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As far as I can tell, varisians are the stereotypical gypsy. They are nomadic, scarves, colors, fortune tellers (harrow decks?), and have the same good and bad reputations in some cities.
However, if I am explaining the various ethnicities, or cultures, and call varisians gypsies, some people get very, very upset.
Gypsy is such a perfect word for varisian. Roma isn't. Roma doesn't make sense for Varisians, and to liken them is insulting to roma. Roma didn't travel because they were wanderers and worshipped a god of travel and stars and luck. They moved because they were persecuted.
I get why calling a Roma a gypsy is wrong. I don't get why calling varisians gypsies is wrong. There is no politically correct word for them, and I think that calling varisians Roma is insulting to Roma.
So, My question is:
1) Does Varisian = stereotypical gypsy?
2) If so, what do I call them to avoid future arguments/issues?
3) Or what can I say to make it ok, in this sense, to call them that?
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How about calling them Varisian?
What benefit do you get from calling them Gypsies?
There's not much you can say that would make it ok to use a racial slur in a gaming group. Just because you think Varisians are a perfect match for an ethnic stereotype doesn't make it ok to use it.
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Explaining them to someone new to Pathfinder.
Osirian = Egypt
Qadira = 1000 arabian nights
Land of the Linnorm Kings = Vikings
Tian Xia = Asia, with all of the different ethnicities and cultures
Mwangi = African native tribes
Vudra = India before islam
Shoanti = native americans
Varsians = ??
Taldan = aristocracy/empire in decline
Galt = French Revolution
Shackles = Pirates
Cheliax = Devil worshippers
Realm of the Mammoth Lords = primitive man + mammoths
and so on.
Perhaps just calling them nomads would be sufficient
Varisia = fantasy Italy/Greece (ancient ruins of an advanced civilization, divided city-states, rural communities outside of the major city-states)
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I do think they're stereotypical gypsies, which is kind of a failing of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting. But using the slur to describe this fictional ethnicity seems like adding insult to injury. I think it's better to divorce them from gypsy stereotypes and just describe them as inheritors of an arcane empire.
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Since when are Shoanti based on Native Americans? I always thought they were based on Conan's Cimmerian tribes.
Taldor is actually based on the late Roman Empire I think. As for Varisians, just call them nomadic wanderers, or Romani. People get really angry about the word Gypsy.
Yeah, I wouldn't lean on the "They're basically this real-world group of people". It's kinda stinky for everyone, but especially if the only way to be clear is to use a slur.
It's good that you're asking, but in this case, I'd just say who they are. Most people will fill it in with their own assumptions when you say "nomadic performers and fortune-tellers".
At least the Varisians aren't as bad as the Vistani. :P
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When you're describing a region's "hat", focusing on ethnic Varisians is missing Varisia's hat- city states and the ruins of an ancient magical empire.
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"Caravaneers," maybe?
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There is immense value in quickly describing a culture, country, etc to a newcomer as a close analogue to the real world.
So, I'll often say "Ulfen, the not-vikings" or "Osiria, not-Egypt".
With Varisians specifically I usually say
"They are very much like gypsies as shown in Hollywood movies". That makes the point clear and specifically distances them from real life Roma. As far as I know nobody has been upset by this.
The term I usually see for groups (of which there are more than one, see link below for fun reading) like Varisians is "itinerant people," but, I admit, that's not very sexy.
Gypsy is a slur based on the Greek idea that the Romani were originally from Egypt so it wouldn't fit anyway. Romani is probably more respectful than Gypsy. Check out Doomed Hero's link.
They share some similarities with the real-life people but they do get more fleshing out as a unique culture with its own mores and customs in other Pathfinder books like the Curse of the Crimson Throne and Inner Sea Races.
I am not Romani so I cannot judge if the depiction is truly racist or not. I just hope that the depth given to them in later books is enough to make it better than the usual depiction they get.
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With Varisians specifically I usually say
"They are very much like gypsies as shown in Hollywood movies". That makes the point clear and specifically distances them from real life Roma. As far as I know nobody has been upset by this.
As someone who is part 'real-life gypsy' (my mom's dad was Romani, and the rest of the French family could be a bit racist about that), I would find this sort of honesty less awkward than dancing around the description, which is, quite accurately, 'Just about every Hollywood gypsy stereotype you can imagine. Swarthy, curly-black hair, baggy pants or skirts, lots of layers, vests or bodices, swirling scarves, old fortune tellers, tarot/harrow cards, nomads travelling in caravans with brightly-painted wagons and probably being accused in absentia of every missing pig or pregnant daughter after they leave an area, etc.'
