D&D 5E [Radiant Citadel] A chart of parallel Earth cultures and motifs across the D&D Multiverse

[Dungeonosophy]

I for one would appreciate seeing the Slavic and Hyperborean inspired cultures included on your list. And Kudos for the great work

Thanks! I will include the Slavic and Circum-Polar peoples. In my old website article, I included "poetic" names as sample titles for OA-style books. For example, "Hyperborean Adventures."

In the real-world, "Hyperborean" is only used scientifically for a group of small language families in the Far North.

I think the term "Circum-Polar" is more neutral and inclusive.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Thanks for putting this together.

You're welcome!

Theros is shifted Greek myth; Amonkhet is shifted Egyptian myth.

I'll aim to add the Greek/Olympian and Egyptian/Pharaonic cultures to the chart.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I think you missed Mulhorand in Toril, for Egyptian.

There’s also a Babylonian nation near there too, but I have forgotten the name - Unther?.

<Edit> Speaking of Egyptian, there’s one from Ravenloft as well (Ha-Akir?), and two arabic from Greyhawk (Sultanate of Zeif & Caliphate of Ekbir) and Ket (Egyptian?).

Though they were originally beyond the scope of my chart, I'll aim to add in the Egyptian/Pharaonic and Mesopotamian (Babylonian+Sumerian) cultures as well.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Unther is general Mesopotamian.

Do Mulhorand and Unther count given they are functionally Akin to actual Egyptian & Mesopotamian colonies?

They do count as examples of Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures in the D&D Multiverse. The chart includes all motifs, regardless of their fictive backstory; in this case, as interplanar immigrants from "D&D Earth."

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Update:

I'm still working my way through people's suggestions.

I added the following entries:

Indigenous North American:

• monsters: ixitxachitl (from the name of the Aztec historian Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl), and sahuagin (their designer calls them "sea Aztecs"; see my research here)

Iberian American:

• The monster "sahuagin" gains its name from the historian Bernardino de Sahagún who dwelled in New Spain, and was the first person to write extensively about the Aztecs. His namesake hometown, Sahagún, is a town in Spain. See my research here.

Oceanic:

• In Krynn:
  • The Payan Mako (~Maori) in the continent of Taladas. The real-world "mako shark" gets its name from the Maori word for shark: makō mako shark - Wiktionary ; Their enemies are the Shark Men.
• Monster: were-shark (Chris Holmes, the son of designer J. Eric Holmes, says that his father got the were-shark from Hawai'ian mythology).

Middle Eastern:

• monster: al-miraj

South Asian:

• In Toril:
  • The Shining Lands / The Lands of the One. The nations of Durpar, Estagund, and Var the Golden all follow the belief in Adama (The Forgotten Realms version of "Dharma" and/or "Brahma"). These are the last lands of southeastern Faerun, before entering the mysterious Utter East.
  • The Utter East. The native Mar people have been heavily subjugated by western colonists. However ~South Asian elements can be seen for example in the Mar name "Rishi Saubhari." Materials published from 1998 onward have reportedly attempted to feature more South Asian flavor. (source)

• Via Helena Blavatsky's Hinduism-inspired esoteric Theosophy: monadic deva, solar deva, planetar (<planetary chohan).

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Very thorough and excellent.

Thanks!

Can I make a couple of Taladas-based additions?

Sure! Great additions!

For Oceania etc. in Taladas there is also the Payan Mako (definitely - the Shark People are really just a problem the Payan Mako are having rather than a separate culture) and at least arguably the Cha'asii/Wild Elves (albeit maybe they're "just elves").

I added Payan Mako. I found the word "mako" is Maori for "shark." Yeah, the Shark People live in the same islands, so they're part of that culture/milieu. I may add the Cha'asii since their language said to be related to the Payan (~Krynnish Maori!) language. But I need to look into it more.

And there's an Inuit analogue in the Ice People too

Definitely. Will add them.

Most of the other stuff is analogous to cultures not listed. I feel like the Ilquar Goblins and the First People Ogres are analogous to some culture but I'm not able to pin it down (both are playable and largely neutral or positive in their portrayal).

Looking at the "Wretched Ones" / Ilquar Goblins -- yes their fate is similar to the oppression of Indigenous Americans, yet from their wiki article, I don't see any motifs or names which are directly tied to a specific culture. The head flattening could be indicative, but there were several nations which practiced that. It seems likely they were generally meant to evoke the oppressed aspect of Indigenous American history.

The First Ones / Abaqua Ogres are more clearly an Indigenous American archetype, as seen by the names of their various Peoples, and the term "warchief."

