What do the Ijad look like?

[Soren]

[Zero Revenge]

Thank you Soren. I'm certainly repeating myself, but I appreciate all the clockwork of the setting, this is fantastic!

[Foxfire]

[Zero Revenge]

Here's a quick question.

How long can an Ijad symbiote live for, naturally speaking? Do they live shorter lives than Humankind?

I'm not as curious to know how the Ijad reproduce, except is it a long process, such as Human-gestation? And likewise, do the Ijad tend to breed as often and plentiful as Humans?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

The evolution is, in my vision, much closer to Judaism: there are some central, distant events of great meaning, and then all the practical implementation is based on commentary. There hasn't been any sort of central authority for millennia, and its collapse is actually the start of their religion.

Ijad are clearly k-strategy reproducers so theirs is probably a pretty long, or at least infrequent, gestation. They lay eggs but only a few at once — four or five — then select the best one to take through to full gestation.

Since their culture is so important to them as a species, they spend a lot of time teaching each other. So, yeah, they live shorter spans than humans, maybe 40-50 years. Of that, their first 10 or so is childhood, where they learn their culture's techniques, morals, ethics, language, and so forth. When they reach sexual maturity, they start having sex, but the older of a pairing usually opts to carry the eggs (remember, they only have one sex), with the younger learning how as they go. When both partners are experienced, they might both carry eggs.

They're big on extended family, as you might guess from their society. Most Ijad societies name their kids after their community, not their parents. That's because at any moment, a bunch of the Ijad are involved in child-rearing; just because you laid some eggs doesn't mean you're solely responsible for their upbringing. The larger city-farms have this problem where, ironically, the relationships get tenuous enough due to the large population that some hatchlings don't have enough parents to raise them.

[gusindor]

If Ijad have shorter lifespans than humans, what happens to a host when their Ijad partner dies?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

They become sad.

[Zero Revenge]

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

No, except for also probably sadness.

Ijad change bodies all the time. If you're doing farm work, you ride a big farm animal. If you're flying somewhere, you ride a flying animal. If you want emotional, political, and intellectual intimacy, you ride a human.

[Mercutio]

[The Hydromancer]

Could an Ijad join with another Ijad?

[Xero010]

[The Hydromancer]

[Foxfire]

[Foxfire]

[The Hydromancer]

[Foxfire]

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Kinky!

[The Hydromancer]

I would hate to dive into the Ijadian language to come up with a safeword.

[Thaddeus]

Do you think an Ijad could rid something mechanical? As in, could it ride a frame?