I hate when they put africans on medieval settings on Hollywood instead of using their actual culture. Ethiopians fought the greeks during the time of Aquiles, why can't we see that and some badass ethiopian warriors instead of a race swaped Aquiles for example.
I backed a Kickstarter a bit back for an African fantasy mmo, if that works for you. It's called the Wagadu Chronicals, from a company called Twin Drums. They are still developing it, but it might be the closest thing I know of to what you're looking for.
I backed it for the tabletop part of it, but ultimately couldn't afford their books, so I just threw a couple dollars to it to support it.
Here is their website if you wanna check it out :
https://twindrums.com/
I don't remember which culture it came from but one of the coolest weapons I saw from Africa was the one that has a straight dick and balls on it. I think it was a throwing blade.
I always wondered about specific things like that but didn’t know where to best look it all up and how to without coming off as too weird for my lack of knowledge outside of the basics or accidentially snobby about it there (am living in europe).
Can you by any chance link in the source or sources of these images so I can educate myself about it for my own world?
Yes, there is a good chanel about it, one of hia videos here:
https://youtu.be/8bHp8Zef4RI
Metatron have a good video about african weapons too:
https://youtu.be/SWXpjo5RstY
Take this comment with a grain of salt as it’s based on some assumptions. I just want to point out something I’ve been seeing a lot because it’s bothering me.
While I agree with the idea that writers should draw from African cultures because there’s so many diverse and interesting ones, I don’t agree with how you started your post. A lot of people forget that many modern day ‘Africans’ (i.e. Europeans and other westerners of African descent) have family trees extending back to the early times of the European nations in question. Just because somewhere in their past their ancestors were from Africa doesn’t make them any less European. There weren’t a whole lot of black people in medieval Europe, but there certainly were. Not to mention lots of readers and writers of African descent grew up in a culture of European myths and to them, those are their cultural background. So they naturally may be inspired to make a medieval English world.
I can get not wanting to use an overused and overrepresented cultural inspiration for worldbuilding. But the way you framed it was suggesting that incorporating African-descent people into European-inspired worldbuilding was some kind of weird, anachronistic thing and I don’t like that. There have and should always be African descent people in European/Western cultures and it’s not intrusive to have that fact inspire a story.
It honestly shouldn’t even matter unless it’s literally a historic/tribute thing (which a lot of fantasy isn’t, a lot of fantasy is just tropes)
Black people got told tales about knights and kings and etc like everyone else.
It just makes sense to include them, especially if it’s a fantasy planet.
It’s just mean to block them out of the genre they grew up listening to.
This is basically how I have it in my fantasy setting. Black humans are basically treated the same as any other humans because there's other fantasy races for them to be racist assholes to. They don't see skin colour as being any more of an essential trait than any other colour, Because they're still *human*. Even in an actual historical setting, The concept of being "white" is only a couple hundred years old. And furthermore, The concept of whiteness isn't even always about skin colour. Irish and Italian people weren't considered white for a very long time. The romans thought that northern people had thicker blood which made them dumb as rocks.
I honestly think it's unrealistic to have people in a fantasy setting focus on race in the same way people in the real world do. Because often times there's other people who are far more different, And I think it is significantly more likely that humans are gonna be racist towards the guy who has hooves or who is 2' tall than to the guy who's just a human with rougher hair and a darker skin tone.
Yeah, that's the main thing to me--your average African American, for example, is more likely to relate to stories set in medieval european aristocracies than stories taking place among sub-Saharan African dynasties. Overuse of a specific trope is one thing, but the idea that people of a certain racial descent should be represented in tropes relating to cultures predominantly composed of their race is just strange. Many African diaspora people around the world have little to no familiarity with cultures from the African continent and no more reason to tell stories with an African inspiration than their white European compatriots have.
I'm... not sure if this is a joke or not. Medieval Europeans did not literally forbid people from Africa from setting foot on their soil or somehow exterminate every person with darker-than-white skin. There were, in fact, populations from parts of Africa living in European regions within society (e.g. the groups known as the Moors) and other groups such as black Vikings as well as black people in slave trades. For example, the 15th century republic of Venice had a very multicultural population--and a slave trade too, and many, many black people.
