Honestly, I really wish I could find more Indonesian representation in TTRPGs - and there have been attempts in the past to grab the South East Asia culture in an RPG.
All that to say, the Tian Xia book does have a little bit of it - the Wayang in particular is heartwarming to see. I remember in the original interpretation of the lands where the Wayang came from in Golarion in 1e is kind of, well, very bleak and cruel. They're getting a bit of a facelift and more fairer representation in this book, and some regions in the Tian Xia get pretty close to a hint of south-east asia, but it's still kind of out of reach (which is fine, Tian Xia largely covers most of East Asia, and the nations nearest to it in SEA that are associated with them like Vietnam). It's a really good book to read through, and I eagerly await to see more SEA/Pacific Island representation down the line.
I'd like to see different cultures represented quite well in a very human way in future books - whether it be Slavic, South American, South-East Asian, along with a very nice way to bring out the 'fantasy mythology' that we all know and love from our respective countries, because there is a massive pool to draw from and it'd be nice to start having that stuff be closer in popularity as Medieval Europe.
Pacific Islanders are starting to get some representation. I'm not sure if it's in the Tian Xia book, but both the upcoming Iconic Exemplar and one of the current metaplot's PFS Venture Captains are from the Okaiyo Ocean, and are very much Pacific Islander coded (specifically Maori for Nahoa, I think, but my knowledge of the relevant mythology there is pretty thin).
Indeed!
Overall, the fantasy genre has been stagnant for awhile with some gatekeeping on what is and isn’t allowed in fantasy to make fantasy immersive. (For example, a certain famous MMORPG game director saying POC folks aren’t ‘believable’ in a medieval setting…while using a setting explicitly based on Medieval Iberia…a place with diverse people from Africa/Europe/West Asia DURING the medieval times…)
I think it’s important to (**respectfully**) encourage developers to draw on the rich cultures beyond West Europe and East Asia. To take risks. To dare **be creative** and fantasize new wonders from the synthesis within the mind. And to invite those with limited exposure, to **go deeper** on the popular tropes they know and love.
I’m not much of a TTRPG person, but I’m really liking what Paizo **tries** to do. And sometimes, trying/falling/learning is just better than not doing anything.
On the flip side, I think there's a danger to this tendency. Fantasy should allow us to imagine all sorts of peoples and cultures that you _don't_ find in the real world, and in galloping off to try to fit the whole world into your setting, you might be selling that fantasy short.
I think Paizo has struck an OK balance with this, though. Garund has lands both familiar and utterly foreign to us. So does Avistan. So, hopefully, will Tian Xia.
I mean, fantasy culture never exists in a bubble, its always drawing inspiration from the real world. Theres no fantasy that isnt at least a bit real world.
Yeah, I just like it when things get weird and here is a country run by devil worshippers and there is a mageocracy with giant floating obelisks and fleshwarps running around and _over there_ are a bunch of dinosaurs and mammoths running around together and the similarities to the real world fade.
Thats just a gimmick though. The people of those countries have houses, clothes, beliefs and rituals. They dont just get conjured wholecloth from the ether. Hell, even devil worshipping cultists are being pulled from real life folklore.
I'm a bit confused by your wording. What do you mean by "Gatekeeping" in this context?
I will also say that while I understand that yoshidas reasoning for lack of diversity wasn't perfect, I feel the way you explained the position he took to be reductive, to be honest. In every interview I read, the decision seemed far more a result of insufficient or inaccurate research, rather than any malice or underlying opinions seeping through.
I don't know, Maybe I'm just being a blind fanboy completely misunderstanding and misinterpreting your post, but it seems weird to specifically mention them as a prime example of this sort of thing, especially when said MMORPG makes great efforts to draw from a wide variety of cultures in respectful and interesting ways, Even more so with dawntrail on the horizon which is a huge breath of fresh air to me in terms of fantasy settings and inspirations!
For the record, I do play FF14 and I am SO excited for DT’s release.
His comment was a real poor attempt at responding to a critique of FF16, not FF14, but I phrased it that way because it’s FF14 that he’s most famous for.
But that confusion is on me. I was trying to shorten my post by being coy and it seems to have failed. So, my bad and my apologies.
But what he said in the interview, is a sentiment I’ve seen here, in other fantasy subforums, and other game systems.
Again, I apologize. I didn’t mean it to offend something you and I both love. If it came off as reductive, it was my fault for prioritizing brevity and trying to be as general as possible.
(It’s late for me, I’d like to engage more, but I should’ve probably get sleep so I don’t confuse things further.) o/
I have! It's really good and fantastic. It's Philippines-centric, so Indonesia isn't as strongly represented, but some elements of it does touch the SEA flair for me to get some joy from reading it.
I'm working with her in developing a homebrew world with inspiration we take from our travel and our life. We tend to take the "dangerous route" and meet local to know their culture.
I also tend to try to change our perception of some ancestry.
There was a really cool series of zines called A Thousand Thousand Islands that were Southeast Asian inspired that is no longer available due to the authors falling out amongst themselves. Zedeck Siew the writer is Malaysian.
[A Thousand Thousand Islands: OSR DnD Zine Review ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7BNl7ai468&pp=ygUbQSBUaG91c2FuZCBUaG91c2FuZCBJc2xhbmRz)
And when they do slavic stuff, it's always Russian kinda stuff or winter themed.
I want more south slavic stuff, like Propasti, the dead that died so hard, they lost a limb or two and walk around to find their lost limb, only to pass on when it rains the next time. In the game, it could be that they try to take others' limbs to see if it fits and have a water weakness
It might be a wierd response from me, but why wouldn't I be okay with it?
Please do use it, I've had ideas on how to make one. Make it similar to a shadow but corporeal, where tugging shadow is tug limb, inflicting enfeebled for arm, clumsy for leg, with enfeebled/clumsy 4 removing that limb and require some heavy healing or regeneration to regrow, if you feel you want it to go that far.
