ITT: tell me about your not Mayan or Aztec civilization in your setting

>floating elven continent crashed on the dwarven island
FUCKING
KNIFE
EARS

I think that's the most dickish thing I've read about elves doing so far.

No not! Mayans or not! Aztecs in my homebrew setting. I've got not! Incans though.

>Empire of Aztec orcs from the tropics of this world
>Their chief god not only demanded blood, but in fact demanded new and interesting blood, so my PC has come north to find new, neat stuff to sacrifice

Blame their gods because they were fighting each other for inheritance of the floating continent since the father of the elven gods died and they absorbed energy that was making the continet the float to overpower and kill each other however the dark elves and their god weren't there since they were exiled before that happened

youtube.com/watch?v=iCa6o_zzZXs
Pictured you.

Their magic users are usually red mages and their soldiers are similar to the aspect warriors from 40k and they infuse the lore of wind magic to a purestain dragon egg so it will hatch into a tempest dragon

Are they human or something else

bump

Still need inspiration, I'll hang around here and maybe steal some good ideas.

For now, I took a some inspiration from Rise of Legends (pic related is art from it) : humans living in the jungle, worhsipping huge stone creatures that may or may not be gods, and living in ancient stone cities in the jungle.

They are very pious, and therefore most of their disagreements have a religious base : since the gods are rarely seen and do never speak (and very rarely act in an understandable way), some think they are bloodthirsty creatures demanding sacrifices (and go to war to take prisoners whenever one is spotted), others believe they should act like them and retreat deep in the jungle and shun contact with outsiders, while others are more fond of travelling around, trading with and sometime trying to "enlighten" strangers by giving them magical items that act on their subconscious, letting them dream of the gods etc.

Oh and their jungle is full of ancient ruins (of course), be it some of their ancient cities destroyed by a wandering god, weird headless creatures that simply appear in forgotten places and relentlessly attack any form of civilization they come accross, or simply abandonned because of food/water/war/plague reasons.
And many of these ruins are also much more ancient than the cities, and seem to be connected to the gods.

So what do you think ?

My !Aztecs lived in !America around 10000 years ago.
They worshipped 4 gods representing the 4 elements, the 4 seasons, 4 stages of life, etc.

Their civilization sprawled over the entire continent and was the only human civilization at the time.

Thats all most people know nowadays. Their civilization all but vanished from the face of earth, leaving only gigantic stone ruins inhabited by monsters, and their 4 gods were never seen again.

In the solar solstice at the end of their 4th millenium, the gods needed recharge in the form of human sacrifice. But something got wrong, and the gods suddenly exploded in 7 parts each, in the process destroying the core of the empire and showering the entire continent in magic fallout.

These 7 shards of the gods took the form of strange creatures, and claimed a chunk of the fallen empire as theirs.
Each shard was created from a trait of their gods, wich take the form of a deathly sin.
ten milleniums later, the former humans are now monsters, each emboding the form of their shard masters.

Minotaurs and beastmen form tribes in the great plains. They embody the rage of the gods and have a shamanistic society. (Based on lakotas) they worship enormous beasts of primal nature.

Slime-persons in !Lousiana-florida, were they farm small, pseudo-sentient slimes and worship giant anemonae that form a sort of hivemind with the slime.They embody the hunger of the gods.

Fawns and faery in the great lakes. They live in comunion with nature spirits and are joyful, if distrustful of outsiders. They embody the lust of the gods.

Greenskins in the cold north. I haven't really fleshed them out, but they embody the pride of the gods.

In !Arizona-!New mexico Live the Dragonborn. They live in small comunities in mesas. Below them, in the caves, live tribes of kobolds.
Each mesa forms around a patron Dragon that protects the city in exchange of tribute.
The Dragonorn society revolves around the obtaining of treasure and forming of hoards. When 2 dragonborns marry, its custom to join their hoards together. The more hoard you got, the better your social position. They embody the greed of the gods.

In !Yucatan, enormous stone structures rise from the jungle. Inside these Ziggurats, old mummies sleep. These inteligent undead are the followers of an aztec priest-mage that foretold the apocalipse and built the ziggurats to wait-out the apocalipse. They still have techno-magic caches, but they have no way to replenish their numbers. (Yes, like necrons) They embody the sloth of the gods.

And finally Lizardmen and naga in the core, where a giant and toxic swamp formed from the devastation of the gods. They embody the envy of the gods.

They were elves who went vampire to protect themselves from a sentient biological contagion horror from the stars.

Sounds pretty cool, user. The gods and ruins sound just the right amount of vague and ambiguous to be exciting for adventurers.

Are they a bunch of scattered tribes, or is there some form of central organization for them?

