D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Mordhau]

A lot of the tropes used to depict ancient Rome are actually highly both highly gendered and quite often linked to racist ideas as well. A lot of the ways Rome is depicted is a product of later mythmaking (or appropriation of Roman mythmaking into a new framework). The notion of decadence in particular has done a lot of work - often linked to ideas of feminisation and racial impurity.

So while actual ancient Romans may not be offended, some kind of care is still needed.

As often with these kind of things, it's the pulp stuff that is most likely to get you into trouble.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The main problem with Roman settings is, hilariously, that virtually all of them tone DOWN how horrifying a lot of elements of Roman culture were, rather than even presenting them accurately, let alone demonizing them.

I actually cannot think of a single setting which genuinely manages to demonize the Romans (it's probably out there but I can't think of it). Literally all of the Roman and quasi-Roman settings I can think of stop short of some of the more horrifying stuff (especially re: mass executions, mass slavery, sometimes quasi-genocidal conquest, and so on). There's always this "But they were civilized!!!!" thing. And like mate no. They were not. They just seemed like it. Reading about Roman society is always fascinating because one minute you're going "Wow, that's almost like us!" and the next you're going "JESUS WEPT THEY DID WHAT?!?!".

Oh, of course. I posted in this thread not that far back that I think that all empires are evil, including the Roman Empire. They did truly awful things. From the pedophilia, to taking advantage of the peoples they conquered (like all empires do), to classism, and crazy, power-hungry, narcissistic emperors (a bunch of them literally proclaimed themselves to be gods).

Using some of the more familiar parts of the Roman society (it being an empire/republic, their armor and weapon style and common colors, etc) in a setting can be a touchy subject, but not because they were marginalized, but for the exact opposite option. Idolizing them is the issue, because of all of the awful things they did. When they're painted as the good guys, that's when it can get problematic.

I'm not really aware of any examples from modern fiction that paints them as being the "super-awesome, cool, good guys", though. Care to share any examples? Because the main one that I'm familiar with is the Tamrielic Empire from The Elder Scrolls, and they portray them fairly accurately as being a not great group, from the racism to the court politics that nearly destroys it on several occasions, to the narcissistic Emperor that founded the Empire, was worshipped as a god, and is explicitly a bad dude (even if a bunch of people in-world love him, it's pretty clear that Talos/Ysmir was a pretty bad guy).

 

[MGibster]

I actually cannot think of a single setting which genuinely manages to demonize the Romans (it's probably out there but I can't think of it). Literally all of the Roman and quasi-Roman settings I can think of stop short of some of the more horrifying stuff (especially re: mass executions, mass slavery, sometimes quasi-genocidal conquest, and so on).

I can't either. As an undergraduate, I once wrote a paper about one of the Punic Wars (forget which one) and I subtitled it "Monsters of the Mediterranean" with the Romans cast in the role of the monsters. Romans were weird, Brutus was involved in a loan sharking arrangement with the town of Salamis charging them a 48% interest rate he was largely considered honorable! Of course predatory lending is probably the least of Roman barbarity. I imagine they've gotten a pass because of how influential they were on western culture. Until recently, Sparta seemed to enjoy an undeserved good reputation, but, damn, even by Greek standards they were pretty brutal.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I've been reading this thread with some interest but I have to chime in as the OP has...forgotten a lot of details about the setting he's calling racist.

Glen, I've "forgotten" a lot of details? If you're familiar with my writings about Mystara from over the past 22 years, "forgetting details" is not something people have often accused me of.

Not once has he mentioned the Ethengar or Atruaghin, the Mystaran equivalents of the Mongolians and Native Americans,

In fact, in the original "research post", I do mention the Atruaghin Clans and Ethengarians several times. Whenever GAZ10 mentions the Atruaghin or Ethengarians in relation to the "Red Orcs" and "Yellow Orcs", I include an explanatory note saying that, in Mystara, the Atruaghin and Ethengarians are the primary human analogs of Indigenous American and Mongolian culture.

and [not once has he mentioned the] fact that orcs in Mystara assimilate the cultures of the people they fight against the most. [...] By removing the context behind the races you remove what made those orcs unique to the setting. The Red orcs dress and act that way because they fought for centuries against the Horse Clan before they were separated by an act of divine magic. But the Red orcs still copy the culture of the people that fought them to a standstill. The yellow orcs still fight the Ethengar, and believe by using their tactics and copying their customs they will gain a measure of their opponent's power. The black orcs dress in vaguely Thyatian gear, march in formation, and try to fight like the Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago. Orcs copy cultures in Mystara.

