Native American Ethnicity in Golarion

[Nathan Addison]

Is there a Native American equivalent for the humans of Golarion? If not, then what's the closest thing around? I can't seem to locate anything definite via google. Thoughts?

[Caderyn]

Shoanti would probably be the closest

[Mat Black]

while they haven't gotten to it yet, there is arcadia to the west. you can find bits and pieces about it here and there, but there hasn't been any direct light shed on it. the closest that we have so far is a vague reference in Blood of the Moon and the Erutaki ethnicity, covered in People of the North.

[Matthew Pittard]

Mercy: I had always thought the Shoanti were the closest to a Native American equivalent. The story of the 'colonization' of Varisia by Chelaxian immigrants just reeks of historical similarity.

[Aeshuura]

While the shoanti is very close, Arcadia is also close. There are already analogues of the Ulfen people colonizing places in Arcadia, and encountering natives there. (See Inner Sea World Guide, The Steaming Sea.)

[Nathan Addison]

Thanks guys!

Alright, speaking from a completely ignorant point of view: can Pathfinder Society characters be from Arcadia? Not at all? Maybe allowed but frowned upon? Or does anything official even care?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Mercy 0f Spades wrote:

Thanks guys!

Alright, speaking from a completely ignorant point of view: can Pathfinder Society characters be from Arcadia? Not at all? Maybe allowed but frowned upon? Or does anything official even care?

Not sure if you mean PFS play or joining the Pathfinder Society in a campaign. If the former, no friggin' clue. If the latter, then sure an Arcadian could join...provided you've got a good explanation for why and how they crossed the ocean.

I also think in an older edition of the Inner Sea World Guide, in the section about Arcadia they had a picture of someone from there, who looked pretty much like a person from the Iroquois tribe, and it's mentioned that they're referred to as "skraelings" by the Ulfen, which was EXACTLY what the Vikings led by Leif Erikson called the Native Americans they encountered.

For Avistani Native American types, the Shoanti are definitely the way to go. Some of their tribal practices described in various books seem lifted right from movies like "Dances With Wolves" or "A Man Called Horse."

[Changing Man]

The challenge, of course, is narrowing the term "Native American" down a bit- after all, Inuit have little similarity to Navajo, who bear little resemblance to Cheyenne, who are significantly different from Choctaw, who are different from the Iroquois League- and that's not even looking at peoples such as the Native Caribbeans, or the South- or Central- American Natives. The image for the Cliff Giant (can't remember which bestiary) was a horrible mish-mash of at least 3 different NA cultures, who pretty much had nothing to do with one another (historically speaking). It is probably beyond the scope of an RPG, but at the time of Columbus's 'discovery', there were over 500 nations in North America alone, each with their own culture and traditions.

[RJGrady]

Most of the settled peoples, such as Algonquin, Cherokee, and Navajo, are not that different than any other agrarian, civilized tribes. The Pueblos are notable for being monotheistic, and the Iroquois for practicing confederate democracy. Are you talking about nomads? Some clarification would help.

[Nathan Addison]

I'm most concerned with a pseudo-Karankawa type native american for a PC. On the opposite end of the spectrum I'm trying to stay away from any tribe that preferred to do their warfare primarily on horseback.

[voska66]

I've always thought the Shoanti are more like Celtic tribes of Gaul. It fits too if you think of the Inner Sea as based of Europe.

[Wrong John Silver]

Mercy 0f Spades wrote:

I'm most concerned with a pseudo-Karankawa type native american for a PC. On the opposite end of the spectrum I'm trying to stay away from any tribe that preferred to do their warfare primarily on horseback.

Karankawa? Tall, tattooed and pierced? The Shoanti sound like the best choice for you, out of Avistan, in any case. Also check out the Kellids.

[BigNorseWolf]

Mercy 0f Spades wrote:

Thanks guys!

Alright, speaking from a completely ignorant point of view: can Pathfinder Society characters be from Arcadia? Not at all? Maybe allowed but frowned upon? Or does anything official even care?

