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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8492593" data-attributes="member: 18">That's what I'm saying not to do.The Japanese have been stereotyped as barbaric cruel monsters, particularly in war, who are scary and weird, and that outside war, they follow strange and disturbing customs.So I am saying, don't pair that with a humanoid race which has the same or similar or even related stereotypes.Oni are not only Japanese mythology (so that's already bad from this angle), but they're typically presented as barbaric cruel monsters, who are scary and weird, and follow strange and disturbing customs.So don't do that!Japanese cultural elements + Dwarfs or Halflings, say, would be fairly safe. There's very little crossover in stereotypes. And you can pick and choose what to use. As you said also, maybe don't use entire cultures, just use parts of them. Combine some parts of a Japanese local culture (it's a big country with a lot of people, it has more than one culture, not) and you might be fine.Note this is just very crude advice to like eliminate the worst cases, the ones will unavoidably lead to unfortunate stuff. You still have to pay attention to what you're doing.I would in general avoid assigning "beautiful superhumans" any Earth cultures, because that just doesn't tend to end well. If you can't make up a culture for them without "borrowing", pick one from Star Trek or something and emulate that.</blockquote>