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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CruelSummerLord" data-source="post: 4159885" data-attributes="member: 48692">Concerning two of the fantasy tropes I'm most interested in that were cited by Afrodyte, Racial Determinism and Eurocentrism, I modify one and subvert the other.  -Racial Determinism, to me, stems at least in part from the fact that the different races were created by different gods with different agendas.  Different gods have different commitments and interests, and they imbued their races with different traits.  Corellon Larethian imbued the elves with a natural tendency towards magic and the wilderlands, Moradin gave the dwarves incredible skills at craft and an affinity with the earth, Gruumsh gave the orcs a culture and belief system that values war and physical strength, and so forth.  Humans are the exception in that they have no centralized pantheon of gods, and may worship dwarven, elven or orcish gods as easily as non-human races worship their gods.  The human race is, in a way, the jack of all trades, in the sense that they'll be good at just about anything they set their minds to, but chances are they won't be as good at it as a nonhuman race.  However, their drive, determination and ambition-and this applies to humans derived from non-European cultures as it does to the European-based humans-allows them to keep up and stay in the thick of things.  In a sense, then, the various nonhuman races are the way they are because of the fiat of their gods.  Only humans have no centralized pantheon, which has caused them to worship a wide variety of gods.  Orcs and goblins ravage, kill and destroy because, in many ways, that is their nature, but even this can vary.  They possess an inborn hatred for dwarves and elves, but humans who win their respect and have similar mores and values to theirs can earn their respect.  Lawfully-aligned orcs can serve as military allies to those they view as worthy, or otherwise serve those who will pay for their swords.  -Now, as to Eurocentric fantasy, I think we can all agree that what is considered Eurocentric is not truly based on an accurate representation of medieval European culture, but is at least inspired by it and derived from it.  We see how the dwarves, elves and orcs influence and are influenced by them.  But what about the rest of the world?  How would dwarves get along with the Iroquois Confederacy?  How would elves get along with medieval Ethiopia, Somalia or Zimbabwe?  How would orcs live in a Viet- or Thai-inspired culture?  Here lies my interest in extending the tropes of D&D to fit the rest of the world.  Cultures inspired and derived from, but not exact copies of, the various cultures of the rest of the world, tailored to fit the D&D mold, are what I'm going for.  Societies patterned after medieval Africa might have full mastery of metalworking and smithing, due to cultural contact with dwarves or gnomes.  They would use metal swords and shields in battle, but prefer light chain shirts at most when it comes to armor, since heavy plate mail would be too hot to wear in the climates they call home.  Similarly, nomadic or semi-nomadic First Nations cultures might have a trading relation with dwarves or elves similar to those they had with Europeans in the 16th to the 19th centuries, trading furs, meat, vegetables, grains or whatever else in exchange for metal weapons or other finished goods, or even develop these things themselves after intercultural contact.  Gnomes might have a privileged position in a society patterned after China or Persia, given their scientific knowledge and engineering ability.  Halflings might form a particular class within an Aztec or Mayan society for their skills in agriculture, being comfortably interwoven with the humans, who protect them from rampaging orcs and goblins in exchange for their skills with the land.  What is noteworthy here is that the skills and inclinations given to the nonhuman races by their gods still exist, but they have different functions and relations to human society than they might in a European-based society or continent.  Racial "Determinism", so to speak, affects, but does not dictate, how different races get along with the various human cultures.  These are just some ideas.  The European-derived cultures are still there, but now we see how the rest of the world interacts with dwarves, elves and orcs, who are all just as spread around the world as are humans.</blockquote>

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