D&D as real history

[Aleolus]

So, a friend of mine had an idea quite a while back that I really liked, and have recently been thinking about. If our world were to actually have races and magic like in D&D, what races would be from what regions? He started thinking about this because he liked the imagery of Soviet Russia being ruled over by bugbears, but I now turn to my fellow Playgrounders to ask: Where would you put them? Now, for the sake of brevity, lets stick with the really populous races (humanoids, goblinoids, etc), so we don't have to get extremely specific for locations.

My placements would be:
England/Germany as humans
Russia as goblinoids
Elves would be native Americans (North America specifically)
The Orient would be populated by Gnomes
And the Dwarves would be from Scandinavia

[KillianHawkeye]

Well, Kobolds already originate from Germany, so there's that.
Halflings obviously go in Ireland, and have red hair. :smallamused:
Orcs in Africa? (I kinda feel bad for saying that.)
Australia would probably be a land full of Giants.
Which I guess leaves the Yuan-Ti and lizardfolk races to have South America? I dunno.

[Aleolus]

Well, Kobolds already originate from Germany, so there's that.
Halflings obviously go in Ireland, and have red hair. :smallamused:
Orcs in Africa? (I kinda feel bad for saying that.)
Australia would probably be a land full of Giants.
Which I guess leaves the Yuan-Ti and lizardfolk races to have South America? I dunno.

Don't feel too bad, I was thinking the same thing about Orcs, as well as some Monstrous Humanoids like Centaurs or Gnolls

[dascarletm]

I'll brave touching this with an 11 ft. pole... even if that is still too large a risk.


I would put humans everwhere, but add in special races based on how I see the culture. Elf varieties will go in most of Europe, etc. Nezumi would be in japan...

[Flickerdart]

So, a friend of mine had an idea quite a while back that I really liked, and have recently been thinking about. If our world were to actually have races and magic like in D&D, what races would be from what regions? He started thinking about this because he liked the imagery of Soviet Russia being ruled over by bugbears, but I now turn to my fellow Playgrounders to ask: Where would you put them? Now, for the sake of brevity, lets stick with the really populous races (humanoids, goblinoids, etc), so we don't have to get extremely specific for locations.

My placements would be:
England/Germany as humans
Russia as goblinoids
Elves would be native Americans (North America specifically)
The Orient would be populated by Gnomes
And the Dwarves would be from Scandinavia
I'm gonna stop you right there - there's no way that comparing real-world nationalities to monsters will pan out well. But if you're going to insist on this...

Do not use humans. "These guys are the most human and everyone else is not human" is incredibly offensive.

Do not mix monstrous races and non-monstrous races. "These guys are elves and these other guys are goblins" is nearly as offensive. More, perhaps - elves are supposed to be longer-living, more graceful, and more beautiful than humans. Goblins are ugly, stunted, fleeting.

Do not play fast and loose with regions. You say you don't want "extremely specific locations" and then you go for England. Look at a world map and tell me how specific 1/3 of a country is when compared to "the Orient." Hint: Really damn specific. You're going to need to respect various ethnicities as differentiated, and not just lump everyone outside of Western Europe into a bucket.

Then maybe this will be a thread that doesn't get locked.

[Strigon]

Okay, here's the issue. With your friends, you know where the line is. You may very well be fine with lumping several countries together as a single D&D race, and make that race nonhuman. This could work very well with your friends.
This place, however, is filled with people that aren't your friends. It's not personal; it's just that you don't know everyone here and you certainly don't know everyone who will be here. And doing that with strangers is asking for trouble. You might not mean harm; you might mean to imply cultural similarities rather than saying "well, all people from X area are wise and clever, but people from Y area are dumb and strong". But someone reading this - no matter where they are in the world - has every right to call it offensive.

Asking random people on the Internet to categorize arbitrary regions based on the people that live there is a bad idea. Do it with your friends and nobody gets hurt.

