The cultures of Eora

[PrimeJunta]

I just did some browsing on the P:E wiki (massive kudos to the people maintaining it, by the way). We know quite a lot about the world of Eora already, more than I thought really, since the lore has been coming out in dribs and drabs.

 

I really like it.

 

One thing that I thought was kind of "meh" about P:E back during the Kickstarter was that it seemed like very traditional pseudo-medieval western high fantasy. I've done that so many times, in games and books and movies, that I really wasn't all that keen to see another one. That's in fact the main reason I only backed at a relatively modest level (and why I backed T:ToN for significantly more). Now, however, it's clear that Obsidian's writers have put any number of really interesting twists on it. So much so that it's almost like it's only tradfantasy on the surface. Man am I digging it.

 

Elves and dwarves. I didn't think there was a way to make them interesting again, but hey, they did it. Quite simple too, really. Stick 'em on the Antarctic ice cap. It's also arguably true to their origins, since Tolkienian elves and dwarves are to a great extent modeled on Nordic folklore. I'm especially digging the character concept of Sagani, and the notion of Pale Elves speaking an ancient language far, far away on endless fields of ice is exciting. 

 

Breaking the mold of culture=subrace. In tradfantasy, nonhuman cultures are monolithic. If there are different elven cultures, for example, they're different subraces, like the drow for example. Big points for breaking out of this mold, and making the elves of Dyrwood and Eír Glanfath the same subrace but different and antagonistic subcultures, and for the really interesting elven-human combined culture of the Aedyr Empire, complete with institutions like the haemneg. 

 

Social issues. Slavery seems to be an institution that the loremasters have considered carefully, since we know how each of the different cultures treat it -- practiced in the Aedyr Empire, abolished but lingering in Dyrwood, while the Vailians conduct a brisk slave trade. (I wonder if we're going to meet a Vailian slave trader? That could be explosive simply because they gave the Vailians dark skin... I hope we do actually.) We've also got a lot of information about the status of the Orlan, religious antagonism between followers of Magran and Waidwen, the complex relations between the Glanfathans, the Aedyr Empire, and Dyrwood, and so on.

 

The aumaua. Polynesian-Japanese flavored semi-aquatic demihumans instead of slope-browed half-orcs with the occasional Noble Savage rising above his racial station? Yes please!

 

Change. One standard trop in tradfantasy -- whether Star Wars, Tolkien, or D&D -- is that nothing much ever changes. Empires rise and fall, for sure, but there's no technological or real cultural change. If the possibility of change is present, it's always a threat -- a Dark Lord threatening to unravel the entire world. Fantasy, especially high and heroic fantasy, tends to be extremely conservative in its outlook this way. Obsidian did tell us that they were doing this from the outset, which I think was wise of them, since I think a lot of fantasy fans, perhaps especially IE game fans, consider this central to the genre. Firearms are symbolic of this -- I think a lot of the resistance to their inclusion springs from here: having them is a reminder that things are changing, which does break out of one of the most fundamental features of tradfantasy. I can understand that, even if I don't sympathize with it. Fantasy with change is much more interesting to me than static fantasy worlds where the Dark Lord rises, and is defeated, and Balance is Restored to the Force.

 

Ancient history connected to the present. Okay, so we have to have a mysterious ancient lost empire leaving creepy ruins all over the place. It wouldn't be a proper fantasy game without them. Trope, yes, but a good one. I dig the twist they gave this too: figuring out what the creepy ruins mean for the people living among them. That they've become sacred sites for the Glanfathans, and a resource to plunder for the Aedyr Empire. (The former, by the way, nicely explains why the ruins we've seen look so clean and well-trafficked -- obviously their Glanfathan keepers have been taking care of them.)

 

All in all, I've been enormously pleased with the direction Obsidian has taken with regards to the lore. The core tropes are there -- elves, dwarves, ancient empire, wizards, rogues, priests, what have you -- but just about everything has an interesting and new twist to it. This is much more interesting than, say, what BioWare did with space opera for Mass Effect, i.e. just put in all the tropes without examining and questioning any of it, which made everything incredibly predictable. I like it when writers keep me off-balance rather than feeding me something that's familiar and comforting. I'm getting increasingly excited about this game, and most of that excitement is because of the lore. Thank you for that, Obsidian.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

A great sum-up, PJ, and it really is how I feel about it all too. I also backed T:ToN quite heftily, just because it's such a fresh, exciting and mind-blowingly varied and different setting - full of cultural, moral and philosophical challenges (at least that was the vibe I got -plus most of the writers and devs are those behind MotB, which I absolutely adore). But with this summary, you certainly show that Obsidian and Josh & Co are right on the ball, and on the money, it seems. I can't wait to see how great Eora and its cultures really are, and how changing it is! A huge thanks from me too, Obsidian!

