So, a while ago in an AMA Luis Loza stated that Sarusan shouldn't be taken as the equivalent to Australia, as whilst geographically it kinda looks it & a few people have taken it as such, actually making it so will lead to the major issue of Australia never really being able to get anywhere inspired by there in setting (what would be a massive shame imo; the Australian First Nation people are the oldest continuous culture on Earth and yet gets very very rarely depicted in media outside maybe a brief stereotyped version). Since then, I've been wondering where instead such a place might end up, as there's honestly not tons of great available space that doesn't end up causing issues.
Personally, I'd place them somewhere in North-Western Casmaron, as whilst that's like half way across the world as you'd normally expect it, it is one of the locations with the least specifically designated locations (and those that are there do not have very specifically marked borders, so could easily make room) as well as being able to at least partially match the desert, tropical, temperate, and grassland climates. For the other continents, Southern Tian-Xia would be the obvious though it's already developed so much that it would be near impossible to add it without issues (as well as not very comparable climates) and Southern Garund I feel would have major PR issues of making it seem like Paizo thinks Africans and First Nation Australians are one of the same, leading to the only other place I could see them fitting would be somewhere in the less-developed parts of Arcadia (though I guess even then I could see some issues)
Curious what all of you think!
Iobaria and other parts of northern Casmaron already have marsupial wildlife, and I love the idea of centaur tribes and their human neighbours herding kangaroos and diprotodons with tamed thylacines or dingoes. Though IIRC, marsupials are also present in parts of Tian Xia, so you could easily place a pre-colonisation Australia equivalent there too. My preference would be northern Casmaron, east of Iobaria - although it doesn't match the typical Australian climate, it's big enough and (as far as I know) empty enough that you can really sketch it out in detail without treading on the toes of previous lore. And centaurs based on Australian First Nations tribes sounds like a really cool way to make centaurs different from your archetypical centaur.
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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.
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ORIGINALLY, back in the early days, Sarusan was very much intended to be an Australia-coded region, but once we decided to make Sarusan into a "here there be monsters terra incognito" type place that we intend to keep silent on so as to create a "GM sacntuary" where GMs can add to the setting without fear of us publishing something that might "overwrite" their work, it didn't make sense to maroon Australia lore to that region. Especially since we've been taking inspiration here and there from Australia from day one (with the inclusion of a bunyip in the first adventure for "Rise of the Runelords").
So... the "Sarusan = Australia" is an old and out-of-date concept that no longer applies.
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You heard it here first folks, Australia just got Tasmania'd.
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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.
Isn't "that one mysterious peninsula in southeastern Casmaron" Vudra??
Casmaron and Southern Garund seem like the most un-developed non-Sarusan parts of the setting and you could put your Australia equivalent in either. How much does it matter that an Australia expy is relatively isolated? Like could we add an island off of Casmaron that wasn't previously on the map?
It's easy to overrule diagetic cartographers since "they just didn't know anything was there" after all.
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Regardless of the words of Loza and Jacobs, for me it's still 100%, inarguably, Sarusan. It just is. .... But yeah, if that just doesn't work for you you'll just have to awkwardly shoehorn it to somewhere in Garund -- even though you know Garund is already fully designed and is just waiting for future publication, or, uh yeah, I guess Casmaron even though it just doesn't fit anywhere.
Face it, Sarusan was originally designed and intended to have an 'Australia "feel" and "tone"' -- but Paizo never published any real details and then later, altered their ideas (again, without publishing anything), and nowhere else does it even remotely work. So: Sarusan. 100%
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I feel like there needs to be both "an Australia equivalent" and "a GM preserve" on the map, and it probably should not be the same place. Like if one GM wants to make their GM preserve into an Australia expy they can, but lots of people are going to want to put something else there.
But I don't understand why you couldn't just put another sizeable island in the ocean somewhere (like due west of Droon, or "literally anywhere in the Okaiyo Ocean").