But that's just me. I'm certainly not the voice of a culture, here, and others might be offended. IMO, it would be more appropriate to be offended by the existence (and perpetuation) of these stereotypes, or, even more to the point, the fairly real prejudice (mostly in Europe) against them, than against the guy explaining to you that multiple fantasy games (including D&D's Ravenloft setting and the World of Darkness) have caricaturized 'gypsy' analogues.
I'd imagine that somewhere in the gaming community there's an Asian person who isn't exactly thrilled that various fantasy depictions of Asian regions always seem include an area filled with giant monsters, point-based honor systems or clans of black pajama-clad ninja or various other oddities that are neither reflective of or respective to their own (possibly not even Japanese) culture.
Our games are filled with Hollywood tropes about foreign cultures. We could perhaps do better (or go the Eberron route and make completely fantastic nations/cultures with no 'fantasy Vikings' or 'fantasy Arabia' or 'fantasy Egypt' or 'fantasy Native Americans' in it), but, for now, it is what it is.
This sort of thing is one reason I like one of two options;
1) Totally fantasy nations, no 'analogues' of India, Africa, etc. A world like Dark Sun, or Eberron. Lots of places like Cheliax and Karnath and Furyondy, no Al-Qadim or Mulhorand or Iblydos.
2) A 'Civilization' esque fantasy world that is *all* analogues of real-world earth and real-world nations (with some historical meddling to allow various cultures like Rome, Carthage, the Mayan empire, etc. to co-exist at the same time as each other), set on the real map of the real Earth. No 'fantasy nations.' (Such a world setting would be far more humanocentric than even Golarion, Greyhawk, etc.) There are plenty of gaming books like AD&D's Complete Viking or GURPS Aztecs that delve more deeply into real world cultures than a one-page nation overview (or even a gazetteer, which will, by necessity, address things more relevant to a game, like what's illegal and where you can buy new magic bling) in a larger general book can do.
Mixing and matching fantasy nations with real world analogues, IMO, ends up being a little weird, and invites questions like 'why is Chult, the Africa analogue, and home to all the black people in the Realms, so tiny (taking up maybe 50% more map space than the Moonshaes, fantasy *Ireland*)?' or 'why do so few of these settings have Jewish people, or a fantasy Masada or Israel?'
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Most Romani and related groups find the term insulting. You can argue to your heart's content that "gypsy" invokes colourful wagons full of fun-loving people, but over here, it invokes stereotypes of "unwashed car thieves who refuse to integrate with our glorious Slavic societies and chose to live in ghettos full of grime and crime". And it gets worse in Slovakia and Hungary, trust me.
Most Romani and related groups find the term insulting. You can argue to your heart's content that "gypsy" invokes colourful wagons full of fun-loving people, but over here, it invokes stereotypes of "unwashed car thieves who refuse to integrate with our glorious Slavic societies and chose to live in ghettos full of grime and crime". And it gets worse in Slovakia and Hungary, trust me.
Cheers. I guess I've just missed that subtext in my readings of the word (although I'm going to plead geographical isolation as my defence).
FWIW, I wasn't intending to "argue" the meaning - it's just I've never heard all those negative connotations. (If anything I would have labelled the gypsy stereotype as a bit fanciful and romantic in the too-good-to-be-true vein). I'm happy to concede I was wrong though.
IIRC, the Varisians were an homage to the "Vistani" from the Ravenloft campaign setting.
Of course, the Vistani were themselves the Hollywood stereotype of "gypsies" themselves... and were called "gypsies" directly in the original 1983 AD&D module I6: Ravenloft. 33 years ago, it wasn't widely acknowledged that the term "gypsy" was considered offensive by the people themselves. That's why TSR changed the name when they published the "Demiplane of Dread" campaign setting.
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Most Romani and related groups find the term insulting. You can argue to your heart's content that "gypsy" invokes colourful wagons full of fun-loving people, but over here, it invokes stereotypes of "unwashed car thieves who refuse to integrate with our glorious Slavic societies and chose to live in ghettos full of grime and crime". And it gets worse in Slovakia and Hungary, trust me.Cheers. I guess I've just missed that subtext in my readings of the word (although I'm going to plead geographical isolation as my defence).
