D&D General Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings of Color

[Orius]

Now I'm going to have to come up with a dwarven martial arts tradition that takes all the goofiest aspects of the WWF and lucha libre and somehow makes them work. Duergar are typecasted as heels. Should be interesting when players decide to play a dwarf monk.

 

[slobster]

With the caveat that I skimmed this thread and did not read everything, so I apologize if I'm repeating something that's already been discussed...

I think it's really cool when fantasy races reflect more diversity than the "white folks in makeup" sensibility. I have never played with anyone that had any issue with asian-looking dwarves being the predominant phenotype for a culture, or with an NPC or PC being randomly described as darker or lighter in skin appearance, from whatever race. I've seen it taken farther too, e.g. elves with greenish skin or humans who discriminate and stratify based on impossible (in our world) eye colors. It's all in good fun, and while I've definitely been on the sidelines for some online or social media angst when it comes to such topics, I've thankfully never seen it in person.

What I do give a little side-eye to is when every time a group or subculture gets introduced that have nonwhite features, they happen to wear the fantasy trope hat that happens to correspond to real world tropes of that race. So the asian looking dwarves happen to live on the steppes, raid and conquer their pastoral natives, are ruled by khans, etc. I don't find that sort of thing to be racist really, it's just sort of lazy in a way that makes me really wish the representation could have gone further.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, may REALLY have to have mesoamerican dwarves in my next FRPG setting.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

With the caveat that I skimmed this thread and did not read everything, so I apologize if I'm repeating something that's already been discussed...

I think it's really cool when fantasy races reflect more diversity than the "white folks in makeup" sensibility. I have never played with anyone that had any issue with asian-looking dwarves being the predominant phenotype for a culture, or with an NPC or PC being randomly described as darker or lighter in skin appearance, from whatever race. I've seen it taken farther too, e.g. elves with greenish skin or humans who discriminate and stratify based on impossible (in our world) eye colors. It's all in good fun, and while I've definitely been on the sidelines for some online or social media angst when it comes to such topics, I've thankfully never seen it in person.

What I do give a little side-eye to is when every time a group or subculture gets introduced that have nonwhite features, they happen to wear the fantasy trope hat that happens to correspond to real world tropes of that race. So the asian looking dwarves happen to live on the steppes, raid and conquer their pastoral natives, are ruled by khans, etc. I don't find that sort of thing to be racist really, it's just sort of lazy in a way that makes me really wish the representation could have gone further.

Nothing wrong with asiatic elves having Celtic/Islamic art styles, halfling yakuza, dwarves building pyramids, or Norse gnomes.

 

[jayoungr]

Just guessing, but I suspect JRRT would have called them “suntanned” or something equivalent if that’s what he meant.

Not necessarily; I've definitely seen that usage (brown for suntanned) in other examples of older British writing, i.e. mid-20th century and earlier.

ETA: It can also be used for skin that's light but not pinkish/inclined to burn.

I think we can say the term is ambiguous, anyway.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not necessarily; I've definitely seen that usage (brown for suntanned) in other examples of older British writing, i.e. mid-20th century and earlier. I think we can say it's ambiguous, anyway.

Fair enough.

 

[Bolares]

that’s what he said

 

[Magister Ludorum]

The full range of human skin tones, hair colors, hair textures and facial features are present in all fantasy races in games I run just like in the human nations. None of the nations are meant to simulate real human cultures. We also don't play in a fantasy Europe continent.

I wish art available online and in books would depict this better.

We call it color-blind casting just like in the movies and television.

There are good in-game story reasons for this trope aside from it not being fantasy earth.

 

[Stormonu]

Please open your 1E Monster Manual and show me a color picture.

What, you didn't take the crayons to your book like the rest of us did?

In my homebrew, I've been working more on the diversity of the races. Pastel goblin subspecies, dwarves with skin the color of various rocks (and precious metal/jewel hair colors) and elves whose skin tone matches various trees (for the Wood elf variety) or who can alter their skin color/hair color on a whim (High elves, who were originally born from the Dreamlands). Even the gnolls have skin colors ranging from yellow-green to black and white stripes/spots.

The one strange thing I'm battling with is actually the human diversity. In my homebrew, bog-standard humans (Afarians) come in all the varieties we know. But some of the mortal-ascended gods "blessed" their original lineages/families and as a result the succeeding generations had tightly followed certain cultural appearances - the Dhorics are Roman, the Aharati are Native American, the Aztech are Aztec, the Ghan are Mongolian, the Randese are Arabic, the Skierian are Indian, the Shamess are Egyptian, and the Zend are Japanese. I had been mentally depicting them as being monolithic examples of their culture, but now I'm thinking there's no reason that with a couple of millenium (centuries for the Skierian, Ghand and Randese), that there could be quite a bit of mixing present in those subraces and a good bit of diversity as well.

 

[Faolyn]

I agree that’s what he said, but I disagree with the conclusion.

She, and that's fine. I've just seen a a bit of British writing and TV that uses brown or "brown as a nut" to indicate suntans.