[Sensuki]

I agree that the world building has been great. This good work will be reflected in the content too as I believe the designers said it's easy to create quests based on inspiration and ideas from world design docs and lore.

 

Pulled this from the Reddit /AMA/ earlier this year

 

My hat is also off to Josh for pushing for linguistic consistency and authenticity in our setting. And in general I think you'll see a lot more thought put into the "rules of the world" than you'd typically see in a fantasy video game - the language, the sociopolitics, the historical plausibility of the way the world developed its technology, that sort of thing. You don't just make up whatever name or place - there are rules, and those make the world feel more real and less generic. Everything is grounded, and for me as a narrative designer that's the best thing it could be - it makes it easier to find conflicts and lore and plot points that people can relate to.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[JFSOCC]

it's been looking good, but I'll reserve judgement untill I can play the game.

[TrashMan]

Personally I like "traditional medieval tolkienish fantasy"

 

I can't say I find nothing exciting about the "brilliant" and "original" idea of "just stick X in a different climate!"

 

New for the sake of new does nothing for me.

[PrimeJunta]

@TrashMan Out of curiosity, are you for or against firearms in P:E? I'm asking because of my hypothesis that it's a proxy for general conservatism in taste regarding fantasy.

[Sensuki]

Or maybe it's the fact that its not fantasy, it's steampunk   

 

Edited May 30, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

[IndiraLightfoot]

Heh! I recognize that guy from the Larian forums. I love that he only follows Divinity: Original Sin because of his no-tech-junk-in-my-fantasy-world reason, and still, in literally the same world and universe, this went on!

Edited May 30, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Messier-31]

@TrashMan Out of curiosity, are you for or against firearms in P:E? I'm asking because of my hypothesis that it's a proxy for general conservatism in taste regarding fantasy.

 

Aren't you taking him for Chilloutman? Dude's been againts firearms all way round. I think that TrashMan over here just says that changing some stuff, like elven/dwarven stereotypes, just to be totally different than usual is not always a good thing. That or maybe I'm mistaken.

[Valorian]

@TrashMan Out of curiosity, are you for or against firearms in P:E? I'm asking because of my hypothesis that it's a proxy for general conservatism in taste regarding fantasy.

 

Your hypothesis is wrong. 

I wouldn't mind putting dwarves and elves "upside down"; changing their lore, names and appearance.. and I don't like (widespread) firearms in a fantasy setting, even if their inclusion is meant to denote technical progress. 

 

I usually don't enjoy a setting where mostly everything is put upside down for the sake of making everything yunik&speshul.

Thankfully, PoE doesn't do that.

 

Then again, "general conservatism in taste regarding fantasy" is such an absurdly broad classification. 

[Nonek]

Yes i'd generally agree, too often we get a modern world with a weak renaissance fayre flavour, and of course the traditional nonsensical plot about a demon led army or corrupting McGuffin. When a world is researched that has depth and internal consistency, then crises naturally arise that are human, relatable and interesting rather than adolescent power fantasies. Of course that's just my opinion and preference.

 

Edit: What is strange is that i've always held that Tolkien created quite a detailed and internally consistent world, where different cultures clashed, languages were spoken, characters knew hunger and thirst, wanderers grew exhausted and a magical item was indeed rare and potent rather than yet another in a long list of items to sell. In a way though many people state that Tolkien's Middle Earth was the most fantastical of settings, it wasn't, even it's magic system seems to be equal parts technological trickery and psychic battles not the fireball frenzy we see in AD&D.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Nonek

[Death Machine Miyagi]

 Social issues. Slavery seems to be an institution that the loremasters have considered carefully, since we know how each of the different cultures treat it -- practiced in the Aedyr Empire, abolished but lingering in Dyrwood, while the Vailians conduct a brisk slave trade. (I wonder if we're going to meet a Vailian slave trader? That could be explosive simply because they gave the Vailians dark skin... I hope we do actually.) We've also got a lot of information about the status of the Orlan, religious antagonism between followers of Magran and Waidwen, the complex relations between the Glanfathans, the Aedyr Empire, and Dyrwood, and so on.

