D&D 5E [Radiant Citadel] A chart of parallel Earth cultures and motifs across the D&D Multiverse

[Voadam]

Added two ~African American characters:

(This one I noticed since I'm prepping Icespire Peak to play this evening!)

• In Toril:
  • Don-Jon Raskin is a Black man who is a mine supervisor in the Icespire Peak Essentials Kit. Cultural motifs: given his Anglo surname "Raskin" and Anglicized Spanish given name "Don-Jon" (<Don Juan), this character is evocative of an ~African American in the ~U.S. West.

• In the Realm of the D&D Cartoon Show: Diana the Acrobat is an African American from Earth.

In the 2e Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium Appendix II (MC15) there is an NPC from Souragne named Chicken Bone who is a "Voodan" and deals in curses with a lot of steretypical Voodoo aspects. Naming him Chicken Bone I would tag him with your [sic!] designation.

He is not explicitly described as Black (he is only described as a shrivelled old man) but the Carribean Voodoo analogue is strong.

"Chicken Bone is an old man who lives in the domain of Souragne. His real name is lost to the mists of history and none now speak it. When the people of Souragne speak of him now, they do so in hushed tones, for Chicken Bone is a Voodan—a master of dark and mysterious forces that most would not dare to contemplate, let alone attempt to control.
Chicken Bone looks for all the world like any other shrivelled old man. His hair is cut short and frazzled, looking as if it has never seen a comb. His grey eyes are set back beneath protruding brows and divided by a long, straight nose. He has no beard or moustache, save that his wrinkled chin is covered with a scattering of wiry whiskers. He wears bright, colorful (some would say gaudy) clothing. He may or may not be typical of the Voodan; so few of them have been encountered that it is impossible to say."

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Yeah, loosely, although I don't think they're (as portrayed in The Scarlet Brotherhood accessory) meant to parallel any specific African culture closely.

Thanks for your comments Ripzerai.
Re: Touv - yeah, I was aware that the Touv are a blended/fantastic motif, even in their appearance. (Dark skin, blue eyes, and straight black hair.) Yet, like you say, their position in Hepmonaland is loosely "evocative" of Africans in an Oerth context. I might add a clarifying note there.

However, David Howery's "The Dark Continent" in Dragon #189 was Hepmonaland in his original campaign, and it does include cultures that are meant to closely parallel specific African peoples.

Right! Good one. I forgot about that. I'll add that in. "David Howery's Oerth" is one "official" version of Oerth, since it was published in DRAGON mag. Of course not the only conception, but it definitely counts.

Related to that, there's Gary's post-TSR Aesheba continent (in the Fantasy Masters product line). But that's going beyond the D&D Multiverse as such, so I don't believe I'll include Aesheba in this chart.

As Scott McMillan pointed out in this thread, it's likely the Wegwuir (the Wolf Nomads) were named after the Uyghurs and the Chakyik (the Tiger Nomads) were named after the Kipchaks.

Excellent.

You could interpret them that way, but Gygax said he based the Flan on Africans. See his ENWorld Q&A:


It's true that the Rovers of the Barrens are closely associated with Plains Indians in David Howery's adventure "Ghost Dance" in Dungeon #32, which coined the name Arapahi for them. The illustrations in particular make this very blatant. But the "Flan in general" are not based on indigenous North Americans (and Gygax gave their leader a title, ataman, associated with the Cossacks in real life).

Good points. I remember now that had read that Gygax comment on Hamitic inspiration a long time ago, but I forgot and got it mixed up.
I think there's a distinction between "Gary Gygax's Oerth" and post-Gygaxian "TSR/WotC/LGG Oerth(s)." With the Black/Hamitic aspect not really carried forward by post-Gygax designers.
I would need to look at the source texts closely, but I think someone in another thread summed it up pretty well: "The generic all-purpose native race, filling in for Celts, hill people, horse nomads, Native Americans or whoever needs to be primitive in the continental Flanaess this time."
I will aim to revise this entry.

We know so little about this region that I don't think we can safely presume anything, including how painful it might be. I understand the logic behind your inference here, but we're talking about an area with a total of one sentence describing it (From the 1996 Dragon Annual: "A protectorate only recently conquered by the warriors of Nippon." Which gives us no cultural detail at all.). The Japanese Empire at its peak in 1942 also included, among many other places, Taiwan, Thailand, Manchuria, and the South Seas Mandate, the latter of which much more closely resembles this "Dominion" geographically than it resembles Korea.

I understand your words. Your previous examples were great, yet I sense that in this case, you've shifted into a sort of "revisionist", "apologetics", "casuistic" mode.

In real-world history, though Taiwan was the first colony added to the Japanese Empire, AFAIK, it wasn't called a "protectorate." Whereas Korea was officially titled a "Protectorate."

