What would fantasy not!Africa be like in terms of themes and culture?

Youd have the Zulus replace the Orks as the war hungry ever growing Horde
they are uncivilized and dont engage in reasonable warfare (showy spear chucking just to intimidate each other) but rather in bloody pointless warfare (actually stabbing the enemy with the pointy bits)

It’d be dark fantasy

oooooh
edgy

>edgy
Words mean things.

Would fap

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>Not!Wakanda
>posts lightskin elves
Bruh

But anyway, I think advanced states with African-inspired culture would work just fine with humans. Or possibly a somewhat mixed fantasy-race composition.

Kangz.

Anything you want. Africa is fucking big, anything can happen.

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This, combined with that fact that most African legends are lost to history due to them not being recorded and since most tradition was oral, was abandoned.
I mean, fuck, they didn't know how Africa produced STEEL until maybe 70-80 years ago, because the native smiths abandoned the old methods when they found they could import cheap steel from Europe and China and it wasn't worth the effort.

Africa is a huge continent—just as diverse in culture as Europe you fucking ignorant bigot

>This, combined with that fact that most African legends are lost to history due to them not being recorded and since most tradition was oral, was abandoned.
Fun fact: A lot of what we know of African mythology was recorded by European missionaries. There's a lot of fascinating history behind how the missionaries would be both the agents of change that buried old traditions, and at the same time took great care to preserve memories of those traditions. Most often, the new converts to christianity and islam would be the most fervent in destroying pre-colonial traditions. They would burn fetishes and holy items, challenge the old priests, speak against traditional power structures etc. There's a lot of fascinating history in the tensions that came along with the rise of new christian and muslim denominations.

This. Africa is HUGE and has dozens if not hundreds of different unique cultures. Talking about African culture is like talking about Asian culture. It's too diverse to lump into one group. China isn't Japan, which isn't Korea, which isn't India.

Not sure, honestly. Maybe have some not!Zulus and a few of the more prominent North African kingdoms that sprung up in the early Middle Ages but most of the campaigns I’ve been in were either sci fi, napoleonic or Nordic fantasy.

How does one do "heavy Metal" African Fantasy...
Like do we have Ugandan Monks, Botswanan Bards, wizards with witch guns, etc. Vs. Dinosaurs, Tokoloshe incubus-goblin things, one-eyed, one-legged, bat vampire I forgot the name off,..

Apparently a lot of Western and Central African empires had a blurry point in their histories where they somehow skipped entire "ages" (copper, bronze, iron) in an extremely short period, inexplicably advancing their tech like they were cheating on Civilization, then suddenly stopped due to external circumstances (generally being conquered by a nearby civilization, now envious of all the cool toys).

Also the Masai (and Inuits, for that matter, but the Masai are what interests us right now) are practically a secret doomsday weapon in those annoying vegan vs. omnivore discussions that crop up on /b/ every so once in a while. For literal millennia many of those guys went THEIR WHOLE LIVES never eating or drinking anything that didn't come out of a cow, and they were pretty damn healthy when the Europeans found them.

>they were pretty damn healthy when the Europeans found them.
Tht just goes to show how malleable the human body is when it comes to survival on whatever foodstuffs are around.

>How does one do "heavy Metal" African Fantasy...
youtube.com/watch?v=IcPLcjnS2iM
?

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>Come into this thread expecting /pol/shitting
>Actual discussion mostly outnumbers /pol/shit
Maybe Veeky Forums is still based after all.

>Masai
Those niggas ritualistically drink blood, have coming of age ceremonies (for both men and women) designed to inflict pain just to prove you're a tough motherfucker, and hunt goddamn lions as a rite of passage.

They are a fucking khornate cult.

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African Fallout when?

I feel like I´ve seen less /pol/tards lately
Feels good

youtube.com/watch?v=H46FRRvb-9o

Degenesis

“Spears of the Dawn” deserves a mention. It’s Conan-esque Sword and Sorcery based on African myth. Also there are undead Egyptian lich-vampires. It’s GOAT.

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>hunt goddamn lions as a rite of passage
I think you're missing the part where as an almost daily foraging tactic they swagger up to lions like they fucking own them and take as much meat as they can before the lions realise the tribesmen don't have a backup plan

If you included that sort of behaviour in a setting, your players would call bullshit

Also it's specifically based on West Africa iirc. The fantasy versions of the kingdom should be recognizable to those familiar with African history. They're just anachronistically mashed together and mixed up with the fantastic, in the same way that Medieval European fantasy works.

