How do you write a Middle Eastern character without making him a religious zealot of some kind?

How do you write a Middle Eastern character without making him a religious zealot of some kind?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=G5goISKPSH8
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

He has a bomb typically

Depends on the setting
Ask your GM

Make him a sufi mystic

youtube.com/watch?v=G5goISKPSH8

Shantae

I dunno, reading something about ME might be a good start for example.

Make him or her a scientist or scholar of some sort.

In broad stereotypes?

>He's a grinning godless trader with a gold tooth who would sell his mother if he could haggle a good enough price.
>He's the third son of a wealthy sheik; a pretty face, killer smile and fat coinpurse make him the talk of any town he arrives at, and his skill with a blade ensures he stays as such for years after he leaves
>A small, unhinged wanderer who's ragged turban encases a mind unrivalled in brilliance and instability. Skin dappled in a thousand shades, and a nonsensical piece of 'wisdom' eternally on his lips, the short, hobbled gremlin of a man cackles at random intervals. Perhaps in his travels he's seen things that simply cause a person to cease functioning, or perhaps he's simply imbibed one too many of his dubious concoctions

piece of piss mate, this is probably a bait thread that'll get deleted tho

Valinar Elves is how.

I'm a fan of "cutthroat yet bumbling incompetent" archtetypes like Disney's Abis Mal and Dijon

take a theme that fits the golden age of Islam and make him akin to a scholar or maybe make him like a sort of Ali Baba.

Trader, slave trader / pirate, caravan guard, Bedouin tribal warrior, doubting scientist, horse lover / raider, and goat fucking Shepard.

Write a Middle Eastern character without making him a religious zealot. That's usually a good way to do it.

Any suggestions on where to start? I basically have only shit like Aladdin and Prince of Persia to go off of, and "street rat rogue with a heart of gold" seems pretty cliche.

Trade related would maybe be cool. Like a caravan driver or guard. Would give him some world travelling experience, and a bit of a network.

T-thanks.

Desert nomads, big colorful trading tents set up near water sources, turbans and dates.
Leave the religious angle out of it.

Like this user

You can always recycle one of my characters. He came from the setting's middle East analogue, and while religious, he wasn't a zealot. Instead, he came from a city-state not too dissimilar to Sparta, wherein young males are forced into the military for a time. Following that career, he was hired out by a merchant as a bodyguard before ultimately being relieved and opting to stay in the more European styled kingdom.

His reasoning was "less sand."

Perhaps some kind of scholar? As far as I know, the middle east was pretty advanced back in ye olden days, so some kind of astrologer/astromancer might be fitting.

Was it because sand is coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere?

I mean, it's bit of a cliche at this point, but middle eastern rogue/thief with a heart of gold has been something of a staple of fantasy and historical fiction.

Also hard to walk in.

To a degree, this was inspired by my brother's deployment in Kuwait. According to him the shittiest part (aside from the heat) was the sand. It was irritating and tended to play hell with everything.

Astromancer sounds badass.

Aladdin wasn't religious and was a decent rogue-type. Or go straight for Abdul Alhazred, Lovecraft batshit poet/author. Or a desert ruin seeker, tomb raiding pyramids and whatnot.

Stereotypes for days, but hey, if it works go for it.

t. The guy who named his Not Arab Saeed Imir Al Hussein.

Never heard of Aladdin? Scheherazade> Abu Nuwas?

Just don't write them as zealously religious. Pretty much every archetype in fantasy is based off a type of person who would have been devoutly religious in real life, due to the time they lived in. That doesn't mean they have to be a super-zealot.

This shouldn't be hard.

For crying out loud, the middle east WAS a bastion of knowledge and medicine for a few centuries, and then another few centuries a few centuries later. The Library of Baghdad was a thing until Ghengis Khan decided he didn't like books.

Make him fabolous!

just reference Aladdin

They're a mercenary.
They're a thief.
They're a poet.
They're a sorceror.
They're a scholar.
They're a nobleman.
They're an assassin (in the modern sense).

They're a normal human being in a normal human world, which by necessity needs a great deal of variance just to function. They may live in a deeply religious society, but that would be no different from playing a character living in feudal Europe. Religious customs and institutions may factor heavily in their worldview, but that doesn't mean they have to believe any of it - they could just be cynically playing along, because they know better than to start arguments with the wrong people.

