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

>>37843250
Are you going for murica or Native American mayanintec things? It's sort of unclear from your post. I'm not even sure whether they knew about iron if you're going for Native American things.

>>37843250
So, just to clarify: You don't want ANY European imports into North America? Because many things, like horses, cattle, and wheat, became absolute staples in Native American societies, and radically altered their makeup. Most of their traditions that are documented are after the introduction of European products, and cannot be divorced from them (i.e. Comanche and Apache raider societies).

Also, corn isn't a very good staple crop, despite its usefulness today: it is high maintenance and difficult to digest, so you didn't get a whole lot of nutrients from it compared to wheat, sorghum, rice, etc. Don't get me wrong, it's better than nothing, and rather tasty, but it's much more of a supplemental food than a staple today. If it were actually capable of sustaining major civilizations, then it would have done so. The reason major settled agricultural societies never truly took off (apart from a few locations) is because they physically weren't capable of subsisting on New World crops alone. That's why they were primarily nomadic and/or hunter-gather societies until the introduction of Old World crops and livestock, because there wasn't any one crop that kept them put in one place.

The horse lived in the Americas well into human colonization, it just was driven extinct. That said, there are bones that suggest remnant populations could have survived into much more recent eras than the several thousand years ago the majority would have died off.

Just pointing out that you *could* have horses, if you really wanted to, just make sure that it's explained that they aren't at all common or whatever. If you wanted.

>>37844415
About European influences, this guy is really right, I think the idea of cowboys was created by either the native tribes or South American Mexico people. You could pass the European influences off as "gifts from the gods/angel/spirit/freaky dudes"

Corn originally only had like 20 kernels on a cob, yeah, we have always had genetic engineering, even before we had the name.

>>37843250
You might want some American myths/legends to throw around, some are native american-ish, others are less so. (like the jersey mothman).
http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/myths-legends/

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>>37844483
Not the domesticated horse. The domesticated horse arose from (i believe?) central Asia, and spread like wildfire throughout Eurasia/Africa because of its incredible usefulness to humans. All modern horse breeds are descended from that original ancestral breed. Given the incredible ingenuity of the human race, if the New World proto-horse was of any value to humans, it would have been domesticated if that was possible (Domestication is an extremely tricky and finicky process. Not just any animal can be domesticated). It's kind of like an Arctic Wolf and a Labrador Retriever: Yeah, they're related, but they're completely different animals when it comes to temperament, personality, and usefulness to humans.

Also, a wendigo, because you can't do a North American worldbuilding without these scary fucks

>>37844361

Mostly Native American stuff, with the mayan/aztec stuff could be a far off and scary distant civ, though I'd make them more different then just basic Aztecs.

>>37844415

No, some 'exports' are fine, but this setting isn't meant to imply there is a weird new world that is Europe, the American native stuff is just normal for this setting.

>>37844415
>>37844585

Besides corn, what other Native American crops would you recommend? Cultures can still be highly hunter/gatherer but I'd like a few more agricultural societies to fill in some tiny bickering fiefdoms and so on. There can be some stuff but I want the general 'feel' to be very North American style, especially in the landscape, animals, food and so forth.

>>37846605
Potatoes, that shit is amazing, other than that, I got nothin, go do some research on Wikipedia man.

>>37846693

I didn't really think potatoes were native though?

Does anybody else have any ideas for American based setting?

>>37846833
No they were, then they were given to Ireland. The Mayans grew them in pyramids to make more use of the land, sideways and up ways.

>>37846833
Potatoes are from South America, so they're the closest you can get, in fact. Just say they're originally an import from that scary and weird south, but their value was soon discovered, which could have launched the development of those city-states.

Though I think potatoes might be so effective they might threaten to put nomadic culture to an end.

>>37846862
>>37846924

Wow, that's the opposite as to what I had originally thought! I thought they came from Ireland/Europe, but that certainly works then.

Any good livestock choices to add to these societies? Remember that it is fantasy, so there could be things like domesticated buffalo and stuff, though I'm thinking Turkeys are a good example, as well as Alpacas for the more mountainous parts of the land.