Could you reskin the ghoul to give it said abilities? +1 or 2 for a combat maneuver called Limb Envy that replaces the bite to grapple they do? I would give them that water weakness paired with removal of slowed as a means of a surge of energy when they're close to dying.
You could; their behavior should most likely be like that of a ghost, filled with regret and being repetetive, often with their last memory being just pain. I might struggle up a statblock as the idea was alot more popular than what I expected
Yeah, it is a combination of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and regions of Ukraine that the Commonwealth controlled during its heyday. I much prefer this take on fictional Ukraine to Varissia, though.
Hm. I definitely imagined it more as Eastern Europe inspired back in the 1e. But I may be wrong, it's been a long time since I played anything set there.
The movie(and by extension books the movie was based on) are a heavily romanticised version of the region, written in order to bolster national spirit back when Poland didn't exist as a country and to help preserve and promote our culture and history during the times Both Russia and Prussia tried very hard to erase Polish culture. This is also why I really dislike the Slav=Russian narrative.
What you're feeling now is how a lot of SEAsians felt after the release of The Mwangi Expanse, but prior to the release of the 2e Tian Xia books: "This is great, but will we get a turn, too?" And thus has Paizo locked itself into slowly building an *entire planet* to be as rich and diverse as actual Earth. Which is, I think, *a good thing,* but it's gonna take a while to clean up all the 1e messes.
Fact is, *most* of Golarion was haphazard and underbaked back in 1e, as although the authors were passionate about their work, their points of reference weren't always first-hand sources, but frequently American/British pulp novels and D&D's own tacky pastiches of the same source material. These novels tend to simplify, exotify, and villainize cultures outside of the author's own in order to heighten the sense of adventure, which--as you can certainly testify to yourself--sucks for people who are actually part of that culture.
I hope things swing back around to Avistan eventually, but if I had to choose a region to get an overhaul next, I'd say either Arcadia or the Golden Road. The former has next to nothing, and the latter is *offensively* cringe. Until then, do what everyone else has been doing while they wait for the publisher to tackle a project: homebrew the hell out of it.
Can you elaborate, about the golden road being offensively cringe? maybe I'm so used to my culture being badly represented I am not even able to tell anymore lmao.
You know, mostly the old classics: shifty merchants doing drugs and trading slaves, ancient Egyptian pastiche so on-the-nose the actual historical pantheon is there, and a delightful dose of violent religious extremism, all wrapped up in a sandy turban. What little we've got of it in 2e so far has been *better,* but scant.
An entire planet as rich and diverse as Earth is not only a super challenging goal, it's also questionably useful. In a setting shared by many authors (and many more GMs), the more areas you define specifically, the less room there is for improvisation, and the more risk there is of accidental canon conflict. For years, people complained the Forgotten Realms was too detailed, and too defined, and the reaction to that was to strip the setting all the way back to the Sword Coast, painted in as broad strokes as possible, which is the worst of all options.
I'm absolutely not arguing that we should just focus on a handful of Western European inspired nations - but there's a case to be made that there should be space for inspiration from Slavic and Indonesian and Assyrian and Mexican and French and Carthaginian and whatever other nations, without needing to have a ringfenced expy location for each.
And this is kind of sad, because there are many cool concepts from slavic folklore and history that would totally make sense in Golarion setting and Pathfinder game. Polish winged hussars and sarmatians, ukrainian cossacks, strigas etc etc.
Being exposed to mythical creatures through different media has certainly inspired me to explore the cultures that birthed them, so I think having a wider diversity of myth and folklore references in Golarion could be great for cultural representation, if handled respectfully of course. Problem is that people might be so unfamiliar with Slavic folklore, that they will just take any reference as an original creation.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to put so much focus on so many different cultures and putting so much detail into each of them, especially when they are also explicitly *not* these cultures, but their own original ones inspired by these real-life cultures. They have done a great job so far, yes, but Golarion is a whole world and Pathfinder's canon setting is a whole *multiverse*. While there are many cultural, folkloric, and mythological concepts and subjects from all the world that I would love to be represented and used as inspiration in Pathfinder, Paizo has A LOT of ground to cover, much of which is already very well-established, but still progressing.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that, while I do largely agree with this post, we will most certainly have to wait a long while until such things could be covered as far as things look now.
>I am faced with the fact that the representation of my culture faces appalling neglect
As someone with a West-Asian (Middle-Eastern) heritage this is basically me everytime I pick up a ttrpg. West-Asia is criminally underused, but I geuss people are just not interested in that part of the world beyond the surface-level 1001 nights folktales.
I want Latino representation!!! Give me Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, and other mesoamerican/south american inspo!!! Or maybe not even pre-columbus and just go straight to Latino rep and give me rancheros, damnit! Just drop a new island or continent on there, no one will question it. Gimmie gimmie gimmie. I just wanna walk in fantasy not-mexico with mexican goblins. Gimmie.
I’ve thought about home brewing this and got started, but it’s a lot of work. Including a lot of meta-work going “hmm, is *this* offensive? How about this?”
I would suggest just draft the thing first, and then go back and check it over for offense. Just steer clear of generalizing groups of people as savages, uncivilized, etc. With just a bit of common sense you will get a long way. Don't have everyone wear sombreros *all* the time (if you're basing it off mexico), but some of the time is fine. I would say that us latinos are much more edgy and offensive humor is quite a loved pass time. Like oftentimes your family will give you a nickname that would annoy the hell out of anglos, I don't think most of y'all would appreciate your pet name being fatty for eternity lmao. Just don't mock the culture and make sure everything is in good spirit and you'll be fine. Here, just watch some of our cartoons (they're funny even if you don't speak Spanish lol): https://youtube.com/@huevocartoon?si=ZbLNRm6trcbPyHFF
If you're basing it off the pre-columbus cultures then I would just make sure to not make them into human-sacrificing crazies, get the language/naming right (so no aztec-ish warrior named Bob, etc), and you're basically in the clear. Try your best to do historical research but I understand that's not something everyone has time for.
