Thoughts on skin complexion

[Steerpike]

For Eldritch Earth the only "normal" humans can change their complexions and other physical characteristics more or less at will through magic.  The creatures that (perhaps ironically) actually resemble what we think of as humans most closely have swirling white stars on inky black skins (nebuloids) - flesh the colour of a vacuum.

[Elemental_Elf]

I also tend to gloss over it... The same way I gloss over gender issues. It's just not worth the (potential) hassle.

[Hibou]

In a lot of fantasy and sci-fi settings, various sentient species (elves, dwarves, aliens, whatever) can make a handy stand-in for race, in that they allow us to examine themes of xenophobia, prejudice, etc. while keeping contentious real-world issues comfortably at arms' length.

This is important, because it's clear that even in fiction, race issues are volatile when handled incautiously-- consider the recent Resident Evil (I think?) videogame, about putting down a voodoo zombie uprising in Haiti (I think?), and how many people read that in terms of "heroic white protagonist guns down scores of shambling black enemies".

Anybody remember Kingdoms of Kalamar? (Anybody? Is it just me?) This was a standard D&D setting, human-centric, detail-focused. It had a handful of different human subraces which were obviously direct analogues to real-world human ethnicities-- the Mediterranean dudes, the African dudes, etc. I don't remember whether there was a stat difference involved in picking one over another (but ugh, I think there was), but it made me more than a little uncomfortable!

I remember Kalamar all right. One of the rulebooks had artwork of a bunch of tribal warriors standing together that gave me that feeling. I can recall reading an issue of Dragon (#293 I think it was; bought the issue but it's been lost for a long time) that had an advertisement or two, complete with praise for it's realism and attention to detail. Didn't actually seem like a very good campaign setting for any reason, when contrasted with Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.

In Vibrant, I've been considering this issue of skin complexion for a very long time - my two trains of thought were either to allow humans to have a general "merge" of color, explained away by more and more frequent marriage between humans of the various current races over the 1200 or so years leading up to Vibrant's current year. In the end, I decided to stick with the general diversity of complexions and try to include much more equal ratios between them - which I think I've done well - simply because the other option didn't seem to make as much sense when compared to alien species that retained these distinctions. This is also the case too with Haveneast and any other fantasy settings I've worked on, although I do try to group colors more and follow the anthropological/biological reasoning for them.

As a side note, a lot of the characters I've played in the past, including those in video games including appearance customization, have been "black," "Mediterranean," or "Asian." In fact, the only ones I can recall that haven't been nonwhite were a human fighter/blackguard I played in a friend's D&D3e campaign when I was 15 or 16, and my Commander Shepard in Mass Effect/ME2. Not sure why.

[limetom]

But how would you react to, e.g., black-skinned people in mountaineous or arctic regions?

must[/i] have been.

Altitude generally doesn't affect skin color (e.g. South American natives in the Andes look about the same as other natives in the Amazon basin).  What it does affect is height and general body shape.

For arctic regions, they would be recent migrants.  "Recent" in genetic terms; it could take 50 000 to 100 000 years for skin color changes to take place.

[Xeviat]

I think the safest thing to do is go by climate, as lime mentions. If most are defaulting to temperate climate, that might be the reason for the predominance of light skin.

In my own setting, I have four cultures/ethnicities of humans, and a number of races which are human-like enough that their skin color can come into question. Of the humans, the northerners are dark skinned (tropical climate), the centrealers are olive skinned (sub-tropical/temperate), and the southerners are light skinned (temperate/near arctic). Dwarves are light (subterrainean) and dark (surface). Elves are colored more for their biomes, ranging from light to dark browns. Halflings are tan or red skinned (Halflings are a dangerous issue, since they have tails and are quite monkeylike, I'm consciously avoiding issues here). The other races are so unlike humans that it doesn't really matter.

My intention is that every human shade of skin color exists in the races that have human-like skin. This way if that is something that is important for a player, they can play a race of whatever color they want.

My stories currently focus on the central region, so characters are more olive in skin tone.

And as someone said, the speculative fiction genre as a whole is very useful for dealing with real world issues like racism. Somehow it is easier for people to swallow it when it's hidden under the guise of humans vs. elves, rather than whites vs. blacks.

[Superfluous Crow]

Olive-skinned/mediterranean actually seems to be a popular choice, appearing in a couple of settings. Maybe because it is sort of "in between"). I believe several people in e.g. the Wheel of Time are described as such. (a setting which actually diverges from having blacks as tribals, rather focussing on the exotic/mysterious aspects, apparently being a partial exception to what I talked about before).  

But what about eskimos/inuits for example? While not black, they are fairly dark-skinned.

I think I'll avoid having any of my northern people being black, then, and instead going with one of the ancient empires being essentially black, and a few of their Houses have survived in the North through the years through marriages with other Houses.