>>37846975
I guess that idea might come from the pretty well-known Irish potato famine, which caused the death of abut 25% of their population and launched largish exodus into the USA.

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North American fantasy sucks shit, go with South American, you got giants in the land of fire and stuff like this, this shit writes itself.

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>>37847142

It's less about North American myth or based on the culture, more just based on the landscape and stuff.

>>37846975
Well IRL the bison (many types incorrectly called as buffalo) was plentiful and the largest animal in the region so that'd be an obvious choice for fantasy domestication. Sadly North American fauna is not my strong suit so someone else will have to advice.

>>37846975
Llamas, they are from South America and these can become your staple animal, the only thing they aren't good for is riding and heavy duty animal power

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>>37847189
>more just based on the landscape and stuff.

So you want mountains and plains?

>>37847298

Yeah. The basic plants that could be used as crops, animals, some other basic ideas for landscapes and such. Like the Coyotes Gnolls and some mother earth stuff. But not everything has to be based on it or true to it, as I said. This is the same thing as how fantasy Europe is only loosely related to real Europe. Same thing, different continent.

>>37846605
Potatoes, and a faux-wheat would be a good one, but have it be a "rarer" and more fragile crop that only wealthy societies can afford to raise, making it more limited.

For your societies, I'd go ahead and add in horses and cattle, just because those animals were EXTREMELY important to the native societies, and gave rise to the classic image of native warriors raiding settlements and armies on horseback and chasing down herds of buffalo. Just have them be "native" to the region. Llamas are okay, but they really don't do anything other than carry a pack, and they didn't disperse from the Andes because their usefulness was minimal at best outside of them.

There doesn't have to be a "Europe" in your world that granted them these things, but many European advancements radically altered (and empowered) the Native American societies, so much so that most of their known culture heavily involves them. You can't realistically divorce the two without rendering the Native Americans (with the exceptions of the Central/South Americans) down to simple hunter-gatherers, and take away much of what makes each society unique and powerful in its sphere of influence. I'd go ahead and keep as much of the European tech as possible, just make it "native."

>>37847414
Or could have giant dogs... dogs in this setting could do anything horses do, plus would they be the best as hunting animals while the Native Americans are riding them also they were used as pack animals

Plus they have tons of myths and stories about dogs since they were their only domesticated animals before the horse

>>37847414

Really useful answers and opinions, thank you.

However I would like to keep out those horses still, but put in a few things, like maybe wild American style hogs or something. I still want people to ride moose around. Actually not having horses is something I'd like, not just for the American theme but mostly because I dislike how everyone uses horses way to much in other fantasy. Give the foot soldiers a spotlight for once.

>>37847531
Are moose actually rideable (assuming one could be domesticated as mount)? I know big cats are not, because their spine cannot handle the load.

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>>37847650

They may more may be able to be ridden, but you can use fantasy logic to just say they can be.

>>37847650
Possibly, however Bison would make good endurance mounts.

This also opens up some new ideas for weaponry and stuff. Atlatls are pretty cool and underrepresented, but there wouldn't really be swords as far as I could tell, except for bronze swords. Might be cool to have the greenish Bronze swords as the most high warrior's weapon; or the Aztec Macuahuitl.

>>37847716
>>37847650
Didn't Teddy R. ride a bull moose?

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>>37848325
Just because you don't have metal doesn't mean you can't have swords

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>>37848534

Right, that's the idea.

The only issue is if I want to introduce Warriors and Paladin types to my game (and I do) there needs to be a kind of armor for them. Do you think some kind of bark/wooden armor is acceptable; such as this banded leather thing + wooden bits in pic related? Or maybe some kind of rough bronze armor could work too?

>>37848325
Macuahuitl may not have been made of metal, but they were still pretty fucking metal. Apparently they regularly decapitated horses with them.

