D&D 5E Fantasy Appalachia

[jayoungr]

I've been reading Paul Bunyan (the Wadsworth version) to my boys recently, and he's actually from Maine.

Don't tell that to a Minnesotan!

 

[aco175]

Massachusetts:
Worcester (wuh-stir [actually wuh-stuh])

This is where I work, people are terrible with this one. They want to throw a H in it Worchester. Worse is when they think is is like Worchester and say Wor-Cester. Locals rhyme it with mister.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Cool thing I learned from "The History of the English Language" (listened to on a cross-country drive a few years ago):

Some of the grammatical oddities in Appalachia are actually just archaic, as opposed to "wrong". Some of the examples given (I wish I could remember them) are verbs that were originally strong verbs (variant past tense form) which in the rest of the English speaking world have become (dare I say "devolved") into weak forms with -ed past tense forms. But in Appalachia some people still use the original strong form, which to outsiders sounds like poor grammar.

 

[Tonguez]

I've been reading Paul Bunyan (the Wadsworth version) to my boys recently, and he's actually from Maine.
I know the Appalachian Trail runs into Maine, but it's not usually considered part of Appalachia from a cultural/historical perspective.

Well thats one version, most other versions reckon he hails from either Minnesota or Michigan. If he was Real then theres a suggestion that the real person he was based on might in fact have been from Quebec - a 7ft tall head of a Canadian Lumberjack team

 

[Tonguez]

As a current highlands resident and foothills native (Piedmont to you people), I shudder to think how many bad stereotypes there will be; either in the hypothetical campaign or this thread.

I once did a ‘fun’ study on the Beverly Hillbillies and was surprised to learn that there were Appalachia residents who thought it was perpetuating offensive stereotypes. 19th Century Appalachia is an interesting study in the conflict between independent rural farmers who lived on the land and the lowland urban industrialist who wanted the resources and then created the ‘backward inbred’ stereotypes in order to influence Government (and public) perception.

I suppose if you were to highlight that conflict you could avoid the worst of the stereotypes

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yahwatnow?

Fantasy Yorkshire FTW!

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I was born in southwest Virginia, and still live in the state, and I do not see how this could be done without insulting a lot of people. First that awful Hillbilly Elegy and now something like this?

 

[Voadam]

Goodman Games The Chained Coffin presents a setting very much this, inspired by Manly Wade Wellman's John the Balladeer stories alongside folklore of the region. I'd highly recommend both the RPG product and the books that inspired it.

I agree, I haven't read Wellman but the Chained Coffin was a fun setting/module read and the author credits Wellman. And OSR in general is pretty close to 5e so conversions are fairly easy if you don't go with Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG.

 

[nevin]

On another thread, it got me thinking. an Appalachia game could have serious potential. The Hat Fields and the Mccoys, giants (that might be where Paul Bunyan originally came from), witches, and trickster anthropomorphic rabbits in a keep on the borderlands environment could have serious potential. then you add the cultural mixing of the north, south, African mythology, and Cherokee and other tribes and whammo, a seriously unique environment. However, feel seriously underqualified in this environment so throwing it out there to see where it leads.

is this fantasy with magic or is it no magic?

 

[Zsong]

I’m doing this game right now set in rural West Virginia. I made up town similar to Grenville. We use a combination of the rules of call of Cthulhu, runequest, stormbringer, and magic world. It’s not quite horror, more weird west with mothman stuff and some ufo’s thrown in. And I’m from the back woods of West Virginia. We been having a blast with it. And it probaly breaks so many big city social rules I couldn’t describe it here. We even have ninja’s because there is a college in West Virginia owned by the Japanese. So we have ninja exchange students too. We started calling it rural arcana in contrast to urban arcana