D&D 5E (2024) Unconfirmed Dark Sun World Book

[Phantom_Miria]

what assumption can I take away from that other than "People want them to bring in early 90s style racism so bad even Games Workshop went away from it"?

I don't think I'm following here.
If the "Games Workshop went away from it" line is about their Pygmies then it wasn't the early '90s but the mid '80s, Warhammer Pygmies were shockingly racist even by the '80s standards because if you dare google them up you'll see they look like something that would have been considered heavily stereotyped even in the 1930s, and anyhow there's thankfully absolutely nothing in Dark Sun that ever looked close to that stuff.
Dark Sun Halflings aren't a reference to any given real human culture at all, they're just a fantasy race who eats other intelligent races, and they aren't unique either. They just became something that was taken notice off because of how different Athasian Halflings were compared to the usually peaceful Halflings of more normal fantasy settings.

Warhammer Pygmies were so bad that they lasted 4 years from 1984 to 1988, and the only reason they passed under the radar at all I think was because the English writers were far less sensitized to that stuff than the Americans, and Pygmies were a very minor subset of troops inside other Warhammer armies, and GW was tiny at the time. As soon as someone realized what that stuff looked like they were quickly shoved in the memory hole, and rightfully so.
Athasian Halflings, or anything in Dark Sun at all, isn't even remotely comparable in my opinion.

 

[Mecheon]

Yeah, but there being cannibalism at all is apparently too offensive for some people.

The giant praying mantids eating a guy doesn't reflect on people and its "well, that's a giant praying mantis". I don't see people having problems with that much in the same way no one really cares about lizardfolk doing the same.

The small jungle-living half-sized people being described as 'cannibal savages' is a problem, especially when they have their whole other things one can dig into that, frankly, is a lot more interesting. The whole ancient biomancy empire and all

Dark Sun Halflings aren't a reference to any given real human culture at all, they're just a fantasy race who eats other intelligent races, and they aren't unique either. They just became something that was taken notice off because of how different Athasian Halflings were compared to the usually peaceful Halflings of more normal fantasy settings.

They are slamming face first into those stereotypes per the art of them posted up thread. Probably not as bad as some of the other stuff TSR pulled, sure, but that's where a lot of Dark Sun's problems can hit

Which. They don't even need to do that. The allure of 'oh the king sweet totally-not-hobbits are now eating people' isn't even the funny shaking up of type these days given halflings have been stereotyped as shifty rogues for longer than their old stereotypes and the other stuff they did with them later was always more interesting.

 

[Necropolitan]

The small jungle-living half-sized people being described as 'cannibal savages' is a problem, especially when they have their whole other things one can dig into that, frankly, is a lot more interesting. The whole ancient biomancy empire and all

Easily fixed by just having it be some of them that are cannibals, same as what was done with the rest of the species formerly treated as being 'evil' entirely as a culture.

Make it so they can be as good or evil as anyone else but one of the evil groups of them practices cannibalism.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I was a little child when I watched black&white movies where Tarzan faced cannibals.

If that detail is too controversial, then it will be omitted, which is not the same as censored. It won't be denied that it could happen, but it simply won't be mentioned.

The Athasian halflings are a degeneration of the original rhulisti from the blue age. They haven't only forgotten the life-shaping but also other things.

* I have just read the origin of the life-shaping by the rhulisti was a rock-like plant from the sea. What if the "Brown Tide" was the corruption of this plant, like a cancer? And this could the reason because there isn't life-shaping in the rest of D&D multiverse.

 

[Zardnaar]

I was a little child when I watched black&white movies where Tarzan faced cannibals.

If that detail is too controversial, then it will be omitted, which is not the same as censored. It won't be denied that it could happen, but it simply won't be mentioned.

The Athasian halflings are a degeneration of the original rhulisti from the blue age. They haven't only forgotten the life-shaping but also other things.

* I have just read the origin of the life-shaping by the rhulisti was a rock-like plant from the sea. What if the "Brown Tide" was the corruption of this plant, like a cancer? And this could the reason because there isn't life-shaping in the rest of D&D multiverse.

All that came later nor a whiff in OBS.

I think an Easter egg nod maybe would be cool.

The halfling water/rain cleric thing was interesting to me.

 

[ECMO3]

I don't understand why Halflings eating people are fundamentally any worse than Vampires eating people and D&D has clearly embraced the latter recently:

I get how both of these could be argued to be adult themes, but I don't see how one is good and the other is bad.

 

[bedir than]

I don't understand why Halflings eating people are fundamentally any worse than Vampires eating people and D&D has clearly embraced the latter recently:

View attachment 428471


I get how both of these could be argued to be adult themes, but I don't see how one is good and the other is bad.

it's that the halflings were 90% coded to be certain "savage" ethnic groups, including the harmful mythology that they were cannibals.

If every single vampire in D&D was a specific ethnic group and only took their harmful stereotypes, that would be the same thing. But vampires existing is not on its own vile bigotry

 

[Kurotowa]

I don't understand why Halflings eating people are fundamentally any worse than Vampires eating people and D&D has clearly embraced the latter recently:

Context matters. It's not that "eating people" is beyond the pale, it's that the stereotype of the "cannibal jungle pygmy" has an unpleasant history. The goal is to take an honest look at the tropes that D&D has inherited and be able to say "Okay, these ones are fine to keep, but these ones are racist horse hokey that some people will rightfully take personally and should be cut."

And when doing this, we all need to keep our egos in check. Just because you or I don't see any problem doesn't mean we should brush it off when someone else raises issue. Maybe we don't know the history behind the trope. Maybe we just never realized because we weren't the target of that negative stereotype. So if someone else puts their hand up, we need to give their complaint a fair hearing and do a little research about the history involved.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

OK, I suggest the solution is instead saying "Athasian halflings are cannibals" we should say "in the Athasian jungles there may be antropophagous wild tribes".

Maybe in the City-State of Draj the corpses of the sacrifices are used to produce "Soylent Green" or to feed a secret clan of thrax(bloodsucker undeads).

Let's remember there are LEGO figures of the cannibals from "Pirates of the Caribean" and this is a relatively family-friendly franchise.

I don't mind too much the maneater halflings in DS but I feel really unconfortable with the human sacrifices in industrial scale in the city-state of Draj. If you had played some strategy city-builder videogame you should understand the level of demographic crisis if you kill so much workforce.

Other point is DS is not grimm gothic horror but this could be used to play monster-touched anti-hero characters, thoses with weird powers using bodies from fallen enemies like energy source, or upgrade mutations or like this.

* What if Athasian ghosts could create societies in the afterlife like in the RPG "Wraith: the Oblivion"? They could become allies of necromancers, for example a worshipper of the ancestor spirits protecting the tribe or a bloodline.

* If spirit magic was official in 5e then we should see the playtesting of the shamman class. And some players could ask to play with a shaman in DS. Why not?

* If there is a secret planar gate from the blue age not only original rhustili could survive but maybe there is a secret rhustili domain in other place, and this could be visited by other species or races. Maybe this planar gate was used to evacuate during the cleasing war and the champions of Rajaat allowed it because this "helped" their goal, the disappearance of the "impure" races. Maybe this wasn't only allowed by Rajaat himself but this warned before starting the genocide because like this it would be faster.