I'll start by reposting some of the good stuff from the deleted thread.

>There's certainly some interesting stuff to pick form down there. Sadly a combination of termites and iron fisted colonialism may have erased a lot, but still. One neat little detail for example that I've heard about was some tribe (or group of tribes, I can't quite remember) where the idea was that iron/steel is a "cold" metal. So to help with protection shields where painted mostly bright primary red, and decorated with brass and copper, all "warm" colours and metals.

>Then of course there's the entire "run after a gazelle until it falls over from exhaustion and heatstroke" thing, which has to be one of the more hardcore ways of hunting.

Mud huts.jpg

Show me a book or two that actually delineates the history of African civilizations and Kingdoms, then give me... two weeks?

>Here's the important thing to remember about Africa: it's pretty much the shittiest possible environment on the planet for humans, bar Antarctica and maybe Australia. The disadvantage of having evolved there, you see, is that everything else on the continent was evolving right along with us. So the megafauna all knows to either avoid us or ambush us, the diseases have had countless millennia to adapt to our immune systems, there really weren't any empty areas for agricultural populations to expand into during the early days of civilization, etc. Also, the soil fertility is abysmal across most of the continent, the selection of easily domesticable crops is low, the selection of domesticable animals is worse, the entire damn place has been getting more arid for practically the entire time any local civilization has had agriculture, the disease environment more-or-less bars livestock from the entire part of the continent that the tsetse fly lives in, and the famine and disease related labor shortages were only made worse by the shipment of millions upon millions of Africans away from the continent over a period of nearly four hundred years, followed by the deaths of millions more at the hands of colonial powers and the destruction of practically all of the livestock in the continent (important both for their uses and as the traditional symbol of wealth) over just a decade or two thanks to the accidental introduction of rinderpest.

>Basically, if you're African, the world seems to exist to shit all over you. Keep this in mind when you use Africa as inspiration for a campaign.

>The lucky ones left.

>Or the ones who couldn't find anything to eat and migrated north in search of food.

>Or the ones who migrated north in search of a place where that other tribe that kept raiding their encampments for women and food couldn't reach them.

>And the thing is, we can survive in Africa, it's just that we can do much better pretty much anywhere else. But in the era before modern communications and transportation, and before any humans have made the trek out of Africa, how are you going to know that some place thousands of miles away has better weather, animals that don't know enough to run away from you yet, and a disease environment that hasn't started to optimize itself to infect humans yet?

>And by the time it's possible to find any of that out, the rest of the world is full. Also, thanks to the better crops, better climate, better soil, better livestock, more easily accessible raw materials, and the labor surpluses you can therefore build up, they're too far ahead of you for you to be able to catch up before they ruin your shit.

There were actually quite a few of them. Unfortunately, they were mainly in West Africa, where they had the shit beaten out of them via centuries of slave trading before being conquered and systematically smashed. Yes, the ones doing the slave hunting were generally other Africans. No, they didn't realize the long-term consequences of shipping millions of people away from a part of the world where labor was already a premium, any more than anybody else realized the long-term consequences of over-exploiting natural resources until, well, never really. And in Ethiopia, where they actually did pretty well until the middle of the 20th century. And all along the Bantu corridor, from Kenya south to about where the Boers set up shop, at least until rinderpest destroyed the cattle their entire economy and social structure had been based on and then the remnants were conquered and encouraged to start suiting European economic priorities instead. Or in the Congo, until Leopold II turned it into his own personal abattoir.

What happened to African civilization was basically the same thing that happened to North and South American civilization. It just took a bit longer, because the disease environment was working against the outsiders this time; of course, this also meant that by the time the disease problem was solved the technological gap was much much bigger.

I've read a book about animism (the main system of belief that even infects Christianism), Marc Augé's Le Dieu Objet if you're interested into this kind of stuff. Its main idea was that the fetish (in its first meaning, not the sexual one) always was linked to the priest, his or her bloodline and the particular god. Something like the object is the god is the priest is the bloodline is the fetish, etc. You see how it goes. There is a very deep materialism in African native religions, the god is almost always incarnated in some object and some person. This is one of the reasons why so many native religious ceremonies involve masks.

Agriculture is possible, yes, but the yields generally weren't as big and the most productive crops actually were introduced from elsewhere (maize and cassava from the Americas in the 1500s, banana and plantains from Asia probably in the 900s). The local staple crops had some major problems; teff, for example, only really grows well in the Ethiopian highlands, and native yams only grow well in West Africa. You might also note that Ethiopia and West Africa had the most sophisticated civilizations in Sub-Saharan Africa for most of African history.

>>15233581
So, for example, maybe have a cleric get spells based on which masks he had prepared that day?

One big thing about an African-styled campaign: unless you're making it a modern-day analogue, outsiders aren't going to know much of anything about stuff more than a few day's travel inland.

Also, trade from the outside is probably going to be quite lopsided; a wide variety of stuff sold by outsiders and flowing into the intra-continental trade routes, only a few different commodities heading out. Slaving is relatively common, thanks to the ever-present need for more labor in any local sedentary civilization, but one or two of the rulers are starting to become concerned at the sheer number of slaves that are being marched onto outsider ships and never coming back.

Unless PCs are playing locals, they're going to find that the coastal cities and kingdoms are increasingly unstable, that reliable information on the interior is slim to non-existent, and that the slaving raids are driving a wave of refugees in front of them as they travel ever-further inland in search of fresh sources of captives. Also, water is at a premium unless you're literally right next to a source of it, and disease is a constant threat.

>>15233770
...so sort of a slightly less hostile version of Dark Sun?

I'm surprised. Normally /tg/ is more interested in this sort of thing.

Or is it just that it's summer?

>>15233833

I'm interested heavily, I just don't know much about Africa so I can't contribute anything. Other than maybe the Egyptians and a little of modern-day Johannasburg.

Last thread, someone mentioned a ritual involving fattening girls up using goats milk.
Anyone got details on this? I'm rather interesting in varying beauty standards.

>>15233920
Assume that in any society where calorie shortages are a fact of life, some degree of obesity would be considered attractive. This is going to be more of a pastoralist or farmer thing than a hunter-gatherer thing; hunter-gatherers are generally either well-fed or dying from starvation, there isn't much room for the sort of "just enough to live miserably on" that agricultural societies can produce. Also, hunter-gatherers aren't going to have members of their population who are idle enough to get fat; generally speaking, they move as the food does.

