The Big Culture Problem
by AshtagonGAZ10, in common with just about every gazetteer and RPG product generally, takes a massive amount of inspiration from RW cultures.
| Land | Leader(s) | Location | Culture Inspiration | Proposed Revised Culture Inspiration |
| Bugburbia | Chief Ohr'r | NW, bordering Glantri | ??? | keep as-is |
| High Gobliny | Queen Yazar, King Doth | NW, bordering Glantri | ??? | keep as-is |
| Hobgobland | Hutai-Khan | NW, bordering Ethengar | place names look vaguely Turkic (nb early D&D often coded hobgoblins as Chinese or Mongols; Warhammer explicitly coded hobgoblins as Mongols) | ??? |
| Kol | King Kol XIV | SE, bordering Darokin | "Thyatis" (actually a mix of anti-monarchist republican rhetoric and renaissance Venice) | Darokin groupies |
| Ogremoor | Prince Alebane | SW, bordering Darokin and Glantri | "Sind" (Alebane wears a turban, so that suggests Sikh/Punjab RW inspiration) | ??? |
| Orcus Rex | King Thar | NW, bordering Glantri | ??? | keep as-is |
| Red Orcland | Chief Hoolg Red Mane | S, opposite Corunglain Darokin | American Indians | Celts, sort of (red-haired orcs with a fondness for chariots on the dried lakebed and for woad) |
| South Gnollistan | Nizam Pasha | E, bordering Dwarfgate Mountains Darokin | "Ylaruam"; placenames follow Arabic language patterns; "Pasha" was used in many places from Morocco to Iran, and most notably in the Ottoman Empire; "-stan" is Farsi in origin | ??? |
| Trollhattan | Haa'k Hordar | west-central Broken Lands interior | D&D-original 'stupid troll' culture (Trollhattan is a real place in Scandinavia, but this might also merely be a pun on Manhattan) | keep as-is |
| Yellow Orkia | Moghul-Khan | NE, bordering Ethengar and Darokin | given the alternate names for some Immortals and some of the place names, Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty China inspiration | ??? |
Generally speaking, I want to make the default humanoid culture to be something loosely inspired by the Huns of 4th-6th century Europe. This has a number of advantages. The most obvious is of course that there are no modern-day inheritors to Hunnic culture, so there's no nation or culture-group to get offended. Second, a lot of early D&D depictions of humanoids were similar to late Roman Empire depictions of the north European migrations. Third, the Huns are believed to have originated from the Xiongnu, a people who were known to use the title "khan". This allows for two of the tribes to carry on existing with their resent leader's names without creating need for a rewrite. Finally, what little is known of the Hunnic language (a few leaders names, plus three words) suggests phonemes that are vaguely reminiscent of Tolkien's Black Speech. (Sure, we could have Welsh or Finnish speaking orcs, but according to Tolkien, that's more of an elf thing.)