How have you never heard even one of the stories from the 1001 Nights?

I basically only heard Aladdin and super watered down shit. What are some of the more interesting ones to look into?

Maybe it was the whole "muslims are bad because muh 9/11" thing, but they REALLY glossed over that in public education in the US. A lot of that shit has to be found by looking into history on your own for the younger generations these days.

If anything, the scholar, the merchant and the poet are probably more archetypical than any pious religious figure.

Watch the Mummy and watch 13th warrior. Use what you learn. Both movies have middle eastern warrior guys who are casually religious but mostly concerned with some otherimportant thing at the moment. In the Mummy it's devotion to his warrior order and trying to stop Imhotep. In 13th Warrior it's trying to survive in Viking country after he's banished there.

I tend to play them as suave, puckish rogues and traders. Arabic han solo types with a silver tongue and a knife in their boot

>focues on harnessing the power of the cosmic forces behind the movement of the heavens
>channels it into brilliant rays of starlight that burns without fire (cosmic radiation)to either heal, damage, or burn undead to ash. like a paladin or cleric, but without the god juice behind it
>can divine paths, create astral portal between one location or another

im playing an astral mage form dom 4 now

Even before 9/11, US history classes typically glossed over the period of 6000BC-1492AD as "stone tablets, pyramids, and plague".

It's a fucking shame, too. They entirely skip over asian history. There's something wrong when kids are learning more about indian and chinese history from bill wurtz's "history of the entire world" than in the schools they spend 8 hours in.

You can do great things when the stars are right.

>How do you write a Middle Eastern character without making him a religious zealot of some kind?
You literally can't. The history of the middle east is nothing but endless conflicts over literally tens of thousands of years over whose god is the best god.

The Middle East was the cradle of civilization because its lands were rich and food was plentiful. Now it's dirt and waste and people scrabbling out a rough approximation of lives while living in mud huts.

Once you start to learn about the US textbook industry, you start to understand why so many things are ignored or stated incorrectly. The folks in Texas have a very specific idea of what "correct" knowledge is.

I meant actual history books user.

I figured as much. Are there particulars you'd recommend or is that more of Veeky Forums territory?

Zealous rejection of religion or perhaps religious zealotry of a different aspect of religion. Look into Mesopotamian "cultural arts."

>mfw foolish orcs lead a night raid on my village
>mfw it is a cloudless night
>mfw i actually moved all the pieces into place a month ago to put the orcs on the path of murder and pillage they went on to meet me at that specific village when Covath was in the House of the Dreamweaver, with Salic at it's aphelion parallel to Gruda
>mfw it was as i had foreseen

Gee, it's almost like there was a collection of states that were culturally and economically opposed to those inhabiting the area who actively work towards destabilizing the region by overthrowing governments and riling up political and religious divisions among the populace in order to create financial opportunities and global dominance for themselves.

Play a Hashashin, with the hash smoking and heavy use of psychological warfare. They were also famous for public assassinations as well.

Iraq also had an extensive system of irrigation for the country which was ruined forever by the Mongol invasion.

Assyrian. Rides around on a chariot flaying his enemies alive.

Sinbad probably the other well known tale 1001 Arabian Nights.

step one: write a middle eastern character
step two: don't have them be a religious zealot.

what a dumb question.

Read the Arabian Nights. Seriously.

That's silly. Stop being silly, user.

are you interested in the islamic middle east, pre-islamic, persia/iran, transoxiana, the area around the black and caspian seas, the peninsula itself, the red sea/nubia/ham/horn? these are all rough areas that have been important both in the histories of each other and in the history of the West's IDEA of 'the middle east'

Wanderer from a distant land that doesn't speak the local language so he just keeps quiet

His reason for sticking around with the party is that one or all of them saved his life and he's honorbound to follow them around

Make him as a dude with a healthy respect for his faith but does not let that define him, if you want him to be the fighting type say he was a mamluk or a Janissary.