In the above example, what could the empire stand for without it being "insensitive"? Are there any limits?

And I remember the Resident Evil 5 trailer... I had a nagging feeling when I saw it, that some people would interpret it in a very bad way.

[Ninja D!]

Honestly, this isn't something I've thought about too much. If I want a character to convey a certain feel, I'll go for stereotypes. The lone, mysterious, foreign assassin is going to have darker skin and dress strangely. The evil, greedy, aristocrat is going to be very white and wear (probably brightly colored) extravagant clothing.

I think, more than anything else, it is really just that most white people do tend to associate the darker skin colors with more exotic places and ways of life.

Though I don't think I've mentioned it, I have always just assumed that the ordinary people in my primary setting (Natu, that is) are nonwhite. They're not "black people" but I always pictured them as having more of a middle eastern look because that's what just comes to mind for me. Honestly, the inspirations for the setting are as much African, European, and even Japanese as they are middle eastern but I just think that look works well for it. I also like that any foreigners encountered would be more like the ordinary white-skinned knights or merchants that would be all over the place in a normal fantasy game.

[Nomadic]

Just a little random note to add in but I just realized that I always play Redguards in Oblivion.

[LordVreeg]

I wish I wasn't so busy as I am now.  This site has the most interesting posts.

In Celtricia, I think originally I was very affected by the hyborian and tolkien ideals, in that of the original 3 clans of humans, Clan Wastri (slightly smaller, they are closest to southern asians in our world) went south and east, where Clan Khalil (My VERY black folk) went south to what would become the Ommish and Ambrellian areas.

However, they, like other races, were brought into the being this way by the Planars that are to blame, as opposed to any evolutionary changes.
All Gnomics are slightly olive complected, so Hybern Klaxiks tend toward that.  Kann and Black Klaxiks are very dark, similarly to Khalil humans.  (Yes, Black dwarves are...)
Owmo~, the first born, have a few interesting complexions and colorations, though more 'artsy'...

[Polycarp]

The last custom setting I actually ran games in was based around a Mediterranean-like inland sea (not actually inland, but you get my drift), and most of the people living around it had correspondingly Mediterranean features.  There was a major regional power more evocative of the Egyptian and Persian empire whose people had somewhat darker skin, and a more distant kingdom of people I imagined to have African features that occasionally sent trading fleets to the Mediterranean-like region.

As some others have mentioned, for me the use of skin color in humans is done mostly as a response to climate.  In my settings, humans (and demihumans) that live in warmer climates tend to be darker skinned, and to some degree I expect that in other settings (though I don't think it would bother me terribly if it wasn't followed - populations, after all, can move).  It's only an issue for me if everyone is basically the same - a "world of white people" bothers me.  I'm aware most authors aren't making a conscious choice at all, but I've been taught to evaluate literature critically and to notice implicit assumptions of race, religion, culture, and so on (thanks professors) and I'm unable to set that aside even when I know it's just fantasy.

[Nomadic]

So I just realized something about Mare Eternus... it doesn't have a sun. Thus there is no scientific reason for hotter areas to create darker skin shades as hotter areas aren't hot due to more sunlight. So then that begs the question, what purpose if any is there to having varying degrees of darkness in skin shades for the locals?

[Polycarp]

So I just realized something about Mare Eternus... it doesn't have a sun. Thus there is no scientific reason for hotter areas to create darker skin shades as hotter areas aren't hot due to more sunlight. So then that begs the question, what purpose if any is there to having varying degrees of darkness in skin shades for the locals?

Camouflage seems like the most obvious answer.  If one population of a race lives in a kelp forest, they might have developed a greener complexion over time.  Depth might conceivably make a difference too, but as I recall there's really no "depth" in ME so that's not relevant here.

Less obvious answers might be diet (like Flamingos, who are pink because of the plankton they ingest) or sexual selection (we like our males with red stripes; over there, they like them with purple stripes).  And since this is fantasy, magical fiddling and inter-species breeding might also play a role.

[Kindling]

In the context of this discussion, I'm curious as to what people's thoughts are on published settings such as Nyambe: African Adventures or Legend of the Five Rings, which are intentionally - but perhaps somewhat ham-fistedly (or so it seems to me from what little I know of them) - rejecting the Eurocentrism of conventional fantasy settings.

[Ghostman]

In the context of this discussion, I'm curious as to what people's thoughts are on published settings such as Nyambe: African Adventures or Legend of the Five Rings, which are intentionally - but perhaps somewhat ham-fistedly (or so it seems to me from what little I know of them) - rejecting the Eurocentrism of conventional fantasy settings.

Settings drawing their inspiration from different sources, is like different flavours of ice cream. Would you consider going for strawberry or cherry as "intentional rejecting of chocolate" just because chocolate happened to be dominating the market?

[Kindling]

Fair enough, perhaps I chose my words poorly, but still, I'd like to know what people think.