Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

[Maxperson]

The main themes of D&D – heroic fantasy, Good vs Evil, zero to hero, flashy magic – are not Lovecraftian. But, to add to what @pemerton said, there are a number of Lovecraftian elements in the 5e D&D core rules:

The "Great Old One" warlock patron, the Far Realm, Tharizdun, cultists, ghouls, and amorphous tentacled monsters such as the gibbering mouther and yochlol demon. The roper comes directly from the TV show Space: 1999 but I don’t think it could’ve existed without Lovecraft.

The Yuan-ti probably derive partly from the Lovecraft story The Curse of Yig. This curse turns human beings into snakes. Yig is worshipped by Native Americans. The human ancestors of the Yuan-ti "worshiped serpents as totem animals" (5e MM). They live in Mesoamerican-style step pyramids. Robert E Howard’s serpent people and their almost human descendants in The Children of the Night and People of the Dark were likely also a source.

The Points of Light setting somewhat resembles Lovecraft’s cosmic horror but on a smaller scale. Most of the default 5e D&D world is monster-infested wilderness. "Wild regions abound. City-states, confederacies, and kingdoms of various sizes dot the landscape, but beyond their borders the wilds crowd in. People know the area they live in well... but few know what lies beyond the mountains or in the depths of the great forest" (5e DMG).

Likewise in Lovecraft's Mythos stories the distant past, the far future, space, other dimensions, the sea deeps, and parts of rural New England, among other places, are all the realm of monsters. "We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." (The Call of Cthulhu). In D&D otoh the PCs are meant to voyage far - that's the game!

5e PHB (emphasis mine):

THE GREAT OLD ONE​

​

Your patron is a mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality. It might come from the Far Realm, the space beyond reality, or it could be one of the elder gods known only in legends. Its motives are incomprehensible to mortals, and its knowledge so immense and ancient that even the greatest libraries pale in comparison to the vast secrets it holds. The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it.​

​

Entities of this type include Ghaunadar, called That Which Lurks; Tharizdun, the Chained God; Dendar, the Night Serpent; Zargon, the Returner; Great Cthulhu; and other unfathomable beings.​

5e DMG:

THE FAR REALM​

​

The Far Realm is outside the known multiverse. In fact, it might be an entirely separate universe with its own physical and magical laws. Where stray energies from the Far Realm leak onto another plane, matter is warped into alien shapes that defy understandable geometry and biology. Aberrations such as mind flayers and beholders are either from this plane or shaped by its strange influence.​

​

The entities that abide in the Far Realm itself are too alien for a normal mind to accept without strain. Titanic creatures swim through nothingness there, and unspeakable things whisper awful truths to those who dare listen. For mortals, knowledge of the Far Realm is a struggle of the mind to overcome the boundaries of matter, space, and sanity. Some warlocks embrace this struggle by forming pacts with entities there. Anyone who has seen the Far Realm mutters about eyes, tentacles, and horror.​

Yeah. WotC has brought far more Lovecraftian influences into the game than Gygax ever did. Even so, they're mainly just names and some broad themes of being "otherworldly," rather than close to how Lovecraft would have portrayed them.

 

[Fenris-77]

Fun fact: when a term has changed from its original meaning, indicting its current usage based on how it was formerly used is known as the genetic fallacy.

Unless you actually know anything about the specific use and spread of the word shaman this isn't helpful. Nor is it particularly correct in this case.

 

[Umbran]

Maybe you should refrain from accusing others of something when you are going to deliberately misinterpret their comment.

Mod Note:

That's enough.

At the point when you feel someone is no longer discussing in good faith, that's the time you should stop discussing.

When you cannot be respectful, it is time to stop talking.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, I just thought of something.

We can totally answer one of the great alignment questions of D&D of all time. What to do with prisoners. After all, this is a question that has plagued tables since day 1 - can we kill prisoners? set them loose? take them back to town? What's the answer?

Well, boys and girls, this thread has the answer.

We can EAT them. That's right, eating prisoners is not an evil act and is not evil. Apparently. So, we solve so many in game problems at once. Take a couple of prisoners, and you're fed for the week. No more needing to carry around rations.

It's the Swiftest solution to a problem.

 

[Aldarc]

I'd be curious to see how many people posting in this thread actually know not just where the work shaman comes from, but how it entered our general lexicon, and how it came to apply to cultural examples well beyond the initial source. Without looking it up on Google first.

It's a cognate of the Tungus verb saman, meaning 'to know'. So you're close. That was only half the question though.

Yeah, it comes from the Tungusic/Evenki word šaman. It was brought into European vocabularies essentially after Russia conquered Siberia and other Europeans began traveling these new Russian territories. As to how it was applied to other cultural examples, the answer is typically from European sociologists, ethnolinguists, anthropologists, comparative religion scholars, etc.

