This is probably the least effectively applied cultural-analogy setting, certainly as far as D&D goes. The default version of this, "Maztica", was so awful that it was actually less well done than the Aztec-analogy in the Mystara Hollow-World setting, and that one was populated by evil pale-skinned elves!

And there really aren't any Inca or Maya settings at all.

Is this an untapped market?  Or just a market that has no audience?

Love the idea of a good setting book for that period or fantasy analogue.

Never be something I could put together for myself, I lack the background or time to do the research necessary to do it justice.

lol I wonder if I could convince Pete and Loz at DM to take a crack at it.

One of my favourites was the Spirit Warriors expansion book for the mecha minis game Mecha! which seems to have died out right after Spirit Warriors. An overall pre-columbian Aztec civilization transplanted to an aliens starsystem and given Aztec themed mecha to fight wars and supply the gods that brought them there with sacrifices.

Dragon issue 70 had the Mechica module which felt alot better than the Maztica setting book for FR.

Hollow world had the Sons of Azca but I didnt like it much.

Theres Gurps Aztecs apparently. Never seen so cant say how good it is.

Timemaster apparently has an Aztec themed module?

There's Totems of the Dead.  Technically it's Pre-Columbian Americas...of the Hyborean Age (with serial numbers filed off) .

I like this book...fantasy versions of real-world cultures generally make me cringe with embarrassment for the authors.

GURPS Aztecs is pretty good. (Though certainly not perfect. The cover artist took some liberties with historical and archaeological source material for example.) The rest are basically all b.s. Seems people aren't willing or able to do the necessary research for it and be sufficiently critical of simplistic, sensationalist or romanticized/hippie/New Age-infested sources. This is even worse when it comes to the Maya, where ignorance is pretty much the norm.

Quote from: HorusArisen;1021103Love the idea of a good setting book for that period or fantasy analogue.

Never be something I could put together for myself, I lack the background or time to do the research necessary to do it justice.

lol I wonder if I could convince Pete and Loz at DM to take a crack at it.

and I would buy it in a heartbeat. It would be Monster Island, the real world edition

Seriously, though, one of my favorite cultures that is desperately under utilized.

It would be great to have a quality book detailing Pre-Colombian civilization(I have been waiting for this for a long time). It would be a welcome addition to my gaming books...!!! There is some much there. The history, mythology could make for a fantastic book.

H:0)

The Aztec/Inca/Maya potential has really been overlooked.  There are so many other possibilities too.  The Anasazi mystery.  The Nazca Lines truth.  One could even work in the Bermuda Triangle and a whole lot of pirate lore.

I wrote Points of Light 2: The Sunrise Sea with four setting with a Age of Exploration theme. However I wrote them to be evocative of historical situations not a direct take like what the Pundit does. For example in Golden Shores the natives are similar to Bronze Age Mycenae Greeks. The Misty Isles more relies on pulp jungle adventure with a dash of Lovecraft and 17th century spice trade wars. The cultures in Amacui are closest to historical new world cultures. With the empire being a mishmash of Aztec, Mayan and Incan elements. And the coastal tribe like the Mayans after they abandoned the cities.

• The Golden Shores: A land in the midst of being colonized, where adventurers can encounter unknown cultures, old enemies, and battle a darkness that has haunted the land for millennia.
  
• Amacui: A frontier land with only a single trading post representing the civilized world, but there are many ruins to explore and new civilizations to discover.
  
• The Misty Isles: The greatest threat to exploration is not the natives or 'things man is not meant to know,' but enemies from the old world.  Here in the Misty Isles, enemies from different realms and factions fight amid the jungles and islands.
  
• Mazatl, the Realm of the Bat God: Rising from the vast Jungles of Zaracar is a massive shield volcano.  Here the blood god, Azartac, lives in the city of Mazatl in the volcano's caldera.
  

Based on larger media - i.e. books, movies, and comics - there seems to be little interest in pre-Columbian America as a setting, which is a shame. I ran a campaign which was technically alternate history pre-Columbian, but it did focus on Icelandic settlers in the Hudson river valley, starting in 1392. So it wasn't purely native. Still, there was a lot of action with the surrounding people and politics - with ongoing tensions between the encroaching Haudenosaunee and the various Algonquian states in the area.

I'd definitely be interested in a Mesoamerican or Andean setting. The problem is how to get player buy-in to a setting that is very unfamiliar to them. I think this can be difficult for North American players to connect to. At least with the Hudson river valley, there were familiar characters of those backgrounds from media in the colonial era - i.e. Squanto, Pocahantas, Powhatan,  Chingachgook, etc.

I'd be interested in people's ideas about how to make characters and adventures more accessible in an Andean or Mesoamerican game. For example, there's a historical fiction novel - Servant of the Underworld - set in the Aztec empire, that uses murder mystery genre tropes. I think I would try to connect a game in such a setting to a more familiar genre, but I'm not sure what.

Quote from: jhkim;1021388Based on larger media - i.e. books, movies, and comics - there seems to be little interest in pre-Columbian America as a setting, which is a shame.

Some interest. Apocalypto did pretty well both critically and financially. The Fountain has some magical Mayans meet trippy conquistador scenes and the Spanish film Even the Rain seems like it would have something useful for the period of first contact. And here's a list of 94 Aztec, Maya, and Inca novels.

North American Native Americans are pretty well represented, in comparison. But that isn't saying much. It's also often a homogenized Inuit, Sioux, or Iroquois pastiche.

Also, in practice, I've noticed that what at first is a fun travelogue for players quickly becomes rather alien to the point where they disengage. Human society can be organized in vastly different ways, and outside a few touchstone tropes people really just want to play modern cosmopolitan Ren Faire dress up. (Basically no one wants to give up the "Present"-ism mindset.) You see this especially with time period pieces, especially the European Middle Ages (a huge stretch of time). That's why I am curious about how people are receiving Lion & Dragon -- and whether they'll even try to employ its verisimilitude.

I, for one, would be all over that.

Although ideally what I'd want is a Mysterious Cities of Gold setting: Incas, conquistadors, El Dorado times seven, troglodytic "Olmecs", the lost civilizations of Mu and Atlantis, hints of an ancient nuclear war between them, and magitech. Admittedly I grew up with this on Saturday morning cartoons.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1021479North American Native Americans are pretty well represented, in comparison. But that isn't saying much. It's also often a homogenized Inuit, Sioux, or Iroquois pastiche.

I wonder how much of that is based on familiarity and the English monolinguism of many US citizens. And if we exclude Mexico, North Americans are generally somewhat familiar with the Indians of North America but not as familiar with those of Mesoamerica and pretty unfamiliar with the many tribes of South America.