In my campaign Kagonesti elves are black, but what is sad is that the darker elves are considered primitive in the DragonLance Campaign Setting. I was thinking of using the desert elves from Unearthed Arcana to balance this out. Does anyone see any problems with introducing these new elves into the world of Krynn ?
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Krynn has a lot of unexplored turf, you could easily argue that there is a nation of black elves on an island or sub-continent just off the edge of the map.
Why not? Ergothian humans are black (something a lot of people often forget I've noticed).
Actually I already knew that the people of Ergoth(The humans) were nubian. I was referring to elves. As a matter of fact the majority of my DL players are nubians with roots in Ergoth.
Krynn has a lot of unexplored turf, you could easily argue that there is a nation of black elves on an island or sub-continent just off the edge of the map.
I was actually thinking of placing the desert elves in Khur(As kind of a nomadic tribe.). I have already started writing them into the Key of Destiny module. I was just looking for some support on my idea.
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You can insert these elves anywhere you like. My suggestion was simply in response to your stated desire that they bee civilized rather than barbarian. I simply though that would be easier offshore. But you could set up a hidden desert city fairly easily.
In my campaign Kagonesti elves are black, but what is sad is that the darker elves are considered primitive in the DragonLance Campaign Setting.
I don't think they're trying to make some veiled racial comment about blacks.
The Kagonesti are "primative" because they spend all their time out of doors, not in the cities...always outside. So, naturally, their skin is going to be a darker color. Is there darker pigment or is it just that they're tanning because they're in the sun all day...I don't know. But I don't think there's anything "sad" about it.
On the whole, the Dragonlance elves are fair skinned. The Kagonesti (due their their outdoor nature) tend to be darker. The Dargonesti and Dimmernesti are pale green and bluish skinned.
Dwarves are darker skinned as well. The dark dwarves are kinda pale...gray I guess (kinda like derro). Gnomes are all brown skinned (they tend to be described as "nut brown").
Humans...well, they're all shades pretty much. I would think there could be justification for any earth race to be found on Ansalon if you want.
Now...all that being said, I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to say that at some point in the characters past...at least 3 generations back, he has an Ergothian in his parentage (or whatever you call that). 3 gens or more back means he's one-eighth human or less, which makes him (in D&D terms) an elf. But he could still very well be a black elf.
I was simply referring to artwork I seem to recall seeing with Ergothian characters that were white.
My apologies. I must agree that some authors seem to have a problem depicting certain characters, that should be black, as being black.
You can insert these elves anywhere you like. My suggestion was simply in response to your stated desire that they bee civilized rather than barbarian. I simply though that would be easier offshore. But you could set up a hidden desert city fairly easily.
I understand and believe me I am thankful for your advice.
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I don't think they're trying to make some veiled racial comment about blacks.
The Kagonesti are "primative" because they spend all their time out of doors, not in the cities...always outside. So, naturally, their skin is going to be a darker color. Is there darker pigment or is it just that they're tanning because they're in the sun all day...I don't know. But I don't think there's anything "sad" about it.
On the whole, the Dragonlance elves are fair skinned. The Kagonesti (due their their outdoor nature) tend to be darker. The Dargonesti and Dimmernesti are pale green and bluish skinned.
Dwarves are darker skinned as well. The dark dwarves are kinda pale...gray I guess (kinda like derro). Gnomes are all brown skinned (they tend to be described as "nut brown").
Humans...well, they're all shades pretty much. I would think there could be justification for any earth race to be found on Ansalon if you want.
Now...all that being said, I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to say that at some point in the characters past...at least 3 generations back, he has an Ergothian in his parentage (or whatever you call that). 3 gens or more back means he's one-eighth human or less, which makes him (in D&D terms) an elf. But he could still very well be a black elf.
I was not neccessarily saying that they were being racist towards nubians since in all reality the Kagonesti are not truly black anyway. They are as you say tanned, I simple made them black for my DragonLance campaign.
The thing I do have a problem with though is stuff like what happened with Odila Windlass, she is very much caucasian on the cover of the War of Souls trilogy book; yet in the book it describes her as being nubian.
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I was simply referring to artwork I seem to recall seeing with Ergothian characters that were white.
Well...there's Odilla...but who else? Rig is black in all the art I've seen him in. The Master of the Tower is black in all the paintings I've seen. Maquesta is black.
Don't get me wrong though...that does bother me about Odilla...
The thing I do have a problem with though is stuff like what happened with Odila Windlass, she is very much caucasian on the cover of the War of Souls trilogy book; yet in the book it describes her as being nubian.