Also has my favorite Bard class ever.

>Ran a 2nd ed D&D game back in uni
>every country was a combination of cultures
>main country was brit/greek, the northern barbarians were chinese/norse, the eastern horse lords were like all the balkans stuck in political deadlock so they don't rape the world with infinity hussar, etc
>the biggest rivals to the brit/greeks were french/bantu/mali
>for every metalurgical advantage the brit/greeks had, the french/bantu/mali had mastery over alchemy
>made the players deal with Zulu Ibutho tactics in war mini combat, except the ranks opened fights by throwing a shitload of francisca to soften the line before drawing their spears
>brit/greeks had hermetic magic, countered by the french/bantu/mali artificers

I admit, I was biased when I made the primary antagonists for the default starting location, as I'd just watched Yeelen and learned that Mali wizards cast spells by making things instead of saying/reading things, due to the value of craftsmen in their culture over scholars.

bump, maybe it won't go to shit

You could look into the water tables, specifically around ethiopia. The Nile flowing from there leads to a lot of interesting potential conflicts. Even if you used your own map you could still do something similar

>Also has my favorite Bard class ever.

I've never read Spears of the Dawn. What's great about the Bard class there?

>What's great about the Bard class there?
They're based on West African griots rather than european minstrels. The griot was, and is to a lesser extent today, something between an entertainer, a journalist and a walking library. They memorized laws, spread news and publicly called out lawbreakers - especially the high and powerful, those who normally were too influential to be fairly tried.

Imagine that slimy politician whom everyone knows is a corrupt, power-abusing asshat, but he's got friends in high places and you know he'll never get his just desserts? The Griot can call him out on it. And due to their popularity and important role in the community, the griot can do it. Attacking a griot would be political suicide. Even kings and warlords would mostly leave them alone.

To ensure that they never became part of the local power structure, griots would wander, bringing news and songs where they went.

'Spears of the Dawn' spices it up with giving griots magic. Their words are so powerful that they can kill a person from sheer shame by publicly denouncing them in front of witnesses.

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Pathfinder has a notAfrica as part of its world, to go along with the other analogs of Earth continents, called Garund. Its northern parts are covered by the nations of Osirion (notEgypt), Rahadoum (Ultra Atheists), and Thuvia (City States whose greatest export is an immortality elixir). Going clockwise from Osirion you get Katapesh (notArabia filled with gnolls and djinn), Nex (not Wakanda if ruled by super wizard), the Mana Wastes (Steampunk American old west but in Africa), and Geb (necromantic kingdom ruled by the Lich Geb).

The western part is the Sodden Lands, a swampy region buffeted by a magical super hurricane that marks the area where the god of humanity died. It and the Shackles, a region of islands to the south, are filled with pirates and criminals. Sargava to the south of those is a break off colony of demon ruled Cheliax, currently under the protection of a group of pirates.

The jungle and ruin filled interior is called the Mwangi Expanse and is a hell to journey through with evil intelligent apes, demon cults, xenophobic wild elves, and a whole host of monstrosities. There are pockets of civilization such as the mage university set up by Old-Mage Jatembe. The story of its creation has Old-Mage Jatembe and his Ten Magic Warriors defeating the sorcerous King of Biting Ants at the Doorway to the Red Star, and established the wizardly academy of Magaambya in Nantambu

In the unmapped southern portion, you have Chauxen, a small Vudrani (notIndian) colony, the azata worshipping Dehrukani and its crystalline towers where aasimar thrive, the triad of city states named Kaz'ulu, the catfolk birthplace Murraseth, Nurvatchta where the people are beautiful but may be horrible spider things, Tirakawhan a Keleshite (notPersian) colony, Droon the land of dinosaur riding lizardfolk, and Holomog a non evil matriarchy where a unique race of human planetouched originate due to energies from outside the multiverse.

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I like this idea a lot; people in that role seem to have a lot of flexibility and an easier transition toward typical adventuring activities. I might have to show this system to my foreverGM.

Bumping with a hunga munga, the pinnacle of Sub-Saharan african side-arm weaponry.
It's a sword-axe, throwing knife, and armor piercing pick-axe all in one. Depending on tribe, it might literally be made out of carbon steel.

