D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Ashtagon]

So, you're saying that a fantasy rpg supplement from the 1980s is less racist than the ideology of people engaged in genocide four centuries ago. The effect of this is a an apology for something that is still racist, and is a part of an ongoing history of racism inaugurated all those centuries ago. Combined with how the piazza shuts down any conversation and analysis as to how it might be racist, it certainly seems like there are a bunch of fans who just want to stick their head in the sand and not having anyone complicate their relationship to their rpg toys.

I state that GAZ10 is less racist that 16th century Spanish colonists as a statement of fact. I'm not apologising for the author of GAZ10. If he feels it appropriate, that's for him to do. If you want to interpret that statement of fact as an apology on behalf of GAZ10, that's you putting words in my mouth, and I would thank you not to do that.

Really, it's no secret that lots of things in the past contains problematic content, both because humans generally suck, and because society is (slowly) improving. But saying something is bad without offering solutions doesn't really help anyone, and doesn't really provide any new information. It doesn't take a doctoral thesis to recognise that GAZ10 is bad; I bought it when it first came out and very nearly threw it away because I personally felt grossed out by some of the depictions.

I won't engage into a debate on moderation policy for the Piazza here on this site. That would be wildly inappropriate.

 

[Malmuria]

I've been reading this thread with some interest but I have to chime in as the OP has...forgotten a lot of details about the setting he's calling racist. Not once has he mentioned the Ethengar or Atruaghin, the Mystaran equivalents of the Mongolians and Native Americans, and the fact that orcs in Mystara assimilate the cultures of the people they fight against the most. There's another clan of orcs in the Broken Lands that emulate the Roman legions, but apparently copying the Romans is fine. The Ethengar book is considered one of the best gazetteers in the line, while the Atruaghin book was notoriously rushed.

By removing the context behind the races you remove what made those orcs unique to the setting. The Red orcs dress and act that way because they fought for centuries against the Horse Clan before they were separated by an act of divine magic. But the Red orcs still copy the culture of the people that fought them to a standstill. The yellow orcs still fight the Ethengar, and believe by using their tactics and copying their customs they will gain a measure of their opponent's power. The black orcs dress in vaguely Thyatian gear, march in formation, and try to fight like the Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago. Orcs copy cultures in Mystara. The beastmen races were created by a jealous Immortal to throw down the kingdoms of men and demi-humans, and she did this by reincarnating the souls of the evilest mortals into a new race who over the years evolved into the various humanoid races.

The Aztec styled humanoids are a bit more complicated because they worship Atzanteotl, the patron of corruption and betrayal. He came from a culture similar to the Aztecs, and tries to corrupt other races into his worship. Every race he corrupts he has take up the culture of his original people. The Oinkmarians are just one of the groups he's corrupted. The schattenalfen, the original Azcan of the Hollow World, and the Tiger Clan of the Atruaghin also fell under his sway, and all have adopted Aztec trappings. Aztanteotl then tells his different followers that they are his true worshipers and to kill anybody who claims that they are his true followers. Meaning all the groups hate each other. He's a bit of a jerk.

The Piazza has a standing rule if you don't like something then give an example of how to change the lore to make it positive. The setting is rife with continuity problems. Thorfinn has spent years getting the errors in cartography right. It's an incredibly welcoming and friendly board as long as people obey the rules. The first rule is if something is problematic, give a suggestion on how to fix it. People have dumped near doctoral theses on that page explaining the problem and their suggestion on the solution and gotten equality long diatribes in response. It's often funny, and quite entertaining. But they take the whole of the setting into consideration, without cherry-picking.

The interior logic of the setting is not the most relevant context here. What we are talking about is the context of a set of representations produced in the United States, a country built on stolen land, and how the representations in this particular supplement connect to other popular and racist representations of indigenous people.