I just had an interesting thought: have the major trade caravans be descended directly from tribes of hunter-gatherers. As they moved along with their food each year, they got into the habit of accepting requests from local farmers and pastoralists to ship goods around with them. In exchange, they get to skim a bit off the top, mainly in the "metal tools" and "raw materials we can make jewelry/musical instruments/other decorative shit with that we couldn't just get for ourselves".

>>15233493
I was thinking "I'd tap that."

Then I remembered the AIDS.

>>15234022
Don't worry; back when herders still wore stuff like that, AIDS didn't exist yet.

Although you did just give me another idea: in fantasy Africa, one of the things that diseases are likely to evolve is Spell Resistance. Well, really, all diseases are likely to do so, but since fantasy African diseases would have been dealing with healing magic for the longest period of time, they'd be the most likely to have it.

>>15234021
>>hunter-gatherers aren't going to have members of their population who are idle enough to get fat

You don't have to be idle to get fat, though. You just have to take in more calories than you burn. Less people would be fat in a hunter/gatherer society, but it would still happen. Might symbolise anything from affluence and status to overindulgence at the expense rest of the people.

>>15234170
At the very least, they'd be very fit fat people, because they're still going to be moving long distances on a regular basis as the tribe moves with its food sources.

Which would mean that fat hunter-gatherers would be extremely attractive to any farming societies they pass through, since they'd tick both the "able to get as much food as they want" and "physically adept" boxes.

The hypothetical group of hunter-gatherers who do trading on the side would probably have a remarkably high amount of genetic diversity thanks to all the different villages they'd pass through. And they might also give the local gene pool a few quick stirs. It'd be an interesting addition to the social dynamics, that's for sure.

Nyambe d20 pretty much did this to death.

>>15233493
I don;t thin this would be the ususal all across the continent, but: Castes in the community based on age and tasks set for them, rather than merely ancestry or gender.
Magic would be a scary unknown - who knows what the practitioner could do to you? And though respected, far from loved.
Intertribal conflicts, unless escalated would revolve around procuring livestock, resources, or prestige.
And night would be a terrifying place to be caught in the open and unprepared.

>>15234339
Never heard of it.

>>15234401
Mediafire: /?ey10otzjomh

>>15234022
Congratulations, you're the only dumbfuck in the thread. How do you feel?

Dear rest of the thread: you're cool and I like you. That is all.

bump

>>15234400
>Castes based on age

...elves?

Now there's an interesting thought: elves as the first sentient "race", who differentiated into the other "races" as they spread out across the world. And now their descendants are back, and in less than a single elven lifetime slave raids and guns have completely destabilized elven societies across most of the continent.

>>15234580
More of a children's group-> young men's group-> men's group-> married men's group-> elders group sort of progression, with each having specific roles and duties.
Corresponding groups for women as well, of course.

>>15234710
Wasn't the army arrayed by age too, I think? Something like youths, unmarried, married/elders.

Would doing Egypt be considered cheating?
They were pretty awesome, but I have the sneaking suspicion they're not the point of this.

>>15234747
North africa kind of blends Al-Quadim elements into the setting, but is still a style that is often overlooked in this day and age.

>>15234455
Actually AIDS is a very big problem over there. Relax, just because he doesn't want AIDS does not mean he's an asshole.

>>15234710
I knew about that part, more or less. It's just that the next thing that came to mind was "so how would the species with different lifespans play into this?" and things snowballed from there.

>>15234793
AIDs is more of a modern epidemic.

I think we should set aside modern issues and look back a few hundred years into the general fantasy era. The continent has a large amount of untapped potential for fantasy. That was the original point of my old thread that I deleted due to trolls.

>>15234857
So it wasn't the mods after all? Well, now I feel a bit silly.

In that case, 1st thread OP, any other ideas to contribute?

>>15233493

OP, I suggest you look up the Malian Empire cause they were pretty interesting. Incidentally, they, at one time, controlled over one third of the worlds gold supply.

You could also look up the history of North Africa and its trade conflicts with the Malis.

While your at it try out the East Africa and the free cities that developed there.

If that doesn't help, include Egypt as they were pretty involved with the continent in terms of conflict and trade.

>>15234857
Well, OP, I am more than a little surprised you took the advise I gave about deleting the thread, and more than a little happy that my suspicion that you had a hand in it's shittiness was unfounded.

Obligatory. Plus, Africa's history in a nutshell.

>captcha: active rollon
>why yes, I believe they need deoderant.

>>15234919
Yeah, Mali is definitely a good idea. Or their successors, who got to deal with the influx of American gold that dropped the demand for their own into the toilet. That was one of the big initial catalysts for the slave trade kicking into high gear, along with the demand for labor to work on the sugar and tobacco plantations in the Caribbean and Brazil; with the loss of the market for their main export, and nothing else that could take up the slack (ivory, salt and tropical hardwoods not being salable in the same quantities/value as gold), slaves became the most profitable thing for the locals to sell. Generally in exchange for gold and guns, along with assorted other manufactured goods. Some booze too, of course.

The Golden Kingdom in the Northwest, with their foreign religion and endless supplies of mercenary armies.

The Iron Kingdom, champions of the old gods, hacking and building with iron weapons and stone castles in the heart of the jungle, constantly expanding in hopes of reaching better ground.

The foreign traders who colonized the vast Northern desert with their strange beasts of burden used to that climate.

The disunited warrior tribes - the great spear leader to the South and the fearsome descendants of the mountain giants in the East.


PC's would obviously be Iron Kingdom - the armed and magical forces of the Bantu expansion, coming up against pseudo-Mali and its pseudo-Islamic religion spread by pseudo-Arab traders who colonized the pseudo-Sahel with their pseudo-camels. And against the pseudo Zulu in the good hunting grounds to the South. And the pseudo Masai in the good hunting Grounds to the East.

You are the champions of the continent - the only worshippers of the old gods large-scale domestic production of iron weaponry and advanced stoneworks. The haughty tribes to the South and inland East don't have nearly as good weapons and technology, and the Northerners (and the Eastern coastal areas) have them only due to the foreign traders, converters, and invaders.

Conquer the continent for the old gods. Forward the Expansion!

>>15235036
its sad that people actually believe this. Please visit Africa, or even read some damn history before you make claims like this.

I actually live in South Africa and I remember we once played a semi-real game of Vampire:The Masquerade set in the small town I live in. Was interesting to say the least. More so than the one that was in Sierra Leone, which was pretty much a Blood Diamond rip off.

If I recall, there was a Masquerade supplemental guide of Vampire Clans hailing from the "Dark Continent", does anyone remember it?

