I know that European stock humans equate to Oeridians, and that Indians equate to Suel and such, but what Flanness human stock equates to Blacks? I'm asking because in Scourge of Worlds, Regdar looks like a light-skinned black man, and another Iconic character, Ember the Monk, is also black. Since I've incorporated them into my Greyhawk campaign, I'm wondering what race to put them under on my Character Sheet?
Baklunish: None - they are golden skinned, not the yellowish of Orientals, nor does anything indicate they possess epicanthic folds
Flan: Africans from the western horn of Africa - they have dark skin ranging from light copper to dark bronze
Oeridians: Mediterranean or Semitic - they have olive skin
Suel: Nordic - one of the few where the skin color matches the culture
Olman: Meso-american natives - with a stereotypical, often offensively so, culture
Rhennee: Mediterranean - quite similar to the Oeridians, their culture is definitely that of the Rom
Touv - African - set to match the specific culture
Regdar and Ember are most likely Flan or Flan-Oeridian mixes. It should be noted that most people in the Flanaess are of mixed blood, with only certain noble families preserving some sort of "purity" of blood.
Any racial equivalents are, at best, indirect, being more referential than definitional. No GH author has yet been so dumb as to say that, racially, X = Y in a canon source. I doubt any ever will. The consequences of so plainly identifying fantasy races with actual races (in a one to one equivalency) would be immediate and problematic.
Culturally, any equivalents are also indirect. Cultural artifacts or practices will suggest possible equivalences but the suggestion falls short of a mandate. Thankfully, canon sends mixed cultural messages that defy an easy X = Y. It is possible to frame any number of, often mutually exclusive, cultural "definitions." Again, any thought to "canonize" any Greyhawk culture in a one to one relationship with a real world culture is wrong-headed in its essence.
Those who become "offended" by treatments of fantasy races or cultures have a heavy burden to shoulder for they must demonstrate that (a) the fantasy race or culture equates to a real world race or culture to such a significant degree that commentary on the one necessarily imagines or allows for a comment on the other, and (b) assuming the equivalency, the comment is (i)necessarily derogatory with respect to the real world race or culture, (ii) while lacking any justification or anticedent in terms of the fantasy race or culture that cannot be better explained or understood. That it is still possible to legitimately imagine such offense strongly councils against any attempt to draw X = Y equivalents or correspondences, to say nothing of maintaining a "fantasy."
This said, Greyhawk is rife with cultural "steals" from real history. Arguably, this is all but inevitable but Greyhawk does it so obviously that it cannot but be accounted intentional in a way that also intends that you recognize the steal as an obvious and intentional one. Greyhawk winks at you as it steals various real world cultural artifacts and practices. This in no way detracts from the setting but rather lends it, IMO, part of its unique character and charm.
It thus becomes all the more important, IMO, that any yearning to create a racial/cultural matrix of X=Y be assiduously avoided. A wink is one thing. An elbow to the ribs or a kick to nads is quite another. There is the question of maintaining a "fantasy" but there is the very real possibility of offending someone the more any "winking steal" becomes a "elbowing adoption," which substitutes the adoption for imagining a fantasy. It is certainly a fine line.
The better question to me is not does X=Y but rather how can X be developed to make something both interesting and uniquely Greyhawk. A one to one, X = Y is problematic on multiple fronts and a lazy substitute for actually imagining a uniquely Greyhawkian fantasy, IMO. Once again, it is a fine line.
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