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That's not including magical explanations, either. We just saw two entirely new planes spring back into existance; at this point having an island or other land feature do the same feels relatively tame. Perhaps this new place has been veiled by magical practitioners for all that time to keep them free of Golarion's whole deal, or was left slightly out of phase with the rest of the world by some deity or other powerful being, or any number of other reasons. Maybe the people who lived there have some kind of deal going on with their neighbors that gives them some resource those neighbors greatly want, but is only forthcoming as long as said neighbors keep their mouths shut.Casmaron and Southern Garund seem like the most un-developed non-Sarusan parts of the setting and you could put your Australia equivalent in either. How much does it matter that an Australia expy is relatively isolated? Like could we add an island off of Casmaron that wasn't previously on the map?
It's easy to overrule diagetic cartographers since "they just didn't know anything was there" after all.
It could even be linked to the reappearance of the two missing planes. Wood feels like a likely culprit.
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Face it, Sarusan was originally designed and intended to have an 'Australia "feel" and "tone"' -- but Paizo never published any real details and then later, altered their ideas (again, without publishing anything), and nowhere else does it even remotely work. So: Sarusan. 100%
Nope.
Sarusan was originally designed to be a mysterious continent. Its placement on the globe certainly suggested it was an Australia analogue, and for a while early on we thought about maybe doing that but eventually decided against it.
There has been VERY little actual design for Sarusan in print or behind the scenes.
Feel free to make it your Australia analogue in your game; we've kept silent and done no actual design work on Sarusan (other than giving it a basic continental outline/shape in the world map, I guess... and its ice bridge to the south pole makes it even less of an Australia analogue).
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.Isn't "that one mysterious peninsula in southeastern Casmaron" Vudra??
No, of course not, Vudra has already been mapped in an AP volume. I'm talking about the one to the northeast of Vudra and west of southern Tian Xia which has no equivalent on the (intentionally inaccurate) first edition map but is present in the full second edition world map. It's too far east to be Kelesh and too far south to be Kaladay. Has a triangular-ish island just off the end of it.
The thing that makes Sarusan not work for me as an Australian analogue is "nobody who goes there ever comes back, and nobody ever seems to come out of there."
Since there's no actual analogous property for Australia, and this is basically a prompt to the GM for "why this is, exactly."
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With the Okaiyo Ocean acting as our Pacific, I'd be quite content seeing some Australian stuff in southern Arcadia.
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I don't know Sarusan being mysterious and full of danger makes it a perfect analog. Does it lack the culture? Yeah. But does it have the vibes? Yes 100%.
The culture part can easily be placed anywhere with large non-dune desert. The animals don't need to be converted as no other Earth region gets that treatment.
Also, this is Golarion not Earth. There is no reason why Golarion will have a straight Australia analog when no other Golarion country is such a direct analog. References sure, but direct analog? Idk.
When I say "Australia equivalent", I put the quotes in there as I am very much not just asking about "literally just Australia circa 1506 CE", but somewhere based on Australia the same way that Osirion is based on Egypt, the Mwangi Expanse various parts of sun-Saharan Africa, Minkai Japan (and the rest of Tian-Xia various other parts of East Asia), and Vudra India (for four random examples, honestly the majority of nations in Pathfinder are at least partially based on real world places). To argue that those are not very closely based on would be difficult. Additionally, this is specifically more after "Place based on First Nation Australian culture" more than the geography, it's just one and another do directly inform each other, so places like The Crown of the World obviously wouldn't work great (and similarly, whilst you could just place it in the middle of a desert somewhere, that kind of fixes you to a single--population wise--small section of First Nation Australian culture, so you'd probably want somewhere where you can at the very least realistically have a bit of bushland).
Animals, also agree that yeah aren't really needed, though seeing most of the wildlife from there doesn't really have a place in setting would probably still just make sense to throw it in there, thus allowing you to draw on that stuff setting-wise as well, as even from just an rpg perspective, certain animals like kangeroos are quite popular so would be odd from a design perspective to just go... "they don't exist" (and I say this as someone who kind of thinks kangeroos are slightly overdone)
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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.
Good point! I kind of mostly used the whole "oldest continuous culture" statement as a kind of "here's some cool reason on why you should be interested in First Nation Australian culture!" to kind of help prevent people just going "ehhh, not everywhere can get the Paizo treatment, so whatever" by parroting one of the most common things I hear to describe it as important irl. Now you've pointed it out, I can really see how that label ends up inadvertently pushing various racist ideas. Going forward I'll probably stop using it.
