D&D 5E World of Farland Now Embraces Asian, African, and Indian Cultures

The World of Farland has been online thoughout various iterations of D&D for as long as I've been running this website. So, about 20 years. It's a dark D&D setting, ruled by evil lords based on the Seven Deadly Sins, with an tmosphere a bit like if Lord of the Rings had gone the other way. The new Realms Under Shadow hardcover supplement introduces new locations which are not dependent on European mythology. I've been sent a few previews to share!

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The World of Farland, conquered by evil and ruled by the Lords of Sin, has been online for nearly 20 years. It's a best-seller here at DTRPG. But the setting has focused on European-style fantasy up to this point. That changes now...

The evil Wintervale has conquered the continent of Farland. But other lands lie south and east of the Wintervale. Some of these exotic realms are allied with the Shadow and some resist it, but either way, they have been affected by it. These are the Realms Under Shadow...

The Realms Under Shadow are fantastic places reminiscent of the medieval cultures of Asia, Africa (including egypt), and India. This campaign supplement allows you to play a game that is not in the vein of the traditional European style fantasy. Adventure in diverse and amazing places. Battle characters and monsters that are a far cry from your usual RPG experience. This book is compatible with the 5th edition of the World's most popular RPG and is a supplement to The World of Farland Campaign Setting, although it can certainly be used on its own.

This 235 page campaign supplement includes:

• Detailed write-ups on many unique and diverse cultures
• 14 new PC races
• New player options, including 15 new class archetypes and paths; feats; and equipment
• Calendars and gods
• New Languages
• Tons of adventure hooks
• Important NPCs and locations
• Seventeen new monsters
• A full length adventure set in the Realms Under Shadow
• Much more!
• All exclusive new content that will never appear on the website.

This book comes with two maps of the geography, and it is now available in standard color hardcover and gorgeous premium color hardcover!

 

[Sadras]

That was my exact reaction when I saw the movie. It was hard for me to feel sorry for the samurai when he was humiliated by the peasant soldiers.

For me, my biggest issue is that none of the horses died. Can someone please tell me how in Tymora did they aim so perfectly that only the riders got shot? I was triggered as a human.

 

[CubicsRube]

It's a weird word in the United States. You'll find oriental used in the title of markets, restaurants, and used to describe types of rugs. But these days it's not really the thing to describe people as orientals. If you do you might hear someone say, "Oriental describes things not people."

Yeah that's fair. It's certainly ignorant to call someone oriental here.

I know the Oriental Adventures title gets brought up from time to time, but that doesn't really flag anything for me.

 

[Beleriphon]

If it were an expensive costume would it be better? Approximately how much respect does one need to give to a feathered head dress of the plains people in North America or a Scottish kilt or an Indian sari?

Understanding its not just a costume to be worn about for amusement. The head dress is different than a kilt, or a sari. The latter two are, or were, relatively common every day clothing. Waring a sari in India is like wearing a pair pants in Canada. Wearing a head dress is more like a Russian wearing an exact replica of a US Marine uniform, and for a copy of a Congressional Medal of Honor, without having ever served or actually received such an hour. One can see how that might be disrespectful of the people that did legitimately receive said honour?

If its a Russian movie about an American soldier that did get such a thing, we'd say that's probably okay. If its a Russian oligarch wearing a fancy dress cosutme because it looks neat? We're probably going to be less okay with that.

Poor Anthony Quin didn't know he was culturally appropriating when he was cast as Alexis Zorba in Zorba the Greek.

If we care to say Anthony Quinn being in Zorba the Greek was such a thing then no he didn't know, and at the time nobody cared even if we wanted to say he was participating in such a thing. Again, we're talking about respect, and from I recall its an accurate film interpretation of a Greek novel. Its also about context, the movie was a Greek/British production and clearly some Greek producers wanted Anthony Quinn to be Zorba.

In fact its one of the problems some (misinformed) reviewers have with Assassin's Creed: Odyssey; Alexios' accent is apparently "terrible", despite the voice actor who provides his voice is a Greek actor... from Greece. While Kassandra gets a pass, but her voice actor is Canadian with a Greek background.