I've also been writing my own d20 adventure set on the cusp of Shaka's Empire and with the Dutch and British settler's first arriving, but have lent more fantasy names to it all and have made the Xhosa and San tribes stronger than their historical counterparts to give the Zulu Empire a bit more of competition.

>>15235036
Africa is a rather more hostile environment for humans than the Mediterranean Basin, and its geography isn't conducive to vast land empires.

Also, surprisingly enough, grasses that you can weave into mats for covering a frame with are a whole lot easier to find on a savannah than large amounts of rock or wood. Any of the former is going to be reserved for fencing in your livestock and your kitchen garden, any of the latter is going to be reserved for fires, house frames and the wooden bits of your tools. Getting enough of either to build an entire house out of is going to be massively expensive to construct and a bitch to maintain.

0/10, troll harder next time.

>>15235189
So, you're saying that Africa's main problem is that they can't learn2logistics.

>>15235118

You forget the free cities of East Africa.

I would have North Africa ruled by a Umayyad Caliphate counterpart.

The Malian Empire would be tense neighbors who nonetheless trade heavily.

The eastern free cities would be partners with the Umayyad Caliphate and another foreign empire across the sea ie India.

Your Iron Kingdom could control the south and trade with the free cities. You could also have them heavily tax the overland trade routes of the Malian Empire.

>>15234903
Rather than focus on modern issues, focus on what kind of world would it be where you have the same resources as Africa and magic.

For tribal characters, metal is rare and your life is dependent on your ability to hunt prey that runs faster than you and your ability to live off the land and herd your most valuable possessions, your livestock.

Rangers, clerics and druids would be really important to their society as well as fighters, barbarians, and sorcerers. Be it in the jungle, savannah or plains, their society would be shaped by the availability of resources.

As you gear towards trade hubs and cities, life becomes a bit more varied with organized religions and bustling trade taking root. Here you will find farmers who take advantage of the waterways irrigation channels to produce crops and other classes not found in less "civilized" regions such as Paladin, Cavalier, Rogue and maybe a wizard or two.

Civilization sticks close to rivers. The closer to a river, the more modern the people. This holds true even in africa.

>>15235248

I mentioned (Eastern coastal states - Swahili trade empire basically; with the idea being that the inland East is ruled by the Masai. Essentially the Iron Kingdom can threaten Mali's gold, the Ummayad trade routes on the Sahel, the Swahili sea trade routes, the rich savannah hunting grounds of the Masai, or the rich South African hunting grounds of the Zulu).

>>15235207
More like "its main problem is that a huge portion of the continent is off-limits to livestock, the rivers are kind of crap for long-distance travel, there's a chronic labor shortage because disease and the crummy climate/soil reduce carrying capacity, and right about the time they were finally starting to overcome some of these issues on more than an extremely local level foreigners showed up and smashed the existing civilizations apart".

Simply put, most of Africa is not a good place to try to build a civilization from scratch in.

African civilizations?

...Eh

Do the mostly Arab colonies along the southern mediterranean count?

>>15235036
Axum, Meroe, Numidia, Nubia, Ashanti, Wagadou, the Adal Suntanate, Agisymba, Carthage, Mosylon, Sambu, the Ajuuraan State, the Mali Empire, the Zulu nations and more... about 5 minutes on Google/Wikipedia. Rome is in Europe, and not hard to get to. That's why we think so centrally around it in the west. Roman rule/culture continues to influence western views of history because it's something to trace back to. Nothing more. There were greater civilizations than rome when rome rose, and greater ones when it fell.

>>15235277
If we're talking Bantu, then the pseudo-Maasai are the most immediately at threat. Their territory is by far the best for cattle, and despite the spread of iron-working cattle is and will likely remain the measure of wealth. Until somebody manages to import enough horses to have a breeding herd survive local disease, anyway.

>>15235284
Allright, then. Let's take Iraq (Then Sumer) 4000 years ago and use that as the top panel.

>>15235320

Masai are scary enough without a fantasy setting where they really do get a Giantblood template.

>>15233493
Look up Nyambe: African adventures.

/thread

>>15235295

I sympathize with your points, but carthage wasn't in the same category of those other civilizations you noted, unless you're advocating the gross afrocentric racism claiming carthaginians and numidians as negroid.

Nor can I think we claim any of those civilizations were greater than Rome. Great and significant? Certainly, despite what the clucking of racists claim, but I think it's foolish to consider any african kingdom save Egypt as more significant than Rome.

It'd probably be really interesting to play pseudo-Arab traders/diplomats exploring fantasy Africa. I could already see the party consisting of a ghazi prince, a sufi dervish, a tribesman ranger, and a court-eunuch wizard.

You sure are mentioning racism a lot in an attempt to rouse a troll with bait.
But sage because there's not much actual gaming discussion, just a lot of half baked historical ramblings.

>>15235336
You mean the extremely fertile region between two rivers that had access to a vast array of staple crops, a large number of domesticable animals (including horses), could trade with its neighbors for metals and wood, had plenty of surplus labor, and had competition against other Sumerian city-states and then against nations in the rest of the Fertile Crescent to drive them forward?

Oddly enough, direct comparisons stop working once you start to learn anything at all about the factors that influence the development of human civilizations.

Legend of the Burning Sands anyone? Ebon Hand Templar here, I'll fucking put you in jail, rashari scum.

>>15235295
Not really. They didn't get into large scale engineering. Unlike Rome, which could draw on the Greek tradition (and the Greeks drew on the Cretan and Babylonian traditions, etc...)

Now, I say that if you want a realistic advanced African civilization, keep it in East African highlands. This gives you
1. Indirect sea contact with everything else on the Indian Ocean (yes, getting ideas, goods and crops from outside is important- that's why Eurasia was always ahead of everyone else).
2. NO tsetse fly, less in the way of other misc. horrible nastybad diseases, and sometimes even no malaria.
3. Areas of reasonable fertility.

Coincidentally enough, that's where you find the most advanced subsaharan civilization, Ethiopia. I'd just like to see stimulus-diffusion pushing advancement from there clear down to Cape Town.

>>15235295
>>. There were greater civilizations than rome when rome rose,

Sorta.

>>and greater ones when it fell.

Nope.jpg.

A core advantage of Africa as a campaign setting is that it has some of the most distinct megafauna in the world. Just look at the Rand.

And that's pretty cool.

>>15235474
Well, to Cape Town gets trickier, because most of the crops the Bantu depending on don't grow in the local climate.

How about a varietal of teff that can grow well at lower altitudes? That lets the Ethiopians expand out of the highlands. Add in sorghum and maybe fonio and you're in good shape.