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(Side note: didn't respond to any of James Jacobs' posts simply because in large part they're just really nice and I do not think anything I could respond with would really add anything. So uhh, yeah! Thank you!)
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My point was that those countries that are based on real cultures are more often then not only a loose connection. Minkai, Osirion, Mwangi Expanse, and Vudra are all designed to be a loose match and are the most directly tied. But most other countries are only inspired by. For a example: Taldor and by extension Cheliax is not a Spain analog, but some parts are inspired by it; Brevoy is inspired by Game of Thrones; Varisia is sort of just "the baltics"; The north has a lot of eastern europe, but no direct connection to any country outside of Rasputin. Galt's connection to france is guillotines and revolutions.
So would it be nice to get a place that is more inpired by that specific culture? Sure. Is it needed? Not really. Is it possible? Maybe, but it might appear forced in if you just place it down in a random spot. Are we going to ask Paizo to make a place for every Earth culture to ever exist because that would be more representative of Earth? If you want to play on Earth just play on Earth and let Paizo make what they want; Golarion is not Earth, it doesn't need to have a direct analog to every culture.
Once more, I do not want a 1-to-1, I'd like something akin to Mwangi Expanse or lots of Tian-Xia where it takes inspiration from the cultures to do something (like I said, I don't personally care much about the animals much as I think it'd be economical to get them there instead of trying to figure out somewhere else to place them seeing I know other people would find it odd). As well as that, whilst yes, you cannot do every single culture, it is important to keep in mind that we aren't actually really talking about one singular culture--I kind of just wrote it as such to simplify things--we're talking an entire continent's worth of cultures over thousand of years and going "it'd be nice if there was a single country which took inspiration from it" (don't even really care about its size, a nation can be really small and still fit the "preferably include at least 2 different climates" that I mentioned), what given every other continent has a full continent to fill with various places inspired by different elements of it, it doesn't seem a massive ask.
Side note: I partly also brought up the Mwangi Expanse (and to a lesser extent Tian-Xia, though all we have is the initial announcement post to go off and not the actual books) as it was almost entirely re-written in PF2 from its depiction in PF1 (or at the very least heavily recontextualize to fix the very colonial vibe to its PF1 book Heart of the Jungle) and thus was a good example on how you might expect Paizo to treat other cultures they take inspiration from, especially seeing that Mwangi Expanse is often considered the best Lost Omens book from conversations I see and thus even more likely for them to want to treat other places similarly (that said, Osirion on the other hand was an utterly horrid example given that's the place I irl make jokes about being the most expy the stereotypical idea of a nation in the entirety of Pathfinder--down to the former worship of the Egyptian pantheon--and thus by extension not the kind of treatment I'd want or expect Paizo to give to somewhere these days).
And you know, totally different but I only now realize I wrote "North-Western Casmaron" in my original message instead of "North Eastern" like I meant, woops! Anyway, I really enjoy everyone's ideas, great fun to hear about it!
There are some very large undeveloped islands in the archipelago that is the shattered remains of Azlant.
Considering that Azlant was a continent and that we know very little about the people who were their, other than those connected to Thassilon, those larger islands could have been home to a culture that has strong Australian influences.
That culture could have survived Earthfall and continue to persist on those larger islands.
However, this would put our Australian inspired location in a location very different from where we might expect it. But our Australian inspired location being placed between Arcadia and Garund could have some pretty exciting in setting history.
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With the Okaiyo Ocean acting as our Pacific, I'd be quite content seeing some Australian stuff in southern Arcadia.
As an Australian married to an American I am (un)qualified to say- our history and culture is far more similar than people want to realise.
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The thread seems to have gone from a real specific question to a general "could paizo do an aboriginal setting?" which- yes, I assume so. They have a great eye for what works and, more importantly, the connections to bring in people. (Also the Tiddalik will never get enough fanfare)
If you are interested in including some Aborignal influence in your setting I would do some reading on the Dreamtime, specifically thinking about it as a philosophy rather than a collection of stories.