[Gildedragon]

Go for geographic regions. Take the dnd race most similar to animals native to the area. Some are obvs (gnolls-hyenas) some less so (kobold-mountain goat)

[Aleolus]

Fair enough. And for the record, I was basing my suggestions on cultural similarities (except for Russia, I don't know enough about Russian culture to make that comparison, I was just revoicing my friends idea), rather than anything regarding stereotypes. I co see your point though, and I was not meaning to cause offense to anyone out there in the internet

[Blackhawk748]

I did this with a Post Apoc setting (its in my Sig). Even if you are legitimately not being offensive, people will still get offended. Cuz Apache Gnolls (who are really cool people) are offensive, but British Elves with the D-Baggery turned up to 11 isn't. Then again i tend to look at how the culture is represented over what race they used, cuz an Orc isn't an Orc in every setting.

[Flickerdart]

And for the record, I was basing my suggestions on cultural similarities
There is no culture called "the orient" so I'm not sure what you were basing your comparison between them and gnomes on.

[Telonius]

I wouldn't assign them to a single region or country. Humans everywhere to start. For the rest, the races would probably start appearing in the places their mythologies put them. Elves, anywhere there's a big forest. Probably a bunch in Russia, the Amazon, or any other foresty place. Gnomes and Dwarves, around big mountain ranges. Lots in the Himalayas, Andes, and Rockies. Orcs, badlands and sparsely settled areas.

Halflings would probably be localized somewhere near Birmingham in the UK. :smallbiggrin:

Frost Giants in Scandinavia.

[Shackel]

With Orcs being nomadic, and all, I could see them living in North America, with all of these plains and the like to travel across. Another idea, if the history still ends in at least some twisted image of our current world, could be that the Orcs replace Poland, Ukraine and some of the Russian Steppe areas, since you have the proud military history, Cossacks and so on.

To be safe and avoid any unfortunate implications, I'd probably have humans stretching from Egypt to Pakistan to fit that "cradle of humanity", and then expand as necessary if one can't think of something for a region.

If I recall correctly, the mountains and hilly terrain is what caused Greece to become fractured into so many tiny city-states in ancient times, so, in a D&D history, I could absolutely see dwarves being from around there, and their dramatic stone buildings thus coming to influence the "Western" architecture at large.

[Godskook]

There is no culture called "the orient" so I'm not sure what you were basing your comparison between them and gnomes on.

Oh c'mon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient) Oriental culture has just as much meaning as European culture. Sure, you can quibble that it oversimplifies things too much to be useful, but to say "there is no culture" is just wrong. Kinda bad form to switch culture scope from nation to region like that, but let's be accurate with the criticism, eh?

[Aleolus]

There is no culture called "the orient" so I'm not sure what you were basing your comparison between them and gnomes on.

I'll be honest, I had originally been seeing gnomes as the Japanese, due to the fact that Japanese people are, on average, significantly shorter than most european people and the fact that their culture is very inventive and forward-thinking. I expanded that out because it seemed a little too much to single the Japanese out specifically for that.

Also, the reason I pegged England as "human" isn't from believing them to be more human than any other, its based on the fact that England has, through one means or another, influenced and infiltrated a fair chunk of the rest of the world with their culture or or genetics, and humans in D&D have basically done the same thing. Also, I'm fairly certain that when Gygax, Arneson and the rest of them were building the game, they used the imagery of English people for humans, rather than German, Dutch or French

[Gildedragon]

I'll be honest, I had originally been seeing gnomes as the Japanese, due to the fact that Japanese people are, on average, significantly shorter than most european people and the fact that their culture is very inventive and forward-thinking. I expanded that out because it seemed a little too much to single the Japanese out specifically for that.

Also, the reason I pegged England as "human" isn't from believing them to be more human than any other, its based on the fact that England has, through one means or another, influenced and infiltrated a fair chunk of the rest of the world with their culture or or genetics, and humans in D&D have basically done the same thing. Also, I'm fairly certain that when Gygax, Arneson and the rest of them were building the game, they used the imagery of English people for humans, rather than German, Dutch or French

If you'd insist on putting humans on the map, and to a specific region, i'd pick something less... subject to waves of invaders and the like (unless you put humans as the result of mixing all the races together, hence their breed with anything capacity) such as oceania, or use the actual cradle of humanity in eastern africa

[Elder_Basilisk]

That people would think about this exposes a weakness of a lot of modern RPG writing: all the "non-human" races turn out to just be humans with different stat bonuses, different color skin, and maybe a fork glued to their head (or teeth), star-trek alien style. If you can imagine a fantasy version of the real world where Africa is populated by orcs--and it is not significantly different than the real world, then you don't have orcs in your world. You just have humans with different racial bonuses and different facial structure. What's the point?