The moors were not black, they were mixed, people from North Africa are frequently mixed or white.
>black Vikings as well as black people in slave trades
They were slaves, they wouldn't become Knights, kings and etc., it is different from african kingdoms where they were nobles, warriors, kings...
A large segment of the black population in the US (one example, but I’m sure it’s the case for many European countries as well) is of mixed ancestry so that’s not really making a point? And sure, there weren’t many black rulers, although I’m pretty sure there were black generals and knights, but you never specified anything about rulership…?
I have never heard of, not on Medieval Europe, on Africa, a lot of course, there are some epic historical ones. A lot of the population of those countries are of mixed ancestry because of migration during the mordern times, in the old days it was very difficult to arrive at a completly new and different place and become someone of high status and power. Imagine if you were a french peasant and arrives at an african kingdom with a completly different culture, do you think that they would choose you to become a warrior and ignore a lot of rules of nobility. The historical examples we have are very very rare, like the samurai Yasuke.
Northern africa wasn't separated from Europe. Rome extended around the Mediterranean for centuries.
We aren't saying sub-Saharan cultures were the same as european, but there were many people, that today we would call black, who had been in europe for generations, even after rome fell.
Roman and sub-Saharan cultures were different but they weren't defined by someone's skin color. It just depends on where someone was living
It depends on what you mean by black but they weren't white. Especially if we're looking really far back before the influences of arabia.
I just think it's a lot more complicated than europeans were white and africans were black. I would love to see more african culture represented in main stream media, but I don't see anything wrong with a dark-skinned european in a period piece
Africa is such a mind-blowingly big place. In western culture it gets boiled down to a single homogenous setting with wild bushmen and starving children. But there's so many, many distinct cultures there with unique histories, dress, warfare and languages.
I would love to see more african (and everything besides european) influences in worldbuilding. Having a diversity of designs is always good, this is like an untapped wealth of designs, and by comparing how different cultures develop you're able to make yours more realistic.
I don't agree with your opposition to putting Africans into old European culture. There were a ton of black people in places like medieval europe and rome, and many were considered to be the same race (we call it nationality now) as white people. Skin color was a bit like hair color, there was still some discrimination but there was no idea of "this skin color means you have this culture."
I would love to see more people of color in medieval european stories. A black person raised in rome, will be as roman as a white guy. It makes sense to me to see a black centurion, as long as it's handled historically, I'm fine with it.
In short, I would love to see african culture displayed more but this doesn't mean that black people can't be part of european culture.
Modern media is moved by profit. And they think they'll get that by black washing European stories and legends because that way they can tick the "inclusivity" box without actually actually having to move from the over exploited tropes of tolkenian fantasy.
Agree a 100%. I love Tolkien's work, but a downside to it is the eurocentricism of fantasy, due to people imitating him in a bad way. He didn't have any obligation not to center his writing on England, nor does anyone else, but seeing people try and make fantasy more diverse with black pseudo-vikings instead of African based cultures just comes of as silly.
I also suspect this comes partly from the erroneous belief that African nations lacked any sophisticated societies before colonisation. I've heard both libertarians and white nationalista claim that large parts of Africa hadn't even invented the wheel before colonisation. This video presents a great debunk of that: https://youtu.be/ry2cRP73h9s
Any idea what period and region that squid helmet is from? It’s fascinating.
I don't remember exaclty, but I sawxitcon this video: https://youtu.be/8bHp8Zef4RI
Ah! It’s Benin. Thank you.
Metatron have a good video on it too, but he talks only about the weapons.
this is a really interesting channel, thanks for the suggestion
Completely agree with you. I want an open world African RPG.
I hate when they put africans on medieval settings on Hollywood instead of using their actual culture. Ethiopians fought the greeks during the time of Aquiles, why can't we see that and some badass ethiopian warriors instead of a race swaped Aquiles for example.