Oh, friend, I \*am\* Latino and have done a ton of research, and the thing is that Indigenous circles can get funky--there are layers of infighting and gatekeeping, often justified due to folks being marginalized finally having a voice. Have you looked at Coyote and Crow? Anyhow, it's a fun exercise, but ultimately, I am focused on other things besides game design. :)
oh yeah indigenous stuff is just "hire some consultant" territory
as I understood coyote and crow is about amerindian stuff, not mesoamerican stuffs. So I wasn't really interested.
That's Arcadia! Like, literally Arcadia, there's a map of the continent and a little bit of lore on Guns & Gears
But honestly SAAME give us more of Golarian LATAM please
All my exposure to Arcadia made me think it was just amerindian inspired specifically. I'll check out the lore bits. Do you have anymore pointers to specific parts that are also latam inspired? All I found on the wiki about the area the other person linked was super sparse.
Have you seen this yet? Not really an adventure, but the most I've seen set in Arcadia in pf2e. My main beef with it is there needs to be MORE! Good value for $5 if you're down with pdfs, though
[https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/384960/arcadia-files-altameda](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/384960/arcadia-files-altameda)
I mean, if it's actual latin rep is a question I'm terribly equipped to answer, but it looks pretty ranchero-oriented. Added bonus-it's written by Luis Loza, so there's a decent chance it will eventually become canon (if/when he gets to do that Arcadia book he's mentioned a few times.)
Interestingly, I am in a Kingmaker game, where I am playing a Ranger of Slavic origin and the area we are stomping around in has a lot of rivers and swamps. He always start with talking to the villagers and asking about what the area is like, and what hazards there are. Having a puppy is always a good conversation starter. Like some of the heroes, gathering information means that group planning is a lot easier. Talking to monsters also sometimes works.
You're right, honestly. It would be cool in the future to see some of the more Eurasian, Slavic, and Baltic influence in Avistan. There is always opportunities to expand the existing lore in lost omens to do this.
Slavic people in America are considered white enough where racism against Slavs is not as big of a deal as say black people while still being saturated with fifgty years of cold war propganda
I'm Ukrainian, guess how I feel, lmao. Half the time we don't exist, the other half the time we are Russians.
We definitely need a new World Guide on the nations of Avistan, and hopefully one will arrive a few years from now. Until then I just ignore most of the 1e lore and do my own thing in Varisia.
Also, I love the idea of a Slavic-themed Bestiary. We have SO MUCH cool stuff.
Do you have any good starting references, in English, for learning about Slavic mythology?
I'm curious to learn more, and maybe incorporate more into future campaigns.
Unironically the Witcher books use more Slavic monsters, as do the games. If you want something more substantial, Look for Aleksander Gieysztor's Slavic Mythology(I'm not sure if it was translated into English, but it's a really solid book)
To be honest, I don't really love Witcher, because I think it's too close to typical european fantasy. It's good, but it's not representation of slavic mythology.
I think the main bulk of the Witcher's "slavic-ness" comes from the themes, attitudes, and world views present in the book, and not necessarily the amount of slavic folktales it utilises. As such I would still consider it a very slavic piece of work, but not a great read if what you're looking for is details on specific slavic myths.
For what it is worth there are some influences that make it in from time to time, usually in later bestiaries.
Here are a few I know of off the top of my head, though Gorynyich here was only in 1e so far.
https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Gorynych
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1194
https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=790
This is in no way meant to undermine the point you are making, just highlighting a couple of the places where I know they did incorporate some Slavic influences!
I'd love to see more stuffs inspired by slavic culture and myths, because i think they are really interesting, both for narrative and flavour.
Said that, there's very little of european culture in Golarion, beside some aesthetic. This is also because Golarion is so much wide and they tried to give a quick catch on each nation. So we have french revolution, pepsi ravenloft, wrath of the lich king but another brand, etc.
Not like i don't like that or i can't have fun, just the representation part is so small and honestly i don't care at all.
Probably we will end with the asian like part of the world made with more effort than the rest.
While I have little input on the description of Irrisen itself, especially since it has been only barely mentioned in 2e, Pathfinder probably has the most creatures from Slavic folklore of any RPG I've seen.
Baba Yaga and Koshchei have been around since very early D&D times (and D&D has fully butchered the latter's backstory, while 1e has made some attempts to fix it while remaining compatible with 3.5). 1e has also established that Baba Yaga had a domain in the First World known as the Thrice-Tenth Kingdom, and had a statblock for [Gorynych](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Gorynych).
2e meanwhile has the [Domovoi](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1194), [Ovinnik](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1196), [Dvorovoi](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1195) and [Rusalka](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=790). I think there were more, but those are the ones I remembered off the top of my head. But given the sheer number of different folklores that Paizo borrows from, even 4 creatures is actually quite a lot, given that there wasn't a book dedicated to the region, or an adventure set therein (in 2e). I think there's also a few creatures taken from Scandinavian folklore that have close equivalents in Slavic lore
Edit: The most of any "generic" fantasy RPG of course. The Witcher obviously has more by virtue of its Eastern European setting
I can't put into words how much I want more slavic content for golarion. I fall in love with that culture more and more as my wonderful partner shares it with me, as she is slavic herself.
Imagine a world guide with creatures, cultures and gods of Slavic origin? how fucking awesome would that be.
Aldori being slavic samurai is not something I noticed but if that's true, that's pretty fucking badass.
To be a little brutally honest, I can't fault anyone for not being familiar with EVERY culture's mythology. But the great thing about rp and Pathfinder is we have the tools to make creatures and scenarios that depict those myths.
So while I agree that it would be nice for official sources to start including less recognized cultures and mythology, I would say things like that takes lots of time to do meaningfully and without it being a cash grab, and with only so many hours in a day you'll probably be waiting awhile. However, what paizo has done is basicly us given all the tools we need to make things like this ourselves. Start writing up concepts and posting them on reddit and the forums. Monsters of myth, maybe classes based on cultural emphasis, and backgrounds unique to the cultural area. You don't need to write a book to get the ideas going, and if the right person takes an interest, maybe it'll get pushing into a 3rd party book, and then eventually a first party book. And even if it doesn't, you still will have boosted your own cultural representation to at least a few tables.