>>37848595
Cloth armor was actually quite effective at stopping most weapons, including arrows and swords (to an extent). It was so effective that the Spanish often adopted them on their foot soldiers when dealing with natives (except the Aztecs, because their obsidian swords shredded the armor), because they were much lighter and offered almost the same level of protection as steel armor (except when shot by muskets, but that wasn't much of a problem at the time).

>>37848708
Indeed they did. They were pretty fucking effective weapons....except against metal armor, like the Spanish had.

>>37848744
Well, Europe isn't a thing in OPs setting so, no problem. Also, if you need some foreign not! Culcture, usually web for europem fsntasy, use the Polynesian islands or something

>>37846975
Caribou/reindeer are herded by the inuit people to this day.

So they're an option.

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>>37848708
>>37848744

Awesome, thanks for the help guys. I'm really enjoying the idea of swordsman having the corroded green swords like the Statue of Liberty. Cloth armor and animal hides are used for shields. Bows, spears, and Atlatls are the primary weapons of war, with swords and tomahawks as common conventional weapons and some other strange outliers.

>>37848779

I don't use no!cultures in my games. I like to use some basic ideas for a culture, incorperate real world ideas that make sense, and then give in to the fantastic. But I appreciate the thought.

>>37848863
Well, as in th attitude for the foreign culture, like how fantasy europem treats not asia

>>37843250
> This thread
Not free enough/10

You gotta include bison-minotaurs, eagle-folk or at least eagle-mountain lipn griffons, grizzly folk, scar as shit northern cold monsters...so much shit you need, bruh. Don't forget about those cool-ass stone cities built into plateaus in the midwest. There's lots of neat myths about the rocky and Appalachian mountains.

Sweet-ass indian names like fucks-the-bison and masturbates-with-corn and stuff like that would be neat too.

Native americans would make sweet druids too, now that I think about it.

Also, don't forget about the constant infighting the indians had between each other - tribes fought each other day in and day out. There were exceptions when treaties were made, big ones, but it wasn't too common.

>>37848994
>-folk

fuck you and everything you stand for

>>37848863
>I don't use no!cultures in my games.
>I just use real cultures as a base for my world.

Same thing, douche

>>37849032
Not the same thing at all, actually.

>>37849023
What else should I call them, Anon? I hate the term too, but I thought it'd get my point across.

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Rare thunderbird sightings.

>>37849085
humans only, final destination.

>>37849057

I've been monitoring these threads from the first one, and the guy (You?) is a douche trying to reinvent the wheel. Hasn't really done any reading and thinks he is just the epitome of original ideas.

You can always boil something down to a basic idea so if a basic idea for a fantasy culture is an existing culture, it's the same shit.

Use lamas, lots of uber-lamas.
theoretically if lamas migrated north and had good breeding accordingly, they could be mounts.

>>37849143
>they could be mounts.

lol no

>>37849032
>>37849057

I'll be honest when I say that it sounded a lot more like not!cultures then I meant.

I legit do not use not!cultures. I do steal aesthetics or weird myths or laws, but most of my cultures tend to be fairly unique. Which is what I like because it lets people really embrace the fantastic.

>>37849164
>but most of my cultures tend to be fairly unique

Everything in human art have been derivative in one way or another for hundreds of years.

>>37849130
>(You?)

No.

And there's a significant difference between just copying a real world society and transplanting it out of contest and cramming it to a fantasy setting and, say, trying to develop a culture appropriate for said setting.

What the OP said he wants to do is get an idea for what his culture looks like at a broad level, and then draw in ideas from real world examples of societies in similar situations to try to get a hold of what his would look like. While this process can churn out a shitty result, the end goal is to make an organic constructed culture appropriate to the world, with real world inspiration for realism, but not necessarily copying any real cultures outright.

>>37849187

Hence why I said 'fairly unique' and not 'im a worldbuilding master and all shall bow before my uniqueness and creativity'.

Don't be such a faggot about it.

>>37849143
Llamas would be terrible mounts. They don't take riders well AT ALL, and don't have the back to support a lot of weight in a single place like a saddle. All they can be used for is pack mules, and they're really not even that great at that.

