Various minority groups from the Medieval era such as the Romani and rural pagan folk often have analogues in medieval fantasy novels, such as the Tuatha'an from the Wheel of Time. This is despite the fact that some of these groups only existed for part of the Middle Ages (most pagan remnants for example, had vanished by the 14th century).Yet the Jews, a (mostly) urban minority dating from long before and after the Middle Ages and who were very influential in finance, commerce, the religious landscape, and even politics rarely ever have a fantasy analogue. I am aware that tragic events of the past century are part of reluctance to make a fantasy Jewish community but fantasy can be very political and it can touch on very sensitive issues like religious conflict and slavery, so why not this?Also, if you're Jewish, would you like to see medieval Jews represented in fantasy? And how would you go about creating a fantasy analogue to a Jewish community?
Many settings have the reserved nation of bankers that happen to be involved in both sides of every conflict
Because Tolkien didn't have em, simple as>inb4 dorfsNot an urbanized minority
>>98133901Probably because nobody wants the tinyhatted schizoids to decide your depiction of them/their analogue is insufficiently deferential and bomb every hospital within 50 miles of your home while launching a nationwide smear campaign to paint you as Basically Hitler.
>>98133911>Not an urbanized minorityThey are in the Hobbit, but the group we see is explicitly on an adventure to reclaim Israel. I mean, their hold.>>98133901Because 1.) Nobody likes Jews, and there are no romantic versions of them (unlike gypsies), and more importantly, 2.) If you depict Jews in an unflattering light, you will be professionally attacked nonstop and possibly suffer things like blackballing and debanking.
>>98133901My guess is that the medieval treatment of Jews was incredibly brutal. Pogroms, laws, forced deportations, and even massacres.>>98133905>>98133916>>98133918NAZI!
I mean how many fantasy novels even pay enough attention to culture etc to have minorities beyond maybe the occasional native american analogue? Usually it's here's the land of bluepeopleia populated by the bluepeoplemanni, bordering the grand duchy of redguyana, inhabitad by the indomitable redguyanese. You won't see many regular cross-border cultural interaction, let alone something as relatively "complex" as a jewish (or armenian, or farsi, ...) diaspora.
>>98133901One of my GMs homebrew settings has two Jew-themed cultures actually.Dwarves got all the tropes about banking and secret political influence while his goblins got the ghettos and Pale of Settlement-style restrictions on residence and occupation (among other things, goblins also got a degree of dalit and gyppo influence)
>>98133901The fuck you think gnomes are?
>Dumbshit who's never heard of dwarves
>>98133901Man you haven't read many medival fantasy novels if you don't think there's any jewish analogs out there. Even fucking harry potter has been criticized for their hook nosed goblin bankers.But analogs of real world minority groups is always a a dry and dull thing to do. Just make something new.
Stay Classy 4channel
>>98133918I can agree about the romanticization part, part of the religion intentionally avoids any colorful art and aesthetics. It's doctrine that they try to have boring and plain clothes, few decorations in their homes, etc. When people romanticize a culture they mostly just focus on the aesthetics, usually the most colorful. And then those aesthetics are exaggerated. American Indians in cartoons all wore elaborate ceremonial feather headdress and living in teepees with totem poles outside, but those are all from very different parts of the continent and very different tribes. Totem poles were the northwest, teepees were from the great planes, that's over 1500 miles, mountains and deserts separating those two things. The people who made bother never interacted. But in Peter Pan they're the same caricature.But a culture that encourages plain aesthetics is immune to that. Like imagine someone trying to romanticize the Amish.
They were officially expelled from England between 1290 to 1656, meaning that any fantasy drawing from High Medieval, Late Medieval, and Early Modern English history will be drawing from a world in which they were not present
>>98133901Traditional games?
>>98133901There's only so much we can be expected to endure in what is ultimately an exercise in escapism.
>>98134098>Like imagine someone trying to romanticize the Amish.That happens pretty often on American stuff, it's hard to find a piece of media that doesn't view the armish as somewhat positive
Tieflings, as presented post-4e lore change. When they stopped being X-men, they became jews.They became definitively Devil-aligned, and devils in D&D use Judeo-Christian mythology, while demons are a mishmash of pagan, babylonian, and lovecraftian. Tieflings are all a diaspora from some fallen empire or other. The best way to integrate them into a setting is to ape a bunch of jewish tropes; they live in ghettos in human-majority cities, do knowledge work as occultists, pawnbrokers, and moneylenders. Adventurers interact with them a surprising amount; you want to liquidate some gems or identify some cursed item? You go to tiefling-town and talk to the spooky shopkeeper who's always rubbing his hands. They also run delis.They even have horns. Everyone knows jews have horns.
>>98134129that's a different kind of romatization, but it's similar in how it works. People take ideas from what they think the Amish are like (lifestyle-wise) and romanticize that.But the clothing, beards, and religious piety don't ever seem to factor into that.
>>98134155Nah, if you were to give them any real world parallels gypsies have always been a better fit.
>>98133901jews are IRL vampires and liches anon>>98134011dwarves are not parasites, they are greedy but do the hard work. They are chinese
>>98134169Nope. Chinese just can't grow beards well enough to fit.
Also, if you're not Jewish but are just interested in Worldbuilding, how would you go about creating a fantasy analogue to a Jewish community in your Campaign Setting?
>>98134169Tolkien didn't consider Jews to be parasites.
>>98133901Wizards aren’t enough for you?
>>98133901>Who are gnomes
>>98133925Do you genuinely think calling people Nazis on 4chan is an insult? I can't tellIf you're actually being unironic then please return to the red site where you belong
>>98134251I would be extremely wary of such things as I have a basement that could be reclassified as Kkhamas tunnel system and targeted for bombing.
Jews are Italianized Semites from the Middle-East who acquired German accents and characteristics after moving to the Rhineland and living there for a thousand years. Literally just gypsies but better and more successful and a lot less annoying. Also they don’t come from India.
Wow! There's a lot of insightful discussion about traditional games in this thread!
>>98133901Because a lot of writers are lazy and make cities monolithic.
>>98133901Because it's supposed to be escapism
>>98134314wizards are academics not bankers.
>>98134490Jews are academics. Banking and accounting involve sophisticated thinking. Math was considered a form of magic. Germans forced Jews to wear wizard hats.
>>98134512Historically the two are not as close together as you think. Higher level mathematics and theory are not something you need to learn for banking. I can see how you have that assumption that the two are linked, but that's based on modern schooling. Historically these are like two different genres of music that happen to both have drums in them.
>>98134408>better and more successfulnah the distinction is actually that they were predisposed to be more financially successful for religious reasons that's more the fault of the catholics than anything else.
>>98134564>jews are only bankers because they were made to beJewish propaganda
>>98134614>It's propaganda>has no alternative explanationThings don't just happen. It's cause and effect.Why are there so many Jews in Hollywood? Because Thomas Edison tried to use patent abuse to prevent jewish filmmakers from working, so they moved to California. They were successful for the same reason Las Vegas was successful. Or do you think Netanyahu is behind all of these things and is a secret immortal wizard with time traveling powers? I wouldn't put it past him, but no.
>>98134292and it was a fatal mistake
>>98133918>there are no romantic versions of themNever heard of Rebecca? She was such a popular character people were writing fanfiction about her in the fucking 1840s.
>>98135204Fatal? Are you saying jews are behind Tolkien dying at the age of 81 from pneumonia?
Jewizards are based
>>98135383Ain't no one reading Ivanhoe in the derivative of a derivative of Tolkien era of fantasy.
>>98136357im not "saying" anything but... you know if you knowstay safe anon