Me, I'll keep my non-humans non-human and if I feel inclined to drop them into some real world analogue, you will definitely be able to tell the difference. History won't look even remotely close to the same.

[BowStreetRunner]

An important fact you may want to consider is that throughout history the ruling class often did not share the same race as the rest of the country. Romans ruled over a wide range of different races in the empire. Russia gets its name from the Rus, who are believed to be a Scandinavian (Viking) people who conquered the Slavic people there. The Mongols conquered much of Asia, and for centuries afterward many of the kingdoms that remained had rulers of Mongol descent.

[Cosi]

I've heard that Dominions (http://www.illwinter.com/dom4/) does a decent job of this, although my knowledge of the game (let alone the fluff) is minimal. The scope of the game (pretender gods battling for the right to become the next overdeity) is probably outside what most D&D games focus on, but I've heard the backstories of various cultures are detailed and draw fairly strongly on real-world mythology.

One thing that no one has brought up is names. As (presumably) a white American, you should tread carefully when naming cultures that are Chinese or African. It is painfully easy to end up with names that are either insulting or stupid if you just pick words that sound "foreign" in whatever way you're trying for.


Do not use humans. "These guys are the most human and everyone else is not human" is incredibly offensive.

You could always do the opposite: only humans. Just set it in the real world, but magic, the gods, and monsters are real. So you can go to Greece and meet Zeus or fight the Minotaur. And the people there are human. Or you could go to India and meet Shiva and fight Raksasha. And the people there are human. And so on for anywhere you can look up a monster and a religious tradition. But everybody is human.

You can also make it work if the cultures aren't racial. You can have humans and orcs as long as you don't have the Aztecs be orcs and the French be humans. If every culture has humans and elves and fungus people and dragonborn, you can lift cultures from history all you want.

I think you might be able to get away with human and non-human kingdoms if you draw on various myths about elven or dwarven cultures. You are much less likely to offend people by asserting that Alfheim is real and full of elves than by asserting that the British are elves.


Do not play fast and loose with regions. You say you don't want "extremely specific locations" and then you go for England. Look at a world map and tell me how specific 1/3 of a country is when compared to "the Orient." Hint: Really damn specific. You're going to need to respect various ethnicities as differentiated, and not just lump everyone outside of Western Europe into a bucket.

Honestly, you should probably just pick a dozen or so real world cultures than interest you, then put them in a setting that just drops all the other stuff. And only like two or three of those cultures should be European. And some of them should probably be straight up mythological stuff like Atlantis. Maybe:

-Europe: Fantasy Western Europe
-Europe: Fantasy Eastern Europe
-Asia: Fantasy China
-Asia: Fantasy India
-Asia: Fantasy Middle East
-Africa: Fantasy Egypt
-Africa: Fantasy ... I unfortunately don't know enough about African history or mythology to say. Maybe a central African kingdom of some kind?
-Americas: Fantasy Aztecs
-Americas: Fantasy Iroquois/Other North American tribes
-Americas: Fantasy Incas
-Fictional: Atlantis
-Fictional: I honestly have no idea. Ideally, you'd pick a non-European fantasy kingdom that was reasonably iconic. I'd probably aim either for something in Australia (because they are not represented at all) or Africa (because they have two to each other continent's three, counting Atlantis in Europe).

With something like that, a lot of world-building becomes easier. Fantasy India has Naga and Rakshasa, Fantasy Eastern Europe has vikings and vampires, and most of those places have a bunch of gods you can litter around. And you haven't even shown up with any other planes. Actually, doing something like this you might not want other planes. Instead of having The Elemental Plane of Fire, you can just have deserts eventually turn to hellscapes of fire and obsidian, one of which has The City of Brass in the middle. Maybe one other plane for deeply scary things to come from (demons, or Earthdawn/Dominions style Horrors).