To continue the AC:O example I've read some review of the game that say it has some silly things in it (the Spartan Kick ability for example mimics Leonidas booting the messenger down a well in 300) and some of the spear fighting moves mimic Brad Pitt in Troy. But the main thrust was while these are common images about classical Greece they can be over looked because as a rule the game is respectful of the culture, and takes pains to include things like the main character says "ela" to spur on their horse, or using accurate Greek phrases to give a sense of authenticity that it wouldn't otherwise.

 

[Celebrim]

Understanding its not just a costume to be worn about for amusement. The head dress is different than a kilt, or a sari. The latter two are, or were, relatively common every day clothing. Waring a sari in India is like wearing a pair pants in Canada. Wearing a head dress is more like a Russian wearing an exact replica of a US Marine uniform, and for a copy of a Congressional Medal of Honor, without having ever served or actually received such an hour. One can see how that might be disrespectful of the people that did legitimately receive said honour?

Except none of this is really true. The full warbonnet with different meanings for each feather awarded to warriors who had earned them was a feature of only a few native American nations, mostly limited to the upper great plains. But the warbonnet as a style of fancy dress has long been appropriated by tribes that never historically wore it to dress up for the tourists, or for fun, and is now it's own style and it's own thing utterly divorced from pre-contact culture. For most native Americans, putting on one of these things is just as much being in a costume as anyone else. You honestly think every Native American in a powwow with their fancy dress of multicolored feathers comes from a tribe that historically dressed like that or more to the point, actually has counted coup on and/or killed the tribes enemies and is carefully counting every feather?

Do you think the tribal elders are going around knocking the headdresses of the boys and girls going, "You didn't earn the right to wear that. Now go back to grinding corn with the other women"? No, they are celebrating themselves as part of a living dynamic culture, and the old rules - which probably never applied in their nation in the first place - aren't in force. It is in fact a costume worn for amusement, and they are playing dress up.

Or do you actually think that this the sort of stuff that people on a reservation spend most of their time worrying about?

You can construct an argument for not dressing up in costume like a Native American that can't easily be knocked down, but it isn't that one.

 

[Beleriphon]

Except none of this is really true. The full warbonnet with different meanings for each feather awarded to warriors who had earned them was a feature of only a few native American nations, mostly limited to the upper great plains. But the warbonnet as a style of fancy dress has long been appropriated by tribes that never historically wore it to dress up for the tourists, or for fun, and is now it's own style and it's own thing utterly divorced from pre-contact culture. For most native Americans, putting on one of these things is just as much being in a costume as anyone else. You honestly think every Native American in a powwow with their fancy dress of multicolored feathers comes from a tribe that historically dressed like that or more to the point, actually has counted coup on and/or killed the tribes enemies and is carefully counting every feather?

I don't, but the idea is that its a feature reserved for a specific time and a specific place, for specific people. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be dressing like Pope Francis as fancy dress. I think people, not necessarily only Catholics, would find it inappropriate.

Yes, the warbonnet is effectively Native American formal wear in a lot of places now, buts its formal wear associated with a specific place and cultures that have to a degree lost their identities due to colonialism.

Do you think the tribal elders are going around knocking the headdresses of the boys and girls going, "You didn't earn the right to wear that. Now go back to grinding corn with the other women"? No, they are celebrating themselves as part of a living dynamic culture, and the old rules - which probably never applied in their nation in the first place - aren't in force. It is in fact a costume worn for amusement, and they are playing dress up.

No, I suspect most elders are more worried about the endemic alcoholism and suicide rates in most tribal areas actually. That and teaching their language and culture to people that more and more are not learning anything about it.

Or do you actually think that this the sort of stuff that people on a reservation spend most of their time worrying about?

Nope, they tend to worry about other more immediate things, like everybody else. They are things that Indigenous people that have the time to worry about them worry about though. And they are legitimate concerns, just not day to day ones.

You can construct an argument for not dressing up in costume like a Native American that can't easily be knocked down, but it isn't that one.

