Blowing Like Sand In The Wind - Looking at a non-traditional non-human culture

[Apupunchau]

A friend recently had a discussion about why in most fantasy settings humans have a number of different cultures but non-humans do not. Elves are Elves and Dwarves are Dwarves no matter where they are from on the world. A homogeneous culture everywhere. And where as he touched on why this is bad I think the best way to show people how to fix the problem is by example. So today I wanna look at a non-human race with a ulture that is not traditional to their people. To start things off I'm going to work with an underdeveloped dwarven culture on Golarion, the Desert Dwarves.

Do you use multiple cultures for the non-humans in your games? What kind of cultures have you made? Are the based on differences in environment, religion, alignment?

[Wheldrake]

Actually, that isn't true, concerning dwarves and elves in Golarion, and I would argue in the Forgotten Realms as well.

Take elves in Golarion. You have Modant Spire or Gray eleves, High elves, aquatic elves and wild elves. Not to mention the Forlorn, Snow elves and Desert elves. And really don't mention the Drow, who are also elves, after their own fashion.

If players and DMs rarely concern themselves with the ethnology of a given elf or dwarf, it's simply a shortcut, or at worst an abstraction. And the same goes for other races. A halfling from Varisia and a halfling from Chelliax aren't likely to have the same sort of life story to tell.

[Apupunchau]

Wheldrake wrote:

Actually, that isn't true, concerning dwarves and elves in Golarion, and I would argue in the Forgotten Realms as well.

Take elves in Golarion. You have Modant Spire or Gray eleves, High elves, aquatic elves and wild elves. Not to mention the Forlorn, Snow elves and Desert elves. And really don't mention the Drow, who are also elves, after their own fashion.

If players and DMs rarely concern themselves with the ethnology of a given elf or dwarf, it's simply a shortcut, or at worst an abstraction. And the same goes for other races. A halfling from Varisia and a halfling from Chelliax aren't likely to have the same sort of life story to tell.

In the article I very specifically point out that Golarion is one of the few places I can think of that have very culturally distinct groups of non-humans. SO yeah I've already touched on that. Faerun always seemed like their other elven races where just more excuses to have elves with different stats and the cultures where all just pretty much the same. And don't get me wrong I loved me some wild elves, but still pretty much just elves with tattoos.

[Dave Justus]

I'm actually trying pretty hard to think of a fantasy setting that is complex enough to showcase different human cultures but doesn't have different cultures for other races (and has other races in relatively large numbers) and I'm coming up blank.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Why not just have them use the same cultures as whatever humans you have?

Of course as far as I'm concerned I want funny-looking humans and anything else gives me a headache. (Though frankly the very concept of "culture" gives me a headache.)