Is that reductionist? Yes. But at least it's a kind of reductionist where you don't have ten cultures, nine of which are European. You could obviously expand that massively at basically every level. Fantasy India or China could easily be half a dozen cultures on their own. You could have Fantasy Japan or Fantasy Rome. There's no country of snake people, which is kind of a crime when there are three different kinds of snake people in core. There's probably a lot more you can do, but I don't study enough history, anthropology, or mythology to really know.

[Anlashok]

If you really do want to make each country/region a race... don't make them monolithic. If you're going to have Russian orcs, make them more like Eberron orcs. Make them interesting. Dynamic. Don't make one the 'bad guys' and one the 'good guys'. I haven't seen many people complain about, say, Warhammer's Aztec lizardmen because they aren't just some monolithic group of bad guys.

Though I agree, having mixtures of races or just one race for the entire game seems like a better idea.

Personally thought it was always strange how so many races were completely monolithic in regular D&D. Yeah, cultural norms and physiological differences will create some degree of separation, but not complete.


-Africa: Fantasy ... I unfortunately don't know enough about African history or mythology to say. Maybe a central African kingdom of some kind?

Carthage, Songhai or Zulu would be good. Though if you're using Egypt the first two would make it very north Africa centric.

[Gildedragon]

-Africa: Fantasy ... I unfortunately don't know enough about African history or mythology to say. Maybe a central African kingdom of some kind?

Mali, Ashanti (famous for its gold and metalwork), Punt, The Great Zimbabwe

... as i think about it, African kingdoms tend to be famous in the West because of their vast amounts of gold and other mineral wealth

Meroe is interesting because of its complex relationship with Egypt (a cultural give and take and repeated co-conquering of each other)

[Bobby Baratheon]

I would be more inclined to go with geographical distribution rather than jump down the slippery slope of assigning real life cultural counterparts to monsters. I think it's fair to have some parts of real life cultures be present in their "counterparts", though. Geography has an interesting way of influencing culture.

So example:
Have gnomes inhabit Japan because, say, anciently they fled persecution from other races, which led to them becoming incredibly isolationist. Gnomes are tinkerers, so you've got the technological savvy. I could see an argument for Mt. Fuji having a place in Gnomish culture as well, especially if it's centered on that particular island. I'm painting with broad strokes here; Japanese history isn't quite my thing. But I think you can see that you can set up fantasy cultures to echo (NOT mimic, echo) aspects of real life cultures without being offensive. I think it also requires you to be more creative, which is a plus in general and will add more nuance and verisimilitude. Maybe the gnomes cultivate air power via airships to maintain their coasts; maybe they bring in another, more physical race to aid them after staving off numerous invasions.

Here's my contributions:
I've always played hobgoblins with a vaguely Celtic vibe in my games; there's not really a specific reason for this but it's always felt natural to me. So, placing hobgoblins within the context of D&D races inhabiting Earth, I would put them along the coast of northwestern Europe. They're tough and hairy, so the cold shouldn't be too detrimental to them. Hobgoblins are fairly martial, so I think you'd have some small independent kingdoms of Hobgoblins possible connected by a loose alliance. I also think they would be fairly widespread as a pretty effective source of mercenaries (much like RL vikings), with many of them having laid down roots in foreign lands. So you'd have pockets of hobgoblins spread out across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East (and posibly beyond), with some enclaves being strong enough to maintain their independence (like the RL Gauls in Galicia, which is in Anatolia). They might not be the predominant race in area except their homeland, but they're common enough.

