So having read this thread of a world based on Slavic mythology and folklore (which is not common), I got to thinking about other cultures that tend not to make it into Pathfinder or other, similar projects.
I'd like folks to join in here with cultures they can think of that deserve a day in the limelight. I (obviously) can't think of all of them. I think this list could be useful for folks looking for something different. If there's the desire to, it might be possible to create a wiki for such to use as a base for adventures.
1) Australasia. I honestly cannot think of a setting that involves natives of Australia or even the animals there! This would likely involve a lot of building just for the animals, not to mention the various tribal cultures there.
2) New Zealand. Again, I can't think of any settings involving the Māori. There are several interesting animals on the islands both in the past and present. If included with the rest of the Polynesian islands and their different myths, things could get very interesting.
3) Pacific Island/Oceana/Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesian. There are a huge number of islands in the Pacific and an equally huge range of potential myths (not the least of which would be Hawaiian). With some larger islands where farming could occur, this type of setting would be perfect for exploring by sea.
4) Sub-Sahara Africa. There's quite a lot of land in Africa below the Sahara, but I can't recall any particular setting involving it all that much. Besides the obvious potential for dinosaurs (however cliché that may be), there are a number of unexplored religions and regions that could be used.
5) The Americas. Let's face it, Maztica only went so far when it came to the cultures of indigenous peoples of North and South America. There are literally hundreds of tribes and nations that could produce their own rich world views and settings if taken up properly. There are any number of interesting creatures and legends that could be used. There's also a number of mistaken beliefs about natives that I think could really use correcting.
For some more specific ideas:
1) India. Though there have been some mixed oriental settings, I'm not sure any settings have focused on this particular subcontinent.
2) Diné/Naabeehó. For those not in the know, that would be the Navajo.
3) Assiniboine - the Great Sioux Nation.
4) Haudenosaunee - the Iroquois.
5) Inuit and/or Yupik.
6) Yorùbá
7) Igbo
8) San (African Bushmen)
9) Zulu
Thoughts? Suggestions?
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1) Australasia. I honestly cannot think of a setting that involves natives of Australia or even the animals there! This would likely involve a lot of building just for the animals, not to mention the various tribal cultures there.
Now that you mention it this does seem kind of surprising since in the real world everything in Australia is trying to kill you. That seems like an adventuring locale just waiting to be written.
My guess is the Mwangi Expanse is Golarion's sub-Sahara Africa. Most people view Slavic as Russian, which usually gets included with many settings. And Arcadia is supposed to be Golarion's answer to the "New World", but unsure if or when we will actually be getting anything about that continent.
As for my own, I have tried to include some of the lesser known cultures. As for those cultures' mythologies and folklore, I know close to nothing about them. I just pick a nation/race and say "This nation/race will be similar to this real-world culture."
This is true, though you could make a setting were all of these cultures were intertwined. Matter of perspective i suppose.
Well...
For Maori (& the Pacific Island, to a lesser degree), there's Mythos of the Maori by Christopher Johnston, released by Mythopoetic Games.
For Africa (sub-Saharan, mainly), there's:
- Nyambe: African Adventures rpg by Atlas Games, and
- Dark Continent: Adventure and Exploration in Darkest Africa rpg by Chaosium, I think?
The Americas are usually covered as parts of other campaign settings. But an actual campaign setting set entirely in the Americas (excepting Maztica, which you mentioned), dunno...
Hope this was of some little use.
Carry on.
--C.
Now that you mention it this does seem kind of surprising since in the real world everything in Australia is trying to kill you. That seems like an adventuring locale just waiting to be written.
*nods* It has a rugged interior, dangerous animals, and even more interesting things could be added in fantasy! Who wouldn't want to be a werethylacine?
My guess is the Mwangi Expanse is Golarion's sub-Sahara Africa. Most people view Slavic as Russian, which usually gets included with many settings. And Arcadia is supposed to be Golarion's answer to the "New World", but unsure if or when we will actually be getting anything about that continent.