>>37849235
>>37849238

There is nothing wrong with being derivative, but the more you deny it, the more pretentious your work will feel.

Frankly I like the idea but if you don't get over yourself you aren't going to create anything interesting.

It's not about who did it first, but who did it best.

>>37849304
>There is nothing wrong with being derivative, but the more you deny it, the more pretentious your work will feel.

Uh, there's a shitload wrong with being derivative. It's one of the worst things about the hobby.

>>37849357
>Uh, there's a shitload wrong with being derivative.

Name one work of art that isnt derivative in one way or another made after the 16th century.

>>37849304

You ASSUME what were are talking about is derivative. The only one being pretentious here is you.

For example; take my Green Spiral Shaman group. They are a mix of a eco-terrorist, religion and government all in one. They love fertility and nature, but they don't worship nature so much as they do fertility. For example a druid would see a desert or tundra and see a delicate but good ecosystem. The Green Spiral guy would just see a wasteland. They want so much food to be open and available that they can just throw it on the side of the road, starting the cycle anew as the food rots and so on. They also hold tree people as the greatest race because they are the closest to nature and stuff. Their magic users; Shamans; use their magic to improve and repair human and animal fertility as well as farms and stuff too.

What culture is this being derivative of? I never claimed to have made it all up and be oh-so-creative, but I'm not ripping off anything either.

>>37849357

If you were trying to publish it, yeah, sure.

But let's face it, you're not making this for anyone but yourself and a few friends. If you seriously think this shit is going to develop into anything else, you're delusional.

>>37848744
>Cloth armor was actually quite effective at stopping most weapons

What did the native Americans even make cloth out of?

>>37849418

>The point

>Your head

I can tell from your idea of originality though that this conversation is only going to go one way.

Eco terrorist druids that revere tree-people? Fuck me, I've never seen that before.

I'll just shut up because I really wasn't trying to make you defensive, just introspective.

>>37849395
All work is derivative. It's impossible to create something truly unique because your mind is entirely comprised of information drawn from the past. It's impossible to know something truly unknown. That's true.

On the other hand, do we really need more fucking fantasy settings where someone sits down and is like "alright boys, here's my idea. It's dwarves, but instead of being dwarves that are like scottish people, they are dwarves from china instead. They have Chinese accents and like Chinese things instead of Scottish things. Maybe they even drink beer. What a crazy idea!"

That's so fucking lazy and stupid. There's nothing wrong with trying to go for something more original, but actually analyzing historical how's and why's, and then trying to create a more unique and interesting culture than what you usually get from your run of the mill heartbreaker.

>>37849437
I'm not the OP, but why does that the fact that I make cultures for fun mean I should stick to being uninspired and blatantly derivative? I love historical analysis, but since I'm not a professional historian making up constructed cultures is a really satisfying for me. Is there something inherently wrong with that?

>>37849512

>I can tell from your idea of originality though that this conversation is only going to go one way.
>Eco terrorist druids that revere tree-people? Fuck me, I've never seen that before.

That's the thing, I never said it was totally original, but there is a spark of a twist in it. The eco terrorist dudes that hate deserts just as much as cities? The ones who waste food? The ones who love to make farms so overproductive as to create tons of waste because they love to reveal in fertility and excess of nature? That's not the most generic thing in the world, I can tell you that much right now.

>>37849512

Where have you ever even seen Eco Terrorist people who worship or revere tree people? Tree people are pretty fucking rare in general.

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>>37849605

better to be interesting than original and your boring druid culture a shit

>>37849745

>Post my idea to give example of a not!culture that isn't 100% totally bland and boring
>don't claim to be epitome of originality
>put myself out there to emphasis a point
>'your boring druid culture a shit'

Nice meme.

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>>37843250

Does that mean replace all Wizards with crazy ass Medicine Men?

>>37847189
>>37847298
God damn look at all that majesty. I need to go on an adventure. Damn flat suburbs.

>>37848994
Don't be a furry, The Eagles of the Rockey Mountains should be more like the Eagles of the Misty Mountains, they are just intelligent HUGE FUCKING EAGLES.