I also like to play orcs as an Iberian style culture. Again, there's not really a specific reason for this but it's been a pretty smooth fit in my campaign (I tend to waive the orc penalty on Intelligence, though, so my Orcish cultures might not resemble everyone elses). Also, I speak Spanish fluently so it makes it really easy to come up authentic place names, titles and personal names for my orcs. Putting them in Iberia would, I think, result in a few strong Orcish kingdoms with a tendency to raid North Africa and southern France. It would also result in some fairly bloody internal conflicts, but that's par for the course for orcs. Without the Intelligence penalty, orcs tend towards rudeness and brusque personalities, but they're not stupid so much as they are rash. Without a navy, though, they'd be fairly vulnerable to other Mediterranean groups and thus they'd either develop a rudimentary navy in true orc fashion or just co-opt another group into doing it for them. As to how the Orcs got to Iberia, I think a Vandal-style mass migration would do the trick, and it would allow for the existence of other groups within orc culture such as humans or some other culture that goes along with orcs thematically. Heck, you could have some Basque-esque goblin rebels who never quite assimilate into the orcs culture.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Personally thought it was always strange how so many races were completely monolithic in regular D&D. Yeah, cultural norms and physiological differences will create some degree of separation, but not complete.

I don't find monolithic standard D&D races very surprising. It's a consequence of several things:

A. Storytelling: If you want your elves and orcs to be something other than humans with pointy ears or prominent teeth, you have to have something that makes them elfy or orcy. If you feature lots of elves who aren't elfy or orcs who aren't orcy in your setting, you break down that distinction and they're humans with pointy ears/prominent teeth--a collection of ability modifiers and nothing more.
A1. Consider the Warhammer 40k setting in this regard. They have a bunch of different Ork and Eldar army lists which could be considered ork or eldar cultures, but the difference between, Saim-Hann, Ulthwé, Biel-Tan, Alaitoc is not terribly large. (And in Dawn of War (I, II, and Retribution), you can go from playing Eldar from one craftworld to Eldar of another and not really notice the difference in terms of story and character). They all fit within the monolithic Eldar culture. If they didn't, you'd wonder if you were reading about Tau instead of Eldar.
B. Time/effort/setting space. If you are filling up a fantasy world with different cultures and races, you've only got so much room in the setting. Your remote mountain tribe with the unique culture could be another kind of orc but then you risk diluting the image and theme of orcs that you have built. Plus you've got this idea for powerfully built tattooed warriors who can wield large size weapons, so they're goliaths instead of orcs.
C. Publishing priorities ($$$$). A lot of gamers would be disappointed to buy a new sourcebook and find three new orc cultures rather than three new monster races. New races let you introduce new mechanics, charge for new artwork, and say that your new monster manual has 150 new monsters in it. Of course, those new races have to go somewhere so see B.

No-one really goes into it but I think there should also be something along these lines too:
D. Many if not most of the non-human races have a patron deity who created or corrupted them: Corellon for elves, Llolth for drow, Gruumsch for orcs, Vaprak for trolls, Kurtulmak for kobolds, Yeenoghu for gnolls, etc. In most settings, humans either don't have a defined creator god or they have a pantheon of creators that span the alignment spectrums. If we assume that fantasy humans have the same range of behavior as real life humans (saint to monster, tightly disciplined to free spirit, and theoretical mathematician or philosopher to plumber or mechanic), that can be explained by their mysterious or committee creation. But why would Kurtulmak make his creations to have the same psychological variety and urges as whoever created the humans? I would expect that there would be a much more limited set of psychological characteristics and for non-human races than for humans as a result of being carved out of a more particular mold and not made by committee. Free will for elves, dwarves, and gnolls doesn't necessarily work the same way it does for humans. (And why would we expect it to other than humanocentrism?)

[johnbragg]

I think doing this has to be pretty racist. But I think, if you accept humanity's tendency to be racist, you can work with it.

Pick a culture to be the base humans, and then build out from there, using their perceptions and stereotypes of neighboring cultures and ethnic groups.

So your human Roman Empire sees numberless hordes of savage Orcs up in the forests of Germania, savage tree-dwelling blue-painted elves banging on bodrains in Britannia, Viking dwarves in Scandinavia and hobgoblin horsemen on the Great Eurasian Plain. Maybe halfling peasants in the Nile VAlley working themselves to death feeding the Empire.

OR maybe Egypt is your base human culture, peering across the sea at the quarrelsome mountain clans of Greece with orc or goblinoid desert raiders in and across the desert.

