D&D 5E Fantasy Africa

D&D has traditionally been more about a medieval fair type Europe with the Orient bieng a far off place. Fantasy Africa while sometimes existing in the world is often somewhat neglected with African themed type adventures generally being used to explore ruins and the like.

IRL the colonial powers left a negative impression and legacy as the industrial revolution and 19th century imperialism divided up Africa among the European powers. A fantasy Africa does not have to follow this at all however due to the technological differences between Europe and Africa being a lot closer in the "ye olde medieval" D&Dism than the real life 19th century. The Europeans sailed around Africa with a few outposts, mostly to reach Asia. Islam spread around the Horn of Africa down to Zanzibar and in the west into what is now Mali and Nigeria. You also get to play various African nations in games such as Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Unversalis IV where you can do things like create a Jewish kingdom or invade Europe as Songhai (or Mali etc). It was games such as these where I learnt a bit more about the African nations and powers that existed.

Anyway here are some of my ideas.

Egypt.

Fantasy Egypt is well represented in the D&D worlds such as Forgotten Realms (Mulhorand), Mystara (Nithia), Greyhawk (Desert of Desolation) and even Darksun (Nibenay). In modern settings fantasy Egypt also exists in Midgard (Nuria Natal)and Golarion (Osirion)and the Egyptian Pantheon is also in the PHB. You have a wide variety of options here from the 30 dynasty's to pick your version of Egypt. You can go with a ruin filled land or Egypt can be at the height of its power. Its also not a bad pace to place beings like Kenku, Gnolls, Minotaurs, Tabaxi, Rakasata etc and such beings can have fluff different from the D&D norms and they can be blessed beings in these lands or outright replacements for the humans.

Kush
IRL Kush was the land south of Egypt and heavily influenced by them and a source of gold for Egypt. This influence went as far as pyramid building and worshipping the Egyptian gods along with ruling Egypt itself- the black Pharaohs.

Berber States

The Berber states were slave states in modern Morocco, Algeria and Tunis. D&D has old modules such as the Slave Lords and these guys would be decent idea for a fantasy replacement.

Carthage

Carthage was a rich city founded by the Phoencians in modern day Tunis. It took the Romans 3 wars to destroy them (the last was more of a massacre). Carthage was fantastically rich and even if it has been destroyed if you have ever read the Sunbird by Wilbur Smith you can have a Neo Carthagian state founded by refugees exist somewhere.

Greek colonies
The ancient Greeks also colonized north Africa with Cyrene perhaps being the most famous. The Greek Pantheon is also in the PHB.

Mali
IRL Mali/Timbuktu was famous for its gold. One of its rulers went on pilgrimage to Mecca via Egypt and spent so much money he deflated the price of gold.

Songhai
To the east of Mali the Songhai kingdom rose and eventually conquered Mali itself before being destroyed by Morocco which had access to firearms. In Europa Universalis IV they are also known as the African Prussia as they are very militaristic so in a fantasy settling a war god, battlemages or elite troops are all viable.

Makuria
A later kingdom that arose in roughly the same area as ancient Kush.

Ethiopia.
Ethiopia was (and still is) a Coptic Christian country with Islamic neighbours. Additionally it was never colonised being the sole remaining African country although it was briefly over run by Mussolini's Italy. Ethiopia is a mountainous country with several volcanoes as it straddles the great rift. Some sort of national deity and perhaps Dwarves or a human/Dwarf kingdom worshipping said deity would be a fantasy equivalent.

Great Zimbabwe.
Not a huge amount is known but when discovered in the 19th century it was believed that the ruins were not of African origin (they are). In a fantasy setting the civilisation is either still around or the ruins are of an older perhaps non human origin.

Zanzibar/Kilwa

This area of Africa was a coastal and island based sultanate to export resources up to the Islamic world along with trade in the Indian ocean. A disputed find has Kilwa currency turn up as fare away as Australia. It became a melting pot of African and Persia-Arab culture.

Ajuraan
The Ajuran sultanate had hydraulic engineering in an area of Africa which is now Somalia and Ethiopia. The Ajruan Empire was the 1st African nation to send ambassadors as far as China along with trans Indian ocean trade with SEA.

There have been a couple of African mythology/culture centered RPGs/settings.

Most notably (to my admittedly limited knowledge) Nyambe

http://www.atlas-games.com/nyambe/

And Spears of the Dawn

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/110293

These might add to your own development if you aren't familiar with them already. Both are very good.

