I wonder when DF will do non-European fantasy

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

It's not politics. It's fashion. The tropes of pop culture outside of clearly identifiable Western sources (kung fu movies, the Arabian Nights, Bollywood mythological epics, etc.) can fit well in the DF paradigm and are evocative in their own ways. They're a kind of fun which, one may argue, has so far been inadequately explored, but they provide ample grist for the mill, so why not? I have little interest in translating specific items from history and mythology into DF terms, but the underlying flavors are ones I happen to enjoy, so I'd be happy to see more DF which partakes of those tropes. More fake Asia to go with the fake Europe which informs a lot of DF! And some fake Africa! And some fake Americas! More everything! Too much is never enough!

That said, I think DF points in that direction more than one might suspect, or at least fails to point away: most templates are fairly culture-neutral (I don't see how one would have to change the thief template to make it conform to pop-culture tropes of feudal Japan or ancient Egypt; the decorative motifs and techniques in DF8 are essentially global) or can be trivially used to adapt them to specific cultures (a samurai is just a knight using a katana; take the axe away from the faux-Viking barbarian, give him a spear and a large shield, and he's a Zulu), a number of bits and pieces are more loudly evocative of non-western tropes than others (shamans, for example), and Mirror of the Fire Demon is in emphatically not-European geography.

Well, just to start with, Zulus fought in regimentalized impis and Vikings did not. Vikings never had to run over hot coals and Zulus never tried to found colonies between New England and Russia. So there was a lot of difference in style.