What are some elements of the culture of the Americas that might be interesting or unique in a fantasy setting?

Giants and the idea of going to the end of the world and finding weird shit, maybe the remains of a civilization that lived in the Not!Antartica or something.

Don't forget Sloth and Gluttony for the stereotype trifecta.

Also, what about the rest of the TWO WHOLE CONTINENTS?

All of America is Pride's land. 99% of Mexico's problems come from "Why the fuck should I change, it's you fuckers you aren't doing shit right or working hard enough", 1% drugs and a religious devotion to the worst sport on earth. And all sudacas are legendary for how fucking full of themselves they are.

Canada may be the least proud nation on the new world and their excessive niceness and humility may actually be a form of pride in itself.

I don't want to sound too sjw-ist, but:

Genocide and generically pushing the idea of one-sided progress.

No, seriously. The frontier myth is based on the idea of the natives being not-totally human, people without agency. And the "good savage" myth is this as much as the "bad savage" myth in this regard, interestingly enough.

Also: cities means corruption. The frontier means perhaps danger, but it's simpler, purer.
Nature isn't really "the enemy" (this is almost unheard of in fantasy nowdays, but still): or at least it's not that much feared, it's more a source of awe, perhaps a crucible for the chosen ones. Interestingly when the west was at it's golden age, people were already decrying the death of wilderness in the US.

Religion is an interesting idea here, because while the christian ideas were univeral there never was a unified church for all. And to an extent the churches in America were always bottom-up, more than in Europe anyway.

Progress might be an interesting to play with, but you might fall into the trappings of stereotypical magitech (basically our old tech with some special effects) easily.

Possibly the race issue (i always felt DND in particular was heavily touched by that, deep inside). What if there is a huge influx of overseas (extraplanar, whatever) halfling working at your local magitech rail? What if there is a war about orc slavery?
>I like the idea of a magical civil war because it could mean an idea of society vs another one

And overall, oddly enough: republican ideas. I mean, in fantasy you always see kings, dukes, bishops, perhaps university people or mechants in charge (and the upper-middle class is criminally underused in "european" fantasy politcs anyway but that's another point).
Consider this: your average town under your average evulz undead horde approaching. Better yet, just rumors at the time. Are you heroes bad enough dudes to actually get Joe the half orc crazy farmer work with Beth the elven preacher?

>America
>culture

Don't make me laugh op

I know you're memeing but

>America
>The United States

[maple syrups internally]

Also, guns. Well, not guns per se, but the idea that Colt made all men equal.

It's not really an american thing, just an second industrial age thing, but I think it's interesting if you compare that even with more "frontier-like" pseudo-medieval settings.Your not!Viking has an axe like every other not!Viking (execpt that guy with a snazzy sword...), but that depended still on his strength. In the 1800's weapons really were more or less accesible to every one execpt the poorest and had the same lethality. Sure, there is the gunslinger archetype and some people were of course better at shooting others, but it's interesting as an idea.

The bayou and Also, the fact that the american continent shifts between different sorts of terrains so quickly and so variably means that you could potentially have a fantasy 'new world' that the further you go, the more different it gets, with no real telling of how it'll be.

Oh, also frontiersmen-- but not cowboys, I mean fur-trappers and old-fashioned manifest destiny guys who scream about their faith, point west, and start marching with torches, guns, and pitchforks.

Crusades are some rough shit, but you know what'll scare someone more than a bunch of professional soldiers? A bunch of their own neighbors looking frenzied and ready to kill for some land and a fucking mule.

Bonus: The Year Without a Summer (1816) could be used for some rough horror.
youtube.com/watch?v=dsT1P5YQWoo I wish some of my friends weren't so eurocentric bastards, I could have some fun with this shit. The Appalachian and Smoky mountains during the midpoint of fall is my favorite look.

Oh look, it's the "Americans feels bad, because they lack history and culture" thread again!

Read more Botkin.

Oh look, it's the "Americans lack a history and culture" user again!

He's right, you know.

...

The same people who say that America lacks a culture and a history are the same people who complain about the negatives in America's history and it pushing its culture on the world through media.

OP here - I did say Americas. North America, South America, doesn't matter to me. Throw in Canada or throw in Argentina, there's good stuff in them and everything between.

"Hidden" or "Barbaric" civilizations that are actually massively advanced. The Mesoamerican city which sits where Mexico City now does- Tenochtitlan- was actually one of the most, if not the most, heavily populated cities in the entire damn world. Only problem was that their weapons didn't do much to steel, and the flu killed anyone who didn't get shot, run over with horses, or chopped up with sabers.

Haven't yet thumbed through the later issues, but Flora and Fauna was pretty good.