[Cosi]

Mali, Ashanti (famous for its gold and metalwork), Punt, The Great Zimbabwe

All of those are workable. I honestly probably could have named some culture, but the bigger problem (for a project like this) is that I don't know what the mythology of those cultures includes. Fantasy Egypt is a fairly evocative description. There are a bunch of gods you're likely familiar with (Horus, Ra, Set, Thoth, Isis), some monsters (Sphinxes, Mummies), and a decent cultural pastiche (pharohs, pyramids, the Nile). Similarly for Fantasy India (Naga, Rakshasa, Vishnu, the caste system), Fantasy Western Europe (knights, dragons, castles, crusades), and so on.


Pick a culture to be the base humans, and then build out from there, using their perceptions and stereotypes of neighboring cultures and ethnic groups.

That's a setting you could do, but I think doing that on Mythic Earth is wasteful. Yes, a setting modeled off the Roman Empire is interesting. But the reason to use the real world is so that you can draw of 6,000 years of recorded history to paint the most detailed possible picture of a whole bunch of cultures without having to do much work. It's a waste to focus that setting on one empire. Especially because the model you've suggested doesn't do anything for regions that weren't in contact with ancient Rome (like India or China).

I also don't think that "what if X group of historic racists were right" is a good question to ask, but that's a different issue.

[johnbragg]

It's a waste to focus that setting on one empire. Especially because the model you've suggested doesn't do anything for regions that weren't in contact with ancient Rome (like India or China).

I also don't think that "what if X group of historic racists were right" is a good question to ask, but that's a different issue.

I don't know enough about historic Indian or HAn Chinese cultures to use them as base humans. Obviously you've got Mongol horsemen who could be orcs or hobgoblins or centaurs, but I don't know enough about how they see their Koreans and Japanese and indigenous Taiwanese and and Malays neighbors. India likewise.

D&D races have a fairly racist historiography anyway. (Noble, fairskinned elves; covetous, skillful, gold-loving dwarves seeking a return to their ancient homeland; hordes of dark-skinned beast-men who threaten to overwhelm all that is good and pure) I don't think you CAN map them onto Mythic Earth without being racist toward real world cultures. It's "problematic" enough to separate our kinda-racist elfgames from real world issues of racism. Mapping that back onto a mythic expy of the real world? That's going to be racist.

[johnbragg]

That's a setting you could do, but I think doing that on Mythic Earth is wasteful. Yes, a setting modeled off the Roman Empire is interesting. But the reason to use the real world is so that you can draw of 6,000 years of recorded history to paint the most detailed possible picture of a whole bunch of cultures without having to do much work.

Then do that, without putzing around with which real-world cultures match which not-quite-human fantasy races. OGres and pixies and centaurs and minotaurs and yuan-ti and wendigos, yes. But no elves, no dwarves, no orcs.

EDIT: Which is what you said, I apologize.

[Cosi]

Then do that, without putzing around with which real-world cultures match which not-quite-human fantasy races. OGres and pixies and centaurs and minotaurs and yuan-ti and wendigos, yes. But no elves, no dwarves, no orcs.

You could always do the opposite: only humans. Just set it in the real world, but magic, the gods, and monsters are real. So you can go to Greece and meet Zeus or fight the Minotaur. And the people there are human. Or you could go to India and meet Shiva and fight Raksasha. And the people there are human. And so on for anywhere you can look up a monster and a religious tradition. But everybody is human.

Although I do think you can get away with non-humans if you handle it carefully. Shadowrun has Elves and Orks, and I don't think anyone objects to various wholly fictional places full of various types of mythological critter existing in the setting.

[Extra Anchovies]

I recommend taking a look at Mongoose Publishing's D20 Conan RPG. It's got 20-odd different types of human, each with a fairly clear real-world geographical inspiration.

If you want to have the various nations' inhabitants be very different, though, I recommend going the no-humans route and trying to stay away from the species that the publishers are/were biased against. Putting the orcs anywhere would be kinda racist, because fantasy game designers tend to typecast orcs as violent, superstitious idiots.