D&D General The Rakshasa and Genie Problem

[guachi]

I mean, Marids don't traditionally have a relation to water, right? I know Dao were straight up made up.

I have no idea about Marid. As for Dao, I assume the word is derived from Persian, but I don't know Persian.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Looking it up, they actually do, A raging Torrent to the Efreet's blaze.

Where is this from?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeah, that's exactly what I was asking. Basically, if a world doesn't have a fantasy-counterpart culture for the group that's folklore/mythology inspired the D&D monster, should we divorce the cultural context from the monsters to avoid them becoming the stand-ins for those people, or would it just be best to not include them in the world in the first place if they would become those stand-ins due to the lack of having another cultural stand-in in the same world?

People in this thread that are whining about the current direction of D&D, saying that I'm overthinking/overreaction, or that your own personal anecdotes invalidate whatever you think the OP was about, because that's not what this thread or the OP was about.

The dilemma that I discussed in the OP broke down into these three options:

1. Should we strip the cultural context from the borrowed monsters to avoid them becoming stand-ins for those cultures in worlds that don't already have stand-ins for them. (Like Eberron, which doesn't have a humanoid cultural stand-in for Middle Eastern people, but does have a nation of Rakshasa that wear similar outfits, have similar architecture, the same titles, etc.) This has the issue of possibly being mis-appropriation of those cultures' creatures.
2. Should we just not use those creatures in the first place if there is a risk of them being taken as stand-ins for that real-world culture? (Again, would it better to just not use Rakshasas in Eberron as a major population of an area of the main continent and instead just use a different type of fiend to get across the same theme without appearing to misuse the monsters.)
3. Should we instead include a humanoid version of the cultural stand-ins (like Al-Qadim) so there would then be a place for the creatures from those real-world cultures in the used setting? (Maybe by adding a Middle-East stand in to the area of the Demon Wastes or perhaps Sarlona/Xen'Drik to explain why they have similar cultures to the real world counterparts of them.)

That's what I was asking (while also asking if there was another option that people thought of), not whether or not it was okay to use those creatures in the first place (I said in the OP that I was okay with this), or any other mischaracterization of the OP.

Does that make sense? Maybe I just didn't explain it that well in the OP. Thanks @Irlo for explaining it better than I did originally.

While I don't like to quote myself, but I feel like it's important here to lay out why I haven't chosen a position yet. Let's go down the pros and cons of every option.

Pros -

1. If you remove cultural context and replace it with others, it can have some cool/interesting results. For example, you could have a Pirate Frost Giant, that still keeps the theme of a nautical raider, but makes it unique and less attached to Nordic stereotypes. Or a Roman Rakshasa, that uses a gladius and shield, and is still militaristic, but not tied to Indian stereotypes. Or a Djinni stylized off of an Ancient-Greek-Philosopher, who debates moral philosophy with the PCs (perhaps about the evil nature of certain creatures). This can result in some new and inventive ideas/combinations. (Or, alternatively, you could just make up an entirely new fantasy culture to staple on these monsters and get rid of the problem entirely.)
2. This can result in things like Theros! There's not really any Rakshasas, Genies, or similar monsters in Theros (anything not taken/inspired by Greek Mythology doesn't really exist in the setting), but it still works as an example of how basing a setting off of a real world culture can work (a lot of M:tG worlds are pretty good examples of this, too). And if the mono-cultural worlds do exist in a shared multiverse (like the M:tG worlds), they can still cross-pollinate and end up sharing ideas and concepts with each other. An Eldritch Horror-type creature from Innistrad could invade Theros, or vice-versa, and it could result in some cool and memorable stories.
3. This would explain why certain monsters have certain cultures, as it would show that the monsters took/borrowed the culture from the fantasy-counterpart-culture of that world and were influenced by having that culture. Alternatively, you could go as far as to say that these creatures are kinda like "culture sponges/mirrors", and will adapt to a culture that they're close to to get some kind of leverage (maybe by trying to deceive them, or gain some political power, or to just try and connect more with them).

Cons -

1. This could be/seem like cultural appropriation. If you're not using the monsters in their intended context, why are you even using them? If it's for a sense of the exotic, it's probably a bad idea to use them. "Write what you know" and be respectful for the context of other people's cultures.
2. This is, by definition, exclusionary and could come across as "don't get your peanut butter on my chocolate". A lot of the time, cross-pollinating story elements across cultures is a beneficial thing. This almost definitely removes that (unless there is travel between worlds, like through Spelljammer, Sigil, or the Planeswalkers of M:tG). It's a sort of "fantastical cultural segregation", and that could quite possibly be a bad thing.
3. This requires more work than the others and involves retconning official settings' lore in your games to add in a sort of Thermian justification for their usage of that culture (explaining the culture's presence by changing lore for it to make sense). It's a better solution than none (IMO), but that doesn't make it a good solution.

And, of course, there's always the fourth option: do nothing. This thread came up as a way to try and answer a personal dilemma, so I'm not going to take that one. Other people can, but I'm absolutely not going to.

