Charali Racial Perspectives

[Sparkles]

We're what, 250 years in from the Consolidation? That's not long enough for a language to split. That's like the time depth between English dialects in England's far flung colonies. It's not really comparable to the fissioning of Latin into Romance languages as that occurred over a much longer time span and involved assimilating large and diverse pre-exisiting cultures.

Perhaps that was the wrong example to draw from. But that's bogging down the ultimate point. It could be imagined as how Colonial Spanish dialects became distinct from Continental Spanish or how Québécois French-Canadian is distinct from Parisian French.

I think Vavard certainly expanded greatly with the influx of Consolidation refugees, but there must have been a pre-existing presence they built on.

Why? When say ... the French settlers moved to Quebec IRL there wasn't a pre-existing French presence. So I'm confused by this argument?

Then why do Lithmorrans more closely physically resemble the Charalin than the Hillfolk?

Because ... that's what staff decided at some point in the past? I appreciate that we are trying to equate things here exactly with how RL genetics works but I don't think that really works here. And more aptly I think trying to push for head cannon to become the "real story" negates the point that there is a settled history for the game.

This isn't strictly the real world, and trying to force it to be seems like it's being seen as more important than maintaining the theme and story of the game.

[Yinadele]

Hello, Geras!!!

Sadly, that is incorrect. While I get that the real life climate-relation of genetic appearance may confuse you heavily, as it DEFINITELY doesn't correlate to real world skin color inheritance...



Here's a smaller version of the map, with a color overlay of what races spawned which.



Tubori colonists subjugated/formed Vandago.


Lithmorran colonists formed Vavard.


See the channel between the Daravi protectorate and Vavard? Remember that was once Charalin territory.



I totally get getting confused when looking at skin tones and hair colors because it doesn't make sense but... This is the historical connect.

[Geras]

Perhaps that was the wrong example to draw from. But that's bogging down the ultimate point. It could be imagined as how Colonial Spanish dialects became distinct from Continental Spanish or how Québécois French-Canadian is distinct from Parisian French.

That's a 400 year old split and Quebecois and Metropolitan French are definitely still very much mutually intelligible and not separate languages. I say that as someone who speaks fluent French.

Also love the maps Yinadele, but not sure what you mean by this:

While I get that the real life climate-relation of genetic appearance may confuse you heavily, as it DEFINITELY doesn't correlate to real world skin color inheritance...

What I'm trying to get at here is there's two ways of interpreting and world building around our setting. One gives us a deeper (thousands of years) pre-history, and one asks us to just suspend disbelief and say Lithmore's white for no reason whatsoever. I'd prefer the former.

[Yinadele]

Also love the maps Yinadele, but not sure what you mean by this:

While I get that the real life climate-relation of genetic appearance may confuse you heavily, as it DEFINITELY doesn't correlate to real world skin color inheritance...

oops, brain bupp
it should say

While I get that the in game climate-relation of genetic appearance may confuse you heavily, as it DEFINITELY doesn't correlate to real world skin color inheritance...

[Sparkles]

What I'm trying to get at here is there's two ways of interpreting and world building around our setting. One gives us a deeper (thousands of years) pre-history, and one asks us to just suspend disbelief and say Lithmore's white for no reason whatsoever. I'd prefer the former.

Except, I've literally never thought about it this way? The other option is ... we accept that we don't know everything and don't need to?

And that taking over the conversation on how to play Charali from the people who have largely played Charali seems a bit off.

[Geras]

And that taking over the conversation on how to play Charali from the people who have largely played Charali seems a bit off.

I don't think it's unreasonable to care about having consistent lore.

[wimple]

Keep in mind that the Indo-Europeans and Bell-Beakers are part of the same phenomenon as the Mongols. All these groups are steppe nomads. The Mongols are just the last major group of steppe nomads to arrive on the scene. The Indo-European expansion was the first wave of steppe nomads to span the Eurasian Continent, reaching from Spain to Mongolia, China and India.

I'm not thinking of them from the European context. To me, it's more broadly like the Mongols and China if anything else. However, any connections between the imagined realm of the game and real life is very loose and I do not expect it to follow any correct historical lines. Because of that, I'm not really interested in trying to dissect it with comparisons to real history in as detailed as a manner as it looks like you are - I don't think we're going to get that sort of consistency.

I really don't try to impose Charali interpretations on others. I play a very specific sort of Charalin. Most of the lore that has been infused in help files and the game, with the various interpretations, were made by a player that went by Wolfie on the forums. I really just following what he developed. If you search the forums here you can find a great deal of it, and it came from the idea that the Charalin were most definitely other. I've always played from that point of view.

I would say that between my 'eras' playing on the game, there has been some differences to helpfiles/theme that threw me off when I returned to the game, so there have been some things that have developed or changed that were a little jarring. I don't know if that info on the Daravi was or not. Like I said, through the Charalin religions I've seen more of the connection in-game, but any connections - some similarity in language, some similarity in say religius vocabulary (which goes with language, I suppose) - has been it. I don't think the help files are suggesting any super big connection or upending theme in any way. The suggestion that the Charalin are as central to Lithmore as has been suggested is frankly far more jarring to me and not my understanding of the relationship between the realms.

I thought the little connection between a group in the realm people don't know much about and the Daravi, another group that most players haven't interacted with, was a neat point of lore that people might not know, so included it in my perspective suggestion. It was just supposed to be a fun easter egg.

Edit to fix: Since it's come up - it's not a requirement to play a Charalin to have opinions on the Charalin, but Geras has had Charalin characters.