 

I want to see Vailian slave traders, as well. Not just because of the explosive effect of having the dark skinned Vailians seemingly be the advanced culture that enslaves more primitives peoples, but also because I'll be curious to see whether the writers can distance themselves enough from a modern viewpoint to present slavery and other such things from the viewpoint of the Vailians themselves.

 

In Baldur's Gate 2, 'slaver' was shorthand for 'evil', and typically meant you would be killing the slaver in question shortly after meeting them. The game felt like it had a very modern perspective on thing, in which slavery is an unquestioned crime against humanity and killing slavers was encouraged by everyone of good alignment.

 

I'd like to see some Vailians who are entirely decent people in other respects and yet still hold slaves because that's the culture they grew up in. Its so much a part of who and what they are that they don't even think about it. If you start a grand crusade to liberate slaves in their territory, a bunch of otherwise entirely sympathetic characters won't see you as a brave hero so much as a dangerous fanatic, a sort of pseudo-medieval John Brown.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Death Machine Miyagi

[PrimeJunta]

@Nonek Yet Tolkienian fantasy is archetypically static. The only type of change that's there is decay. Nobody ever invents anything, except apparently Saruman, and that's not exactly a redeeming quality of his.

[Nonek]

I'm not sure that's true, to me the world was merely going through its Dark Ages, their Rome had fallen in the west with the Dunedain, while the great city bridging east and west still stood as a counterpart to Byzantium. Yes that culture was failing and departing along with the more fantastical elements, but clear acknowledgement was given to the barbarian peoples arising, with the Rohirrim probably portraying Alan's in this scenario. Whose horse mastery might well have inspired chivalry, and thus symbolised what is to come.

 

Elves = Greeks?

Edited May 30, 2014 by Nonek

[PrimeJunta]

@Nonek If you're really interested in this aspect of Tolkienian mythos, he talks about it fairly extensively in Letters. There's also a fair bit of stuff in Unfinished Tales. I don't think he had that kind of parallel in mind, though. The Rohirrim in particular he modeled on the Anglo-Saxons transplanted into a horse culture -- he was unhappy about them losing to the Normans largely because they had no cavalry, and wanted to set that straight.

 

The major point though is that all through the thousands of years of Tolkienian mythos, there's no real change. The wars in Beleriand are fought with the same weapons and same tactics as the wars of the Ring thousands of years later. The orcs of Morgoth are no different from the orcs of Sauron. The society of Gondolin is ordered more or less the same way as the society of Gondor, even though we're talking two entirely different cultures.

 

The only change is that things keep getting worse. The apogee of elven achievement was Fëanor and the making of the Silmarils; it was all downhill from there on out. The high point of human culture was Númenor, which was a pale echo of Valinor, and its story was one of continuous decline. Same thing for everything else. So the war of the Ring wasn't during a dark age; it was a continuation of decline that started before there even were humans or elves. In the entire history of Middle-Earth, nobody ever invents anything. Somebody might make something uniquely glorious or powerful -- the Rings, the Silmarils, a badass sword --, but that's a lone, individual achievement, not something that changes anything in society, warfare, farming, building, or anything else in any meaningful way. It's only in the Lord of the Rings itself that there's clear signs of technological innovation, and that's presented as exclusively evil -- Sandyman's new smoke-belching mill, Saruman's rape of Orthanc's trees to feed his forges, and what have you. The trilogy culminates with the return of the King -- a restoration of an ancient, just order where the high and noble rule by (divine) right over the happy but dumb peasantry (Ioreth!), just like in Númenor or the early days of the kingdoms of the Dúnedain in Middle-Earth.

 

Most heroic and high fantasy is similarly timeless, whether we're talking books, movies, or games. I'm bored of it.

[Nonek]

Nice post Sir, I agree that the world had not moved on, though I do think that it was at the end of his books on the cusp of doing so and was a reaction to his disgust with the modern worlds technological obsession. I'll have to read a few more of his tomes as currently i've only perused the three common books (Hobbit, LotR and Silmarillion) and obviously his translation of Beowulf, which is still the best.