And the DRAGON mag text says "recently." Those other areas you describe (Manchuria and Southeast Asian puppet states) were not added to Japan till later. Even if the "Nippon Dominion" were to include, say, an Oerthian Manchuria, it would first include an Oerthian Korea.

Furthermore the area of the "Nippon Dominion" is a peninsula. And there's a little nub on it that is even more Korean-like. And it is seated across the Sea of Nippon. Just as Korea is seated across the Sea of Japan (though Korea disputes the name of that sea).

Looking at the context: Most of the placenames which Skip Williams plopped into Central Oerik were very blatant: Orcreich (Germany), Zindia (India), Celestial Imperium (China), High and Low Khanates (Mongolia), Nippon (Japan), Sea of Nippon (Sea of Japan). It's not super-sophisticated. His Western Oerik is a bit less blatant since it incorporates pre-existing aspects of Francois Froideval's Western Oerik.

China, Korea, and Japan are the three big "tropes" of East Asia. Moreso than Manchuria or Taiwan. If you've got the Celestial Imperium on one side, Nippon on the other, and there's a "recently conquered" peninsula-shaped "protectorate" between them....I mean come on.

If the "Nippon Dominion" was an island, I'd agree with Taiwan. But it's not. (BTW, the "Dragons Island" south of the Celestial Imperium could very well serve as Oerth's "Taiwan", but that's entirely speculation.)

Skip William's analogue is "painful" because, of all the things he could have placed in an imaginary world, he hamhandedly slapped on horrible, dreary World War tropes such an Orcreich and the "recently conquered" Nippon Dominion. He might as well have also placed next to the Orcreich: "Generalgouvernement für die besetzten wendischen Gebiete" (General Government for the Occupied Wendish Territories).

The name "Nippon" sounds like an obvious Japanese analogue, given that it's literally Japan's name, but here we only have a total of two sentences describing it, and the second sentence is "Unsure of the place's real name," so I'm inclined to dismiss the name and consider that geographically the islands are much more similar to Indonesia in their equatorial latitude and proximity to Oerth's India equivalent. Given that the "Celestial Imperium" lacks a western coast, there isn't a good place on Oerth to put an equivalent of Japan or Korea, and I think attempts to give it any are misguided.

Ah, c'mon man, this is revisionist sophistry. The map of the Nippon isles is literally shaped like the Japanese archipelago. There's clearly analogues of "Kyushu" island, a combined "Honshu-Shikoku" island, a "Hokkaido" island, and a "Kurile" islands arc extending toward the Flanaess. With the "Sea of Nippon" situated in the same place as the Sea of Japan.

It'd be like saying: "The name "Erypt" sounds like an obvious Egyptian analogue, given that it literally shares all but one letters in "Egypt's" name, but here we only have a total of two sentences describing it, so I'm inclined to dismiss the name and consider that geographically that region is much more similar to Somalia and Kenya given their lower latitude and proximity to Oerth's China equivalent, since China claims to have traded with Mogadishu and Kenyan coastal peoples during their Indian Ocean voyages. Given that there are large islands to the northeast of "Erypt" (unlike in Egypt), there isn't a good place on Oerth to put an equivalent of Egypt, and I think attempts to give it any are misguided."

That'd be sophistry.
Yeah, your suggestions could be a nice way of "redeeming" the blatant, hamhanded analogues of Skip William's Central Oerik, but let's first acknowledge "what is" first, before launching into amelioratory revisionism.

The most I would accede to is saying the "Nippon Dominion" may have a ~Korean + ~Manchurian aspect.

As a design principle, the proximity of Zindia could lend itself to somehow also placing "Indo-Chinese" / Southeast Asian cultures on that peninsula, but that's venturing into design work, since we don't even have any names for that region, or any other indications.

Note that according to Dragon #349, the domain of Souragne was (apparently) originally part of Oerth's Amedio Jungle.

Oh, wow, that's weird/cool! I'll aim to add that to the chart.

 

[Voadam]

Another Black character in canon D&D is Baron Urik Von Kharkov detailed in Dark Lords. From the Forgotten Realms he was a panther polymorphed into a person by a red wizard as part of a revenge plot against another Red Wizard. Eventually arriving in Ravenloft he became a vampire that turned into a panther instead of a wolf and then later became a Dark lord of his own domain.

"Physically Baron Kharkov is a black-skinned man standing just over six feet tall. He is broad shouldered and quite muscular. His eyes are an unusual shade of yellow. When he gets angry they change from round pupils to the slitted ones of a cat. His hair is black and straight, and usually kept immaculately groomed."

 

[Ripzerai]

Ah, c'mon man, this is revisionist sophistry. The map of the Nippon isles is literally shaped like the Japanese archipelago.

I mean, they called it Nippon, it's no mystery what the intent was.