Gunslinger and Rifleman would be some pretty neat character types.
Especially if you can Lucas McCain or Ben Cartwright your way through different encounters through a heart-to-heart or with a few doses of .44-40 and flair.

Or get into a desert race, but bend the rules a bit with a camel like Paladin.

>this tired meme

Germany's existed for only about half as long and somehow they get away with it?

We get a lot talk about Aboriginal mythical shit here on Veeky Forums.

Not a lot of show or explanations past Coyote or Raven are jerks.

Things to watch as reference
>Gunsmoke
>The Rifleman
>The Lone Ranger
>Have Gun, Will Travel
>F Troop
>Bonanza
>Hell on Wheels

Don't forget Hondo, Laramie and The Big Valley.

Don't forget Once Upon a Time in the West and the Dollars movies.

>Europeans put all the people they don't want in Europe in the same place
>they somehow think this will end well

I AM YOUR SINS MADE FLESH

>implying Australia
They did it twice

Not to mention My Name is Nobody

Quipu.

Fuck, you beat me to it.

Or The Iron Horse, Wagon Train, and Kung-Fu.

Alias Smith & Jones.

>forgetting Israel
Three times.

> Never eaten backstrap, catfish, and hushpuppies after a long saturday of skeet shooting with his uncle, cousins, and visiting city-slicker relatives

I pity you user, I really do.

They pretend Prussia wasn't an entirely different country which's corpse they walked into.

Rednecks do seem to live where the best seafood is.

is it really seafood if it comes from creeks and rivers?

Th-they travelled there voluntarily to escape EUROPEAN OPPRESSION! Also opportunities to get land or rich.

Those are small inland seas.

waterfood is a retarded name.

>What are some elements of the culture of the Americas that might be interesting or unique in a fantasy setting?
guns, guns, gun, GUNS, GUNS, GUNS, GUUUUUUNS! UNLIMITED MACHINEGUN WORKS!

>never had cheesegrits
>never had shecrab soup
>never had actual barbecue
some people never really live.

Cowboys

If by America you mean USA then none, 'cause you don't know what culture is.

Back to /pol/, inbreed.

Think about this quote: "An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way while an American thinks a hundred years is a long time."
Europes history is fucking ancient, but Europeans cannot really comprehend the vast distances in America. Between two hamlets it can be 4 day ride without any authority in sight. It leads to seclusion, a lot of cults, or misinterpreted religions, inbreeding. It is a land of outlaws, because there is noone who can enforce any law in every little corner of a territory big as a state, with a few thousand people scattered around wherever. Houses and towns in illogical places, where is no water or food nearby.

You ever read the Alloy of Law and it'seems sequals. Got some real good American themes and motifs in a fantasy setting.

See Somehow the Italians get away with it too despite being again only about half as old? Surely that falls under your arbitrary age limit for having 'culture' and 'history.'

And what about the vast changes all over Europe? None of you can call yourselves the same people who lived there before WWI, so I guess NOBODY has a history or culture, huh?

Hell, the Appalachians are like a Fantasy World of their own, with how isolated the culture is compared to the rest of the US.

Honestly ever since the mass leftist takeover of education, no European has a a sense of history. Schoolchildren in the 1950s were given very comprehensive education's on the history of your nation and people's. Now it's more likely you'll study the American Civil rights movement than anything about your own country. Meanwhile America is the last nationalist nation in the West and clearly sets out the key moments in its curriculums.

A lot of American history and culture comes from being forged in the crucible of war and struggle. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Wild West, and so on were all moments of strife where the true character of a man is revealed. That's not to say that fantasy-America should be at war all the time, but being a survivor of some sort of trouble is never unheard of, and a lot of story is about keeping the peace or getting ready for a battle of some sort.

Also, as a couple other user have suggested, you cannot explore American culture without the gun. Europe and the rest of the world had legendary weapons and armor and other armaments, but in the Americas, the gun made all men equal, so the emphasis was placed not on the tool (which was romanticized itself at times) but on the person wielding it. It should not be "that is a legendary gun," but rather "that is a legendary man."

As an aside: I love the motif in this game.

Would you rather play an east coast, midwest, or west coast themed area?

because european countries haven't been busy fucking each other up since several millenaries
also why there is a tau gundrone on this picture

Wild Guns is gallery shooter action game in the style of a sci-fi-as-fuck frontier western setting. One of the playable characters in the reboot you seen in that picture is Bullet, the dachsund with his own defense drone.

youtube.com/watch?v=9Qjn5wriT7I

Go away, Jee/pol/s! This is a happy place!

Would it be cool to introduce Psionics, especially those sword-wielding types? The mettle of the sword is only as strong as the person that creates and wields it, that sort of thing?

She's called a Soulknife.