>>37850096
This is why American invented National Parks. They are fantastic.

>>37849859

How would native American style magic work anyway? Just boring druid + shaman stuff and healing I'd imagine.

>>37850213
Spirit journeys and shapeshifting, from the North Americans to the Aztecs, spirit journeys and shapeshifting are important. Astral visions, spirit communing, and dream journeys are present in their mystical traditions. You also have things like skinwalkers and a werejaguars.
Aztec magic places a good deal of value on cursing people, and it can include giving the Evil Eye, stealing their soul away to the dream world, poisoning them, or, hell, just murdering the person. Everyone has a spirit animal, and you generally need a dream vision quest to find out yours. Somewhere in the world dwells -your- specific spirit animal, your naguel, but once you know what that is, you can go find one. Hunt that critter and kill it, then cook it and eat it. You need its power. You're gonna use the rest, too. Make pouches from its... pouches, weapons from its claws, etc. The real world and the spirit world are both your weapons, Aztec witch.

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No contributions, just came to say this has been a great thread so far. Keep it up, fellas!

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This shit becomes the new dagger as a side arm.

>>37843250
This happened once. Maybe you can steal something from here? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?252218-The-Dominion-of-the-New-World-A-Mythic-American-Steampunk-for-Legend-(WIP-PEACH)

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>>37851261

>Has steampunk in the title

>>37851316
Don't be that way.

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You should include something akin to kachinas. Spirits that embody all sorts of things. Basically if you want magic, you have to appease a kachina first so they can do the magic through you. This appeasement would likely be a material offering as well as some sort of ritual while dressed as the specific spirit you want to summon.

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Who needs horses?

>>37851608
I mean, horses could be controlled/tamed by whatever magics the people wield. Instead of clerics belonging to the Totally-Most-Definitely-Not-Catholic Church they could be Totally-Not-Medicine men who travel and provide such services to the people

>>37851660
fuck, I meant buffaloes or any other American critter that resist taming by mundane means

OP you should include extinct north american animals for some good variety.

Like the horse.

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>>37851660
>>37851683

As I said earlier in the Thread; Moose riders. They can even have decorated horns and stuff, tied with a few spirit fetishes and cool shit like that.

>>37843250
Oh, man, this is great!

Some things to think about:

Tribe just means "group of clans." It's a way of organizing societies based on descent, not a true form of government. So some tribes were democracies, some were oligarchies, and some were monarchies. Usually leaders were chosen by groups of elders, but not every tribe was ruled by a chief.

The Northeast coast was run by competing groups of tribes that built moderately sized cities.

There were some fairly large nations and cities before the plague wiped out 90% of natives.

The Iroquois Confederacy was one of the most powerful groups around, formed from the joining of six nations. It had influence from New England and Canada all the way to Ohio. It was a democracy in which all decisions were made by consensus. As in, everyone talked until *everyone* came to an agreement. There is no tyranny of the majority there, though people would usually relent rather than be obstinate.

East of the Mississippi and West of the Plains, people largely relied on agriculture, not hunting.

Coastal areas tend to have folk stories and legends about the sea. You should absolutely play that up.

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>>37851804
>The Northeast coast was run by competing groups of tribes that built moderately sized cities.

Really? Made out of what exactly? The only thing I can think of for Native American cities is this sort of thing, and even this isn't that big.

And I appreciate the tribal info. Basically what I want this setting to feel like is if you give your character a 'generic' backstory; instead of being a little farmer boy that went off to go adventuring, you'd be a little tribal boy instead. That's the basic idea.

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>>37851754
Ground sloths were really big, and in a fantasy world that means that they eat people.

>>37851783
mooses are fucking terrifying. They're like cats, but 12 feet tall and with giant ass horns and super strength

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>>37851846
Wood, also look up mound builders and Cahokia.

>>37851877

That's one problem though; where did they get their food? What did the cities make or do that necessitated them being so damn huge?