Hi Glen, could you provide sources for your various assertions?

I do see some explanations along those lines in GAZ10, which I'll try to document here. Yet it sounds to me like you've taken those examples of humanoids copying an adjacent culture, and then have run with it as a "fanon" interpretation and expanded it. And you're now presenting it as Official Mystaran lore, and justification for whatever ugliness is in the book.

It's not right to say: "Oh, it's all a joke! The humanoids were comedic parodies of human cultural analogs within the world of Mystara. The orcs just copied and parodied cultures. That's just what they do. It's funny!"

That's party true, but that doesn't justify the use of racial slurs, such as "red orcs" and "Asian" "yellow orcs."

I'd ask you to provide concrete evidence for your interpretation of GAZ10. But, I'll try to help. These are the things I've found in GAZ10 which are relevant to your assertion that "Orcs copy cultures." Yet some of the findings are opposite to what you assert. I may've missed something - so please point me to the texts I've missed.

"1722 BC: Great Horde ravages Norwold and learns Norse culture." [Yes, the humanoids are copying Norse culture. Yet they already have a Mongolian/Turkic motif, since in the real world, the "Great Horde" was a Kipchak Turkic state. The very word "horde" is from the Kipchak Turkic word orda, equivalent to Classical Mongolian ord: ]
See: Great Horde - Wikipedia

horde - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

Orda (organization) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"1720 BC: Akkila-Khan conquers the southern steppes." [Note: As seen in the name "Akkila-Khan", adapted from real world "Attila the Hun" and the Mongolian title "khan", the humanoids were already Hunnic+Mongolian analogs before they met Ethengar, Mystara's human Mongolian analog.]

"1711 BC: Great Horde reaches pre-khanate Ethengar." [Note: the humanoids already had a "khan" before the humans of Ethengar, which was in a "pre-khanate" stage. So this instance seems to be the opposite of your assertion that "orcs copy cultures." This text implies that the humans copied the humanoids.]

"1688 BC: Akkila-Khan retires from the world, becomes an Immortal, and takes the name of Yagrai. Unaware of the truth, Ethengarians rejoice. Rise of the first Khan [of Ethengar]." [Again, this implies that the humans copied the humanoids' pre-existing Mongolian-Turkic culture.]

"1305 BC: Wogar tribe moves south, along a major river, following the Great Shaman's floating gri-gri." [There is no indication that the humanoids copied an in-world Vodun / West African culture. The "gri-gri" exists an an unexplained a priori "given."]

"1263 BC: [...] Tribe continues along the coast to Atruaghin. Learns the use of feathers, war paints, light cavalry tactics, and scalping." [Glen, you're right that this is an example of humanoids copying human culture, from an in-world perspective. But this simply does not excuse the terms 'red orcs' and 'red hides', which are very close to the racial slurs 'red men' and 'redskins.' The reference to 'scalping' is also insensitive. Not so fun.]

"1254 BC: Wogar Tribe splits into three nations. One settles south of Atruaghin." [This would be related to the humanoids' copying of the Atruaghin culture.]

"1299 BC: Vestland trolls miss a turn and pop up in Broken Lands." [The trolls would already have Norse culture, like the humans of Vestland. So yes, this would be an early example of "copying."]

"The old Atruaghin faith of the Orclanders has been supplanted by other races' religions after being invaded several times after the fall of Sitting Drool." PG, p.11 [This is an example of the humanoids copying the Atruaghin faith, and then that faith being supplanted by worship of humanoid Immortals, such as Wogar.]

Citizens of Kol are said to "love mimicking the Empire of Thyatis, although they do not really understand the difference between a republic and an imperial autocracy." [That is another example of humanoids copying a human culture, in this case Roman/Byzantine and Italian.]

The "Naming Your Character" chapter does provide more evidence of "copying." Some humanoids tribes have names which come from:
-"Atruaghin Origins" (Red Orcs) [=vaguely indigenous American, including parodies of Lakota and Apsáalooke (Crow) names.]
-"Ethengarian Origins" (Yellow Orkia and Hobgobland) [="vaguely Mongol" but actually Mongolian, Tibetan, Chinese, and Bhutanese]
-"Ylari Origins" (South Gnollistan) [=Arabic, along with the Ottoman Turkish title "pasha"]
-"Northern Reaches Origins" (Trollhatten) [=Norse]
-"Sind Origins" (Ogremoor) [="reminiscent of India"]

I can find no evidence in GAZ10 for your specific assertion that:

"The Red orcs dress and act that way because they fought for centuries against the Horse Clan[.]"

or that:

"the Red orcs still copy the culture of the people that fought them to a standstill."

