Sakura Kian Fane's page

The Raven Black wrote:

Set wrote:

But I kind of feel the same way about the nations. There's fantasy Egypt and fantasy Persia and fantasy China, but where's the fantasy Poland or Ireland or Germany? Why just the 'exotic' (to a white guy...) places?

If you look closely at the Inner Sea Region, you will see that it's actually full of 'exotic' places / tropes to an American guy : Galt, Taldor, Irrisen, Lands of the Linnorm Kings ...

And in my personal opinion, in the case of Taldor, not enough was done to make it unique. I would have been happy if the characters from the Taldor aristocracy wore not the standard European dresses and uniforms, but something inspired by real Byzantine clothing.

Seconded. Obviously it doesn't need to be exactly accurate to the Eastern Roman Empire--it really shouldn't be, both because Golarion generally avoids copying history that directly and because there are lots of differences like the equivalents to Egypt and Syria not being part of it at any point--but it'd be nice to at least have more of the clothing, architecture, & other visual aspects of that period and some influences from the cultures of the Balkans and Anatolia. But I'll admit I'm heavily biased as a Byzantine Empire nerd haha.

Some fun new Iobaria tidbits arrived in Howl of the Wild! Vurnirn is the largest Centaur settlement there, while Roam is a potentially-mythic (as in nonexistent, not Mythic mechanically) home for Awakened Animals.

We also get a new Iblydan origin for minotaurs, as the descendants of a mason cursed for accidentally angering a hero-god.

Making the original minotaur (according to legend anyway) equate to both Daedalus and the Minotaur himself in the original story was a pretty neat twist.

KaiBlob1 wrote:

VerBeeker wrote:

“I invite you to visit Droon!”

*punching ground*

I want to! I WANT TO SO BAD!

I'm really hoping that the droon teasers in this are bread crumbs for a soon-to-be-announced southern garund lost omens book, its a region of the world we've really never explored in anything 1e or 2e. We know more about Akiton than we do about southern garund lol

We actually have names and tidbits about... I think it was either 12 or 14 nations in Southern Garund, the last time I counted! Would love to see it get some actual spotlight, though.

Agreed. My count is 10--Chauxen, Dehrukani, Droon, Eihlona, Ekkeshikaar, Holomog, Nurvatcha, Tirakawhan, Kaz'ulu (3 city-states), and Murraseth (first among equals in a loose alliance of 4 city-states). So arguably up to 15 if you count the nearby city-states separately.

Kelseus wrote:

Benjamin Tait wrote:

So we know of unholy animals (like the Thrunosaurus), what holy animals/beasts are there in here?

Karkadann looks like an ugly unicorn. Creature 7 with Fey and Holy trait.

Alicorn- Flying unicorn Creature 11

Makes sense, the Karkadann and Unicorn come from the same original myth interpreted two different ways. The theories I heard in school was early traders saw african rhinos and told stories about them and they spread from South Africa to North Africa, then across the sea to Europe and the Middle East. An extremely long game of telephone.

Europeans heard the stories of a magical hoofed creature with a resistance to weapons (because of a Rhino's thick hide) and a single sword-like horn and assumed it was like a horse with a straight horn, and made the Unicorn. In the Middle East they heard that story and figured it was a lizard-horse with a curved sword-like horn.

At least that's what I half remember from a class about mythology...

Unicorns are more likely inspired by the Indian rhinoceros (fittingly named Rhinoceros unicornis) since they're said to be from India in Greek writings. The same is true of the karkadann, which is of Persian, not North African origin.

VerBeeker wrote:

I find it a little odd they don’t have population numbers next to the capital cities…

Are those in any other Lost Omens book? I don't recall many hard population numbers in 2e.

Yes, most of them. Definitely all of the major regional guides so far.

No stats that I'm aware of, but she has a section in Lost Omens Legends.

Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse says "Shisks are almost completely unknown outside of the Mwangi Expanse" and goes on to mention there are a handful in southern Thuvia and rumors of an enclave in Nex at the Shattered Range that separates the two regions.

I don't think the Shisk have any basis in real-world cultures or folklore (I am not an expert but have read a decent amount about African history and mythology...though that is of course an extremely broad brush so there easily could be something one of the writers knows about that I don't). One shisk is shown playing a balafon, an instrument of Mandinka origin with equivalents in surrounding regions, so West African aesthetics would fit, but otherwise they seem purely fantasy to me.

There isn't really a single culture that could be definitively stated to be the oldest on Earth--Aboriginal Australians comprise a few hundred cultures that wouldn't have seen themselves as a unified group even in a broader sense until the colonial period. A lot of claims about them being the world's oldest culture are based on their common descent from the people who initially settled the continent 65,000 years ago; one might as well say Africans and/or Eurasians are older "cultures" by that logic. Genetics and geography=/=culture. Some have made arguments based around oral history describing events confirmed by climate research to have happened 10,000 years ago, which is fascinating and impressive, but that doesn't make them all one single culture for the entirety of that period any more than the flood myth proves that all the peoples of Iraq and the Eastern Mediterranean are collectively the second-oldest or something.
The truth is we don't know when most cultural groups first came into being, and the ones we do know tend to be relatively recent. Any one of the hundreds of indigenous Australian ethnic groups COULD have the oldest continuous culture (however you'd even define that to begin with), but there are other candidates across the world. Others may disagree but I personally feel such assertions risk implying their societies have been static for dozens of millennia, an unfortunately common assumption made about many indigenous groups which can get very noble-savage-y very quickly.

