1. We pick four historical/geographical settings that aren't normally treated by fantasy worlds

1. We pick four historical/geographical settings that aren't normally treated by fantasy worlds.
2. We try to build a setting based on a continent where these are the four countries/nations/cultures in existence and the interactions between them.
Why four? Because I've read somewhere that's the minimum amount of factions needed to have meaningful, in-depth dramatic interaction. It sounds smart, so who am I to argue.

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_people
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayak_people
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyarite_Kingdom
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnei_Menashe
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanite
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Australian Aboriginals, with fuckloads of mystic ass magic and shapeshifting.

Moche Indians

Jewish Khazars

There's a reason these cultures aren't appearing often, you know.

Simply put, they are boring shit. Players won't be willing to learn about them, because if someone was, they would be more popular. But they are not. Making a setting with them would result in GM masturbating over his TOTALLY UNIQUE AND AMAZING CULTURES while bored players play with their phones.

Just give me my not!europe, not!japan and maybe not!middle east or not!russia as bad guys. Everyone is familliar with them. Everyone likes them or likes to beat them up. Nobody gives two shits about your fufhu-mundi or topperwopper islanders from bumfuckistan islands.

90s New York Jews

Filipino Princes, split into two smaller factions monotheistic, early renaissance era technocrats and hordes of pagan barbarians.

COMBINE THOSE TWO
Horseriding, slave-driving, mystical lawyers. Steppe-conquering nagging mothers. Fortress building accountants. A school of magic based on a combination of spirit chanting and chicken soup.

>led by the dread warlord, Genghis Kohen

What a fun contribution to the thread

what about aztecs vs indians (from india) vs greeks vs bedoiun

medieval knights! ... not funny I know

South American culture (Maya, Inka, Aztecs take your pick, I'm too bad to substantually tell them apart)
take jungle, massive cities, Priest caste worshipping the sun god or some other prick they sacrifice people to
animal style warriors with weird wood/obsidian weapons, little to no iron
and a shit load of psychadelic drugs

Rise of Legends went with steampunk Italians, magical Arabs and Chariots of the Gods style Mayans. Rumor has it that at various points in development plans were made for a Finnish and/or Mongolian shamanistic faction, and IIRC something about Korean cyberpunk aliens? (I could be remembering something from a fan thread back when there were forums, though)

I am occasionally possessed by the quantum ghosts of warriors in the Finno-Korean Hyper War and forced to live out the final moments before the activation of the Giza mass-autism array.

You know i'm right.

Just look at the absolute shit that are replies to this thread.

I know you're trolling, but this actually isn't a bad idea. The Khazar kingdom was a fairly interesting historical anomaly. They were somewhere on the borderline between a culture of steppe nomads (with all the raiding and pillaging that entailed) and an established culture of farmers, city builders and merchants who were actually quite successful for their time, and who drew influences from Byzantium and the Islamic world. The fact that their ruling elite mass converted to Judaism at one point in history is practically a footnote in comparison. The trade city of Atil and the routes leading to it through the taiga could certainly be an interesting setting for adventures.

Vietnam fucking shits

So, are we picking four of those, or what?

Oh, shit. Haida. AKA The Vikings of the Pacific Northwest. AKA cannon canoes and treebark armor.

Khazars are obviously in, and I'd second Aboriginals, as long as we get the full variety. Australia's a big place, and you can go from the Botany Bay aboriginals who maintained their land like a gentleman's estate to the West Australian nutjobs who stuck stringray barbs through their penises and bit off their foreskins at manhood.

I think that we are devolving into muh favorite obscure culture posting. Not that I have any problems with that.

Why chicken soup? Apart of veggies soup must be the most common one in the world.

Why not crab bisque then?

A specific type of chicken soup (appetizingly named "yoikh") is strongly associated with Ashkenazi Jews. It's pretty much the core of their cuisine. Everything else they eat either goes in the soup, after it, or with it.

and a city-sized snake that carves canyons as it moves

I dunno, Chicken soup can be found from Mexico to the South east asia, it's even more universal than meat and potatoes. But I'm nitpicking and I never met a jew face to face so I dunno if it's something sacred to them or why anyone thinks it's some sort of Jewish food.

Technically, it's a consomme. Usually fatty (using duck fat, for Kosher purposes), with a deep gold color. Fitting with the Jewish philosophy of "you never know when all your food will be stolen by cossacks, so squeeze the most out of it", it's cooked for days in a sealed pot until every last single tiny bit of flavor has been drained from the ingredients, leaving it thick and delicious. It is then spiced as generously as possible and into it are dumped noodles, dumplings, or vegetables as desired.

