D&D General Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings of Color

[turnip_farmer]

I am tired of seeing notChina, notJapan and notEgypt, etc.

For what little it's worth, I'm a big fan of notChinas and notEgypts and the like.

"You see an Ulfrong longboat in the distance"
"What's an Ulfrong, GM?"

a) "Fantasy Vikings"
b) "Didn't you read the 48-page setting guide I shared on Discord? Well, as your character would know, they are a special and unique civilisation quite unlike any simplistic stereotype you could grasp on a few words. Their civilisation was founded when blah blah blah blah..."

I know which answer I'd prefer before we got on with the naval battle.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Eh. Having fantasy cultures to be directly analogous to real cultures is of course is a convenient shorthand, and it can be used cleverly, but there is great value in creating completely new things too. Two of my recent fantasy favourites are Carnival Row and the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The former is Victorian style fantasy setting whilst the latter is just totally unique and weird. Very different approaches and both are done well. Dark Crystal definitely feels more fantastical though; it is a completely alien world.

 

[Ixal]

I don't believe those games would prove very popular as having the fantasy setting divorced entirely from real world cultures would prove to be quite a barrier for many players. Like it or not, one of the reasons D&D is so popular is because most Americans can jump right in and be familiar with the trappings of the setting while retaining modern liberal ideas of freedom.

Only that for the most part they are not familiar with it because of its historical roots but because it has been used in other fantasy products.
"Warcraft orcs" or "Klingons" are more familiar to most people than some non mainstream cultural representation.

 

[Laurefindel]

You gave me a good start with your links. But I would rather a Spaniard or a Latino do it. Much of the most accurate research is in Spanish or Portugese, which I dont speak.

Heh, of course, there is always the option of doing it myself, and then running it thru the cultural landmines.

I believe you should allow yourself the option of doing it yourself. [edit] I'm not saying you should do it, but that you shouldn't dismiss the possibility of doing it yourself on grounds that it is not your native culture.

For one, you don't have to run headlong through the minefield with your eyes closed; you can educate yourself enough to make conscious decisions about where you are going, or as @Casimir Liber say, go with a guide that knows where the landmines are. As with any learning experience, you will walk on a mine and get burn at one point, if only because your guide/counselor/consultant cannot vouch for all the landmines in the field. Heck, it's virtually impossible to write about your own culture without offending a portion of it. The point is to then readjust your course rather than keep going as if nothing happened.

Because ultimately, the alternative is to play and create only what you know most intimately, in your part of the world, and only about people you know best. At the very least, you should allow yourself the opportunity to play or create content about the opposite sex, or a different social class. Taking inspiration from other cultures is no different. It's a bigger step, but it's the logical continuation. It can and must be done respectfully, but we also must allow ourselves the possibility of being wrong. The trick is to recognize it or admit it and act on it, which I give you, is harder to do than say. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

 

[Yaarel]

I believe you should allow yourself the option of doing it yourself.

For one, you don't have to run headlong through the minefield with your eyes closed; you can educate yourself enough to make conscious decisions about where you are going, or as @Casimir Liber say, go with a guide that knows where the landmines are. As with any learning experience, you will walk on a mine and get burn at one point, if only because your guide/counselor/consultant cannot vouch for all the landmines in the field. Heck, it's virtually impossible to write about your own culture without offending a portion of it. The point is to then readjust your course rather than keep going as if nothing happened.

Because ultimately, the alternative is to play and create only what you know most intimately, in your part of the world, and only about people you know best. At the very least, you should allow yourself the opportunity to play or create content about the opposite sex, or a different social class. Taking inspiration from other cultures is no different. It's a bigger step, but it's the logical continuation. It can and must be done respectfully, but we also must allow ourselves the possibility of being wrong. The trick is to recognize it or admit it and act on it, which I give you, is harder to do than say. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

For me, D&D groups of both men and women are normal. Except for one-on-ones, I think it is accurate to say, every D&D game I have ever played has had one or more women in it.



Regarding "do it yourself", and afterward doublechecking it with appropriate scholars is probably doable. Most Spanish and Portugese scholars speak English, and I suspect many of them play D&D too!

 

[DammitVictor]

Only that for the most part they are not familiar with it because of its historical roots but because it has been used in other fantasy products.
"Warcraft orcs" or "Klingons" are more familiar to most people than some non mainstream cultural representation.

This reminds me of my idea of running a Star Trek Pathfinder game-- not using the PF rules in the Star Trek setting, but recreating the Star Trek species and cultures in a standard Pathfinder pseudo-medieval setting. All of the races (except humans) would be replaced with Star Trek aliens, but all of the other rules would remain in place and heroes would be assumed to be working for or with the United Federation of Principalities.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Eh. Having fantasy cultures to be directly analogous to real cultures is of course is a convenient shorthand, and it can be used cleverly, but there is great value in creating completely new things too. Two of my recent fantasy favourites are Carnival Row and the Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The former is Victorian style fantasy setting whilst the latter is just totally unique and weird. Very different approaches and both are done well. Dark Crystal definitely feels more fantastical though; it is a completely alien world.

