Again, no one is saying that's a problem. The problem is when the game of D&D is being presented as monotheistic. What I mean by that is that while yes, there certainly are polytheistic religions in D&D, the game makes those religions for all intents and purposes monotheistic because clerics are always depicted as getting their powers from one god they worship. The game was basically Christianized from the beginning, and never stopped being so. Many religions, even those depicted in the game, were where followers prayed to many gods depending on what they were wanting. So clerics of those mythologies should be depicted as getting their powers from many gods, not just one. Which is how the game has been from the beginning.
And again, since it apparently keeps getting lost. NO ONE IS SAYING WORSHIPPING ONE GOD IS BAD. It's the lack of other representation that is problematic.
Primo, it's not monotheism - it's monolatrism - worship of one god. Basically all clerics in average D&D setting will agree other deities exist.
Second, it's not really that weird in terms of priesthood - many polytheistic religions that had enough well people and stuff, had separate clergies for various temples, with specific duties based on specifics of gods. In a village - one would expect some elder to perform basic rituals for all gods, and of course most of population would by polytheistic in practice. And TBH aside of this weird naughty word in Forgotten Realms it seemed like that in most of D&D.
Tertio, so priest getting powers from one specific deity is quite realistic and historically sounds concept - but monolatry as social norm is not.
Quatro, of course D&D detieis generally work differently than either Abrahamic God, or pagan gods, so I'd say - some aspects of D&D will simply be d&d.
Yes, but "European style" is just as much a pastiche, in D&D. Norman knights, and Hungarian boyars, and Spanish conquistadores, and Teutonic crusaders, and Polish hussars, and Pictish warriors, are all "European", yet nobody bats an eye when they get lumped together as "vanilla D&D" style.
TBH most of those styles are not really that well represented. I mean probably fictional Cymmerian style get's more love than Eastern Europe or Picts, or even Roman legionary. Also boyar is descriptor of higher noble rank in Rus (and successory states or influenced states like Lithuania), Romania, Bulgaria - it's not proper term for Hungarian warriors / nobility.
So... because he has darker skin, he can't wear armor from another culture? Or his culture couldn't have developed plate armor on its own? I'm confused here.
Also... artist is Black American not African, so he's probably overall closer to European culture than Yoruba or Zulu ones.
1. Gatekeeping: the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.
So, yes, that is BY DEFINITION gatekeeping.
Yes, but terms have context not just pure definition - in culture gatekeeping is usually linked to certain practices keeping large demographics out of culture consumption. Mechanical limitations - are generally not gatekeeping unless they are created in significantly demographic-offending ways. Otherwise we could call ANY RULES AND LIMITS in game - gatekeeping. But guess what without rules and limitis generally there are no games.
So there is something unbalanced and unfun with GATEKEEPING in that manner- limiting the access to the best abilities by requiring the player to already have the best abilities.
That's like very subjective opinion about what's fun or not. For many it's better to roll paladin once per 50 characters than just nerf him (and in those edition of D&D PC's were much more expendable than in 3,5 forward.
And especially in old - "rulings not rules" style it's also one quite easy to drop - like racial class levels which were commonly dropped.
Are we going to ignore the fact that the demonic, occult, and violent content that offended people 40 years ago still offends a lot of people today? Or are there certain kinds of offence over D&D that we're treating as legitimate and others that we aren't?
As a Roman Catholic I have to say if D&D get any proper occult content in it, I'd respect them way way more. Instead it's about as occult as Harry Potter - which is not at all, with magic serving only as a gaming / plot device for GM / Rowling, without any interesting metaphysical stuff behind it.
I'd gladly see Satanic Patanic be 200 times as big, for some smart and crafty metaphysics in D&D, but nope.