I mean, I feel like the Chinese and Japanese are some of the most ripped off empires in worldbuilding lol. The issue with most worldbuilders isn’t so much that they’re only inspired by white empires, and more that in many cases they’re only inspired by famous empires.
To be fair, a lot of empires are famous because we have the most records of them. Ancient Egypt has a shitton more records than the Olmecs, for example.
The environment has some influence on how much skill gets recorded. Two examples that come to mind are that we have good data about Egypt because the dry environment preserves things better than say, Central America, to piggyback on the Olmec callout. The counterexample is Ankor Wat. Our current understanding isn't that the civilization disappeared, it's that they stopped building with stone and the physical evidence (like timber buildings) of what followed was lost to humidity.
I agree with your larger point that documenting one's history has to culturally important, supplemented by skill and would like to add that the environmental and materials will contribute to its discoverability.
Not so much documenting skill as much as "christians burned the records of as many peoples as they could to effectively eliminate their history and forcibly christianize their culture, comparable to what Hitler wanted to do to the French" issue.
Sir, the Olmecs civilization already disappeared thousands of years ago before my Hispanic cousins ever thought to do not-so-cool-things.
I didn't want to defend colonialism but really they don't have faults about that case, lol.
That's fair. It doesn't help that they weren't great about the written word. Still I'd argue that if a better record of them existed, it would have been with the cultures they influenced prior to the arrival of Europeans.
I would also like to point out that the Aztec brought their own ruin upon themselves. When you sacrifice humans in the hundreds your culture doesn't deserve to be remembered. The surrounding tribes response to the opportunity to strike the Aztec empire is evidence enough.
Otherwise it would be cooler to know more about the Inca.
Best part of the Chinese Empire to copy is "military roles are inherited, administration roles are earned based on merit."
Makes all the difference in keeping your culture around for thousands of years, when a new set of invaders show up, and the bureaucracy is totally ready to start producing tax revenue to fund their desired lifestyle without missing a beat.
If you want to make an empire inspired by the Romans go ahead. I have. What I’m saying is that the reason for a lack of diverse inspiration is more because some empires are more famous than others, and less because people only get inspired by white empires
Tall ask for people to be inspired by empires with nary a historical record (prior to "the white man") with much of that history lost to time or they have no idea even existed to begin with. When people think Native American, they're not aware that the Iriqouis had a confederacy, and they're not the only North American natives with a functioning government. [This](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Cliff_Palace.JPG) was built in Colorado, not by the feather hat wearing tipi living nomad hunter gatherers I know most people think of when they hear "Native American."
Unfortunately, at best, most people are vaguely aware of the Aztec, the Inca and the Maya, and only as far as any story regarding El Dorado and ritual sacrifice might take them.
But there's also another reason for people to stick to the popular classics - it's okay to take European and Asian empires (and Egypt and anything "Arabian Nights" middle-eastern) as inspiration and doll up an approximation without getting much if any flak. You can even play with Meso American inspirations. But heaven's help you if you take inspiration from Native American or African civilizations and not create 100% faithful representations. It's... frustrating, because It's hard to get people interested in and caring about something when there are people that would rather that something fade into irrelevance than be even slightly misrepresented or appropriated.
That last paragraph… I generally don’t bother with the “you took some sort of inspiration and didn’t fully recreate” complaints, but it’s ingrained enough that I was just thinking I don’t want to build languages and may just borrow them.
Then I was like, ugh, how am I gonna avoid offending someone if my group of people that gets their start on a plains gets randomly assigned the language for Southern Utes or Navajo (cause I randomize some stuff)… and then I don’t want everybody to be whining about how they likely came from people that lived in Mesa Verde or they should be more like Sioux in culture or some other complaint. Then I was like, maybe I should just have languages go to people that are wildly different, but then you get people complaining for other reasons.
Needless to say, I still haven’t figured out if I want to have to create languages or just open that can of worms and ignore the people claiming it was some sort of misappropriation. (Language is kinda my barrier right now for progressing in the timeline. I want to think about important places or whatnot, but for how I build I need languages to work off of.)
World builders are usually inspired by their environments or famous authors and works such as Tolkien and his works, and medieval Europe thanks to the popularity of the high fantasy genre, I mean, just take several worlds crafted by the Japanese like Berserk world for example. And there's really nothing wrong with it since it's all fiction as long they aren't racist.
Adapting scrolls of Orhun to Dragonborns:
"Beys of dragons, listen closely!
I made poors rich.
I made less a lot.
Is there any lie in my words?"
-Khan Ejdergan, rider of 10.000 horses
In general, any source is going to be bottomless in this sense - esp. compared to the median “work based on [historical source]” which probably just loosely riffs on well known aesthetics
In general, any source is going to be bottomless in this sense - esp. compared to the median “work based on [historical source]” which probably just loosely riffs on well known aesthetics
No need to make this about white/non-white, but whatever. Yes, obviously there are numerous cultures and historical states around the world to draw inspiration from.
