D&D 5E What should an official Indian subcontinent inspired setting have?

[MGibster]

War Elephants!

You know what? This was the only answer I needed.

I can't comprehend D&D players wanting settings based on real world cultures (especially when they are not their own). It seems like lazy world-building to me.

D&D has never really required its players to explore a cultural set of assumptions most different from their own. At least here in the United States, D&D player characters tend to value things like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, property rights,* the rule of law (stop laughing), secularism, and individual rights.

And why not base a setting on a real life culture? It's easier on the GM to create and for the players to get into the game. I had no problem using 17th century Bavaria has the inspiration for my all dwarf campaign. It worked well and helped me tell the story I wanted to tell during the campaign.

Oh, there are "real world gods" that aren't made up? Do tell!

Generally speaking, I try to treat the religious beliefs of others with some degree of respect. I feel I have a bit more leeway when discussing/using religions that are part of my own cultural tapestry, but I'm a bit more careful with religious beliefs I might not understand or even have a lot of knowledge about.

 

[Yaarel]

Regarding monotheism, many Hindus consider themselves monotheistic, especially the philosophical traditions regarding Brahman. Some prefer the term monism, where the infinite is less personal.

The infinite Divine is transcendent and unchanging.

Only within creation is there change and finiteness.

In this view, the deva are aspects of finite creation, more like angels.

The term henotheism is relevant. In a West Asia context, it means awareness of other gods but devotion to only one of them. But in a South Asia context it means the infinite is the only Divine (sometimes understood as male or female or both or unimaginable) while the others are finite aspects of the infinite Divine.



In any case, for D&D, I use the Positive Energy Plane to represent the immanent aspect of various monotheistic cultures.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh, there are "real world gods" that aren't made up? Do tell!

Mod Note:

Please don’t poke the RW religions bear.

 

[Tonguez]

It's kind of incredible that Islam, for example, despite being a huge part of the history of that subcontinent, hasn't been mentioned, by any posters so far except very obliquely.

Yes, definitely. This would be a much stronger approach I'd suggest. And hopefully it would be a relatively diverse or complex region/period.

its a DnD page, and Enworld has its no religion rule so Im not surprised Islam hasnt been mentioned except in passing, even mentions of Hinduism I suspect are more references to the Epic mythology of the Vedas than they are to any actual ’religious’ belief.

I was going to say that I’d like to see aspects of Mauryan, Pandyas and Mughal empires - but then realised thats not even a quarter of all the historic empires of India, which as you say is incredibly diverse.

Anecdotally I remember as a naive young man meeting a christian pastor from India and of making the mistake of asking if his family was Hindu. He smiled and replied “no my family has been Christian for more than a thousand years” …

 

[Eltab]

One side of the map has "impassable wall of mountains" which despite the name a small but steady trickle of traders, mystics, explorers, adventurers and such still get through.

On another side of the map are normal mountains from which, a few generations ago, a volkerwanderung entered the setting's lands and made a big splash in the pre-existing society. There are several such IRL to use as a model, from the Muslims back to the Aryans.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We don't talk about Bruno, sorry, about Islam, because too many people don't feel confortable about that. Of course there is opened door for a D&D version of 1001 nights, the return of al-Qadim, and today audence is used with Disney's Aladin. But here we have to take care a lot.

Isn't Hasbro the owner of the action-live TV show "the Adventures of Sinbad"?

Legend of Heavenly Sphere Shurato - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

* Is there any fantasy webcomic based in Southeast mythlogy? As source of inspiration.

 

[Ixal]

Indian writers. Indian developers. Indian editors. Indian sensitivity readers.

I find this "only X is allowed to write about X" so toxic. Especially when it comes to history and mythology where only education really matters and not your place of birth and because the lines are most of the time drawn arbitarily as you can't even draw a clear line from todays countrys to history (Is someone from Tamil Nadu allowed to write about mythology from Gujarat just because both are in India (country) now even though those places are nearly a thousand miles apart and have not been in the same country for most of history, including the era you draw material from).

 

[Blue Orange]

I find this "only X is allowed to write about X" so toxic. Especially when it comes to history and mythology where only education really matters and not your place of birth and because the lines are most of the time drawn arbitarily as you can't even draw a clear line from todays countrys to history (Is someone from Tamil Nadu allowed to write about mythology from Gujarat just because both are in India (country) now even though those places are nearly a thousand miles apart and have not been in the same country for most of history, including the era you draw material from).

I kinda see both sides. There was a long history of white people taking black music and the original producers not giving any credit (which is where the whole 'cultural appropriation' thing started being noticed, though of course it went on before that, and not only by the West either). It's gotten a little out of hand nowadays IMHO with people only supposed to write about groups they're descended from now. (Though Europe is apparently public domain.) Always felt a bit ethnic-essentialist to me (and as Ixal says above if you slice it finely enough you can always find cases where the person doesn't really represent the culture in question), not to mention as Ruin Explorer says a lot of these non-Western cultures may have their own issues with representation back home, but I don't make the rules.

I will say if I did decide to make game material I'd probably stick to Europe, possibly adding more Spanish elements than is allowed and maybe giving Jewish derived cultures a little more prominence, since I have ancestry from those groups and this would theoretically be defensible.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean, that'd be a big screw-up, actually.

The OP said Indian subcontinent.

That's seven nations and countless religions. And a lot of people who do not think of themselves as Indian. You have India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. If you only have Indian people working on it, that's actually a massive political statement. Especially if they're also all Hindu. You'd want Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, and other people working on it too.

I know that on ENworld we should limit our discussion of politics and religion, but I think this is extremely relevant and would factor into any official Indian subcontinent setting - India right now, and for some time, has had a "Hindu Nationalist" government, which has taken fairly extreme actions against non-Hindus. India has a very long history of being a lot more than just Hinduism. As this is ENworld I don't think getting into the details (which are so important we were taught them at school, note, here in the UK - at least at my school) is helpful, but the Indian subcontinent has had and still does have many religions and mythologies, which interweave and interact.

If you produce a book that deletes all experiences and mythologies except Hindu ones, well, you are making a big statement. And if you produce a more diverse book, that's also making a statement, and a statement that might not be popular with the Indian government (if they even heard about it, which I admit they might not).

It's kind of incredible that Islam, for example, despite being a huge part of the history of that subcontinent, hasn't been mentioned, by any posters so far except very obliquely.

Yes, definitely. This would be a much stronger approach I'd suggest. And hopefully it would be a relatively diverse or complex region/period.

You all are making this a lot more political then it needs to be and over thinking things hugely. I care more about the quality then who makes it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Not always cultural appropiation has to be something wrong. It can be a hook to know and later to love other cultures. Today our society is enough cosmpolotina. There is a good reason to be allowed. For example if Western readers are used to amerimanga, later they could be interested in the original Japanese culture. "Spaguetti Western" are cultural appropiation if those movies were produced by Italians and not by Northamericans? One example, the anime "Sora no Woto" has used a real Spanish city, Cuenca, as "source of inspiration", to say it softly (there is in youtube a video comparing fiction and reality. And the city of Cuenca has chosen to use that anime as a hook for Japanese tourists. Do you understand? Allowing a little of "cultural appropiation" can open new doors to be introduced in our market.

Of course we can add some preventive disclaimer: "This title has been written trying to be respectful for other cultures and all possible ofense has been unentional".

Now we don't need a total setting, but some monsters and PC races for the nonce, and opening some doors in the DM Guild to see the reaction by the fandom and to test the level of tolerance.

There are other option, partnership with other companies for crossovers with mash-up versions of other franchises.