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>>37851850
that's the worse ground sloth i've ever seen!

>>37851908
They farmed. The Americas, even in the midwest, have a long history of farming. This is going off of what I remember from a one week summer course in midwest history, but there were periods of settled agricultural communities around the great plains along rivers that were considerably large.

Cahokia was concurrent with European settlement of North America, about 40000 when Philadelphia was founded. But the diseases introduced by the European settlers spread faster than they did. By the time Europeans reached the plains and saw the natives there they found the remnants of the settled, agricultural society who had taken to nomadism as horses spread to the region.

>>37851948
Not only did the Americas have ground sloths, but we had a family of proto-horses, lions, cheetahs, giant armadillos, mammoths, camels and dire wolves. I'm glad that they are all extinct due to climate change or over hunting, but they could be interesting to include in an Americas based setting.

Domesticated proto-horses or buffalo to serve as oxen, coupled with some fictional sort of supercorn and super potatoes would be good tools for allowing more consistent, larger scale agriculture allowing larger, established nations to develop.

>>37851846
>>37851908
Cities were basically regional trading hubs and centers of agriculture, just like in the Old World. Mostly constructed of wood, some were the seats of expansionistic empires, and some were simply large trading posts.

The region east of the Mississippi has a long history of advanced agricultural practices. I remember reading colonial accounts in which European colonists marveled at how certain trees just seemed to grow near each other, and large patches of berries and ample clearings for corn made it seem like God had left the way for them.

In reality, the natives had planted groves for lumber and blackberry bushes for food, but those tribes were wiped out by European diseases. Native agriculture was pretty advanced, though they didn't go for field after field of a single crop.

And don't forget that, aside from hunting and agriculture, different tribes had different goods ranging from pottery and baskets to products from the sea.

>>37852073
Bro, thanks for the info, but I already know all about glyptodonts and shit.
In elementary school, when Beast Wars was on TV, I drew some extinct-mammal transformers. The Glyptodont was a good transformer with a spear and shield.

>>37852073

Well, some of these will certainly explain where Warriors can get their armors/weapons from. But I'm not sure how much I want to scare the fuck out of my players making them think there could be a Megaledon in those waters.

>>37852269
>But I'm not sure how much I want to scare the fuck out of my players making them think there could be a Megaledon in those waters.

It's fine, the bay is perfectly safe to cross so long as it's daylight and the morning has no fog.

>>37849605
>The eco terrorist dudes that hate deserts just as much as cities?
Forest druid thinks a desert is cursed? SHOCKER!

>>37849724
>Eragon Elves

>>37852552

Have you seen any that want to terraform it so they can grow ultra farms there? And then waste more food there? And create magically potent compost they can use to rapid-cast their spells and create new fertile territory in otherwise barren places?

Once again, it isn't the most original idea in the world, but it's not the most unoriginal idea either. I just want my setting to mix it up a bit.

>>37844585
> I think the idea of cowboys was created by either the native tribes or South American Mexico people

In the Americas they're a spanish thing. Basically Spanish cowherders transplanted to the Americas. And hunter-gathering apparently included land management and reclaimation techniques, so it's anything but a primitive way of life.

>>37852664
You should include themes of mortality with these people as well. Deserts are areas where there isn't life, right, so are corpses. If the best thing to do with something that isn't alive would be to make it alive, the natural prerogative of these druids could be to make everything dead to come back to life, and to host more life.

You could get fun things like crazy zombie/tree/spirit monstrosities.

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Wooden armor seems a fair trade for Warrior types. Instead of just giving them a - to dexterity or whatever (since that isn't really that realistic) you could give them a weakness to fire instead; a special kind of trade off as Wizards and monsters and clever fighters use fire all the time.

>>37846605
>crops
The three sisters, corn, beans, and squash.
>plant them together
>corn grows a stalk
>beans grow up the stalk
>squash keeps the ground moist
Scatter your leftovers out in the woods in stockpiles and check up on them whenever you have the time.

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Heres some pacific northwest wooden armor

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>>37852823

What is this style of dress even called? If the setting is going to be full of it a good name should be present.

