Looking at the Gazetteer, I was wondering how the Shoanti fit in.
(I notice they didn't show up in the Gazetteer, so I assume they're unique to Varisia.)
It seems like most of the races & cultures have some real-world correlary.
(The Ulfen: Viking/Scandinavian, The Kellid: Eurasian semi-nomads)
Would it be that far off to say the Shoanti are a cultural hybrid between the Ulfen & the Kellid tribes?
Cool, thanks!
It would 'make sense' for whatever slaves that escape/ 'throw off their shackles', but are separated from their home cultures, ended up hooking up with local tribes who know how to live off the land, and end up adopting/sharing their cultures...
Sort of like Maroons in South America, I guess...
Hm, that makes me think some historical connection between the Shoanti and Arcadia could be interesting whenever Arcadia gets around to being written up.
The picture of Thousand Bones in Edge of Anarchy gives a definite Native American vibe...which was why the later pictures of other Shoanti confused me.
I'm comfortable with the fact that Shoanti aren't listed as a race in the Gazetteer, although I do think it's a bit disorienting to have not even a sidebar explanation. But I've run into a different problem.
The list of languages in the Gazetteer doesn't include Shoanti, either. Is Shoanti actually a separate language from all those listed in the Gazetteer, or is it actually just another name (or sub-dialect) for one of the listed languages? Assuming it is a separate language, is it more closely connected to Thassilonian than other modern languages (because their master's language became the slaves' common language), or is it more of an amalgam of the root languages that led to the other modern languages (born from a pidgin of the languages the slaves spoke)?
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The weird thing about the Shoanti is that while they're pretty important to Varisia... they're really NOT that important to Golarion. They dwell in a VERY small area, and they've been constantly threatened with extinction (mostly by orcs and giants, recently by Cheliax), so they never really took off.
Varisians, as an ethnicity, existed across northwestern Avistan for a LONG time. They were the native nomadic people when Thassilon settled and subjugated them. The Shoanti, though, didn't exist until AFTER Thassilon fell, and the combat caste of Thassilon's enslaved populace ended up having to fend for themselves in the age of darkness to follow. This group consisted of equal parts Varisian, Ulfen, and Khelid, I suspect, and their language is a combination of all three PLUS the Thassilonian language into one unique tongue called Shoanti. As for their culture, it's certainly got a strong element of the Native American in it, but it's also got elements from Varisian culture, Ulfen culture, Thassilonian culture, and Khelid culture.