Alongside brisket, steamed carrots and/or potatoes, fish balls and chala (a kind of fluffy bread so sweet it's practically a cake), they make the heart of Jewish cuisine.

For best effect, drink with Jewish Ashkenazi wine, known as "Hammer Wine" (Yyne Patishi), for how your head will feel the morning after.

Sadly, Jews suck at desserts. The best they can normally manage is "take dough, good? Now shove everything sweet you can think of into it. Good? Now bake it. Eat the result."

...

I like the idea of using the Haida as the setting's resident "naval culture", instead of the more stereotypical vikings or Spaniards. Either that, or maybe something from Southeast Asia. Vietnamese pirates were a thing back in the day.

Looks even duller than the typical Slav fare. No offense.
Spaniards? Not-Venice or Not-England are a lot more likely for what I seen. Also for Pirates, the Malay are still the greatest pirates than exist, and have a long tradition about it.

>Looks even duller than the typical Slav fare. No offense.

No shit. It's an entire class of cuisine based on:

1. Extreme poverty
2. Having to feed large families with basically nothing
3. Adhering to religious dietary restrictions which appear tailor made to prohibiting the cheapest, most satisfying foods

It's a miracle that they have anything like "cuisine" at all.

>The fact that their ruling elite mass converted to Judaism at one point in history is practically a footnote in comparison.
As if that's far and away the craziest thing about them, I'm pretty sure that's the only time in history that's ever happened, can you cite any other examples? Really weird when you consider the whole lost tribes of israel angle and then BAM huge numbers of new jews with absolutely no genetic connection to israel whatsoever. How is that just a footnote?

The Khazar kingdom was the only instance in history of a mass conversion to Judaism.

>be a semitic nomad and hate coastal city building tribes
>ban all foods that they eat but you can't because unlike them you're a stupid nomadic fuck who molest goats
>centuries later your descendants suffer thanks to your sour grapes

Add in a headhunting tribe that is a mix of Dayak and Naga. If we're throwing the Aztecs/Maya in, they could fit into a sub-faction.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_people
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayak_people

Any idea why they did it? Where they just being hipsters?

>You guys are converting to ISLAM? pff I'ma go be a jew

Could we have Indians who have almost all of their cities and architecture as rock-cut?

A while ago I had this idea of a polynesian culture based naval empire but I got distracted by other things. Their boats are too small anyway, I'd have to figure out a way they would modify their traditional vessels to be able to carry more manpower/cargo

It also prohibits food most likely to fuck you up if you go wrong with it though, and the mad restrictions on cleanliness and preparation should ensure it won't be made by non-Jews who might fuck with it, or make you want to marry outside the religion

Throw in some Anasazi too.

There are theories, but not enough historical records to be ever able to say for sure. It seems to have had something to do with a reformation of the government system around the 8th century AD, which resulted (for some reason) with the nobility rapidly converting to Judaism over the course of less than a hundred years. And it's not like they did it just for fashion, mind you: for a period, official documents within the Khazar kingdom were written in Hebrew, and Jewish symbols appear prominently on artifacts from the era, particularly tombs and gravestones.

Basically, SOMETHING happened around the 8th century that made Judaism the hottest shit to the Khazar nobles.

The aforementioned Haida lucked out on existing long enough to be influenced by Europe, and modified their traditional raiding canoes to carry cannons. No reason the Polynesians couldn't have if they'd lived long enough.

some moria shit right there
That's cool. So we've got Haida, Khazars and Aboriginals? One more I guess

So for the time being, we seem to have agreed on at least the Khazar stand-ins and the Australian Aboriginal stand-ins.

How would those two cultures interact?

I imagine there would be a lot of Monotheism/Henotheism vs Polytheism/Pantheism religious conflict.

I also like the Haida/Polynesian and Maurya/Rock-Cut Indian stuff.

>european naval civ
>it is always muh viking, spain or england
>shit like hansa, venice or even fucking netherlands never get any love

Khazar noble warrior, circa 9th century AD. Note that by this point in time, Khazar warrior culture was basically a fashion statement - they were thoroughly a mercantile and business power. The first time they got into a serious military conflict, the Kievan Rus roflstomped them so hard they turned into the Ashekanzi Jews we know today from Brooklyn.

i mean isnt the standard merchant guild approach that is used by almost everyone these days basically the hansa? And how are the netherlands significantly different from england?

Indian large centralized empire in the rocky valleys and highlands.

Khazar traders and decentralized city states in the lowlands and steppes.

Haida naval raiders along the coast with some moderately sized cities.

Aborigines where?


Also, suggestion, prehistoric mammals alongside more modern fair. Indricotheres, chalicotheres, hyenadon, that sort of thing. Maybe Australian marsupial megafauna as well? I just really like pre-ice age mammal megafauna.