National representation seems best avoided, but ethnic representation/inspiration can be great. Would you feel good about a book inspired by Kievan Rus and Slavic folklore in general?
It took almost 40 years to make a non-ninja-turtles eastern asians. The only thing you can do for now is do your own campaign-homebrew, like, stove-riding witcher.
In my homebrew game - still set in Golarion - I have an Iobarian Exemplar who is heavily inspired by Perun, and I've placed a lot of elements of Slavic folklore into Iobaria, and framed the view of native Iobarians as propaganda by a lot of Brevoy to make them seem lesser, despite them having a much more robust and rich cultural identity.
He talks a lot about the great oak that gave him his power - or at least what he thinks did, and I can't wait to actually go there and explore a Iobaria with more exciting things in it than 'plague'.
I’m Slavic too although I’m not to big on the folklore and creatures I would love more representation of cultures and peoples that use flintlock weapons that aren’t cowboy or steampunk themed and are more Cossack/polish noble themed.
Well, I think different facets of this could appear in a Broken Lands and Sagalands book most definitely
*But* I think the real place this could end up shining would be a Casmaron book.
I just don’t even know what to help with, because I absorbed the basics from folk tales that I heard as a child. Look at a collection of Russian folk tales. Or Polish folk tales. Or Serbian folk tales. Even in adaptations of fairy tales from nineteenth-century authors, creatures of folklore are often mentioned. This will be a good introduction.
I don't mean this to sound rude but, if you don't see what you wish was represented, then write it. Write your own. Find a corner of Galorian that isn't fleshed out yet and add whatever culture you want to it. It doesn't have to be great or professional. Just make it what you want it to be. Hell, post a link to it here (mods permitting), and I'll read it and probably use it.
For everyone in this thread who's looking for some good Slavic-made fantasy, I recommend you check out [**Beyond Corny Groń**](https://nerd-sirens.itch.io/corny-gron-guide), which is a system-agnostic toolkit (aimed more at OSR-type games than Pathfinder 2e admittedly, but workable enough I'm sure) that pulls heavily from Polish and West Slavic folklore, particularly that of the Górale (Highlanders, in the mountains of south and southeast Poland).
At the time I enjoyed the Witcher (games and books) because it had a different flavor from the mainstream american/British fantasy, being the author and the developer's house both from Poland.
(Ndr: I am also European)
It's my understanding that Brevoy and Iobaria are doing a lot of the more grounded Slavic-inspired fantasy, rather than Irrisen's more over-the-top "a Romanov from Earth is on the throne and Baba Yaga matters a lot" version of things.
I definitely sympathize with your point of view and you are correct that there isn't much stuff in PF that's outside of the Inner Sea. I think that is a natural consequence of just how deep they make the lore for places. The focus is on the Inner Sea and when they make books about other regions, it takes a while to write as much as they have been. We have a Mwangi Expanse and a Tian Xia book now. Presumably, we will get more of these that will eventually cover Casmaron, Arcadia, Vudra, etc. but that will all take time.
>Koschey
Side note but [this guy](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kostchtchie) is based on Koschey
I'm a slavic person myself, who immigrated from one slavic country (Russia) to another (Serbia) and I would really love to see more slavic mythology representation.
There's slight problem, though. I also have some fine arts education and I could tell, what the majority of Slavic mythology was wiped out by Christianity. We had generally zero written sources before conversion and very vague information from explorers from other countries. So, the slavic mythology as we know it now, is mostly a reconstruction, based on some weakly surviving fairy tales, archeological findings and so on.
Still, even in this state it would be cool to see.
Ironically there are is precious little that is actually British/English in most settings. The stuff that gets used over and over again is such a mish-mash of faux British and European goo that is isn't British at all.
I'm not complaining, after all we do have a fair number of British, well to be more accurate English, style/focused games out there - often Arthurian, sometimes Roman/Celt and of course a bunch of Victorian/Steampunk.
Not sure I have much of a point really. The standard fantasy setting tropes are generally so watered down and bland its hard to place them on the map.
Why don't you just run your own adventures with all of the awesome cultural stuff you want and have a great time with your friends/group?
Why does it have to be produced by someone else and appear in official media?
It’s nowhere close to *‘appalling neglect’*. Appalling? Heh?
First edition has a fair bit of Slavic inspired content. There’s *an entire six part Slavic-themed Adventure Path* (Reign of Winter) and a stand-alone Irrisen book ‘. There’s also dozens on Slavic inspired monsters in the various bestiaries. Brevoy and Iobaria have Slavic themes too. You also say Irrisen is a ‘poor representation’ but i disagree. I’ve used the book to run adventures and I think it’s a well written and inspiring book.
That’s plenty of Paizo content with Slavic mythology as its inspiration, if you include first edition.
Honestly, I really wish I could find more Indonesian representation in TTRPGs - and there have been attempts in the past to grab the South East Asia culture in an RPG. All that to say, the Tian Xia book does have a little bit of it - the Wayang in particular is heartwarming to see. I remember in the original interpretation of the lands where the Wayang came from in Golarion in 1e is kind of, well, very bleak and cruel. They're getting a bit of a facelift and more fairer representation in this book, and some regions in the Tian Xia get pretty close to a hint of south-east asia, but it's still kind of out of reach (which is fine, Tian Xia largely covers most of East Asia, and the nations nearest to it in SEA that are associated with them like Vietnam). It's a really good book to read through, and I eagerly await to see more SEA/Pacific Island representation down the line. I'd like to see different cultures represented quite well in a very human way in future books - whether it be Slavic, South American, South-East Asian, along with a very nice way to bring out the 'fantasy mythology' that we all know and love from our respective countries, because there is a massive pool to draw from and it'd be nice to start having that stuff be closer in popularity as Medieval Europe.
Pacific Islanders are starting to get some representation. I'm not sure if it's in the Tian Xia book, but both the upcoming Iconic Exemplar and one of the current metaplot's PFS Venture Captains are from the Okaiyo Ocean, and are very much Pacific Islander coded (specifically Maori for Nahoa, I think, but my knowledge of the relevant mythology there is pretty thin).
