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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 7619725" data-attributes="member: 1125">my nephew use to watch the cartoon series Blinky Bill, which is about a group of Anthropomorphized Australian animals having adventures in the Australia bush. Anyway I remember watching one episode when Blinky and friends go back in to the past to explore history, except they didnt go back in Australian history, instead Blinky (who is a koala) becomes a armoured knight out to save the princess from a medieval castle.I for one was really disappointed, sure it was a kids show but the example does illustrate the inherent bias of 'Western' views of their romantic 'fantasy' past - Fantasy has developed from the old folklore rendering of the Dark/Middle Ages with its Rogues, Knights, Castles, Wolves and Dragons who lived "Once Upon a Time" in a "Land Far Far Away".They might well, predate the imperial era of the 18th/19th century but the modern understanding of them was most certainly transformed and modified by the era. Its notable that you raise Tolkien as he also reflects some of the colonial reality of his era via the inclusion of the 'elephant' riding black Southrons, a 'warlike people' who side with Sauron and fought alongside the Orcs against the heroes.I accept that most of the Eddas and earliest European folklore has Man v Nature as its foundation, that of course is very evident in the development of the dragon, ogre and of course the wolf, witch and fey. But to say that the foreign other is unknown is incorrect as Africa and Near East were known, and even within Europe you have people like Saami, Roma and Picts who were other'd. REHs states that the Cimmerians were ancestors of the Irish and Scots Gaels and while Conan is a barbarian herepresents the finest ideals of the North West European as he is set against both decadent civilization of the northern lands and the exotic foreigners further south in Stygia (Egypt), Kush,  Zamora (Middle East) and Vendhya (India).While these renderings of the exotic other as dark scorcerer and beguiling enchantress may not play to the savage image (although the Afghuli of Afghulistan do) they are nonetheless colonial images of other as untrustworthy enemy that influenced the development of RPGs.As an aside does anyone remember Aesheba? an older setting envisioned as Greek-Africa? The book had some good research and nice ideas but for me there was always that niggling thought that Africa is rich enough to have its own existance without needing to overlay ancient Greece on top  Actually my playing orcs was probably more inspired by my love of Pigsy (Cho Hakkai) from Monkey Magic, I also used a half-orc to approximate Woefully Fat the Pirate bokor in On Stranger Tides. The character I played most often was a gnome - also non-human, but more easily kept out of conflict.That indeed is one of the dilemma in playing DnD races as races rather than as monsters and of course I am not unique in that as can be seen in the various cultural reskinnings that have happened over the years, most notably of course the Native American Elfs of Dragonlance.Anyway this thread has been popular and the discussion moved ...</blockquote>

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