But intent isn't canon. Canon is two sentences, one of which notes that it probably isn't called Nippon.

The fact is, it's an archipelago on the equator across the sea from "India," separated from "China" by a massive peninsula that looks like a reverse Indochina. It's just not workable as a Japan analogue. You can't just drop Japan in a completely different climate zone, surrounded by completely different cultures, and have it still be meaningfully like Japan.

Is it "revisionist" to interpret a single vague sentence in a way that goes against clear authorial intent, but is more respectful of the cultures in question? Sure, call it revisionist. But there's no coherent alternative.

So this is my revisionist map of southwestern Oerik, mapping it logically to southeastern Asian cultures:

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Another Black character in canon D&D is Baron Urik Von Kharkov detailed in Dark Lords.

Great!
His name is German+Russo-Ukrainian. Urik appears to be a modification of the German name Ulrich (blended with Erik). "Von" ("from/of") of course is used for German nobility. Kharkov is the Russian spelling of the Ukrainian city Kharkiv.

I think I'll add a new cultural tag to the African Diaspora section: "Black European / Afro-European":

Black Europeans of African ancestry - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There's also clearly some inspiration from the U.S. Black nationalist group the Black Panthers, especially in the name of his Black Leopards secret police. So that's an African American motif.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I mean, they called it Nippon, it's no mystery what the intent was.

Then why imply there is mystery what the intent was? e.g.:

"The name "Nippon" sounds like an obvious Japanese analogue"
"We know so little about this region that I don't think we can safely presume anything"

Better to be like:
"Right, Nippon is clearly Oerth's Japan. But IMC, or as a revised more respectful conception, I'd redo Nippon as Oerth's Indonesia (it matches the latitude better anyway).
And though Nippon Dominion would most obviously include Korea and maybe Manchuria, I'd design it to instead or also be Oerth's Indochinese Peninsula, given its proximity to Zindia."

Then I'd be like: "Cool, No problem."

But intent isn't canon.

I'm not sure how you're definining canon here. My chart simply aims to include all "official" (i.e. TSR/Wizards-published) motifs which originate from Earthly cultures and languages. Though with an initial focus on the non-European cultures, since I was inspired and motivated by the Radiant Citadel.
My use of the word "official" includes any continuity, regardless of whether it's currently 5E canon or not.

Canon is two sentences, one of which notes that it probably isn't called Nippon.

Right, I address the real-world implications of those sentences. A "recently conquered protectorate" situated on a peninsula between "China" and "Japan" says a lot. In 3E, we get another name, Ryuujin.

The fact is, it's an archipelago on the equator across the sea from "India," separated from "China" by a massive peninsula that looks like a reverse Indochina. It's just not workable as a Japan analogue. You can't just drop Japan in a completely different climate zone, surrounded by completely different cultures, and have it still be meaningfully like Japan.

Oerth isn't Earth. Real-world climatological/meteorological science doesn't necessarily matter when it comes to designing fantasy continents. It's like arguing that various fantasy monsters "can't" exist because they're be too heavy to fly or whatever.

Is it "revisionist" to interpret a single vague sentence in a way that goes against clear authorial intent, but is more respectful of the cultures in question? Sure, call it revisionist.

I appreciate you're aiming for a less hamhanded, more respectful, revised conception of Nippon and the Nippon Dominion. Cool.
But that goes beyond the purpose of my chart. I'm not adding sections which list how various aficionados have revised and re-interpreted TSR/WotC's depictions of real-world cultures, even if your conceptions are better and more nuanced.

But there's no coherent alternative.

One coherent alternative is that the more proper name of Nippon is Ryuujin. And that Ryuujin is located and shaped exactly as depicted on the official map. And its climate happens to be functionally identical to real-world Japan regardless of its latitude. (Do to unusual ocean currents, elemental vortices, divine influence, etc.) Or (another coherent alternative): its flora and fauna are more tropical, but its culture is still Japanese. Impossible? So are dragons!

So this is my revisionist map of southwestern Oerik, mapping it logically to southeastern Asian cultures:
View attachment 255884\

Pretty cool!

 

[Voadam]

There's also clearly some inspiration from the U.S. Black nationalist group the Black Panthers, especially in the name of his Black Leopards secret police. So that's an African American motif.

I would say more likely a Ravenloft villainous inversion of the Marvel Superhero the Black Panther. There is not really a Black Power movement theme to Kharkov or his actions, he is much more a loner king with superpowers. Even that is a fairly loose association.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I would say more likely a Ravenloft villainous inversion of the Marvel Superhero the Black Panther. There is not really a Black Power movement theme to Kharkov or his actions, he is much more a loner king with superpowers. Even that is a fairly loose association.

I'd say both. He himself is a villainous inversion of the Black Panther superhero. And his Black Leopards are an inversion of the Black Panthers.

