Part of the problem is that the very existence of these non-European locations in the pulps that inspired D&D was based on exoticism: a way for the authors to show just how strange, foreign and alien these people were (especially the women, wink wink nudge nudge). And as much I still love Howard's Conan stories (because the man could write), you do have to take them as products of their time and the way they depict people from non-European inspired areas is very problematic. At the same time, it doesn't make any sense to white wash the world and pretend those places don't exist. The real world is richer for its diversity and so is a well realized fictional world. And since we can idealize those worlds, we can have these cultures meet without basking in the horrors of our own real past such as imperialism, colonials and the slave trade.
I'm just not sure how to best present those places for consumption as lands of adventure.
My take, so far, as I work on multiple projects that draw from cultures around the world, is to simply present them as places people live. There are a few empires in my Islands World setting (I had originally said no empires but decided against that), and they are based on France, Spain, and Persia, respectively. What they don’t do is, go into a land they view as “savage” and decide they’ve a right to rule there because the locals are better off as part of the empire.
Instead they’re more like pre-colonial European and Asian empires. Taking land from people who are technologically on roughly equal footing, fighting real wars for land and power, not just sweeping in and ravaging a continent, etc, and only evil cultists have slaves.
Meanwhile, in the Turtle Archipelago, elves and orcs fight and also intermarry, as do gnomes and Halflings, minotaurs, Goliaths, and countless others, because it’s sort of a Mediterranean meets Caribbean meets Zorro-sequel colonial Spanish California setting, where many trade winds meet at different times of year, from around the world. The dominant cultures are native, with pockets of immigrant cultures, places where cultures have mixed, and provinces where foreign powers are exerting military (Albarona/Not-Spain) or economic power (Capet/Not-France) and intermingling with local culture as a result.
So, I’ve already set the main adventuring region as something other than Europe, where European influences are present but not dominant.
Next, when I write a culture of Firbolgs as mountainous, runners, with hidden roads and temples and cities in the mountains, I’m not setting this as a place to gawk at in wonder, any more than Capet’s City of Seven Princes, named after the great seven towers which are each named as though it were the prince of some esoteric concept, or the great blue coastal fortress of Azulejo in Albarona, which has influences of old Idanian architecture from when most of Albarona was an Idanian vassal state, and is home to some of the most ancient and beautiful Cathedrals in the known world.
Each region of the world is a place where folks live, work, and get into trouble and need help.