Dog is best character!

>the insert group doesn't have a culture meme

You dumb uneducated faggot.

>Canada may be the least proud nation on the new world
If only the stereotypes were true. They tend to have to be smugly full of themselves and can't shut up about how they're not American, as if it would be insulting to degrade yourself to that level. If that's not pride, it's at the very least unjustified condescension.

Or Quebequois.

Even internally its identity can only be established as being part of one of two groups that hates the other half of the country. Not exactly what you'd call excessively nice.

Hell, you should've seen the comment section in that one Huffington Post where the author showed everyone how many medals Quebec would have if it were a separate country. Or just mention the very existence of Quebec on a website with a large Anglo-Canadian community.

It also gives me a giggle when monolingual Anglo-Canadians go on about Canada's diversity. That just reveals the country operates on five different levels of Newspeak.

A note to remember, most of those moments of history in America are usually seen through the eyes of an underdog who thinks they're gonna die, or an unstoppable force of death. You're a pioneer, off to go settle the deadly wildlands that lie west or die trying, or you're God's burning hand of manifest destiny, backed by a shit ton of firepower, a bible, and a very angry mob of people. Or you're just a single lawman in the middle of a town that's gone to hell. Maybe you're the outlaw that nobody wants to duel, because nobody else wins.

In any case, you're gonna try hard as fuck, and you're the one that matters. You aren't a warrior for your nation, you aren't even really working to help your family half the time-- you're the one that people will know. The Americas, by and large, are lands of individualism in which everyone can kill anyone, and thus can become legends through personal strength more than "I got this magic sword from the gods yo." Nobody cares about your stupid-ass glowing sword if you're shot in the head.

I would fucking kill for Appalachian inspired fantasy that doesn't portray us all as inbred hicks. youtu.be/FX1EkdBkjms

As a Britbong,The comparative lack of History is what makes the US an interesting setting for me. We can see a new culture develop and rise from renegade colony exploring uncharted lands to world power. Perfect story material.

>hurrdurr countries and people are only as old as their current iteration of government

You're just as fucking retarded as the dumb faggot saying you have no culture.

I had Coyote as the 'man behind the curtain' manipulating events in a Scion campaign I GM'd.

It turned out OK and I really liked using him to manipulate the players, but I'd like to try it again with a new group to as I fell into the trap of over explaining things as I was relatively new to GMing,

Actually, if you want a theme that could neatly sum up ALL of the Americas in their entirety; Freedom.
Seriously, so much of the ideological conflicts and issues that have afflicted the Americas have to some degree been based on the idea of Freedom in different ways for different reasons, and many both amazing and horrific things were done for the sake of said freedom.
In South America much of it was held control of by the Spanish Empire, and even if they were noblemen in Brazil who owned half the country and wealthier then the ones back home they were "lesser" nobles the ones in Spain. And eventually these various Latin countries fought for their Freedom, but often in many ways gave it up or installed an equal unfair system in it's place.
Simon Bolivar, "El Libertador", was a famous revolutionary who threw off many of the rules of the old Spanish empire, but when it came to the aftermath he made HIMSELF into an absolute dictator for example, which caused many people who hailed him as a great liberator to struggle for Freedom yet again.

The 13 Colonies strongly felt their independence against the British crown when they were suddenly taxed to pay for a war that many saw as not even being their business (seeing as it was largely based off of a European dynastic dispute), but internally many of the people who created the United States struggled with the hypocrisy that they claimed Freedom for all and yet kept slaves, and thus made the choice to not address this so their fragile alliance would stay together.
Frontiersmen went farther and farther west to escape a civilization that in many ways they didn't want to have anything to do with (seeking their own personal Freedom) an interacted with the Natives, sometimes amicably even, but in successfully settling to the west they drew the attention of the civilization they fled from and thus impacted the Freedom of the Native peoples who ALSO fled father West to escape what they saw as something taking away their Freedom.

>Simon Bolivar
Sad story. He actually ended up going to exile in Spain of all countries (think about it: he could've gone to England or France but he opted for Spain), and became incredibly bitter about the future of South America, stating that it would never amount to anything. Worst thing: he may actually be right.

So that's basically the phrase that could sum up much of drive to settle the New World and it's internal struggles; Freedom, and it's consequences.
It's also why pretty much every politician in all of these countries invokes the word when they want to stir up random emotions to push forward whatever agenda they have on the table I think.

He was one of those all-too-common types of mighty conquerer who had the weakness of being absolutely shit at delegating his responsibilities properly and in fact probably had no business being a ruler.

Canucks are disgustingly smug and proud of their lack of pride, developing a superiority complex from their lack of superiority complex, same way Scots can flip their shit at you out of fucking nowhere and berate you for a percieved lack of respect, and yell and scream at you about how people are respectful in scotland and how we could learn something, while he himself is acting like a massive cunt in a foreign country.