You could also have African rice make it from the Niger River to the Great Lakes, which could then support an even denser population in a relatively compact area.

Pastoralists aren't really as conducive to forming major cities, I suspect. When your wealth is measured in cattle, you need enough room to pasture them all, and that doesn't jibe well with a pre-modern city's requirements for nearby farms (at least if it doesn't want to rely entirely on shipping in grain from a distance a la Rome to feed its population).

I can't offer too much, but I do know a few mythical creatures from South Africa.

The Mbulu looks like a scaly human with a very long reptilian tail that ends in a second, fanged mouth. Normally it is amphibious and lives in rivers, but if someone bathes in a river it will steal the clothes they leave on the shore. If a Mbulu puts on a person's clothes, it assumes the illusory appearance of the clothes' owner. The Mbulu will use this power to infiltrate human society. However, the tail has a mind of its own, and can sometimes be tricked into going after food and revealing the Mbulu. If it dies, its dark blood can animate objects even after it is dead. For example, plants growing where its blood was spilled might attack people.

The Abatwa dwells in the forest. They look like humans, but are only about an inch tall. Abatwa live in large colonies, usually traveling in the fur of a large animal to get from place to place in search of food. Like army ants, they can kill and dissect much larger animals than themselves, bringing them down with thousands of tiny poisoned arrows and spears. If they cannot find food, they devour the animal they are riding on. Abatwa are very sensitive about their height. Any human who makes ANY comment implying they are tiny or short is likely to be killed on the spot. Likewise, anybody who steps on an Abatwa is a dead man.

Ok I got one:

Fallout, South Africa.
Diamond tipped spears/arrows to kill the local wildlife, because guns only kill people.
Ferocious Mutant Lions, jackals, and monkeys.
Herds of big-horned Water-Brahmen
Sapient Apes and Elephants
Trickster Rad Spiders.
Racist Imperialistic remnants.
Warlords, warlords everywhere.

>>15235546
>i intend not to be racist
>i intend to be true

Well, you're batting 0-for-2 there bucko.

Try looking up Ethiopia or the West African civilizations some time. Or, you know, reading the rest of this thread, which explains in some detail the reason why the development of civilization lagged in Africa compared with Europe or Asia.

>>15235645
Use the blood to animate the traps in your fortress. Or to awaken household items to do mundane shit, assuming you can turn off "DESTROY ALL HUMANS" mode.

Also, find some way to swim in the river without leaving clothes on the shore, harvest the mbulu's tears of impotent rage.

>>15235658
No apes in South Africa.

You could, however, have Radrhinos being used as cavalry mounts.

Anyone ever play Quest for Glory 3?

It was set in an Fantasy Africa analogue, and was actually pretty excellent.

>>15235714
Damn, could they have migrated after the apocalypse?

I mean, it's not like Fallout has the strictest adherence to bio-sciences anyway~

Gentlemen of /tg/, I've stumbled into this thread and am reading my way through it. However, even without having read all of it, I can say with utmost certainty that I am stealing this - all of this - for when my PCs inevitably set off the Big One.

Polite sage for off-topic.

>>15235645

I've always thought that having tons of fantasy races was retarded. If your race is human+trait why not just use humans? Diversity for its own sake is pretty lame.

My own homebrew for example has:

Precursors: Celtic Fair Folk and Eastern Dragons

Inheritors: Classical Greek Gods

Apes: Humans, Neanderthals, and more.

Well, regardless of the elitism/racism in some comments, I'm going to plot out something like this after considering it. Thanks OP, this sounds like a lot of fun and a definite different setting feel.

>>15234339

This, get Nyambe. Highly recommend it. Smart mechanical choices (no armor in Africa, so mundanes can make alchemical fetish armors instead! or you can use a dodge bonus that scales by level) and a well thought out fantasy Africa with actual different cultures drawing on real life inspirations.

>>15235717
On that subject, I bought one of the Guild Wars games entirely because it was set in an African setting.

On another subject, someone should really archive this thread.

>>15235738
The Kongolese Gorilla Kingdom and the People's Democratic Republican of Chimpistan are fighting a border war over the ruins of what was once Uganda, with the surviving humans and bonobos caught in the crossfire.

>>15235807
If it's any consolation, I think you're a racist out of ignorance, not malice. In other words, you still have a mind to open.

But you're definitely a racist.

Oh, and the people leading African countries are in the main not retarded. What they usually are are greedy, venal, power-mad inheritors of a governmental system that was originally built to funnel patronage to groups that supported the colonial regime via local intermediaries. The only major difference is that instead of money from the country being funneled into the pockets of the colonial power, it's being funneled into the pockets of the ruler and his support base. Which still has nothing to do with Africans somehow being inherently worse than people from elsewhere, as you would have it.

So the gist of this thread is that Africa is basically the Death World that Australia wants to be when it grows up?

>>15236084

Pretty much.

Australia has, what, crocodiles and dingos as the biggest animals that might hurt you? Everything else is just unpleasantly poisonous.

Africa, by contrast, also has crocodiles, wild dogs and lots of poisonous stuff. It also has lions, leopards, hyenas, wolves, hippos, rhinos stampedes of various hooved animals, rampaging bull elephants, angered gorillas, massive pythons and more epidemic diseases than you can count.

African folklore often doesn't have as many big, dangerous, animal like monsters as the folklore of other places. It has some, to be sure. But for the most part it doesn't need them. It has plenty of REAL monsters.

>>15236203

Africa has Ebola.

That automatically trumps anything Australia can throw at it. Poisonous spiders the size of your hand? We have an incurable disease that makes you bleed from every orifice of your body, and we have no way of telling where it will turn up next and no way of vaccinating people to prevent it when it does. Sleep tight!

>>15236203
>>15236233
And remember, humanity evolved in this place.

Explains a lot about us, really.

>>15236233
That virus showed up in the 70s. I doubt it would be present in folklore. If it is in folklore there's something fishy going on.

You guys know that there were plenty of (comparatively) advanced civilisations in Africa once you go back a few hundred years, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajuuraan_State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksumite_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nok_culture

Any of which were about as advanced as European civilizations that existed at the same time. It isn't until the Renaissance that you really see Europe becoming more civilized or technologically adept than Africa.

>>15236281

Oh, I didn't realize this thread was talking about African folklore, just the continent in general. Whoops, that's what I get for jumping in after only reading the OP and the last three posts.

>>15236084

I don't mean to tote the 'racist' card but Europe and the Mid-East actually did have lions. It's just the Kingly sport of killing them helped make them extinct.