Well...I wouldn't say she's nubian. As "nubian" is really dark...as close to black as you can get without being drow like.
She was described as "olive skinned."
Oh...wait...there are black olives aren't there. Hmm...I always pictured a medium brown color, surely they didn't mean her skin looks like black olives did they?
Skin tones and features run the gamut among the humans, and as it's been pointed out the elves have a tendency towards being fair-skinned (although the Kagonesti tan naturally). Ogres and goblins have widely different skin tones, from greenish-grey to ochre to red, and of course the Irda are blue.
Feal-Thas, oddly enough, was extraordinarily dusky-skinned for an elf. Jennifer Meyer's illustration doesn't actually show that.
Cheers,
Cam
That way I'd sort of get the best of everything.
Strictly speaking, none of the races in Dragonlance are nubian, since there's no such place as Nubia.
Skin tones and features run the gamut among the humans, and as it's been pointed out the elves have a tendency towards being fair-skinned (although the Kagonesti tan naturally). Ogres and goblins have widely different skin tones, from greenish-grey to ochre to red, and of course the Irda are blue.
Feal-Thas, oddly enough, was extraordinarily dusky-skinned for an elf. Jennifer Meyer's illustration doesn't actually show that.
Cheers,
Cam
Well strictly speaking, none of the races in DragonLance are caucasian, since the caucasus, Europe, etc. does not exist. But it is just another way to refer to white people.
I think you knew what I was talking about when I posed the question though.
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Well strictly speaking, none of the races in DragonLance are caucasian, since the caucasus, Europe, etc. does not exist. But it is just another way to refer to white people.
I think you knew what I was talking about when I posed the question though.
Oh, I did, but I'm not sure if you're talking just about skin tone or about any number of other characteristics as well. A drow elf wouldn't be confused for somebody of African descent unless the person making the observation were really ignorant.
And for the record, I wouldn't use "caucasian" either.
Cheers,
Cam
As an aside, any reason we are skirting around the terms "black" and "white"?
And since skin-tone comes from adaptions to the environment, there's good reason for the elves to be light-skinned: look where they live Silvanesti and Qualinesti are both in the temperate zone, and the southern reaches are getting fairly close to the ice-cap.
, Europe, etc. does not exist.
I think not also. Look at Krynn Maps and look at World map, then you understand. Fortunity or not but the worlds look equal. Some areras must be replaced or rotated but then you have 1 to 1. Thx that i live in Solamnia as Knight of Lily. :D
I think not also. Look at Krynn Maps and look at World map, then you understand. Fortunity or not but the worlds look equal. Some areras must be replaced or rotated but then you have 1 to 1. Thx that i live in Solamnia as Knight of Lily. :D
You are not thinking at all.
Fact: The continent known as Europe does not exist within the world of Krynn. A likeness to Europe does not equal Europe, therefore the inhabitants of said continent cannot be denoted as Europeans more less Caucasians.
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Odilia really isn't the same darkness as Rig, Dunbar et al, she was described as being of mixed heritage (probably Ergothian/Solamnic).
As an aside, any reason we are skirting around the terms "black" and "white"?
And since skin-tone comes from adaptions to the environment, there's good reason for the elves to be light-skinned: look where they live Silvanesti and Qualinesti are both in the temperate zone, and the southern reaches are getting fairly close to the ice-cap.
I would show how this statement is not factual as well but I think I will let it slide; for now.
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Just wanted to add my 2 steel to the conversation
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Sysane, do you have a copy of Unearthed Arcana ? I think the desert elves could be inserted into the Khur region of Ansalon with ease, one could even give them some ties to the Mikku tribe(Although not genetically.).
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Unfortunately I don't. Unearthed Arcana is low priority on my buy list. Next book I need to purchase is either WotL or the Draconomicon.
Unfortunately I don't. Unearthed Arcana is low priority on my buy list. Next book I need to purchase is either WotL or the Draconomicon.
It is low on mine as well; I really do not like Unearthed Arcana(Alot of the options are just plain stupid.) but the desert elves always interested me. On another note, get the Draconomicon next, I am looking at it right now and let me tell you if you are running a DragonLance campaign this book is a jewel.
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But then, elves are less numerous by nature so a hidden city of heretofore unknown elves could exist upon Ansalon.
And as an aside, I am sure that any nation that does as much commerce as Ergoth will have people of other ethnicities living there. It just strikes me as strange how few black Ergothians show up in graphics.