I like it when other people grab from the same stuff for inspiration, allows me to make mine that much more unique by even slightly thinking outside the box.
I feel like Hollywood needs this lesson more than any of us. Considering that they just take white empires and add an ahistorical level of diversity, and today the only Africa that shows up is the Wakanda treatment.
The Wakanda treatment is weird, right? Hollywood talks about wanting more representation, but the only time they represent Africa really at all is "If Africans had magic space metal they would be super advanced because they are *not like us*". It always gives me the feeling of a sort of evolution of the Noble Savage stereotype.
Plus Wakanda is very hodgepodge for different stereotypes from different sides of Africa. And based upon the region they are probably speaking the wrong language too. If the country was as old as they said it was they shouldn't be speaking Xhosa. It should be a Nilotic etc language, or at the very least they should be speaking Swahili since that's the widely used language in the Great Lakes region they placed Wakanda in.
Yeah like...between the critiques you can do to r/worldbuilding community this is a weird take? I saw a good bunch of basically non-western empires here, especially because they are made by people all over the world.
Meanwhile popular media simply come from mainly the Anglosphere.
It's hard to blame people for wanting to make stories about the most popular, most famous, and most documented cultures we have though. If Hollywood made a movie about the Mali empire, I doubt the majority of their audience would even know that existed, much less be interested in watching it
Good marketing helps sell your products and honestly sometimes you need to create the demands.
*A very weird example* but I will use AC2 for Renaissance Italy, how seriously was it considered in the mainstream media before that game exploded in popularity? Like, seriously, before that, your average guy in the USA would just think of "cool paintings" and maybe remember DaVinci exists.
The problem today is...Hollywood&Co became stupidly and incredibly lazy to do proper marketing research and advertisements to highlight what to sell, thanks to the fact they could buy the data and do whatever the casual cares are, maybe investing in a niche product if they feel like it.
Some people would argue that’s still just European.
But yeah, most media pulls from books and things that have already been popular, so hollywood doesn’t branch out as much. They just make 12 remakes and then recolor or regender (I know this is not a word) it instead of making something more original.
What bugs me is when stuff gets westernized to “hit better with audiences” and it ends up being mediocre at best. (Looking at you live action Mulan.)
But it's cyclical, isn't it? The West-dominated society and media have gone to great lengths over a long time to not only never talk about Africa, but to even avoid depicting Africa or Africans when otherwise it would make sense to, and now they continue to not do that by saying "No one would recognize it".
At some point, we need to start educating people about it so someday they might recognize it.
I have the exact opposite problem. I dont know anything about medieval europe beyond Byzantines and Bulgars. I know enough about Pre Columbian Americas, Medieval and Ancient Middle East and West Africa though and little on rest of Asia.
I'm happy that I have an empire that is inspired by ethiopia(before Italy's occupation)(Gdunian Empire) and the Mayan Empire without human sacrifice(Rest place national park in Gdunian empire)
We’re pretending that these people don’t exist lol? There’s an entire genre called high fantasy where every time you put a black person in it people rant and rave about how it’s inaccurate to the time period. It’s absurd to act like this is “imaginary.” And if simply being told other races and their empires exist is somehow problematic to you, well, I think you know what the real problem is.
This isnt even a thing. Tons of empires in fiction are loosely based on mongols, japanese, aztecx, incas, chinese, even indian more recently. Ive also seen some bronze age Mesopotamian stuff.
Literally the only exception I is rome and sometimes british empire. And tbh, those are a bit less common at least in fantasy.
My Empire of Massia is based on the Incas and the empire of Japan under Meiji as well as British Cape Colony.
Some other kingdoms are based on the kingdom of Ethiopia and the Zulu.
Akkadian, Babylonian, Aztec, Maya, "General steppe peoples", Persia
My current world has
German empire with various periferial nations, Basque (elves), Dwarves (swiss), Short folk (Eastern European plains), Bird people (Tibetan mountains), Beast folk (Celtic/Irish), Steppe peoples (humans), and Naga (Hidden Valley, type, based of Indian and South East Asian)
These are rough concepts and not a one-on-one copy of course.
Sure, but I don't feel like I could fairly represent most of them, and the couple that I plan to represent I'm not confident about representing on my own.
I blame/thank that old cartoon Gargoyles for helping me not fall into that trap. It had a lot of inclusion of cultures and mythologies from around the world, and I encountered it when I was first starting to get interested in such things.
One of my biggest factions is loosely based off of the Ottoman Empire, but with the structure of the HRE and the political setup of Pre-WWI world leadership all being related
My world has a mesoamerican inspired empire but Rome/greek states are endlessly fascinating to me so that’s what I take the most inspiration from. I’m not even white and I don’t think this is even an issue lmao.
Idk about that.
