D&D General 5 Cool Facts About the Inca and How to Use Them in D&D

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

They also had precursor civilizations. Forget the names but they had one before them and a precursor to the precursor.

The Wari and Tiwanaku were the main ones before them. The first civilization in the Americas, the Norte Chico, were also from Peru and were older than Egyptian civilization. And, unlike other cradles of civilization, food crops were not the main source of food for the Norte Chico civilization. Fish was, comprising 90% of their diet. Their main agricultural product was cotton, which they used to make nets to catch fish.

The Inca inherited the Khipu, terraces, and road systems from the Wari. Tiwanaku had chuño and some of the same gods as the Inca. Norte Chico might have had the Staff God that was common throughout the Andes. There are other similarities and influences, too. Lots of Andean cultures did mummification, for example.

We don’t know as much about a lot of these earlier cultures as we do about the Inca.

 

[Azzy]

Good stuff! Most of my knowledge of the Inca and other Andean Cultures comes from the Ancient Americas Youtube channel. But I did take inspiration from (albeit, mostly superficially) the Inca (architecture, roads, terraced farming, khipu, etc.) for an elven culture in my homebrew setting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Good stuff! Most of my knowledge of the Inca and other Andean Cultures comes from the Ancient Americas Youtube channel. But I did take inspiration from (albeit, mostly superficially) the Inca (architecture, roads, terraced farming, khipu, etc.) for an elven culture in my homebrew setting.

I love Ancient Americas! I’ve been watching a ton of their videos recently.

The Inca have been a major inspiration for the main mountainous culture of my setting, which is mainly comprised of dwarves, halflings, goliaths and humans. I’ve taken inspiration from a variety of real world mountainous cultures, but the Inca and Tibetans are the main influences. I started reading about the Inca because I wanted to be accurate and respectful in my depiction of the culture.

 

[Zardnaar]

The Wari and Tiwanaku were the main ones before them. The first civilization in the Americas, the Norte Chico, were also from Peru and were older than Egyptian civilization. And, unlike other cradles of civilization, food crops were not the main source of food for the Norte Chico civilization. Fish was, comprising 90% of their diet. Their main agricultural product was cotton, which they used to make nets to catch fish.

The Inca inherited the Khipu, terraces, and road systems from the Wari. Tiwanaku had chuño and some of the same gods as the Inca. Norte Chico might have had the Staff God that was common throughout the Andes. There are other similarities and influences, too. Lots of Andean cultures did mummification, for example.

We don’t know as much about a lot of these earlier cultures as we do about the Inca.

Wari and Tiwanaku sound about right.

And Chimu as a contemporary rival until Inca won.

I was reading wiki on Waru iirc about a month ago.

 

[Voadam]

Fifth, there are three Inca deities I find uniquely interesting:

1. Huamancantac - God of guano (used for fertilizer)
2. Urcuchillay - The rainbow-colored god of llamas, also believed to be the constellation lyra. According to legend, Urcuchillay drank water from the celestial river (the Milky Way galaxy) and urinated it onto Earth as rain.
3. Axomamma - Potato goddess

Historically, guano is used as fertilizer but also as a key ingredient to create gunpowder. Maybe there could be a God of Guano that also functions as a god of gunpowder and agriculture. These portfolios are pretty different, so maybe they could be different interpretations of the same deity. Halflings could worship the Guano God as a god of agriculture while dwarves worship them as a gunpowder god. Tie in some connection to werebats or vampires for good measure.

What role do llamas play in your setting? This is probably the first time anyone has asked this question, but answering it could be fun. If halflings ride llamas, how do they feel about the llama god? Maybe they're also a god of travel or war? They could depict their war god as riding a llama. Or they could look like a weird llama-equivalent of a centaur.

I have never seen a D&D setting with a potato goddess in it. Now I want to play a Cleric that worships the Mother of Potatoes. She'd probably be a minor agricultural deity, but if a culture in your setting primarily feeds themselves off of potatoes, some people would probably feel very strong affection towards her. Maybe she could look something like a potatofied version of Argus from Greek Mythology, due to the "eyes" connection. Or these Moche potato figures. Depending on how potatoes are used in the setting she could have a different portfolio. For example, if potatoes are often used to make alcohol she could also be considered the god of madness, like Dionysus. Or she could be a goddess of immortality if freeze-dried potatoes are one of the main sources of food for a culture.

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tl;dr - The Inca were cool and your D&D setting should have a potato goddess.

Even if you don't use gunpowder, a D&D god of fireballs is kind of conceptually neat.

Obviously the rainbow Llama is the local appearance of Tiamat. Raising the question instead of what is the llama-dragon connection?

I agree a potato goddess would be pretty cool.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Raising the question instead of what is the llama-dragon connection?

Some versions of the Andean “chimera” Amaru has a llama’s head. The figure was believed to be extremely powerful because it could journey to all 3 realms of the universe; the sky, the earth, and the underworld. It looks pretty Draconic to me