 

[The Glen]

Then talk about the actual representation of those people with the Ethengar and the Atruaghin books rather than a fantasy race that exists to showcase the orc's attempt to copy the cultures that defeated them. The orc take on the human cultures they copy are flawed, and it's meant to be flawed. The orcs don't understand the reasoning and methodology of the human cultures, only that since the humans beat them they need to be more like the humans.

 

[CleverNickName]

I've been reading this thread with some interest but I have to chime in as the OP has...forgotten a lot of details about the setting he's calling racist.

I just want to point out that the original post did not "call" anything racist. @Dungeonosophy created a list of problematic elements, and referenced them to known issues and cited their sources. Opinions followed, but the original list wasn't an opinion piece. It's a summarized list of research.

 

[Faolyn]

Looked over some of that earlier thread and Wow. The fact that there are people who see GAZ10 as an "improvement" over previous representation is just . I should never be surprised at this point, but sometimes I still am.

Even if they're saying "there was no description of what the orc tribes were like before GAZ10, so having a description, even if it's a series of juvenile jokes at best and juvenile racist jokes at worst, is therefore better," that's just... bizarre, really.

 

[Mecheon]

Then talk about the actual representation of those people with the Ethengar and the Atruaghin books rather than a fantasy race that exists to showcase the orc's attempt to copy the cultures that defeated them.

So, I went and did a quick look through Orcs of Thar and, I cannot find where this is mentioned in it. Which indicates its either deep enough a casual readthrough wouldn't find it, or its in another book. I can't even find any mention of Ethengar

Heck, the only mention of the Atruaghin I found was just saying "Orclanders are similiar to the Atruaghin Clans" which. Certainly doesn't absolve this book of anything

 

[Malmuria]

Really, it's no secret that lots of things in the past contains problematic content, both because humans generally suck, and because society is (slowly) improving. But saying something is bad without offering solutions doesn't really help anyone, and doesn't really provide any new information. It doesn't take a doctoral thesis to recognise that GAZ10 is bad; I bought it when it first came out and very nearly threw it away because I personally felt grossed out by some of the depictions.

We've had recently, on this site and elsewhere, discussions about the disclaimer that wotc puts on TSR products and discussions about how wotc is changing (slowly) the depictions of humanoids so they aren't as essentialist. There has been huge backlash to both developments; in the first case some people thought there didn't need to be a disclaimer, and in the second that wotc was actually ruining the game for them. A common denominator is the argument that something in fantasy literature could never have real world implications. Given this, looking through the history of these representations is helpful, and provides much needed context to these discussions.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

but apparently copying the Romans is fine

Of course it is! The Romans don't exist anymore, and they were not a marginalized people. However, Native Americans, African Americans, and Asians have been oppressed in much of "recent" history (at least where I'm from), and the fall-out of this oppression (and the continuation of some of the practices and systems that have oppressed them for centuries) still impacts them today.

There's too many Roman knock-offs in fiction to keep track of, and no one within their right minds would call appropriating the Roman society anything but "fine". Some think it's boring.

It's such a big trope that people have tried copying it in the real world (the Nazis appropriating the Roman Salute, Mussolini trying to recreate the Roman Empire, Napoleon branding his empire as a New Roman Empire, etc).

 

[Krachek]

Of course it is! The Romans don't exist anymore, and they were not a marginalized people. However, Native Americans, African Americans, and Asians have been oppressed in much of "recent" history (at least where I'm from), and the fall-out of this oppression (and the continuation of some of the practices and systems that have oppressed them for centuries) still impacts them today.

There's too many Roman knock-offs in fiction to keep track of, and no one within their right minds would call appropriating the Roman society anything but "fine". Some think it's boring.

It's such a big trope that people have tried copying it in the real world (the Nazis appropriating the Roman Salute, Mussolini trying to recreate the Roman Empire, Napoleon branding his empire as a New Roman Empire, etc).

