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

[Kyvin]

I am actually running that part right now and I have a barbarian player. So I've changed most of the encounters but kept the sites the same. I just didn't want the players to be fighting people who were just like one of the party members. Plus it allowed me to use some more interesting creatures at those locations.

 

[pukunui]

I am actually running that part right now and I have a barbarian player. So I've changed most of the encounters but kept the sites the same. I just didn't want the players to be fighting people who were just like one of the party members. Plus it allowed me to use some more interesting creatures at those locations.

Cool. What monsters did you use instead?

 

[schnee]

D&D at it's core can be easily seen as an analogue of colonialism - 'invade the evil Other in their homes, kill them, take their stuff' - so if you focus on that as a whole, and keep the body count of the East India company in mind, that should distract you.

 

[fjw70]

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

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.

I am not saying turn them into abondoned sites but remove the burial part if that bothers you. Or is the issue not so much the burial aspect but raiding in general?

 

[Yaarel]

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.

What, exactly, is the difficulty?

The Norse Vikings are, like Native Americans, an aboriginal people. The Norse people are largely a remnant of ‘Old Europe’, the prehistoric inhabitants descending directly from early Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnon people. (The prevalence of yDNA haplogroup I among the Norse descends from the DNA of Cro-Magnon people.)

The later invasions by the Indo-Europeans only partially influenced the remote Norse regions, mainly because the rugged near arctic environment was hostile to farming, the Indo-European agricultural cultures. To a significant degree, the Norse remained a hunter-gather culture subsisting on fishing and forest hunting.

The spiritual traditions of the remote Norse regions remain animistic, with nature spirits, a giant ‘thunder bird’ responsible for arctic blizzard storms, and female shamans who maintained constructive relationships with nature spirits, especially Elves and Giants. Even shapeshifters. Norse aborigines and Native American aborigines have a surprising degree of spirituality in common.

To this day, even under the influence of southern Hellenism and later Christian spiritual traditions, Scandinavians maintain a profound reverence for the spirituality of nature.

 

[pukunui]

I am not saying turn them into abondoned sites but remove the burial part if that bothers you. Or is the issue not so much the burial aspect but raiding in general?

I think it isn't the burial part at all. It's the "raiding an active sacred site" that bothers me. It'd be like going into a Catholic church that's still in use in order to steal their saintly relics.

What, exactly, is the difficulty?

See above. (You make some valid points, by the way. Thank you.)

 

[Alexemplar]

What, exactly, is the difficulty?

The Norse Vikings are, like Native Americans, an aboriginal people. The Norse people are largely a remnant of ‘Old Europe’, the prehistoric inhabitants descending directly from early Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnon people. (The prevalence of yDNA haplogroup I among the Norse descends from the DNA of Cro-Magnon people.)

The later invasions by the Indo-Europeans only partially influenced the remote Norse regions, mainly because the rugged near arctic environment was hostile to farming, the Indo-European agricultural cultures. To a significant degree, the Norse remained a hunter-gather culture subsisting on fishing and forest hunting.

The spiritual traditions of the remote Norse regions remain animistic, with nature spirits, a giant ‘thunder bird’ responsible for arctic blizzard storms, and female shamans who maintained constructive relationships with nature spirits, especially Elves and Giants. Even shapeshifters. Norse aborigines and Native American aborigines have a surprising degree of spirituality in common.

To this day, even under the influence of southern Hellenism and later Christian spiritual traditions, Scandinavians maintain a profound reverence for the spirituality of nature.

I think the difference is what ultimately ended up happening to Indigenous Northern Europeans as opposed to Indigenous Americans/Australians/etc. Namely, the latter groups were largely wiped out through disease and genocide and to this day remain a marginalized people actively fighting against the ongoing desecration of their holy sites by the same governments that nearly wiped them out just a few generations ago.

I agree that cultural similarities can lead people to mistakenly assume that Uthgardt are more based on Indigenous Americans than game designers might have intended, but if you do interpret them that way, I can see how it could be a sensitive subject.

 

[Dualazi]

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?

Not in the slightest. You can reach for an analogue tying any fictional culture or race to a real one, but whether or not that matters at all is up to you personally, and if you’re willing to go down that route where does it end? If you did swap them to orcs, does that mean that FR orcish culture has no similarities to real societies you can envision, or does their societal analogue simply seem more moral to destroy?

It’s usually poor form to respond to a question with a question, but let me ask you this; if you aren’t able to separate fantasy races/cultures from the real ones they resemble or draw from, then which one bothers you the least to see attacked? If the players had to invade a Catholic-themed monastery, would that bother you less or more than the current option?

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.

You could certainly do those things, but it might likewise lessen the narrative impact or character development associated with having to raid places that are currently in use. More practically, I think this is a situation where people can be told to just deal with it. It’s harsh, but not every part of every campaign has to be squeaky clean in terms of morality and righteousness. There’s also the option of you as the DM giving ways to get the artifacts by other means perhaps.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

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 the key point is, 'some people'. Some noisy internet people for the most part. But hey, if they want to get mad over such things, that's their call.

Luckily, most tables don't feature 'some people' but rather individuals, who we can talk to and, at least from my experience, really don't give a monkey's about such things, at least past a point.

So aye, I think you were bang on with talking to your players - best to work with individuals. Much easier to form a dialogue with them than the faceless masses. My personal statement on such matters is: ''I do not care. Don't make my life any more complicated than it has to be. Do what you want and good luck.'' While I may not agree with a fair few folks we can certainly build towards a mutually agreeable state of play where we all have fun. And if we can't, well, we don't have to play together.

 

[Ancalagon]

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 ...

Sky Pony could also be Mongol? There are many, many shamanistic cultures out there. Also fits with the ancestor worship:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengrism

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.
.

To be fair, PCs attack temples all the time - but usually temple to evil gods