Geogriffith wrote:
The shorter lifespan of Keidran, about 1/3 that of a healthy human, would seem to dictate that their pregnancies are similarly shortened. But maybe they're not, and that's why the Keidran population/territory is so small.
As for number of kids, I'd have to say, commonly, no more than two at one time. Unlike real animals like wolves, Keidran are definately only equipped with one pair of breasts. Ok, Tom has confirmed that evolution had no hand in the creation of the races, but it would seem to be pretty poor design by the masks to have Keidrans give birth to more kids than they've got *ahem* mammary glands.
As for slaves, I'd look at slavery in the United States before the invention of the cotton gin. Before Eli Whitney (or whoever he copied the idea from) developed his little cotton-sorting machine, slavery was only marginally profitable. More often it was used as a means of displaying wealth, rather than of gaining wealth. There are probably a limited number of Keidran slaves, and what there are would be limited to the rich or powerful.
Ok, that's my wild speculation. Now here comes Sage to blow it all away.
Offtopic: Is you avatar from... Eek the cat? I've been trying to remember what show it was from ever since you put it up...
actually just about all of what you said is probably "right on the money"-- except keidran slavery is probably a lot more common than what you may think. Remember that they are treated more like working animals than "man servants" they put them in cages to bread and all which means their are quite a few of em- probably to do a lot of physical labor and there are even -- ahem secret "brothels" that exclusivly have Keidran partners... so i would think that keidran slaves are more common than just for the very rich... but not like every kid on the block has one :P