With that nitpicky spiel aside (sorry, it's a bit of a pet peeve of mine) I do agree. So long as creatives of that origin are directly involved in the writing (from what I've heard they tend to prefer not to have their traditional beliefs adapted into pop culture without their input) that'd be cool. Doing something for Australia's deserts would be hard, since all the sizable hot deserts depicted on the world map are already in regions drawing from real-world ones, but I could see the rest potentially fitting in that one mysterious peninsula in southeastern Casmaron. That basically hasn't been covered at all to my knowledge, so it'd be easy to put in something that hasn't been mentioned previously.

I don't think it's so much that either of them expects to get much from the other, and more that they're both opposed to Cheliax and motivated to support revolutionary movements similar to the ones which established their respective countries, so their interests are generally aligned.

That doesn't contradict my point, which is that the concept of "being Chelaxian" hasn't gone away, just that they are now classified as ethnically Taldan due to shared history, language, etc with the Taldans of eastern Avistan.

Besides, arguments can and have been made that the previous Chelaxian ethnic category can be understood as an in-universe attempt to build a nationalistic identity to distinguish themselves from Taldor despite those obvious similarities . That sort of constructed identity is the basis of plenty of modern European ethnic groups, so it's not unbelievable as a concept, but since Golarion's ethnicities tend to refer to broader groups it's best left as a perception (probably largely by Chelaxian elites who are the most likely to put stock in the concept of Cheliax as a nation to begin with) rather than something referred to in the main rulebooks, hence the change to chelaxian=taldan.
As LOCG points out, ideas of ethnicity are subjective with varying degrees of specificity as in the real world; if Sargavans are sometimes viewed as a group in their own right as LOME implies, a similar attitude towards Cheliax among some people makes sense after 640 years of independence. I'm well aware that sort of ethno-nationalism has often had very unfortunate results in the real world, but this is also a country that's designed to be antagonistic within the setting (even before the Hell stuff, they had a colonial empire and allied with Nidal).

TL;DR yes the ethnicity is Taldan and the nationality is Chelaxian, I was just noting that "Taldans of southwestern Avistan sometimes differentiate themselves from the rest" still works as an idea in 2e lore

Similarly, I'm pretty sure Osiriani is the language and Osirian is everything else. The ethnicity is called Garundi, not Osiriani.

Nothing has changed the prevalence of Iobarians in Mendev and Brevoy, I think they're still mentioned as the original populace of the former in LOCG but I'll have to check. In any case 1e was the first to establish that there was a Taldan presence in that area. Ethnic Chelaxians haven't been retconned away so much as redefined as a subgroup.

I don't think alignment is really all that useful as a shorthand for politics given how different any given individual interpretation of such vague terms as "good" "evil" "lawful" etc are going to be be. At least for character alignments it's only addressing one person; trying to fit entire societies into 9 easy categories of morality is even more unreliable. Not that it isn't attempted in the real world (side-eyes political compass tests) but it tends to be very subjective in practice.

For my part, I don't think authoritarians are necessarily opposed to innovation. They can be, but just as often they instead want it to be fully controlled by whatever power they support.

And one more message, because I don't know where to post it, and this question is very distant, but it concerns the regions. I have a question - why is the population of Golarion so small? I mean, Absalom's population of 300,000 is very small. Baghdad in the tenth century AD had a population of two million. At various times prior to this, Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria very likely had populations of more than a million, and it is also possible that Syracuse and even Babylon. Compared to this, Absalom as the largest city in the world looks rather pathetic.

Baghdad had one million people in the 10th century, not two, and Constantinople/Istanbul didn't reach that until the 20th century. Population numbers for Rome and Alexandria in ancient times are controversial; more recent estimates for the latter have it at nearly a million if you count suburbs and half if not. Nitpicks aside, you absolutely have a point: Absalom having a population double or triple what it has in canon could absolutely be justified based on real world history. I've often considered that strange.

Now, personally, I'd argue that the incentive to gather in protected settlements provided by monsters should make city populations bigger, not smaller. Not to mention how much magic helps with disease, infant mortality, etc--I presume spellcasters are more common per capita in urban areas and that's likely a draw in itself. But one could make a case for the crises that kicked off the Age of Lost Omens shaking things up enough to offset those factors, and at times mages can cause as many problems as they solve. Also, the biggest cities in the world had a population of less than half a million in the 12th-14th centuries so it's not totally unimaginable.