Indeed the Roman Empire is the classic trope to setup a sadistic emperor, decadent citizen, slavery, conquest and imperial oppression. Nobody will ask for amends.
What we need is a reverse Gaz10, a setting where natives are the ones with classes and spells!
So we need to wait that some members of those culture present us a setting where the natives are the heroes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Of course it is! The Romans don't exist anymore, and they were not a marginalized people. However, Native Americans, African Americans, and Asians have been oppressed in much of "recent" history (at least where I'm from), and the fall-out of this oppression (and the continuation of some of the practices and systems that have oppressed them for centuries) still impacts them today.

There's too many Roman knock-offs in fiction to keep track of, and no one within their right minds would call appropriating the Roman society anything but "fine". Some think it's boring.

It's such a big trope that people have tried copying it in the real world (the Nazis appropriating the Roman Salute, Mussolini trying to recreate the Roman Empire, Napoleon branding his empire as a New Roman Empire, etc).

The main problem with Roman settings is, hilariously, that virtually all of them tone DOWN how horrifying a lot of elements of Roman culture were, rather than even presenting them accurately, let alone demonizing them.

I actually cannot think of a single setting which genuinely manages to demonize the Romans (it's probably out there but I can't think of it). Literally all of the Roman and quasi-Roman settings I can think of stop short of some of the more horrifying stuff (especially re: mass executions, mass slavery, sometimes quasi-genocidal conquest, and so on). There's always this "But they were civilized!!!!" thing. And like mate no. They were not. They just seemed like it. Reading about Roman society is always fascinating because one minute you're going "Wow, that's almost like us!" and the next you're going "JESUS WEPT THEY DID WHAT?!?!".

 

[Mordhau]

A lot of the tropes used to depict ancient Rome are actually highly both highly gendered and quite often linked to racist ideas as well. A lot of the ways Rome is depicted is a product of later mythmaking (or appropriation of Roman mythmaking into a new framework). The notion of decadence in particular has done a lot of work - often linked to ideas of feminisation and racial impurity.

So while actual ancient Romans may not be offended, some kind of care is still needed.

As often with these kind of things, it's the pulp stuff that is most likely to get you into trouble.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The main problem with Roman settings is, hilariously, that virtually all of them tone DOWN how horrifying a lot of elements of Roman culture were, rather than even presenting them accurately, let alone demonizing them.

I actually cannot think of a single setting which genuinely manages to demonize the Romans (it's probably out there but I can't think of it). Literally all of the Roman and quasi-Roman settings I can think of stop short of some of the more horrifying stuff (especially re: mass executions, mass slavery, sometimes quasi-genocidal conquest, and so on). There's always this "But they were civilized!!!!" thing. And like mate no. They were not. They just seemed like it. Reading about Roman society is always fascinating because one minute you're going "Wow, that's almost like us!" and the next you're going "JESUS WEPT THEY DID WHAT?!?!".

Oh, of course. I posted in this thread not that far back that I think that all empires are evil, including the Roman Empire. They did truly awful things. From the pedophilia, to taking advantage of the peoples they conquered (like all empires do), to classism, and crazy, power-hungry, narcissistic emperors (a bunch of them literally proclaimed themselves to be gods).

Using some of the more familiar parts of the Roman society (it being an empire/republic, their armor and weapon style and common colors, etc) in a setting can be a touchy subject, but not because they were marginalized, but for the exact opposite option. Idolizing them is the issue, because of all of the awful things they did. When they're painted as the good guys, that's when it can get problematic.

I'm not really aware of any examples from modern fiction that paints them as being the "super-awesome, cool, good guys", though. Care to share any examples? Because the main one that I'm familiar with is the Tamrielic Empire from The Elder Scrolls, and they portray them fairly accurately as being a not great group, from the racism to the court politics that nearly destroys it on several occasions, to the narcissistic Emperor that founded the Empire, was worshipped as a god, and is explicitly a bad dude (even if a bunch of people in-world love him, it's pretty clear that Talos/Ysmir was a pretty bad guy).

 

[MGibster]

I actually cannot think of a single setting which genuinely manages to demonize the Romans (it's probably out there but I can't think of it). Literally all of the Roman and quasi-Roman settings I can think of stop short of some of the more horrifying stuff (especially re: mass executions, mass slavery, sometimes quasi-genocidal conquest, and so on).