I've always been interested in creating fantasy analogs of African cultures and mythology. I believe they are tough to do well though. Western depictions of black/African cultures even in a fantasy setting, are mired with racist tropes perpetuated to the point where people don't even realize that they reinforce harmful narratives because they are the default depiction.

This was my issue with Tomb of Annihilation, love the adventure but they fall back on those same racist tropes that have been done to death concerning the chultans. For example, every predominately black fantasy culture is a bombed out depleted husk, either collapsed or colonized.

Also...describing European influence in Africa as a negative impression is one of the wildest understatements I've ever seen.

Deepest darkest Africa (meaning the Atlantic-facing jungle belt) is the trope most people think of, even though Egypt is in Africa and so is the Sahara.

One could invoke Roots: somebody is backtracking his personal history and needs to find the way to a certain village, which may or may not still be inhabited by his distant ancestors' current descendants. Does word get out that he is coming? How do they react? Is he on an altruistic pilgrimage, or does he have some other motive mixed in there?

One area that could make for interesting play is the Sahel - the prairie band between desert and jungle. The rivers through here run cross-ways and tend to divide the region or provide invasion routes for outsiders to barge in (see the Niger River). The upper Nile crosses this region but was not navigable (rapids / cataracts) so the Pharaohs could not easily send exploration expeditions.

The ruins of Zimbabwe would make a good place to put kenku, tabaxi &c cultures - you can make up what you want since so little is known with certainty.

A highly isolationist society could use the Sahara as a deterrent against outsiders, with an XL oasis or a river valley or a tall mountain range that collects what little rain there is, deep in the "lifeless" desert - surrounded by wardens with slay-intruders-on-sight orders. Of course, how do the PCs know that something interesting or important is in there, if nobody has ever discovered it and survived to tell the rest of the world?

Reverse the "explorers' disease kills the natives" story. The travelling PCs can't enter a given area because malaria &c, but the natives have long since grown immune. Something valuable can be found in the land beyond that and only the natives can bring it out to the wider world. Or a tse-tse fly slays common beasts of burden. For whatever reason, the people must (a) carry out this valuable resource in backpacks or (b) tame some unusual animal such as rhinocerous or unicorns to haul wagons. Only a trickle of the valuable commodity is available to the wider world, though.

There were a few good articles in old dragon magazines that had deities and class kits for African campaigns which might be worth looking at for ideas.

cbwjm said:

There were a few good articles in old dragon magazines that had deities and class kits for African campaigns which might be worth looking at for ideas.

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I remember some of them one of them was called the dark continent. I have failed about a dozen Crusader Kings II games as Jewish Axum into Abyssinia, even if you rule Ethiopia you get stuk between the islamic capiphates. CKI and the Southlands in the midgard setting are getting my brain ticking over.

Ars Magica had a supplement titled South of the Sun for its 2nd edition. It was an Africa fashioned out of the legend of Prester John. I found it to be a good starting place when I ran a campaign that included Africa.

The best way to create a setting that represents an ethnic group in Africa, is to encourage that ethnicity to play D&D, and see what kinds of settings they create with it.

Yaarel said:

The best way to create a setting that represents an ethnic group in Africa, is to encourage that ethnicity to play D&D, and see what kinds of settings they create with it.

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Truer words haven't been said.

Correction Desert of Desolation is not in Greyhawk, it was originally settingless, but in 2e it got reconned into being in the Forgotten Realms, it also got expanded upon. The Bakkar Civilization became the greatest survivor state of Imaskar, it traded heavily with Mulhorand and may have been a vessel state of Mulhorand like Mugolm and Semphar were. It was important to the trade between Mulhorand and Durpur, as it allowed easier trade through the desert.

They seemed to have even worshipped Mulhorand Gods among others, including deities from the Norse and Greek Pantheons no one else on Faerun seems to worship, like Prometheaus.

The Bakkar like the Mulhorandi had Pharohs, but mortal ones, until the last Pharoh angered Orsis with have evil and so the civilization and the Pharoh were cursed, ending Bakkar. I do not know what eventually became of the Bakkar after they abandoned their doomed cities.

The Bakkar as far as I can tell were a mix of Imaskari and Mulhorandi culture with influences from new interplanar immigrants.

Maybe they left for another plane or entered the Celestial Nadir.

Anyways, Turmish is kind of Africanish, but with Italian sounding names and the only major Democractic nation in Faerun.

Chult of course is a bit African, but it's intended to feel more lost world then African traditional.

FR does have an African themed continent, Katashaka I believe, but it's mostly unexplored. It's where the Chultan people origined from. There the Tarrassque is actually worshipped as a child of their God.