the princes. After all, why go out of your way to make the PC's chosen epic quest easier?

Jack of Spades
2012-08-20, 04:38 AM
Alter Self allows you to genderbend, right? Get some scrolls made. Problem solved.

Which makes one wonder: what happens when a pregnant woman is magically changed into a male?

I mean, obviously no-one who is 6 months pregnant is going to sign up for the spell, but most women don't get any indication of pregnancy for 2-3 weeks. What happens to the fetus? Does it go to the outer planes with the rest of the uterus/extra mass? Can it survive that? Does the uterus get sucked into the new body and repurposed with the fetus? When the spell wears off, is the new old body still pregnant? Could a fetus even survive that? Or does the fetus become a weird tumor (unaffected as the spell considers it a different life form) and die without the life support of the woman's body?

Tangental question: Can an ensorcelled man bear a child? I mean, sure, you'd have to be casting Alter Self as a level 10,080 spell to make it last through the average pregnancy... or would you? (see battery of questions above) Also, could one get pregnant under a spell, change back to a man, and then undergo another casting for just barely long enough to go through labor and give birth?

Or, to go back to the actual topic: If your setting is high magic enough, Polymorph Any Object: Woman --> Man with the same stats is easily permanent.

Ravens_cry
2012-08-20, 05:55 AM
Two words: Ectopic Pregnancy. In specific an Abdominal pregnancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdominal_pregnancy).
Sometimes, a zygote (fertilized egg) implants outside the uterus. This is very dangerous for the mother and almost invariably fatal for the foetus. Almost, there has been cases where the baby survives. With healing magic and good medical knowledge, I would say it is more than possible.
What I am saying is, you don't need a uterus to be with child. I say a woman transformed into a man still carries the baby.

DigoDragon
2012-08-20, 07:27 AM
Well let's see, the most likely story idea to involve the PCs would be to locate a method of breaking the curse (maybe find the wizard who did it if he's still around). Then there's always the classic "Long lost heir", having the PCs locate some male 3rd cousin twice-removed who technically is still noble blood relation...
Magic has been mentioned, turning girls into boys.

jseah
2012-08-20, 12:32 PM
A different method of causing something like this would be a one-off curse or generally something less dramatic than "no men, ever!".

A pissed off wizard decides that he will make some waves and fires a wonky curse. Instead of "no more men!", all the noble houses have children rapidly three or four years in a row and they're all girls. For some variety, the curse also hits some other unrelated people (important merchants, religious leaders, etc.)... or perhaps they are somehow nobility related without people knowing and the curse just sought them out anyway, because magic.

Cut forward to 18 years later, suddenly there's a large bunch of noble girls of the right age looking to marry.

EDIT: perhaps the wizard responsible for this is also looking to marry one of them to gain some standing? (large age gaps weren't that uncommon)

Slipperychicken
2012-08-23, 01:08 AM
A pissed off wizard decides that he will make some waves and fires a wonky curse. Instead of "no more men!", all the noble houses have children rapidly three or four years in a row and they're all girls. For some variety, the curse also hits some other unrelated people (important merchants, religious leaders, etc.)... or perhaps they are somehow nobility related without people knowing and the curse just sought them out anyway, because magic.


Sounds like a much less extreme version of the OoTS Epic Spell: "Familicide".

jseah
2012-08-23, 06:40 AM
Sounds like a much less extreme version of the OoTS Epic Spell: "Familicide".
Well, its like Familicide with a reverse effect. It traces the noble heritage and makes all currently of childbearing age women have 100% conception chance for a few years and all the children be female.

Knaight
2012-08-23, 10:25 AM
Sounds like a much less extreme version of the OoTS Epic Spell: "Familicide".

Other than the way it kills absolutely nobody. The word fragment -cide is a very significant part of Familicide, and it isn't applicable.

Yora
2012-08-24, 06:02 AM
The solution is simple. Polygamy. All young women are married to some older nobleman who already has other wives until you reach the point when all of them are too old and die.

With no sons, at first rich and educated commoners are granted titles to make them eligible to marry a noble daughter and inherit her fathers land and title.
But I think pretty soon that step would be skipped and women become eligible to hold titles and own the land themselves.

And then things get really simple. To keep track which boys are the sons of which fathers, you have to control who is having sex whim whom at what time. To keep track what girls are the daughters of what mothers, all you have to do is to make sure they are not swapped after birth. There won't be any legal trouble by people claiming "that woman isn't actually her mothers daughter, but in fact I am and only my father knew the secret". So the whole marriage thing becomes pointless. The identity of the father is completely irrelevant and so nobody cares about fidelity on a legal basis.

Anderlith
2012-08-26, 08:17 PM
I think most people have missed something.


BELT OF OPPOSITE GENDER


Now this would add a whole new level of weird. The families would elect a daughter to become a man, the daughter would throw on a belt.... presto change-o now you have a male hier. The families would either start scheming to steal other families belts, or using them as a power play item in politics. (Say trading a belt for taxes in choice trade routes)

Erik Vale
2012-08-26, 11:38 PM
Just so you guys know, this curse is going in my game, with various nobles trying various ways to solve it based off these ideas. Thanks for your inability to stop me from saying yoink.

Coidzor
2012-08-27, 12:10 AM
What's their relationship with the nobility of neighboring lands? Or does this curse extend the world over?

Anderlith
2012-08-27, 03:47 PM
Two words: Ectopic Pregnancy. In specific an Abdominal pregnancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdominal_pregnancy).
Sometimes, a zygote (fertilized egg) implants outside the uterus. This is very dangerous for the mother and almost invariably fatal for the foetus. Almost, there has been cases where the baby survives. With healing magic and good medical knowledge, I would say it is more than possible.
What I am saying is, you don't need a uterus to be with child. I say a woman transformed into a man still carries the baby.

I figure this needs to be said at least once....

"It's not ah tumor!" (Kindergarten Cop)

Chambers
2012-08-30, 09:43 PM
James Blish covers something like this in And All the Stars a Stage. (http://www.amazon.com/And-Stars-Stage-James-Blish/dp/038000013X) Basic premise is that the combination of fool-proof birth control and genetic selection of gender while the baby is still a fetus leads to a surplus of males. The few females soon become a scarcity and the social value of women increases to the point where the world becomes a Matriarchy.

The women in charge have harems of mens, contract marriages with men, and homosexuality among men becomes popular as a way of attaining social prestige and rank.

It's a really great book, I just can never understand the ending, no matter how many times I read it.