Gender is an interesting thing to me. I always try not to take the cultural default of my western way of looking at the world while writing, unless I specifically choose to do so. I probably constantly fail, but this is, I would hope, something where I might not have failed, maybe??
I wrote this a couple weeks ago, I don't know the exact date, so the date at the top is the date of me writing this foreword
the system of social classes is older. I actually wrote it before I had even decided that Oesala and Erundur would be from here. I combine them here, though, since in my eyes, it's a sort of two-dimensional space.
The way you are expected to act is an element of the product of the set of social classes and the set of genders. That's how I look at it, anyway~
PSR, during the time Oesala and Erundur were born, had four social classes, and four genders. First, we will discuss the social classes, and then we will discuss the genders, and how they are expressed in the different classes. Finally, we will have a quick look at the history of both.
> Social Classes
>> Aristocracy
The aristocracy is the ruling class. Generally, each province has one aristocratic family ruling over them. The Capital Province's aristocratic family is the impirial family.
There isn't much to say about them, they are what you expect. Moving on!
>> Proletariat
The proletariat are the free people. They usually live in cities, away from the center. They do not produce goods or whatever, and most of what they do is cultural work. They organize events, make art, some are scientists, they tend to the city and its gardens, things like that.
The proletariat is provided for by the aristocracy. A happy, healthy, and creative proletariat shows good governance.
>> Stewarddom
Stewards are formally slaves, but they live well, generally, sometimes better than proletarians. They are the people who do most high-end productive work, such as artisanship, but also managing transport and distribution of goods, shopkeeping, cooking, etc. There are three broad categories of stewards.
>>> Palatial Stewarddom
This is by far the smallest class of stewards, they are people who work directly with the aristocratic family. Be it by caring for them, or cleaning the palace, or cooking and things like that, be it by importing goods, by managing the province's finances, whatever.
>>> Urban Stewarddom
Urban stewards are stewards who, well, live in cities. They often live and work around the palace, with the proletarian districts surrounding them, and are often more tightly packed than the proletarian districts. They manage transport, do research, artisanship, shopkeeping, cooking, etc
>>> Rural Stewarddom
Rural stewards are stewards who manage chattel outside the cities.
>> Chattel
Chattel slaves are the lowest social class. They usually don't come to cities, staying on the countryside, and they do the hard and sometimes dangerous manual labour. Chattel is kept in check using a killswitch, where rural stewards who watch over them can instantly kill a chattel slave at will
> Genders
there are four genders in PSR. These are roughly, something like 'male', 'female', 'trans male to female', and 'non-binary'. They don't directly map, of course, but these are the rough categories, and I will be calling them male, female, mtf, and nb from now on.
I have not yet decided on.. the visual characteristics of the different genders. I will probably add those later on. This is purely a description of the genders that exist, and their function in society.
>> Female
The female gender consists of people who were assigned female at birth, though not all of those are members of the female gender.
Female aristocrats generally are mostly concerned with intra-provincial politics with other aristocratic families.
adding even more later this was a tiny update :3