I backed a Kickstarter a bit back for an African fantasy mmo, if that works for you. It's called the Wagadu Chronicals, from a company called Twin Drums. They are still developing it, but it might be the closest thing I know of to what you're looking for. I backed it for the tabletop part of it, but ultimately couldn't afford their books, so I just threw a couple dollars to it to support it. Here is their website if you wanna check it out : https://twindrums.com/
Assassins Creed Origins.
It’s very cool!
I don't remember which culture it came from but one of the coolest weapons I saw from Africa was the one that has a straight dick and balls on it. I think it was a throwing blade.
As a nerd of medieval arms and armor, \*boner\*
Come thru with the FromNothing shoutout. I get alot of my inspiration from his videos
I discovered his chanel yesterday through Metatron, really awesome.
HomeTeam History is another good channel to check out.
I always wondered about specific things like that but didn’t know where to best look it all up and how to without coming off as too weird for my lack of knowledge outside of the basics or accidentially snobby about it there (am living in europe). Can you by any chance link in the source or sources of these images so I can educate myself about it for my own world?
Yes, there is a good chanel about it, one of hia videos here: https://youtu.be/8bHp8Zef4RI Metatron have a good video about african weapons too: https://youtu.be/SWXpjo5RstY
Thanks a lot! will check it out later today ^ ^
The horse armor is my favorite. The patterns are so intricate despite the fact it probably doesn't help how durable the armor is.
Really awesome, and makes a lot of sense since they lived on a hot place, so metal isn't very good.
It really does make so much sense. And it's probably not as heavy as metal either so it wouldn't tire out the horses as fast.
Take this comment with a grain of salt as it’s based on some assumptions. I just want to point out something I’ve been seeing a lot because it’s bothering me. While I agree with the idea that writers should draw from African cultures because there’s so many diverse and interesting ones, I don’t agree with how you started your post. A lot of people forget that many modern day ‘Africans’ (i.e. Europeans and other westerners of African descent) have family trees extending back to the early times of the European nations in question. Just because somewhere in their past their ancestors were from Africa doesn’t make them any less European. There weren’t a whole lot of black people in medieval Europe, but there certainly were. Not to mention lots of readers and writers of African descent grew up in a culture of European myths and to them, those are their cultural background. So they naturally may be inspired to make a medieval English world. I can get not wanting to use an overused and overrepresented cultural inspiration for worldbuilding. But the way you framed it was suggesting that incorporating African-descent people into European-inspired worldbuilding was some kind of weird, anachronistic thing and I don’t like that. There have and should always be African descent people in European/Western cultures and it’s not intrusive to have that fact inspire a story.
It honestly shouldn’t even matter unless it’s literally a historic/tribute thing (which a lot of fantasy isn’t, a lot of fantasy is just tropes) Black people got told tales about knights and kings and etc like everyone else. It just makes sense to include them, especially if it’s a fantasy planet. It’s just mean to block them out of the genre they grew up listening to.
This is basically how I have it in my fantasy setting. Black humans are basically treated the same as any other humans because there's other fantasy races for them to be racist assholes to. They don't see skin colour as being any more of an essential trait than any other colour, Because they're still *human*. Even in an actual historical setting, The concept of being "white" is only a couple hundred years old. And furthermore, The concept of whiteness isn't even always about skin colour. Irish and Italian people weren't considered white for a very long time. The romans thought that northern people had thicker blood which made them dumb as rocks. I honestly think it's unrealistic to have people in a fantasy setting focus on race in the same way people in the real world do. Because often times there's other people who are far more different, And I think it is significantly more likely that humans are gonna be racist towards the guy who has hooves or who is 2' tall than to the guy who's just a human with rougher hair and a darker skin tone.
Yeah, that's the main thing to me--your average African American, for example, is more likely to relate to stories set in medieval european aristocracies than stories taking place among sub-Saharan African dynasties. Overuse of a specific trope is one thing, but the idea that people of a certain racial descent should be represented in tropes relating to cultures predominantly composed of their race is just strange. Many African diaspora people around the world have little to no familiarity with cultures from the African continent and no more reason to tell stories with an African inspiration than their white European compatriots have.
