D&D General Demihumans of Color and the Thermian Argument
mhd
Adventurer
Please, most D&D settings resemble the US more than they do medieval Europe, especially if the former includes Anaheim. The thin veneer of ren faire visuals shouldn't affect this too much.
Never mind that those settings already tend to have both incredibly slow timelines (where it's been "medieval-renaissane" for hundreds of years), big empires and plenty of demi-human intermingling. I don't see a big reason why ethnic diversity amongst humans and non-humans would be harder to justify than friggin' Tieflings, magical academies or very, very silly divine beings.
Renaissance Europe was a heck of a lot more diverse than people fantasize about it.
Rome -intentionally- moved people from one end of the Empire to the other en-masse. We're talking about thousands of Egyptians relocated to Italy, Thousands of Assyrians moved to Spain, thousands of Scythians moved to Egypt. It helped homogenize the culture so that "Roman" became everyone's primary standard.
Heck. By the 300s AD Roman Britain had influential and powerful wealthy Sub-Saharan Black Women in positions of authority. Sounds crazy, right? The Ivory Bangle Lady (Terrible name) is an example we've found. Buried in a Stone Coffin (Reserved for Powerful people) she was found with Ivory bangles, expensive jewelry, and the like.
Yeah, the Roman Empire fell apart in the 500s, but those black and middle eastern individuals didn't just VANISH all of a sudden or get yanked out of Europe like they were stretching a rubber band from another country. The lived in Europe and had families and eventually kinda melded with the local population.
It's why white supremacists who take DNA tests are so -shocked- when they learn they've got 30% African DNA because one of their Italian ancestors was a Roman Nubian forcibly relocated to Rome itself.
Faolyn
(she/her)
Sigh... I wish I could afford to get my DNA tested. I'd love to see how global I am.
As for nonhumans. If one uses fantasy coloration for them (e.g., stone-colored dwarfs), I'd like to see more done with regional coloration that isn't an excuse for a subrace. Like, one group of dwarfs is mostly slate gray, another is sandstone red, another is limestone off-white, another is mariposite greenish-white, but they're all just mountain dwarfs. That's so rarely done. Instead it's like, all dwarfs are light through dark brown, except for the duegar, which are gray, and the derro, which are kind of albino but not really.
As for nonhumans. If one uses fantasy coloration for them (e.g., stone-colored dwarfs), I'd like to see more done with regional coloration that isn't an excuse for a subrace. Like, one group of dwarfs is mostly slate gray, another is sandstone red, another is limestone off-white, another is mariposite greenish-white, but they're all just mountain dwarfs. That's so rarely done. Instead it's like, all dwarfs are light through dark brown, except for the duegar, which are gray, and the derro, which are kind of albino but not really.
slobster
Hero
I might be atypical, but to me a main reason that races don't get that kind of treatment is simply that there isn't the page space for it, which is in turn a function of the reality that the majority of dms and players simply wouldn't care or read it if you did include it.
I'm a big proponent of extending diversity of portrayals in fantasy art, because you are already putting those pictures in, so it doesn't cost extra pages. it's an act of inclusion that players engage with without attention really having to be spent, so it's likely to reach them even if they don't consciously notice the effort. It's visual so they process it quickly and possibly imagine things differently from then on, without them ever having to expend effort.
I dunno maybe it's just me again, but I have trouble getting my players to read abilities on their own sheet or recall a piece of important motivation that an NPC JUST told them 5 minutes ago, which I also wrote down on the whiteboard behind me and is the entire reason they are collecting dragon asses at the moment or wtv. I'm pessimistic about how meaningful several paragraphs about diversity for each playable race would actually end up being, in practice.
Oofta
Legend
Which is why I just do a quick overview now and then, maybe include it in the description of the NPC. But I really don't expect, or need, my players to remember any of it.
Faolyn
(she/her)
I think it does matter. I know at least one player in my group likely wouldn't care at all, but I know that others (including myself) would embrace that and go whole-hog.
The PH describes dwarfs thusly: Dwarven skin ranges from deep brown to a paler hue tinged with red, but the most common shades are light brown or deep tan, like certain tones of earth. Their hair, worn long but in simple styles, is usually black, gray, or brown, though paler dwarves often have red hair. Male dwarves value their beards highly and groom them carefully.
If I were to have dwarfs have stonelike coloration that differed from region to region and have that in the PH (as opposed to a setting book), I'd write it like this: Dwarven skin is stone-colored. One clan may have skin the reddish-brown or yellow-orange of sandstone, while another may be the mottled grays of polished granite, and a third clan might be chalk-white. Their hair, worn long but in simple styles, is usually black or gray, although some dwarfs have white, red, or brown hair. Stuff about beards; female dwarfs should have 'em too. Girlbeards! Woot! Sorry. Tangent.
slobster
Hero
Especially in like an adventurers guide or setting book, that seems totally reasonable. I don't think they are likely to go in a direction like this for a "standard" race like dwarves where an average player likely has a pretty strong mental image already, but then it seems like a natural thing to maybe include in one of the little sidebars they often do for setting or alternative takes, etc.
It bears little relevance to official TSR/WotC depictions, but as far as I'm concerned dwarves have skin tones ranging from alabaster to onyx (no flesh/earth tones) with hair/beards in the normal human range but often dyed into jewel tones. Men and girls wear their hair and beards longer, more styled and more decorated, to show pride in their beauty and martial prowess; adult women crop theirs short because neither the hearth, the cradle, nor the forge respects such luxuries. Dwarven noblewomen take pride in their short or shaved hair (and beards) the same way human noblewomen take pride in their long, curled fingernails, for the opposite reason.