FWIW, I wasn't intending to "argue" the meaning - it's just I've never heard all those negative connotations. (If anything I would have labelled the gypsy stereotype as a bit fanciful and romantic in the too-good-to-be-true vein). I'm happy to concede I was wrong though.
Oh, one could write a PhD or two about how wildly different is the perception of Roma in the West and in the East.
To be honest and clear, a lot of the positive stereotype has solid grounds in reality - the Roma have a fascinating culture and contributed a lot to cultures of nations where they are present.
However, the word "gypsy" has been used in European (British, Irish) English as a slur against not only Roma, but also several less-known nomadic peoples, such as the Irish Travellers. Pretty much the same happened to cognates of the greek tziganoi such as the German Zigeuner or Polish cygan.
Only the French managed to partially dodge the bullet by calling Roma Bohémiens and later developing the whole bohemian topos of wine, absinthe, dance, poverty, brothels, Moulin Rouge and Nicole Kidman kissing Ewan McGregor. So it's still kind of more about sultry girls dancing alluringly among colourful wagons.
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Only the French managed to partially dodge the bullet by calling Roma Bohémiens and later developing the whole bohemian topos of wine, absinthe, dance, poverty, brothels, Moulin Rouge and Nicole Kidman kissing Ewan McGregor. So it's still kind of more about sultry girls dancing alluringly among colourful wagons.
Hmm. Two of my favourite operas are La Boheme and Carmen. Now I know why :-) :-)
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Most Romani and related groups find the term insulting. You can argue to your heart's content that "gypsy" invokes colourful wagons full of fun-loving people, but over here, it invokes stereotypes of "unwashed car thieves who refuse to integrate with our glorious Slavic societies and chose to live in ghettos full of grime and crime". And it gets worse in Slovakia and Hungary, trust me.
Thank you for that (sincerely). I hadn't realized that it had that strong a meaning. The Roma aren't very common up here in Canada and, while I certainly knew that there was a lot of prejudice against them in a lot of places I did not know that they saw "gypsy" as an inherently pejorative term.
As an aside, is there any reason to prefer Roma over Romani or vice versa?
How would you suggest I introduce the culture to players new to Golarion? As I said above, in PFS when dealing with new players I find it very convenient and effective to do so with a short pithy real world analogue. Would "The way Hollywood shows Romani" work? I'm not 100% sure that everybody would recognize what I mean by Romani. But I'm an old fart and maybe completely out of touch :-(
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Only the French managed to partially dodge the bullet by calling Roma Bohémiens and later developing the whole bohemian topos of wine, absinthe, dance, poverty, brothels, Moulin Rouge and Nicole Kidman kissing Ewan McGregor. So it's still kind of more about sultry girls dancing alluringly among colourful wagons.
That might be a city mouse/country mouse thing, as well. My not-so-cosmopolitan south-of-France relatives used 'Bohemian' as a slur, which, from context, seemed to be some sort of mix of irresponsible/unreliable/untrustworthy and a dash of promiscuous.
I'd imagine it's different for someone living in Paris, surrounded by all sorts of non-local folk.
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As an aside, is there any reason to prefer Roma over Romani or vice versa?(
It's regional. The Romani people are divided into two loose "nations" called the Roma and the Sinti. They consider themselves the same people. To outsiders it is very hard to tell because the Romani don't have geographic borders to describe where they are from. Instead, their nations are based on loose regional areas and family lineage.
As for how to introduce them to your players, it would be perfectly acceptable to say something along the lines of "you'd probably recognize them best as a hollywood caricature of gypsies, but since the word gypsy is actually a racial slur this will be the last time I refer to them in that way. I'll use Romani instead since that is the word they use to describe themselves."
There's a lot of people out there who don't know that "gypsy" is derogatory. Any time a new player is introduced to Varisians, that is potentially a real-life teachable moment. Don't be overbearing about it. Just use the word everyone knows, then explain why you won't be using it again.
If you want to make your Varisians a little less hollywood-caricature, consider doing a little research into Romani culture and borrowing interesting aspects for your game. Here's a couple you might use-
1) Because of the exotification of Varisian women, no Varisian woman will go near a non-Varisian man without a male family member as an escort. This is seen as blatant misogyny and a means to control women by some outsiders (and in some cases they are right), but traditionally it is a means to protect women from rape or kidnapping. This is also why Varisian men are always armed with at least a dagger. Varisian men will never give up their weapons while a Varisian woman is present.