They're the Nueva Azteca.

They're a nation-state of various tribes violently coalesced into a cohesive society centered in Tenochtitlan (the rebuilt and redesigned remains of what was once Mexico City).

Commanded currently by the God-King Quetzalcoatl, a man who rose from complete obscurity to demi-godhood when he conquered the Yucatan Republic with his bare hands and a hefty dose of magic powers. Quetzalcoatl believes that the Aztecs are the new, great resurgent force in the world, and will usher in the age of the Gods through returning to the old ways. This view is legitimized in Aztec society by the incredible success of the Aztec military, the miracles their Warrior-Priests can create, and the seemingly unstoppable growth the the Empire has undergone.

A bastardized version of Nahuatl is the "high language," with Spanish spoken by those too uneducated to learn fluent Nahuatl. That said, virtually everybody speaks Spanish at minimum unless they're Mayans, and the Mayans hate literally everybody.

Having subjugated Sonora and the Yucatan, they have turned their eyes north of the Rio Bravo into Texas, where they perceive the expansionist Republic of Texas as being their greatest possible threat and their "frenemy" the Cyprians, who exert control over the Houston area.

Aztec culture is a heavily-revised version of old Aztec culture with major Catholic undertones. Sacrifice (up to and including human sacrifice, though for most people simply giving up a valuable item is enough) and racial supremacy of the Mexica are crucial components, but outside of religious ceremonies and ideology there are still strong Mexican traditions (it's only been 200 years since the Fall after all).

Magic is a "regular" occurrence in their lives, due to the Warrior-Priests, and is a constant "reminder" of Aztec power. Priests can entreat Tlaloc and make the rains come, etc.

Plot twist - Their gods are real - but so is Texas' Jesus

>Mayan

Nigga that's not even the right continent.

Thanks !

They aren't completely reduced to scattered tribes, but definitely aren't united. More like a group of city-states that speak the same language and worship the same gods, but there's no central government.

you know I have found a quest on SV(I know SV is kinda a shit site but I do sometimes like their quests) called shadows of the past that's similar to what you described.
post apoc, vaguely pre Colombian south American and with ruins of an ancient empire. too bad you'd have to go to a site that bans the use of the word "trap" to read it.

They are crocodiles.

Fucking love it.

Before the first human settlement erected its frail and untested walls, before the black iron boots of Thanatos (dark elf tiber septim/Cesar) and his armies ground all before them into dust and turned their eyes westwards, before the orcs emerged from their steppes to pillage the land, the mighty temple-cities of the Kobold empire plagued the land- sprawling from the chalk cliffs of Aennia to the volcanic ridges of Notos. Monolithic Structures of carved stone and adorned with gold and obsidian, these colossal structures served as a symbol of the Kobolds supremacy and the glory of their great demon-gods. Upon the steps of their towering pyramids countless men and women were sacrificed in fell rituals to appease and garner favor with their patrons, the steps turning red with the blood of victims and the skulls of the slain adorning the altars and armor of the warriors on their hunts. But such a reign did not last forever, the spreading kingdom was soon challenged by the might of the proud and noble dwarves of (empire) in the east, and the resplendent might of the united elven court in the west. While the war in Notos was soon concluded, the lizardmen routed before the might of the elven forces and the courts that led them, it was against the dwarves that the bloodiest battles were fought, for the Kobold empire would not relinquish its last ground willingly.

The battles of the war between the two powers were said to rival even those fought in the Scourge, monstrous hordes of scaled warriors and demonic beasts clashing with armored dwarven warriors within temple-complexes and dwarven holds, cities were razed and mountains burned, the steps of the pyramids ran sleek with the blood of captives, summoning greater and mightier demons to aid them against the dwarvish forces, shamans cast bloodcurdling incantations to foul the air and make the blood of their warriors burn with unholy fervor- but it was not enough, the might of the (empire) was unassailable. Towering pyramids were torn down and sprawling temples put to the sword, the once great empire of the Kobolds was broken beyond repair, driven from the mainland to secluded cities hidden within the deepest reaches of the (jungle name here) and on the most remote of islands. Their once great cities now little more than overgrown ruins, homes to nothing more than wildlife and the occasional bandit band.

