Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 iltharanos Oct 09, 2004 15:15:01	So for those of you with the War of the Lance book, what do you think of the people of Nordmaar? On the one hand we've got a number of cities and towns that have "nordic"-sounding names (e.g. Wulfgar, Jennison), which seems oddly inappropriate considering the sub-tropical location of the region. We've also got a description of the people as being dark-skinned, akin to the barbarians of the northern plains of the Ergoth empire (i.e. Ackalites). Yet we've also got a contrary naming convention seen in the names of the native tribes and the people of those tribes. We've got the Chuictalic, Topotlic, Netzalic, and Xocnalic tribes, as well as individuals called Huemac, Chantico, Tochel, and Tochi. All these names scream pre-Columbian Central American (e.g. Aztec) to me. Near as I can tell from the Nordmaar entry it seems that the natives of the region when it was an island chain were dark-skinned nomads that were limited to small villages like the present-day Plainsmen. Come the Cataclysm, the relatively isolated island chain encountered Solamnics and other foreign influences, and these foreigners built or helped build the large settlements in the region which they thus named following their own non-Nordmaaran naming conventions. Thus we've got a seemingly pseudo-central american tribal people that due to the Cataclysm encountered the pseudo-european natives of the continent (primarily the Solamnics) which resulted in an odd nation where the people have central american names yet live in cities with Solamnic/nordic names. Interesting.
#2 talinthas Oct 09, 2004 15:52:46	sounds right to me. I play it in an almost idealised version of the Yucatan Penninsula, without all the vitrol of the conquistadors, though that could be a campaign idea all to itself.