D&D 5E 5e Oerth − the planet of Blackmoor and Greyhawk

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Mainly yeah. Most fantasy maps tend to roughly correspond to the reallife planet.

Sounds like an interesting campaign. Have you taken into consideration the Great Migrations? What is the Earth-analog of the Sueloise and Oeridians in your setting?

These migrations are said to have moved from the west into the east to fill the Flanaess. With the Flan being the native inhabitants.

Many Americans came from Europe and brought medieval Europe with them! So the fantasy of Flanaess is like King Arthur in a context of the Wild West. The setting assumptions in Flanaess feel American.

I guess when I see feudal medieval kingdoms I immediately want to apply European analogs. But your ideas are a creative way of thinking about it. I wouldn't even know how to begin applying an American ethnicity/culture to the Flanaess. I guess America is made up of several real-world cultures - the original Native Americans and the people who colonised it from Europe. In Greyhawk these colonists would be Oeridians and Sueloise, I guess, but what ethnicities/cultures are they in your setting?

 

[Yaarel]

Sounds like an interesting campaign. Have you taken into consideration the Great Migrations? What is the Earth-analog of the Sueloise and Oeridians in your setting?

These migrations are said to have moved from the west into the east to fill the Flanaess. With the Flan being the native inhabitants.

I guess when I see feudal medieval kingdoms I immediately want to apply European analogs. But your ideas are a creative way of thinking about it. I wouldn't even know how to begin applying an American ethnicity/culture to the Flanaess. I guess America is made up of several real-world cultures - the original Native Americans and the people who colonised it from Europe. In Greyhawk these colonists would be Oeridians and Sueloise, I guess, but what ethnicities/cultures are they in your setting?

1e Sueloise and Oeridians have some interesting ideas that moreorless work. But.

There are occasional cultural sensitivity issues with the presentation of the Sueloise and Oeridians, so I prefer a rethink for them. I would rather avoid the idea that these are two separate "races", and instead emphasize how almost every culture has arisen from ongoing local blends of multiple ethnicities since prehistoric times. There has never been such thing as "pure blood".

Generally, Gygax seems to have the two groups Sueloise and Oeridians parallel the British Empire and the Spanish Empire in the context of colonizing the Americas. This part is ok, tho requires sensitivity.

But then Gygax also seems to blend the Oeridians together with other "darker skin" Mediterranean groups including Islamic populations, even Asian Muslims, like Turkistan. In turn, Gygax has the Sueloese come across as if a "Germanic" race (which was never a single ethnic group in reallife). Gygax even approves Nazi assumptions of "purity". Meanwhile, he has those Sueloise in Hepmonaland become darkskinned to represent South American Indiginous cultures, in a kind of cultural appropriation. The racial assumptions behind the two groups Sueloise and Oeridians get offputting. Caution is necessary.

I prefer the Sueloise have nothing to do with the Vikings in the Corusk Peninsula nor the Indigenous in Hepmonaland. The Vikings come from lands around Jotnumheim Sea and maintain traderoutes with them and with Indigenous Flan.

It is probably ok if: Suel (geographically roughly the reallife Takla Makan Desert in Asia) was somehow a colony from Thalos (British Isles) or Lynn (France and Germany), which then migrated from the west into Flanaess (North America). Meanwhile, the descriptions of Oeridians seem to mostly correlate with the Tharquish Empire (Italy and Spain).

 

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Many Americans came from Europe and brought medieval Europe with them! So the fantasy of Flanaess is like King Arthur in a context of the Wild West. The setting assumptions in Flanaess feel American.

I've always felt the Bandit Kingdoms was like the Wild West. Especially with the Rift Canyon nearby also. How do you give the Flanaess an American cultural flavour? I guess it would be somewhat anachronistic but you could layer traits of a modern US over the top of a feudal medieval milieu. For example, you've pegged the Yeomanry as Texas. So this would have a "Texas flavour" whatever that entails.

 

[Yaarel]

I've always felt the Bandit Kingdoms was like the Wild West. Especially with the Rift Canyon nearby also. How do you give the Flanaess an American cultural flavour?

The Greyhawk Flannaess setting already feels American. To make the reallife references clearer, maybe organize the Indigenous Flan cultures into separate tribes and regions.

Plus, keep specific correlations in mind. Like there is a fantasy version of Las Vegas and I would definitely have fun with that. Likewise, there is a fantasy New York City (with separate islands for boroughs), and I would heighten its urban culture and have fantasy versions of supertowers.

Also the areas of Mexico, Belize, Venezuela, and so on, I would heighten the various Latino identities.

I am waiting to see how the 2024 DMs Guide talks about Greyhawk, and I will implement that for a global setting for my players.

I guess it would be somewhat anachronistic but you could layer traits of a modern US over the top of a feudal medieval milieu.

Yup. That is pretty much Greyhawk in a nutshell.

For example, you've pegged the Yeomanry as Texas. So this would have a "Texas flavour" whatever that entails.

Totally. Maybe even the cows of the cowboys are supernatural somehow. And the oil wells might be some other kind of natural resource, maybe 4e "residuum" being the essence of physicalized magical energy? The resource requires "refining" but is an extremely valuable commodity around the world.

 

[Yaarel]

I think the Spindrift Isles are fantasy Hawaii. So all 50 states of America are present in the Darlene map.

 

[Eenuck]

Love the map idea, its how I've ran my campaign for years. I integrate Greyhawks history with the old world migrations. Those migrations of course being stopped by some means, perhaps during the beginning of Suel migrations. Using the map as a vision of America, but not exactly as it is still remains ancient cultures. I imagine a divide between the Continents of east and west as a separation needed slow initial human migration. While the Suel and Baklunish wars of new kingdoms perhaps still separated from the Western Continents or maybe not any longer, at least towards the end of their war. Mini migration attemps by people coming across the ocean or even from the south-western neighbors. Perhaps not even anything like official migrations directed by the government but people and cultures from those continents arriving in a new world, less filled with wars(as people dreamed) but finding native lands who much like anyone are sometimes peaceful, but of course have their own troubles. All of this as the migrations from Suel and other migrate. The Scarlet Brotherhood is a perfect example of that West coming into Flan, bringing their inflence which leads to the Brotherhood making that culture apart of them, and of corse corrupting it with their own evil brand of slavery, racism etc. along with Monks and Martial Arts. I've used pictures of real places in campaigns for years. Grand pictures of Norway, Iceland, Arizona, France of scenery along with Castles and old city maps.