 

[Ripzerai]

Then why imply there is mystery what the intent was? e.g.:

"The name "Nippon" sounds like an obvious Japanese analogue"
"We know so little about this region that I don't think we can safely presume anything"

Because I'm not talking about intent there. I'm talking about what the canon actually states. I think you have an ethical responsibility, in the service of clearly informing your readers, to distinguish between the two.

This is the same logic as stating "Gygax has said he envisioned the Flan as Black, but the actual source materials are vague on this point." Design intent is interesting! But the actual canon is what the source material states.

Better to be like:
"Right, Nippon is clearly Oerth's Japan. But IMC, or as a revised more respectful conception, I'd redo Nippon as Oerth's Indonesia (it matches the latitude better anyway).

I think, rather, I'd say "Nippon" was clearly intended as a Japan stand-in, but the source materials are vague enough that it could fairly be interpreted in other ways. It doesn't have to be a real-world analogue at all, for that matter.

And though Nippon Dominion would most obviously include Korea

Your assumption that it should be Korea is based on what you think would be a logical companion to a fictional Japan. But that's no different from me assuming it should be Indochina based on what I think would be a logical companion to a fictional India and China. Your speculation here isn't superior to mine, or more based on published sources.

No, the Nippon Dominion is not most obviously Korea.

I'm not sure how you're definining canon here.

I'm distinguishing "this is what the source material tells us" from "this is what the authors likely had in mind." It's fair to state that there's an official map that says "Nippon" on it, and point out that this is likely meant to be a counterpart to Japan. If you want to speculate further based on which nations are near Japan on real life, that's fine, but that's brings you into much hazier territory.

Right, I address the real-world implications of those sentences. A "recently conquered protectorate" situated on a peninsula between "China" and "Japan" says a lot. In 3E, we get another name, Ryuujin.

Again, you're telling me what you think is a logical conclusion based on the presence of neighboring countries. Which is also what I was doing.

The name Ryuujin comes from "Greyhawk 2000" in Dragon #277. The name appears without much context; there's a reference to "the closed markets of Ryuujin" in "the far corners of the Oerth" and, later, references to technology first developed in Ryuujin.

What there isn't is a map showing the location of Ryuujin, or any other indication where Ryuujin might be. It's probably, by authorial intent, intended to be a replacement name for "Nippon," but again canon doesn't state this, and that's worth distinguishing.

"Greyhawk 2000" is, of course, it's own paraverse in your terminology, set over 1500 years in Oerth's future.

Oerth isn't Earth. Real-world climatological/meteorological science doesn't necessarily matter when it comes to designing fantasy continents.

And what countries were protectorates of Japan in the real world mean even less when it comes to designing fantasy continents. If "how things work on Earth doesn't matter" is your operating principle here, then why are you wasting our time telling me about the relationship between Japan, China, and Korea on Earth?

But that goes beyond the purpose of my chart.

Is the purpose of your chart to insert your own speculation and pretend it's official? I didn't suggest you should include my speculation—you should definitely not write "Oerth has an Indochina" on your list, because that's merely something I think makes the most sense, not what canon tells us. But by the same token, you should be cautious about identifying it as Korea when canon tells us almost nothing about it.

I'm not adding sections which list how various aficionados have revised and re-interpreted TSR/WotC's depictions of real-world cultures, even if your conceptions are better and more nuanced.

I mean, you are, you just aren't self-aware enough to notice it when it's your own interpretations at issue.

One coherent alternative is that the more proper name of Nippon is Ryuujin.

Perhaps, in the "Greyhawk 2000" paraverse. It's a solid guess, but there's nothing definitive. It would be a stretch to say that Ryuujin is the canon name of those island chains based on vague references in an article set in a possible future. In any case, you should, in the interest of informing your readers, note the source and context of the name.

And that Ryuujin is located and shaped exactly as depicted on the official map.

This is possible, but note that the article in question reveals neither the shape nor the location of Ryuujin.

And its climate happens to be functionally identical to real-world Japan regardless of its latitude.

Sure, why not, maybe the world is a jigsaw puzzle with no rhyme or reason, maybe climate has no major effect on cultures, and maybe being across a narrow sea from India, and a subcontinent-sized peninsula away from China, makes no difference either, because all Asian countries are interchangeable. Except "the proximity of cultures to other cultures matters" was the main basis of your decision to associate the Nippon Dominion with Korea.

I think, if you're going to include speculation—and that's what you've been doing—then you should probably note that, and distinguish it from clearly stated facts.

 

[Alzrius]

"Greyhawk 2000" is, of course, it's own paraverse in your terminology, set over 1500 years in Oerth's future.

Minor nitpick: it's actually set slightly less than 1,500 years in Oerth's future.