Really its not too hard to imagine a non zealot middle eastern warrior or scholar seeing as most historical examples werent fucking lunatics about it, Read: Saladin (had a healthy respect for the crusading princes and kings), Suleiman the great (his wife, who by all sources, he fucking adored was a russian christian woman), and the big cheese of them all Mohammed himself was relatively chill with people not buying his version of the abrahamic faith.

Ridiculous merchant cliche
Ostentatious, indolent prince is a good one
Saladin-esque chivalrous warriors
Cute harem boy
Depraved Eunuch man
Wise nomadic wanderer

All of those are fun.

Valenar elves are a good resource (D&D 3.5E Eberron campaign setting).

Dark Sun campaign setting published for 2nd edition had plenty of desert and Middle-East themed things.

>stereotypes
Go with "archetypes" here.

The cunning and greedy trader, young handsome royalty, and mad desert hermit are all great ones.

The assassin archetype is a great theme with which to start, focusing on the absolute dedication. There can be some religious zeal here, but there doesn't have to - especially if he's a political agent or even just really into his craft. But seriously, the OG assassins were badass, even sometimes spending months or years in hardcore deep cover before the right moment, living out a whole character themselves.

I'm also a big fan of the desert mystic/shaman/sorcerer archetype, combining some aspects of the three characters mentioned earlier. His knowledge and force of personality let him deal with djinn/gen/genies and other elemental or fey spirits, drawing magic from the earth, the elements, the planes, or otherworldly beings. He can be a medicine man, a religious leader (more pastor than zealot), a wizard with his studies, or a nomad, but he embodies the mystery, charm, and danger of the far desert.

AWAKEN, MY MASTERS

Don't forget--not all Middle Easterners are Muslim.
>Oriental Orthodox Christians
>Zoroastrians
>Yazidi
Etc.

Also, not all Middle Easterners are religious zealots. Some are nationalist zealots.
>Kurds
>Turks
>Arabs

What's with these questions lately?

>How do I make a character who uses about without them being a death Paladin?
>How do I make an archer without making them Green Arrow?
>How do I play games without playing DnD?

The main NPC in my not-Middle East setting is basically an idealistic, flamboyant, and world-renowned playwright. Basically a brown Shakespeare.

Read 1001 Arabian Nights.

Watch "The Physician" on netflix to see some iranians from back then... it's an ok movie but weird. Still it had a mix of 'tropes' and shows some different ideas of that setting..

AAAARRRRRRRAAAAABBBIIIAAN NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTS

>A Fantasy Setting
Exotic travellers, they're from "Over there" and usually bring strange things with them. Merchants, explorers, and general adventurous spirits throw in a bit of Redguard Spirit and you're golden.

>Modern Setting
I played an Arab cab driver in a Vampire the Masquerade Game, he was quiet and mostly just wanted to be left alone in his domain. The only time his religion was brought up was when the group was forced to infiltrate a Catholic church, where he bullshitted his way to victory. He was also Jewish if only to throw people off a bit.

>Future Setting
If they're human they're probably like everyone else, except their last name may be Al-Sharif or something. If a Not!Arabia alien, add merchants, add Not!Jews for them to dislike. Boom.

Nigga thats My Dhal

Make him a Bashi Bazouk.

Why can't they be foot doctors or work in food service? There not allowed to clean toilets or dig through landfills for precious or nonferrous metals? Neither can they clean nondisposable wipes disposed of through a properly designed septic system which now requires constant pump casing and impeller maintenance with small, unforgiving tools?

Such racist post why how can you exist. They can be all of these things and much much more

>I played an Arab cab driver in a Vampire the Masquerade Game, he was quiet and mostly just wanted to be left alone in his domain. The only time his religion was brought up was when the group was forced to infiltrate a Catholic church, where he bullshitted his way to victory. He was also Jewish if only to throw people off a bit.
Did you also blow up the local Prince with a boobytrapped sarcophagus?

Nigga he just said 1000 nights are you literally a retard

Is the thing about nights of Arabia and the assassins smoking weed/hash (from GitS and Ancient Aliens/Duck Dynasty) really the raw deal? Would consummate amounts of opiates provide a better alternative for mind numbing "so assassin so clean clean" from the apparently overwhelming sleep loss and guilt of killing for power, money, or both.