 

[Hussar]

The last few pages aside, I have a feeling that most of us agree on things. Other than some fairly minor issues (what to do right now - edit future printings of the Monster Manual or not - again, not a hill I'm going to die on, despite having an opinion) I'd say we've got this pretty much licked.

Older edition books are already covered by the disclaimer that WotC is putting on the books. In the (hopefully fairly near) future, introduce a shaman of some sort to the game - be it a full class, a subclass, or a bit of lore with a couple of different example stat blocks - (and, thinking about it, there's no reason you couldn't do all of the above) - to balance out how shaman are presented in the game.

Anyone have a major issue with this?

 

[TheSword]

The last few pages aside, I have a feeling that most of us agree on things. Other than some fairly minor issues (what to do right now - edit future printings of the Monster Manual or not - again, not a hill I'm going to die on, despite having an opinion) I'd say we've got this pretty much licked.

Older edition books are already covered by the disclaimer that WotC is putting on the books. In the (hopefully fairly near) future, introduce a shaman of some sort to the game - be it a full class, a subclass, or a bit of lore with a couple of different example stat blocks - (and, thinking about it, there's no reason you couldn't do all of the above) - to balance out how shaman are presented in the game.

Anyone have a major issue with this?

I don’t really see how anyone can argue with adding positive examples to balance things out. It seems like the way through most of the problems being identified.

Lucky WOC! It turns out being balanced and representative gives you more product to sell!

 

[Olrox17]

The last few pages aside, I have a feeling that most of us agree on things. Other than some fairly minor issues (what to do right now - edit future printings of the Monster Manual or not - again, not a hill I'm going to die on, despite having an opinion) I'd say we've got this pretty much licked.

Older edition books are already covered by the disclaimer that WotC is putting on the books. In the (hopefully fairly near) future, introduce a shaman of some sort to the game - be it a full class, a subclass, or a bit of lore with a couple of different example stat blocks - (and, thinking about it, there's no reason you couldn't do all of the above) - to balance out how shaman are presented in the game.

Anyone have a major issue with this?

Never going to argue against more content!

 

[pemerton]

Heh, I just thought of something.

We can totally answer one of the great alignment questions of D&D of all time. What to do with prisoners. After all, this is a question that has plagued tables since day 1 - can we kill prisoners? set them loose? take them back to town? What's the answer?

Well, boys and girls, this thread has the answer.

We can EAT them. That's right, eating prisoners is not an evil act and is not evil. Apparently. So, we solve so many in game problems at once. Take a couple of prisoners, and you're fed for the week. No more needing to carry around rations.

It's the Swiftest solution to a problem.

This is worth quoting in full, for two reasons:

(1) Humour value. Especially the last line.

(2) I think it brings out the absurdity of the argument above, that lizadfolk et al are properly categorised as Netural, better than any attempt at laboriously setting out the argument.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

We can totally answer one of the great alignment questions of D&D of all time. What to do with prisoners. After all, this is a question that has plagued tables since day 1 - can we kill prisoners? set them loose? take them back to town? What's the answer?

Well, boys and girls, this thread has the answer.

We can EAT them. That's right, eating prisoners is not an evil act and is not evil. Apparently. So, we solve so many in game problems at once. Take a couple of prisoners, and you're fed for the week. No more needing to carry around rations.

It's the Swiftest solution to a problem.

Indeed. Provided extrajudicial killing in the first place is not an Evil act (something that can't be deduced for sure from the lizardman example, because the trespassers could be convicted by a legitimate authory, and we had countless example in the fluff of kingdoms not being labelled evil despite using death penalty, so we know judicial killings aren't objectively evil in D&D), once you've killed them, you can as well eat them instead of dying of starvation yourself. The idea of borrowing already legitimate convicts with a death sentence to kill them and eat them as you go, like self-moving rations, before going to adventure is a great idea. I am not fan of act-based objective morality systems generally (because it leads to this sort of silly things), but since we have one, we might as well take it to its logical consequences.

In the (hopefully fairly near) future, introduce a shaman of some sort to the game - be it a full class, a subclass, or a bit of lore with a couple of different example stat blocks - (and, thinking about it, there's no reason you couldn't do all of the above) - to balance out how shaman are presented in the game.

Anyone have a major issue with this?

Absolutely not. Same with mana. Add, don't substract, without unneeded drama.

I am looking forward to playing a lizardman shaman. We know they are usually tribe leaders, but to be more exact they are called tribe chefs.

They know how to deal with intruders. That's a flavourful subclass!