>>37846605
>corn
I don't know where he's getting the idea that corn wasn't a staple. Yeah, potatoes and beans were important crops, too, but quite a lot of natives survived on corn. There is a myth about it not being very nutritious, with people claiming that we don't digest very much of it. It's actually only the outer shells of the kernels that we can't digest, with everything else being perfectly fine.

>>37852937
Feelin' Fancy threads.

Or just leather clothing.

>>37843250
Another thing to remember is that the indigenous people of the Americas did not domesticate animals.

At all.

Like, ever.

The only domestic animals they had were dogs, and aside from sled dogs they didn't really do much with them.

To the Indians, animals were revered. Not in some bullshit hippy dippy way, but in a, "that motherfucker will maul you to death if you don't treat it with respect," kind of way. Animals are not things to be owned, but rather brothers to mankind, on whom we feast and who will feast on us in return. You respect their power, their cunning, and their abilities.

If you managed to gain a moose mount, it's an equal partnership, not domination.

>>37852937
Buckskin?
Also, the head thing is called a roach for some reason. I have no idea why.

There's actually 2 legit civilizations that existed in the US (not just hunter gatherer tribes). They both farmed, traded, spread their culture, built cities, and left behind monuments.

The Missisipian Culture, best known for building huge burial mounds and earthworks. Their culture/religion was based mostly on war (beheading is a common theme), and had lots of falcon imagery. They had a game called chunkey played in massive arenas with lots of gambling.

The Pueblo (aka Anasazi) is even cooler. They're the ones who built all those awesome cliff-cities carved into canyons and forts on top of mesas. They're a very peaceful contrast to most native american tribes: they built homes in cliffs to be safe from the more warlike tribes. Their pueblo "great houses" were like huge stone apartment buildings up to 3 stories tall. The stone/cliffside architecture was designed to stay cool, and they seem to have had pretty advanced knowledge of how the sun moves. Their religion was centered around "kivas", circular stone pits of various radius and depth, dug into the ground and then covered. Some kivas might have been so sacred that only holy people could enter. They built massive roads 30 feet wide and hundreds of miles long, which may have had a ceremonial purpose as well as being used for trade.

I don't think agriculture is very important to an rpg, but corn should be good enough for everything, supplemented by domesticated turkey, fishing, and hunting. Missisipians lived mostly off of corn. Puebloans grew corn, squash, and beans.

I think the biggest difference from a European fantasy setting is probably gonna be religion. Put a lot more focus on animal spirits. Rituals will probably include dancing, drums, animal costumes, etc. Religion also tended to be a bit bloodier in the Americas: more warrior and hunter themes, and even human sacrifice in some tribes (both of the enemy and within the tribe).

>>37849528
>hating Chinese dwarves

Holy shit, you're the no-fun allowed faggot from the Western thread!

>>37853108

So they did domesticate animals, just not very many of them. Which makes sense; domestication was a very Bronze Age thing, and the Native Americans were only just getting to that point.

>>37853225
Not really. The moose thing is just a fantasy possibility. They didn't domesticate.

>>37853248

Except for dogs. Dogs count as domesticated animals because, well, they're dogs and not wolves.

>>37853260
Some had domesticated dogs but not all. A lot of the tribes that deSoto encountered in Florida and Southern Georgia appeared to have not domesticated dogs because they were terrified of them beyond reason when encountering them. Of course, this grew gradually more reasonable after the third time he fed natives alive to his dogs.

>>37853132
I would go ahead and steal all the biggest weird shits and pile them together.
Competing factions building mounds and nazca lines, trying to alter the flow of earth power. Cliffside cities protected from their warlike neighbors by trained dancers in masks that fire off arrows that bring lightning, rain, and thunder upon their foes. Bunch of raiding not aztecs turning into leopards and capturing people for blood sacrifice. Snowy plains/ice floes dudes up north building killer assassin golems out of animal bones and turning into wendigos if they eat family member flesh. Coyote, Iktomi, and Raven all hang out and get smashed together (Raven's the responsible one, Iktomi's the plan guy, and Coyote's the sex fiend.) and fuck shit up. White Buffalo Woman will still burn all your flesh if you try and sneak a peek.
Hell, give them a reasonable protohorse and toss in the later Apache and Crow, anachronistic as that is.