I can't either. As an undergraduate, I once wrote a paper about one of the Punic Wars (forget which one) and I subtitled it "Monsters of the Mediterranean" with the Romans cast in the role of the monsters. Romans were weird, Brutus was involved in a loan sharking arrangement with the town of Salamis charging them a 48% interest rate he was largely considered honorable! Of course predatory lending is probably the least of Roman barbarity. I imagine they've gotten a pass because of how influential they were on western culture. Until recently, Sparta seemed to enjoy an undeserved good reputation, but, damn, even by Greek standards they were pretty brutal.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I've been reading this thread with some interest but I have to chime in as the OP has...forgotten a lot of details about the setting he's calling racist.

Glen, I've "forgotten" a lot of details? If you're familiar with my writings about Mystara from over the past 22 years, "forgetting details" is not something people have often accused me of.

Not once has he mentioned the Ethengar or Atruaghin, the Mystaran equivalents of the Mongolians and Native Americans,

In fact, in the original "research post", I do mention the Atruaghin Clans and Ethengarians several times. Whenever GAZ10 mentions the Atruaghin or Ethengarians in relation to the "Red Orcs" and "Yellow Orcs", I include an explanatory note saying that, in Mystara, the Atruaghin and Ethengarians are the primary human analogs of Indigenous American and Mongolian culture.

and [not once has he mentioned the] fact that orcs in Mystara assimilate the cultures of the people they fight against the most. [...] By removing the context behind the races you remove what made those orcs unique to the setting. The Red orcs dress and act that way because they fought for centuries against the Horse Clan before they were separated by an act of divine magic. But the Red orcs still copy the culture of the people that fought them to a standstill. The yellow orcs still fight the Ethengar, and believe by using their tactics and copying their customs they will gain a measure of their opponent's power. The black orcs dress in vaguely Thyatian gear, march in formation, and try to fight like the Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago. Orcs copy cultures in Mystara.

Hi Glen, could you provide sources for your various assertions?

I do see some explanations along those lines in GAZ10, which I'll try to document here. Yet it sounds to me like you've taken those examples of humanoids copying an adjacent culture, and then have run with it as a "fanon" interpretation and expanded it. And you're now presenting it as Official Mystaran lore, and justification for whatever ugliness is in the book.

It's not right to say: "Oh, it's all a joke! The humanoids were comedic parodies of human cultural analogs within the world of Mystara. The orcs just copied and parodied cultures. That's just what they do. It's funny!"

That's party true, but that doesn't justify the use of racial slurs, such as "red orcs" and "Asian" "yellow orcs."

I'd ask you to provide concrete evidence for your interpretation of GAZ10. But, I'll try to help. These are the things I've found in GAZ10 which are relevant to your assertion that "Orcs copy cultures." Yet some of the findings are opposite to what you assert. I may've missed something - so please point me to the texts I've missed.

"1722 BC: Great Horde ravages Norwold and learns Norse culture." [Yes, the humanoids are copying Norse culture. Yet they already have a Mongolian/Turkic motif, since in the real world, the "Great Horde" was a Kipchak Turkic state. The very word "horde" is from the Kipchak Turkic word orda, equivalent to Classical Mongolian ord: ]
See: Great Horde - Wikipedia

horde - Wiktionary

en.wiktionary.org

Orda (organization) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"1720 BC: Akkila-Khan conquers the southern steppes." [Note: As seen in the name "Akkila-Khan", adapted from real world "Attila the Hun" and the Mongolian title "khan", the humanoids were already Hunnic+Mongolian analogs before they met Ethengar, Mystara's human Mongolian analog.]

"1711 BC: Great Horde reaches pre-khanate Ethengar." [Note: the humanoids already had a "khan" before the humans of Ethengar, which was in a "pre-khanate" stage. So this instance seems to be the opposite of your assertion that "orcs copy cultures." This text implies that the humans copied the humanoids.]

