D&D Human Ethnicities

[Sakumo1Uchiha]

So I was looking at the Ethnicities in the Players handbook for the Human Race and I was wondering something.....are they based on real world analogues? If so what would you peg each one as.

[JackPhoenix]

Sort of. Mulhorandi are literally descendants of ancient Egyptians transported to Faerun, Cali****es are not-Arabian, Shou are not-Chinese.

[Sakumo1Uchiha]

Sort of. Mulhorandi are literally descendants of ancient Egyptians transported to Faerun, Cali****es are not-Arabian, Shou are not-Chinese.

Anything else?

[jmberry]

Illuskans are psuedo-norse. Tethyrians and Chondathans are both vaguely Western European. Tuigans are based off of Mongols. I can write more when I have access to my books and a real computer.

[Sakumo1Uchiha]

Illuskans are psuedo-norse. Tethyrians and Chondathans are both vaguely Western European. Tuigans are based off of Mongols. I can write more when I have access to my books and a real computer.

I would love for you to help me out with this nar seem to be Central or Eastern European ala Romania and such cause i saw Vlad as on eof the names

[hymer]

I would love for you to help me out with this nar seem to be Central or Eastern European ala Romania and such cause i saw Vlad as on eof the names
Damaran names have a distinctly Slavic vibe. The examples given are Bersk, Chernin, Dotsk, Kulenov, Marsk, Nemetsk, Shemov, and Starag for boy's names. Girls: Alethra, Kara, Katernin, Mara, Natali, Olma, Tana, and Zora.

[jmberry]

Okay, I'm back. In full:

Tethyrians are the Celt-analogs - this is most explicit with the Ffolk of the Moonshaes

Chondathans are more West Germanic, with the principal Chondathan nations of Cormyr and the Dalelands being France and England, respectively. By extent, the Chondathans of the Dragon Coast are the Italian merchant-republics.

The people of Calimshan are actually an offshoot of a culture called the Zakharans. Specifically, Zakhara is the Middle East of the Abbasids, and Calimshan is the Andalusia of the Ummayads. Amn, which lays between Calimshan and the Tethyrian/Chondathan Sword Coast, is essentially a stand-in for Spain. The Bedine of Anauroch are also a Zakharan off-shoot, and are obviously the Bedouin.

The Rashemi appear to be stand-ins for the Finns, Lapps, and similar cultures, although their Gur kin are analogs to the Romani.

The Mulan are explicitly descended from people taken from Bronze Age Earth, with the Mulhorandi being Egyptians and the Untherics being Sumerians. The Chessentans have a lot of similarities with the Greeks, and Murghom has been compared to Canaan.

Illuskans, as I said earlier, are a stand-in for the Norse.

The Shou are explicitly based on the Chinese - they were the subjects of the original 2e Oriental Adventures. There's also a Japanese-analog culture that Faerunians lump in with them, but their name escapes me at the moment.

The Damarans are meant to stand in for real world Slavic cultures. The Nars are a bit harder to place, but if I had to choose I'd probably go with steppe or ex-steppe cultures like the Cumans, Hungarians, and Bulgars.

Mazticans are Native Americans, with the most well-known subgroup (the one the others are named after) being Mesoamericans. Ulutiuns are various tundra cultures like the Yupik and Aleuts.

The Chultans, Shaarans, and Turami are all African cultures - specifically the Chultans are Swahili traders (with a bit of Great Zimbabwe thrown in via Mezro), the Shaarans are savannah hunters like the Maasai and Zulus, and the Turami are essentially the West African kingdoms like Ghana and Mali.

The Durpari are Indians.

The Netherese, Uthgardt, Halruuans, Imaskari, and Arkaiuns don't have any real analogs.

[Sakumo1Uchiha]

Okay, I'm back. In full:

Tethyrians are the Celt-analogs - this is most explicit with the Ffolk of the Moonshaes

Chondathans are more West Germanic, with the principal Chondathan nations of Cormyr and the Dalelands being France and England, respectively. By extent, the Chondathans of the Dragon Coast are the Italian merchant-republics.

The people of Calimshan are actually an offshoot of a culture called the Zakharans. Specifically, Zakhara is the Middle East of the Abbasids, and Calimshan is the Andalusia of the Ummayads. Amn, which lays between Calimshan and the Tethyrian/Chondathan Sword Coast, is essentially a stand-in for Spain. The Bedine of Anauroch are also a Zakharan off-shoot, and are obviously the Bedouin.

The Rashemi appear to be stand-ins for the Finns, Lapps, and similar cultures, although their Gur kin are analogs to the Romani.

The Mulan are explicitly descended from people taken from Bronze Age Earth, with the Mulhorandi being Egyptians and the Untherics being Sumerians. The Chessentans have a lot of similarities with the Greeks, and Murghom has been compared to Canaan.

Illuskans, as I said earlier, are a stand-in for the Norse.