Or You could have a Secular normal guy who gets ass on the regular but plays it off likes he's just friends with your wife and "backgammon" is really just a game

He's a friendly guy with a mustache who calls everyone bro
OR
he looks like an NYC fat italian mobster with excessive tanning and driving a taxi

>What's with these questions lately?
NEETs who don't actually play RPGs use Veeky Forums as a substitute for genuine human interaction.

I mean, at least they provoke creative discussion. If you think this is bad, go over to /v/ sometime and see how "Now that the dust has settled," and "Are you going play her game?" does it for you

>Is the thing about nights of Arabia and the assassins smoking weed/hash (from GitS and Ancient Aliens/Duck Dynasty) really the raw deal? Would consummate amounts of opiates provide a better alternative for mind numbing "so assassin so clean clean" from the apparently overwhelming sleep loss and guilt of killing for power, money, or both.

See user, the thing with this is that they would take a young man and tell him that the rich man had a direct line to the afterlife. They would give the kid some opium and take him to a literal pleasure garden staffed with teenage prostitutes who would give him handjobs and and tell him that he was temporarily in heaven. Then after he came down from the opium high, the rich man would tell the kid that if he died in his service, he would re-enter heaven and get to bang all the girls.

Then they give him a knife and send him on his merry way.

nobody is that retarded

>Dirt and wasteland

What the fuck are you talking about? It's still a great mix of tons of sun and lots of fresh water.

I feel like that would get shit all over your hands

>Cowboy Meets Handjob Assassin
"So what kind of business do you reckon requires a such an ornate tool, my young friend?"
"Killing for handjobs"
"Well that's better than dying for em!"

What the fuck? Just don't make them religious.

What's the best version of 1001 Arabian nights to read.
I have an Edward William Lane copy which I hear is censored?

...

some people still hold on to their ingrained beliefs about the region despite, y'know, it being something like a sixth or whatever of the worlds total land area and having incredible biosphere diversity.

You try finding large amounts of sand at the top of mount lebanon or the coast of the black sea.

>open book on history of the middle east
>choose historical figure who interests you
>???
>boom, non-zealot character.

Bashi Bazouks?! In MY thread?!

You mean the Turks?

Haha, unfortunately not, game fizzled out a few sessions after some drama with the GM and his wife.
We did manage to burn down a coterie of Sabbat's hideout . . . on accident, but that what happens when you have someone play a Fish-Malk.

>dom 4

My Machakan Companion.

Merchant

I would recommend watching "The Kingdom" for a good example of a dutiful Islamic non-zealot protagonist. Faris al-Ghazi is pious and has his limits with respect to tradition, but still does his job.

Personally, I think it's because he's more or less normal at his job. He is Islamic, it defines a few quirks of his character, but does not define his whole character.

Well not all of there conflicts were based on religion, most notably being the Mongol invasion and the World Wars, the fact that there currently in the middle of a religious crisis really does not help there situation.

The most well-known stories from the Arabian Nights are probably Aladdin and Wonderful Lamp (although it's not actually part of the original collection, funnily enough, but rather was added in the 18th century French version), Ali-Baba and the 40 Thieves, and the Seven Voyages of Sinbad. The framing story - that of Shahrazad telling the stories to keep herself alive and help to change the attitude of the Persian King Shahryar - is relatively known as well.

/thread

If we are just going by other stereotypes:
-Merchant
-Wizard
-Pirate
-Thief
-Assassin
-Desert nomad

The islamic golden age's knowledge and medicine was mostly in islamic spain. The only time the middle east hasn't been a shithole of subhumans killing eachother was the Mesopotamian age.

>6 references to Aladdin, the story that happens in China

So this is the power of American education.

Look back to the golden age of the middle east, when it was the world's scientific and mathematical capital, before it got its shit truly pushed in by Genghis Khan.

AND THIS, IS TO GO BEYOND

Write a Middle Eastern character before Islamic conquest

One Thousand and One Nights bruh

make a sleazy merchant
make a dude who summons djinni
make a niggardly money-lender
make a dude who is good at math
make a dude who wields some scimitars and also maybe is a pirate
make a dude who is a sleazy court wizard
make a dude who is a sheikh

if you're stuck in a modern setting, then just make a suicide bomber

Most of these kids watched Aladdin on DVD growing up, but yeah.