Let's create a culture that respects cunning as the most admirable trait, or at least spitball ideas. Specifically a culture that respects rogues, thieves, and trickster heroes for their cunning, even if they don't alway perform to our modern dualistic concept of morality.
>Examples of cultural morals reflected in literature In Anglo-Saxon culture, strength and valour were espoused, and thus their perfect hero was Beowulf, a perfect warrior-hero. The Illiad is also reflective of a culture such as this (though the tone changes in the Odyssey), and is also inherently individualistic.
The Aeneid espouses collectivism and duty, which are traits Aeneas has.
In Norman-ruled Christian England, Christian traits were well respected, which is why you have characters like Gawain, who's adventure is defined not by battle but by inner strength, restraint, humility, and honesty (esp humility).
Spain has some of this, with the Picaresque style of literature (ie Golden Ass, Don Quixote, etc)
Spain also has lenient pickpocket laws, revealing that pickpocketing is a part of Spanish culture, but I don't really know anything about Spanish romanticism of thieves beyond that, nor do I know what drives it or how it evolved.
Jonathan Bell
Gnolls from PF are like this from the Gnolls Revisted book.
Cowardice is to be respected. Cunning is a necessity. Hard work to be avoided - that's what slaves are for. Killing slaves is a higher penalty than stealing. Leadership is to be shunned - you can't get away with nearly as much shit if you're top dog.
Samuel Walker
A culture that feeds itself by hunting large dangerous game.
Too powerful to fight directly.
Trickery and cunning is required.
Brody Jackson
Inspire yourself with gypsies and realize why everyone not a part of this culture will dislike it mildly.
Juan Perry
>cunning It is often synonymous with deviance, so you have an uphill battle, my friend. That is a problem with the culture if you see it as such, as everyone often sees it as a negative, and associates it with thievery. Thievery is appropriately a negative connotation, theft is immoral in every society that has ever existed.
Lucas Miller
You want self aware Kender.
Tyler Rivera
They could be a people that freed itself from an evil empire in the past. Without weapons to fight back with, all they had were their wits and each other. Guys like Robin Hood would be their heroes because they fought "The Man" that was crushing them underfoot.
Hunter Roberts
Having antagonistic fey is quite good at creating a culture that esteems cunning.
Noah Ramirez
There are plenty of guile heroes around already. Robin Hood, Bre'r Rabbit, and Anansi the Spider are a few off the top of my head. They typically espouse intelligence and trickery rather than outright thievery, though.
Zachary Adams
A smaller, physically weaker race in an environment filled with large, powerful predators. They would need cunning to avoid the beasts to gather fruit, steal eggs, or kill them for meat since they lack the power to do it directly.
Nathaniel Green
You'd need more symbolic thievery to get away with it. Actual theft creates too much stress and anxiety to be tolerated much.
Gabriel Moore
Odysseus!
Henry Wright
You mean the ferengi?
John Clark
You want a culture that sprang from an adaptive and survivalist society, where failure to adapt to changes meant death, or a way to death. In this culture, cunning is used to get out of bad situations, maybe even turning it into good ones. It is good if you can use your cunning for the benefit of all; neutral if you use your cunning for yourself, and evil if you use your cunning to make everybody lose. Better those that can make a win-win situation than those who makes it a lose-lose situation. This culture would also perhaps see enemies as potential friends or tool more often than seeing a friend as potential enemies.
Grayson Bell
Fae /thread
Luis Nguyen
>Fae have culture and aren't mythical spirits like djinn
Blake Gomez
Goblins work pretty well for this, when they're not just mindlessly evil.
Kender in general were a mistake and should be forgotten about.
Angel Parker
If you want business "cunning" in the form of screwing everyone over, just look at the modern Chinese
Jackson Walker
Problem is that it's less "esteemed" and more "accepted". The Chinese know that every one of their countrymen is out to screw everyone else if it will make them even a little bit of money, but their take is that it simply "can't be helped".
Kevin Foster
Yes, exactly.
Aaron Mitchell
I think this is a common mistake.
People want to make something "alien" so they refuse to apply basic concepts. Unfortunately, every action is dictated either by causality or chance, so even the most alien of beings must ultimately have a basis for the way they act, If they are intelligent and exist in groups, they have culture. What's more, that culture will inevitably be something that can be understood by humans who dig deep enough. Even if they can't dig deep enough to understand why they will still eventually be able to predict the pattern.
Jordan Hill
Skaven
Carter Johnson
>Let's create a culture that respects cunning as the most admirable trait literally Slavs and Turks All of the Slav fairytales involve the hero outwitting the villain in some way.
Bothans, many died to make this thread and their cuture is exactly what you are after.
Isaiah Martin
Symbolic thievery as a means of showing cunning maybe?
You don't steal things people need, but you do set up a ceremonial something of "value" as something to be stolen, with a way of defending it of course.
You steal it, you prove your cunning, you then give it back. Mure cunning-> better defences and being able to steal better things, so you get more prestige and move up in the world.