Mayhap, but my point was more that there is more to the outfit than it being a hat to Indigenous people. Just like a medal is more than just a piece of stamped metal. Both have meaning beyond immediate aesthetic considerations.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't, but the idea is that its a feature reserved for a specific time and a specific place, for specific people. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be dressing like Pope Francis as fancy dress. I think people, not necessarily only Catholics, would find it inappropriate.

So, to the extent that is true, it is clothing worn by a specific culture - not by warriors or special people within that culture. It is a time of costume dress for people in that culture. So your analogy with the Marine uniform and "stolen valor" doesn't work, because not only does the whole specific meaning thing only work for a few nations, but it doesn't really mean that any more.

Secondly, I think you'll find that dressing up like Pope Francis is a thing, and hardly anyone gets offended by it. There are performers that dress up as the Pope as a form of comic entertainment, the Pope gets satirized both lightly and with more venom, and you can buy Pope costumes for Halloween. There are even Pope Francis latex masks you can buy. No mass protests are occurring, and they aren't making the news. And certainly, to the extent that someone actually does get offended by it, like perhaps our Spanish Catholic friend here on the boards who is sensitive to the portrayal of Catholics, no one gives him the time of day about his feelings and if he speaks up about them he'll probably just get mocked and shut down about it. So let's not for a second pretend by this new false analogy that you are in any fashion applying a universal standard.

Yes, the warbonnet is effectively Native American formal wear in a lot of places now....

Yes, but wearing another cultures formal wear isn't disrespectful. That puts it back on par with kilts and saris.

...buts its formal wear associated with a specific place and cultures that have to a degree lost their identities due to colonialism.

And now we are starting to get down to the brass tacks. Does this whole colonialism thing make a big difference? That, and not analogies to Popes and Marines, is where this becomes a discussion.

Personally, I think they lost their identities because they didn't have a written tradition. With that, they have a lot in common with the Silesians or the Vistulans - whoever they were. But who their identities are now has really nothing to do with who they were pre-European contact, any more than your or my identity is defined by that. The question becomes is are they really locked into being this quaint pre-historical culture that looks like Indians for the tourists because that's what they want to see? For the Cherokee, for example, a big part of their identity is square dancing, and the whole big plains Indian headdress and all of that 'looking like an Indian' is just something some of them do to bilk the gullible tourists. Traditional Cherokee garb doesn't look anything like that. Now that they've got casinos and other more sophisticated methods of extracting money from the tourists, you see less of that sort.

My argument against dressing up like an Indian on Halloween would proceed from a different direction.

 

[Beleriphon]

My argument against dressing up like an Indian on Halloween would proceed from a different direction.

As would mine, I just bogged down in a poorly thought out analogy. So there's a whole host of things wrong with dressing like an Indian, and most of them relate to the way native groups have been treated historically. I know just calling some people Indians, without being from India, would make that apoplectic, other don't care.

For an interesting look at this I recommend the CBC documentary Searching for Winnetou. I let you decide if its appreciation or appropriation, I'm not sure the host is sure by the end of it.

 

[Sadras]

So there's a whole host of things wrong with dressing like an Indian, and most of them relate to the way native groups have been treated historically.

I personally do not find that a good enough reason - a whole host of nations/people were treated badly throughout history. My dressing up as them for a fancy dress has nothing to do with disrespect - sure some people might dress up as a religious icon to mock, but the majority of people really do not.
Kids do not dress up as superheroes to mock but to celebrate that superhero. My friend once had an Angels and Devils dress-up party. I decided to dress up as both, half my one side was angel, and the other was devil - so half halo, one side horn, shaved half my beard...etc
If I feel like dressing up like a medieval peasant or a Spanish lord or a Zulu warrior or Geisha - I believe I should be permitted to. I'm not attempting to sully anyone's culture. If anything I think it is the opposite - I'm putting in the effort to research and learn about an unfamiliar background.

 

[Morrus]

I personally do not find that a good enough reason

It’s not really up to you, though, is it?

 

[Sadras]

It’s not really up to you, though, is it?

Who is it up to? Who has the authority on this? I feel this question was already asked (perhaps even by you) and answered in this thread and you have just looped back to it.