I think a part of it has to do with D&D 3.5's settlement size guidelines, which had 25K+ as "metropolis". But mainly, the designers of the setting probably just didn't feel like they needed to match how things were IRL; plenty of things in Golarion are quite different from actual history. At the end of the day Pathfinder is more "fantasy with a vaguely premodern/early modern aesthetic" than emulating any real time period. So while I would've personally given Absalom more people, I'm not as bothered by it as I used to be.

What's more unusual is the top 2 cities by population both being city-states and not imperial capitals—or port cities serving as provincial capitals in major empires—as has been the case for the past 3500 years or so, but that's a ramble for another time.

Ah right, I'd forgotten the 3rd one will be returning to Arcadia. Exciting.

keftiu wrote:

Tropkagar wrote:

I would also add Mzali. I can't say how they feel about non-humans, but they have different methods of interacting with other humans. If you are not from the people of Mwangi, then when you enter this city, you will simply be executed. I am sure that such a position of the state is very xenophobic.

Strength of Thousands does likely see those restrictions relaxed. We’ll see where the canon results of that land, but progress in that AP assumes Mzali opens up at least a little, and potentially almost completely.

I believe the ban on non-Mwangi applies to nonhumans; some book mentions a Halfling staying away.

Well, I would say that we have to wait another six years until the third edition to be confident about it.

I'm just not sure if this restriction applies to the non-human groups that Mwangi is home to. After all, we have enough varieties of elves from here.

The population of Mzali is 99% human as of the Mwangi Expanse book, make of that what you will.

keftiu wrote:

The nations of the Segada Protocol haven't pushed them out yet, even after a number of heinous crimes from the Chelish colonists; I'd love to know why.

I won't pretend to be as up on Arcadia as I am about the Inner Sea, but the impression I've always had is that the Segada Protocol tolerates the Avistani colonies because they're so geographically small, militarily weak, and economically insignificant compared to its indigenous neighbours that they're simply not worth bothering with, whatever annoyances the people there are capable of causing. And if Segada deals with the Chelish colonies, Razatlan might see an opportunity on its flank.

Easy access to trade goods from across the Arcadian Ocean may be a factor as well.

The Grass Sea, as the last region. At the same time, I would say that for me personally it would be regrettable to see this region as a kind of Mongolia. I mean, historically, the steppes of Eurasia were not only Mongols. There were many other nomads who formed their own states and cultures. Scythians and Sarmatians from ancient times. Ancestors of historical Hungarians who were once brutal raiders. Jews of the Khazar Khaganate. Perhaps even someone similar to the Goths, since the Goths created states in the steppe lands during their migrations.

Agreed, especially since the Tian-La are already coded as Mongol, though I'd like to note that the presence of Judaism among the Khazars has often been exaggerated—it was a portion of the elite who converted to Judaism, not the majority of the population, though of course there were Jewish people in that area previously.

Tarrasques are from folklore. The D&D interpretation of them is pretty clearly Pathfinder's inspiration, but the specifics of them being Spawn of Rovagug and whatnot might be enough for them to get away with it?

Centaurs, minotaurs, AND Droon stuff? Heck yeah. These new creatures look great too.

Darth Game Master wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Revisiting this thread with the announcement of the 2e Tian Xia books, and there's already some fascinating changes revealed in that blog post! I figured it was worth digging this thread up here, as they seem to address some topics we brought up.

Amanandar has formally declared independence from Taldor and renamed itself Linvarre. It has a unique national language, Taltien (seemingly a Taldane-Tien hybrid), and a mixed culture that pays homage to both. It seems like a fairly idealistic vision of something like a fantasy Hong Kong, which I'm all for - a place to actually be *from.* It's exciting!
...
It's interesting that the Raj title (in-setting, most likely imported from Vudra) is used here, especially with South Asian-inspired Nagajor bordering it.

(Chopped down the quote to only the parts to)

Pretty happy about Amanandar as it's more or less exactly what I was hoping. The revelation of a hybrid language is interesting; I suspect it'll turn out to be something that's existed as a while for locals but has until recently been looked down on by elites and considered merely a pidgin. A language is a dialect with an army, as they say.

As for the Valash Raj/Nagajor, both the title of Raja and nagas as part of religion/folklore have been a thing in real world Southeast Asia for a while*, so it would fit the general regional inspiration, but I do agree Vudra is the likely origin of the term.

*not assuming you were unaware of that, just pointing out that Nagajor needn't necessarily be South Asian-inspired

This helped me realize that the army, which is a building block of Taldan civilisation, has likely also fully incorporated Tian soldiers. Unity of language is a requirement for any kind of coordinated fighting.

Good point, although I imagine they were at least present as allies/auxiliaries from the beginning. I vaguely recall the Dragon Empires Gazetteer mentioning local rebels who fought with the Taldans against the warlords in the area, but I could be mixing things up.

Revisiting this thread with the announcement of the 2e Tian Xia books, and there's already some fascinating changes revealed in that blog post! I figured it was worth digging this thread up here, as they seem to address some topics we brought up.