But aside of those infamous Tsavo lions, they are smalltime compared to the mighty, supreme, hellish creature from beyond the stars that is proof that the gnostics are right, god is evil.

Oh god, he's snuck into my post. Tell my wife I said hello.

And terribad climate for all but the tip of So'frika, and the big bad monsters you all mentioned.

>>15236300
No, you had it right. Folklore isn't all there is to a campaign setting.

>>15236308

This is a hippo skull. Seriously, look at it. It is like the maw of darkness.

They can open their jaws to 180 degrees.Hippos have been seen biting Nile crocodiles in half.

>>15236409
Don't forget that a) they're territorial and b) they can outrun us on land over short distances.

>>15236409

I remember reading somewhere, during an interview with Steve Irwin, he was asked if there was any time while filming his show that he honestly feared for his life.

He named one sequence where they had to cross a river that had hippos in it.

Those fuckers scared STEVER MOTHERFUCKING IRWIN, that should tell you just how crazy dangerous they really are.

>>15236429
Wow, you are one angry Negro.

>>15236429

You know, you're not exactly making it easy for people to see your point of view with that attitude.

>>15236203
The most dangerous animal in Africa is the Cape Buffalo. They will STALK YOU and KILL YOU by surprise.

More people die from Hhippopotamus attacks than crocodiles or lion attacks.

Hyenas are the most feared creature in Africa because they are demons. If they possess you you become a half-man half beast that eats people. This legend was long before werewolf legends in Europe.

>>15233493
Looking over the thread, if this was a D&D effort, it looks like lizardfolk should be upgraded to a PC race in this, perhaps replacing Gnomes or halflings?

>>15236429
>>15236488
>>15236489
Samefagging much?

>>15236423

Calling hippos "territorial" is like calling Marcel Marceau "a little quiet."

They are INCREDIBLY territorial. I remember once seeing a special where some guys were at a river in Africa during hippo mating season. They were upstream of a spot where a bunch of bulls competing to impress the females.

The guys doing the special inflated a raft and and put a dummy of a human explorer in it, dressed like a pith-helmeted explorer, propped up in place.

After launching the raft, they got in a jeep and rode downstream of the hippos, got out, and just watched as the shredded pieces of the dummy and the raft floated by.

>>15236522

Legends of monstrous man-animal shapeshifters are pretty common in many different indigenous folktales around the world. It just seems to be a quirk of human culture.

>>15236489

Reminds me of my freshmen roommate. He was a stereotypical angry blackman crossed with arrogant hipster. He'd blame me for his failures when he'd been up the night before smoking weed, drinking vodka, and playing CoD. He was insufferable.

>>15236522
>>Cape Buffalo will hunt and kill you

OK, that's pretty bad. I've had to deal with moose rape gangs, and they're nowhere near that bad.

Number of people of people deliberately killed by animals on University of Alaska Campus:
Bears: 0
Moose: 1

>>15236522

You know, hyenas have such incredible jaw pressure that, given enough time, they can chew through iron bars by worrying on it like a dog would with a bone?

>>15236563

It's an evolutionary adaptation that comes with their scavenger lifestyle. Other animals can go for the soft fleshy bits because they get the majority of their food from fresh kills but Hyenas eat EVERYTHING and will crunch bones apart.

Why not adapt the entire Quest for Glory 3?

You know, having entire continent for various sub-human or beast races and unique werebeasts and multiple forms of shamanic magic.

>>15236563

That and if you aren't dead from the bacterial infection, if through some ungodly reason you manage to escape.

That and those dick-barbed hermpaphodite rapists won't get you.

Thankfully, they are relatively cowardly alone unless you make yourself off as a obvious prey.

>>15236539
Nope. First one was me, but fucked if I know who the other two posts were.

>>15236584
Don't let the door hit you on the way out. I'd rather not have to wash bigot-stank off of it.

>>15236586
IIRC, hooves and hair are the only parts of their prey that hyenas can't digest.

See this man? This isn't some sill negro running from a dumb hippo.

This man is a veteran ranger narrowly escaping with his life from a a beast that wants nothing more than to rend his limbs from his torso.

>>15237033
damn captcha

How FAST is a hippo? They look so god damn cumbersome that even gabe could run away from him.

Then again, Gabe would fighting for territory with said hippo.

>>15237073
5 seconds on Google says estimates of "30 km/h (18 mph) to 40 km/h (25 mph)." I'm guessing they take a bit to get speed then they bulldozer your ass. Deadlier in the water though I bet.

And that's not even including the whole "its big and fat and stupid looking I bet its slow and stupid" misconception you get first looking at it.

>>15237073
According to Wikipedia, 19 miles per hour (30 kph for non-Americans who might be reading this) over short distances.

>>15237179
Ah, my bad. I was the one you quoted when you went full cockfalcon. It's late and I'm tired, I guess.

As for the rest, just checking to see if you actually left. Looks like you didn't, Uncle Ruckus.

Hunting tigers from elephant back.

Guy shoots tiger, wound it, tiger charges. The guy desn't get his second shot off in time, tiger leaps up on elephant, attacks guy.

Elephant, startled and in pain because TIGER IN ME picks guy off his back because tiger was after guy....and beats tiger to death. With guy.

Tiger: 0
Hunter: 0
Elephant: 2

I think any discussion of an African setting should seriously take into account the Zulu. These were some of the most hardcore motherfuckers out there. They trained to run 60 miles in a day, through rough terrain, stealthily, with three spears and a tower shield. Not only did they just outflank you, they did so with a shield wall. Surprise! Fortified position up in your grill.

>>15237208
He was citing a stereotype to immediately discredit, you tard

What a fortuitously useful thread.
Cheers, knowledgable anons. I have some nice jumping-off points to work on Lama more deeply now.

If you're curious, it's a part of my setting similar to Africa with an advanced, caste-based coastal civilisation, swathes of dangerous wildland inhabited by hardcore tribes caught in the crossfire of a war between werebeasts and lizardmen, a fusion of Imperial China and some other flavours I'm not decided on yet, and a metaphysically enforced matriarchal social structure.

Animist spirits everywhere. The 'caster classes' either negotiate with and imitate them, or beat the shit out of them before forcibily absorbing them into their soul.

>>15237244
My god, and all this time the Africans only had to STRIKE THE EARTH. Are there carp, too?

Af-ri-ca.. eh?

Sounds like a FANTASTIC place to strike the earth!

>>15237504
It did have the world's only natural nuclear reactor, albeit 2 billion years ago.

>>15237512
>>15237424
>>15237208
Go fight for the (apparently) prized title of numbah-wunn idiot elsewhere, and stop shitting up a good thread.