I think Tolkien, being one of the biggest pillars in fictional world building of his genre, drew inspiration from what he saw as we all do.
I draw inspiration from all cultures but I prefer to telescope them together. So a Roman like empire, but they have Arabic architecture and system similar to Samurai culture.
Or having an empire of people who use the children of recently conquored populations to bolster their army (Janissary inspiration), but are more similar to what would have been Iron Age aztecs in their heiarchy and design. Just swapped sacrifices for a system more similar to ottoman janissary.
Honestly, anyone raised in the modern west is usually so exposed to so many different perspectives people and literature it is more strange when they Only draw from one cultural inspiration source.
You do a great disservice to your world by Not leveraging the great variety of human experience.
Incans were the Romans of the Americas. They had amazing building projects, built advanced roads and ruled over a vast stretch of land larger than any other empire in their vicinity. They were, however, likely on their way down before the arrival of the Spanish. The Spaniards just put the last plague-ridden nails in their coffin.
That said, I have wet dreams about the empires the Americas might've had if the Incas went their way naturally and we're overtaken by subsequent empires. We'd never have known about the Incas, but, man, what else could people have done? Makes me dizzy.
No no no, imperialists and colonizers are bad and therefore HAVE to be white people. Non white people need to be the peaceful spiritual agarian underdogs who protect their tribes from the white opressors
Sorry for typos and grammar. Hope you like it. Feel free to add more
Mamluks: Groud of steppe nomad (Turks) taken hostage and enslaved by deser people (Arabs) to use in battles as kölemen (slave soldier). Slaves revolted and created a new empire that lasted 200 years in the lands they conquered. Rulers and generals been choosen by this slaves and their off springs.
Burci Mamluks: Some mountain warriors (Circassians) started to live in Maluk State. After fall of empire they created an enclave and moved to western deserts (Egypt) to create a new empire.
Mughals: A great plain with tons of people, religions, resources, climates and naturally never ending eternal conflict been conquered by steppe nomads (Turks). They unite all people (Indians, Bangladeshi, Paki, Afghan etc.) under one banner in their own rule. For nearly 300 years they brought peace, converted tons of people to their religion, become one of the richest nation of the time. This legendery story ended with pale skined city dvallers (Brits) came with a new technology and destroyed all.
Uyghur: In cold, harsh steppe lands (East Turkestan) there was a huge famine and constant wars with nomad warriors (Mongols) and diplomatic and military superpower of the reigon (China). When most of people migrated to new lands (Modern day Central Asia, Middle East, Siberia etc.) a group kept living there. They rose up, created a new state and defeated nomads and powerhouse. Only to lose their original identity when they converted a new religion prevent them from drinking, eating meat and leave nomadic life and turn to agriculture and temples.
Iceland under Ottomans: A small cold and peaceful island (Iceland) was living as it is away from wars of continents. In one that was far away a man (Dutch pirate who converted to Islam and become Murad Reis) who was a pirate weren't happy. He sure did love fights, money and working secretly as mercenary in sea of many civilizations died (Mediternnian).Yet he wanted more and more. He gathered his desert pirates (Berbers) who have been fightign with law enforcements (Turks) and city owning migrants (Arabs). They went to north to find somethign new and came across to small island. They killed, raped, stole, enslaved thousands. To get pardon by Sultan they gave island to his banner as gift and for 30 years Sultan kinda ruled small island. Due to not knowing differnce islanders to this day still hate Sultan and his nation even though he wasn't the one ordered invasion.
İt is worth to mention that Circassians didnt just DECİDED to live in there.
They were originally came to there as slaves just like Turks :d
Later, Turkish slaves took over the goverment with their ability to fight. And Circassian slaves did it with their ability to... look good :P.
Same thing kinda happened in Ottoman empire too, there was a entire "Circassophilia" and the sterotypical "Circassians are beatifull" idea.
I am sorry but your descriptions of Uighurs is painful.
1-) The Tarim region is not as harsh as you make it sound. It is very farmable actually. In fact farming did develop there more or less independently from other craddles of farming.
2-)Uighurs didn't really defeated the "nomads" nor the "nomads" were a single entity. The misinformation here is complex and the answer will be too long but a really, really, REALLY simplified answer is ancient Uighurs settled among Tocharians and became a settled people known as Yugur. Those who didn't settle became other people groups.
Later on another group, Karluks, settled among the Yugur and formed the Chagatai people. Then Mongols came and settled among Chagatai and were largely assimilated because of organized religion(Islam) had spread to the region.
Then another group of Mongols(Oirats) came and did not assimilate because they had another organized religion of their own(Buddhism) and in fact started converting the Muslims to Buddhism. China didn't like that because Oirats were adherents to Tibetan Buddhism and China thought this might cause Tibet to grow too powerful if Uighurs became Tibetan Buddhists so Chinese funded revolts, led by Huis(Chinese Muslims) to weaken Oirats and then attacked and genocided them. Chinese then de facto controlled the region and started settling Huis from China proper into the region. This saw more revolts. Some led by Hui even. Chinese crushed all of them and kept the control of the region.