Amanandar has formally declared independence from Taldor and renamed itself Linvarre. It has a unique national language, Taltien (seemingly a Taldane-Tien hybrid), and a mixed culture that pays homage to both. It seems like a fairly idealistic vision of something like a fantasy Hong Kong, which I'm all for - a place to actually be *from.* It's exciting!
...
It's interesting that the Raj title (in-setting, most likely imported from Vudra) is used here, especially with South Asian-inspired Nagajor bordering it.

(Chopped down the quote to only the parts to)

Pretty happy about Amanandar as it's more or less exactly what I was hoping. The revelation of a hybrid language is interesting; I suspect it'll turn out to be something that's existed as a while for locals but has until recently been looked down on by elites and considered merely a pidgin. A language is a dialect with an army, as they say.

As for the Valash Raj/Nagajor, both the title of Raja and nagas as part of religion/folklore have been a thing in real world Southeast Asia for a while*, so it would fit the general regional inspiration, but I do agree Vudra is the likely origin of the term.

*not assuming you were unaware of that, just pointing out that Nagajor needn't necessarily be South Asian-inspired

This is great, but I think the miles and kilometers are switched on the distance calculator.

I think it should be noted that in the thread Dragonchess Player (who makes a good point, don't get me wrong) linked James Jacobs agrees that "Russian Westeros" more or less describes Brevoy, although that was also 10 years ago. Make of that what you will.

I do like the Poland-Lithuania comparison regardless, though. It would hardly be the first time Golarion mashed up multiple cultures or polities as sources of inspiration. I'd probably draw on a bit of that if I ever ran a game set in Brevoy, which I think is what zimmerwald1915 is getting at--even in cases when something isn't a real world equivalent, having something to compare it to can be handy for fleshing stuff out unless the premise is totally fantastical i.e. Numeria. Treating the area around the Lake of Mists and Veils as vaguely Baltic-ish also works well with the nearby crusader state IMO (though of course that is again an area where direct equivalents don't always work...there weren't exactly demons in Livonia).

I see Iobaria as more Kievan Rus-like since Ulfen were involved in its foundation, but YMMV.

Darth Game Master wrote:

snip

Frankly, I feel as if what this whole trend really needs is more "bronze age" and "relative time periods" support. Egypt just happened to be the most well-known Bronze Age civilization due to its survival (more or less) into the modern era (and romanticization in a lot of pulp fiction, etc.).

Oh, and another note on races: I really dislike "humanocentrism" (something something Absalom of all places still being 80% human) and "race stereotypes." Specifically, on the latter, I've actually written up a whole campaign world where half-orcs are considered a major race, to the point of composing a strong nation promoting equality.

Absalom is only 62% human, though your point still stands.

Yeah the lack of a Sahel-equivalent is a bit of a shame. But that's a good point, Thuvia probably is one of the better places to do it--the region is religiously/culturally influenced by the setting's stand-in for Islamic civilizations, but was not directly conquered by them, making it more like the Sahel than the Maghreb in that sense (though otherwise it's the reverse).

I guess there's the northernmost bit of the Mwangi Expanse outside the jungle, but there doesn't seem to be a lot going on there, and the enormous mountains don't really facilitate overland trade. Some of the Bonuwat names in LO:ME are Senegalese, but that's closer to the coast as befits their theme; Thuvia (especially areas inhabited by the Mauxi) might be the best place to draw on the inland parts of that area if a writer wanted to.

Practically speaking, I'd probably keep most things as-is in a game for ease of use, but it's fun to hypothesize.

Taldans establishing a landlocked colony in Tian Xia (and during the chaos of Aroden's death) that lasted for a century has always been a little far-fetched to me, so I might shrink or even remove Amanandar. At the very least it'd be more integrated with the surrounding societies—as I've mentioned in an earlier post, I'd rather Amanandar be something more akin to the Greco-Bactrian kingdom than a modern-style colonial society. Taldan culture blending with and relying on the local one is far more interesting to me than having a "little Taldor" in Tian Xia.

While I'm on the letter A, I'd probably make some tweaks to Andoran as well. The uncomfortable dissonance of a US-styled realm being abolitionist becomes a little more bearable if you treat the People's Revolt as being less like the American Revolution and more like a reverse Civil War (the anti-slavery side secedes rather than the pro-slavery one) with a Reconstruction that lasted (instead of getting cut off after a dozen years as in our history). Perhaps you could even go further and make it led by the former slaves like Haiti, but some have already made that comparison about Vidrian, so maybe not. It might also be nice to tie it in with its Mediterranean-like neighbors more; some Balkanesque elements could fit, although that might require changing a few names here and there.

In either case, these comparisons don't necessarily mean I'd directly model those off of the historical events and polities I mentioned, I just personally like to use those types of analogies as a way of understanding and articulating worldbuilding. And no hate to the writers, just having fun with this thought experiment.

New interview with Luis went up, and at around the 30 minute mark, he mentions that the upcoming Firebrands book will touch on developments in Cheliax - including Abrogail's recent outlawing of slavery in the nation... in favor of all those recently "liberated" folk being given "care packages" tied to double-edged contracts that bind them to Chelish army service and saddle them with debt.