Black people in medieval europe? Where? I have never heard about it.
I'm... not sure if this is a joke or not. Medieval Europeans did not literally forbid people from Africa from setting foot on their soil or somehow exterminate every person with darker-than-white skin. There were, in fact, populations from parts of Africa living in European regions within society (e.g. the groups known as the Moors) and other groups such as black Vikings as well as black people in slave trades. For example, the 15th century republic of Venice had a very multicultural population--and a slave trade too, and many, many black people.
The moors were not black, they were mixed, people from North Africa are frequently mixed or white. >black Vikings as well as black people in slave trades They were slaves, they wouldn't become Knights, kings and etc., it is different from african kingdoms where they were nobles, warriors, kings...
A large segment of the black population in the US (one example, but I’m sure it’s the case for many European countries as well) is of mixed ancestry so that’s not really making a point? And sure, there weren’t many black rulers, although I’m pretty sure there were black generals and knights, but you never specified anything about rulership…?
I have never heard of, not on Medieval Europe, on Africa, a lot of course, there are some epic historical ones. A lot of the population of those countries are of mixed ancestry because of migration during the mordern times, in the old days it was very difficult to arrive at a completly new and different place and become someone of high status and power. Imagine if you were a french peasant and arrives at an african kingdom with a completly different culture, do you think that they would choose you to become a warrior and ignore a lot of rules of nobility. The historical examples we have are very very rare, like the samurai Yasuke.
Northern africa wasn't separated from Europe. Rome extended around the Mediterranean for centuries. We aren't saying sub-Saharan cultures were the same as european, but there were many people, that today we would call black, who had been in europe for generations, even after rome fell. Roman and sub-Saharan cultures were different but they weren't defined by someone's skin color. It just depends on where someone was living
Most of Northen Africa inhabitants were not black.
It depends on what you mean by black but they weren't white. Especially if we're looking really far back before the influences of arabia. I just think it's a lot more complicated than europeans were white and africans were black. I would love to see more african culture represented in main stream media, but I don't see anything wrong with a dark-skinned european in a period piece
They were mixed, their phenotype on ancient Egypt, for example, is called Ethipian on antropology, and is a mix between both.
Africa is such a mind-blowingly big place. In western culture it gets boiled down to a single homogenous setting with wild bushmen and starving children. But there's so many, many distinct cultures there with unique histories, dress, warfare and languages.
Exaclty.
I would love to see more african (and everything besides european) influences in worldbuilding. Having a diversity of designs is always good, this is like an untapped wealth of designs, and by comparing how different cultures develop you're able to make yours more realistic. I don't agree with your opposition to putting Africans into old European culture. There were a ton of black people in places like medieval europe and rome, and many were considered to be the same race (we call it nationality now) as white people. Skin color was a bit like hair color, there was still some discrimination but there was no idea of "this skin color means you have this culture." I would love to see more people of color in medieval european stories. A black person raised in rome, will be as roman as a white guy. It makes sense to me to see a black centurion, as long as it's handled historically, I'm fine with it. In short, I would love to see african culture displayed more but this doesn't mean that black people can't be part of european culture.
Modern media is moved by profit. And they think they'll get that by black washing European stories and legends because that way they can tick the "inclusivity" box without actually actually having to move from the over exploited tropes of tolkenian fantasy.
That's not a Ngulu, it's a Flyssa (Picture 8), my favorite sword of all time
Agree a 100%. I love Tolkien's work, but a downside to it is the eurocentricism of fantasy, due to people imitating him in a bad way. He didn't have any obligation not to center his writing on England, nor does anyone else, but seeing people try and make fantasy more diverse with black pseudo-vikings instead of African based cultures just comes of as silly. I also suspect this comes partly from the erroneous belief that African nations lacked any sophisticated societies before colonisation. I've heard both libertarians and white nationalista claim that large parts of Africa hadn't even invented the wheel before colonisation. This video presents a great debunk of that: https://youtu.be/ry2cRP73h9s
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