 

However i'd say my point still stands, most high fantasy worlds have no grounding elements within them, magic has no real effect on anything nor do magical items, and characters show no signs of humanity or frailty. In the Lord of the Rings that is not so, it is far more grounded than the usual high fantasy worlds where people do not eat, drink, tire, sicken or do much of anything other than summon fireballs and fight hordes of opponents. I'd say the ring cycle has more to do with the epic saga it is inspired by than the high fantasy most people claim it is.

 

I agree though with being bored of traditional fantasy and its usual iterations, and am looking forward to Poe for the same reasons you list above.

[PrimeJunta]

I dunno, perhaps we've been reading different fantasy. Some of my favorites among the "classics" are Fritz Leiber's Swords cycle, Michael Moor****'s Elric, and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea. None of these quite fit your description IMO. Le Guin especially explores the social ramifications of magic, and her characters have a lot of frailty and fallibility. All of these exist in static, apparently fundamentally unchanging worlds and societies too, though.

 

(Tolkien disliked Wagner and vehemently denied that his Ring had anything to do with the Nibelungen one. Which made me LOL when I read that, admittedly.)

[Nonek]

Yes those are among my favourites as well, but most crpg's and AD&D don't venture anywhere near the territory they explore to their detriment, I would especially like the manic inventiveness of Moorc*ck to influence more developers. When comparing most crpgs to any author the massive lack of ambition is very telling, they are (and I hate to say this) far too gamey at the expense of creating a consistent and relatable world. Personally I would like the depth and detail of Tolkien, the inventiveness of Moorc*ck or Howard, the horror of Lovecraft, the exploration of a theme that LeGuin pursues throughout Ged's journeys to best himself, wrapped up in a world like Ultima 7 with the combat system of Severance. Simple tastes what? 

 

I always thought that Tolkien's dislike of the German iteration of the Sigurdsaga was (like many Norse scholars) because of its castration and alteration by Saxo Grammaticus, changing it from the original lone myth to encompass Ragnarok and other unrelated matters, and demean the Aesir?

 

Edit: Must dash, fascinating and enlightening discussion Sir.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Nonek

[HoonDing]

J.R.R. Sawyer.

[Lephys]

Personally I like "traditional medieval tolkienish fantasy"

 

I can't say I find nothing exciting about the "brilliant" and "original" idea of "just stick X in a different climate!"

 

New for the sake of new does nothing for me.

It's a good thing they didn't "just" do that, and that their new stuff is new by happenstance, I'm fairly certain. I think their pre-production period would've been a wee bit shorter if their plan was just to make stuff that wasn't old. "Our writers spent 7 months figuring out how to merely do something that wasn't identical to anything else by the tiniest margin, quality be damned! 8D!"

 

But hey... everyone's entitled to pessimism.

[illathid]

I dunno, perhaps we've been reading different fantasy. Some of my favorites among the "classics" are Fritz Leiber's Swords cycle, Michael Moor****'s Elric, and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea. None of these quite fit your description IMO. Le Guin especially explores the social ramifications of magic, and her characters have a lot of frailty and fallibility. All of these exist in static, apparently fundamentally unchanging worlds and societies too, though.

 

(Tolkien disliked Wagner and vehemently denied that his Ring had anything to do with the Nibelungen one. Which made me LOL when I read that, admittedly.)

 

God, who has the rights to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser? I would love to see a CRPG set in Lankhmar.

[PrimeJunta]

I have an AD&D Lankhmar module in a box somewhere.

[Mor]

Slavery seems to be an institution that the loremasters have considered carefully, since we know how each of the different cultures treat it -- practiced in the Aedyr Empire, abolished but lingering in Dyrwood, while the Vailians conduct a brisk slave trade. (I wonder if we're going to meet a Vailian slave trader? That could be explosive simply because they gave the Vailians dark skin... I hope we do actually.)

I wonder how extensive Vailian slave trade is, or prominent to their naval trade "empire". Any chance it will go as far as Song of Ice and Fire, Slaver's Bay?

 

p.s. I am not sure what's would be explosive about black slave trader, slavery existed throughout the world for many centuries long before and after the the atlantic slave trade.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

p.s. I am not sure what's would be explosive about black slave trader, slavery existed throughout the world for many centuries long before and after the the atlantic slave trade.

 

True. But at least in the United States, the popular perception of slavery is white people enslaving black people. I'm guessing reversing those roles will end up antagonizing some people, regardless of how little sense it makes to get upset by it.