Dwilight Anthropology Project

[Perth]

Marromen - Like the Goths, divided in Visigoths and Ostrogoths? How about Wesimarromen and Austromarromen for less obvious reference? Wesigothi and Autrogothi are other forms to address those peoples.
Or... we could go for even less obvious references, and give them an earlier separation from the Goth tribes: Thervingi and Greuthungi. The first conveniently may mean "forest people", while the second may mean "steppe dwellers" or "people of the pebbly coasts", according to the Wikipedia. That would make the Woodsfolk the Marvingi or Therfolk (the first can be used by the colonizers and the second by themselves, like the Dwili/Gunthor). The Townsfolk would be Marthungi or Greutfolk.
Question: Ethnically, how would they look? Perhaps like the Riffian Berbers, who had a fair share of Vandal (East Germanic, as the Goths) mixing. This would suggest a migration from from the Mesoccidens, mixing with a previously Berber-like Maroccidens population.
What about Old Maroccidens and Candiels Peninsula, btw? A Berber-like ethnicity, though with much reduced population, would make sense in the previously given context.

Not really sure how I feel about a Germanic theme for Maroccidens. Doesn't seem to fit in at all. The weather, climate, and atmosphere have never screamed anything German themed.

Also, why a Berber-like ethnicity?

Pretty much, in my own mind at least (and that's just me, of course), most of Maroccidens has always taken a strong South American/Caribbean feel for me.

[JPierreD]

I came up with the Goth idea from the "Ostro-Marmen", and to adequate it to the climate (keeping it more Europe-centered) I went with those who now a days have Eastern Germanic blood, but live in a more hot weather: the Berbers. Keep in mind that this would be the native population's ethnicity, not its culture nor the immigrants (and probably your noble's) ethnicity or culture.

Here is how it goes:

"The most part of the Vandals went to Saldae (which is called today Béjaïa in the Kabyl land in north Algeria) where they integrated themselves with the Berbers. Some other were put into imperial service or fled to the two Gothic kingdoms (Ostrogothic Kingdom and Visigothic kingdom), some vandal women married Byzantine soldiers settled in north Algeria and Tunisia."
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandals#The_turbulent_end

"Riffi Berbers are defined as Mediterranean. While only a few tribes have moderate Alpinid and Nordic admixture, these tribes are even closer to Europeans than to Africans. This is supported by a scientific study done on them in the Rif showing that some of the Rif Berbers have blond hair and blue or green eyes, a percentage higher than that found in Italians, Spaniards, or Portuguese."
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riffian_people#Physical_anthropology

In any case, it was just an idea. Feel free to discard it and bring up others. It's you who play in the Marwood anyway, not me.

[Perth]

In any case, it was just an idea. Feel free to discard it and bring up others. It's you who play in the Marwood anyway, not me.

*shrugs*

Wasn't trying to shoot you down or anything, was just curious mostly.

[JPierreD]

Don't worry, I don't feel persecuted or anything like that. 

I'm just presenting ideas, and working with what I get. The final result should be of your liking (and of those playing in Mar and Mesoccidens), for it's you who'll this affect more.

How do you envision the natives, ethnically?

[Indirik]

How would you consider the inhabitants of Libidizedd Island, culturally and ethnically? What historical parallels would you give (something more specific than British/European if possible, for that ranges from pre-Roman Britain to the Victorian Empire)?

I have no idea. I always hated History as a subject, so that's just a jumble of meaningless names to me.

For your contact with SA, perhaps you could have a notion of what the Corsanctum nobles think of the Mimer Peninsula, how they envision it?

I don't think I've ever seen the subject come up. I think the majority of the players never even consider it.

[Nosferatus]

Don't worry, I don't feel persecuted or anything like that. 

I'm just presenting ideas, and working with what I get. The final result should be of your liking (and of those playing in Mar and Mesoccidens), for it's you who'll this affect more.

How do you envision the natives, ethnically?

Its nice to discover things about the game as a player, but it actually ruins alot of fun.
have your character do this IC, its much more mysterious, adventurous and exciting to travel threw out the entire continent asking these questions to our characters.
Some things i'd never tell you as a player, but perhaps i would as my character.
You would also get more acquainted which climates, more recent history, culture of nobles and the roleplays or knowledge of players who are not here answering your questions

[vonGenf]

Its nice to discover things about the game as a player, but it actually ruins alot of fun.
have your character do this IC, its much more mysterious, adventurous and exciting to travel threw out the entire continent asking these questions to our characters.
Some things i'd never tell you as a player, but perhaps i would as my character.
You would also get more acquainted which climates, more recent history, culture of nobles and the roleplays or knowledge of players who are not here answering your questions

He figured that out, and he already knows who he should talk to.   