I noticed just now the Merkitsa Elves, which are said to share the culture of the Uigan humans. So they would be ~Mongolian too. One of the Merkitsa warriors is named "Ulan", which is real-world Mongolian for "red" (the capital of Mongolia is named Ulan Baatar : "red hero")

The Saqualaminoi are intended to be friendly Yetis, but I don't think that quite counts as Nepalese/Tibetan!

Hmm...I'm looking into it. Their name in the Ice People language is "Sakalaminuik", which is quasi-Inuit in form. Yet their appearance (white fur) and habitat is very similar to real-world myth of the Yeti / Abominable Snowman of Himalayan lore. And to add a further twist, their other name, "Saqualaminoi" is clearly inspired by the "Sasquatch" (a.k.a. Bigfoot), which comes from an Indigenous North American language: either the Nlaka'pamuctsin language se'sxa or Halkomem language sásq’ets. Both are languages of British Columbia, Canada. I'll ponder how to untangle these motifs.

 

[Tonguez]

Though they were originally beyond the scope of my chart, I'll aim to add in the Egyptian/Pharaonic and Mesopotamian (Babylonian+Sumerian) cultures as well.

Hmmm, its not specific to you but the divorcing of Pharoanic Egypt from its Africaness continues to be problematic.

Update:

Oceanic:

• In Krynn:
  • The Payan Mako (~Maori) in the continent of Taladas. The real-world "mako shark" gets its name from the Maori word for shark: makō mako shark - Wiktionary ; Their enemies are the Shark Men.
• Monster: were-shark (Chris Holmes, the son of designer J. Eric Holmes, says that his father got the were-shark from Hawai'ian mythology).

The description of Payan Mako makes them sound more Micronesian than Maori. Still Oceanic inspired nonetheless.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Hmmm, its not specific to you but the divorcing of Pharoanic Egypt from its Africaness continues to be problematic.

True. Egypt is to Africa as Greece is to Europe. Yet the original chart I made was focused on filling out the parallels of cultures seen in the Radiant Citadel book. There’s no Egyptian or Mesopotamian adventure in the book.

I didn’t want to make a long post even longer. It’s true that ancient Egypt is the heritage of modern day Egyptian Arabs and Copts (and the African continental civilization as a whole); and ancient Mesopotamia is the heritage of modern Iraqi Arabs and Assyrians/Syriacs. But there are no Egyptian or Iraqi authors in the Radiant Citadel book. And the Arab cultural section already provided some coverage for those regions.

I wasn’t perfectly consistent, since I also cut-and-pasted my Aboriginal Australian research (even tho there’s no Australian author in the book). But I had to stop somewhere.

I had already done the Egyptian section and Mesopotamian section on my website years ago (back during the D&D Next playtest!) I just need to cut and paste them here, and add the latest examples.

The newly revised chart is gearing up to cover those two ancient cultures, and also the European and Anglo-North American cultures.

 

[Tonguez]

Hmm...I'm looking into it. Their name in the Ice People language is "Sakalaminuik", which is quasi-Inuit in form. Yet their appearance (white fur) and habitat is very similar to real-world myth of the Yeti / Abominable Snowman of Himalayan lore. And to add a further twist, their other name, "Saqualaminoi" is clearly inspired by the "Sasquatch" (a.k.a. Bigfoot), which comes from an Indigenous North American language: either the Nlaka'pamuctsin language se'sxa or Halkomem language sásq’ets. Both are languages of British Columbia, Canada. I'll ponder how to untangle these motifs.

In the real-world, "Hyperborean" is only used scientifically for a group of small language families in the Far North.

I think the term "Circum-Polar" is more neutral and inclusive.

recently via a Lakota friend I was introduced to a guy who is Ket native of Yeniseian, Siberia (ie one of the Hyperborean peoples) and in discussion he explained the theory that the Ket language is isolate in Yeniseian languages and is linked to North American Na-Dene languages (which includes Navajo and Athabaskan languages).

anyway fascinating to see the links between Siberian and North American cultures via that circumpolar region. It might link yeti and sasquatch too

 

[TwiceBorn2]

recently via a Lakota friend I was introduced to a guy who is Ket native of Yeniseian, Siberia (ie one of the Hyperborean peoples) and in discussion he explained the theory that the Ket language is isolate in Yeniseian languages and is linked to North American Na-Dene languages (which includes Navajo and Athabaskan languages).

anyway fascinating to see the links between Siberian and North American cultures via that circumpolar region. It might link yeti and sasquatch too

And, of course, Ket also happens to be a nation in the World of Greyhawk. I don't think that's a coincidence. The Wolf Nomads (Wegwiur) = Uyghur (can also be spelled Weiwu'er), and the Plains of the Paynims = plains of the non-Christian pagans (i.e., Muslims). See Definition of PAYNIM.