Migratory and Phenotypical Patterns {Memory Fading}

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Okay, I'm putting some pretty serious work back into the cultural evolution of Memory Fading, and I'm wanting to hear some thoughts from my favorite world builders.  I want to apologize in advance that I will be speaking in generalities and stereotypes in this discussion, but no offense is meant; I am merely looking for the easiest way to reach a certain point, and am thus simplifying certain aspects greatly.

One of the aspects that I find most important in building my campaign setting is keeping a certain measure of cultural consistency.  When going over my work recently, I discovered that I had lost a bit of that consistency at some point in favor for my aesthetically preferred cultural phenotypes.  What I'm looking to do is try to come up with some good reasons as to why things came to be this way in Memory Fading, without making up ridiculous (unrealistic) reasons.  So, here we go.

Pre-human settlement of Alsa Eru (the main continent in MF) consisted of sydhi, who mostly kept to themselves in the south central lands of the continent, trakloks, drumen, and giants, who mostly stuck to the northeastern lands, and myari, who stuck mostly to the northwestern and far western lands.  Sirish lived mostly in the Chulgeth, an equatorial archipelago, though a few had come up to the south-eastern portion of Alsa Eru and settled in a large desert there.

1700 Years ago, the ancestors of the Gaardans came from a continent far to the south (think Australia with a bit of a colder climate) and settled in Alsa Eru.  Where they landed was a cold, barren land.  Their phenotype is roughly East-Slavic/Scandinavian in nature - tall, medium-skinned, dark hair, square facial features.

1500-ish Years ago, the ancestors of the Laons came from a continent far to the east.  Phenotypically, the Laons most closely resemble south-eastern Asian - specifically, Chinese.  Culturally, however, they are more similar to Cambodians (Khmers) in terms of artistic style, music, architecture, and religion.

1400-ish Years ago, the Hiths, an ancient race that had lived alongside the sirish in the Chulgeth for several thousand years, traveled north and settled on Alsa Eru right next to the Laons.  Hiths are loosely based off of (what little I know about) Mayans, both culturally and physically.

Over the next three-to-six hundred years, a few "mixings" happened.  First, the Hiths and the Laons, living in such close proximity for about three hundred years, had some mixing of cultures.  When Khandia was formed, there would have probably been no distinct "Khandian" culture or phenotype yet, but now after 1400 years, I've given Khandians a distinct culture and phenotype consistent with Mughal Indians.  Similarly, throughout all this time, Gaardans traveled south and mixed with Laons, Hiths, and Khandians.  1400-1200 years ago, no specific "Tlek" subtype would have existed, but now in the present, they do.  Tleks have a distinct Mediterranean appearance.  Culturally, Great Tlek (the empire that formed and lasted for 400 years) was very similar to our ancient Roman empire.  After its fall, the people who moved south and north away from Tlek's center, lived nomadic lifestyles for awhile.  Those in the north (close to the Gaardans and trakloks) are still living relatively nomadic to this day.  Those in the south eventually became part of the Republic of Arudor.  Arudorans have a Frankish culture, but still resemble the Tleks (Mediterranean).

First of all, I am more than aware that even over the course of the entire human history on Alsa Eru, new specific phenotypes would not have had time to emerge (based on "real-world" evolution and all), being just 1700 years.  Human phenotypes on earth have generally taken up to 50,000 years (give or take) to evolve to recognizable differences, but I'm not playing with 50,000 years.  So, I'm just wanting some input from you guys.

Hiths(Mayans) + Laons(Chinese) have created Khandians(Mughals/Indians)
 - How could this have happened logically?

Gaardans(Slavic/Scandinavian) + Hiths(Mayans) + Laons(Chinese) have created Tleks(Mediterranean).
 - How could this have happened logically?

Again, I'm just talking phenotype generalities, and it doesn't have to coincide 100% with real-world histories - I'm just trying to come up with ways to make myself happy with the racial decisions I've made.

Every place above where I originally used the word Siberian was a misspeaking on my part.  More accurately would be "Slavic," in particular, "East Slavic."  I've changed those words.

Thanks!

[Superfluous Crow]

Tried something like this once, but didn't get far with it. Not sure it's compatible with the way i work. Anyway, just to make sure, are you asking how the combined cultures could result in the third one? Or are you asking how the combined phenotypes could result in the third one?

[Ishmayl-Retired]

phenotypes!  Good question.  I'm talking specifically about overall physical appearances of the various people.  Thanks!

[sparkletwist]

You're talking simply how the people looked, rather than trying to explain any sort of cultural synthesis, right?

Because, in that case, usually, light people merging with darker people gives medium brown people. Your "target" civilizations with their "Mughal" and "Mediterranean" glosses are the sort of medium brown that would be the logical result of racial mixing, so that's good and you have a lot of slack. Southeast Asians and Mayans (as I understand it anyway) are already pretty medium brown, so that's good, as your source appearance is already pretty close to your destination. You've also described the Gaardans as "medium," so that fits right in too-- though your gloss of Scandinavian originally made me think of fairer-skinned peoples. Anyway, I think you're right on track with skin color.

The problem, to me, is eyes. Neither Mediterranean nor Northwest Indian (Mughal) people have particularly Asiatic eyes, where Chinese people clearly do and many Native American (like Mayan) people do as well, having come from Asia originally. In the case of the Tleks, the Gaardan influence could have mitigated this, but I'm not so sure about the Khandians.

An alternate possibility is to make the Khandians more southeast Asian in appearance and quality. "Mughal" usually conjures up images of Muslim India, whereas a merger between Mayan and Cambodian cultures much more likely to create a polytheist, pyramid-building society where the priests like a lot of gold and feathers. ;)

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I agree with Sparkle, though I would say many Asians of Mughal descent have "semi-Asian" eyes, so I wouldn't worry too much.

The real point here is that what you're going for is quite possible, and that's all it really takes, right?

Also, if you want to adjust the degree of skin tone, for example, you could simply play with the ratios of each people. A higher ratio of Scandinavians would mean the deeper skin tones of the other races is more diluted.

[Biohazard]

So this is meant to be how it actually happened, right? Because, if you were intending to make it known history instead of actual history, you could have a few gaping holes in the racial mixing and throw into the actual history a few different forgotten races and their associated lost cultures as explanations, both for appearances and for anything else weird that might exist on Alsa Eru.

If not, Sparkletwist pretty much has it down - you're going to want to alter one of the races to solve any "phantom features" issues that you may have.

[Llum]

Another possibility (maybe) is to have some small seed populations that weren't really of any note but when they mixed all these new people and cultures(the incoming ones, Gaardans, Loans etc..) into they became these civilizations (your target phenotypes). This would give you a way to wave away the few things that don't work and let you tweak it to fit better.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Thanks for the responses so far!

Llum, I had thought of something similar to that, and my current stream of consciousness on the wiki is going in that direction.

Sparklephoenixhazard, I don't think I want to change the end results, but I would certainly be willing to rearrange the original "sources" or throw some extra things into the mix to get the desired end results.

[Mathus]

The genes contain the data for all phenotypes. There just needs to be encouragement to express it. Either (as sparkletwist says) by racial mixing or by selective breeding.

Selective breeding could be intentional in the case of breeding slaves or un-intentional in the case of fashion, "S/he looks pretty, they look ugly. Marry those people over there". or inbreeding.

And as Biohazard said, it's easy to fill in the phenotype 'gaps' by including a bit of ethnic cleansing and genocide in your world history to explain why the 'people-in-the-middle' don't exist any more.