Hey butthurt samefag

Shut the fuck up

No one gives a shit who and what the fuck you are, or your relative level of rascism.
Stop ruining great thread.

>>15237532
...Okay, please elabourate

>>15237587
I deleted the thread myself.

>>15237581
Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

>>15237587
This (this post, right here, right now) is my second post in this thread. I did not see, nor did I post in, any previous thread on this subject.
Discussing Africa at various points in history as a campaign setting is interesting.
You and your bosom-buddy(ies) are arguing over nothing, to no good end, is not. Kindly STFU, accept your twin, triplet, single or however-the-fuck-many-of-you-there-are derp-kingdoms and crowns, and
FUCK
OFF

http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Mwangi_Expanse

Pathfinder's Golarion did a lot to differentiate human ethnicity. The Mwangi people were once part of a great civilization until Aboleths orchestrated their downfall at the hands of lizardmen and sentient Silverbacks.

Collectively they're refered to a Mwangi, but in reality they're vastly different subcultures and tribes with varying traits. The only simmilarity they share is dark skin complextion varying to dark black to milk-chocolate and varying blends of Osiriani (Egyptian) and Taldan (British) blood due to Miscegenation the further north your travel.

The main draw of the Expanse is a thick rainforest that contains ancient lost artifacts from several past empires of human, elf and lizard fold origins.

I'm building some Mwangi NPCs right now

Bumping with a picture

>I sympathize with your points, but carthage wasn't in the same category of those other civilizations you noted, unless you're advocating the gross afrocentric racism claiming carthaginians and numidians as negroid.

WELL THEY ARE ABOUT AS AMERICAN AS ALL THOSE WHITE ANGLO-SAXON PROTESTANTS AND AND SPANIARDS SO THAT'S JUST FINE I'D SAY.

>>15235248
>Umayyad Caliphate
>Umayyad
>u mad
FFFFFFFFFFFF

>no black chicks aside from OP post

son, I am disappoint

>>15239655
So you think she hears the rains down in Africa?

>>15239843

Wow. I know nothing about Africa apparently.

Like, I feel it would be difficult to know less. Then again, fuck it, even if I visited like, 7 countries in Europe, I don't know shit about Europe.

Oh well. I'm missing out on a big fascinating chunk of knowledge.

>>15239843
Is she African...?

'Cause she's not black.

>>15239930

its wer da negros cum fum!

>>15239946
She is.

She is just the right amount of black.

>>15239999

black as dirt!

>>15239999
She has blond hair, blue eyes, entirely Aryan features of the face and a skin tone that barely qualifies as a tan.

I'm not seeing it. Even Halle Berry has some things that show African American heritage.

>>15240015
The lighting on the pic is fooling you - she has white hair and her skin is darker. Blame the artist.

BTW, people can dye their hair blond, no matter the skin color.

>>15240015

Actually, most modern Aryans aren't really Aryan at all but descend from northern Slavs that migrated south during from 1500-1200BC. The real Aryans were conquered and their culture absorbed.

IN THE GRIMAFRICAN FUTURE, THERE IS ONLY HUNGER.

AND AIDS.

>>15240041
Sorry, cultural shorthand.

>>15240039
Yeah, yeah. Just looked really odd, especially with the simplified facial structure. Literally nothing about her seemed black, is all. Not trying to stereotype, but we define race by certain physiological, cultural features along with heritage, so, given that I didn't really get much of her heritage or culture through that simple pic, I had to go for the physiological features.

>>15240055

Africa is pretty diverse racially. You have your stereotypical africans, almost asian looking fellows, pseudo-arabs, and then a fuckton of tribesmen.

>>15240041
So... slav is teh masterrace ?

Well, was too much to expect that this place wouldn't be shat up.

Anyway, as far as Africa goes, I find Ethiopia most interesting, with their high culture, their own brand of Christianity and the fact that they were the only place in Africa (not backed by USA, at least) that kicked would be colonist ass. Sure it was merely Italians, not actual soldiers like Brits or Germans, but still.

Although the wikipedia article on Ethiopian military history is less than helpful. Go ahead, read it, try to make sense of it, and roll for SAN chcks.

>>15240072
Do some of them just look like white european people?

>>15240083
Yeah, the descendants of the Boers.

Who were actually more native to that particular part of the world than the Zulus were.

>>15240015 She has blond hair, blue eyes, entirely Aryan features of the face and a skin tone that barely qualifies as a tan.

A lot of "pure" Africans don't have traditionally African features. There's far more genetic variation amongst people of African descent than there is in the rest of the world put together.

>>15240095
>>15240088
So, who is this character and where is she from?

>>15240095

Hell, the Xhosas alone are more caucasian that most people who actually look caucasian.

>>15240074

Well conquerors tend to interbreed with the conquered so I doubt the Slavs are ethnically pure anymore. They got a lot of pussy.

>>15240111
Well the most numerous and famous slavs, Russians, are partially caucasian at best. Genetically, there's almost nothing Slavic in most Russians, being mostly Finno-Ugric (who were originally Asiatic, even if Finns are some of the whitest people nowadays), Tartar and Mongol, with only Lithuanian blood being a major European component in their lineage.

Polish or Czechs, however, are much more caucasian.

>>15239655
My supply of such pics is woefully low. I do have a few, though.

>>15240129

The Slavs got da pussy.

>>15236409

>>15240099
It's Elena from Street Fighter.

BTW, SF3 finally on XBLA - FUCK YEAH !

>>15240200
Oh. See, this woman looks more African to me.

I don't necessarily feel that that is negative stereotyping or overstepping my boundaries in terms of how I view people.

>>15240246
Why would they use one of the graphics to compare it to Japan.

I mean, what is the idea behind that if you only have space for like a handful on the sidebar.

>>15240225
mmmm, delicious Labia Majora...

Oh God, this thread is still up! I love you /tg/!

>>15233493

would would you play in a nigger/sand-nigger infested place? go to the average american city for that

>>15240290
>>15240335

The beating heart of unrepentant racism kept this thread afloat.

>>15240246
Why don't we just loot Africa again?

>>15240443
Both china and the west are currently in the process of looting its natural resources.

Once those are gone expect any and all interest/aid from the rest of the world to vanish.

So after re-reading the thread I would suggest Humans, Lizardfolk, Gnolls, Tieflings, Giant-blooded, and perhaps Aasimar as character races.
Each of these races would conceivably have a niche to fit into.
Tiefling and aasimar from the close relationship to spiritual matters animistic cultures tend to have. Gnolls as a mercenary culture, sending males under the command of a few females out to fight for pay, and profiting from conflict. Humans in the myriad cultures they form. The Giant-blooded as suggested earlier for the peoples of the western plains and savannahs, and Lizardfolk as a byzantine hidden kingdom, perhaps skilled with illusions existing as concealed city states along major waterways.