There's also some mention of the Hellknight Order of the Scourge partnering with the Firebrands to undermine House Thrune, in a very uneasy alliance against their mutual foe. Luis then talks about potentially adding new Orders or shaking up existing ones to make them a little more available to Lawful Good players as something he's interested in sometime in the future.

A savvier, more subtle House Thrune trying to fend off an ad hoc coalition of Hellknights of would-be revolutionaries? That's an identity for Cheliax in 2e I can see being plenty interesting.

EDIT: Pleased to see that I somewhat called this a few months ago! What could be more Lawful Evil than token reforms that change nothing at all?

keftiu wrote:

The ship has sailed on slavery: Paizo is not interested. Whatever form that takes in Cheliax, specifically, is a question for us to daydream about and for the writers to handle, but folks should accept that the deed is already done.

It’s not like a nation can’t treat its former slaves incredibly poorly, or trap people in contracts and debt that are slavery in all but name. I don’t understand why people think the infernal empire famous for racism, torture, censorship, colonization, and imperial expansionism is somehow going to become Fluffy Bunny Land without slavery.

...you know, even I was unsure if getting rid of slavery in Cheliax was a good idea, but having it de facto still around à la late 19th century USA (or arguably for longer, but that's a can of worms best not opened on a fantasy TTRPG discussion forum) is honestly kind of a genius move, and one that fits Cheliax's vibe pretty well, considering the ruling noble house got into power via a Faustian pact.

The Aiudeen have the advantage of urbanisation, whereas aside from a few exceptions most Mualijae, Ilverani, Vourinoi and Aquatic Elves (do we have a 2e name for them yet?) trend towards nomadism or at least heavily scattered rural settlements. But assuming medieval trends hold true for Golarion, and for the nature-loving elves who have access to Druids, for every person who lives in a city there must be about ten who live in the countryside farming or raising cattle to sustain that urban populace. So given how relatively small Kyonin is compared to the Wild Elf heartlands, being urbanised doesn't necessarily mean the Aiudeen outnumber their fellow elves. Plus, if the redemption of Nocticula has dragged even a few Drow houses into neutrality and forced them to improve relations, if only to survive against the other houses who would see them as traitors, Drow cities could offset the numerical difference.

Absolutely true, my point there was more that Aiudeen don't only live in Kyonin, since most of the elven communities in the Saga Lands, Shining Kingdoms, and Kortos are of that origin as well . Kyonin's just where they're most heavily concentrated, similar to how there are lots of Alijae around the vicinity of Nagisa but the Muallijae live across the Mwangi Expanse.

The Ilverani, Drow, and Aquatic Elves, and to a lesser extent the Vourinoi, live in regions I presume are more sparsely populated (we don't have Darklands and underwater people in the real world, but I think it's a safe bet they can't support a large population as well as the surface). Obviously magic will mitigate this somewhat, as well as the fact that elves tend to adapt to their surroundings fairly quickly, but it's still a factor. So I would argue the Aiudeen are a plurality (especially if the Alijae, Kallijae, and Ekujae are counted separately), but not necessarily a majority, and certainly not the vast majority.

...and checking the Character Guide, it states the Aiudeen "are the most common elven ethnicity found in the Inner Sea Region" and the opening to the Elves section says "most of the elves departed the planet" during Earthfall. So with that information I figure Aiudeen are the majority (the Spiresworn also left but they're a pretty small group), albeit probably only a slight one.

On an unrelated note, if the people overall are called the Vourinoi, would a single one be a "Vourinos"?

It's hard to be sure. The Ilverani, Alijae, Ekujae, Kallijae, and Jinin elves, and drow, all stayed on Golarion. There's no real way to guess their population (although we can probably assume the Ilverani population is fairly small), but the LOCG does name Auideen as the most common one in the Inner Sea region (and they seem to be the predominant elven ethnicity throughout Avistan & Absalom, not just Kyonin). We know the Spiresworn also went to Castrovel, and it's probably a safe bet the Vourinoi and aquatic elves did too since the aforementioned groups are presented as exceptions and each have an explanation for their choice to remain.

Unless there are a ton of other elven groups we haven't met yet, I'd say it's plausible enough that the ones who abandoned Golarion were the majority, but they might not've been.

Absolutely agreed, but FYI, Jabari's pronouns are they/them

Ah, to be clear, I wasn't saying that Shoanti should be an alternative source of Latine representation, nor that they are necessarily excellent representation for Native folks in general, just offering that as an example of something based on the Americas in Golarion that is outside of Arcadia. I also agree the inspirations for the Varisians other than "hollywood Romani" haven't been conveyed very well thus far. At least, not in what I've read, I admit I have yet to read the books on Korvosa, Magnimar, or Sandpoint; perhaps those detail the culture better.

And again, not trying to be an absolutist about any and all post-Columbian elements, more just preferring that they attempt to mostly stick to things that're at least partially rooted in either the era before that or indigenous traditions that arose since then. It's never gonna be 100% when things have changed so much in the past half millennium.

