Im looking for an "African Myth" themed rpg

[urielrose]

Is there any "African myth" Themed RPG, for any console ,at any time of the pc game industry, because I found none.

By "African Myth" I mean Swahili Gods, Folklore And Culture. Example for it Is the French Movie "Kiriku" Or the "Imaro" book series.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Not that I know of.

[Hurlshort]

Quest for Glory III has an African style theme going for it.

 

edit: What exactly would Swahili gods entail? Swahili is a combination of Bantu and Arabic, and the written history that we know of the area is mostly what we have from Muslim scholars. Are you talking about tribes? Wouldn't they not be considered Swahili?

 

I'm not trying to be argumentative, it is an area of history I'm interested in learning more about but have only had time to scratch the surface.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Hurlshot

[HoonDing]

I know a couple of adventure game that take place in Africa. RPG games, nope.

[urielrose]

By Swahili I meant The Region That Speaks The Language (The Eastern African coast), And Yes I meant The Tribes, If youre Looking or a more traditional African myths look for the Zimbabwe Area or even better The Kenia Area

[Meshugger]

Is there any "African myth" Themed RPG, for any console ,at any time of the pc game industry, because I found none.

By "African Myth" I mean Swahili Gods, Folklore And Culture. Example for it Is the French Movie "Kiriku" Or the "Imaro" book series.

 

You mean that there is a true "Dark" Fantasy RPG out there?

 

Just kidding, but what would it be about? What are these folklores exactly? I mean, in the western hemisphere, we have:

 

- Knights, mages and rogues. Humans, dragons, elfs and dwarfs.

 

In the eastern hemisphere, we have:

 

- Samurais, ninjas and martial artists. Humans, dragons, spirits and gods taken the shape of animals.

 

What would the african equivalent be?

[urielrose]

It is mostly Centerd Around Lone warriors, Animals, Shamans, the elements, dreams, honor and monsters.

They are not epic tales, just the heroism of on individual against all odds or the smartness and wildness of a protoganist.

It's also full of ghosts , angry gods and stuff. read the Imaro book series, the author also added an African jungle Theme.

anyway i realy think quest for glory 3 is the only rpg made with some of these elements.

[Lare Kikkeli]

Meshugger, for example Vodou/Voudoun/Vodun religion is full of weird and cool myths that would translate into a game setting nicely. I'm sure you're familiar with some of the aspects since hoodoo and Louisiana voodoo is closely related to the african/haitian traditions. William Gibson uses some voudou elements on the Sprawl Trilogy, loosely based but surprisingly faithful to the original myths.

 

read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voudoun

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruban_mythology

Edited November 26, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli

[Purkake]

Good luck?

 

On a somewhat unrelated note, some of the Call of Cthulhu PnP deals pretty heavily with African stuff.

[Morgoth]

Doesn't this Paradies Adventure from Benoit Sokal play in Africa?

[Meshugger]

Thanks everyone. Based on the information provided, i can not tell if there has been a game based on african folklore.

[aries101]

I don't there have been an rpg released set in the African region.

 

The game, Paradise, made by Sokal, takes place in Africa, though. It is an adventure game, though, not an rpg.

 

Mysterius Island 1 and takes place around Africa I think, maybe on the island of Madagascar.

 

Uncharted 1 and 2, I believe also takes place in Africa?, I think?

 

Some of the Lara Croft games (tomb raider) also takes place in Africa.

 

 

Still, this doesn't help you.

 

Maybe some of the older rpgs - from way back in the 1980's or the 1990's are set in Africa.

[HoonDing]

The Ankh adventures are also in Africa (Egypt).

[Hurlshort]

Gabriel Knight has a ton of the Louisiana voodoo stuff in it, but again it is an adventure game.

 

You could make a pretty sweet game using some of the different African tribes in the lore. The masks and costumes alone would be fantastic.

[Winterwolf]

Quest for Glory III is as close as you get to an african fantasy. It does a pretty good job. Of course you'll be playing ridiculously white aryan male, but that's the series thing itself - a ridiculously aryan male has adventures in german fairytale fantasy world, in arabian nights fantasy, in african, in transylvanian and finally in ancient greek fantasy world.

 

What you get in Quest for Glory III is an egyptian-arabic style great city, kind of an equivalent to muslim civilization in africa, then you get the tribal village(s) and life and then more ominous pseudo-shamanistic leopard people. The series is an rpg, make no mistake of that, but it's style is off-the-wall humor mixed with serious drama. Of course I haven't played it in years so I can't verify how it does on the racist stereotype scale but... by my memory at least I'll say it was and will be probably the only professional game doing african fantasy, and it did it pretty great and affectionately.