Apparently only white residents of Ergoth become adventurers because it seems that the black ones never show up on cover art.
Rig Mer-Krel gets a great illustration on the cover of Eve of the Maelstrom, doesn't he? That or the previous book. New Stawicki cover.
Cheers,
Cam
If all Ergothians are black, then doesn't that mean that Guerrand diThon and his folks from the Defenders of Magic trilogy should all have skin the color of chocolate? The illustrations on the cover show him as being white.
It's a big mystery. Not all Ergothians are black, otherwise...where did the Solamnics come from?
For a while it speculated that the black people were the ruling class of Ergoth in the past...but PBT and TCC's new books have shot that one down.
The only thing I can fathom is that costal cultures of ancient Ergoth (and now Northern Ergoth) were black...but they were by no means the only culture in Ergoth, seeing as how for a while Ergoth was basically all humans.
Move on into the 4th Age...it is still the black Ergothians who live by the coast, and they are the only Ergothians with any sort of sea experience (as the rest of the Ergothians are only new to the sea, where the predominantly black Ergothians have been a sea going people for thousands of years). So...the rest of the world meets these sea going black people and learn they are from Ergoth...well, they never see any white Ergothians (they're all still land-lubbers) and so the myth is allowed to perpetuate all the cultures that there are no white Ergothians and that all black humans are Ergothian...which I don't believe is necessarily true.
It's just a thought...but it helps me sleep at night.
As for black Ergothian heroes on covers...yeah, there's not many. "Theros Ironfeld" and "Dawning of a New Age/Heroes of Steel" by Jeff Easly show Theros and Rig respectively. "Day of the Tempest" by Matt Stawicki has Rig. "Maquesta Kar-Thon" by Jeff Easly has...well, Maq. Hmm...that might be it. Oh wait, "Dragons of a Vanished Moon" has Odila...oh, nevermind, she's white.
That might be it for novel covers. There are other pieces of art (calendar art and the like) with black hereos...but there aren't many.
Likewise, the Ergothians could have easily conquered a large number of other lands populated by members of different ethnic groups, including what later became Solamnia.
The eastern territories (now Solamnia) and the south of Ergoth had pale skinned humans, the northern, the darker skinned sailors.
The east and south was lost (east to Solamnia, south to Cataclysm), so the darker skinned inhabitants gained a lot more power.
As a side note, is Emperor Mercadior Redic and his daughter Princess Mercideth, white or black? Or Somewhere in between?
The pre-Cataclysm Royal family seems to be fair, though (see the Ergoth trilogy and the Kingpriest trilogy)
As a side note, is Emperor Mercadior Redic and his daughter Princess Mercideth, white or black? Or Somewhere in between?
If you go by the old SAGA illustrations, Princess Mercidith is black, and presumably so is her father.
So the Redic royal family is dark-skinned?
The pre-Cataclysm Royal family seems to be fair, though (see the Ergoth trilogy and the Kingpriest trilogy)
Yeah. That works well with the whole power-shift that apparently happened post-1st Cataclysm. Post-1st Cataclysm the south (where the whites were) was essentially lost, leaving the north (where the blacks were). While the south essentially had to fight for its life against rampaging ogre hordes plus the crazy aftereffects of the Cataclysm, the north was relatively unscathed and could afford to maintain its power. We all know the regions of Ansalon were extremely isolationist for the centuries following the Cataclysm, even all the way up to the War of the Lance. So the black northern ergothians (BNE) continued their maritime tradition and travelled the newly transformed Ansalon and encountered all the other survivors of the Cataclysm, and thus came to be associated with Ergoth in general, since all the other folk of Ansalon were primarily encountering just the BNE, while the white southern ergothians were too devastated to do anything other than dig in in their much-reduced southern holdings.
It's analogous to how four centuries ago, when one mentioned the term "America" to the average European they came to think of the two massive continents that lay across the Atlantic ocean ... but now when one mentions the term "America", they usually just think of 1/3 of the northern pair of those two massive continents that lies just across the Atlantic ocean from them (i.e. the United States of "America").
Maybe that's why i like Khur and Tarsis, cause i can turn them into Bombay and Istanbul =)
/indian
Now this must mean that the Redics were a powerful noble family before the Cataclysm, and that they likely came to power in the vacuum caused by the extinction of all the southern noble families.
Additionally, the native royalty from that time up until the Cataclysm is described as fair-skinned.
She was described as "olive skinned."
Dragons of a Lost Star(WoS Volume 2 ) describes Odila Windlass as being "reddish-brown."
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