DF World: Do non-humans have their own countries?

thulben · 04-18-2017, 10:06 AM

I tend to think of Elves as a stand in (or allegory) for Native Americans. That is, noble protectors of nature; they probably live in the forests (and most others understand the forests to be theirs). Orcs I think of like stereotypical Mongolians - tribal and nomadic. As such, they probably don't have a place you can point to and say "they live right here in this city", but there's probably an area where, if you go there, you'll probably encounter one group or another of them after a while. I'm not sure who dwarves were patterned after.

But my point is that early (hell... even contemporary) fantasy tends to paint the humanoid races with a broad stroke and the brush is "existing human cultures".

04-18-2017, 10:06 AM	#2
thulben Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: SF Bay Area, CA	Re: DF World: Do non-humans have their own countries? I tend to think of Elves as a stand in (or allegory) for Native Americans. That is, noble protectors of nature; they probably live in the forests (and most others understand the forests to be theirs). Orcs I think of like stereotypical Mongolians - tribal and nomadic. As such, they probably don't have a place you can point to and say "they live right here in this city", but there's probably an area where, if you go there, you'll probably encounter one group or another of them after a while. I'm not sure who dwarves were patterned after. But my point is that early (hell... even contemporary) fantasy tends to paint the humanoid races with a broad stroke and the brush is "existing human cultures".