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Gotta have mah boy Ananse

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My Not!Africa Is filled with degenerate cultists. Much like normal africa

African Fantasy inspo gallery here: imgur.com/a/iHF95

Several powerful kingdoms, most of which are trade based and have a wealth of resources (Mansa Musa was the richest man on earth at one point, possibly the richest man ever) some backed by Military might (Shaka Zulu), and a good amount of smaller confederacies of associated villages and peoples, along with some pseudo-tribal groups (~1-5,000 people).

There'd be no real religion that's 100% dominant, there'd be a couple that are large but for the most part it's various pantheons of degrees of animism.

as if anyone here would know anything about any African culture

See as how was assembled by Veeky Forums, this'd be the best place to ask on the site.

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atmarpg.blogspot.com/2018/01/african-fantasy-ideas-for-adventures.html

That's pretty cool actually. Not sure for what, but gonna steal.

Basically an incredibly advanced and prosperous utopia where literally every citizen holds the title of king or queen.

>Chinese Norsemen
Tell us more.

Get out of here, Huey.

>"We are each a nation. Independant, free of all weakness."
Would be a cool philosophy for the characters in a game honestly. Striving for that perfection.

>tfw no Second Congo War campaign

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>not!Africa
>Not Not Africa
>So just plain old Africa
Well it would be exactly like Africa.

going forward
ripping off BP

this looks either retarded and unusable or like supreme murder.

thanks user for reminding me how interesting pre colonial afrika was.

Kangz n shiet.

But seriously, you'd have a mixture of deserts, grasslands, jungles, and the real screwball environments like volcanic rift valleys, teeming with fierce, gigantic monsters. It's going to be Fantasy Ooga Booga if the locals evolved there and are just one more animal, and Fantasy Cadia otherwise. Civilization in the desert areas should flourish in wet periods and collapse in dry ones, at least twice over the course of 20,000 years.

>Hey, how can I sum up ENTIRE FUCKING CONTINENT in singe culture?
By killing yourself. And it's not about Not!Africa, but literally every single possible pick that brings some region from real world, usually consisting of dozens of nations, different cultures and even civilisations and then mash them together. That's literally the worst, bottom-tier style of world-building.

At least fucking specify the region of Africa you want to rip-off, you stupid piece of shit. Even kids in elementry knows about the vast difference between cultures of North, West, South and Central Africa.

>Implying colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial Africa is any less interesting
Aside borders literally done with a ruler and a pencil, shit's still interesting as hell.
And I STRONGLY recommend watching The Ambassador. It's '11 Danish documentry about neo-colonial Africa. Shit's so surreal it almost looks like a black (no pun intended) comedy, while it's a documentry.

That's not fair
Typical fantasy is basically all of europe in a kitchen sink bullshit
No reason an af4ican fantasy setting couldnt be something similar

Europe had a lot of melding by comparison. Lots of large scale conquering and cross-culture pollination, and tons of dpolitical intertwining as well. A lot of africa by contrast remained isolated from each other and followed their own wildly different cultural paths. It's inherently harder to make an entire not!africa than a not!europe because of it.

This motherfucker right here? This is Mansa Musa I of Mali. Due to his control of the Mali Empire, and their at-the-time vast quantities of gold, he was possibly the wealthiest single person in history.

As a Muslim, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca. To do this, he organized an entourage of at least 60,000 people who each carried 4lb bars of gold and dressed exclusively in silk.

Therefore, Mansa Musa balled out bigger than anyone in history.

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Supreme murder. They're very effective throwing weapons.

>What would fantasy not!Africa be like in terms of themes and culture?
As with fantasy !notEurope, multiple interpretations are possible.

Could people come up to them and ask them to do such vilification, or was it only on the the whim of the Griot?

I lived for about 3 years in the Africa, when I was in the Peace Corps.

I think it's about finding different sources of inspiration. They would be:

Voodoo (Togo, Ghana, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire) - the roots of voodoo are on the lower lip of West Africa. This means witch doctors, spells, possession, the whole deal. Notably, This is also one of the parts of Africa most affected by the slave trade, so you can tie in historical pain.

West African Sufism - Sufi Islam dominates much of West Africa. Note that it differs from the organization of Sufism in Southern Europe, in that rather than philosophizing, West African Sufism is very hierarchical, and some of the brotherhoods are connected to organized crime.

Animism - There are shamanic groups all over the continent.

Note there are also mysterious people in Africa, from the bushmen of Botswana, who may have the oldest culture on earth, to the nomadic desert groups of West Africa, like the Tuareg, who were historically roaming assassins with their faces covered by black scarves.

