D&D 5E SKT: The Uthgardt and Modern Sensibilities

[pukunui]

Hi all,

I am eventually going to be running Storm King's Thunder as Act 3 of an on-going campaign, and one part of it that I'm a bit uncomfortable with is the raiding of the Uthgardt burial mounds. I realize that the Uthgardt have long been part of the Realms, and that they are descended from the setting's equivalent of Vikings, but there is still a noticeable American Indian influence there, and I think one could say there's a bit of white-washing involved as a result ... so I'm having trouble separating my modern, real world sensitivities from the fantasy.

Does anyone else have this problem? Would it, perhaps, be better to swap them out for orc tribes? Or would that make it worse in terms of cultural implications?

Should I just leave that part out entirely? Some of the locations are quite cool. I particularly like Beorunna's Well, for instance. Should I have them be abandoned sites, rather than actively used ones, and replace the Uthgardt with random monsters?

Anyone got any ideas? I don't want to cause any offence, either here on the forums or at my gaming table.

 

[Prakriti]

The Giants are indigenous to Faerun. The humans arrived later and claimed the Giant relics as their own. So by reclaiming the Giant artifacts and returning them to their rightful owners (the Giants), the party is actually putting things right.

 

[MiraMels]

Oh yes, I removed that whole section of entirely. Not only was deeply uncomfortable with the content as is, but one of my players wanted to play an Uthgardt herself, since the Sword Coast guide provides that as an option for character background.

 

[fjw70]

So the issue is that a FR culture has Native American influence and applying that to a "white" culture is whitewashing? Is this correct? I am not familiar with the culture so I am trying to understand your concern. If I have it right then I don't see an issue. Can white washing apply to giving some NA aspects to a fictional culture?

Or is the discomfort with raiding burial mounds? I don't see that as an issue either. That what archeologist do.

 

[paintphob]

I always got more of a Goth/Vandal tribal feel from them. Living outside of 'civilization', ignoring it most of the time, trading with it when needed and raiding it when the mood struck.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

What are the cultural implications of orcs? In 5e, they seem like ISIS with a pantheon, and ISIS seems to like to blow up historical relics.....

Tolkien's WWI influence basically made them stand ins for the Huns (seriously look at some of the old propaganda), and I don't see any issue (specifically) with stealing German relics (as opposed to anyone else's relics). Most D&D orcs are derived from Tolkien, so they are really stand ins for the Huns too. They aren't sneaky enough to be Commie devils (which would have made more sense in the '70's), so you don't need to worry about orcs as Cubans, Vietnamese, Koreans, or any other nation controlled by the Red Menace.

The LotR movie orcs totally don't count--D&D have gnolls as the evil African stand-ins, and you are super double extra imperialist with sprinkles on top if you try to steal the gnolls' gig and give it to the European-derived monsters. You should give up organic food for a month for even thinking about doing that.

Therefore I think I have conclusively established that there is no good reason not to switch to orcs.

 

[pukunui]

I talked to my one player who I thought might be sensitive to this sort of thing and he said he could see my point but that it was just a game. So maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here.

So the issue is that a FR culture has Native American influence and applying that to a "white" culture is whitewashing? Is this correct? I am not familiar with the culture so I am trying to understand your concern. If I have it right then I don't see an issue. Can white washing apply to giving some NA aspects to a fictional culture?

When Scarlett Johansson was cast in that Ghost in the Shell movie, people got mad because the character was meant to be Asian, even though it's a fictional story. Same with that movie that Emma Stone is in where she's playing a half-Chinese person. People called that "white-washing".

I feel like the Uthgardt could potentially fall into that same category. Yes, you could argue that they're more like the Gauls or the Huns or whatever, but the sacred sites and the tribal names ("Sky Pony", "Blue Bear", etc) scream "Native American" to me. If they had names like "Fanged Moon" or "Jagged Claw" maybe it wouldn't be so discomfiting. That said ...