"Amounting" to something isn't important or relevant except in the shortest possible timespan; the only universal consistent in regards to culture is that change takes things away from you, period. There were several other Latin empires in the Americas that lasted longer or were more successful, but ultimately they completely fell apart too given enough time.

Life isn't about "amounting" to something, because we all "amount" up to the exact same thing in the end.
The trick instead is finding ways to live with yourself and live your life in a way that you personally find fulfilling.
Bolivar in this respect did indeed fail; he banked all of his hopes and dreams on a unified South American super-country (no idea where he got that idea from considering all the differences between the Spanish colonies) but either wasn't willing or wasn't capable of doing the hard work of actually stabilizing the seeds of his new country, causing it to fall apart, which kind of left him more and more ruined emotionally over time.

That's rather bleak, isn't it?

It does suck that they get us mixed up with the low-land hicks down in them hills.

Only if you don't know history.
Making the mistake of thinking that once you've accomplished your goals that the game "ends" and you "win" and live happily ever after is a recurring mistake so many people make and then fuck things up for themselves afterwords once they discover that life is not a novel or story that stops once they get to an appropriate climax or ending, and that they aren't the main characters of a tale and neither is anyone else in the world.
There's lots of guys who struggle with something and accomplish something in their country only to discover that once they reach their goal there is STILL more work to do and they collapse into depression or other issues because they struggled through their lives trying to get to that imagined "happy ending".

There IS no happy ending because nothing really "ends"; stuff keeps going regardless of weather or not you deem your respective story has come to an appropriate climax, so you better be good damn sure that the things you do you find personally fulfilling and not just steps you take towards an imaginary fairy tale ending you won't get.

Is this Appalachia?

youtube.com/watch?v=-gnDyhN5ilM&

Veering off topic a bit, but Spain is very interesting in regards to Freedom.

>Finally get rid of monarchy in the 20th Century
>Not even a decade before a brutal civil war leads to a Dictator
>He then proceeds to get away with concentration camps and systematic oppression of his enemies in a post Nazi-world.
>When he dies Spain just agrees to not mention the war and move on, finally making the transition to a functioning democracy in the very late 70's.

Went to Madrid last month, and its vey interesting to see how its still subtly divided. Bookshops selling Marxist and Anarchist Literature operates just down the street from one with a Facist propaganda poster on the door, Stalls flying the Republic flag are 2 minutes away from portraits of Franco hung outside, etc.

I legitimately knew none of the part past the greentext until right now.

Couple it with seeing a Civil War Era trench that was now just an unbookmarked dip in a park, you got the feeling because they never did a South Africa style atonement and confession deal they haven't been able to fully get over the war.

I never saw any while I was there, but there are also frequent openly Francoist rallies at various monuments and buildings built by the regime. As so many of them are religious ones (i.e. Churches, Giant crosses) they cant be knocked down without pissing off Catholics. I did pass by rally in the Plaza de Espana in support of Ukraine were one of the speakers had an Anarchist flag though.

...

made man equal.

The frontier marksman is an amusing bit of American history, so maybe have a society of people who resist invasion just because everyone is armed? Then again, the Finns pulled that kind of shit in the Winter War.

WAIT.

PEOPLE CRAZY ABOUT GUNS LIKE AMERICANS.

AND SHOOT LIKE SIMO HAYHA.

LET THERE BE LEAD.

Talented isolationist marksmen who arm the general populace and primarily live in untamed wilderness who are known for being prideful in a fantasy setting should about sum up a lot of ideas in this thread right?

Americans are elves

They havent been around for long enough to hit the common elf tropes.

Though you could make an argument for the natives being similar.

It only works with Americans. since they are the only ones getting triggered by it.
Every damn time.
Because it's true

You can't push something you lack.
But you can spitefully try to destroy culture of others by constant assault of your corporate-generated garbage

No, no.

>ruled by capitalism
>enjoy weapons and explosions
>much of what we do backfires on us, but nobody can seem to get rid of us for good
>used to be a lot more inventive than we are now, but still pretty good at coming up with devices
>others want us as far away from them as possible except when something needs to die, then they want us there yesterday

We're Warcraft Goblins.

>nobody takes you seriously until you've bombed them to kingdom come
>when you're the monster they created in the first place

You'd be triggered too, after more than 200 years of this. I am your sins made flesh.

Rapid social mobility or social mobility at all, manifest destiny, the self made man, the rugged lone survivor, EVERYONE has weapons

Our culture is the destruction and degradation of other cultures, and I for one love it that way.

Also, yeah, basically.