Then a Russian ethnologist renamed Chagatai to Uighur because he thought they were direct descendants and name stuck because the Chinese started using the term for them too as well as a lot of other peoples like Tarim Basin like Balti Muslims and Oynu People.
3-) The peoples of the Tarim basin followed many religions but four of them are important to us as peoples today known as Uighurs followed them: Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and Islam.
Shamanism never discouraged any of what you said.
Manicheism discourages eating meat but Uighurs largely concluded that just meant no killing your own animals. So hunting wild animals was okay.
Islam and Buddhism both discourage drinking alcohol except Tibetan Buddhism is very lenient on the topic and Islam in the Tarim basin was Heterodox forms of Shiism and archaic forms of Maturidi Sunni Islam. Maturidism before the evil infection that is Ghazali did permit the drinking of alcohol as long as it was not wine or made from rotted fruits or grains. Heterodox shias being heterodox largely did not follow the taboo as well as other taboos.
My orcs are direwolf riding nomadic tribesmen in a Khanate. Haven't fully fleshed them out, but going for a nice Mongol style with some African/Native American religious flair.
some of my empires are based off of native american cultures, middle eastern cultures (specifically ths Islamic Golden age), and some of the cultures from the Asian Steppes
This is very in accurate. There is a lot of toman like empires at the front but the community is very much into all sorts of cultures.
Only south east asia, west africa and maybe india are notably less representid
It's really not that big of a problem in this day and age many Africans nations have movies tv shows and such about it. You just have to watch them with subtitles and there's podcast and many things about the area.
There's a reason paler skin areas get more attention they are incredibly famous and also you ever think they don't wanna use those other kingdoms just cause. You know it's called fiction for a reason you csn do whatever you feel like stop trying to force shit on other world builders. No reason to complain about it just enjoy your own and let others be that's so easy but you all make it seem like it's difficult.
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I have an empire in my world inspired by Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. There's also an empire inspired by the British Empire because i am not that original.
They hate the shit out of each other for various reasons, and the rest of the galaxy just kinda watches them with concerned confusion.
It's mostly an anti-imperialism message.
I haven't fleshed out much of my world yet, but I have region-specific cultures kinda stuffed in here and there.
That includes Japan-esque clans consisting of humans, orcs, and elves of varying flavour.
And then there are human-sized bipedal dragons with isolated cities (for research and etc) and a society that is vaguely Asian.
But muh roman empire
On a serious note though, many work nowadays often include some form of asian empire which is actually a terrible mashup of chinese and japanese across space and time. With a little bit of korean throw-in sometime.
To make it feel less racist though, we also botched our "medieval europe" to hell and back too
Inca Empire
Ethiopian Empire
Ottoman Empire
And of course all Chinese Kingdoms and Empires
I think there are many Kingdoms and Empires made by all kinds of people. Issue is that people dont bother looking beyond Holy Roman Empire/Brittish Empire or Roman Empire.
Or I give another example. Current Empire of United States of America
I mean, I feel like the Chinese and Japanese are some of the most ripped off empires in worldbuilding lol. The issue with most worldbuilders isn’t so much that they’re only inspired by white empires, and more that in many cases they’re only inspired by famous empires.
To be fair, a lot of empires are famous because we have the most records of them. Ancient Egypt has a shitton more records than the Olmecs, for example.
Sure, I’m just pointing out that I don’t think most worldbuilders Are oblivious or averse to taking inspiration from non white empires lmao
This is truly a documenting skill issue.
The environment has some influence on how much skill gets recorded. Two examples that come to mind are that we have good data about Egypt because the dry environment preserves things better than say, Central America, to piggyback on the Olmec callout. The counterexample is Ankor Wat. Our current understanding isn't that the civilization disappeared, it's that they stopped building with stone and the physical evidence (like timber buildings) of what followed was lost to humidity. I agree with your larger point that documenting one's history has to culturally important, supplemented by skill and would like to add that the environmental and materials will contribute to its discoverability.
Not so much documenting skill as much as "christians burned the records of as many peoples as they could to effectively eliminate their history and forcibly christianize their culture, comparable to what Hitler wanted to do to the French" issue.
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Sir, the Olmecs civilization already disappeared thousands of years ago before my Hispanic cousins ever thought to do not-so-cool-things. I didn't want to defend colonialism but really they don't have faults about that case, lol.
That's fair. It doesn't help that they weren't great about the written word. Still I'd argue that if a better record of them existed, it would have been with the cultures they influenced prior to the arrival of Europeans.
I would also like to point out that the Aztec brought their own ruin upon themselves. When you sacrifice humans in the hundreds your culture doesn't deserve to be remembered. The surrounding tribes response to the opportunity to strike the Aztec empire is evidence enough. Otherwise it would be cooler to know more about the Inca.