2) Matchmaking and arranged marriages are extremely important to the Varisian people because it can be hard to find a spouse who is not related. In the absence of arranged marriages, many young varisian men will resort to kidnapping young women from other families. Inter-family kidnapping is a common enough practice that it has become normalized and treated as sport by some Varisian families, but it leaves deep psychological scars that are often not ever dealt with.
I'm sure you'll find more traditions to adapt for your games with some research. As with any time you borrow directly from real life, give it a twist to fit the game world, and be respectful of the culture you are borrowing from.
Hope this helps.
Those are both somewhat negative aspects, though, so definitely do more research so you don't just take the "problems". Just like how if you're going to feature Fantasy French Folk, take the art and good food, not just the smoking and adultery. :P
(To be clear: I don't mean to simplify those as problems, as the former is clearly more a problem Roma people deal with from other cultures, and the latter has a fairly interesting first half before it gets to the uncomfortable area. But they're both fairly negative aspects of what's clearly a super diverse culture.)
Of course. Thanks Kobold.
I find that the Varisians as presented seem a bit "whitewashed" to me. Probably because of the Hollywood influence. The books discuss prejudice against the Varisians, but they don't really talk about examples of it, or how that long-term prejudice has effected the culture.
The examples I put out aren't intended to put a negative light on Varisians (or real-life Romani). They are my own adaptations of historical real-life cultural practices. They are not accurate to history (and they are not intended to be), but they do borrow enough aspects to be recognizable and maintain some of the painful consequences of long-term persecution.
My intent was to provide a bit of counterbalance to what I consider to be an overly simplistic presentation from Paizo.
I think it's better that Paizo approaches subjects like this with a soft touch. Everyone knows that Cheliax is supposed to be a sexist and racist nation but you don't see much explicit portrayal of either in Hell's Rebels or Hell's Vengeance. There are a good number of players that don't necessarily want the game that they play for fun to be that real and for those that do the GM can introduce the subject matter at their discretion so players can role play fitting reactions.
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Gypsy doesn't necessarily refer to the Roma. There's ample room for considering the word a slur (akin to Tramp or Bum or maybe even Hobo) and that is fair enough reason to avoid its use to describe the Varisians, but saying it's a racist slur is a step beyond objectively fair critique.
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Gypsy doesn't necessarily refer to the Roma. There's ample room for considering the word a slur (akin to Tramp or Bum or maybe even Hobo) and that is fair enough reason to avoid its use to describe the Varisians, but saying it's a racist slur is a step beyond objectively fair critique.
It's true that in some English speaking regions the meaning of the word has become watered down but I don't think that means that we ignore the racist history behind its usage.
I find that the Varisians as presented seem a bit "whitewashed" to me. Probably because of the Hollywood influence. The books discuss prejudice against the Varisians, but they don't really talk about examples of it, or how that long-term prejudice has effected the culture.
The examples I put out aren't intended to put a negative light on Varisians (or real-life Romani). They are my own adaptations of historical real-life cultural practices. They are not accurate to history (and they are not intended to be), but they do borrow enough aspects to be recognizable and maintain some of the painful consequences of long-term persecution.
My intent was to provide a bit of counterbalance to what I consider to be an overly simplistic presentation from Paizo.
Curse of the Crimson Throne does mention the Sczarni who are often the source of anti-Varisian stereotypes as they are a bunch of criminals. This is still white-washed as regular Varisian society doesn't care for them even if there is the fact that they will often aid them against outsiders.
I liked the Varisians and I was inspired to delve more deeply into their culture and of the real life Romani as a result. That said, I can see how someone can see the general description of them in the Inner Sea World guide and not dig any deeper.
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Gypsy doesn't necessarily refer to the Roma. There's ample room for considering the word a slur (akin to Tramp or Bum or maybe even Hobo) and that is fair enough reason to avoid its use to describe the Varisians, but saying it's a racist slur is a step beyond objectively fair critique.
If a culture decides that a word being used to describe them is derogatory or pejorative, you do not get to decide that it isn't.
As far as I can tell, varisians are the stereotypical gypsy. They are nomadic, scarves, colors, fortune tellers (harrow decks?), and have the same good and bad reputations in some cities.
However, if I am explaining the various ethnicities, or cultures, and call varisians gypsies, some people get very, very upset.
Gypsy is such a perfect word for varisian. Roma isn't. Roma doesn't make sense for Varisians, and to liken them is insulting to roma. Roma didn't travel because they were wanderers and worshipped a god of travel and stars and luck. They moved because they were persecuted.