EDIT: Looking it up, that is in fact the case for both luchador masks and calacas, which apparently draw on Aztec and Maya aspects, respectively. Modern stuff with links to the original cultures falls well within the type of stuff I'd prefer to see in Arcadia, it needn't all be 500+ years old

I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that doing the pre-colonial Americas "wipes out just about anything you can point to" though, there are some societies we know plenty about from archaeology, oral history, and the few surviving local records (Portuguese/Spanish descriptions are also a source, but an extremely biased one and only depict the end of that period). I recognize that's beside your point, but alas, I am an insufferable pedant who cannot help but nitpick.

I do get the appeal of an "anything goes" fantasy Americas that draws on all time periods, honestly, and that's not a bad thing. Really, it's more just that I wonder why Paizo sold the concept as "unconquered Americas" if they were trying to do that. Maybe this is all just mismanaged expectations on my end. But I also worry that trying to dodge colonial baggage may lead to running into it even more by ignoring the colonial roots of certain things. I'm not qualified to judge for sure what would and wouldn't be an example of that, but "they just happen to have Spanish-like names because those regions are Spanish-speaking in the present day" feels like it's on thin ice.

We’ve seen luchador masks, firearms, and robots in Arcadia. It’s not strictly limited to wholly pre-Columbian inspirations, and demanding that cuts out representation for people whose stories aren’t some sort of purely Indigenous story - something vanishingly rare today.

Not saying it necessarily has to be--I understand it's not practical to limit one's source material entirely to before the 1500s when for some regions there is limited information about those periods. There are plenty of aspects of modern Latine cultures which have some roots in indigenous ones, and I'd say incorporating stuff like that is fair game even if it has since been altered by European and/or Christian influence. I agree it would be unreasonable to demand Arcadia be entirely devoid of any trace of that.

However, I think avoiding using names from European languages is fairly reasonable, especially when equivalents to those cultures also exist in Golarion, making it nonsensical for two continents to both share the same naming conventions despite limited contact. Plus, Razatlan is in fantasy Mesoamerica and Nahuatl is a living language they can easily draw on for Razatlani without needing to rely on Spanish. I am not at all opposed to Latin American representation on Golarion, but I feel that in Arcadia specifically it should be, within reason, limited to things that aren't of uniquely European or African origin. Like the Spanish language. It'd make plenty of sense in Anchor's End and the areas that frequently interact with it, though, that's the one big exception I can think of.

those are the names of many people and cities that matter a great deal to people, even if their original source is European colonization centuries ago.

The same is true of a multitude of places. That doesn't mean it makes sense. Again, my issue is not with the concept of Latin American elements in a fantasy America (there are plenty of fantasy settings that have that which I enjoy and support; D&D's Radiant Citadel and the upcoming 3rd-party setting Koboa come to mind) but with claiming it is a version of that where there was very little colonialism...and then giving characters in the majority of the region names from a European language as if those being there is somehow inevitable. The only difference between that and using French or English names in northern Arcadia is the problem of Latin Americans (indigenous or otherwise) being underrepresented in US media. And I think the solution to that, in a situation where we can't reverse the choice to make Arcadia precolonial, is to provide such representation in different contexts.

Shoanti people are Golarion's version of post-colonial Northern American indigenous people, the Vidric ethnicity as described in the LO Mwangi Expanse evokes the African Diaspora, Andoran is an irritatingly on-the-nose idealized fantasy USA (sorry), and as Opsylum pointed out, James Jacobs has described the Varisian ethnicity as being partially inspired by Mexican culture. Not to mention the out-of-place Western aesthetics of Alkenstar that led to the creation of this thread. Arcadia isn't the only place where elements of the Americas can exist; Hispanic representation can be, and has been, done elsewhere in the setting.

...granted, the ship has pretty much sailed on this in the case of the Deadshot Lands, so no use making a fuss about it there, but I'd rather they not make a habit of it. That's just my opinion though. Hopefully indigenous people from those regions (and not just the US/Canada) will be involved in a hypothetical Arcadia book if they aren't already, and if they decide differently, I'll respect that.

(and in case my repeated responses to you are coming off as antagonistic, Keftiu, my complaints are with the worldbuilding decisions, not anything against you or the writers; I fully understand where you're coming from and it's a valid position to take, I just don't personally agree)

Nah, you're good. I probably could've mentioned it was drawn from older lore.

Yeah, I'm aware it's a 1e thing, mostly just spoilered it on the off chance anyone who was a player in that AP wanted to keep that as a twist, although it's probably obvious what I'm talking about anyway.

I understand Strength of Thousands has events happening on Akiton at some point, though not what or why.