Could you provide a source for the "centuries" of fighting "against the Horse Clan", and that the Atruaghins fought the "red orcs" "to a standstill"?

I can also find no evidence in GAZ10 for your assertion that:

"The yellow orcs [...] believe by using [Ethengarian] tactics and copying their customs they will gain a measure of their opponent's power."

This looks to me like fanon storytelling. Which would be fine in other contexts, but in this thread is seriously focused on objectivity.

In regard to your statement:

"The black orcs dress in vaguely Thyatian gear, march in formation, and try to fight like the Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago."

I found no evidence for the term "black orcs." Did you invent the term? Much less the assertion that these "black orcs" "try to fight like the [Thyatian] Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago."

Again, this appears to be fanon storytelling. Storytelling which is wielded to justify racial slurs in a Wizards product.

And I read through the entire Orcus Rex chapter again, and I cannot find any reference to your assertion that:

"there's another clan of orcs in the Broken Lands that emulate the Roman legion"

Unless I missed a reference, the Roman/Latin elements of Orcus Rex (such as the name "Orcus Rex" and the term "Legion") appear to be a priori "givens", with no in-world explanation. The only vaguely related references I can find are these:

"975 AC: [...] The Legion [of Thar] is created. Thyatis frowns at the military threat."

This entry does show that Thyatis's Latin culture existed before the Legion of Orcus Rex, and that Thyatis was concerned with the military threat. Yet there's no indication that King Thar copied Thyatis.

And there's a label on the humanoids' map of the Known World which shows "R.I.P." in Thyatis. Which implies that the humanoids suffered loses there.

But you seem to be spinning a fanon tale out of very slim references.

Or, when you said "emulate" did you mean to speak "out-of-game", like: "There are orcs who are analogs of Rome."

Well, yes, there are Roman/Latin motifs in Orcus Rex, and also in Kol. But then you (confusedly?) mix in in-world statements:

"The black orcs dress in vaguely Thyatian gear, march in formation, and try to fight like the Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago."

Which I've found no evidence for.

Nevertheless, you're right that, from an in-world perspective, the humanoids of the Broken Lands have copied:
-Atruaghin (Indigenous American) culture: the Red Orcs
-Northlands (Norse) culture: Trollhatten
-Ylari (Arabic and Ottoman Turkish) names: South Gnollistan
-Sindi (Asian Indian) names: Ogremoor
-Thyatian (Roman/Byzantine culture and the Italian title "doge"): Kol

However, the evidence that Rexian Orcs copied the Thyatian culture, from an in-world perspective, is slim.

And in the case of the Mongolian-based Yellow Orcs and Hobgolanders, the opposite of your assertion appears to be true: the human Ethengarian culture initially copied Mongolian motifs from the humanoids. And then the humanoids later copied names of Ethengarian origin.

Certain motifs (Turkic-Mongolian and Vodun) appear to be present in the Great Horde before they even encountered the human cultures of the Known World. The Hobgolanders (who have Mongolian-like culture) are said to be despised by King Thar because "they are direct descendants of Akkila-Khan." (PG, p.9), which implies there's a continuous Mongolian-based culture descended from Akkila-Khan to the Hobgolanders.

I apologize if I've missed some important references. Let me know.

apparently copying the Romans is fine.

As I've said earlier in this thread: if the sections on Orcus Rex or Kol included real-world Roman ethnic slurs, that would not be fine.

I'm going to ignore most of your statements about the Mystara Piazza, since the ENWorld moderator asked me/us to mostly steer clear of talk about other forums.

People have dumped near doctoral theses on that page explaining the problem and their suggestion on the solution and gotten equality long diatribes in response. It's often funny, and quite entertaining.

I don't think racial slurs are that funny and entertaining.

But they take the whole of the setting into consideration, without cherry-picking.

If there were other racial slurs in a D&D product, such as the "n-word", would it be "cherry-picking" if someone spoke up about that?

See the Wikipedia "list of ethnic slurs", which includes "redskins" and "yellow", for Asians.

Why must we always couch things in such nice, cushiony verbiage, like: "Hey, overall the D&D Multiverse is great. I especially love the Known World of Mystara. Yet I feel that the racial slurs, such as the n-word, are problematic and bothersome."

Only to receive:
"What! Don't be political! Get out of our forum! Tell it to your legislator! We don't want to hear it!"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

but apparently copying the Romans is fine.

Like I said upthread, I don’t own this or any other Mystara products.

So if there are any NPC names or illustrations in it depicting the ersatz Romans with RW racist stereotype, I would be unaware of them.

