Satires and references in Arcanum

I wasn't trying to insult your country. Just because Austrailia was a criminal island at one time has nothing to do with what it is now.
Try not to double post

 

It might be more accurate to say that the developers used realworld cultures as a basis for their races and racial interactions in Arcanum, rather than simply transplanting 'em.

 

Before I say anything else, I didn't mean to insult, and I apolgise if I did. I was thinking more of Imperial China & Japan when I connected the arrogance Asians ('Specially Ching China). And the Europeans at the time regarded much of the Asian Continent as Mysterious. The Silver Lady could be connected to a Chinese Emperor (like... difficult to get an audience). I dunno... I was grabbing for connections that arn't neccesarily there. Basically, this is an apology post. I'm really sorry If I offended, really.

 

another thing about asians and elves. i thought in early history asia was one of the most technologically advanced continents. the chinese invented firworks the first primitive "guns" and they made the first rocket launcher things/explosive guns. elves are difinitely not technologically inclined.

also this isnt really a comparison to the real world, maybe just a fualt the designers made but...when u attack ristezze "he" sqeals like a woman

 

1. Whytechurch murders are obviously based on Jack the Ripper. As soon as I started the quest I thought so. Killing prostitutes in the most bloody ways was what Jack did.

2. The Isle of Despair is based on the brittish penal colonies in Australia. I am an aussie so I know. The isle even looks like the typical Australian geographical sterotype; Arid.

3. The Melokaan or Bedokaan (They've been called both) are based on the native americans. Quite obvious if you know ur history.

4. The stillwater giant is based on bigfoot (Duh..)

5. There are alot of aspects based on Nazi Germany, they have already been mentioned.

6. Shrouded hills is based on a western style mining town. Yee Haw!

Thats enuff for now. I could go on for ages but i wont.

 

It's all good dude. none taken. Actually, the point of my post, part of which you quoted, is in appreciation of being compared to the Tolkienese Elves.(not the Keebler) (and to increase my posts so I get something better than this Mace that I have right now.)

No need to apologize dude. All is well.

 

I don't think the Wilson comparison works. Willoughsby was eesentially an imperialist who wanted to forge a unified nation (the U.K. I felt) with the other society in order to benefit his own. The League of Nations was a looser treaty confederation designed to prevent war, or any other war on the level of WWI, which truly decimated Europe.

 

The Pinkertons were murders & thieves. Read the history of the labor movement. Among other things those goons did was nail a church full of women & children shut, then light it on fire. Kentucky, 1930s?

Hardly. I am Jewish & proud of it. I am also amused & delighted by the Gnomish Conspiracy. I only wish that somewhere in the game there was a parody of "The Protocalls of the Elders of Zion".

The only reason you can say that is because we had the better laywers & our publicity agents kept the Jews out of the news when posible. Your side wanted the noteriety. Untill WWII, the Jews ran the mafia & let the Sicilians take the credit. Ask anyone other than a Jew or Itialian about this.

You forgot Dutch Schultz, the most psyco Jew in the Mafia.

You could point out that our administration is quickly turning into a gang of surrender monkeys. Or do you see our recent atempt at imperialism as fitting & proper? There is so much you can do to pull the leg of a southern fanboy, especialy this one who thinks that God votes Republican. Lay off the CSA. It is almost 150 years dead, & believe it or not, the south was right. And it was not about slavery.

 

well if you look at tolkin's books and many other fantasy books dwarves talk with scottish accents as well... and its easy to get that image in your head as you read the books, hence why dwarves are portrayed as scots on film... well in my oppinion at least...

 

Do they? I don't recall any instances of cliched Highland Scottish (such as so many bad writers give us) for Dwarves in the LotR: "Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!" doesn't convey any Scottish dialect or phrasing, Highland or otherwise. There are no expressions, or spellings used to indicate anything Scottish. Dwarven itself is again like no language remotely heard in Scotland: "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-mênu!" If anything, it looks vaguely Central European, with the sharp consonants and accents resembling Czech, Hungarian, etc. I honestly don't find anything Scottish in Tolkien's dwarves, aside from heartiness--and that can be ascribed to any number of peoples, traditionally.

The cliche about Scottish-sounding Dwarves seems largely IMO to have been an unfortunate development of the 1980s, when D&D really caught on, and invention in fantasy became supplanted (to an extant) by a rigid set of rules. All Elves had to sound and look like this; all taverns were incredibly friendly places where you can meet people you'd never spoken with before; all inhabitants lived in bizarrely clean Tudor villages and dressed in some generic 13th-17th century ubiquitous clothing; etc. The book companies, particuilarly TSR, that wanted to mass produce a certain type of book, literally hired dozens of hack authors to follow exactly their rules and turn out clone after clone of fantasy novels; and that's what gets a lot of the marketing attention (read: that's what TSR pays the book distribution chains for), today.

But if you'll read back to a lot of fantasy written from, say, 1900 through the 1970s, most authors who used elves, or dwarves, or fantasy in general built their own version of a world that hardly resembles the stuff on the bookstands, now. Lord Dunsany (who gave Tolkien a literary style by example, a hundred years ago) made Elves austere, selfish and magical. Thorne Smith's elves, the once or twice they appear, are sociable hellraisers with short tempers and a vast enjoyment for sex. Vance, one of the first major American authors to write what we might call standard fantasy (back in the 1950s; he left it after a decade, and returned amid much acclaim in the 1990s), created elves who were more Seelie-like: remote and powerful, alien from human concepts of logic and emotion, wholly of the element of air.

