Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134998Medieval Portugal had African enclaves?

No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1134998But again, you say those "communities" existed, well how common were those diverse communities in Europe? Could you find an African everywhere? Or a Muslim? I know of Jews, expelled from their native land, and Muslims conquering, raping and pillaging Europe, so you could call those both diasporas, but you'd be wrong.

Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

 Look, I have a sense that you believe I'm claiming more diversity than I really am, at least in Europe. Prior to the early modern period, long distance trade was mostly in high value low volume luxury goods and Europe had little to offer, so to a large degree, Europeans formed enclaves elsewhere but there was little reason for non-Europeans to form enclaves in Europe. Non-Europeans in Europe consisted mostly of Jews, as well as some Arabs and North Africans in Spain and Italy. Aside from the Jews, who had well known trade enclaves in many cities, most of the ethnic trade enclaves actually *in* Europe consisted of Europeans in distant, ethnically-different parts of Europe. Hanseatic German enclaves in places like London, Bergen, Novgorod; Venetians and Genoese in Crimea etc., Armenians just about everywhere (although I guess Armenians could be considered Asian). I'm certainly not claiming that "you could find an African everywhere." (Some) European cities were more cosmopolitan than many people seem to think, but no they were not all abuzz with diversity. For that, you need to look just beyond Europe to places like Constantinople and Cairo.

And I guess further back in antiquity you have far-flung Greek and Phoenician diasporas as well. In any case, the trade diasporas have been a thing almost as long as cities have, and are a perfectly good model for introducing some cultural diversity in your setting without having everybody segregated in separate ethnic kingdoms. Random unexplained "diversity" in a setting may be a little unrealistic, but having all your polities be somehow ethnically pure is also unrealistic.

Quote from: S'mon;1135023I guess the Paleo-Eskimos all decided to commit collective suicide, then.

P-E show a pattern of regional extinctions every 500 years or so throughout their whole period of occupation, and across the arctic and those parts of the syntactic that they occupied - except for their Foxe Basin core area. Inherently unstable adaptation? Is that what you meant by suicide? Possibly, but in any case,  just as the P-E occupation of southern Greenland seems to have ended a bit before the Norse arrived, so in many places it seems to have ended before the Inuit arrived. There are late Dorset dates in a few places suggesting there could have been contact of some sort somewhere, but little real evidence for such contact.

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.


Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

 Look, I have a sense that you believe I'm claiming more diversity than I really am, at least in Europe. Prior to the early modern period, long distance trade was mostly in high value low volume luxury goods and Europe had little to offer, so to a large degree, Europeans formed enclaves elsewhere but there was little reason for non-Europeans to form enclaves in Europe. Non-Europeans in Europe consisted mostly of Jews, as well as some Arabs and North Africans in Spain and Italy. Aside from the Jews, who had well known trade enclaves in many cities, most of the ethnic trade enclaves actually *in* Europe consisted of Europeans in distant, ethnically-different parts of Europe. Hanseatic German enclaves in places like London, Bergen, Novgorod; Venetians and Genoese in Crimea etc., Armenians just about everywhere (although I guess Armenians could be considered Asian). I'm certainly not claiming that "you could find an African everywhere." (Some) European cities were more cosmopolitan than many people seem to think, but no they were not all abuzz with diversity. For that, you need to look just beyond Europe to places like Constantinople and Cairo.

And I guess further back in antiquity you have far-flung Greek and Phoenician diasporas as well. In any case, the trade diasporas have been a thing almost as long as cities have, and are a perfectly good model for introducing some cultural diversity in your setting without having everybody segregated in separate ethnic kingdoms. Random unexplained "diversity" in a setting may be a little unrealistic, but having all your polities be somehow ethnically pure is also unrealistic.

You could have some unexplained diversity, but a public reaction can be expected if a black person suddenly shows up in a white European neighborhood. A good example of the opposite of this, take a look at the show Once Upon A Time, for some unexplained reason both Merlin and Lancelot were black, and everybody just accepted this with no questions asked. In 21st century Storybrooke, this is perfectly fine, but don't expect this from a medeaval village!

Quote from: TJS;1135018The city of Atil around 800 AD would make a great cosmopolitan setting.  (For a better game than D&D).

WOW!! I never heard of the city of Atil. That's awesome. Thank you!

That would make an excellent setting piece.

Quote from: Blankman;1135024I'm not familiar enough with Elric to say (I've only read two of the stories, not a big fan of Moorcock's style), so maybe.