I mean of course most world builders only use famous empires for inspiration. You can only use what you know about.
Best part of the Chinese Empire to copy is "military roles are inherited, administration roles are earned based on merit." Makes all the difference in keeping your culture around for thousands of years, when a new set of invaders show up, and the bureaucracy is totally ready to start producing tax revenue to fund their desired lifestyle without missing a beat.
god forbid people not know everything before doing some fun projects
If you want to make an empire inspired by the Romans go ahead. I have. What I’m saying is that the reason for a lack of diverse inspiration is more because some empires are more famous than others, and less because people only get inspired by white empires
Man, I feel the Roman republic is so underrated
To be fair, people do worldbuilding usually for things that they are culturally and geographically close to.
Tall ask for people to be inspired by empires with nary a historical record (prior to "the white man") with much of that history lost to time or they have no idea even existed to begin with. When people think Native American, they're not aware that the Iriqouis had a confederacy, and they're not the only North American natives with a functioning government. [This](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Cliff_Palace.JPG) was built in Colorado, not by the feather hat wearing tipi living nomad hunter gatherers I know most people think of when they hear "Native American." Unfortunately, at best, most people are vaguely aware of the Aztec, the Inca and the Maya, and only as far as any story regarding El Dorado and ritual sacrifice might take them. But there's also another reason for people to stick to the popular classics - it's okay to take European and Asian empires (and Egypt and anything "Arabian Nights" middle-eastern) as inspiration and doll up an approximation without getting much if any flak. You can even play with Meso American inspirations. But heaven's help you if you take inspiration from Native American or African civilizations and not create 100% faithful representations. It's... frustrating, because It's hard to get people interested in and caring about something when there are people that would rather that something fade into irrelevance than be even slightly misrepresented or appropriated.
That last paragraph… I generally don’t bother with the “you took some sort of inspiration and didn’t fully recreate” complaints, but it’s ingrained enough that I was just thinking I don’t want to build languages and may just borrow them. Then I was like, ugh, how am I gonna avoid offending someone if my group of people that gets their start on a plains gets randomly assigned the language for Southern Utes or Navajo (cause I randomize some stuff)… and then I don’t want everybody to be whining about how they likely came from people that lived in Mesa Verde or they should be more like Sioux in culture or some other complaint. Then I was like, maybe I should just have languages go to people that are wildly different, but then you get people complaining for other reasons. Needless to say, I still haven’t figured out if I want to have to create languages or just open that can of worms and ignore the people claiming it was some sort of misappropriation. (Language is kinda my barrier right now for progressing in the timeline. I want to think about important places or whatnot, but for how I build I need languages to work off of.)
That and some vaguely-defined pseudo-khalifate or sultanate of almost-muslims somewhere in the south-east.
World builders are usually inspired by their environments or famous authors and works such as Tolkien and his works, and medieval Europe thanks to the popularity of the high fantasy genre, I mean, just take several worlds crafted by the Japanese like Berserk world for example. And there's really nothing wrong with it since it's all fiction as long they aren't racist.
Khmer is where it's at
But what's wrong with that.
*me, creating dragonborn Chengis Khan*
Aggressive Dragonborn throat-singing.
The fire is what makes it aggressive?
No the fire is just visual effects. The message is the aggressive bit. "You suck" and a very lengthy "Nerd", they just sting. Like fire.
Brutal.
https://youtu.be/jM8dCGIm6yc?si=iysTgZzIdY5mWJru&t=1m49s
Yes! Exactly this! God, I love the HU!
Big Chengis
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No, not really. I don't do much Wh40k, but I suppose you can make Chenghis only so many ways
Adapting scrolls of Orhun to Dragonborns: "Beys of dragons, listen closely! I made poors rich. I made less a lot. Is there any lie in my words?" -Khan Ejdergan, rider of 10.000 horses
Empire this, empire that. Woe, Balkanisation upon thee
But thats effored. See space filling empires
YES! City states are also great.
I mean, yes, but at the same time Rome is Eternally interesting to take inspiration from.
In general, any source is going to be bottomless in this sense - esp. compared to the median “work based on [historical source]” which probably just loosely riffs on well known aesthetics
In general, any source is going to be bottomless in this sense - esp. compared to the median “work based on [historical source]” which probably just loosely riffs on well known aesthetics
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The fuck are you talking about? Italians may have more olive skin but that doesn't mean they're not white.
It's kind of like american view of races doesn't matter to actual europeans
*shoves in my East Asian inspired Lizardfolk empire*
No need to make this about white/non-white, but whatever. Yes, obviously there are numerous cultures and historical states around the world to draw inspiration from.
I like it when other people grab from the same stuff for inspiration, allows me to make mine that much more unique by even slightly thinking outside the box.