Matthew Mitchell
Ah yes, Nasruddin. Once he was seen looking in his garden for something. His neighbor asked what's up, he said he's lost his keys. So the neighbor also went to look for it, but didn't find it too. Finally the neighbor asked, "where'd you lost your keys?" of which Nasruddin said "I lost it inside my house". "Why the fuck did you look in your garden then, dipshit?" "Because it's brighter out here in my garden?" Nasruddin said, with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Whatta troll, that Nasruddin.
Jose Morgan
Polynesian mythology has traces of this, what with Maui being a demigod who tricks and steals from the gods to make the world more pleasent for mankind.
Lincoln Johnson
>All of the Slav fairytales involve the hero outwitting the villain in some way. At least half of them have the hero beating the villain with the help of magic items or allies he obtained by plot convenience and through no virtue of his own.
I think you can turn to African mythology. IIRC a lot of the cultural heroes there are tricksters.
Angel Carter
Based on your examples, pretty sure what you really want to do is write a story with a cunning main character that is portrayed as good, not "create a culture."
Christopher Cruz
I would say that modern military culture is like that. While you hear stories about badass soldiers who get shot over 9000 times and kill as much enemies with their little finger, most military stories are about how they outsmarted the enemy.
The Art of War is based on deception. Most "cool" special forces are more like rogues then Rambos. Military Intel is "who is the sneakiest".
Julian Richardson
So... Niggers?
Connor Williams
Liberal fantasy
Ian Collins
Son Wukong if you want Chinese flavor Odysseus and Greek mythos in general was filled with ruses. Jacob and Esau from abrahamic religion also espouses cunning.
Tyler Ortiz
>I think you can turn to African mythology. IIRC a lot of the cultural heroes there are tricksters.
Oliver Hill
You're kind of describing ancient Greece, OP. Compare their myths with the Roman versions and as a general rule you'll see they place a lot more emphasis on cunning and deception.
Levi Scott
Literally greece
Noah Mitchell
This.
If rogues are respected, then they stop being rogues.
Cunning tricksters are popular with anyone who hasn't been cunningly tricked.
Also, a lot of real-life tricksters don't have that much cunning; they're basically social script kiddies that pull off shit most people wouldn't do because that'd be stupid and more effort than its worth. At a certain point, you're putting more effort into scamming and flim-flams than you would have just working an actual 9-5 job for less actual money.
Cunning jerks are always going to be heroes in popular mythology, but not popular enough to get them out of the noose.
Elijah Ortiz
Who half the time get found out and suffer for it.
That's a key thing in trickster heroes; sometimes they lose.
Reminds me of a thought I had about certain hollywood actors, male stars especially. Ryan Reynolds is a comedian at heart, and a comedian is always willing to sacrifice his own dighnity on the altar of public adulation, because they have a hole inside them where their self-esteem should be, and they constantly try to fill it with the laughter of others. This makes him genuinely excellent in a role like Deadpool because other big-name stars wouldn't be as willing to take a bullet right up their ass or break their hand punching a guy in the nuts on-screen. But without these moments, Deadpool would be completely insufferable instead of occasionally insufferable.
Jaxon Gonzalez
I have something similar to this in my setting, an organization known as the Black Bolt of Percale. A couple hundred years ago, when their nation was under the yolk of an empire, they pulled heists, practiced asymmetrical warfare, inspired rebellion, aided the poor ignored by the emperor, and generally contributed to the eventual freeing of the nation. Their status as folk heroes endured though over time their practices devolved into little more than an effective nationwide crime syndicate that partially banks on old reputation to stay alive. While standing up to the old empire was inherently valorous, their clever, devious applications of that bravery are what brought them fame and achievements. Thus these virtues are respected to some degree, but in a large functioning society they will never be prime virtues and will mostly be romanticized.
Ayden Evans
drow.jpg
Asher Roberts
>family heirlooms become trinkets that are hidden around houses >some big and pose a challenge to simply be moved out of the building >some small and difficult to find >nobles have faux booby traps (tranquilizer darts instead of poison, trapdoors into pools of cold water, but with a deep section under the pit that gets shallower and has a ladder, where the loser leaves a personal trinket at the guys house who he fucked up at
mite b cool
Juan Gonzalez
You need to look into folk stories. Generally stories told by peasants about becoming greater. Usually the peasant hero is the trickster, not a warrior.
At the same time if you look at a lot of greek heroes, they tend to embody cunning tropes as well.
It's hard to build an entire culture on this though, since the important aspect of the rogue is an overcoming of those in powers.
Hunter Smith
Literally every single culture has trickster heroes and gods showing their cunning trough thievery in a certain stage of their development (tribal and small states), at some point they turn against such myths the same way Aeschylus turned the Athenians against blood fued.
So in order to do this properly you have to make clear what factors lead to a culture valuing cunning (or more difficult disregard for property rights) and if it is encouraged as an ingroup v outgroup virtue or more personal. Is the group always under attack by stronger foes? Are the people intelligent, sophisticated and individualistic? Are they without any means of production (gypsies)? Are they fanatically devoted to an Anarchic philosophy or religion?
Saying: "Yeah these guys just love stealing, they're weird like that" is a missed opportunity.