The historical empires are also worth exploring, notably the Malian and Ethiopian empires.

Also, check out the animal-centric fables - good for shapeshifter stories.

What throws most people off is the extra blade near the handle. If you imagine it's not there then it's a Khopesh with a pick-axe on the back, making both sides good for axe-like chopping motions plus whatever else a Khopesh was good for.
Also it's a throwing weapon designed so that something will stick no matter how bad you suck at throwing.

Generally, it was their responsibility as a peace maker and community organizer.

This.

he also destablilized every economy in his wake by giving out gold like candy

That depends on how you want to run it. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but Africa is a big place. I've been considering running a game set in a fantasy version of the Mamluk Sultanate, for example. In terms of themes, there'd mainly be the inversion of expectations, where slaves in the not-Mamluk sultanate are, on the whole, better off than free men. (Mamluk is literally Arabic for slave, and the Mamluk sultanate was named after the people who ran it. Everyone in the Mamluk government, up to the sultan himself, was government property.)
The culture would be mostly based on that of Egypt, but the not-Mamluks would have their own warrior ethos placed atop that, as well as a ton of beliefs about how having a family that isn't your fellow Mamluks makes you weak.

I mean, in his defense, it's not like he understood how inflation worked. It wasn't until the 1800s that people really figured out that kinda stuff.

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Pre 1500 CE

Consider all that empty space. Consider how much "here there be monsters and ruins so ancient no one knows where they came from" could be in there

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Blaeu, Willem Janszoon, 1571-1638.

One of the most decorative and popular of all early maps of Africa, from the “golden age” of Dutch mapmaking. First issued in 1630, the map was reprinted many times between 1631 and 1667, appearing in Latin, French, German, Dutch, and Spanish editions of Blaeu’s atlases.

In the format called carte à figures, this appealing map contains oval views of, presumably, the major cities and trading ports of Africa at the time: Tangier and Ceuta (Morocco), Tunis (Tunisia), Alexandria and Cairo (Egypt), Mozambique (seaport of Mozambique), Elmina (Ghana, site of the largest and most spectacular castle in Africa built by the Portuguese), and Grand Canary (Canary Islands) Side panels depict costumed natives from areas visited along the coasts. The interior is decorated with exotic animals (lions, elephants, ostriches), which were (and still are) a major source of fascination for the public. The Nile (today’s White Nile) is shown flowing from the Ptolemaic lakes of Zaire and Zaflan. Flying fish and strange sea creatures cavort in the oceans, and the sailing ships all bear Dutch flags. Coastal names are engraved inward to give a clear, sharp outline to the continent.

Probably the most interesting cartographic feature is the identification of specific large territories or kingdoms, which have been outlined in color, including a huge Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and Monomotapa (all of southern Africa). But these seem to reflect a European sense of nationhood—something presumed and projected upon a virtually unexplored canvas—more than the actual experience of traders and explorers, who would continue to report on hundreds of smaller ethnic enclaves and political fiefdoms during the next 250 years.

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A large decorative map by a German-born English mapmaker known for a number of influential maps, including the “Beaver Map” of North America. The dedicatee, Charles Mordaunt (1658-1735), was a nobleman and military leader, commander of the English campaign in Spain in 1705. One of the characteristics of a Moll map is the textual chattiness. Here, for example, above Guinea, he writes: “I am credibly informed, that ye Country about hundred Leagues North of the Coast of Guinea, is inhabited by white Men, or at least a different kind of People from the Blacks, who wear Cloaths, and have ye use of Letters, make Silk, & that some of them keep the Christian Sabbath.” One wonders if Moll is attempting to promote the region by saying (to allay fears?) that there are (no doubt) educated, productive Christians living there.

He shows the best course for sailing from Great Britain to the East Indies “in the spring and fall” (follow the dots), as well as the general directions of winds and the months in which they prevail. Grain, Ivory, Gold, and Slave coasts are clearly identified for commercial interests. In Moll’s construction, the Niger originates in Borno Lake, possibly a reference to today’s Lake Chad. The sources of the Blue Nile are evident, but the White Nile is completely absent. The Mountains of the Moon (here, “Luna Mountains”) form the southern boundary of a vast Ethiopia, a country that is “wholly Unknown to the Europeans.” Many of Moll’s territories are different from Blaeu’s in shape and scope. As if to promote an English presence on the continent and to show that it can be protected, the map includes insets of several English forts as well as an attractive “prospect” (with a key) of the Cape of Good Hope. Like other nationalistic mapmakers, Moll has set his prime meridian on his country’s capital, but here he acknowledges the classical one through Ferro Island in the Canaries as well.