The Shou are explicitly based on the Chinese - they were the subjects of the original 2e Oriental Adventures. There's also a Japanese-analog culture that Faerunians lump in with them, but their name escapes me at the moment.

The Damarans are meant to stand in for real world Slavic cultures. The Nars are a bit harder to place, but if I had to choose I'd probably go with steppe or ex-steppe cultures like the Cumans, Hungarians, and Bulgars.

Mazticans are Native Americans, with the most well-known subgroup (the one the others are named after) being Mesoamericans. Ulutiuns are various tundra cultures like the Yupik and Aleuts.

The Chultans, Shaarans, and Turami are all African cultures - specifically the Chultans are Swahili traders (with a bit of Great Zimbabwe thrown in via Mezro), the Shaarans are savannah hunters like the Maasai and Zulus, and the Turami are essentially the West African kingdoms like Ghana and Mali.

The Durpari are Indians.

The Netherese, Uthgardt, Halruuans, Imaskari, and Arkaiuns don't have any real analogs.

That helps me out so freaking much dude thank you.

[Bieskaon]

Hi jmberry,

i would like to join Sakumo1Uchiha in his thanks for your effort.

This information is quite remarkable and helps a huge lot in Worldbuilding.
Setting and describing the tone for the People and Region with this in mind, almost ensures that they are not only recognizable,
but most importantly also memorizable for the players.

Thank you again

With a prussian salute
Bieskaon

[Tanarii]

Tethyrians are the Celt-analogs - this is most explicit with the Ffolk of the Moonshaes
I thought Tethyrians were mixed bloods? Chondathan, Cali****e and Illuskan.

[jmberry]

I thought Tethyrians were mixed bloods? Chondathan, Cali****e and Illuskan.

Okay, looking it up, the more specific answer is that the Talfir, who were the ancestors of both the Ffolk and the Tethyrians, serve the role of the Celts. The modern Tethyrians are admittedly more an analog of modern Americans, being a catch-all term for a polyethnic people created by numerous migrations, but the books seem to waffle on whether the original Tethyrians were a Talfir remnant or a group who simply adopted their magical traditions.

[Bieskaon]

Hi jmberry,

would you mind telling me on which books you are referring to?
I am in constant need to increase my personal library ;-)

[Malifice]

When I first saw this thread I was hoping to God that it wasnt one of those cringe worthy threads that tries to apply stat mods to analoges of human ethnicities.

Worst part of game design in the 90s was mostly white game designers designing dark skinned races with penalties to Intelligence, bonuses to Strength and favored class 'barbarian' and so forth.

I like my RPGs without the racism thanks.

[Anonymouswizard]

When I first saw this thread I was hoping to God that it wasnt one of those cringe worthy threads that tries to apply stat mods to analoges of human ethnicities.

Worst part of game design in the 90s was mostly white game designers designing dark skinned races with penalties to Intelligence, bonuses to Strength and favored class 'barbarian' and so forth.

I like my RPGs without the racism thanks.

Almost as bad as the 'women get -2 STR +2 WIS' sexism.

I mean, I've seen it done okay, but that was a case of traits for cultures (IIRC all the Dane ethnicity) with no actual stat mods (so a 'horse nomad' would get proficiency in Handle Animal, as a random example). Even so it did lead to less cultural variation than you see in the real world until you get to the 'take cultural traits or pick your own' level, or cultural traits being insignificant (e.g. one skill point when your average journeyman has ten).

[Mordaedil]

Wait, so this means Waterdeep is Copenhagen and Neverwinter is Oslo/Stockholm and Luskan is Trondheim/Oslo?

[Joe the Rat]

Turami are a fun one - "Mediterranean."

[EggKookoo]

Worst part of game design in the 90s was mostly white game designers designing dark skinned races with penalties to Intelligence, bonuses to Strength and favored class 'barbarian' and so forth.

Out of curiosity, which games did that?

[Tanarii]

Out of curiosity, which games did that?
The 2e Birthright campaign setting comes to mind.

[OracularPoet]

The 2e Birthright campaign setting comes to mind.

IIRC, at least for the original boxed set (don’t know if there was more material), the only darker skinned race (Middle East themed) got a +2 intelligence and were either wizard/paladin favored. Maybe the ranger favored humans in the NW were not European themed?

[Tanarii]

IIRC, at least for the original boxed set (don’t know if there was more material), the only darker skinned race (Middle East themed) got a +2 intelligence and were either wizard/paladin favored. Maybe the ranger favored humans in the NW were not European themed?
Oh sorry, I meant "divided up human races with ability score modifiers, creating specific associations between them and the analogue race."

Not the specific race/ability scores originally refered to.

[Malifice]

The 2e Birthright campaign setting comes to mind.

Yeah that one springs to mind.