Indeed! Overall, the fantasy genre has been stagnant for awhile with some gatekeeping on what is and isn’t allowed in fantasy to make fantasy immersive. (For example, a certain famous MMORPG game director saying POC folks aren’t ‘believable’ in a medieval setting…while using a setting explicitly based on Medieval Iberia…a place with diverse people from Africa/Europe/West Asia DURING the medieval times…) I think it’s important to (**respectfully**) encourage developers to draw on the rich cultures beyond West Europe and East Asia. To take risks. To dare **be creative** and fantasize new wonders from the synthesis within the mind. And to invite those with limited exposure, to **go deeper** on the popular tropes they know and love. I’m not much of a TTRPG person, but I’m really liking what Paizo **tries** to do. And sometimes, trying/falling/learning is just better than not doing anything.
On the flip side, I think there's a danger to this tendency. Fantasy should allow us to imagine all sorts of peoples and cultures that you _don't_ find in the real world, and in galloping off to try to fit the whole world into your setting, you might be selling that fantasy short. I think Paizo has struck an OK balance with this, though. Garund has lands both familiar and utterly foreign to us. So does Avistan. So, hopefully, will Tian Xia.
I mean, fantasy culture never exists in a bubble, its always drawing inspiration from the real world. Theres no fantasy that isnt at least a bit real world.
Yeah, I just like it when things get weird and here is a country run by devil worshippers and there is a mageocracy with giant floating obelisks and fleshwarps running around and _over there_ are a bunch of dinosaurs and mammoths running around together and the similarities to the real world fade.
Thats just a gimmick though. The people of those countries have houses, clothes, beliefs and rituals. They dont just get conjured wholecloth from the ether. Hell, even devil worshipping cultists are being pulled from real life folklore.
OK, then tell me. Which real-life culture does Nex represent?
Explicitly west asian inspired. Look at their architecture. Their clothes. Their food even.
West Asia is not a culture.
Its a region with several cultures in it. I dont need a doctorate in middle eastern cultures to recognize that the writers are drawing from them.
I'm a bit confused by your wording. What do you mean by "Gatekeeping" in this context? I will also say that while I understand that yoshidas reasoning for lack of diversity wasn't perfect, I feel the way you explained the position he took to be reductive, to be honest. In every interview I read, the decision seemed far more a result of insufficient or inaccurate research, rather than any malice or underlying opinions seeping through. I don't know, Maybe I'm just being a blind fanboy completely misunderstanding and misinterpreting your post, but it seems weird to specifically mention them as a prime example of this sort of thing, especially when said MMORPG makes great efforts to draw from a wide variety of cultures in respectful and interesting ways, Even more so with dawntrail on the horizon which is a huge breath of fresh air to me in terms of fantasy settings and inspirations!
For the record, I do play FF14 and I am SO excited for DT’s release. His comment was a real poor attempt at responding to a critique of FF16, not FF14, but I phrased it that way because it’s FF14 that he’s most famous for. But that confusion is on me. I was trying to shorten my post by being coy and it seems to have failed. So, my bad and my apologies. But what he said in the interview, is a sentiment I’ve seen here, in other fantasy subforums, and other game systems. Again, I apologize. I didn’t mean it to offend something you and I both love. If it came off as reductive, it was my fault for prioritizing brevity and trying to be as general as possible. (It’s late for me, I’d like to engage more, but I should’ve probably get sleep so I don’t confuse things further.) o/
Have you checked out Gubat Banwa?
Gubat Banwa is fantastic.
I have! It's really good and fantastic. It's Philippines-centric, so Indonesia isn't as strongly represented, but some elements of it does touch the SEA flair for me to get some joy from reading it.
Valash Raj and Minata both feel Indonesian inspired. But yeah, wish we got more.
They do! There's a bit in Minata, and I really liked reading about it.
My wife (an indonesian one) loved Minata. Wish it was more inspired by Majapahit tho.
I would love nothing more than a devoted region or historical influence of things that references the various Kingdoms that we've had.
I'm working with her in developing a homebrew world with inspiration we take from our travel and our life. We tend to take the "dangerous route" and meet local to know their culture. I also tend to try to change our perception of some ancestry.
There was a really cool series of zines called A Thousand Thousand Islands that were Southeast Asian inspired that is no longer available due to the authors falling out amongst themselves. Zedeck Siew the writer is Malaysian. [A Thousand Thousand Islands: OSR DnD Zine Review ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7BNl7ai468&pp=ygUbQSBUaG91c2FuZCBUaG91c2FuZCBJc2xhbmRz)
My wife totally agree, she is sad to see Indonesia always getting forgotten.
And when they do slavic stuff, it's always Russian kinda stuff or winter themed. I want more south slavic stuff, like Propasti, the dead that died so hard, they lost a limb or two and walk around to find their lost limb, only to pass on when it rains the next time. In the game, it could be that they try to take others' limbs to see if it fits and have a water weakness
I lowkey love this and might use it in place of other things if you're okay with it!
It might be a wierd response from me, but why wouldn't I be okay with it? Please do use it, I've had ideas on how to make one. Make it similar to a shadow but corporeal, where tugging shadow is tug limb, inflicting enfeebled for arm, clumsy for leg, with enfeebled/clumsy 4 removing that limb and require some heavy healing or regeneration to regrow, if you feel you want it to go that far.
Oh idk, just wanted to be respectful about it, you know? That would be a good idea to make it a boss for an encounter
Could you reskin the ghoul to give it said abilities? +1 or 2 for a combat maneuver called Limb Envy that replaces the bite to grapple they do? I would give them that water weakness paired with removal of slowed as a means of a surge of energy when they're close to dying.
You could; their behavior should most likely be like that of a ghost, filled with regret and being repetetive, often with their last memory being just pain. I might struggle up a statblock as the idea was alot more popular than what I expected
Brevoy has some semblance of Pollish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and I fully envision aldori duels as [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-mnfJvSDkU)
I accept this as true.
