I’ve tried searching around for this information before asking here, but am unable to find anything. It’s also likely that this will be revealed further in the final release.
What are some generic touchstones or inspirations for heritages?
The descriptions of the lands themselves at the end of the QS help give an idea, as do the tags attached to them from the Ghost Lines documents. Naming conventions (like Ulf Ironborn) also provide some hints. So I get some Nordic flavor from Skovlan, and some Arabic flavor from Iruvia, and I’m certain that the cultures would be much more complicated than such direct comparisons.
But does anyone have some more direct inspirations from real world cultures, or combinations to help give players as they decide? Or do you push them to be the ones to define it, as in: “You’re from Iruvia huh? Golden deserts, and powers openly held by demons. Tell me more about that culture”?
I did the latter. I also invented an animal from Skovlan because it fit the narrative and was cool.
As a more concrete example: The crew’s Lurk, Birch, is from the Dagger Isles, described as getting by without the lightning fences that surround the cities of the other islands, and yet the inhabitants survive.
He brought that up while we were talking about the characters’ backgrounds and origins, shortly after explaining his Vice of worshipping the Forgotten Gods forcing him to leave the Isles, only saying, “My relationship with the Forgotten Gods is…complicated.”
I said, “So…the ‘no Lightning Fences’ thing: what’s that all about? How do you guys survive without the Lightning Fences?” He said nothing. “Or…is that something that you guys don’t talk about?”
“We don’t talk about it,” he said. “It’s complicated.”
Granted, those answers aren’t directly informative, but it allows us to infer a lot about the inhabitants of the Dagger Isles: they’re reticent to talk about their secrets, and their lack of dependence upon Lightning Fences may just have something to do with the worship of the Forgotten Gods. Either way, it’s more than we knew before.
Yeah, I like that! Thanks Mike Leavitt .
And I’ve noticed (and enjoyed) that there are numerous things in this game that seem to be left intentionally absent of descriptions (like several items), allowing them to be evocative and explained in game. This way, if a player really digs a sort of Slavic feel, instead of Norse, he/she can define them that way and bring that cultural brush into the world’s palette.
Perhaps I should pose a different question then. If there are no set inspirations for the different heritages, what are some that you or your players have latched onto or combined to inspire them?