I'm an Elric and Moorcock fan and I can confirm the Young Kingdoms aren't medieval or historically inspired. It began as a thought experiment by Moorcock to subvert and rebel against all the tropes of Conanesque fantasy and grew into its own cohesive creation. If anything, the Young Kingdoms are grounded in "unreality" and exist more as parts within a dream. The "fantasy world as dream" is even more apparent in his Corum saga.

Quote from: Blankman;1135024The earliest incarnations of D&D resembled another time of history than medieval Europe far more anyway. The American Wild West. Vast tracts of empty land, settlers coming in, somewhat isolated towns, raiders preying on travelers etc. Probably helped by everyone involved in the creation being from the Midwest too.

Didn't REH re-write some of his fantasy stories as westerns in order to sell them to different pulp magazines? I've heard that story before.

QuoteI'm not familiar enough with Elric to say (I've only read two of the stories, not a big fan of Moorcock's style), so maybe. Discworld? Definitely not.

Over the past few years I've read a large number of pulp magazines, not just the fantasy ones but the mystery and adventure ones like Argosy. I was surprised how close those old adventure stories resembled the tone and pacing of classic sword and sorcery. They are also close to the Elric stories which are basically Victorian-era pulp adventures with magic instead of guns.

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.


Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

 Look, I have a sense that you believe I'm claiming more diversity than I really am, at least in Europe. Prior to the early modern period, long distance trade was mostly in high value low volume luxury goods and Europe had little to offer, so to a large degree, Europeans formed enclaves elsewhere but there was little reason for non-Europeans to form enclaves in Europe. Non-Europeans in Europe consisted mostly of Jews, as well as some Arabs and North Africans in Spain and Italy. Aside from the Jews, who had well known trade enclaves in many cities, most of the ethnic trade enclaves actually *in* Europe consisted of Europeans in distant, ethnically-different parts of Europe. Hanseatic German enclaves in places like London, Bergen, Novgorod; Venetians and Genoese in Crimea etc., Armenians just about everywhere (although I guess Armenians could be considered Asian). I'm certainly not claiming that "you could find an African everywhere." (Some) European cities were more cosmopolitan than many people seem to think, but no they were not all abuzz with diversity. For that, you need to look just beyond Europe to places like Constantinople and Cairo.

And I guess further back in antiquity you have far-flung Greek and Phoenician diasporas as well. In any case, the trade diasporas have been a thing almost as long as cities have, and are a perfectly good model for introducing some cultural diversity in your setting without having everybody segregated in separate ethnic kingdoms. Random unexplained "diversity" in a setting may be a little unrealistic, but having all your polities be somehow ethnically pure is also unrealistic.

Are you always this disingenuous?

I said it was wrong to call both diasporas, which you did. And then your retort is:

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123Wrong to refer to a "Jewish diaspora?" That's just bizarre.

As for the rest, yes, that was clearly the impression YOU were giving, I don't give a damn if you make your medieval-esque faux Europe as ethnically diverse as you want, just don't say it's realistic because "muh history!" because it's false or because "muh Dragons!" because the mere existence of huge and small monsters roaming the air, land and sea would make travel orders of magnitude more dangerous AND rare. Unless, like I've said before, you postulate smaller continents and or magical travel being accessible to all.

Is it clear now?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1135150Are you always this disingenuous?

I said it was wrong to call both diasporas, which you did.

You're the one who said "both." Perhaps you meant to say "one was a diaspora, the other wasn't?"

And where did I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas?"  You say I did, but where?

Quote from: Zirunel;1135127P-E show a pattern of regional extinctions every 500 years or so throughout their whole period of occupation, and across the arctic and those parts of the syntactic that they occupied - except for their Foxe Basin core area. Inherently unstable adaptation? Is that what you meant by suicide? Possibly, but in any case,  just as the P-E occupation of southern Greenland seems to have ended a bit before the Norse arrived, so in many places it seems to have ended before the Inuit arrived. There are late Dorset dates in a few places suggesting there could have been contact of some sort somewhere, but little real evidence for such contact.

Aww, you're no fun.

(Seriously, thanks for the counterpoint).

Quote from: S'mon;1135285Aww, you're no fun.

(Seriously, thanks for the counterpoint).

You're welcome...nice to see someone who's even heard of P-E.

doh..syntactic? Stupid autocorrect...I meant subarctic

Quote from: Zirunel;1135278You're the one who said "both." Perhaps you meant to say "one was a diaspora, the other wasn't?"

And where did I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas?"  You say I did, but where?

Yeah, I said it was wrong to call BOTH a diaspora, maybe you don't English?

As for where you say there's a Muslim diaspora, look in your own writing for Mecca and the tell me you're not referring to that as a "trade diaspora".

