so the lack of anyone who isn't white in dungeons & dragons fourth edition (dnd 4e) is really bugging me. i mean, i thought this flaw in fantasy art was recognized & corrected for? the last days of third edition (3.5e) were much better: heck, black guys were getting on the covers of books like complete arcane. i can't help but wonder what wizards of the coast were thinking-- if they were thinking anything, if this isn't an example of the sin of omission, if they didn't just forget that people other than white people exist. "maybe," i thought, "they are saving asian-looking folks for oriental adventures, saving semetic-looking people for al-quadim, so on." then i thought in response to myself: "oh, but has al-quadim ever made any money? why shackle yourself to a star that won't rise?" which got the gears in my head to keep turning. turning thus: "they have said there is going to be a ki power source, for ki based heroes, same as there is arcane, martial, whatever. like, monks & samurai or what have you. they wouldn't make all their example characters & art...asian people...would they? is that offensive or not? then, what would they do with black people? what about grace jones!"which is when my mind started wandering to the more iconic black people in the game. people like ialdabode. he's the iconic psion, right? so...what if they made all the art for psionic characters...black? i mean, if you want to say that the player's handbook is for european quasi-feudal fantasy, the swords & sorcery tradition of the west, & that is why it is as white as snow. if you want to do an oriental adventures book with samurai, monks, ninjas, sohei, whatever, & make the art on the characters in that book asian in features. well, i'm not sure that isn't a bad segregation? i'm really american that way. but then what would you do with african features? there hasn't been a big seller, or really any seller, of african adventures that i can think of. unless...you did it sort of dark sun. which...is either offensive or awesome. i can't actually be sure, but it sort of slots into my mind in an interesting capacity. so that is what i've been mulling over.
