I was wondering if the writers of this adventure path will take the opportunity to use a wider variety of ethnic characters.
Looking back over the last two APs, off the top of my head I can only remember the Taskerhills from the SCAP being the only non-white characters (apart from any drow!) which in itself was surprising considering the jungle locale.
Savage Tide (TBH I have little knowledge of it) suggests adventure on the high seas and everything piraty. So it stands to reason we can expect Pygmy monks, Native-American style fighters and even some people who hint at an oriental theme. Not the usual caucasian suspects.
So I suppose I'm asking if this is being considered. IMO It'll give the adventure path a much more worldly feel.
I do know that in greyhawk the Amedio jungle has a high population of Sulese (Nordic-looking types). So in Shackled City at least it makes sense.
I dunno, most of the action in Age of Worms takes place around the Nyr Dyv, which I think is mostly Oeridian and Flan; the FLan are darker skinned and less caucasian looking IIRC.
Indeed, I recommend using the Greyhawk ethnic traits. If 95% of the NPCs in a given adventure path are caucasian, readers who are used to multi-ethnic communities might find this unrealistic. It'd be as bad a mistake as having 95% of NPCs be humans rather than at least a noticeable portion of elves, dwarves and the like.
(Looks like this thread was double-posted; I suggest that nobody post in this thread's duplicate, so that it will eventually fall off the back page)
My Greyhawk is a little rusty so I forgot about the Suel migration after the cataclysm. However, with Savage Tide there is a wonderful opportunity to showcase some indigenous civilisations. I hope the Isle of Dread scenarios will do this to best effect.
Looking at the statistics it seems that Greyhawk really is human-heavy, with some nations being 75% or 85% human. Explains why so many NPCs are human, since Greyhawk is the default setting. Then again, most players are human, and won't mind so badly.
The Taskerhills in Shackled City were a nice addition. It would be nice to see more Olman make appearances in Savage Tide, given the locales (Sasserine near the Amedio, Isle of Dread). And ideally, the Olman should show up not only as the "natives" of Isle of Dread (though they should show up there too) but also as interesting and unique NPC members of pirate or merchant ship crews or in Sasserine, as ethinic minorities incorporated into a multi-ethnic port city. Since the adventures are meant to be portable into different settings, it's better not to get into detail on what each NPC's ethinicity is in the Path, but the adventure path and the associated art can still have characters that the editors, authors and artists know are of varying ethnicities.
Of course, it's always quite easy to change minor details about NPCs, especially those that don't have an extensive writeup. It seems to me that I haven't seen "ethnicity" specified for very many PCs at all, in Dungeon, except in that for many of the illustrated characters the image looks "white" more or less. I'd say, have a blast, get familiar with the different groups in your world of choice and make a rainbow world of NPCs. Certainly if you're running it in Greyhawk, you should have some bronze skinned Olman, and perhaps some dark-skinned Touv from Hepmonaland, and maybe invent a few ethnicities of your own from the lands beyond the Amedio.
It would be nice though, if the art reflects the presence of Olman and Touv NPCs in Sasserine (or NPCs that can represent varying ethnicities in different campaign worlds). It would make the backdrop of a port city in a frontier area seem more "real" and interesting
I think it would be a good idea to include some art of characters with different ethnicities. The excellent art in the last two adventure paths definitely added tot he atmosphere and I'd like to see them continue this.
Yes, I second this idea. No matter whether it's the real world or an imaginary one, seaports are always full of people from strange faraway places, and ship crews tend to pick up people along the way to fill out the ranks. If you can do the job, your race, color, culture, and origins don't matter much.
I'd also like to see a couple of NPCs from the new races featured in Stormwrack--especially Hadozee.
Mystara, now, has quite a blend of ethnicities even before you start dragging in the non-humans.
In and around the Sea of Dread... we've got the clans of jungle-dwelling Irishmen on northern Davania; the prophetic black half-elves of Yavdlom, west of the Archipelago; Indians, both American (Atruaghin) and Indian (Sind); Darokinians (generic Euro fantasy) and Traladarans (Slavic); Thyatians (Imperial Roman); Ochaleans (Japanese/Chinese); Pearl Islanders and Ierendians (various degrees of Polynesian); and Minrothads (Dutch, kinda).
Moving further away and expanding past humans, there's the elves -- regular, shadow, and flamenco; the hin of the Five Shires, some of the most dangerous (and sometimes piratical!) halflings in D&D history; dwarves (standard-issue dour and conservative); the biplane-pilot mad-science gnomes of the Flying City of Serraine, which could crop up anywhere; and, of course, the thriving undersea kingdoms of merfolk, tritons, sea giants, sharkmen, and even kopru. (Not all of them sit around brooding about their lost civilization and enslaving everyone who comes by. Some have got on with their lives, and may even make acceptable neighbours.)
Plenty to choose from, no?
Looking at the statistics it seems that Greyhawk really is human-heavy, with some nations being 75% or 85% human. Explains why so many NPCs are human, since Greyhawk is the default setting. Then again, most players are human, and won't mind so badly.
Considering birth rates, that makes sense--though personally I'd make the figures even more human-heavy, & cut the half-elf population drastically.
I think out at sea, though, there'd be more nonhumans around; the sea being a good place to find work for those who don't quite fit into "polite society."
If history is any guide, you are dead on right. Ship crews were typically a diverse lot--desertions and deaths made it imperative to hire on (or "impress") replacements in just about every port you dropped anchor in. While shipboard life didn't necessarily erase ethnic and racial prejudices, it did tend to suppress them. As long as a sailor could perform the demanding and dangerous tasks required of him, he was a valued member of the crew, and a shipmate to the other sailors.