>>15233493
Aw dammit eastern plains and savannahs. Teach me to not post first thing in the morning.

>>15240530
Don't forget about lycanthropes.

Oh, just so you know, (black) Africans can be redheads too. The hair color is obviously darker than white redheads, and the skin color is a tad whiter than normal for the ethnicity. You'll have to take my word as a mixed African/Caucasian redhead though, because I don't have any color photographs at hand.

Africans can also be blonde and have blue eyes.

>>15240047
Actually, the present. Africa is grimdarker than 40k.

>>15240579
I don't think they'd be a seperate race though. Maybe a template to add onto a character. Changing the weaknessesto something out of African regional folklore might be interesting too. Can't easily find any by websearch though.

>>15240443
Mobilise armies!

/tg/, I am proud. This thread needs to be archived, for the great story arcs and ideas

And whoever came up with the idea to cast spells through mask? Simply awesome.

For an interesting creature...

African folklore has a tons of stories about what seem to be reverse werebeasts. That is, animals posing as humans. One of my favorite stories on the topic is called "The Girl who Married a Lion"

The Nyambe sourcebook mentioned earlier also has stats for such beings. They are probably the single most logical and common place mythical being in an African-esque setting.

Often even in human form they'd have some faintly animal features, or something that could give them away. For example, a lion-man might walk around as a human wearing a lion pelt. Close observers might notice that when he is agitated the pelt's tail sometimes seems to swish from side to side of its own accord.

A necromancer riding a skeletal elephant with hippo, crocodile, rhinoceros, and hyena skeletons following his commands would be absolutely horrifying. Especially if he wore a water buffalo's skull as a mask while he did it.

Then again, I think horse skeletons are absolutely horrifying to look upon too.

What about the San peoples? Would there be a way to make a reasonable counterpart to them?

The San. or bushmen to use a really not cool name for them are called "the little people" by some neighboring cultures. Neolithic dwarves would be interesting - not warlike, just in tune with thier environment and the life around them. Replace stonecrafting with the tracking feat for free, and the underground direction sense with an advantage to survival, maybe?

Ideas for civilizations...

You can have psuedo-egyptians, but make them the evil empire to the north. Always looking to expand with legions of zombies (and use snake themed vodun style zombi) and mummies. They worship their lich rulers as gods.

They are opposed by a Nubian or Somali kingdom that rejects their cruel ways and use of undead. Instead of a centralized pantheon, they follow a number of spirits and their ancestors.

Between the two major civilizations is mostly wilderness. Desert, savanna, jungle, scrublands, swamps, etc. In these uncharted areas you have about a dozen different human tribes, each of which has different traditions.

One tribe is known for it's elemental magic. Another tribe is known for riding beasts. Another has a reputation as mercenaries and assassins. They have their own structure, culture, society, home settlements, etc. There are also many smaller settlements, warlords trying to make their own kingdoms, etc.

You can put your monster races in remote areas or have a couple roaming the countryside as raiders. Gnolls in the desert (some are allied with the Northern empire), lizardmen in the mangroves, centaurs on the savanna.

The two empire to the north and south vie for power and influence in the buffer area, while the people between them just try to make it every day in a tough environment.

Remember that the setting is African THEMED. It doesn't have to be "this is how they actually did it in Africa back then" anymore than most fantasy settings are based on how things actually were in Europe or east Asia. You can make up entirely new societies and cultures and merge them with some themes from the cultures you look up.

And yes, get Nyambe: African Adventures right now.

>>15239655
There was one three posts above yours.

Granted, she wasn't really an attractive black chick, but...

>>15242429
What company does Nyambe?

>>15240246
I learned that Africa and Japan are larger than I thought.

Would steel be a widespread commodity, or even used?

>>15243938
Iron, yes, except among the most utterly primitive hunter-gatherers (the ones driven into the shittiest parts of the continent by the farmers, or the ones already in the shittiest parts of the continent). Steel, maybe, but rarer. You don't have as many thick forests to harvest for charcoal as in other parts of the world, and the most heavily forested area is also the single most disease-ridden part of the continent.

Bronze you pretty much skip right past; by the time metalworking techniques reach the places with rich tin deposits, iron is already in widespread use.

>>15235175
>South Africa
>this entire thread

suddenly a District 9 campaign doesn't sound so far-fetched.

>>15244321

So, steel might have legendary status ascribed to it, perhaps even being seen as magical. Maybe steel as the purer metal to iron would more effective to therianthropes?

>>15235823

This. The african-inspired setting in Guild Wars, I dare have the audacity to say, is probably the most thorough job I've ever seen of an African-themed fantasy environment.

Most African-themed settings in games-and-what-not are same-shit-different-day. But the Guild Wars portrayal was just wonderful. The different territories, zones, etc, were just wonderful.

>>15233493
What other cultural building blocks should be considered to make the peoples realistic?

>>15247410

Well, the precise environment is pretty important. Culture is shaped around the things you do to survive in your environment.

So, do the people live on the Serengeti? In the jungle? In the highlands? In the desert? somewhere on the border of two of these areas?

bump for future generations

North Africa, the only part of Africa that is of any real importance.

>>15247685
And then, once you've gotten past the basic "shit you need to do to survive", you can start in with "shit you do just for the hell of it that ends up becoming tradition after everyone else starts copying you".

>>15248174

You've clearly never played risk and have had to deal with Madagascar.

>>15245580
A shame it's getting proverbially nuked in Guild Wars 2.

A bit of a derail, but anyone remember the awesome, Africa-tinted jungle-swamp-desert of Morrowind? Something refreshing and engaging; then the sequal comes along and we get WESTERN EUROPE, HO!

Okay, I'm just coming in late to this thread, and I was wondering if anybody could maybe post a cliffs notes version of the more significant/awesome African cultures/civilizations to include in-game. Because, I haven't seen this all thread, and that would actuall come in fairly handy.

Also, bonus points to >>15241275 for a badass idea.

>Step 1: Say the word Africa around a bunch of first world white people.

>Step 2: Take out umbrella.

>Step 3: Watch ensuing shitstorm.

>>15248250
Any and all, I would say, after all, people live in the environment they have to live in unless it's impossible to live there. So what sort of things would be logical or well thought out?