Savage slavers and maneaters, the Kobolds have not given up their barbaric ways over the aeons, attacking and enslaving any unwary travellers within their land. The Kobolds are deeply superstitious and cowardly, ruled by their priest kings and deeply fearful and reverent of their demonic patrons, Kobold society is divided into distincts castes warrior, priest, laborer with the special slave caste relegated to captives of other species, who are worked to death or sacrificed at the whims of their masters (although some do manage to have entire enslaved settlements to provide a fresh supply of manpower and sacrifices). Although the might of the Kobold empire has never recovered many an expedition has met its end at the hands of savage spear wielding lizardmen upon discovery of one of their hidden temple-cities. The Kobolds are territorial and warlike, often engaging in conflict with the Amazonian tribes of (jungle region)- both for territorial dominance and to obtain slaves for their demonic masters. In recent years the Kobolds have been particularly voracious, with their forces ranging further outwards than ever in recent history forcing many of the tribes into hiding or to leave their domains lest they fall to the lizardmen and be enslaved like so many others.

Although their former might has been long shattered the Kobolds are not to be underestimated, for their warriors are cunning and savvy, fond of attacking from ambushes and with a wild savagery that allows them to overpower even seemingly stronger opponents, bearing crude but effective clubs and armed with throwing spears and blowpipes and poisoned darts, and accompanied by defiled and corrupted animals bound by their priests and shaman, but perhaps the deadliest of the Kobolds are the priests themselves, both for the potent arcane fury they can unleash and for the horrific entities which answer their call.

What about Incas? Why are they so underrated in comparsion to Aztec and Maya?

aztecs were cooler, also more known about

Elves living on a secluded island with some dinosaurs where an Evil Meteorite turned the king into a vampire thousands of years ago, so now they're all vampires

>7 deadly sins
Oh god, no. Sorry user, but noone ever should unironical use this pretentious trop.

>7 deadly sins are bad
no

It's a squishy scifi setting in progress. They're future Mayans, like our own reality if every crazy thing Graham Hancock ever wrote was true.
>Every single civilization worth half a damn that arose in the Western Hemisphere between the catastrophic floods in ~9600BC and the arrival of Columbus in 1492 was seeded by survivors of Atlantis. This is why Quetzlcoatl, Kukulkan, and Viracocha are all portrayed as bearded white guys.
>The reason the historical Mayans suddenly collapsed is that they developed magitech/Clarke's Third Law space travel, saw the Europeans coming a few centuries in advance, and got the fuck out of there.
>The collapse of the Mayans and the sudden absence of anyone with in-depth knowledge of the calendrical system is why the Aztecs were unable to calculate the next transition point between ages and switched to mass human sacrifice in "oh fuck please don't eat me sun serpent" mode that they maintained up until their end at the hands of the Spaniards.
>Mayan spacecraft tend towards blockier shapes that look like carved stone, with botanically active interiors

I have a hybrid Aztec/Maori/Chinese nation made up of a few dozen tribes around an ancient fire god temple. The south is largely settled, with proper townships and rule of law, while the north is almost entirely savages and pirates. The south intentionally settled their part so that northern countries that invade dismiss the whole area as not worth their time, or underestimate the fighting force of the nation when it comes to war.

I have them as a combination of meso-american cultures and ancient Persia as dragonfolk. So there's a King of Kings style emperor with various viceroys/client kings, who pay tribute in the form of slaves for blood sacrifice and gold. Emperor's legitimacy comes from his position as speaker/seer of the Dragon gods, and the blood sacrifice sustains them in their battles against demons from beyond the outer night who seek to devour the world. PC's are currently mercs employed by a coalition of dwarven city states on the edge of the Dragon folk's empire resisting expansion (think the Greek states of Ionia) in a series of escalating border skirmishes.

The dominant culture/empire of !SouthAmerica are a culture based on the Nazca. Most places outside of a !Abrahamic/Hellenic sphere of influence worship eldritch demons and gods, and these guys aren't an exception: they worship demons who taught them how to make incredibly sophisticated waterways and aqueducts that fuel their cities and agriculture, and in return they create gigantic, magically potent geoglyphs in their honour, sacrifice humans to them and cultivate their off-spring in their priest castes' huge, elongated skulls.

That's cool as fuck.

Of course they're bad they're sins

>That's cool as fuck.
Thanks. I'm trying my own take on a Stargate-esque "at least half of all conspiracy theories / crackpot history tales are real" setting without leaning on outright debunked stuff like "Egyptian pyramids were landing platforms for spaceships." The next faction I'm trying to nail down are space Nazis with flying saucers, that AREN'T portrayed as cartoon villains but I have to wade deep into the muck of poorly written esoteric Hitlerism and general stormfaggotry to source it properly.

Sorry i dont know what name they categorize South American civilizations

Outside of the Incas? Nobody really has a good name to my knowledge.

The last city-state of the Not! south american deep elves is Quezcatli and its basically an expy of El Dorado and it wasn't discovered yet because the red mages used a spell to infest the forest with massive beasts to kill any treasure hunters or dwarven conquistadors

S-she's fast!