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Your opinion on basing fantasy countries on real world ones
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<blockquote data-quote="Urriak Uruk" data-source="post: 8461922" data-attributes="member: 7015558"><p>I think it can be well done, but the majority of the time it's not. Mostly because, in many settings you have a really unique and interesting "main continent" where most of the lore and hooks and adventures are supposed to take place... and then there's a little bit of side info about far-away countries that are just "Not-Asia" or "Not Africa."</p><p></p><p>Forgotten Realms does this (Faerun is unique, Kara-tur and Al-Qadim aren't). Warhammer Fantasy did this (The Old World was unique, Cathay and Ind were not). Hell, even Lord of the Rings did this with Rhun (Mongols) Harad (Middle East) and Khand (China).</p><p></p><p>The implication being that the place where almost everything happens (Faerun, the Old World, Middle Earth) are really interesting and unique takes on Europe and other cultures, but the far-away lands are just carbon-cutouts of real-world cultures, and are almost always portrayed as exotic or backward, or even worse invaders to destroy the local culture.</p><p></p><p>There are way more examples of this too, from Berserk to Game of Thrones to Wheel of Time (country/continent to the east is different, vague similarities to Middle/East Asia, probably evil, next to no actual information).</p><p></p><p>To flip to a good example, Warhammer Fantasy has recently just shown what Cathay (not-China) looks like in the Total War Warhammer 3 game (before it was just a far-away place)... and I think it looks great! It's definitely heavily inspired by China, but it also looks fun to play in within a TTRPG.</p><p></p><p>TLDR: Most of the time, the main setting is unique, and there are far away countries that have little lore and are just analogues for different cultures, and this is pretty lazy.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Urriak Uruk, post: 8461922, member: 7015558"] I think it can be well done, but the majority of the time it's not. Mostly because, in many settings you have a really unique and interesting "main continent" where most of the lore and hooks and adventures are supposed to take place... and then there's a little bit of side info about far-away countries that are just "Not-Asia" or "Not Africa." Forgotten Realms does this (Faerun is unique, Kara-tur and Al-Qadim aren't). Warhammer Fantasy did this (The Old World was unique, Cathay and Ind were not). Hell, even Lord of the Rings did this with Rhun (Mongols) Harad (Middle East) and Khand (China). The implication being that the place where almost everything happens (Faerun, the Old World, Middle Earth) are really interesting and unique takes on Europe and other cultures, but the far-away lands are just carbon-cutouts of real-world cultures, and are almost always portrayed as exotic or backward, or even worse invaders to destroy the local culture. There are way more examples of this too, from Berserk to Game of Thrones to Wheel of Time (country/continent to the east is different, vague similarities to Middle/East Asia, probably evil, next to no actual information). To flip to a good example, Warhammer Fantasy has recently just shown what Cathay (not-China) looks like in the Total War Warhammer 3 game (before it was just a far-away place)... and I think it looks great! It's definitely heavily inspired by China, but it also looks fun to play in within a TTRPG. TLDR: Most of the time, the main setting is unique, and there are far away countries that have little lore and are just analogues for different cultures, and this is pretty lazy. [/QUOTE]
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