I get why calling a Roma a gypsy is wrong. I don't get why calling varisians gypsies is wrong. There is no politically correct word for them, and I think that calling varisians Roma is insulting to Roma.
So, My question is:
1) Does Varisian = stereotypical gypsy?
2) If so, what do I call them to avoid future arguments/issues?
3) Or what can I say to make it ok, in this sense, to call them that?
Considering that gypsy is a pejorative term in the same way that the N-word is, how about take the radical step and call them what they are... Varisians? I'm pretty sure that they've never been anywhere near Egypt.
Creative Director
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Since when are Shoanti based on Native Americans? I always thought they were based on Conan's Cimmerian tribes.
Since I first put them into my homebrew setting back in the early 90s.
But since then, other cultures have inspired them as well, including a little bit of Scottish culture and some of the Conan stuff (which is more focused on the Kellids) and a few other ethnicities—they're not meant to be a 100% accurate analog for Native Americans, any more than anything else.
As for Varisians, we've tried hard to never refer to them as "Gypsies" because the word IS offensive. There's more to Varisians than a stereotype in any event, as folks have noted on this thread.
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Since when are Shoanti based on Native Americans? I always thought they were based on Conan's Cimmerian tribes.Since I first put them into my homebrew setting back in the early 90s.
But since then, other cultures have inspired them as well, including a little bit of Scottish culture and some of the Conan stuff (which is more focused on the Kellids) and a few other ethnicities—they're not meant to be a 100% accurate analog for Native Americans, any more than anything else.
As for Varisians, we've tried hard to never refer to them as "Gypsies" because the word IS offensive. There's more to Varisians than a stereotype in any event, as folks have noted on this thread.
It's pretty much the same thing as referring to the inhabitants of Garund by the N-word.
Wow, interesting reading.
We obviously don't have Gypsies here in Australia, so the idea it is a 'slur' has never once come up in a conversation.
I know quite a few Spaniards who I work with, and they seem to take great pride in their Gypsy background and call themselves Gypsies. That it is a slur word has never been raised by them, they describe it more as representative of being more roguish than bad, and find the whole thing rather humorous.
I suppose it comes down to 'depends on your audience'.
I know quite a few Spaniards who I work with, and they seem to take great pride in their Gypsy background and call themselves Gypsies. That it is a slur word has never been raised by them, they describe it more as representative of being more roguish than bad, and find the whole thing rather humorous.
I suppose it comes down to 'depends on your audience'.
In Spain, "gitanos" are generally less marginalized than in other parts of Europe (not saying that they aren't, but often less so). The music, dancing and bullfighting aspects of Spanish Romani culture are seen by many there as "essentially Spanish". In other countries with large Romani groups, such as Romania, the divide between the Romani and the non-Romani population is massive.
Exactly the example I was thinking, and perhaps quite illustrative taking into account that there are some Spaniards that would be heavily offended for being called Spaniard.
I know quite a few Spaniards who I work with, and they seem to take great pride in their Gypsy background and call themselves Gypsies. That it is a slur word has never been raised by them, they describe it more as representative of being more roguish than bad, and find the whole thing rather humorous.
It becomes understandable given the long rule of Dictator Francisco Franco, otherwise known as the beta version of Mussolini and Hitler who conducted a decades long program of purging minority ethnicity, language, and culture such as Catalonia. Catalonians among others tend to resent being lumped in the generic label of "Espana".
Thejeff, the Liverpool group was in 1927, so yeah that's pretty much extinct now.
The SBS link was interesting - my favourite part was how one of them bought a caravan from an old Punch and Judy show so she could have a stereotypical Gypsy wagon to cruise around in.
Yeah they might have some Gypsy background, but they aren't in a Gypsy culture anymore. It is an accepted way of life here in Australia to be a nomad - particularly the Grey Nomads who caravan up and down the East coast chasing the Sun through the year. Owning a caravan and touring around a country for fun and leisure =/= Gypsy culture.
"Today, due to assimilation, greater educational and vocational opportunities, and the preference for a more sedentary and comfortable life, the presence of Gypsies in Australia is not obvious. Ironically, an openly multicultural society, devoid of persecution, has probably functioned to weaken Gypsy culture in Australia, rather than strengthen it"
The final line probably says it all:
“I've always been incredibly proud of my Gypsy heritage.”
Doesn't sound like much of a 'slur'.