WotC's forum "Iconics" discussion thread (or "goobye, Lidda")

[babomb]

Lidda must stay!

To heck with the rest.

 

[Klaus]

I've read the original suggestion that Regdar have no specific ethnicity (and I applaud that idea very much), but that's not how he was drawn by most artists. I don't know about Scourge of Worlds.

She doesn't look Asian to me. She has a very British skin tone and reminds me of certain small-featured English women I've known.

Well, if pale skin, black hair and almond-shaped eyes are British to you, it's because Great Britain had a great influx of Indian and Asian people since the days of the British Empire.

Or Italian. Or French. Or German.

German? Italian or French I can see, since Mediterranean people are more dusky (I can see Kerwyn as Spanish), but German? We're talking archetypes here, and the archetypal German would be rosy-coloured, with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Also, Naull and Kerwyn barely count as iconics, let's be honest.

Well, WotC does consider them Iconics, alongside Eberk and the PsIconics.

Alhandra. Gimble. Devis. Hennet. Tordek. Eberk. Et cetera.

Brown hair and eyes (reminds me a bit of J-Lo in that PHB picture).

Blonde with blue eyes. Typical for D&D gnomes. Just wish he had the gnomish earth-colored skin. Here's how I portray gnomes since the dawn of 3e:

Platinum blonde, like the other half-elf (which is curious, since elves are described as having black hair... ). At least it's consistent!

Hennet is Keanu Reeves in D&D form, and Keanu is far from Caucasian.

Tordek: Red hair, but not the usual freckles on red-haired humans.

Blonde hair (as far as we can see).

IMO, the 3.x Iconics portrayed a vast variety of ethnicities. This is something WotC did right.

It also goes beyond the iconics. In all of the ilustrations of characters in the core rules, how many are non-European? How many of the human-seeming creatures (fey, for instance) in the Monster Manual are nonwhite? They have two sets of illustrations for the planetouched (aasimar and tiefling) between the 3.0 and 3.5 versions, and all four are white.

This point I'll give you. When I illustrate counters and adventures, I make a point of including ethnical variety in the pictures.

 

[Baby Samurai]

I think the whole perving over Lidda thing has disgustingly gone on long enough.

I find it sick that so many dudes seem to salivate over what essentially is a pre-teen girl.

…There's a name for people like that.

 

[MightyTev]

Integrate the 3e iconics with Greyhawk Canon. Maybe even introduce a few Mialee spells in 4e?

 

[Baby Samurai]

Integrate the 3e iconics with Greyhawk Canon. Maybe even introduce a few Mialee spells in 4e?

I wouldn't like that myself, as I can't stand the Gary's NPCs that so many spells are named after.

Even Mordenkainen is his half-ass attempt at a rip off of the Finnish dude's name – Vainenmoinen (sp?)

 

[Umbran]

…There's a name for people like that.

Being accusatory is not constructive - it won't make them agree with you, or change their behavior, and may likely start an argument. Then nobody wins.

Folks, if you find a post or thread mortally objectionable, please report it. Trying to shout people down or shame them does not make these boards a nice place.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Being accusatory is not constructive - it won't make them agree with you, or change their behavior, and may likely start an argument. Then nobody wins.

Folks, if you find a post or thread mortally objectionable, please report it. Trying to shout people down or shame them does not make these boards a nice place.

Sorry, bad day at work – irritable.

 

[delericho]

Deleted, mod action.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

IMO, the 3.x Iconics portrayed a vast variety of ethnicities. This is something WotC did right.

I can't agree. Even if we count Regdar because he appears to be of "indeterminate ethnicity", there's one African-looking human - and Ember's skin tone is more "African with a large tincture of European", too, not that such is uncommon in either America or Africa of course.

Everyone else has a European skin tone, except Krusk, and he's grey!

I don't accept something like "Well, Kerwyn could be Latino", because he's white - if he's Latino, then he's from a very high-status family with mostly Spanish ancestry!

It's pure sophistry, and it's a reach to say that the iconics are ethnically diverse.

In any case - even if we accept your contention that there's quite a bit of diversity already - I would like to see more. There's no reason to cut European-looking PCs out of the game, but why can't we have artwork where no one ethnic group is in the majority?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Even Mordenkainen is his half-ass attempt at a rip off of the Finnish dude's name – Vainenmoinen (sp?)

Heh. In my first Third Edition game, one of the other guys was playing a half-fiend githyanki wizard named Vainenmoinen.

(It was Planescape, that's not as weird as it sounds!)