But if there aren’t any, that would be a key difference between them and some of the clearly bigoted material pointed out by the OP and others.

 

[Zardnaar]

I can't either. As an undergraduate, I once wrote a paper about one of the Punic Wars (forget which one) and I subtitled it "Monsters of the Mediterranean" with the Romans cast in the role of the monsters. Romans were weird, Brutus was involved in a loan sharking arrangement with the town of Salamis charging them a 48% interest rate he was largely considered honorable! Of course predatory lending is probably the least of Roman barbarity. I imagine they've gotten a pass because of how influential they were on western culture. Until recently, Sparta seemed to enjoy an undeserved good reputation, but, damn, even by Greek standards they were pretty brutal.

No that's not unique to the Romans. From memory 40%+ wasn't unusual. This was why ursury had a bad reputation.

 

[Zardnaar]

Like I said upthread, I don’t own this or any other Mystara products.

So if there are any NPC names or illustrations in it depicting the ersatz Romans with RW racist stereotype, I would be unaware of them.

But if there aren’t any, that would be a key difference between them and some of the clearly bigoted material pointed out by the OP and others.

There are wrsatz Romans in other products.

I can't recall the art that much either way as it's been to long.

I remember PCs raising an army and invading Thyatis and winning a few battles with 4000 troops.

Struggling to remember the name of said product but the Emperor's name was Thincol and he was having an affair with an immortal named Vanya.

This was 1995 or so perhaps.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Then talk about the actual representation of those people with the Ethengar and the Atruaghin books rather than a fantasy race that exists to showcase the orc's attempt to copy the cultures that defeated them. The orc take on the human cultures they copy are flawed, and it's meant to be flawed. The orcs don't understand the reasoning and methodology of the human cultures, only that since the humans beat them they need to be more like the humans.

Glen, the real-world author and publisher of GAZ10 "understood the reasoning and methodology of the human cultures." You realize that orcs are fictional, right? It doesn't make sense to be like: "but...but...the orcs don't understand Atruaghin culture, so they call themselves "red orcs." And the yellow orcs and Oriental yellow-skinned goblins don't understand Ethengarian culture. And it's the yellow orcs who have "ugly pekingese faces", not the Ethengarian humans."

Glen, a team of real human beings, sitting at desks in Wisconsin, wrote those slurs.

Again, let's take the n-word as another example of a racial epithet (like "yellow men" and "redskin"). Imagine another Wizards product was published in the 1980s (and is still for sale as a PDF), which repeatedly used a variant of the n-word, say, the "Nigoro Orcs," also known as the "Black Orcs." The book refers to their "Chief Frederick Droolass." And the book talks about how the Nigoro / Black Orcs love chicken, chittlins and watermelon. And two of their big chiefs were Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima.

Don't you see? We'd have a problem.

Glen, I love Bruce Heard as a person, yet I'm sorry to say that he and his team really flubbed up. I know they were trying to write a super zany "Garbage Pail Kids"-style book. And it was innovative to provide rules for playing humanoids as PCs; GAZ10 was truly a predecessor of 2E's Complete Book of Humanoids, and 3E's Savage Species. And though some of the book is funny (in a very goofy sort of way), certain elements are wrong. The racial slurs, and the buffoonish mischaracterizations which are tied to those slurs, are wrong.

Tapping real-world racial epithets is wrong. It's not a joke. And any adaptation of marginalized / indigenous cultures is necessarily warped if it's presented in the context of those slurs.

I'm talking about real world racial slurs. Those "red" and "yellow" slurs are just as serious as the n-word.

I invite the participants in this thread to watch a short film which is produced by the National Congress of American Indians, the representative body of the 633 U.S. Indian Nations:

Proud to Be (Mascots)

 

[MGibster]

No that's not unique to the Romans. From memory 40%+ wasn't unusual. This was why ursury had a bad reputation.

Cicero was pissed at Brutus for a few reasons. Namely because Cicero had set the usury cap at 12% but also because it was illegal as hell for Romans in the capital to lend to provincials. Brutus arranged for his "friends" to make the loan but it was actually him. Remember, this is someone largely thought of as "honorable" who used his position to fleece and coerce the people of Cyprus for his own personal benefit.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

There is serious talk about a 5e Mystara setting. (Surveys have mentioned it.) I appreciate how this thread highlights some of the landmines that need to be cleared from Mystara before it happens.

Overall, I've loved the World of Mystara since 1983.
And yes, there are landmines, fences, and barbed wire to clear away, before an Archetypal Mystara can shine again in a 5E context.