And Dwarves? Subterranean dwarf-style races show up in several authors' books before the 1980s, but if there's any general trend, then Central Europe, rather than Scotland, is the point of origin. In Pratt & De Camp's once famous Land of Unreason, a race of subterranean miners and industrial types are a partial and sinister parody of the Teutonic burgher mindset. Other fantasy writers made them vaguely Russian, or left out any realworld associations, altogether.

Sorry for the long peroration. But I think we tend to forget that it was modern book companies, not Tolkien, who created a lot of the bad fantasy stylistic conventions in use, today. Just like with animation, just like with rock music, as soon as some of the talented pioneers hit it big, the moneymakers moved in to churn out massive amount of third rate product. The association of the Dwarves with Highland Scots is one example of this, IMO.

 

Dwarves and Elves both originate in Scandinavian mythology.

Dwarves were small humans with beards and they lived in mines. They were allies of the gods and enemies of the giants, they made many artifacts that belong to the gods, including Mjolnir (Thor's hammer) and Gullinbursti (A golden boar). Many dwarves fought in Ragnarok (Viking armaggedon).

Elves were happy and festive race but they were alien to the humans. Thats all I really know about elves in their original form.

 

I've read through the extant Eddas, and I don't recall Elves showing up anywhere in them; nor were they happy or festive, or allied with humans. They were originally European (not always Celtic) spirits associated with various elements of nature--usually earth and air, but occasionally, water, as well, as in the Central/Eastern European Rusalka: water-based elvenkind who were extremely beautiful and lured men out at night to death by drowning. They could be benevolent, but only by being propitiated, as in the Domovoi of Kievan-Rus (modern Russian and Ukraine), who had to receive a gift of salt and bread left by the hearth before they agreed to look after the home. Otherwise, they would throw things around, attack and injure. My Ukranian grandmother used to leave out little offerings to the domovoi.

But for the most part, the elven spirits were mischevous or downright malicious. Many songs and stories remain from the Renaissance onwards of men deliberately lured into visiting the lands of the Elves, only to return, stark raving mad, years later.

True, dwarves were present in the Scandanavian legends, but not just there. Legends of Dwarven races that existed in mines can be found in peoples as diverse as the ancient Russians, the Czechs, the Inuits of Alaska and Northern Canada, and in Chinese mythology. Scandanavia may have furnished Tolkien with a starting point for the Dwarves; but it's hard to say. Tolkien hated discussing his books, and loathed modern urban society. He liked to be well-known, but he didn't like what came with it. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon how you look at it), he was spared the real blossoming of his international fame by death.

 

I said that the Elves were ALIEN to humans not ALLY. Elves were present in Viking mythology, but they were not like the usual Tolkienesque elves; they were more like fairies. Sometimes they were nasty and kidnapped children. In these cases they were often associated with trolls.

 

You also said they were a happy and festive race, and I know no indication of this, nor any presence of elves in the Eddas. I'm seriously interested in this, as I've used the Eddas to provide poetic schemas for my own work; so could you possibly provides some sources? Thanks.

 

Dark Elf, thanks. This part of the Norse religious/creation cycle just points to how varied and differently such fantasy fixtures today as elves and dwarves were viewed before TSR and similar publishers strait-jacketed the results. Hell, when I worked in a MMORPG, we even had a (very small) group of players who protested because our dwarves 1) spoke standard English, and 2) possessed a fully-worked out culture that differed drastically from these books. We were told we weren't authentic according to age-old tradition..! :roll:

 

In my writing, I use many of the "Tolkeinesque" fantasy races, at least in name. I do this because having too many unfamiliar names in a book (I have enough already) turns people off. Most readers don't want to have to remember that many race-names. But they are not the elves, dwarves, and orcs of Tolkien's work. My elves are fair, lithe, and magical, yes, but they are also less advanced than most humans (due to a heavier reliance on magic), warlike, and short. Some are wise and good, of course, but no more than other races. They are not "Good People." That's something I always disliked in Lord of the Rings; the fact that Elves were "Good" and Orcs were "Bad" with Dwarves and Men in between. Here each species has the full spectrum of "alignments."
In the world of Erdan (my fantasy world), Orcs are mountain dwellers, more primitive than the Elves (as a result of a nomadic lifestyle), and not much more violent than any other species (not races) in a midieval setting.
I use the term "species," because "race" denotes an ethnic division within the same sentient species. Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, etc, are clearly different species.
In Erdan, cross-species mating is possible, but ususally produces sterile offspring, like a mule. Therefore you don't see as large a number of half-breeds as in other fantasy worlds.

 

This is a little off-topic, but what about the names of locations on Arcanum?
Hardin's Pass=The pass of Caradaras (In the lotr)
Blackroot=The Blackroot vale (in the lotr)
Quintarra=Lothlorian lotr

Many, Many more, but I'm too tired to type them.