Another interesting fact: despite long being thought to have been a nomadic culture of yurt dwelling shepherds (you know, like everyone else in that geographic region), ruins of their capital city of Atil were found near the Volga delta and revealed to have not only included extensive stone fortifications, but also palaces and government buildings crafted in the Byzantine and Turkish styles of the time.

The Khazars were pretty much the real life, Siberian version of the Vesten from 7th Sea. After centuries of being shepherds and raiders, someone just figured one day "wait a moment, we have tens of thousands of slaves trailing after our caravans and our kingdom stretches throughout Asia, I bet there's money to be made here." So all the slaves were put to agriculture and construction and the former warrior class turned into adventurer-merchants who brought exotic goods from far-off Asia to obscenely rich Byzantine nobles. And because their kingdom stretched far enough, that could include anything from silk, tea and porcelain from China to gold, silver and rare animal pelts from Siberia (they basically had a monopoly on sable at one point).

Also, have more Maurya era Indian architecture.

>local birds took a different evolutionary path

In terms of magic, if it exists, I'm sensing a very strong shamanistic theme here. Three of the four civilizations you're describing have their routes in animist cultures (Pacific Northwest, Australian Aboriginal and Turko-Mongolian). Indian structure is curiously lacking in tales of magicians and witchcraft, but their gods are fucking everywhere.

Khazar stand-ins have practiced shamanism for thousands of years, but in the past two centuries have embraced a new system of scholarly magic to go alongside their general modernization that focuses on outright commanding the spirits using a scientific knowledge of their true names, magical mathematics and and an encyclopedic knowledge of the cosmos.

Yeah, the world as a whole would probably follow relatively pantheistic ideas. Spirits live everywhere, but they manifest in different ways and people interact with them differently.

Not sure how to fit that into Vedic ideas of a creator god and his subdivisions though.

This really begs the question of how the Australian Aboriginal folks have actually survived being on the same continent as real civilizations, some of which may have gunpowder, horses, metal armor or some combination thereof.

By living in shitholes that no one else wants to have?

What an asshole, fuck off man

Being tougher than any civilisation that needs nails.
And magic cunt.

By living somewhere so shit no one really bothers to conquer it and because they're not really bothering anyone. Also maybe strong shamanic magic.

Sometimes people go to the outback and trade. Uncut opals, weird animal skins, dyes. Maybe buy a bunyip or two as pack animals.

Make them abnormally tall giants, in comparison to other races?

A powerful form of magic based on huffing gasoline fumes and wandering into nuclear testing sites.

>a race of gasoline addicted hulks

How terrifying.

...

Do like in that fantasy alternate history series:

Give them dragons. Feathered, firebreathing, immortal dragons who plague the outback and make it an impassible death desert, but which the Aboriginal types have learned to coexist, train and ride to battle over the millennia.

Make it so their blood is also psychedelic, and the abbo magicians go to Dreamtime by drinking it.

>Gasoline
>Comes from prehistoric plants and dinosaurs that chemically changed after many centuries

I GOT IT! The Aborigines' shamans traverse deep into the earth to gather from a tar-like font of magical liquid that is guarded by necromantic, sentient, prehistoric fauna and flora

Give them guns, duh.

We're not literally dumping the actual civilisations next to each other, it's a fantasy setting.

can we not go full retard. i like the blood idea though

>Skiping leg day.

I dunno, it sounds pretty cool to me. I like feathered dragons, not nearly enough settings have them.

Wait, we can modify this somehow.
There exists gigantic snakes that roam the Outback of the setting, large enough for entire villages to live upon. Their blood is very potent in magic, especially if huffed.
They're actually biomechanical trains with magic gasoline blood, and was the only remnant of the once-technologically-advanced past of the Aborigines

I think, if anything, that's going a little bit gonzo. I'm with dragonanon on this one: it's a nice twist on the familiar fantasy cliche, but without, you know, actually going for the complete "abbos huff petrol" joke.

Oh, look. Another thread ruined by /pol/ jokes.

Indians see not a divide but a series of steps between mystics and gods.

Flying feathered serpent, then? I'm cool with that.

Basically think this, but huge, spits fire and gives hallucinogenic visions. Or hell, it actually just spits hallucinogenic venom, and the idea that it "breathes fire" is the result of bad trips from people who encountered them. This also explains the blood thing.

Give a whole new meaning to "Rainbow Serpent".

The way I see it, setting has four kinds of "magic":

* Animism: communion, bargaining, and/or voluntarily possession by and the enslavement of local spirits. Most common type of magic, practiced by members of all cultures. Basically the "default".

