Grumpy RPG Reviews - Blacks in Gaming

I am not fami8lair with the setting, but I doubt the arrangement is an accident. If Piazo can make it work,more power to them.

What is the race of people from Atlantis?
 

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Kaodi

Hero
Could not really say with the Azlanti. They might be one that is not based on anything, as they correspond to one of our most famous and enduring myths. But here is their description. They might be related to Elizabeth Taylor, hehehe...

The ancient Azlanti were, according to contemporary accounts, a regal and aloof people with noble features and haughty attitudes. They had dark hair, ranging in color from dark red to brown and black, and their skin tones ranged from olive to pale white. They were also known for having prominent brows and high hairlines; this was especially true for the men, whose hair would often recede into a widow's peak. One of the most well-known Azlanti physical attributes were their purple-colored eyes, a trait which still crops up in other peoples from time to time, and which is always a sign of Azlanti heritage.

Correlations are not exact, intra-continent. Varisians, for instance, are an amalgamation of Roma and Irish Traveller. The Shoanti, their cousins, are pretty clearly Celts if you ask me. In other threads I have seen people have weird ideas about them though. These two groups live in the Northwest, along with some Chelaxians, which I will get to. In the North of the continent are the Ulfen, with are Scandinavians, and north of them are the Varki, basically Sami. North of the Varki, crossing the Crown of the World (the North Pole) are the Erutaki, I believe, which are basically Inuit. In Golarion the Varki are a mix of Ulfen and Erutaki.

It is really windy here, and my internet is acting like crap, so I will leave it there for now in the hopes this actually gets posted when I submit.
 



Kaodi

Hero
Hard to say. The Mwangi Expanse, the interior region of Garund which conforms to Sub-Saharan Africa, is not very well detailed (in keeping with how most of Africa was a mysterious continent). Only about a third of Garund has actually been covered too. One of the countries, Sargava, is kind of like South Africa (colonized by Chelaxians; Chelaxians are kind of a combination of English/Romans, while their politics and territory are kind of a combination of European fascists (Germany/Italy/Spain) with European imperialists (Rome/Britain/Netherlands; their fascism comes from Asmodeus being the patron deity of the empire, though that only became the case in a succession war about 100 years ago; Sargava broke away from Cheliax during this war, so they are not big on Asmodeus).

The predecessors of the Mwangi people, much like everyone else, had their share of legendary figures and cities (both good and bad). Religion is mostly shamanism, ancestor worship, and of the primary nature god, Gozreh, but there is a lot of demon worship and a few nastier deities as well (like Kitumu the Firefly Goddess and Walkena, a mummified child-god).

What might be a major strike against it though is that one of the major villains in Mwangi is a city of intelligent apes, ape-like creatures, and ape-men called Usaro, which worships an ape demon (Angazhan). What makes it kind of sketchy though is that the ruler, the Gorilla King, is always an intelligent gorilla that was reincarneted from being a human (almost invariably from the demon-worshipping Bekyar tribes).
 
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To refocus...

There should be more diversity in the art depicting humans in fantasy RPG.

A step in this direction is making 10% of the humans depicted in the art of the next D&D books black.
 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
I'd rephrase that to say that it's probably an improvement if FRPG art reflected the ethnicity of the cultures represented in the setting...and that the settings themselves should be a bit more culturally diverse.

Eurocentric* FRPGs really don't need some kind of art quota based on modern demographics. While Asian, Arabic and Africans may have traveled through or even settled in Europe in the 1400s on, together they wouldn't amount to 10% of the populace. (Most of them would be nobles, holy men, merchants & mercenaries, I'd guess.)

OTOH, a FRPG with more prevalent non-European designs might need more emphasis on other races in the art. (Honestly, the only time I got miffed by D&D art were the Caucasian-looking Egyptian gods in some 2Ed product.)









* understand that European- along with Asian, African and Arabic- regarding FRPGs is just shorthand for the various races and culture types that may appear.
 


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