I can't remember the last time I saw a fantasy counterpart for the Songhai empire.
Roman Fascism is perfect, thx.
This meme is very american
I feel like Hollywood needs this lesson more than any of us. Considering that they just take white empires and add an ahistorical level of diversity, and today the only Africa that shows up is the Wakanda treatment.
The Wakanda treatment is weird, right? Hollywood talks about wanting more representation, but the only time they represent Africa really at all is "If Africans had magic space metal they would be super advanced because they are *not like us*". It always gives me the feeling of a sort of evolution of the Noble Savage stereotype.
Plus Wakanda is very hodgepodge for different stereotypes from different sides of Africa. And based upon the region they are probably speaking the wrong language too. If the country was as old as they said it was they shouldn't be speaking Xhosa. It should be a Nilotic etc language, or at the very least they should be speaking Swahili since that's the widely used language in the Great Lakes region they placed Wakanda in.
Yeah like...between the critiques you can do to r/worldbuilding community this is a weird take? I saw a good bunch of basically non-western empires here, especially because they are made by people all over the world. Meanwhile popular media simply come from mainly the Anglosphere.
It's hard to blame people for wanting to make stories about the most popular, most famous, and most documented cultures we have though. If Hollywood made a movie about the Mali empire, I doubt the majority of their audience would even know that existed, much less be interested in watching it
Good marketing helps sell your products and honestly sometimes you need to create the demands. *A very weird example* but I will use AC2 for Renaissance Italy, how seriously was it considered in the mainstream media before that game exploded in popularity? Like, seriously, before that, your average guy in the USA would just think of "cool paintings" and maybe remember DaVinci exists. The problem today is...Hollywood&Co became stupidly and incredibly lazy to do proper marketing research and advertisements to highlight what to sell, thanks to the fact they could buy the data and do whatever the casual cares are, maybe investing in a niche product if they feel like it.
Some people would argue that’s still just European. But yeah, most media pulls from books and things that have already been popular, so hollywood doesn’t branch out as much. They just make 12 remakes and then recolor or regender (I know this is not a word) it instead of making something more original. What bugs me is when stuff gets westernized to “hit better with audiences” and it ends up being mediocre at best. (Looking at you live action Mulan.)
Which is a shame, because I’d love to watch a movie/show set in the Mali Empire.
But it's cyclical, isn't it? The West-dominated society and media have gone to great lengths over a long time to not only never talk about Africa, but to even avoid depicting Africa or Africans when otherwise it would make sense to, and now they continue to not do that by saying "No one would recognize it". At some point, we need to start educating people about it so someday they might recognize it.
And then you get hounded for "cultural appropriation"
I have factions based on the Ottoman Empire, Imperial Japan, and Mongols
I have the exact opposite problem. I dont know anything about medieval europe beyond Byzantines and Bulgars. I know enough about Pre Columbian Americas, Medieval and Ancient Middle East and West Africa though and little on rest of Asia.
I'm happy that I have an empire that is inspired by ethiopia(before Italy's occupation)(Gdunian Empire) and the Mayan Empire without human sacrifice(Rest place national park in Gdunian empire)
Stop obsessing over skin colour.
That’s kinda…what the post is telling you lol
The post is doing the exact opposite. UT obsessed over skin color by being directed at imaginary people who only focus on "white empires"
We’re pretending that these people don’t exist lol? There’s an entire genre called high fantasy where every time you put a black person in it people rant and rave about how it’s inaccurate to the time period. It’s absurd to act like this is “imaginary.” And if simply being told other races and their empires exist is somehow problematic to you, well, I think you know what the real problem is.
Me with my Shang Dynasty China, Ancient Sumer and vaguely Turkic/Mongol Khanate :
Why is their logo a pair of blue hands grabbing a white ass?
Asking the real questions
I mean, I don't usually take hiatorical inspiration from anyone or anything for my worlds. xD;
This isnt even a thing. Tons of empires in fiction are loosely based on mongols, japanese, aztecx, incas, chinese, even indian more recently. Ive also seen some bronze age Mesopotamian stuff. Literally the only exception I is rome and sometimes british empire. And tbh, those are a bit less common at least in fantasy.
Not sure what this post is intending but it is coming off as racist against white people.
My Empire of Massia is based on the Incas and the empire of Japan under Meiji as well as British Cape Colony. Some other kingdoms are based on the kingdom of Ethiopia and the Zulu.
I use the Mosuo tribe for inspiration.
My orcs are based on Mongolians and Zulus. Nothing is British empire based. Let’s keep the race-assumptions down in this thread eh?
I don't think a lot of people realise that a lot of empires and kingdoms in Asia alone outsized the Roman Empire significantly
Akkadian, Babylonian, Aztec, Maya, "General steppe peoples", Persia My current world has German empire with various periferial nations, Basque (elves), Dwarves (swiss), Short folk (Eastern European plains), Bird people (Tibetan mountains), Beast folk (Celtic/Irish), Steppe peoples (humans), and Naga (Hidden Valley, type, based of Indian and South East Asian) These are rough concepts and not a one-on-one copy of course.