"1688 BC: Akkila-Khan retires from the world, becomes an Immortal, and takes the name of Yagrai. Unaware of the truth, Ethengarians rejoice. Rise of the first Khan [of Ethengar]." [Again, this implies that the humans copied the humanoids' pre-existing Mongolian-Turkic culture.]

"1305 BC: Wogar tribe moves south, along a major river, following the Great Shaman's floating gri-gri." [There is no indication that the humanoids copied an in-world Vodun / West African culture. The "gri-gri" exists an an unexplained a priori "given."]

"1263 BC: [...] Tribe continues along the coast to Atruaghin. Learns the use of feathers, war paints, light cavalry tactics, and scalping." [Glen, you're right that this is an example of humanoids copying human culture, from an in-world perspective. But this simply does not excuse the terms 'red orcs' and 'red hides', which are very close to the racial slurs 'red men' and 'redskins.' The reference to 'scalping' is also insensitive. Not so fun.]

"1254 BC: Wogar Tribe splits into three nations. One settles south of Atruaghin." [This would be related to the humanoids' copying of the Atruaghin culture.]

"1299 BC: Vestland trolls miss a turn and pop up in Broken Lands." [The trolls would already have Norse culture, like the humans of Vestland. So yes, this would be an early example of "copying."]

"The old Atruaghin faith of the Orclanders has been supplanted by other races' religions after being invaded several times after the fall of Sitting Drool." PG, p.11 [This is an example of the humanoids copying the Atruaghin faith, and then that faith being supplanted by worship of humanoid Immortals, such as Wogar.]

Citizens of Kol are said to "love mimicking the Empire of Thyatis, although they do not really understand the difference between a republic and an imperial autocracy." [That is another example of humanoids copying a human culture, in this case Roman/Byzantine and Italian.]

The "Naming Your Character" chapter does provide more evidence of "copying." Some humanoids tribes have names which come from:
-"Atruaghin Origins" (Red Orcs) [=vaguely indigenous American, including parodies of Lakota and Apsáalooke (Crow) names.]
-"Ethengarian Origins" (Yellow Orkia and Hobgobland) [="vaguely Mongol" but actually Mongolian, Tibetan, Chinese, and Bhutanese]
-"Ylari Origins" (South Gnollistan) [=Arabic, along with the Ottoman Turkish title "pasha"]
-"Northern Reaches Origins" (Trollhatten) [=Norse]
-"Sind Origins" (Ogremoor) [="reminiscent of India"]

I can find no evidence in GAZ10 for your specific assertion that:

"The Red orcs dress and act that way because they fought for centuries against the Horse Clan[.]"

or that:

"the Red orcs still copy the culture of the people that fought them to a standstill."

Could you provide a source for the "centuries" of fighting "against the Horse Clan", and that the Atruaghins fought the "red orcs" "to a standstill"?

I can also find no evidence in GAZ10 for your assertion that:

"The yellow orcs [...] believe by using [Ethengarian] tactics and copying their customs they will gain a measure of their opponent's power."

This looks to me like fanon storytelling. Which would be fine in other contexts, but in this thread is seriously focused on objectivity.

In regard to your statement:

"The black orcs dress in vaguely Thyatian gear, march in formation, and try to fight like the Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago."

I found no evidence for the term "black orcs." Did you invent the term? Much less the assertion that these "black orcs" "try to fight like the [Thyatian] Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago."

Again, this appears to be fanon storytelling. Storytelling which is wielded to justify racial slurs in a Wizards product.

And I read through the entire Orcus Rex chapter again, and I cannot find any reference to your assertion that:

"there's another clan of orcs in the Broken Lands that emulate the Roman legion"

Unless I missed a reference, the Roman/Latin elements of Orcus Rex (such as the name "Orcus Rex" and the term "Legion") appear to be a priori "givens", with no in-world explanation. The only vaguely related references I can find are these:

"975 AC: [...] The Legion [of Thar] is created. Thyatis frowns at the military threat."