Ain't no rule against it. Only downside is you'll know common and no ethnic language.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

voska66 wrote:

I've always thought the Shoanti are more like Celtic tribes of Gaul. It fits too if you think of the Inner Sea as based of Europe.

Actually, the Celtic types of people are represented by the Kellid ethnicity.

[Adam Daigle]

There aren't really pure ports of any single ethnicity. Each ethnicity on Golarion is inspired by bits and pieces of a bunch of groups and cultures. Kellids are't exclusively Celtic, and Ulfen aren't exclusively Nordic. They are all inspired by real world cultures, but aren't beholden to their real world roots.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, yeah, the Kellids aren't exclusively Celtic. The Sarkorians are the Celtic Kellids, the Mammoth Lords are the Neanderthal Kellids, and the Numerian Kellids are the Cimmerian Kelids.

[Shimnimnim]

Adam Daigle wrote:

There aren't really pure ports of any single ethnicity. Each ethnicity on Golarion is inspired by bits and pieces of a bunch of groups and cultures. Kellids are't exclusively Celtic, and Ulfen aren't exclusively Nordic. They are all inspired by real world cultures, but aren't beholden to their real world roots.

I have to say, I was expecting the Mwangi to just be straight "Fantasy Africa" and it was largely shocking to see elements of a fair few other cultures showing up when running an AP. Paizo did a very good job of keeping things analogous without leaving out unique elements.

On the Native America aspect: Arcadia seems to fit perfectly. It's definitely the analog for America,

Pathfinder Wiki wrote:

Despite the beautiful natural appearance of Arcadia, it is not as uninhabited as it appeared to the first visitors to the land. Soon after the first Linnorm King completed his epic quest and landed on Arcadian soil, he encountered the Arcadians, the native humans of Arcadia. They are a fierce people who have fought many battles against the invaders of their land, utilizing bows and tomahawks in an attempt to drive them back into the ocean.

It rings a bell.

But it's also undeveloped, and while you could use it, I feel like additional information released about it would slowly put your character in an odd place.

For that, I'd go with what the others were saying and suggest Shoanti. Only the horse clan really deals in horses, to my understanding, and there are some great choices otherwise.

[Gnoll Bard]

It's worth noting that there are actually a few other Avistani colonies in Arcadia, and the Chelaxian outposts of Canorus and Anchor's End are explicitly noted as sources of slaves. Arcadia is quite remote, and the journey is dangerous, but there nevertheless seem to be quite a few ships that make the journey, since there's an architectural style popular with the super-elite in Egorian (the capital of Cheliax) that makes use of red-veined black marble quarried only on the distant western continent.

Therefore, there might actually be quite a few Arcadian slaves in Cheliax, which means there could very well be a population of Arcadian ex-slaves in Andoran as well.

Varisia might have a small population of Arcadian exiles too, since Kintargo, the main port of entry for goods from the colonies, is also a major trading partner of the Varisian cities of Korvosa and Magnimar. Amusingly, that makes it a technical possibility that there could be some half-Arcadian, half-Shoanti kids running around the streets of Magnimar. :P

Some time after the Ulfen founded Valenhall, epidemic diseases ravaged the Arcadian population, much as happened in the rl Americas. However, that was thousands of years prior to the present of the setting, so by this point Arcadians probably don't have any more to worry about from Avistani diseases than native Avistani do.

As an aside, the city of Senghor in the Mwangi Expanse seems to have originally been an Arcadian colony in the Inner Sea Region. The Caldaru people, of whom there are about 10,000 in the city, are the descendants of these mysterious travelers from the west, and are noted for having lighter skin and straighter hair than the other Mwangi peoples, as well as (oddly enough) a high incidence of blue or green eyes. The Bonuwat and Lergeni, also native to the western coast of Garund, may also be partly descended from these advanced ancient seafarers, but essentially nothing of the mysterious culture remains aside from the astonishingly advanced fortifications around Senghor.