I'm painting with a really broad brush here, but it's a lot about how when you tell a story you can literally affect the events described. The past, present and future are malleable, and it is your most important duty to be respectful of that. Because if you're not- you'll turn into a mountain. Or an ant. And people will keep telling your story, and forcing you to relive it.
Also giants ride falling stars.
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The thread seems to have gone from a real specific question to a general "could paizo do an aboriginal setting?" which- yes, I assume so. They have a great eye for what works and, more importantly, the connections to bring in people. (Also the Tiddalik will never get enough fanfare)
If you are interested in including some Aborignal influence in your setting I would do some reading on the Dreamtime, specifically thinking about it as a philosophy rather than a collection of stories.
I'm painting with a really broad brush here, but it's a lot about how when you tell a story you can literally affect the events described. The past, present and future are malleable, and it is your most important duty to be respectful of that. Because if you're not- you'll turn into a mountain. Or an ant. And people will keep telling your story, and forcing you to relive it.
Also giants ride falling stars.
Yeah, was kind of half expecting the thread to head in this direction of "could/should Paizo do this?" (even if I didn't really want it to), thus why I worded the original message how I did.
I was actually previously aware of the Dreaming / Dreamtime (as well as various other smaller bits and pieces of Aboriginal mythology such as the Rainbow Snake), I sorta didn't bring any up as I was nervous that I'd sound like your stock "white person writing all about some other people's culture and getting random bits wrong". That said, your description of the Dreaming is great and helpful so very nice to have an inclusion here.
Another nice thing to note if a place we're to try and adapt the Dreamtime (or more specifically a place based on the Everywhen) is the fact that it's kinda a misnomer (originating from a mistranslation but then ended up becoming the excepted term regardless) and not really related to dreams themselves, so would make sense to even if you wanted to make the Everywhen another plane then not make it literally the Dimension of Dreams, but either the ethereal or astral planes.
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The trouble is that your original question has a boring answer. Where would I put an Australia Analogue? Saurusan. You're looking for a large area of land, surrounded by water, far from other places. It let's you explain why certain bits of magic behave differently here. Put some mountains along the north coast, say everything above that is verdant forest and bountiful prairie, everything below it is constantly-on-fire badlands.
To answer what I think is the implied question, where will the devs put an Australian analogue, I think it's more likely that they'll scatter influence across their globe. An ancient society of people who defend key moments from change. The Monad becomes more proactive, and takes the form of an opalescent serpent. A hunter is doomed to forever chase the memory of their lover across increasingly inhospitable terrains.
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The thread seems to have gone from a real specific question to a general "could paizo do an aboriginal setting?" which- yes, I assume so. They have a great eye for what works and, more importantly, the connections to bring in people. (Also the Tiddalik will never get enough fanfare)
If you are interested in including some Aborignal influence in your setting I would do some reading on the Dreamtime, specifically thinking about it as a philosophy rather than a collection of stories.
I'm painting with a really broad brush here, but it's a lot about how when you tell a story you can literally affect the events described. The past, present and future are malleable, and it is your most important duty to be respectful of that. Because if you're not- you'll turn into a mountain. Or an ant. And people will keep telling your story, and forcing you to relive it.
Also giants ride falling stars.
Yeah, was kind of half expecting the thread to head in this direction of "could/should Paizo do this?" (even if I didn't really want it to), thus why I worded the original message how I did.
I was actually previously aware of the Dreaming / Dreamtime (as well as various other smaller bits and pieces of Aboriginal mythology such as the Rainbow Snake), I sorta didn't bring any up as I was nervous that I'd sound like your stock "white person writing all about some other people's culture and getting random bits wrong". That said, your description of the Dreaming is great and helpful so very nice to have an inclusion here.
Another nice thing to note if a place we're to try and adapt the Dreamtime (or more specifically a place based on the Everywhen) is the fact that it's kinda a misnomer (originating from a mistranslation but then ended up becoming the excepted term regardless) and not really related to dreams themselves, so would make sense to even if you wanted to make the Everywhen another plane then not make it literally the Dimension of Dreams, but either the ethereal...
