The Shoanti, where are they?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


So, my group is getting ready to start the Serpents Skull AP, and as I was coming up with a character I came across the Shoanti in the world guide. I think they are awesome (I love tribal cultures), and I was wondering if any other information has been printed about them/ where I could find that information. I was also curious as to whether the Shoanti have any real world equivalent culture (I don't recall any bad@$$ volcanic wasteland nomads from world history, but maybe I missed that day).

Silver Crusade

Yep, the Shoanti are awesome. :)

The most in-depth info on the Shoanti can be found in Pathfinder #10 : History of Ashes, part of the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. It's really well worth checking out.

They're most commonly found in their homeland of Varisia, primarily on the Storval Plateau, though they commonly ranged across the whole of that nation before Chelish invaders happened.

They can also be found in sizable numbers extending into the Land of the Linnorm Kings and the Hold of Belkzen, at least those areas brushing up against Varisia, IIRC.

The general flavor of the Shoanti tends towards a Native American vibe at a glance, but they're very much their own culture, having near-forgotten origins as a military-slave caste for a now fallen empire. They've been stated as technically not being a "true" ethnicity, being comprised of many peoples originally, but it's also been noted that they are well on their way towards becoming one.


Mikaze wrote:

Yep, the Shoanti are awesome. :)

but it's also been noted that they are well on their way towards becoming one.

Agreed :)

And they have their own entry in the new campaign setting book, so I think that qualifies as own ethnicity.

Native American, though. I wasn't thinking about them, due to that whole Arcadia place...but I could see it happening. Crow + volcanoes and emberstorms + win = Shoanti (mebbe?)

And I'll have to track down #10. I am one of the heaviest roll-players in my group, and I can't stand not having cultural background play a part in my characters actions.

Thanks!


The idea that the Shoanti aren't an ethnicity is stark raving nonsense.

It's been TEN THOUSAND YEARS. That's long enough for superficial traits such as skin color and facial features to EVOLVE FROM SCRATCH in a population.

My one complaint about Golarion is that the authors do not seem to understand, on a deep level, the insane amounts of time we're dealing with.

Lantern Lodge

Personnally the came across to me as mongolians mixed with native americans. Their harsh enviroment fits with Mongols. Then the remnants of a great empire fits with the fall of the mongol empire.


Mix an Ottoman slave soldier with a 13th century Mongolian and out pops a kid. Then take a war-of-1812 Shawnee and rub them up against a Pict and out pops a kid.

Then have those kids grind a bit and have a kid.

>poof< Shoanti

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

The idea that the Shoanti aren't an ethnicity is stark raving nonsense.

It's been TEN THOUSAND YEARS. That's long enough for superficial traits such as skin color and facial features to EVOLVE FROM SCRATCH in a population.

My one complaint about Golarion is that the authors do not seem to understand, on a deep level, the insane amounts of time we're dealing with.

Ummm...

Shoainti ARE an ethnicity. They're in the new Inner Sea World Guide.

They were left out of the previous hardcover on accident.

So I'm not sure why you're all worked up?


I see the Shoanti as a remnant of people from Paleolithic times, during the ice ages, before the races developed, nothing native american, mongol or ottoman about them.


I agree with Knoq: They just seem like an archetypical tribal culture, a mix of neolithic and iron age cultures.

I can't see any resemblances to historic janissaries, picts or whatever.

Lantern Lodge

Seljuk Turks fit better since they were slaves who became their own country than Janissaries who always remained servants of Ottoman empire

Mongols(all clan groups) werent slaves but were constantly kept at odds by the dynasties to the south of them(read thassilon kept them under control)
-live on the steppes(fits both without explanation)
-live on plateau(fits both without explanation)
-Extremely loyal to clan more than anything else, to the point the clans have maintained for over 800 years
-tribal, considered barbaric by others, actually quite organized and civil in their own special way
-until recently(1980's)oppressed and second class citizens, in China they are still second class citizens(very similiar to shoanti in varisia, at least how I understood them from COCT)


Your arguments would fit to pretty much every historic tribal culture. One of the main characteristics of tribes is that they are treated as primitive by cultures that left the stage of nomadic tribalism, so that shouldn't connect Shoanti and Mongols.

Furthermore, only a fraction of the Shoanti tribes live on the steppes, some live at the sea, some in the mountains etc. (which changes their lifestyle enormously), most don't follow a nomadic lifestyle.

Lots of Shoantis leave their clans and end up as bouncers, mercenaries, guards or drunkards. Even those that still pretend to be "true" Shoantis sometimes lead lives that are very "civilized" (cf. ROTR brother of the sheriff).


Zyren Zemerys wrote:

Your arguments would fit to pretty much every historic tribal culture. One of the main characteristics of tribes is that they are treated as primitive by cultures that left the stage of nomadic tribalism, so that shouldn't connect Shoanti and Mongols.

Furthermore, only a fraction of the Shoanti tribes live on the steppes, some live at the sea, some in the mountains etc. (which changes their lifestyle enormously), most don't follow a nomadic lifestyle.

Lots of Shoantis leave their clans and end up as bouncers, mercenaries, guards or drunkards. Even those that still pretend to be "true" Shoantis sometimes lead lives that are very "civilized" (cf. ROTR brother of the sheriff).

Of course, "some" Shoanti have taken up different ways of life. But I'll note that the title of the article on them even is "People of the Storval Plateau." And yes, they are mostly nomadic.

Allow me to quote from that article, "By tradition, the Shoanti are seasonally nomadic hunter-gatherers, with most tribes following the Storval Plateau’s great herds of aurochs, although some quahs engage in
subsistence farming or a small amount of trade in favored lands. In centuries past, several Shoanti quahs established fixed settlements in southern Varisia, but such outposts served as forts, not centers of trade. Since their defeat by Chelish colonizers, most Shoanti have eschewed fixed settlements, seeing a need to defend a particular piece of land as an invitation to their many enemies."

And they use yurts, which are a term for portable dwellings for nomadic Turks and Mongols, as opposed to a more native american term. There are definitely things that hint at native americans, like the lack of personal property and the aurochs and spirit totems, but the cultural analogues aren't suppose dto be perfect and I bet some of those things were found in the Far East as well, we just look on them as "sounding Native American" because that's the nomad ethnicity we're most familiar with in the US.


Alright, it sounds like the jury's still out on a definitive single culture. So there probably wasn't one?
All of your suggestions make sense though, so I'll just try to pick bits and pieces from all of them.
Thanks for the input!


James Jacobs wrote:

Ummm...

Shoainti ARE an ethnicity. They're in the new Inner Sea World Guide.

They were left out of the previous hardcover on accident.

So I'm not sure why you're all worked up?

...I get worked up way too easily and don't stop to think before posting? n.n; Sorry...

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