* Truename Magic: Scientific magic adopted by the Merchant States (Khazar stand-ins) several centuries ago from a culture beyond the continent, during the series of social upheavals which reshaped their civilization. Essentially a form of "industrialized" animism, it uses precision mystical science and the power of numbers and letters to forcibly enslave spirits, skipping the "bargaining" and "diplomacy" parts.

* Yoga: not true magic at all but a method of attaining superhuman powers practiced by the Mountain Kingdom (India stand-in). Individual powers developed through this method are called siddhis, and mostly include physical and mental perfection.

* Bush Medicine: another form of pseudo-magic, this one practiced elusively by the Outback people. Involves the ritual consumption of toxins and venoms extracted from the ludicrously deadly environment (including dragon's blood) to achieve magical effects, most of which involve dreams (dream projections, prophetic dreams, etc.). The most "iconic" Bush Medicine power uses dragon's blood to forge a bond between a warrior and a dragon, allowing him to ride the dragon into battle.

Instead of ever giving these civilizations names, what if we just gave them radical symbols and just called them by generic terms, like the merchant-states, sea-raiders and paint-huffers?

You design those symbols?

They're from Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Not theirs.

Huh, they're weirdly appropriate. Except for the vaguely Christian crown one.

Makes sense to me. I feel like the Haida need something though. Blood magic? I don't know a whole lot about them other than being a bunch of stone cold badasses.

They just get animism, like everyone. Not all the cultures have to get something special to them. The Haida may be the setting's gunpowder specialists (I can see them, the Khazars and the Indians all making use of it to some degree, but the Haida would really be the local gun nuts).

dude look at his fucking leg

massive scar and the messed up shin

something awful happened to that dude and all they had was probably Boer War era medicine

He probably couldn't walk

That would actually be interesting. Them as the relative industrialists.

Not industrialists, gun nuts. Maori Musket Wars style (an apt comparison). Or rather, maybe more like the Japanese, in a sense. They don't have an "industry" and their craftsmanship is pretty primitive (except when it comes to boats and wooden armor), it just happens that someone's taught them how to make guns and cannons and they REALLY took to it.

No exceptions.

Armenia.

Siam/Thailand.

Maori.(Interesting culture, not missing links like the Abbos)

Ethiopia/Aksum would be an interesting basis for an African setting. Maybe mix in some elements from less developed civilization, IE ritual combat and trading trading of the Masai people.

For some reason I've always thoughts Elves would be cool as North African Berber(Amazigh) people.

That really doesn't look anasazi, I don't think it is. I've been to a few of their dwellings, they don't really have that kind of intracate carvings and geometric surfaces like that.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyarite_Kingdom
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnei_Menashe
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel
Also some Pashtun tribes claim to have followed judaism before becoming muslim.
Also, in the Hellenistic era of the Greek world it was quite popular to adopt Judaism just as people were adopting Egyptian or other Levantine religions. Those people never amounted to a nation though.

They bordered the Byzantines and the Abbasids. They could convert to either one or the other, and make one superpower a friend, and the other a mortal enemy. They chose neither.
Also, the trade routes of the Jewish Radhanite merchants went through their country. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanite
Also, the traditional Turkic religion required the sacrifice of the khagan if the state was in trouble. The rulers were obviously interested in changing that.

>They could convert to either one or the other, and make one superpower a friend, and the other a mortal enemy. They chose neither.
>guys what if converting to a religion that will piss one of them off we'll convert to one that will piss both of them off
>fucking genius

It didn't work that way back then. Especially Muslims were pretty bro with Jews initially.
One Byzantine emperor even married a Khazar princess, so it must have worked out for them.

What's it with obscure exotic cultures and being mysteriously Jewish?

>Haida
>Jewish

Oh shit, I recently read a novel called 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union' where Alaska is a Jewish state. One of the main characters is a Jewish Indian.

Spooky.

Aboriginals should be on the coast/magroves, using orca as hunting dogs.

"Times in history you NEARLY, but didn't QUITE go extinct"

stealing, stolen, stole

Why would you like to steal Jewish holidays?

Why did the Grinch want to steal Christmas?

I actually really like this idea, they treat everything from raiding, to slaughter, to slavery, to conquest as a business transaction.
>Okay, according to my numbers this town killed 750 of our soldiers while resisting conquest and wounded another 300
>Calculating the average worth of these people as slaves we have the following calculations on the fate of the town
>2500 men will be put to death for the resistance of the town
>200 additional men will be sold into slavery
>500 women will be given to high ranking officers as personal slaves for their contributions
>1000 additional women will be sold into slavery
>800 children will be sold into slavery
>The army will be allowed 24 hours of looting and religious buildings are to be spared so their wealth my enrich the treasury

I'm getting flashbacks of the Man Eater from Mad Max: Fury Road.