As mentioned by James Jacob in a recent live chat, when converting ST to the Pathfinder world of Golarion, one could substitute the south-american style of the Olmans to an african-style. This would seam to be quite interesting, as i haven't seen much adventures with that kind of style. So here are a few questions, as i would like to here the communities opinions on these:
1. What would be the gods of these native tribes? Are there real life sources like for the Olmans and their gods?
2. Which weapons would you use instead of the typical Olman weapons?
3. Were to find fantasy artwork, including african-tribesman?
4. What other parts of the campaign would one have to change?
http://www.nyambe.com/ may help. Nyambe is a D20 game setting based in an Africa like continent. I believe that site has a free download section that will enable you to download a free sourcebook to get a taste of the game setting, including races, nation types, deities and so on.
http://www.nyambe.com/ may help. Nyambe is a D20 game setting based in an Africa like continent. I believe that site has a free download section that will enable you to download a free sourcebook to get a taste of the game setting, including races, nation types, deities and so on.
Thanks that is an awesome resource, you know of any resources for portraits and similar stuff?
I think there are links to that site that might be helpful to you. Personally I'm just using images from movies and stuff. If you are planning on having this be the culture of the Isle of Dread then perhaps some of the stuff from Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo might be helpful?
This is a pretty interesting concept though I'd make sure not to forget the monsters.
This is usually my complaint with most of the fantasy X culture style settings. The setting itself might feel pretty authentic to whatever culture its based off of but usually you find its hard to actually run a fantasy game there.
While the D&D 'points of light' concept might be pushing things it is important that every fantasy setting be just brimming with adventure opportunities and have lots of beasts etc. for players to encounter. This is were most of these settings fall down. Sure there are human cultures that feel like fantasy versions of their real world counterparts but where are the Orcs? What do you plan to use for dungeons? Essentially I think most of these settings try to be to authentic to their source material. Medieval Europe was not beholden to horrible dragons that held sway over vast swaths of lands. Authentic Medieval Europe did not have a dark lord on his dark throne and armies of Ogres and Hill Giants to back him up.
Personally I think one of the most important steps after one makes an authentic feeling fantasy land is to then go through it with one eye on the Monster Manual and start throwing in trouble - lots and lots of trouble from all sorts of nasties. Fantasy Africa should be under siege by monsters and in need of hero's to kill them and take their loot just like fantasy Europe is. Otherwise the game soon runs out of steam and one starts to wonder where are all the cool adventure ops. Really a cool culture is little more then a backdrop for the adventures. A cool backdrop is great but one needs the adventures for it to work.
I don't know if you've read Nyambe Jeremy but essentially it's what you suggest--it's D&D in Africa. Basically everything has an African 'feel' but it's no more truly authentic than say Al-Qadim is genuinely Arabia/Turkey/Egypt in the Middle Ages. But that's not the point; the point is to have a cool setting to play D&D in. So for instance there are orcs, elves, dragons, etc, but there is a cultural veneer of having West African city states or the Songhai Empire and stuff like that.
I don't know if you've read Nyambe Jeremy but essentially it's what you suggest--it's D&D in Africa. Basically everything has an African 'feel' but it's no more truly authentic than say Al-Qadim is genuinely Arabia/Turkey/Egypt in the Middle Ages. But that's not the point; the point is to have a cool setting to play D&D in. So for instance there are orcs, elves, dragons, etc, but there is a cultural veneer of having West African city states or the Songhai Empire and stuff like that.
True I have not read this product. I'm mainly thinking of the problems with Al-Quadim and especially Mazteca. Both fine settings that somewhat fall apart because they spend to much time making fantasy versions of human cultures and not enough talking about Dragons and Orcs. This makes them an interesting place to visit but not really a good place to simply plop a band of 1st level players into with the hopes that they'll seek out adventure.
Thanks for the good advice, I think I will use a lot of the stuff on that site, although I think I need to modify a lot of it. Some of the stuff is not that well worded or a bit unbalanced. I especially like the PrCs, but they will also need some work to really fit in.
Does someone has an idea, what could be the substitute for the Zombie Masters of the Olmans?
Voodoo, man, voodoo. Baron Samedi and all that jazz. Okay, that's the West Indies, but it's D&D; a little inaccuracy never hurt anyone :D
Voodoo, man, voodoo. Baron Samedi and all that jazz. Okay, that's the West Indies, but it's D&D; a little inaccuracy never hurt anyone :D
That is a nice idea, it really fits much better into an african style than the post-Aztec style of the Olmans.
Here is another site that might be helpful.
Here is another site that might be helpful.
That's a nice site, you got there. Does anyone have an idea, where one could find good rules for implementing Voodoo and similar stuff. Or how could emulate it with the current rules?
