More Turakian Age - modelling nationalities

[Bismark]

I was wondering how people running Turakian Age campaigns are dealing with areas of the map not covered by obvious historical parallels (particularly when designing package deals for characters from those areas).

Obvious Parallels:

Westerlands/North-western Mitharia: Western/Central Mediaeval Europe
Western Mhorecia/North-central Mitharia: Central Mediaeval Europe
Khirkovy: Russia (pre- or post-Mongol? - depends on number/type of infantry used)
Indushara: Dark Ages/Mediaeval India
Thon-sa: 'Stereotype' Tibet
Gorthunda: 'Stereotype' Nomad (Hunnic is nearest, I think, though the yahgahn looks like a clone of the Turco-Mongol yataghan)
Baghlan Plateau: Afghanistan

The Ventati highlanders have some parallels with Caucasian tribes (their signature weapon looks like a rip-off of the Caucasian kindjal, for example).

The Thûnese, aside from distinctly different climate and location, appear to be rip-offs of the Witchmen of Hyperborea from Lin Carter/L. Sprague de Camp's Conan pastiches.


I was wondering how people deal with the likes of the Sirrenic Empire and the Vashkhorans.

I use 10th-11th C. Byzantium as my model for the Sirrenic Empire, and a mixture of Sassanian and Achaemenid Persian (modified by the requirements of the faith of Hargesh) for the Empire of Vashkhor.

As for the Vornakkians, Kumasians, etc. - suggestions welcome!

[arcady]

I would try to avoid making any parallels along any of these lines, and instead just focus on the region as it is actually described and think of how people in such an environment would form their lives - then base NPCs and package deals on that rather than on trying to allocate ethnic stereotypes (which are so often grossly incorrect).

What I would do if I felt I needed more than the book provides is create 5 'buzz-memes' for each culture / region in the book based on no more than the description of that region itself, and its neighbors alongwith how it interacts with those neighbors.

A buzz meme is just a 'catchphrase' that captures some cultural element of a society. I found them very useful in building my science fiction setting.

Here's a sample from that, showing the 'key memes' of one culture in my sci-fi setting:
Look out for number one, nobody else will.
A person's virtue is measured by their wealth and influence.
Never follow, and be wary of leading – a leader is only the follower in front.
New is best, tradition holds you back.
Protect the rights of all or there will be rights for no one. You could be next.This for me works as nearly all I would need to figure out three basic kinds of people from this culture:
The fanatic who takes those ideals like they were 'the word of god' and follows them to an extreme, the 'average joe' who exists in moderate conformaty and spouts the rhetoric while really just getting by with life, and the rebel who tries to be an opposite of what her culture upholds.

From that, I would build out NPCs and package deals around those themes, and would not try to pin that list to an actual Earth culture (even though in the above case, as a near-future setting, it is a list actually based on a movement currently happening in China's major cities - other lists for other cultures might not be based on real cultures, and this list is for a people not in the present day, so they shouldn't act like real world people nor even stereotypes of real people).

[Yamo]

The Vornakkians seem like pure fantasy to me. Like the corner of the map where Steve stuck everything that didn't fit into an easy real world mold.

The Kumasians are a classic "crossroads" race. Look at Turkey during a lot of its history, for example. Or parts of North Africa during other times.

[steph]

kumasia= egyptien (maybe)
khoria = perse ottoman empire (iran)

[Labrat]

Here's my spin, the document is Excel format:
http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32098&highlight=Turakian

It's an on-going project... but I agree, if we had more of a real-world model to give us some perspective it could help enrich the environments even more.

[bblackmoor]

The handy thing about using real-world nationalities or cultures (or stereotypes of same) is that it provides an easy shorthand way to convey a whole bunch of traits that you'd otherwise have to describe individually. In that respect, I think they're a good idea.

One pitfall (and in my opinion, the only significant pitfall) is that some players may not be as familiar as you are with the real-world analogue you've selected. So using them as shorthand may not save any time at all, or, worse, you may have to correct a player's misconceptions because they've gotten two similar (or even dissimilar) cultures confused. Or, conversely, they might be more familiar with it, which is even more annoying because then they'll keep "correcting" you.

I still think it's a handy technique, though.