>>15247685
I'll buy that, but I was more wondering about what kind of cultures arise from the circumstances- taboos, ideals, prejudices, etc. Basically wondering what would be acceptable ideas for the things that make a fictional culture a vital, realistic idea. Rather than a cookie cutter stereotype.

I'm surprised that Mirage from MTG hasn't been mentioned yet. That block was chock full of African flavour.

>>15233493
Ok, got a pdf of Nyambe, it looks good but I don't think the races were done well. Especially non humans. Going to have to work on things and use it as a stepping stone, not the source to work from

>>15240345

My god, this thread LIVES!

And yet not on racism

Here's a question - in many African cultures, snakes are not evil. So, would Yuan-ti be a viable character race? They would need adjusting of course, but they would not need to be automatically evil.

>>15253334

You could have them be servants of the great serpent that lies coiled around the world. Meant to guide and protect it. They taught the first humans how to use magic.

Their heyday was a while ago, but since humans have risen to power, they have retreated to remote temples where they continue to maintain ancient magical artifacts that somehow maintain the integrity of the world or stem back some horrible otherworldly threat.

And of course, there's a number of Snakepeople who think that humanity has squandered the gift of magic and need to be led in a more "direct" manner. These are the bad snakefolk who have chosen to make a war of conquest upon humanity.

Or maybe they're under the impression that the world needs to be reset and have decided to go about initiating that themselves.

Or maybe one snakefolk leader has gone mad with power and once to see all other races wiped out because they're simply inferior.

Or maybe some have fallen under the corruption of some dark force. Maybe the power they were meant to gaurd the world from. Now instead of holding it back, they're trying to help it breach into the world. That's why some have Psionic powers- evidence of influence from the horrible things from beyond.

Perhaps individuals corrupted. But to do it species-wide it would be counter to the idea of the Yuan-ti as a non-evil race.

>>15252732

Their entry on reverse were-creatures is a solid entry. That's straight out of African Folklore.

>>15254384
Referring more to the halfling, elf and dwarf types they had created.

>>15251524
>Basically wondering what would be acceptable ideas for the things that make a fictional culture a vital, realistic idea, rather than a cookie cutter stereotype.

Simple. Come up with a very broad idea that everybody in the culture agrees on. Then come up with at least two or three different ways to implement that idea, all of which have proponents within that culture.

Also, spend less time on cultural ideology and more time on food, clothing, entertainment, religious services (not what they worship, but how they worship), art, architecture, education of the children, and any of the other things that would be part of a person's day to day life when they're not involved in world-shaking political and theological disputes.

OP here.

We've made it two days. With a thread on Africa. And minimal racism.

Pic related, it's how I feel right now.

Can we get this thread to suptg?

>>15258018
There is a difference between racism and stereotypes. Most of us here fit into a specific stereotype, and when they are embellished or exaggerated, it is humorous.

The Boondocks is a perfect example of this. The crew of the show is almost entirely black people, and look at the stereotypes they portray in the show. It's funny as hell, and if you don't think so, you're a liar.

Racism implies hatred, bigotry, and negative desire/intent. These things are not, in any way, cool. If you hate a black man because he is black, if you make fun of a black man because he is black, you are a terrible person, deal with it. If you see a black man eating chicken, you will smile. If you see one riding a bike, you will chuckle. These play off stereotypes, and are acceptable because stereotypes are funny. Same reason that 99.9% of fantasy games take place in a STEREOTYPICALLY European-style atmosphere. The warriors are portrayed as usually Caucasian men with some type of semi-European-style armor and a broadsword. Same exact type of stereotype as implying that an African game would have a bunch of black people running around with spears and bone piercings. It's a stereotype, and it's funny to think about.

Stereotypes are find, wonderful even, because we can all fit into a stereotype of one kind or another. Racism is by no means acceptable.

>>15258224
that came out horribly retarded

bumping a cool thread with pics! i've been creating a continent for my 'verse that's a mix of africa and australia, and is just as terrifying as it sounds.
but i digress. i'm not one to not do my research, so i have a shitton of relevant pics.

no flash photography, please.

love this one

i've got more girls, but they all involve tribal titties :I
so how about some fauna?

...love from /b/

i made up some unholy mix of rhino and hippo. i call them... Rippers. because "Rippo" just sounds dumb.

My first thought was that the Kingdom of Solomon was in Africa. An order of Magi who travel the continent dealing with supernatural threats would make for some good character lead-ins.

>>15259624
I smiled a racist smile.

Here is another. Not a photo but still.

night bump

Hi OP; I've been reading and commenting from time to time, and after going over the thread started to piece together my own african themed setting, likely going to use Pathfinder, but I'm not sold on system as of yet.

So thank you OP, and the resplenden/tg/ents for sparking the idea of something new for tone and setting. More details as I solidify them.

>Or failing that, if the mods could just selectively delete the fucktarded bigotry and leave the useful ones?

Mods have enough to get on with, and the thread's been (mostly) ok

Necromancy in this type of setting. Good? Evil? Or all in how it is used? I'm leaning more to the third option. Speaking with the dead, etc, contacting spirits- this is seen as normal and fine. Raising the corpses of the dead, binding them to your will or worse, not so much.

>>15233493
bump to keep alive

>>15264962
I think you've about got it, although I'd need to read more on African belief systems to be sure.

>>15267532
It's a decent place to start. And it does allow for more options for a PC - "Good Necromancer" no longer being mostly unfeasable. Like any magic weaver they'd still be feared more than wanted though

>>15270205
Well, "cautious respect" might be reasonable depending on their role. People who call up spirits of the ancestors for advice, or who expel possessing spirits from the living, would be seen as serving a valuable function. People who reanimate corpses and blight crops, not so much; at best they'd be deployed against enemies during war and watched very closely during peace.

Necromancy is likely to be seen as something more akin to druidic/shamanic magic than as a type of wizardry, though; the only difference from a druid or shaman is that a necromancer is dealing with dead spirits and bodies rather than living ones.

This thread is still alive- I am proud /tg/.

In my Fantasy Africa Analogue the Sahara and the Congo are both titanic elemental forces of nature that are literally battling for control of the continent. One verdant and one desolate, both god-like elemental spirits smashing themselves into one another in a nations long wrestle for control. The Congo is slowly winning thanks to his concubine, the Nile goddess.

PS, I'm also seeding a bunch of Nyambe stuff.

Bump for what's probably the last day of this thread.

Africa would be a rather nice setting. THAT SAID, it would be the nature aspect, because Africa=in moderation.

If it involved the city then it would kinda ruin it for me, being that any population center, big and small, is absolute shit in that hellhole