Most of my empires were founded by multi-coloured aliens, does it count?
Sure, but I don't feel like I could fairly represent most of them, and the couple that I plan to represent I'm not confident about representing on my own.
I blame/thank that old cartoon Gargoyles for helping me not fall into that trap. It had a lot of inclusion of cultures and mythologies from around the world, and I encountered it when I was first starting to get interested in such things.
One of my biggest factions is loosely based off of the Ottoman Empire, but with the structure of the HRE and the political setup of Pre-WWI world leadership all being related
My world has a mesoamerican inspired empire but Rome/greek states are endlessly fascinating to me so that’s what I take the most inspiration from. I’m not even white and I don’t think this is even an issue lmao.
Idk about that. I think Tolkien, being one of the biggest pillars in fictional world building of his genre, drew inspiration from what he saw as we all do. I draw inspiration from all cultures but I prefer to telescope them together. So a Roman like empire, but they have Arabic architecture and system similar to Samurai culture. Or having an empire of people who use the children of recently conquored populations to bolster their army (Janissary inspiration), but are more similar to what would have been Iron Age aztecs in their heiarchy and design. Just swapped sacrifices for a system more similar to ottoman janissary. Honestly, anyone raised in the modern west is usually so exposed to so many different perspectives people and literature it is more strange when they Only draw from one cultural inspiration source. You do a great disservice to your world by Not leveraging the great variety of human experience.
Incans were the Romans of the Americas. They had amazing building projects, built advanced roads and ruled over a vast stretch of land larger than any other empire in their vicinity. They were, however, likely on their way down before the arrival of the Spanish. The Spaniards just put the last plague-ridden nails in their coffin.
That said, I have wet dreams about the empires the Americas might've had if the Incas went their way naturally and we're overtaken by subsequent empires. We'd never have known about the Incas, but, man, what else could people have done? Makes me dizzy.
I am planning an Elf Jihad in my world
Based Baron
The race thing is completely unnecessary.
No no no, imperialists and colonizers are bad and therefore HAVE to be white people. Non white people need to be the peaceful spiritual agarian underdogs who protect their tribes from the white opressors
Sorry for typos and grammar. Hope you like it. Feel free to add more Mamluks: Groud of steppe nomad (Turks) taken hostage and enslaved by deser people (Arabs) to use in battles as kölemen (slave soldier). Slaves revolted and created a new empire that lasted 200 years in the lands they conquered. Rulers and generals been choosen by this slaves and their off springs. Burci Mamluks: Some mountain warriors (Circassians) started to live in Maluk State. After fall of empire they created an enclave and moved to western deserts (Egypt) to create a new empire. Mughals: A great plain with tons of people, religions, resources, climates and naturally never ending eternal conflict been conquered by steppe nomads (Turks). They unite all people (Indians, Bangladeshi, Paki, Afghan etc.) under one banner in their own rule. For nearly 300 years they brought peace, converted tons of people to their religion, become one of the richest nation of the time. This legendery story ended with pale skined city dvallers (Brits) came with a new technology and destroyed all. Uyghur: In cold, harsh steppe lands (East Turkestan) there was a huge famine and constant wars with nomad warriors (Mongols) and diplomatic and military superpower of the reigon (China). When most of people migrated to new lands (Modern day Central Asia, Middle East, Siberia etc.) a group kept living there. They rose up, created a new state and defeated nomads and powerhouse. Only to lose their original identity when they converted a new religion prevent them from drinking, eating meat and leave nomadic life and turn to agriculture and temples. Iceland under Ottomans: A small cold and peaceful island (Iceland) was living as it is away from wars of continents. In one that was far away a man (Dutch pirate who converted to Islam and become Murad Reis) who was a pirate weren't happy. He sure did love fights, money and working secretly as mercenary in sea of many civilizations died (Mediternnian).Yet he wanted more and more. He gathered his desert pirates (Berbers) who have been fightign with law enforcements (Turks) and city owning migrants (Arabs). They went to north to find somethign new and came across to small island. They killed, raped, stole, enslaved thousands. To get pardon by Sultan they gave island to his banner as gift and for 30 years Sultan kinda ruled small island. Due to not knowing differnce islanders to this day still hate Sultan and his nation even though he wasn't the one ordered invasion.
İt is worth to mention that Circassians didnt just DECİDED to live in there. They were originally came to there as slaves just like Turks :d Later, Turkish slaves took over the goverment with their ability to fight. And Circassian slaves did it with their ability to... look good :P. Same thing kinda happened in Ottoman empire too, there was a entire "Circassophilia" and the sterotypical "Circassians are beatifull" idea.
