|
Okay, so I'm pretty new to the world of Golarion and DMing in general and I've been wondering...
What real world accents do people associate with Pathfinder's different cultures and ethnicities? What does a Varisian sound like, an Ulfen, and all the others? Do Snowcaster Elves speak differently from those in Kyonin? What do you think, forums? 8V
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I generally draw the accents from whatever the Golarion culture is Expying. So, Varisian has a bit of an eastern European accent, Ustalav has a "classic horror movie" Transylvanian villager accent. I can't do a Nordic accent, so I generally just go Swedish Chef for the Ulfen, and play it up for laughs.
Other nations, like Andoran, Taldor, Cheliax, ect don't really affect my accents, but more my manner of speaking. With Andoran, I tend to channel age of enlightenment philosophers, but with a bit of romanticism thrown in. With Cheliax, I channel Les Miserables, stealing and blending personalities and speech patterns from Javert, Enjolras, Gavroche, and the Thenardiers as I see fit.
To me, Varisians are Eastern European gypsies, Ulfen are obviously norse, and Chelaxians are French or British depending on whim.
Other people I've played with have insisted that Taldans are Spanish and that Galt is the French place.
Obviously, this doesn't include the obvious ones (Tian is Asia, Mwangi is Africa).
This is one of the most fun parts about dming.
I'd never put silly accents on my CV, but dming has helped me along in that area. I can still make my wife chuckle at the accents I pull out of my dm experience hat (senile old man, breathless woman, scared rogue, peasant, lordling, knight).
Dnd story, early days when she would pass the gaming room, I would be inside with just a few friends. She was very surprised to hear more people inside than she saw go in... a lot more. Accents and all that.
For Golarion, accents can be fine and dandy, but as Thol said above, if you can communicate philosophies in a short space of time, you are engaged in fine world-building, and making memorable characters.
Like running a bureaucrat or petty lord they encounter, who just happens to be total LE, but it sits like a fat content devil underneath his reasonable exterior.
Strong and highly cultured Chelaxian noble woman tired of people's s%+~ (and their breaking of the law), was a fun one to play.
For druids and nature spirits, I always run them wide-eyed, very clear and a bit unusual in the way they speak. Cultist variants.
Brevoyans, scared and paranoid, always close to raging.
Andorans, arrogant dicks, claim to know the way forward, or, perfectly reasonable freemen not like their crazy cousins.