leading an american- indian campaign

A few days ago I thought about starting a campaign based on the culture , history and mythology of the north american indians. Therefore, there are some thoughts and questions that I would like to share with you all:
1. Should the role of an indian brave be included under the title of the barbarian, since indian worriers don't wear any armor, or should it be considered as a fighter or ranger?
2. Which demi- human race do you think is the most suitable to represent an indian nation in this campaign? I reckon that the elves are the most suitable, due to being associated with archery, horse- riding and living in woods, in addition to their shamanic (druids, in the classic d&d world) and nature- worshiping orientated colture.

I think you would be unnecessarily limiting yourself by only looking at the barbarian class as suitable for native americans. There are such a wide range of warrior cultures that barbarian just wouldn't cut it. For example, the Cherokee and Iroquouis had very sophisticated political and agricultural systems as compared to, say, the Apache or Comanche tribes. On the other hand, the Apache were fearsome warriors, well known for their ferocity and deadliness.

I would highly recommend you take a look at "Northern Crown: New World Adventures" by Atlas Games. It does a terrific job of describing various native american tribes (albeit it is focused mainly on tribes east of the Mississippi River), and mechanics for playing different cultures. It also gives a breakdown of which classes are appropriate for different tribes, and all classes are pretty well represented among different tribes, even the paladin.

Leather is armor, right? Native Americans wore that at the very least.

IMHO classes should be the same as any other "primitive" civilization:
- Ranger
- Druid
- Barbarian
- Scout
- Sorcerer
- Bard (Savage variant)

Also consider the Spirit Binders in my .sig.

Cheers, -- N

This is something I’ve been interested in for years. I’ve built the rudiments of a campaign setting, but the constraints of living have prevented me from ever actually starting such a campaign.

In this setting I tossed in pre-descent drow (the drow of Ebberon turned out to be a lot like what I had in mind, i.e. a bunch of savage SOBs); giants as a player race (many Native American stories feature giants); and gela-monster like lizard men. All of whom were barbarians.

Without metal armor being common, I'd strongly recommend house ruling in class defense bonuses, ala unearthed arcana.

Horses? Where do you get horses? And metalworking? Not before the Europeans arrived! Some tribes wore armor. (Mostly bone and leather.) Good luck though!

dame duergar said:

A few days ago I thought about starting a campaign based on the culture , history and mythology of the north american indians. Therefore, there are some thoughts and questions that I would like to share with you all:
1. Should the role of an indian brave be included under the title of the barbarian, since indian worriers don't wear any armor, or should it be considered as a fighter or ranger?
2. Which demi- human race do you think is the most suitable to represent an indian nation in this campaign? I reckon that the elves are the most suitable, due to being associated with archery, horse- riding and living in woods, in addition to their shamanic (druids, in the classic d&d world) and nature- worshiping orientated colture.

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Hi, I'd like to humbly suggest that in Northern Crown i did a lot of the work for you. Four native cultures (Mohawk, Cherokee, Shawnee, and Ojibwa) are described in detail. i created a new core class, called the raider, to represent a wilderness fighter with some elements of ranger, some of barbarian, and some unique class abilities. Depending on the individual culture, druid or cleric (or even sorcerer) would be the most appropriate spell-casting class.

A shaman is not a druid, not even close. A shaman is a healer whose chief concern is the spirit world, not nature. Strictly speaking, they belong to the indigenous cultures of northern Asia and the Arctic.

Native warriors east of the Mississippi sometimes wore wooden armor, but mostly relied on abundant cover, with one contemporary European commenting, "They carry no shields, for every tree is a buckler".

I think the most appropriate race to use to represent native Americans would be HUMAN.

A shaman is not a druid, not even close. A shaman is a healer whose chief concern is the spirit world, not nature. Strictly speaking, they belong to the indigenous cultures of northern Asia and the Arctic.

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That's right. A modified class for the American Indian shaman developed from Oriental Adventures might be more helpful, but he's absolutely right about the spirit world emphasis.

You might also consider the fact that medicine men were sometimes important advisers to chiefs and other tribal elders.

Native warriors east of the Mississippi sometimes wore wooden armor, but mostly relied on abundant cover, with one contemporary European commenting, "They carry no shields, for every tree is a buckler".

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That's also right. You might want to develop camouflage, paint, cover, and stealth as armor types (at least as to effect). Stealth and ambush are fundamental to the types of warfare, Indian warfare and guerilla warfare, in which the Indians engaged. A good source of ideas would be to study accounts of the French and Indian Wars. Combat was short, fierce, ambush and stealth oriented, lighting raids, and up close and very personal. Weaponry was very vicious.

You might also comfier things like the Ghost Dance and the view that under certain conditions, through spirit focus or what we would call magic, that a brave could become invulnerable to bullets or other types of weapons. As an alternative to armor.

2. Which demi- human race do you think is the most suitable to represent an indian nation in this campaign? I reckon that the elves are the most suitable, due to being associated with archery, horse- riding and living in woods, in addition to their shamanic (druids, in the classic d&d world) and nature- worshiping orientated culture.

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You might consider a Totem race (maybe even a class), a Spirit race, or even a sub-race of humans who are able to transform under special circumstances into animal totems or spirit totems, like a were-bear or were-wolf, though an Indian were-wolf would be quite different from a European werewolf. You might also consider changelings, since many Indian stories deal with changelings, similar to Celtic myths about changelings.

A final set of ideas might be to have your Indian characters encounter South American type Indians (Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs) on either trade missions or raids, and to have them encounter raiders or explorers from other lands, such as the Vikings, etc. Depends very much upon the general time frame and geographic background you intend.

dougmander said:

I think the most appropriate race to use to represent native Americans would be HUMAN.

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Indeed. I think the best thing to do for a campaign set in the Americas is to simply not use demi-humans at all.

Another great book for tons of American Indian flavor and great ideas for shamans is the old Deadlands book Ghost Dancers. I think you can get it as a PDF on Pinnacle's website at www.peginc.com.