Ideas for Yrth

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

The only one I know of is Nyambe, and I think (???) it's based on West African.

I seem to recall that the creators said that they drew from all over the continent. Indeed, the setting has multiple cultures, which appear to me inexpert eye to be based on different African cultural and ethnic groupings. The bibliography certainly references books about multiple areas of Africa.

[dataweaver]

Another worked example of having a multiple-continent fantasy setting where each continent is populated by analogs of real-world cultures from a given continent is the second edition of 7th Sea:

• Crescent Empire covers the Middle East
• Lands of Gold and Fire covers African cultures
• New World is a continent of South American cultures
• the upcoming The Colonies is slated to address North American native cultures
• the upcoming Kitai is slated to address the Far East and the Pacific, with cultures corresponding to China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Polynesia, and others.

It's set in the equivalent of the 1600s if I recall correctly, which puts it well past Yrth's pseudo-Medieval settting; but it shows what can be done with these sorts of ideas.

(Incidentally, part of the reason why I'm inclined to bring more “gods and spirits” into the mix is that the are a number of real-world cultures out their whose beliefs about the supernatural simply don't gel very well with the spellcasting paradigm of the standard magic system. It's not just about differentiating priests from wizards, or opening the door for more Dungeon Fantasy compatibility; it's about being able to emulate West African or Northeastern North American or Japanese beliefs about the supernatural. Though to be fair, a lot of ground could be covered by means of the existing Mysticism material, possibly coupling it with something like Monster Hunters 6: Holy Hunters: cultures that lean more heavily into worship of higher powers could be depicted with Mystics playing a more central role, possibly even completely replacing or subsuming wizards.)

That said, Yrth isn't just populated by humans from Earth; if you're going to do an Africa-inspired continent, you should also think about how Loren'dil and Gabrook refugees factor into it, not to mention the Yrth natives. In particular, I'd want to avoid the “more of the same” trap where human cultures are incredibly diverse but elves, orcs, and dwarves look the same no matter where they come from. Let's get an Orcish culture somewhere that's agrarian rather than nomadic hunter-gatherers, for example.

Or switch it up with Loren'dil and Gabrook by saying that they aren't predominantly forest and desert worlds, respectively, but that the parts of those worlds that the Banestorm connected to Yttaria were. Heck, how do we know that “Loren'dil”, “Gabrook”, and “Olokun” aren't names for regions on their worlds, more akin to “Yttaria” than “Yrth”? For all we know, they might actually all hail from different regions of the same planet. (Though I suspect not. Besides, it's more interesting if they're not, as that allows a wider variety of the fantasy folk that each world features.)

[Anders]

There was a playtest for Srivivjaya - an empire based in present-day Indonesia - announced recently. That's one that would be fun to incorporate into Yrth.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Anders

There was a playtest for Srivivjaya - an empire based in present-day Indonesia - announced recently. That's one that would be fun to incorporate into Yrth.

We added a token touch of Malay influence to Araterre in Banestorm. Boosting that signal - having some of the outer islands being fairly solidly Malay - wouldn't be hard.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

We added a token touch of Malay influence to Araterre in Banestorm. Boosting that signal - having some of the outer islands being fairly solidly Malay - wouldn't be hard.

Actually, everybody was going for Balinese, to bring Hindus, Buddhists, and syncretic Hindu-Buddhists into the setting, But your right, large sections of Araterre could be Malay. Both Malaya and Indonesia had fierce pirates, complex cultures, rich mythologies, and many chances for adventure narratives.

[dataweaver]

Either into Araterre, or into a counterpart on a neighboring continent. It might be interesting to flip the script on Yrth and have a foreign Malaysian-based seagoing power discover Yttaria.

[Pragmatic]

IIRC, even among the humans, not all of them are from Earth.

[dataweaver]

True; though most of them are. Likewise, not all goblins and Reptile Men originated in Gabrook, and there are halflings and giants that didn't come from Loren'dil; but most did.

The nature of the Banestorm is that you could potentially bring in anyone from anywhere; but refugees from worlds other than Earth, Loren'dil, Gabrook, or Olokun are the exceptions, and rarely came in large enough concentrations to form stable or lasting communities; they're mostly one-offs.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

IIRC, even among the humans, not all of them are from Earth.

I believe it says not all of them are from our Earth, to be precise. A lot of 100% Human people showed up with different memories of history, but it got lost in mass illiteracy and the scramble to survive, and today is of interest only to esoteric scholars. From this we could conjecture that it is possible, if not probable, that beings from more than one version of Loren'dil, Olokun, and Gabrook were transported as well.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Either into Araterre, or into a counterpart on a neighboring continent. It might be interesting to flip the script on Yrth and have a foreign Malaysian-based seagoing power discover Yttaria.

Agreed. Having the Europeans discovered by anyone else would be a fun twist.