If you don't mind spoilers:

Super late to this, but I wonder if Ancil Alkenstar was perhaps Varisian? Wild West attire has previously been connected (as far as I've seen) to two distinct peoples in Golarion other than those in Alkenstar: residents of Arcadia's Deadshot Lands, and vaquero-inspired elements of Varisian culture (who were said by James Jacobs to be highly inspired by touchstones from Romani, Mexican, and Californian hippie culture). Varisians being the eternal wanderers they are, it would not surprise me to observe Spanish conventions appearing in their language - perhaps due to some distant connection between them and people in Arcadia (especially considering Golarion's primary analogues for Mexican peoples appear to originate from Arcadia — commonalities between them and Varisians may be more than coincidental).

As a matter of fact I think many of the Varisian names in the Lost Omens Character Guide are of Spanish/Iberian origin so that could fit. Impossible Lands doesn't specify Ancil's origin beyond being from Nex, so it's certainly possible to headcanon him as Varisian.

Though wouldn't it make more sense for Spanish elements in Varisia to be from or be related to the culture of Cheliax, which is right there, is the origin of many colonists in Varisia, and is vaguely based on southwestern Europe? Spanish isn't any more native to the real-world Americas than Portuguese, French, Dutch, or English, so seeing Spanish-based language outside of the areas adjacent to Chelish colonies there would be pretty odd*. Arcadia's firearm traditions also seem to be intentionally distinct from Alkenstar's/Dongun Hold's, which have largely been presented as a unique invention to my knowledge, so I'm not sure that implies a connection.

Anyway as for the overall thread, looking at my LO:IL copy it's said that Alkenstar is dominated by Garundi but has a lot of ethnic diversity due to "aggressive courtship of migrant laborers and the affluent from all across Golarion". So it's possible a lot of cultural influence may come from immigrants which as Opsylum points out may be appealing to Alkenstari due to a desire to set themselves apart from Geb/Nex.

I also think it bears mentioning that while northeastern Africa doesn't have much of an equivalent that I know of (unless you consider cattle pastoralism to be close enough), the vaquero tradition you mention does ultimately draw partially from traditions in northwestern Africa that influenced those of the Iberian Peninsula (fun fact: "jinete", a Spanish word for "horse rider" comes from "Zenata", the name of a historical confederation of Amazigh tribes in what's now Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia). Perhaps some of the cowboy aesthetics come from a different corner of Garund, in addition to Varisia (and possibly Cheliax and Andoran).

*I'd advocate for Varisia or the Grinding Coast as better places for inspiration to be drawn from the culture(s) of the colonial/post-colonial Hispanic Anericas than the rest of Arcadia; one could probably justify characters from even Vidrian, the Shackles, or Andoran as having some of those aspects

That might be interesting but I believe that forested area is intended to be part of Kelesh. If I recall correctly its southern coast is more fertile than the western and inland parts. This is also supported by the article on Vudra which implies Kelesh either borders or is very close to Vudra.

I could see something like that working as a city or smaller mahajanapada in western Vudra, though.

Of course, being a fantasy setting parallels aren't and shouldn't be 1:1. Making the Mauxi just Fantasy-Nubia would be as reductive as what they were before. But it's a way to reframe them and set them apart from other Mwangi and Garundi.

Agreed; attempting to draw direct ethnic comparisons is kind of futile for Garund as a whole, except for MAYBE Osirion (and even that's a stretch). Holomog, Droon, the Sodden Lands, Mediogalti Island, the Impossible Lands, and most of the Mwangi Expanse defy comparison (in the latter case aspects of central and southeast Africa and coastal West Africa are drawn upon, but that's a rather broad brush for a region about a million square miles in size and the Expanse's history is utterly fantastical). The Golden Road parts of Garund, on the other hand, have some similarities to North Africa, but it's missing any equivalent to Hellenistic or Roman Egypt, Carthage, or the conquest of the Maghreb by the early caliphates; and on the flip side irreligion in Rahadoum, the revival of ancient Osirian culture, and alchemy in Thuvia lack equivalents in the real world.

Thuvia and Rahadoum are especially unique from Earth's history, since adding a conquest by Pharaonic Egypt and subtracting the rule of Arab dynasties changes the game quite a bit. So most of the cultures in Garund aren't really going to perfectly correspond to ones in Africa, even if there are inspirations. That's not meant as a criticism, to be clear; Golarion was not intended to emulate the real world and its history directly and, obviously, it's fantasy. But it does mean that any comparison we make is only ever going to be approximate.

(Well, okay, the Mwangi Expanse mashing together elements from such a huge chunk of "sub-Saharan" Africa does annoy me a bit due to the tendency to lump together those regions in pop culture, but the ship has sailed on that one and the books have come a long way in how they frame the region so I don't wanna complain too much).

Over time I've come to realize that specific fantasy counterpart cultures aren't all that common on Golarion—broadly speaking Avistan is most of Europe, Garund is Africa, Tian Xia is east & southeast Asia, Casmaron is the rest of Eurasia, and Arcadia is the Americas, but when you zoom in more, places based on a specific polity or culture are rarer. In the Inner Sea region, only Osirion, the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, Galt, arguably Taldor, and sort of Qadira and Andoran (and perhaps Cheliax if you treat it as a Western Roman Empire analogue) fit that description.