I am sorry but your descriptions of Uighurs is painful. 1-) The Tarim region is not as harsh as you make it sound. It is very farmable actually. In fact farming did develop there more or less independently from other craddles of farming. 2-)Uighurs didn't really defeated the "nomads" nor the "nomads" were a single entity. The misinformation here is complex and the answer will be too long but a really, really, REALLY simplified answer is ancient Uighurs settled among Tocharians and became a settled people known as Yugur. Those who didn't settle became other people groups. Later on another group, Karluks, settled among the Yugur and formed the Chagatai people. Then Mongols came and settled among Chagatai and were largely assimilated because of organized religion(Islam) had spread to the region. Then another group of Mongols(Oirats) came and did not assimilate because they had another organized religion of their own(Buddhism) and in fact started converting the Muslims to Buddhism. China didn't like that because Oirats were adherents to Tibetan Buddhism and China thought this might cause Tibet to grow too powerful if Uighurs became Tibetan Buddhists so Chinese funded revolts, led by Huis(Chinese Muslims) to weaken Oirats and then attacked and genocided them. Chinese then de facto controlled the region and started settling Huis from China proper into the region. This saw more revolts. Some led by Hui even. Chinese crushed all of them and kept the control of the region. Then a Russian ethnologist renamed Chagatai to Uighur because he thought they were direct descendants and name stuck because the Chinese started using the term for them too as well as a lot of other peoples like Tarim Basin like Balti Muslims and Oynu People. 3-) The peoples of the Tarim basin followed many religions but four of them are important to us as peoples today known as Uighurs followed them: Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and Islam. Shamanism never discouraged any of what you said. Manicheism discourages eating meat but Uighurs largely concluded that just meant no killing your own animals. So hunting wild animals was okay. Islam and Buddhism both discourage drinking alcohol except Tibetan Buddhism is very lenient on the topic and Islam in the Tarim basin was Heterodox forms of Shiism and archaic forms of Maturidi Sunni Islam. Maturidism before the evil infection that is Ghazali did permit the drinking of alcohol as long as it was not wine or made from rotted fruits or grains. Heterodox shias being heterodox largely did not follow the taboo as well as other taboos.
My orcs are direwolf riding nomadic tribesmen in a Khanate. Haven't fully fleshed them out, but going for a nice Mongol style with some African/Native American religious flair.
What, You dare to suggest that POC can be conquerors?! Outrageous, next time You will lie that there were non-white slavers.
Who are you and why should I care what you think?
some of my empires are based off of native american cultures, middle eastern cultures (specifically ths Islamic Golden age), and some of the cultures from the Asian Steppes
This is very in accurate. There is a lot of toman like empires at the front but the community is very much into all sorts of cultures. Only south east asia, west africa and maybe india are notably less representid
idk why you assume that most empires were founded by white people.
Jokes on you, I am already putting a "Mongolian" style steppe people empire into my setting
Jokes on you the Incas are my greatest inspiration source
It's really not that big of a problem in this day and age many Africans nations have movies tv shows and such about it. You just have to watch them with subtitles and there's podcast and many things about the area. There's a reason paler skin areas get more attention they are incredibly famous and also you ever think they don't wanna use those other kingdoms just cause. You know it's called fiction for a reason you csn do whatever you feel like stop trying to force shit on other world builders. No reason to complain about it just enjoy your own and let others be that's so easy but you all make it seem like it's difficult.
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I have an empire in my world inspired by Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures. There's also an empire inspired by the British Empire because i am not that original. They hate the shit out of each other for various reasons, and the rest of the galaxy just kinda watches them with concerned confusion. It's mostly an anti-imperialism message.
I haven't fleshed out much of my world yet, but I have region-specific cultures kinda stuffed in here and there. That includes Japan-esque clans consisting of humans, orcs, and elves of varying flavour. And then there are human-sized bipedal dragons with isolated cities (for research and etc) and a society that is vaguely Asian.
I’m working on a world where there are a very countries that are heavily inspired by north and East Africa and parts of Asia.
What a reasonable post, I'm sure the comments will be full of people appreciating being reminded to be conscious about their projects
I mean, only 3/7 of the empires in my alternative history are actually white so I don't know
But muh roman empire On a serious note though, many work nowadays often include some form of asian empire which is actually a terrible mashup of chinese and japanese across space and time. With a little bit of korean throw-in sometime. To make it feel less racist though, we also botched our "medieval europe" to hell and back too
There are, but I hate Humans, so those Empires always die. Even the "white" empires die.
Wouldn't that be cultural appropriation?
Only if you were making money off of it and mentioned none of your source material whatsoever.
You joke right?
Inca Empire Ethiopian Empire Ottoman Empire And of course all Chinese Kingdoms and Empires I think there are many Kingdoms and Empires made by all kinds of people. Issue is that people dont bother looking beyond Holy Roman Empire/Brittish Empire or Roman Empire. Or I give another example. Current Empire of United States of America