This entry does show that Thyatis's Latin culture existed before the Legion of Orcus Rex, and that Thyatis was concerned with the military threat. Yet there's no indication that King Thar copied Thyatis.

And there's a label on the humanoids' map of the Known World which shows "R.I.P." in Thyatis. Which implies that the humanoids suffered loses there.

But you seem to be spinning a fanon tale out of very slim references.

Or, when you said "emulate" did you mean to speak "out-of-game", like: "There are orcs who are analogs of Rome."

Well, yes, there are Roman/Latin motifs in Orcus Rex, and also in Kol. But then you (confusedly?) mix in in-world statements:

"The black orcs dress in vaguely Thyatian gear, march in formation, and try to fight like the Legions that they witnessed crush all before them years ago."

Which I've found no evidence for.

Nevertheless, you're right that, from an in-world perspective, the humanoids of the Broken Lands have copied:
-Atruaghin (Indigenous American) culture: the Red Orcs
-Northlands (Norse) culture: Trollhatten
-Ylari (Arabic and Ottoman Turkish) names: South Gnollistan
-Sindi (Asian Indian) names: Ogremoor
-Thyatian (Roman/Byzantine culture and the Italian title "doge"): Kol

However, the evidence that Rexian Orcs copied the Thyatian culture, from an in-world perspective, is slim.

And in the case of the Mongolian-based Yellow Orcs and Hobgolanders, the opposite of your assertion appears to be true: the human Ethengarian culture initially copied Mongolian motifs from the humanoids. And then the humanoids later copied names of Ethengarian origin.

Certain motifs (Turkic-Mongolian and Vodun) appear to be present in the Great Horde before they even encountered the human cultures of the Known World. The Hobgolanders (who have Mongolian-like culture) are said to be despised by King Thar because "they are direct descendants of Akkila-Khan." (PG, p.9), which implies there's a continuous Mongolian-based culture descended from Akkila-Khan to the Hobgolanders.

I apologize if I've missed some important references. Let me know.

apparently copying the Romans is fine.

As I've said earlier in this thread: if the sections on Orcus Rex or Kol included real-world Roman ethnic slurs, that would not be fine.

I'm going to ignore most of your statements about the Mystara Piazza, since the ENWorld moderator asked me/us to mostly steer clear of talk about other forums.

People have dumped near doctoral theses on that page explaining the problem and their suggestion on the solution and gotten equality long diatribes in response. It's often funny, and quite entertaining.

I don't think racial slurs are that funny and entertaining.

But they take the whole of the setting into consideration, without cherry-picking.

If there were other racial slurs in a D&D product, such as the "n-word", would it be "cherry-picking" if someone spoke up about that?

See the Wikipedia "list of ethnic slurs", which includes "redskins" and "yellow", for Asians.

Why must we always couch things in such nice, cushiony verbiage, like: "Hey, overall the D&D Multiverse is great. I especially love the Known World of Mystara. Yet I feel that the racial slurs, such as the n-word, are problematic and bothersome."

Only to receive:
"What! Don't be political! Get out of our forum! Tell it to your legislator! We don't want to hear it!"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

but apparently copying the Romans is fine.

Like I said upthread, I don’t own this or any other Mystara products.

So if there are any NPC names or illustrations in it depicting the ersatz Romans with RW racist stereotype, I would be unaware of them.

But if there aren’t any, that would be a key difference between them and some of the clearly bigoted material pointed out by the OP and others.

 

[Zardnaar]

I can't either. As an undergraduate, I once wrote a paper about one of the Punic Wars (forget which one) and I subtitled it "Monsters of the Mediterranean" with the Romans cast in the role of the monsters. Romans were weird, Brutus was involved in a loan sharking arrangement with the town of Salamis charging them a 48% interest rate he was largely considered honorable! Of course predatory lending is probably the least of Roman barbarity. I imagine they've gotten a pass because of how influential they were on western culture. Until recently, Sparta seemed to enjoy an undeserved good reputation, but, damn, even by Greek standards they were pretty brutal.