[JPierreD]

As stated in the first post, this is supposed to be RP'd later.

In any case, this /is/ all OoC stuff. How can my character ask yours: "Hey, see those peasants over there? How do they look? What is the color of their eyes, what's the tone of their skin, and the appearance of their hairs?".
It would both sound pretty wacky, and it wouldn't allow for a collective construction. How could we have had the discussion we had before on Goths? "Hey, don't you think those people from the woods look olive to light-dark skinned, with a rather large proportion having contrasting light colored eyes, specially blue and green?" "Nope, they look pretty red-skinned, with pitch black hair and no beards. And dark-colored eyes." "Oh, my mistake, it must have been those psychotropic substances of the jungle..."

[Vellos]

JPierreD,

As I've said before, the common vision of most RP-active players in Terran (and I think Barca as well) for the natives is as, well, read this:
http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Unti_Family/Lina/Explorer

The Zuma, properly speaking, paint their faces and sharpen their teeth. I presume they are somewhat darker skinned. Native peoples of the Marwood would presumably be similar. If the Zuma are the "high culture," or the Aztecs, the Mays, etc, the people of the Marwood are the small tribes of the Amazon basin. The people of the Townflat would be like the Mississipian culture maybe.

Those are the indigenous peoples, as we have RPed them. Originally distinct, now nearly extinct. They are increasingly pushed out of their native lands, westwards, and they join the Zuma, forming the Zuma Coalition.

The people who now inhabit Terran and most of Barca are different. Genetically, they are probably 50% "Pirate", 40% "Colonist", and 10% "Indigenous."

Pirate- I guess we can think Hispanic; tan skin– but that's up to Madinan players. I forget if they RP their people as more Caribbean or Mediterranean. WHichever they choose, it makes little difference to me.

Colonist- White, European. Ethnically very similar to whatever the primary demography of Pian en Luries and Morek is. I understand Pien en Luries and Morek are different, but hopefully some kind of common thread will be present, given they are both "colonial" realms, and it's been less than a generation since Dwilight was settled.

Indigenous- Certainly darker-skinned, central American or Caribbean. They have internal differences, but those differences are less significant as they are squashed together in increasingly smaller lands and forced to mingle to survive. And as their genes are diluted through the dominate Pirate and Colonist populations, they "show up" less. Some small communities of primarily indigenous people remain, especially in regions like Mistight, Thysan, Odona, Shoka, Rettlewood, Celtiberia– borderlands, but, for the most part, they are gone.

Does that help?

[Sacha]

At the risk of sounding like a party-pooper... I was under the impression that apart from the regions of the 4 starting realms, population levels in the rogue lands were extremely low at the opening of Dwilight. And since population only grows through birth and immigration, wouldn't this make all people on Dwilight, save the Zuma and a few tiny minorities, descendants of the 4 colonial realms? Aka, whiteys?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

They'd be like of mixed descent or something.

Then again, it's not unthinkable that pockets of survivors remained somehow that the eastern immigrants couldn't find. That, or if we really get strict about mechanics, the lowest any region can get is 1. So...the one person in a region gets lonely, finds the only person of opposite gender in a neighboring region...And apparently BM is a hitech game where gestation period is a few hours, and babies grow at highly accelerated rates.

There, you have your natives.

[JPierreD]

Vellos: That does help, and a lot. I guess we can make in the Mesoccidens and Maroccidens a parallel of the Americas. We'll have to work around to conciliate that with the northern "Saxon" RPs, though. The good part is that the same ethnic can be traced from the Zuma Coalition and Terran down to Madina and Fissoa.

The story is very interesting, and provides a very nice ambient for both the Zuma Coalition culture and the Daimons, though it never makes ethnic statements (eye, skin, hair, facial appearance).

Sacha: How low were the populations? In any case, such minor game-mechanic-wise issues would be a minor concern, at least to me.

