Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3967610" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure how it solves the problem to present every non-human as white/European. This is a real world ethnic type, after all, at the centre of some pretty major minefields of real world history and politics.As someone else noted above, the 1st ed MM canvasses a range of skin-tones and eye-colours for all the major non-human races, and if my memory is correct some DL material (maybe the adventures hardback?) suggested that Elven eyes have an epicanthic fold.I don't know how Dwarves came to be Scottish. First ed D&amp;D doesn't suggest this - it is probably the most Tolkienesque of presentations, and the appendix in LoTR suggests that Dwarvish has the sound of a Semitic language, not a Celtic one. Maybe it is because the stoic Dwarven culture comes across as Presbyterian as much as it comes across as Norse.As for halflings, it has always been pretty clear that they have curly hair (including in LoTR). Tightening the curls enough to lead to Afro-American and African hair styles doesn't seem that big a departure from what has gone before.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 3967610, member: 42582"] I'm not sure how it solves the problem to present every non-human as white/European. This is a real world ethnic type, after all, at the centre of some pretty major minefields of real world history and politics. As someone else noted above, the 1st ed MM canvasses a range of skin-tones and eye-colours for all the major non-human races, and if my memory is correct some DL material (maybe the adventures hardback?) suggested that Elven eyes have an epicanthic fold. I don't know how Dwarves came to be Scottish. First ed D&D doesn't suggest this - it is probably the most Tolkienesque of presentations, and the appendix in LoTR suggests that Dwarvish has the sound of a Semitic language, not a Celtic one. Maybe it is because the stoic Dwarven culture comes across as Presbyterian as much as it comes across as Norse. As for halflings, it has always been pretty clear that they have curly hair (including in LoTR). Tightening the curls enough to lead to Afro-American and African hair styles doesn't seem that big a departure from what has gone before. [/QUOTE]

Verification