No that's not unique to the Romans. From memory 40%+ wasn't unusual. This was why ursury had a bad reputation.

 

[Zardnaar]

Like I said upthread, I don’t own this or any other Mystara products.

So if there are any NPC names or illustrations in it depicting the ersatz Romans with RW racist stereotype, I would be unaware of them.

But if there aren’t any, that would be a key difference between them and some of the clearly bigoted material pointed out by the OP and others.

There are wrsatz Romans in other products.

I can't recall the art that much either way as it's been to long.

I remember PCs raising an army and invading Thyatis and winning a few battles with 4000 troops.

Struggling to remember the name of said product but the Emperor's name was Thincol and he was having an affair with an immortal named Vanya.

This was 1995 or so perhaps.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Then talk about the actual representation of those people with the Ethengar and the Atruaghin books rather than a fantasy race that exists to showcase the orc's attempt to copy the cultures that defeated them. The orc take on the human cultures they copy are flawed, and it's meant to be flawed. The orcs don't understand the reasoning and methodology of the human cultures, only that since the humans beat them they need to be more like the humans.

Glen, the real-world author and publisher of GAZ10 "understood the reasoning and methodology of the human cultures." You realize that orcs are fictional, right? It doesn't make sense to be like: "but...but...the orcs don't understand Atruaghin culture, so they call themselves "red orcs." And the yellow orcs and Oriental yellow-skinned goblins don't understand Ethengarian culture. And it's the yellow orcs who have "ugly pekingese faces", not the Ethengarian humans."

Glen, a team of real human beings, sitting at desks in Wisconsin, wrote those slurs.

Again, let's take the n-word as another example of a racial epithet (like "yellow men" and "redskin"). Imagine another Wizards product was published in the 1980s (and is still for sale as a PDF), which repeatedly used a variant of the n-word, say, the "Nigoro Orcs," also known as the "Black Orcs." The book refers to their "Chief Frederick Droolass." And the book talks about how the Nigoro / Black Orcs love chicken, chittlins and watermelon. And two of their big chiefs were Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima.

Don't you see? We'd have a problem.

Glen, I love Bruce Heard as a person, yet I'm sorry to say that he and his team really flubbed up. I know they were trying to write a super zany "Garbage Pail Kids"-style book. And it was innovative to provide rules for playing humanoids as PCs; GAZ10 was truly a predecessor of 2E's Complete Book of Humanoids, and 3E's Savage Species. And though some of the book is funny (in a very goofy sort of way), certain elements are wrong. The racial slurs, and the buffoonish mischaracterizations which are tied to those slurs, are wrong.

Tapping real-world racial epithets is wrong. It's not a joke. And any adaptation of marginalized / indigenous cultures is necessarily warped if it's presented in the context of those slurs.

I'm talking about real world racial slurs. Those "red" and "yellow" slurs are just as serious as the n-word.

I invite the participants in this thread to watch a short film which is produced by the National Congress of American Indians, the representative body of the 633 U.S. Indian Nations:

Proud to Be (Mascots)

 

[MGibster]

No that's not unique to the Romans. From memory 40%+ wasn't unusual. This was why ursury had a bad reputation.

Cicero was pissed at Brutus for a few reasons. Namely because Cicero had set the usury cap at 12% but also because it was illegal as hell for Romans in the capital to lend to provincials. Brutus arranged for his "friends" to make the loan but it was actually him. Remember, this is someone largely thought of as "honorable" who used his position to fleece and coerce the people of Cyprus for his own personal benefit.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

There is serious talk about a 5e Mystara setting. (Surveys have mentioned it.) I appreciate how this thread highlights some of the landmines that need to be cleared from Mystara before it happens.

Overall, I've loved the World of Mystara since 1983.
And yes, there are landmines, fences, and barbed wire to clear away, before an Archetypal Mystara can shine again in a 5E context.