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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonosophy" data-source="post: 8490465" data-attributes="member: 6688049">Glen, I've "forgotten" a lot of details? If you're familiar with <a href="http://pandius.com/shenry.html" target="_blank">my writings about Mystara from over the past 22 years</a>, "forgetting details" is not something people have often accused me of.In fact, in the original "<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/red-orc-american-indians-and-yellow-orc-mongolians-in-d-d.684780/post-8488556" target="_blank">research post</a>", 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.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: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Horde" target="_blank">Great Horde - Wikipedia</a>[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/horde#English[/URL][URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orda_(organization)[/URL]"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:or that: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: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: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: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: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"): KolHowever, 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.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.I don't think racial slurs are that funny and entertaining.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 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs" target="_blank">Wikipedia "list of ethnic slurs</a>", 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!"</blockquote>

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