As for my own, I have tried to include some of the lesser known cultures. As for those cultures' mythologies and folklore, I know close to nothing about them. I just pick a nation/race and say "This nation/race will be similar to this real-world culture."
Okay. I'm always a little wary about real life culture and fantasy counterparts. On the one hand I don't want to be disrespectful. On the other, it takes quite a lot of effort to exactly recreate a particular culture and even then there's no guarantee it's going to work out very well.
This is true, though you could make a setting were all of these cultures were intertwined. Matter of perspective i suppose.
I hope to one day develop a world with a lot of interesting cultures based loosely on real life ones, but for this I'm more interested in what people can think up that they haven't seen done much - if at all.
Well...
For Maori (& the Pacific Island, to a lesser degree), there's Mythos of the Maori by Christopher Johnston, released by Mythopoetic Games.
For Africa (sub-Saharan, mainly), there's:
- Nyambe: African Adventures rpg by Atlas Games, and
- Dark Continent: Adventure and Exploration in Darkest Africa rpg by Chaosium, I think?
Okay, thanks!
Well there is Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Babylonian cultures - not to mention the pre-Islamic tribes and religions. Then there are the Minoans...
Of course, this doesn't even start to scratch on the Asiatic cultures of India, Vietnam, and the Koreas...
The Americas are usually covered as parts of other campaign settings. But an actual campaign setting set entirely in the Americas (excepting Maztica, which you mentioned), dunno...
I honestly can't think of an entire setting dedicated to either of the Americas on their own. Even Maztica was, technically, part of a larger campaign world. But there were (and still are) quite the number of cultures in the Americas. The trick would be how to be respectful while at the same time adapting things for fantasy.
Hope this was of some little use.
Carry on.
--C.
It was, thanks!
The Americas are usually covered as parts of other campaign settings. But an actual campaign setting set entirely in the Americas (excepting Maztica, which you mentioned), dunno...You wouldn't try to cover all ofthe Americas in one setting because there are simply too many disparate cultures which had little to no contact between them.
Just South America alone would yield more gods and pantheons than you'd want to stuff in one world. North America would be absolutely insane.
Most folks don't realise how FEW dieties even the Forgotten Realms had in comparison to the real world and most people agree that FR had way too many to handle.
You could say the same for Pre-christian Europe, what with the various slavic, Norse, Celtic, Greek, Middle-eastern, etc pantheons, and all their regional variations. I mean presumably if someone wanted to make a NA, MA, or SA expy, they would pick and choose the dieties present from different cultures, not go and make a new pantheon for every major cultural group.
@ Indagare: Full-on porting a culture from the real world to your fantasy world would be rather difficult to pull off, which is why I said I chose a nation and said "This will be similar to this real world culture." You can be respectful and still import the things you know or would be able to easily make the connection that something is similar to this part of the real world to give players an idea how something is.
And really, if you are afraid that a player would feel offended or you disrespected a real world culture, just play it safe and only have humans in your world. D&D (and in extension, Pathfinder) already disrespects so many cultures by having the idiot brute evil enemy races be tribal, primitive and/or uncivilized. Gnolls, ogres, giants, orcs, goblins, lizardfolk, kobolds, etc. All uncivilized evil brutes that live in tribes. They don't disrespect any single culture, but does so to so many at once.
I personally don't see how making a nation of lizardfolk or nagaji have a culture similar to the Mayans would be very disrespectful. Same with having a race of humanoid wolves having a plains indian culture disrespects them. Or elves being based off Celtic, or orcs (non-evil) being Hawaiian, or gnomes being Greek. Unless making them non-human = disrespect. But then I must be disrespecting European cultures for making humans in my world be as evil as Golarion's orcs, and based off colonial imperialistic European cultures.
But there are many various cultures that aren't done much. The vast amount of native American tribes (from the arctic circle to the southern portion of Argentina), the large variety of Pacific Islander cultures, the native Ainu of Japan, the native Aborigines of Australia and Tazmania, the various tribal cultures of Africa, Mongolia, Tibet, the Persian countries. Mostly the cultures of the non-white peoples of the world.