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The earliest obtainable map of the whole continent of Africa. Because it was issued with some variations in both of Münster’s very popular works, Geographia (1540-1552) and Cosmographia (1544-1628), the map is difficult to date precisely. Münster was a professor of Hebrew at Heidelberg and then at Basel, where he settled in 1529 and later died of the plague.

The map of Africa contains many interesting—if not curious— features: a one-eyed giant seated over Nigeria and Cameroon, representing the mythical tribe of the “Monoculi”; a dense forest located in today’s Sahara Desert; and an elephant filling southern Africa. The Niger River begins and ends in lakes. The source of the Nile lies in two lakes fed by waters from the fabled Mountains of the Moon, graphically presented as small brown mounds. Several kingdoms are noted, including that of the legendary Prester John [see Ortelius’s “Presbiteri Johannis” map in the “Central Africa” section for further discussion of him], as well as “Meroë,” the mythical tombs of the Nubian kings. Few coastal towns are noted, and there is no Madagascar yet. A simplified caravel, similar to those used by the Portuguese (and Columbus), sails off the southern coast. One of the intriguing aspects of this map is the loop of the Senegal River, which is shown entering the ocean in today’s Gulf of Guinea. Actually, this is the true route of the Niger River, but that fact will not be confirmed until the Lander brothers’ expedition in 1830. Strangely, this loop disappeared from subsequent maps of Africa for the next two hundred years.

The text in the large cartouche offers a rudimentary itinerary for sailors from Lusitania to Calechut (Calicut, India), describing a route which essentially avoids Africa. Lusitania was a province of the Roman Empire, comprising most of modern Portugal and part of Spain.

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IIRC a lot of African legend surrounds how there's a ton of shit in the wilderness out to kill you. Like how Hyenas could talk, but if you listened to them they'd lead you to your death.

>Albino children kidnapped and chopped up for potions in the present day
>Not grimdark horror

You definitely gotta use Mokele Mbembe (the name varies by culture, but usually translates to "stops up rivers"). Congo river basin tribes have stories of a giant animal living in the swamps, which has the body of an elephant, the skin and tail of a crocodile, and the head and neck of a snake. It feeds only on plants, but is extremely aggressive, and kills hippos living in its territory because they compete for food. The animal is said to dig out caves in river bends, and it lays eggs. The smaller ones are red in color, and the larger ones are brown to gray.

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Roman texts located basically all the world's monsters in "Ethiopia". If there was a supernatural creature of any kind that wasn't obviously otherworldly (meaning, the Romans, with their uniquely amusing combination of skepticism and superstitiousness, assumed it was just an animal that didn't live close to home), it's basically a 90% chance that the scholars listed its homeland as Ethiopia. Gorgons, cyclopses, amphisbaena, catoblepas, dragons, the hydra... They all lived in Ethiopia.

Also, a race of dog headed people, generally peaceful but vicious if angered. It is theorized the "dog headed people" were the Roman scholars' interpretation of people's awed and terrified reports of running into baboons

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Medieval bestiaries usually included fuckhuge Ethiopian dragons that ate elephants.

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They were a lot more similar to Europe than you think. Don't confuse Bushmen with the actual Kangdoms

And still, hell. You could make a point about Europe employing Barbarian auxiliaries in several cases.

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That sounds like a cool bit of culture. Is spears of the dawn good?

He also sort of restabilized them by borrowing the gold back. The flood of gold meant italian traders could get their hands on it easier, which meant they became wealthy back home. His pilgrimage may of been the wealth boom that kickstarted the Renaissance

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>lumping china into one group
There are 72.
19, if you only count the common ones.

Why are you giving a nose and hairs that are not typical of subsaharian people?

you want something of african fantasy , femminine that looks cool? Grace Jones is the answer

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I want to be pissed off by this but the photoshop's too high quality.

>You have a lot to learn, bud
Kind of why he made the thread.

Read Imaro my nigger

I first read that you wrote about nontypical nose-hairs, and thought "someone is being a bit too anal about details."
Though Veeky Forums is one place where I can imagine accurate nose-hairs coming up.

They're distracted by gender bending elves

If you're not rolling 1d4 for the average length of your nose hairs in centimeters and add all modifiers for race, ethnic group, age and gender, you might be better off playing something like Fate Accelerated, kid. This is the grownups table.