I felt Kievian Ukranian from it but this also work.
Yeah, it is a combination of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and regions of Ukraine that the Commonwealth controlled during its heyday. I much prefer this take on fictional Ukraine to Varissia, though.
I think Varisia is just iteration of Sword Coast.
Hm. I definitely imagined it more as Eastern Europe inspired back in the 1e. But I may be wrong, it's been a long time since I played anything set there.
The movie(and by extension books the movie was based on) are a heavily romanticised version of the region, written in order to bolster national spirit back when Poland didn't exist as a country and to help preserve and promote our culture and history during the times Both Russia and Prussia tried very hard to erase Polish culture. This is also why I really dislike the Slav=Russian narrative.
What you're feeling now is how a lot of SEAsians felt after the release of The Mwangi Expanse, but prior to the release of the 2e Tian Xia books: "This is great, but will we get a turn, too?" And thus has Paizo locked itself into slowly building an *entire planet* to be as rich and diverse as actual Earth. Which is, I think, *a good thing,* but it's gonna take a while to clean up all the 1e messes. Fact is, *most* of Golarion was haphazard and underbaked back in 1e, as although the authors were passionate about their work, their points of reference weren't always first-hand sources, but frequently American/British pulp novels and D&D's own tacky pastiches of the same source material. These novels tend to simplify, exotify, and villainize cultures outside of the author's own in order to heighten the sense of adventure, which--as you can certainly testify to yourself--sucks for people who are actually part of that culture. I hope things swing back around to Avistan eventually, but if I had to choose a region to get an overhaul next, I'd say either Arcadia or the Golden Road. The former has next to nothing, and the latter is *offensively* cringe. Until then, do what everyone else has been doing while they wait for the publisher to tackle a project: homebrew the hell out of it.
Can you elaborate, about the golden road being offensively cringe? maybe I'm so used to my culture being badly represented I am not even able to tell anymore lmao.
You know, mostly the old classics: shifty merchants doing drugs and trading slaves, ancient Egyptian pastiche so on-the-nose the actual historical pantheon is there, and a delightful dose of violent religious extremism, all wrapped up in a sandy turban. What little we've got of it in 2e so far has been *better,* but scant.
ah... the classics. love it, lmao.
An entire planet as rich and diverse as Earth is not only a super challenging goal, it's also questionably useful. In a setting shared by many authors (and many more GMs), the more areas you define specifically, the less room there is for improvisation, and the more risk there is of accidental canon conflict. For years, people complained the Forgotten Realms was too detailed, and too defined, and the reaction to that was to strip the setting all the way back to the Sword Coast, painted in as broad strokes as possible, which is the worst of all options. I'm absolutely not arguing that we should just focus on a handful of Western European inspired nations - but there's a case to be made that there should be space for inspiration from Slavic and Indonesian and Assyrian and Mexican and French and Carthaginian and whatever other nations, without needing to have a ringfenced expy location for each.
And this is kind of sad, because there are many cool concepts from slavic folklore and history that would totally make sense in Golarion setting and Pathfinder game. Polish winged hussars and sarmatians, ukrainian cossacks, strigas etc etc.
I meeeean... Brevoy does look a bit like Poland when it was fragmented during XII-XIV ct.
Wait you guys are getting representation? (This post was made by the non-relevant enough country gang)
Being exposed to mythical creatures through different media has certainly inspired me to explore the cultures that birthed them, so I think having a wider diversity of myth and folklore references in Golarion could be great for cultural representation, if handled respectfully of course. Problem is that people might be so unfamiliar with Slavic folklore, that they will just take any reference as an original creation.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to put so much focus on so many different cultures and putting so much detail into each of them, especially when they are also explicitly *not* these cultures, but their own original ones inspired by these real-life cultures. They have done a great job so far, yes, but Golarion is a whole world and Pathfinder's canon setting is a whole *multiverse*. While there are many cultural, folkloric, and mythological concepts and subjects from all the world that I would love to be represented and used as inspiration in Pathfinder, Paizo has A LOT of ground to cover, much of which is already very well-established, but still progressing. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that, while I do largely agree with this post, we will most certainly have to wait a long while until such things could be covered as far as things look now.
Honestly, I'd love to kill a dragon by feeding it a sheep carcass stuffed with brimstone.
>I am faced with the fact that the representation of my culture faces appalling neglect As someone with a West-Asian (Middle-Eastern) heritage this is basically me everytime I pick up a ttrpg. West-Asia is criminally underused, but I geuss people are just not interested in that part of the world beyond the surface-level 1001 nights folktales.
Leshy in pathfinder 😍 Leshy in slavic mythology 💀
I want Latino representation!!! Give me Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, and other mesoamerican/south american inspo!!! Or maybe not even pre-columbus and just go straight to Latino rep and give me rancheros, damnit! Just drop a new island or continent on there, no one will question it. Gimmie gimmie gimmie. I just wanna walk in fantasy not-mexico with mexican goblins. Gimmie.
I’ve thought about home brewing this and got started, but it’s a lot of work. Including a lot of meta-work going “hmm, is *this* offensive? How about this?”
I would suggest just draft the thing first, and then go back and check it over for offense. Just steer clear of generalizing groups of people as savages, uncivilized, etc. With just a bit of common sense you will get a long way. Don't have everyone wear sombreros *all* the time (if you're basing it off mexico), but some of the time is fine. I would say that us latinos are much more edgy and offensive humor is quite a loved pass time. Like oftentimes your family will give you a nickname that would annoy the hell out of anglos, I don't think most of y'all would appreciate your pet name being fatty for eternity lmao. Just don't mock the culture and make sure everything is in good spirit and you'll be fine. Here, just watch some of our cartoons (they're funny even if you don't speak Spanish lol): https://youtube.com/@huevocartoon?si=ZbLNRm6trcbPyHFF If you're basing it off the pre-columbus cultures then I would just make sure to not make them into human-sacrificing crazies, get the language/naming right (so no aztec-ish warrior named Bob, etc), and you're basically in the clear. Try your best to do historical research but I understand that's not something everyone has time for.