Quote from: Zirunel;1134975Why Germany now? and why Africans instead of Chinese? You're picking names out of your hat again.

No, I'll agree medieval Germany was not particularly plugged into any North African or subsaharan African trade networks. Medieval Portugal was, though. Once again, you carefully select a hypothetical and once again it fails to disprove my assertion. Just because you can come up with some random trade diaspora that may not have existed, does not demonstrate that ethnic trade enclaves didn't exist anywhere. They did.

One early example is the Assyrian merchant enclave at Kultepe in Turkey ca. 2000 BC.

How about Constantinople AD 1060, which had funduq (segregated trading enclaves) from Babylon, Persia, Medea, Egypt, Russia, Hungary and Spain as well as a large Jewish enclave?

Or for real diversity, Malacca in Malaysia at the end of the middle ages, which had segregated enclaves of traders from Cairo, Mecca, Abyssinians, Kilwa and Malindi (East Africa), along with Turks, Christian Armenians, Goans, Siamese, Chinese, and many many more (including Portuguese).

...the vast Armenian, Jewish, Chinese, Hanseatic German trade diasporas, the list goes on.....

I'll say it again. Trade diaspora communities existed historically and are therefore a plausible element in an rpg setting.



Yes, as I said, the Norse colonized Greenland. They established two small colonies there. However, their activities in the new world to the west were much more limited.

EDITED TO ASK: btw what makes you say they "took land from the natives by force?" There is no evidence whatsoever for that. Rather, both East and West Greenland appear to have been uninhabited at the time the Norse arrived.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1135296Yeah, I said it was wrong to call BOTH a diaspora, maybe you don't English?

As for where you say there's a Muslim diaspora, look in your own writing for Mecca and the tell me you're not referring to that as a "trade diaspora".

Yes there were Arab trade diasporas that reached Malaysia, and other places as well. Still not seeing the part where I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas" .....

Quote from: Zirunel;1135338Yes there were Arab trade diasporas that reached Malaysia, and other places as well. Still not seeing the part where I refer to both Jews and Muslims in Europe as "diasporas" .....

Exactly in the same breath, but please keep backpedaling.

Quote from: Zirunel;1135123No. I said that Portugal was plugged into subsaharan African trade networks, not that it hosted African enclaves. Maybe some African
 individuals in Portugal, but no, the enclaves were Portuguese in Africa, not the other way around.

Ummmmm... incorrect. There were sizable African enclaves in Portugal, Most of Portugal was Islamic (Berber) up until the second Crusade in 1156 a.d. Also in there were a large number of Africans in Bordeaux, France, in the Roman era, as it was the sea trade gateway to Northern Europe. There is an African Quarter in Bordeaux, and there was a large group of Africans in Eboracum (York) as part of one of the Roman Legions. Many cohorts of  Numidian Archers (Sagittarii) and Javelin Men, so many that they left permanent genetic markers in the remaining English and Angle Saxon populations there.

Later on in the 15th Century there were Portugese (and Spanish) enclaves in Africa, but earlier, it was African enclaves in Portugal, and Gaul, and Rome, and Galatia, Capadoccia, and ancient Judea as well after the fall of the Second Temple. The Numidian Auxilliary Archers were famous, and devastating.

...Why, yes there were Africans in Ancient Britain. They even buried them there. Even wealthy ones...
https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Romans-leave-Africans-in-Britain?share=1

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1135349Exactly in the same breath, but please keep backpedaling.

No backpedaling here. But still not seeing  where I said what you claim I did.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1135392Ummmmm... incorrect. There were sizable African enclaves in Portugal, Most of Portugal was Islamic (Berber) up until the second Crusade in 1156 a.d. Also in there were a large number of Africans in Bordeaux, France, in the Roman era, as it was the sea trade gateway to Northern Europe. There is an African Quarter in Bordeaux, and there was a large group of Africans in Eboracum (York) as part of one of the Roman Legions. Many cohorts of  Numidian Archers (Sagittarii) and Javelin Men, so many that they left permanent genetic markers in the remaining English and Angle Saxon populations there.

Later on in the 15th Century there were Portugese (and Spanish) enclaves in Africa, but earlier, it was African enclaves in Portugal, and Gaul, and Rome, and Galatia, Capadoccia, and ancient Judea as well after the fall of the Second Temple. The Numidian Auxilliary Archers were famous, and devastating.

...Why, yes there were Africans in Ancient Britain. They even buried them there. Even wealthy ones...
https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Romans-leave-Africans-in-Britain?share=1

Not subsaharan examples, nor necessarily trade diasporas, but point taken, especially when you go back to the Mediterranean oikumene.