Caerwynians/Itaulondians/Asylonians: Your local cultures are at the borders of the Everguard's "Saxons", the yet undefined Darfixians and the American Zuma. How do you envision your natives?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Hey JPierreD, we actually don't have to work around anything. Remember, Dwilight is NOT by any means Earth. As far as Dwilight is concerned, people who look Chinese can border people who look Norse (Which at least in terms of region theme naming, they kinda do...Donghaiwei duchy and Nifelhold duchy)

So as far as I see it, we shouldn't be too hung up on Earth parallels when we set our cultures and appearances. So what if the Zuma are Mesoamerican analogues? Don't let that stop you from saying the inhabitants of the midwestern forests look like European natives of the Black Forest. Hey, maybe you could say the people of Echiur and Kosht look Indian (The southwest Asian Indians).

It's all good, because Dwilight doesn't have to conform to the same standards of human "evolution" and cultural dispersion as Earth for a whole ton of reasons that would, under different circumstances (like if Mars was a terraformed and habitable planet that evolved its native human life by some infinitesimal coincidence), work its way into a 700-page book.

Let's just say more simply: Embrace the fantasy aspect. That means a lot more liberty regarding just what groups of peoples can be in close proximity. And that, I believe, is unaffected by SMA. Nothing about SMA says you can't have people who look like Egyptians living in regions bordering people who look like Australian aborigines. Nor is it impossible that two similar cultures by Earth's standards appear on opposite sides of Dwilight.

[Vellos]

At the risk of sounding like a party-pooper... I was under the impression that apart from the regions of the 4 starting realms, population levels in the rogue lands were extremely low at the opening of Dwilight. And since population only grows through birth and immigration, wouldn't this make all people on Dwilight, save the Zuma and a few tiny minorities, descendants of the 4 colonial realms? Aka, whiteys?

Not so. Consider epidemics. The first colonists arrived when we had no data concerning Occidens; it was a dark spot on the map. The first colonists brought rats, and flees, and germs. Disease could have swept through these continents, drastically reducing the native populations.

Also, yes, population levels were low, a few hundred per region, tops a thousand or two in cities... but that's still a total of several thousand people over a geographic area. Yes, much less densely populated in the present, but certainly not completely empty.

Finally, there is well-established RP of pre-colonization realms, such as the Echi'urean Dynasty. In Maroccidens at least, we have the legacy of Echi'ur on one front and the Zuma beside us. We in Terran are pretty darn well convinced that the present realms are not the first "high civilization" to exist in these lands. We're just the most recent and the best, and the one favored by the gods.

[Nosferatus]

Pirate- I guess we can think Hispanic; tan skin– but that's up to Madinan players. I forget if they RP their people as more Caribbean or Mediterranean. WHichever they choose, it makes little difference to me.

Never really described a general racial feature of 'pirates'  consider them as a mixed group of indigenous people, your colonist group .
Offcourse these people would be more tanned and even immigrants from outside dwilight wouldn't feel attracted to the hot searing sun if there not used to it.

The creation of Madina and it's culture that I mainly established are indeed inspired on Caribean (dutch) colonies as well as indonesian, the mediterranean culture and Keralan culture (a province of India).

I personally see Dwilight as heavily intermixed races from the entire BM world.
But if you'd like a dsicription of the pirate kind of commoners:

1. more tanned then 'usual'
2. a weird combination of very ambitious trade folks and very lazy people(fluctuating per season), what ever profession they have they will always be merchants. Making up new ways to make 'mo' money'.
3. at-least in Madina they wear a lungi like cloth as pants, like these gentlemen here: http://www.google.nl/imgres?q=keralan+lungi&um=1&hl=nl&tbm=isch&tbnid=C4E_Nx9iJYwPWM:&imgrefurl=http://rummuser.com/%253Fp%253D3727&docid=0zb0yCEOxYDCcM&w=300&h=400&ei=5HMqTr-lKcrO-Qb4wPDdBg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=378&page=3&tbnh=149&tbnw=112&start=16&ndsp=9&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:16&tx=67&ty=42&biw=888&bih=457
4. They drink heavily and are considered 'rough' in there behavior.
5. fish and fishing plays a central role in there lifes as well as the coconut tree as it supplies them with food, housing and luxury products (coconut treas can provide great fibre, great wood for building sea fishing boats, there leaves are great roofs, baskets chairs or whatever when you weave two of them in each other. it also provides with food, juice, a great oil a sweetener and an easy way to make some natural liquor.)
6. they talk loud and use there body to express there selves allot as is common among many merchants, as they often only have these gestures to communicate as not every costumer speaks the same tongue.

I also wrote an article on the madinan commoners here: http://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Madina/Library/book12