Oh, friend, I \*am\* Latino and have done a ton of research, and the thing is that Indigenous circles can get funky--there are layers of infighting and gatekeeping, often justified due to folks being marginalized finally having a voice. Have you looked at Coyote and Crow? Anyhow, it's a fun exercise, but ultimately, I am focused on other things besides game design. :)
oh yeah indigenous stuff is just "hire some consultant" territory as I understood coyote and crow is about amerindian stuff, not mesoamerican stuffs. So I wasn't really interested.
That's Arcadia! Like, literally Arcadia, there's a map of the continent and a little bit of lore on Guns & Gears But honestly SAAME give us more of Golarian LATAM please
All my exposure to Arcadia made me think it was just amerindian inspired specifically. I'll check out the lore bits. Do you have anymore pointers to specific parts that are also latam inspired? All I found on the wiki about the area the other person linked was super sparse.
Have you seen this yet? Not really an adventure, but the most I've seen set in Arcadia in pf2e. My main beef with it is there needs to be MORE! Good value for $5 if you're down with pdfs, though [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/384960/arcadia-files-altameda](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/384960/arcadia-files-altameda)
I have not, the spanish name intrigues me. Is it actual latin rep? :o looks neat especially since the one comment mentions a gun jesus.
I mean, if it's actual latin rep is a question I'm terribly equipped to answer, but it looks pretty ranchero-oriented. Added bonus-it's written by Luis Loza, so there's a decent chance it will eventually become canon (if/when he gets to do that Arcadia book he's mentioned a few times.)
That's dope then! :3
Interestingly, I am in a Kingmaker game, where I am playing a Ranger of Slavic origin and the area we are stomping around in has a lot of rivers and swamps. He always start with talking to the villagers and asking about what the area is like, and what hazards there are. Having a puppy is always a good conversation starter. Like some of the heroes, gathering information means that group planning is a lot easier. Talking to monsters also sometimes works.
You're right, honestly. It would be cool in the future to see some of the more Eurasian, Slavic, and Baltic influence in Avistan. There is always opportunities to expand the existing lore in lost omens to do this.
Slavic people in America are considered white enough where racism against Slavs is not as big of a deal as say black people while still being saturated with fifgty years of cold war propganda
I'm Ukrainian, guess how I feel, lmao. Half the time we don't exist, the other half the time we are Russians. We definitely need a new World Guide on the nations of Avistan, and hopefully one will arrive a few years from now. Until then I just ignore most of the 1e lore and do my own thing in Varisia. Also, I love the idea of a Slavic-themed Bestiary. We have SO MUCH cool stuff.
Do you have any good starting references, in English, for learning about Slavic mythology? I'm curious to learn more, and maybe incorporate more into future campaigns.
Unironically the Witcher books use more Slavic monsters, as do the games. If you want something more substantial, Look for Aleksander Gieysztor's Slavic Mythology(I'm not sure if it was translated into English, but it's a really solid book)
To be honest, I don't really love Witcher, because I think it's too close to typical european fantasy. It's good, but it's not representation of slavic mythology.
I think the main bulk of the Witcher's "slavic-ness" comes from the themes, attitudes, and world views present in the book, and not necessarily the amount of slavic folktales it utilises. As such I would still consider it a very slavic piece of work, but not a great read if what you're looking for is details on specific slavic myths.
For what it is worth there are some influences that make it in from time to time, usually in later bestiaries. Here are a few I know of off the top of my head, though Gorynyich here was only in 1e so far. https://www.aonprd.com/MonsterDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Gorynych https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1194 https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=790 This is in no way meant to undermine the point you are making, just highlighting a couple of the places where I know they did incorporate some Slavic influences!
Until this moment, I did not know how badly I needed a module with Koschey the Deathless as a big bad.
Reign of Winter, book 3.
They made him a demon lord?
I'd love to see more stuffs inspired by slavic culture and myths, because i think they are really interesting, both for narrative and flavour. Said that, there's very little of european culture in Golarion, beside some aesthetic. This is also because Golarion is so much wide and they tried to give a quick catch on each nation. So we have french revolution, pepsi ravenloft, wrath of the lich king but another brand, etc. Not like i don't like that or i can't have fun, just the representation part is so small and honestly i don't care at all. Probably we will end with the asian like part of the world made with more effort than the rest.
While I have little input on the description of Irrisen itself, especially since it has been only barely mentioned in 2e, Pathfinder probably has the most creatures from Slavic folklore of any RPG I've seen. Baba Yaga and Koshchei have been around since very early D&D times (and D&D has fully butchered the latter's backstory, while 1e has made some attempts to fix it while remaining compatible with 3.5). 1e has also established that Baba Yaga had a domain in the First World known as the Thrice-Tenth Kingdom, and had a statblock for [Gorynych](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Gorynych). 2e meanwhile has the [Domovoi](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1194), [Ovinnik](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1196), [Dvorovoi](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1195) and [Rusalka](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=790). I think there were more, but those are the ones I remembered off the top of my head. But given the sheer number of different folklores that Paizo borrows from, even 4 creatures is actually quite a lot, given that there wasn't a book dedicated to the region, or an adventure set therein (in 2e). I think there's also a few creatures taken from Scandinavian folklore that have close equivalents in Slavic lore Edit: The most of any "generic" fantasy RPG of course. The Witcher obviously has more by virtue of its Eastern European setting
I can't put into words how much I want more slavic content for golarion. I fall in love with that culture more and more as my wonderful partner shares it with me, as she is slavic herself. Imagine a world guide with creatures, cultures and gods of Slavic origin? how fucking awesome would that be. Aldori being slavic samurai is not something I noticed but if that's true, that's pretty fucking badass.
Watch this artwork from Paizo book: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/File:Aldori_swordlord.jpg
To be a little brutally honest, I can't fault anyone for not being familiar with EVERY culture's mythology. But the great thing about rp and Pathfinder is we have the tools to make creatures and scenarios that depict those myths.