>>37853132
Most tribes in the US were not hunter gatherer tribes. Especially East of the Mississippi, agriculture was supreme.

Other civilizations that weren't hunter-gatherers:

Powhatan, Iroquois, Wampanoag, all of the West Coast Indians.

Well OP, from what I've gleaned from this thread, your campaign setting should have the following themes:

-A wild landscape, untamed and full of beasts that will eat you if you aren't careful, and care is tantamount to respect.

-A world full of mysticism and inscrutable natural wonders. Really emphasize the fact that you are tiny men in a huge and mysterious world. Man is taming the world, but it is slow-going.

-Low-technology setting, with a few quirks: Buildings are relatively advanced, but no real metal to speak of. Name your materials accordingly.

>>37853345
To build off this, from what I understand hunter gathering only took off in the Americas because horses were introduced and everyone started getting killed off by diseases.

When white settlers moved into the country they were basically stumbling into the American post apocalypse.

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>>37853177
somebody made and posted this in that thread.

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>>37853375

>>37853177
Wow, my original intention was to make fun of the guy talking about how he wanted Inca dwarves, so I thought of something even more stupid and substituted Chinese.

I should have known.

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>>37853353

OP here, as I said at the start of the thread, the game is going to be natively themed, not necessarily natively dominated or everything is indian. I don't want the game to be 'Redskins, the game' but instead a fantasy world with American themes and vistas instead of european ones. But yes this thread has been awesome so far and you guys are awesome.

Also everyone in the setting is still white even if it is not European themed as much as other games are.

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What about semi-domestic deer?

At least one tribe could have it. Imagine a fat deer being fed up by humans for later eating. It'd be weird but what other regular or fantastic animals could be used for livestock instead?

>>37853786
Deer aren't worth it for how much effort it is to keep them. Compared to a cow they need more room to run around, are much less docile, and you get far less meat out of them. Beef is so popular because cows just naturally make good livestock.

>>37853817
>because cows just naturally make good livestock.

...After years of human domestication and selective breeding have made them that way.

>>37853996
Woah, slow down there partner, are you suggesting that this fantasy world might have different domesticated animals in it?

You guys are missing the best part of using 'murica as a setting: This place can be inhospitable as fuck.

The US is home to Tornado Alley and Death Valley. It's home to yearly hurricanes and deadly winters. It's got deserts that stretch for miles upon miles, it's got plains that roll as far as the eye can see. Yellowstone is one of the world's most active supervolcanos. As near as 2000 years ago open lava fields were a part of Craters Of The Moon National Monument. Open fucking fields of lava. It looked like hell on earth.

Before Europeans came along it had massive flocks of carrier pigeons that would block out the sun and herds of buffalo that would take hours to stampede past. Wolves roamed the land in packs that could take down the mightiest hunter and the largest bears in the world roamed its northern fringes (and still do).

Before Paleoindians megafauna roamed the land, sloths the size of elephants and giant camels grazed to their heart's content.

Culture is not the only cool thing about north America, this place is unique as hell.

>>37854092
They say before europeans happened, a squirrel could get onto a branch on a maine shoreline and jump from tree to tree all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi.
Place and scenery will be an important element.

I always thought that Amish culture worked really well for halflings. Mayflower pilgrims would also make good halflings.

>>37852823
>Wooden armor seems a fair trade for Warrior types.

They apparently had plenty of leather hoop armour between them. It's just that they dropped it rapidly once trade guns became available.

Also poisoned arrows and the general use of poison in hunting and fishery, another thing that was dropped because you can't poison led bullets effectively.

>>37854092
>Before Europeans came along it had massive flocks of carrier pigeons

Some say that those were the result of Europeans messing with American land management strategies.