 

[Mordhau]

So basically you don't want Efreet to be Efreet anymore, and just have them be utterly divorced from their origin.

I don't know it seems to me changing an Arabian monster's look to a Renaissance German look would be more offensive than keeping them Arabic like their origin.

It's their origin that makes them interesting. The same as Rakhasa.

Mind you, I'm not necessarily defending their portrayal. It's a long time since I paid much attention to how Effreet are actually portrayed in D&D products so it could be all kinds of questionable for all I know.

But at least there's something to start with in terms of Genie lore and things to play with in the idea. Generic Fire Elementals are boring just to think about.

 

[Remathilis]

It's their origin that makes them interesting. The same as Rakhasa.

Mind you, I'm not necessarily defending their portrayal. It's a long time since I paid much attention to how Effreet are actually portrayed in D&D products so it could be all kinds of questionable for all I know.

But at least there's something to start with in terms of Genie lore and things to play with in the idea. Generic Fire Elementals are boring just to think about.

I think that's a key part of this: you could just replace a raksasha with any other shape shifting fiend (succubus comes to mind) and the efreet with a fire demon and be done with it. I'm sure you could do the same with plenty of other redundant monsters in D&D (a banshee is just a ghost with an alternative ability: wail)

I also think we are giving our audience far too little credit. D&D has had ogre magi since 1e, and 5e is the first edition that felt comfortable that it's audience would know what it's talking about that it restored it's proper name: oni to it. (I'm sure decades of Japanese video games infused the perspective audience with the needed context.) The oni is clearly another example of a monster ripped from it's native culture and placed in genetic D&D. They probably felt it was being inclusive to restore the oni name and mythology.

I wonder if they'll go back to being ogre mages in the 2024 refresh?

 

[Voadam]

For our topic, of course the Efreeti have a better focus on them. They are supposed to be opponents and the opportunities to see them in play is greater than to see a Djinn. Unless you play an evil type campaign, your vilains will be "evil", especially if coming from the outer planes (or in this case, elemental plane). Players need foes more than they need allies. It is a game centered around the "Heroic deeds" of the characters. It does not mean that it is a mean by which Arabian culture is depicted as evil. Context can explain a lot of thing if you stop to look at it.

So a couple ways I see to view this.

A) An Arabic folklore evil spirit in D&D, cool.

B) The most prominent Arabic thing in D&D is structurally a supernaturally evil villain. Because of the Arabic good and bad genies as monsters pool the villain one is naturally most prominent because of their monster role.

C) The most prominent Arabic thing in D&D is structurally a supernaturally evil villain. This structurally connects up to a problematic trope of Arabs as villains.

Mostly I am A, but I also see B and C and would want to be conscious of the issues involved in C in how I use Efreeti in my own games. I've used D&D's normal Arabic themed evil efreeti and gone with Arabic themed City of Brass and Arabic Djinnis. I use a mostly mashup homebrew world which has fantasy Arab areas in it that are decently big deals in world politics and history but usually at least a bit over the border of where I set the action and I have kept a bunch of options open on a lot of specifics. For instance I am going back and forth on adopting in Midgard's Mahorti Dragon empire as part of the Arab areas with no need to make decisions soon as my current campaign is in a distinctly different part of the world.

My biggest personal issue with genies is the wish aspects and how they actually work in a D&D ecology/cosmology power hierarchy narrative type of sense. Most of D&D does a fairly poor job of narratively integrating genies and wish power into the normal D&D power hierarchies.

 

[Voadam]

I also think we are giving our audience far too little credit. D&D has had ogre magi since 1e, and 5e is the first edition that felt comfortable that it's audience would know what it's talking about that it restored it's proper name: oni to it. (I'm sure decades of Japanese video games infused the perspective audience with the needed context.) The oni is clearly another example of a monster ripped from it's native culture and placed in genetic D&D. They probably felt it was being inclusive to restore the oni name and mythology.

4e called them Oni before 5e did.
Monster Manual II page 170.

1e Oriental Adventures had different creatures categorized as Oni. OA page 126.

The 1e MM called them Ogre Mage (Japanese Ogre).

 

[Faolyn]

But that's the thing: D&D is a kitchen sink game that liberally stole from everything and anything. This is the game with Celtic priests adventuring with Shaolin monks. It's appeal is the wide selection of myths and legends used to make the game. It is a melting pot in the clearest sense of the term.

I just found a site that seems to have the origins of most of the monsters in the 53 MM, for those who are interested. A pretty interesting read.

 

[Umbran]

I'll hold out for D&D 6.5 edition, where evil will be removed from the game entirely.

"He's not Evil, he's just a very naughty boy." - Pelor, speaking on Asmodeus.

Mod Note:
You (and everyone else) may want to make your next foray into this thread to more constructive than that, before we start dinging people for threadcrapping.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

censorship threads

Mod Note:

Not really a thing. But calling it such is a sure way to get a thread boot. You’re done here,