Or is the discomfort with raiding burial mounds? I don't see that as an issue either. That what archeologist do.

I think this is also part of it, although it's not because they're burial mounds per se. It's because they're still active sites. They're not ruins left behind by a vanished culture. Archaeologists don't generally raid sites that people are still using.

That said, I think I will leave it, and we'll play one out and see how it goes. If it feels wrong, we'll work something else out.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I don't agree on the whitewashing front - that seems a stretch, to be honest - but I myself removed the Uthgart Mounds stuff. The reasons were simple. Firstly, it feels kinda weird. More concretely, this section feels mostly like a way to stretch stuff out before the party go to the first Giant stronghold; since I've combined it with Tyranny of Dragons, I don't want it stretched out any more. Thirdly, I think it casts the party in a somewhat strange light, one which slaughtering Giants doesn't; the Uthgart are isolationist, genocidal, and hateful, but the party would be just invading and slaughtering them to get a bit of plot, rather than to save people from rampaging Giants.

This isn't the only morally ambiguous part of Storm King's Thunder, I've found. I set my party on the sidequest for the Giant Slayer sword in Yartar (mentioned on page 62, under Triboar Quests), and it really sets the party up to just murder a captain of the watch, which is especially odd when you consider that Yartar may be a dump, but it's still a member of the Lord's Alliance (important in my campaign, since they're working with the Alliance). I had my party get into a big row over whether they should just steal the sword in the night, or steal it and slit the guy's throat. In the end they didn't go for the murder, but I have to admit that I spent the whole conversation wondering whether I'd hand out alignment changes for it, and whether handing out alignment changes for a sidequest I introduced would be unfair.

 

[fjw70]

I talked to my one player who I thought might be sensitive to this sort of thing and he said he could see my point but that it was just a game. So maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here.

When Scarlett Johansson was cast in that Ghost in the Shell movie, people got mad because the character was meant to be Asian, even though it's a fictional story. Same with that movie that Emma Stone is in where she's playing a half-Chinese person. People called that "white-washing".

I feel like the Uthgardt could potentially fall into that same category. Yes, you could argue that they're more like the Gauls or the Huns or whatever, but the sacred sites and the tribal names ("Sky Pony", "Blue Bear", etc) scream "Native American" to me. If they had names like "Fanged Moon" or "Jagged Claw" maybe it wouldn't be so discomfiting. That said ...

I think this is also part of it, although it's not because they're burial mounds per se. It's because they're still active sites. They're not ruins left behind by a vanished culture. Archaeologists don't generally raid sites that people are still using.

That said, I think I will leave it, and we'll play one out and see how it goes. If it feels wrong, we'll work something else out.

On the Scar Jo example that is different since they were using a real world culture in a fictional story. Here the culture is fictional. So I agree with Charles that it is a stretch.

On the burial mounds I can see your point. I was assuming this was an ancient long gone culture. Not having read SKT could the burial mounds be replaced with store houses or something like that?

 

[pukunui]

On the Scar Jo example that is different since they were using a real world culture in a fictional story. Here the culture is fictional. So I agree with Charles that it is a stretch.

Yeah, I can see that. And to be fair, I think that the Shaarans in southeast Faerûn have a more obvious Native American theme.

On the burial mounds I can see your point. I was assuming this was an ancient long gone culture. Not having read SKT could the burial mounds be replaced with store houses or something like that?

No. The idea is that each mound (which doubles as both a burial site and a place of worship, complete with altar and totems and whatever else) has a giant artifact buried underneath it. I think the artifact itself lends some power to the mound and the rituals that take place there.

So no, it's not about raiding an abandoned site. The missions require raiding actively defended sacred sites and digging them up to steal away a macguffin needed to further the story. Some of them are really cool locations. Others not so much. I could potentially just write them out of the story. I've got plenty of time to think about it. We're just about to start on Scourge of the Sword Coast, so we've got to get through that before we get into SKT.