Racial variety

[Nifft]

IMC, there are regional average colorations, but the First Empire was multi-world-spanning, so humans (and other races) who originated in one place could have ended up anywhere else when the Empire fell. Basically, your name comes from the language(s) of your region, while your coloration is totally optional.

-- N

 

[kirinke]

*lol

*dumps a bucket of her own icy cold sudsy water on herself.
ranting is not goooodddddd.

and the loli-pop guide rules!
*also casts quench and calm emotions on herself. yupyup....

 

[AeroDm]

I think the basis of this lack of diversity is from its origins in Tolkien. I don't recall a single person of ethnicity in any of the LotR movies, mainly because there weren't any on middle earth. This isn't to say that tolkien is racist by any means, he simply existed in an earlier time.

It is, however, interesting to note that with the expansive re-vamp of D&D in 3e and the inclusion of the pseudo-punk element to the art that they left out a lot of ethnicity. Ember, and occasionally regdar, appear to be the only non-whites that spring to mind.

Other than this I agree with others. The racial writeups speak of variation and diversity enough to afford anyone who wants to add such elements until their hearts are content.

Interesting question- no good answer.

 

[Kichwas]

You must have some interesting ancestors.

Half Native American (from three nations and two seperate continents - Crow, Cherokee, and Inca). Watch any western made before the 70s and the similarities to Orcs are all over the screen.

That persception of natives was common parlance in the USA until the 70s, when it started to switch to the 'Noble Savage' which is in it's own right equally annoying, albeit not as physically dangerous a label. At least they're not sterilizing our women and taking away the children anymore - something that also ended in the 70s. Now they just act like we have cosmic wisdom and live to hug trees, furry animals, or run casinos.

-shrug-

I think that seeing the skin tone of creatures like drow as having anything to do with dark-skinned human ethnicities says more about the beholder than that being beheld.

It's not just that though. You can match a lot of the behavoir of these races to old negative stereotypes given to human ethnic groups.

Not that long ago in American history, people seriously portrayed a lot of non whites in ways very similar to how these non humans are portrayed. In essense, a lot of them feel like they were copied from humanity's darker labels. When they start showing patterns in skin tone it throws up reg flags to us survivors of racism.

As I said above, on close inspection I think a lot of it may be coincidence - but it certainly does not look that way on the surface.

 

[Nightfall]

A dull white liberal white guy, all I have to say about racial diversity in role playing games is this: I'm just a dull white liberal guy that likes the Scarred Lands and I'm a pimp.

 

[Emiricol]

It's not just that though. You can match a lot of the behavoir of these races to old negative stereotypes given to human ethnic groups.

Not that long ago in American history, people seriously portrayed a lot of non whites in ways very similar to how these non humans are portrayed. In essense, a lot of them feel like they were copied from humanity's darker labels. When they start showing patterns in skin tone it throws up reg flags to us survivors of racism.

As I said above, on close inspection I think a lot of it may be coincidence - but it certainly does not look that way on the surface.

I think it isn't that Orcs are made to look like any particular racial stereotype in the real world. Mind you, I could be wrong, but I rather imagine that Orcs are not made to be "like race X", they are just supposed to be crude, stupid andmindlessly violent.

The fact that other stereotypes in the real world have also been portrayed as "crude, stupid and mindlessly violent" (and worse) is sad and unjust, but I don't see a direct connection. Of course, I really prefer not to see a connection, so take that how you will...

 

[S'mon]

But... it has long bothered me how much I can easily see the similarities between Orcs and the stereotypes of a good portion of my ancestry, and the skin tone of Drow.

Tolkien's orcs seem to be based off the English proletariat, the workers in the 'dark satanic mills', mines and industrial cities that threatened his rural idyll England/Shire. This thread tends to carry through in British Tolkien-based fantasy, eg Games Workshop's Warhammer has cockney orcs and goblins, but it means little to American Tolkien-readers so American Tolkien-based fantasy tends to look elsewhere for orc-culture stereotypes; eg Neverwinter Nights has Daelan, a very native American half-orc.

edit: ie Tolkien thought in terms of class, as did most Brits of his era and to a lesser extent today, whereas Americans usually think in terms of race not class.

I'm not sure why Gygax made his Drow black-skinned, most representations of 'dark elves' have them light-skinned, and the Norse dark elves were basically dwarves. Real-world creatures that live underground usually are pasty white, with no skin pigmentation.

 

[Hypersmurf]

*also casts quench and calm emotions on herself. yupyup....

As long as everyone's happy now.

I wasn't sure you were reading the same thread I was there for a while...

-Hyp.
(Moderator)

 

[Wolv0rine]

Hmm, well I must admit from an illustrator's point of view that - being white - I tend to draw things as white by default unless asked differently (or it is suggested by what I am illustrating). This is pretty much a matter of reference, I use myself for reference and many of my reference photos depict white people. There's no malice or intent behind it, one simply tends to draw close to one's self primarilly. An art teacher I had who was big on art theory once said something to the effect of "An artist always draws themself", meaning subconsciously I think. Not many of my illustration actually *look* like me, but there are likely always aspect of myself in them.

 

[d4]

i won't comment on the pictures of the various races in the core D&D books, but according to the text of the 3.0 PHB, dwarves have skin that "is typically deep tan or light brown." Gnomes have skin that "ranges from dark tan to woody brown." and halflings have skin that is "ruddy," i.e. red-tinted.

according to the actual text of the rulebook, these three races aren't supposed to have "Caucasian" skin tones, and yet just about every picture of them in the books is colored that way. i wonder why?