 

Some of these guys, they can't seem to differate between african fantasy and a white man's great adventure taking place in disneyland africa of funny primitive people. But I know what you meant. It's not exactly Kiriku... why is that only the french are interested in exploring different settings... but it's pretty good and worth a try if you're interested to see how african fantasy has been done in games. At least from what I remember. Quest for Glory of course always uses the general and more superficial parts of the local folklore when it creates it setting... but can you afford to be picky?

 

You can check it out yourself in these

.

 

Speaking of french people doing interesting stuff, one game that got mentioned Sokal's Paradise is a french game about Africa. But not Kiriku again, though very atmospheric.

 

It probably will be a long time before the rest of the world starts to know about Ashanti Empire and stuff like that. That's something I'm interested in personally. But slowly and diligently we few will one day break the white man's dominance of our dreamworlds. Death to the White Man!!!

 

Edit: I just now noticed your post in where you pretty much state that you're aware of QfGIII. Sorry for wasting your time.

Edited November 27, 2009 by Winterwolf

[Winterwolf]

Just kidding, but what would it be about? What are these folklores exactly? I mean, in the western hemisphere, we have:

 

- Knights, mages and rogues. Humans, dragons, elfs and dwarfs.

 

Depends on your definition of western hemisphere. Tolkien said his world was northwestern europe in spirit. That's one of the roots of our modern-day fantasy. Tolkien was an anglo romanticist and his work largely is an anglo romanticism. Most of our fantasy is basically anglo romanticism. Norway is part of this Tolkien's northwestern spirit. But if we go north from Norway to... northern Norway, The Northern Europe - we get shamans, spirits of the land, crazy bear cults, skymoose dancing with Aurora Borealis, nomadic people living in eternal darkness in winter and in eternal sunlight in summer and stuff like that. Here's a semi-fantastical movie depicting that northern scandinavian world - Ofelas. Should be a treat for people who liked Okku.

Edited November 27, 2009 by Winterwolf

[Lare Kikkeli]

It's a shame our cultural heritage has dissapeared in favour of american pop culture. Ofelas is a pretty crappy movie to be honest, but I really like the setting. Nils Gaup's most recent movie, The Kautokeino Rebellion is actually really good and I recommend it to everyone interested in Sami culture.

[Winterwolf]

It's a shame our cultural heritage has dissapeared in favour of american pop culture. Ofelas is a pretty crappy movie to be honest, but I really like the setting. Nils Gaup's most recent movie, The Kautokeino Rebellion is actually really good and I recommend it to everyone interested in Sami culture.

 

Estonian connection with finno-ugricness was destroyed by the 19th century estonian national romanticism movement. We have couple of traditional people still left (Kihnu matriarchy and Seto's) but since the powers that be are more interested in investing in mainstream estonian identity with 1930's being turned into our mythical Camelot, most of our finno-ugricness exists only in the halls of academy to be studied by anthropologists, sociologists and other historians.

 

Then again, it's not like Tolkien's much loved northwestern spirit existed in his contemporary England either. It was also restricted to academy's and universities like that, which Tolkien as an academian had access to. It's quite common that people most of the time more or less live in the contemporary global culture, and then comes a writer who gives ancient ethnic stuff a new and interesting spin and it suddenly finds a new life.

 

That is one thing that separates Tolkien from most fantasy writers - Tolkien was a romantic nationalist, other fantasy writers hike around in aboriginal burial grounds and dream of sexy elves in bikini's and of dwarves with scottish accents and of orcs who are mean. What Tolkien birthed has had somewhat disastrous results to his intentions, but fortunately there are movements inside the fantasy genre that want to break out from it's self-limitations.

 

Already a purely celtic fantasy would be something completely different. Celtic stuff is not to be confused with pretty sad irish lass playing a sad celtic tune on her magical fiddle in sad mystical mist of the land of the mystical misty maidens. I mean real celtic stuff, the celtic world of pre-roman conquest, the one which Terry Jones always blathers about. Cut Rome and make it a universe of it's own and it would be unique and refreshening.

 

Kinda losing track here. Are there any finnish films exploring this kind of world? I saw a finnish film about a girl who loved wolves, it was pretty run-of-the-mill children's film, but it had a very unique flavour to it which I liked.