Is Aboriginal still acceptable? It was when I was a kid, but I didn't want to assume and get it wrong. I agree that cultural sensitivity is an issue, but given the treatment of LO: Mwangi Expanse, and the upcoming LO: Tian Xia, if Paizo wanted to do a Fantasy Australia I think they've proven they're willing and able to put that effort in. Those two are fixing places that needed fixing. This would be a from-the-ground-up creation.
On the subject of an equivalent of the Dreaming/Dreamtime, I feel like the First World kinda fills a similar niche and that you could do some interesting things with it. The Eldest are near-godlike, and fey have a shifting, quasi-unreal reality-before-reality, a world overlapping but not quite this world, quality that's similar to what I remember of Dreamtime stories I read or heard when I was young. And it has the benefit of setting the First World even further apart from WotC's Fey Wild as Paizo goes forward under the ORC.
As for a more general Australia setting, you'd need somewhere big enough to really capture how vast Australia feels - lush rainforests, mountains, and the vast stretches of Outback, coastal cities connected by vast roads and railways across the desert. We speculated a while back about magitech railways in Northern Garund in the Golden Road thread a while back - land trains could also be cool to see, chains of wagons hauled by a truck hovering on a cushion of magic. Add in some bush outlaws in armour (Arcadia having firearms makes it a decent candidate), rival state governments that could be countries in their own right, and, if I might humbly add, a smaller more insecure island neighbour who ride Moa, kick around inflated pigs bladders, and have great scenery. :P
Also not to sound too pedantic, but the dreaming isn't a different plane- by it's very nature it is crucial a part of our world. If you needed a mechanical comparison it's closer to some of the magic presented in Secrets of Magic. Terror Australis has some good depth on it as a phenomenon, and good information on creating a game experience based on it.
Is Aboriginal still acceptable? It was when I was a kid, but I didn't want to assume and get it wrong.
To my knowledge it's still accepted (though of course, I am not really the one who gets to decide that), just also First Nation often as it's generally considered an even safer option (It also has the extra use of covering both Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, though that does not really apply much here)
...To answer what I think is the implied question, where will the devs put an Australian analogue...
Yeah, that was the intent, sorry if it wasn't clear! To be honest, this whole thing was kind of just me going "y'know, I think it'd be a shame if Australia kind of ended up being the one continent not to get any places based off its cultures officially in-setting because it doesn't have as obvious of a 'place' as anywhere else to put it. I should kind of get more people thinking about that so maybe more people will be asking for such a thing", with the specific question more being a way to do so whilst helping also spur at least some level of discussion to elaborate on the topic.
Side note: thank you for all of your comments, they're legitimately super informative and I really appreciate them!
I mean Sarusan, if I had to build it from scratch and wasn't waiting on Paizo. I already tinker enough with the setting that if I want to add some other land or throw something in from another setting, I would just do so in the existing continents.
If I had to put it somewhere, I would either stick it south of Azlant or just chuck it somewhere in one of the large oceans. To me, Australia HAS to be an island continent, as I think its a major element of its character.
Also, given my professional background, it breaks my suspension of belief too much to have Australian wildlife just chilling in some random corner of an existing continent. Dogs, cats, and foxes are absolutely eradicating native mammal populations. You don't get a land of those critters without long geographic isolation
But that's me. I also get irrationally annoyed when Jaguars are mentioned as existing in the Mwangi expanse...
Better question is: what would you put in a Golarion "Australia" In my own secondary world I have been building, I try to have analogues to different continents, but honestly my Australia analogue is a blank slate.
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I don't know if the "Australia" analogue for Golarion needs to be in a geographically identical spot of the globe as real world Australia. Consider that our Russia analogue is in two non-contiguous places (Iobaria and Irrisen), our America analogue is on Golarion's Mediterranean, our Dracula setting is due East of our Vikings setting, etc.
I think all that you need for an Australia analogue is "relatively isolated."
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I don't know if the "Australia" analogue for Golarion needs to be in a geographically identical spot of the globe as real world Australia. Consider that our Russia analogue is in two non-contiguous places (Iobaria and Irrisen), our America analogue is on Golarion's Mediterranean, our Dracula setting is due East of our Vikings setting, etc.
I think all that you need for an Australia analogue is "relatively isolated."
Note that there are several America analogues in Golarion. Same for France and Russia.