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.