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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9559204" data-attributes="member: 6796468">Eh...D&D isn't an "Alternate Timeline" of Europe. It's a bunch of fantasy realms most of which rely on various bits and pieces of historical equipment, food, monsters, and mannerisms cherry picked from 7000BCE to 1800CE based on what the people writing it think is cool or interesting.It being "European" is an entirely external perspective that takes all the quasi-historical bits to declare it to be so while ignoring the MASSIVE quantity of stuff that isn't remotely European. Even the things we THINK are European.Take Crossbows, for example. They were so powerful, popular, and devastating in battle that the Pope banned their use in warfare in 1139CE. But they were invented in China around 500BCE and only reached Europe via the Silk Road some time around 200BCE. Sure the Greeks had Ballista by that point, but nothing hand-held.There's Mummies and Sphinxes and Jackalweres from Egypt. Couatl are Mesoamerican. Zombies from Haiti. Gryphons originate not in Rome but in Babylon/Iran alongside Djinni, Ghouls, Manticors, and Rocs. Oni, Kenku, Dragon Turtles, Japan and China. Rakshasa, Devas, Nagas, and Yetis all come from India and other cultures they touched in Southeast Asia based on Hindu and Buddhist myths.There's -tons- of stuff in D&D that is just a grab bag of stuff created by non-European cultures and well outside the "1700s".Add in all the food stuff...It's not Europe. Alternate Timeline or otherwise.Very possibly! That, or Tolkien was so invested in the invention of languages and mythology he didn't consider the origin of foodstuffs and just kinda wrote about delicious foods he liked or knew existed when he wrote about the Hobbits and their feasts 'cause it wasn't that important. Tea, for example, which started up in China and didn't really spread to England until after the conquest of India. Sometime in the 1650s.Either way!... yes that's the entire point of the post.That it doesn't matter what foods you include in a fantasy setting, sandwiches or otherwise, because it's only based on revisionist perspectives of history and fantasy that establish what is "Accurate" or not.</blockquote>

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