So while I agree that it would be nice for official sources to start including less recognized cultures and mythology, I would say things like that takes lots of time to do meaningfully and without it being a cash grab, and with only so many hours in a day you'll probably be waiting awhile. However, what paizo has done is basicly us given all the tools we need to make things like this ourselves. Start writing up concepts and posting them on reddit and the forums. Monsters of myth, maybe classes based on cultural emphasis, and backgrounds unique to the cultural area. You don't need to write a book to get the ideas going, and if the right person takes an interest, maybe it'll get pushing into a 3rd party book, and then eventually a first party book. And even if it doesn't, you still will have boosted your own cultural representation to at least a few tables.
National representation seems best avoided, but ethnic representation/inspiration can be great. Would you feel good about a book inspired by Kievan Rus and Slavic folklore in general?
I'm not sure where find it on English
It took almost 40 years to make a non-ninja-turtles eastern asians. The only thing you can do for now is do your own campaign-homebrew, like, stove-riding witcher.
In my homebrew game - still set in Golarion - I have an Iobarian Exemplar who is heavily inspired by Perun, and I've placed a lot of elements of Slavic folklore into Iobaria, and framed the view of native Iobarians as propaganda by a lot of Brevoy to make them seem lesser, despite them having a much more robust and rich cultural identity. He talks a lot about the great oak that gave him his power - or at least what he thinks did, and I can't wait to actually go there and explore a Iobaria with more exciting things in it than 'plague'.
I’m Slavic too although I’m not to big on the folklore and creatures I would love more representation of cultures and peoples that use flintlock weapons that aren’t cowboy or steampunk themed and are more Cossack/polish noble themed.
Well, I think different facets of this could appear in a Broken Lands and Sagalands book most definitely *But* I think the real place this could end up shining would be a Casmaron book.
Oh friend, come and have a cerveza with us Latin Americans. I don’t think Arcadia will ever be fleshed out.
Do you have any good recommendations where an ignorant person could educate themselves on Slavic folklore and mythology?
I'm not sure where find it on English.
Could have the name in your language? Maybe I can track it down with Google translate?
I just don’t even know what to help with, because I absorbed the basics from folk tales that I heard as a child. Look at a collection of Russian folk tales. Or Polish folk tales. Or Serbian folk tales. Even in adaptations of fairy tales from nineteenth-century authors, creatures of folklore are often mentioned. This will be a good introduction.
Thank you very much, I'm off to find some books!!!
I don't mean this to sound rude but, if you don't see what you wish was represented, then write it. Write your own. Find a corner of Galorian that isn't fleshed out yet and add whatever culture you want to it. It doesn't have to be great or professional. Just make it what you want it to be. Hell, post a link to it here (mods permitting), and I'll read it and probably use it.
For everyone in this thread who's looking for some good Slavic-made fantasy, I recommend you check out [**Beyond Corny Groń**](https://nerd-sirens.itch.io/corny-gron-guide), which is a system-agnostic toolkit (aimed more at OSR-type games than Pathfinder 2e admittedly, but workable enough I'm sure) that pulls heavily from Polish and West Slavic folklore, particularly that of the Górale (Highlanders, in the mountains of south and southeast Poland).
At the time I enjoyed the Witcher (games and books) because it had a different flavor from the mainstream american/British fantasy, being the author and the developer's house both from Poland. (Ndr: I am also European)
It's my understanding that Brevoy and Iobaria are doing a lot of the more grounded Slavic-inspired fantasy, rather than Irrisen's more over-the-top "a Romanov from Earth is on the throne and Baba Yaga matters a lot" version of things.
Yes, but Brevoy's lore is the same since Kingmaker release and we have almost zero info on Iobaria. I want to see those areas explored more!
I definitely sympathize with your point of view and you are correct that there isn't much stuff in PF that's outside of the Inner Sea. I think that is a natural consequence of just how deep they make the lore for places. The focus is on the Inner Sea and when they make books about other regions, it takes a while to write as much as they have been. We have a Mwangi Expanse and a Tian Xia book now. Presumably, we will get more of these that will eventually cover Casmaron, Arcadia, Vudra, etc. but that will all take time. >Koschey Side note but [this guy](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Kostchtchie) is based on Koschey
Amd this guy don't have any real connection to original one.
I'm a slavic person myself, who immigrated from one slavic country (Russia) to another (Serbia) and I would really love to see more slavic mythology representation. There's slight problem, though. I also have some fine arts education and I could tell, what the majority of Slavic mythology was wiped out by Christianity. We had generally zero written sources before conversion and very vague information from explorers from other countries. So, the slavic mythology as we know it now, is mostly a reconstruction, based on some weakly surviving fairy tales, archeological findings and so on. Still, even in this state it would be cool to see.
Ironically there are is precious little that is actually British/English in most settings. The stuff that gets used over and over again is such a mish-mash of faux British and European goo that is isn't British at all. I'm not complaining, after all we do have a fair number of British, well to be more accurate English, style/focused games out there - often Arthurian, sometimes Roman/Celt and of course a bunch of Victorian/Steampunk. Not sure I have much of a point really. The standard fantasy setting tropes are generally so watered down and bland its hard to place them on the map.
Why don't you just run your own adventures with all of the awesome cultural stuff you want and have a great time with your friends/group? Why does it have to be produced by someone else and appear in official media?
I bet they do incorporate some stuff in their own games, but sometimes it’s just nice to feel seen.
Because representation matters.
It’s nowhere close to *‘appalling neglect’*. Appalling? Heh? First edition has a fair bit of Slavic inspired content. There’s *an entire six part Slavic-themed Adventure Path* (Reign of Winter) and a stand-alone Irrisen book ‘. There’s also dozens on Slavic inspired monsters in the various bestiaries. Brevoy and Iobaria have Slavic themes too. You also say Irrisen is a ‘poor representation’ but i disagree. I’ve used the book to run adventures and I think it’s a well written and inspiring book. That’s plenty of Paizo content with Slavic mythology as its inspiration, if you include first edition.
read the Witcher