redrick
First Post
I like to have a broad representation of various ethnicities in my setting, but map them to actual in-game cultures and regions, so there is a feeling of actual cultural diversity, instead of the sort of "color-blind" casting of a modern theater production. This doesn't mean that all people with certain appearances need retain an ethnic culture; various people may immigrate and assimilate to varying degrees, just as people do in the real world.
I found a great forum post on the WoTC boards mapping the various Known World cultures to their real-world models. (Since my understanding is that Known World cultures usually were directly cribbed from historical counterparts, this works well!) Unfortunately, I only find one non-middle-eastern African culture on this list, which is the tiny, remote and completely isolated culture of Ulimwengu. I'd love to find a way to bring some more African-inspired cultures into the setting, and would love some ideas. The Emirates of Ylaruam could be expanded and divided to include more North-African peoples. Do people have any other ideas on reskinning some of the more significant cultures to African cultures?
The cultures don't have to be one to one. A setting like Mystara is also probably going to naturally lend itself to a lot of generalizations and stereotypes — such is the nature of a Fantasy remake of historic cultures — but I'd like to avoid as much as I can!
What I should really do some day is use N.K. Jemisin's 100,000 Kingdoms as a loose basis for a D&D setting. That series seems to do a great job at creating a number of visually diverse cultures that are more than just "the Kenyans with magic."
I found a great forum post on the WoTC boards mapping the various Known World cultures to their real-world models. (Since my understanding is that Known World cultures usually were directly cribbed from historical counterparts, this works well!) Unfortunately, I only find one non-middle-eastern African culture on this list, which is the tiny, remote and completely isolated culture of Ulimwengu. I'd love to find a way to bring some more African-inspired cultures into the setting, and would love some ideas. The Emirates of Ylaruam could be expanded and divided to include more North-African peoples. Do people have any other ideas on reskinning some of the more significant cultures to African cultures?
The cultures don't have to be one to one. A setting like Mystara is also probably going to naturally lend itself to a lot of generalizations and stereotypes — such is the nature of a Fantasy remake of historic cultures — but I'd like to avoid as much as I can!
What I should really do some day is use N.K. Jemisin's 100,000 Kingdoms as a loose basis for a D&D setting. That series seems to do a great job at creating a number of visually diverse cultures that are more than just "the Kenyans with magic."