Completely new stuff is easier to put across in a TV series or a book, because you don't need to know any of it going in. You learn by watching.

And I'm not saying I'm opposed to GMs inventing completely new and unfamiliar fantasy races and cultures. They can be great to explore in the game. If they're foreign to the characters, as well as the players, there's no reason to understand and you can discover them through play. But I like the homeland to be based on well-used tropes. I don't want homework for character creation.

 

[Yaarel]

I googled across this statblock for a certain kind of Duende.

DUENDE​

Fata Diminuto, Neutral

Esta bondadosa y diminuta raza de fatas aladas parecen versiones ideales de jóvenes elfos dotados con alas de mariposa, si bien su piel es verde. Los duendes son juguetones y traviesos, mas carecen de malicia, por lo que se dedican a realizar diabluras inocentes a sus amigos. Es difícil engañar a un duende, ya que son maestros de la invisibilidad y pueden conocer el corazón de aquellos a los que tocan.

Origen: Reglas básicas
Categoría: Monstruo
Clase de armadura: 15 (armadura de cuero)
Puntos de Golpe: 2 (1d4)
Valor de desafío: 1/4 (50 PX)
Velocidad: 10 pies, 40 pies volando

Fue	Des	Con	Int	Sab	Car
3 (-4)	18 (+4)	10 (+0)	14 (+2)	13 (+1)	11 (+0)

Habilidades: Percepción +3, Sigilo +8
Sentidos: Percepción pasiva 13
Idiomas: Común, élfico, silvano

Acciones​

---

Espada larga. Ataque de arma cuerpo a cuerpo: +2 al ataque, alcance 5 pies, un objetivo. Impacto: 1 punto de daño cortante.
Arco corto. Ataque de arma a distancia: +6 al ataque, alcance 40/160 pies, un objetivo. Impacto: 1 punto de daño perforante y el objetivo debe superar una tirada de salvación de Constitución CD 10 para no quedar envenenado durante 1 minuto. Si el resultado de la tirada es 5 o menos, el objetivo envenenado cae inconsciente durante ese tiempo o hasta que reciba daño u otra criatura realice una acción para zarandearlo y despertarlo.
Vista interior. El duende toca a una criatura y mágicamente conoce su estado emocional. Si el objetivo falla una tirada de salvación de Carisma CD 10, el duende también conoce su alineamiento. Los celestiales, infernales y no muertos fallan automáticamente la tirada de salvación.
Invisibilidad. El duende se vuelve invisible mágicamente hasta que ataque, lance un conjuro o pierda la concentración (como si fuera un conjuro). El equipo que lleve puesto o que transporte se vuelve invisible con él.



Because of the D&D jargon, I can actually understand much of this. I am unsure if the writeup is mythologically accurate or not.

Where this creature is a master of invisibility (?), I am guessing the mythologically accurate concept is really becoming ethereal, reverting to a spirit form, but again I am unfamiliar with the lore to know one way or an other.

Similar to D&D ghosts, I would like D&D fey to be able to "manifest" physically into the Material Plane, and then revert back to the Feywild Plane.

(In Norse and Scandinavian concepts, only certain powerful beings would be able to do this, not all of them. In some stories, they can get stuck in the materialization, sometimes because they are too young to know how to return, and sometimes a human mage prevents them from returning. But all of the beings can see and travel subtlely among humans in the Material Plane. In the Norse and Scandinavian concepts, the nature beings arent actually in an other plane. The nature being is in the Material Plane, as a disembodied mind. The mind can interact with other minds, and can manifest. But perhaps a D&D Feywild that closely overlaps and observes the Material Plane and its goings on, can represent this interactive mindscape.)

 

[Kobold Avenger]

It strikes me that it might be problematic to insert European inspired races (or lineages if you prefer) into settings inspired by non-European cultures. This seems like an act of colonization when we're trying to decolonize D&D.

I view the opposite when dealing with multicultural/kitchen sink settings, as I feel that's like saying "You're Black/Asian/whatever! You can't be an Elf/Dwarf/Whatever!" and exclusionary. It's a point I feel as someone who is not white and from a western country where multiculturalism is a thing.

 

[billd91]

Ethnicity IS a word social scientists like, and does have a defined, scientific meaning. Ethnicity refers to a social group that shares a culture and/or nationality, and can be associated with minor physiological differences like skin color. Of course, we use this word too confusingly in everyday life . . . if you were born to a white parent and an Asian parent, but have a black grandparent, you are born with dark skin and raised in mainstream American culture . . . what is your ethnicity? You'll be labeled by others as African-American, and you might even choose to identify that way yourself, but are you?

The answer to that question is: YES. That's the thing about ethnicities (and any other social group), they're all fundamentally socially constructed - they're imagined communities in the words of at least one social scientist. And in a world in which there's any form of diversity, particularly the mixing of families of many defined ethnicities, your membership in one or more has to be significantly influenced by self-definition.