[jmberry]

Hi jmberry,

would you mind telling me on which books you are referring to?
I am in constant need to increase my personal library ;-)

Sorry I missed this. Most of my information comes from the 3.x book "Races of Faerun" with some of it coming from the details we get in the 5e Player's Handbook and SCAG. Some of it, though, is my own interpretation or gleamed from Wikipedia. I tend to stay away from the FR wiki as it doesn't seem to use much in the way of pre-3E sources.

I should hasten to add that my comparisons aren't 1:1, especially when it comes to the Chondathans and Tethyrians - from what I understand, they were the first ones created, which is why their name list is so Gygaxian (fantasy names being weird for the sake of weird).

[Princess]

...

The Shou are explicitly based on the Chinese - they were the subjects of the original 2e Oriental Adventures. There's also a Japanese-analog culture that Faerunians lump in with them, but their name escapes me at the moment.

...

The Netherese, Uthgardt, Halruuans, Imaskari, and Arkaiuns don't have any real analogs.


The Kara-tur boxed set goes on at length with more analogs for Asian groups, some fairly creative (divisions for the Shou based on the idea that the Tang/Song/Ming/Qing mixed influence dynasty is in the midst of civil wars and independence movements), to the painfully obvious (Korea is "Koryo"; Tibet is "Tabot"). There is also a split between Kozakura and Wa, both Japonic analogs but with different specific influences (Wa is more isolated, as a conscious choice of their government).

The ancient fallen wizard empires are where parallels go to die, though. This may be a conscious effort to make them not anything like a critique of real people, or it might be coincidental.

The Netherese are interesting because the names sometimes imply Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian) but culturally and historically they fill a role more like the Roman Empire if some of the Caesars were immortal. Similarly, Halruaans are sort of a mystery to classify because they mix Netherese "Baltic conquerors?" with Tashalan/African influence, which sort of kind of makes them a parallel of European international colonies if instead of racism, there was a magic-based elitism at the center of their activities.

Imaskari, I'm at a loss because weird magic is the core of who and what they are, and while some of the names sort of resemble Turkish, it's harder to place them along with the other ancient empire that doesn't map well to anything on earth. Kind of comparing them to the Ottomans almost makes sense, though, if the Ottoman ruling class were magic albinos?

Most importantly, though, even the original author of all this stuff thinks changing things on the fly in the name of everyone having fun is better than choking on details.

[Particle_Man]

Almost as bad as the 'women get -2 STR +2 WIS' sexism.

Or -2 STR +2 CHR (or -2 Comeliness) sexism. Or maybe that was the 80s (*cough* Fantasy Wargaming *cough*). Mind you TSR in the 80s also brought us the Drow (y'know dude, like regular elves, except that they are *dark-skinned* and *really evil*!) and we still are stuck with that legacy. And sex based maximum starting strength limits was a thing in 1st ed.

One odd one I ran into was Legends of Excalibur: Arthurian Adventures which divided humans by social class, complete with stat changes and different starting "nobility scores" which was the substitute for alignments. So in that world nobles *really were* better people than peasants, on average. :smallsmile:

[Anonymouswizard]

Or -2 STR +2 CHR (or -2 Comeliness) sexism. Or maybe that was the 80s (*cough* Fantasy Wargaming *cough*). Mind you TSR in the 80s also brought us the Drow (y'know dude, like regular elves, except that they are *dark-skinned* and *really evil*!) and we still are stuck with that legacy. And sex based maximum starting strength limits was a thing in 1st ed.

One odd one I ran into was Legends of Excalibur: Arthurian Adventures which divided humans by social class, complete with stat changes and different starting "nobility scores" which was the substitute for alignments. So in that world nobles *really were* better people than peasants, on average. :smallsmile:

I'll note that some of the games I own do social class stat mods, but yeah, I sometimes wonder if RPG designers think about the implications of these.

(As a side note I have previously gotten into conversations about gender-based Strength caps, and the end result is always that it's more fun without them).

Then again I'm getting much more into systems that separate characters solely by archetype, without any race or social class distinctions. A human rogue and elven world have exactly the same abilities and possibly the same trait ratings, because the fact they're a rogue is more important than the fact they're an elven woman from Alfrest. Even in 5e there's nothing stopping you from just taking a lower score in an area if you want to. Then you can get your character a silly hat, you know they deserve one.

[Beleriphon]

The Netherese are interesting because the names sometimes imply Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian) but culturally and historically they fill a role more like the Roman Empire if some of the Caesars were immortal. Similarly, Halruaans are sort of a mystery to classify because they mix Netherese "Baltic conquerors?" with Tashalan/African influence, which sort of kind of makes them a parallel of European international colonies if instead of racism, there was a magic-based elitism at the center of their activities.

The Netherese have an ancient Mesopotamia vibe going on along with Greco-Roman stylings. Ultimately though they're based on being evil wizards, and whatever suitably scary looking stuff is then applied.

I always thought Thay was kind of this stand in for the Soviet Union or the PRC or even just the CCP.