...woah, sorry for that wall of text! That ended up turning into more of a general ramble about the subject than a response to what anyone was saying, but I wrote all of that, so I might as well post it.

Wow, this map is looking really good!

Ah, yep.

"Mauxi people tend to be highly religious and worship the gods within the Osirion pantheon, but they also worship gods from other cultures, primarily Abadar, Nethys, Pharasma, and Sarenrae"
- from Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse

Morhek wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Where can I read about the leader of the Mauxi? That's new lore to me, but I agree that the idea of casting them in parallel to the Nubians of Dynastic Egypt is a smart pull. A Mauxi group filling the role of Medjay would be a real treat.

It's a little blink-and-you'll-miss-it.

Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse wrote:

Mauxi government is a monarchy strictly ruled by a family said to be distantly tied to Osirion royalty, and many political decisions tend to take into account the needs and wills of the gods, which provides another source of generational strife.

But the existence of a Mauxi royal family implies the existence of a Mauxi kingdom, even if it's one with no set borders or official recognition. Which is a very interesting idea, but not really dealt with in LO:MW.

Awesome, thank you! I love that touch. "Accompany a delegation from the Ruby Prince's court who are visiting the Mauxi monarch, and make sure nothing goes wrong" sounds like a delightful set-up for a scenario. I'm thinking of something similar to how Zulu kings are still appointed within South Africa, but hopefully with a more equal share of power than that.

Deeply curious which gods those Mauxi invoke for their aid in statecraft - the traditional deities of the region (Desna, Gozreh, Nethys, Pharasma, Sarenrae), the Ancient Osirian pantheon (Anpu, Bast, Het-Heru, Sekhmet, and pals), or perhaps an entirely separate/syncretic Mauxi tradition?

I'll have to check my PDF but I think the book implies they worship both to some extent.

I agree it's likely a "traditional subnational monarchy" situation; there are lots of examples of that one could look to for inspiration (the Alaafin of Oyo in Nigeria and the Asantehene in Ghana come to mind)

I tend to see Nex/Geb as the Nubia-equivalent of Golarion with Mauxi more akin to the peoples of the Sahara; the feminine and masculine names suggested for them in Mwangi Expanse are all of Amazigh ("Berber") origin, although the gender-neutral names come from the Ge'ez language all the way in Ethiopia so that confuses things a bit.

Personally one of my hopes for a Golden Road book would be a more detailed look at Mauxi culture that goes past just the "Mwangi vs. Garundi influence" thing; maybe I'm just paranoid, but it sometimes feels a bit like an awkward attempt at paralleling real-world racial tensions, and if so would be rather reductive as-is and could use some added nuance.

Yeah, I'm glad the book covered some of the region's pre-Osirion history, I had been curious about that.

I'm also really interested in the apparent separation the book draws between Osirian and Garundi, since previously Osiriani were a subgroup of Garundi.

I think that might've been a mistake, since all the mentions of Osirian(i) are of the nationality or language except the Alkenstar page, the only one to list "Garundi" and "Osiriani" separately. The Geb section also refers to Gebbites as being of Osiriani descent.

I honestly sort of thought the premise of Taldor was "What if Turkey was Rome?"

I mean it sort of was, given, you know, Constantinople (assuming you mean Turkey in a geographic sense that is, since the area wasn't inhabited by Turkic people for most of the time that the Romans controlled it).

On that note, I'd argue Taldor's more or less the fantasy counterpart Byzantine Empire (used to be a lot bigger before its western half split off, in the southeastern corner of not!Europe, Norse honor guard, etc) except that it doesn't seem to have ever controlled northern Garund. Unless you're referring to the fact that it started from the eastern part rather than vice versa?

In any case Taldan (the ethnicity) has always encompassed more than just people from Taldor, and with it expanding to include Chelaxians in 2e, I see Taldans as Golarion's equivalent to southern Europeans, or perhaps more broadly to European cultures that were under Roman control at one point, rather than all "white" people. I mean, it's not like Ulfens aren't also fantasy-European.

Darth Game Master wrote:

For reference, the second Agents of Edgewatch adventure includes a map of Vudra, and the third Blood Lords adventure has a map of Holomog. Pretty sure there's a map of Iobaria somewhere too.

Guns & Gears has Arcadia, too!

The Deadshot lands are on the map, so I assumed they had referenced the G&G map of Arcadia already.

For reference, the second Agents of Edgewatch adventure includes a map of Vudra, and the third Blood Lords adventure has a map of Holomog. Pretty sure there's a map of Iobaria somewhere too.

For me it's more half blank, at least when I zoom in . Think it's just not loading properly on my device.

Probably a result of confusion between the real-world calendar syncing and the in-universe time period on Earth.

I tend to think of it as an averages thing. The mean weight of elves is lower than that of humans and the mean height is higher, vice versa for dwarves, but the exact numbers will vary between individuals.

I mean, for all we know, Sky Citadels might just not be a thing outside of Avistan and northern Garund. What we know about dwarves in Arcadia already implies a different history there.