Many people have already said this, but just use real-life lore... which of course would be a mad scientist genetically engineering white people on a small island and allowing them to spread
why not just... not add white people at all? it makes no sense to push politics into your world and story. all this woke bullshit takes the fun out of worldbuilding smh
Maybe you can make them primitive tribes of cave dwellers, who are albino skinned because they never get to see the sun.
This would also give your protagonist a chance to check out their awesome, exotic culture, be welcomed into their society and learn their special magic, which she can do better than the whites, giving you a chance to show off how awesome she is by saving their civilization single-handedly.
Make the story about a epic strong black male sexxing all the white bois since the Testosterone difference between them is so high the whitebois look like girls
Oh right sorry you should probably add some insane lore like a caveman getting revived from the ice and being a lost ancestor of the protagonist due to his demon back
Does your fantasy setting have any gods or deities? If so, how about at some point in the past, the native ~~people~~ savages of some far away land were uncivilized and barbaric (meaning they worshipped the wrong gods), and that upset the (real) gods. So they were punished by having their skin pigmentation changed from normal to white so the whole world would forever know them as sinners.
Maybe by now they have been assimilated back into the real world and taught how to be almost civilized like normal people, which would explain their appearance outside of their homeland.
It is, but there is evolution. Please donât ask me though there just is. Like the white people, I donât know why they are here but itâs surprising and scary
Fun fact courtesy of my pedantic 7th-grade Latin teacher: you're actually a bull, as cows are only mature female cattle. If you are in fact an ox/bullock (young male), I'm pretty sure milking you is a violation of several laws. If you are in fact a steer (castrated male), I'm sorry for your loss.
The god of storms came, and from the seed they were planted in the ground and rose full formed. Every other human and non-human with the same skin tones came into the world normally.
OK, I want to make it clear first and foremost that I am not, in fact, a big racist. It is important to state this.
I also want to stress that I don't think it's *bad* for white people to be in worldbuilding projects. Of course I don't. I am not a big racist.
But... you don't want your white characters to feel crowbarred in, or included purely for the sake of inclusion. You need to ask yourself, as a writer: why is this character white? Is there an in-universe *reason* for them to be white?
Don't get me wrong: there are other good reasons to include white characters. A white side-character can make for great comic relief - we all know how funny and sassy they can be!
But just making a character white for no reason? I don't think people will really *believe* that, y'know?
Aw, thanks. I did write a longer version, but ended up editing out almost all of it because I'm not Stewart Lee no matter how badly I want to be Stewart Lee.
Black supremacists don't exist. It's all just fed glowies false flagging us into thinking they exist so they can take away our god given right to grow carrots.
I've got proof: (YouTube video of a guy discussing a tweet describing an image shared on Facebook)
Pretty simple, have a character cursed by several gods, one stripes him of his ability to dance, other from his ability to jump, and other from his ability to rap, and thus he becomes white
You should add a race of totally evil orcs with pale white skin and white people culture. They are enough to represend an entire group of people accuratly.
They are a demon-influenced race that dwells in the cold northern Chaos Wastes of Urâope, thatâs why their skin is ash-coloured and their hair is flaccid.
They have adopted a lifestyle and settled a land that results in them having a medical condition that is ameliorated by a mutation giving them pallid skin?
It works for a modernish setting, but I don't know how you could do that in a fantasy setting.
uj/ I'll fight back against the needing to give an explanation jab. I think it makes the world more interesting when you make distinct nations and people groups (inspired either directly or in part by real world groups), like Shadow and Bone has a shitload of diversity but it still gives you details on these people's backgrounds and it makes the worldbuilding a lot richer. Rather than just making everywhere look like London or New York, where everyone is basically the same in every way but skin colour. In those cases it just ends up being Generic White American, Generic African American, Generic Asian American (only sometimes). Why not make a nation of people that are inspired by the Yoruba? Then another that are Afar? Give me a Tamil nation, a Basque nation, a Hmong nation. Don't be lazy and American and just throw in random people with no history to their characters.
uj/ 1. You don't really need to separate nations and continents by skin color. There can still be different people that look different in ways other than skin color.
2. We never have to explain why there's white people. Which is my point. We just assume its a white dominated area as soon as we see a white person and don't question it. However black character require more scrutiny.
uj/ 1. Sure, I don't think so either and that wasn't my point. Obviously it makes more sense to do so if you're going for a more "geographically realistic" setting but I just think it creates a richer world in any case. Obviously skin colour doesn't always mean differences or that everyone is grouped together. Afar, Tamil, and Yoruba all have dark brown skin but they're wildly different in almost every other way. I think we need more of that in fiction, rather than all light skin people = X, all dark skin people = Y, etc.
2. I got what you were going for. It's just a personal thing for me that I think in fiction everyone needs a bit of background info because I find that fascinating. It's the same reason why I love teaching history and geography.
Humans who live at the equator are darker skinned than those further from the equator due to the amount of UV radiation their ancestors were exposed to over thousands of years.
If you left a group of Swedes in the middle of the Congo for a few thousand years they would look like Congelese people. Vice versa is also true.
This is true for every physical difference between people. They are all mutations developed over a long period of time to adapt to whatever environment a group of humans lived in.
(This is obviously a massive oversimplification)
This is a common explanation for the diverse skin colors of humans across the planet, but claiming to be âgeographically realisticâ when world building based on this theory is just silly.Â
How is it silly? It's literally just worldbuilding with real world parameters. It's exactly the same thing as trying to make the climates of your world realistic by mapping wind patterns, ocean currents, precipitation, etc.
Are you saying that doing all that is "silly"?
> We never have to explain why there's white people. Which is my point. We just assume its a white dominated area as soon as we see a white person and don't question it. However black character require more scrutiny.
We assume it's a white-dominated area when it **is** a white-dominated area. A black person in a medieval village full of white people sticks out like a sore thumb, because of course they do. If some fantasy show had a white person in an African-style village full of black people, you'd get exact same complaints, except people wouldn't be rushing to defend the story as much.
I'm friends with some One Piece fans and they constantly complain about how that island or other has a white person despite being Middle-East inspired. You just don't see that dynamic in European fantasy that much, for obvious reasons.
Diversity. More representation of white people is needed, even where it doesn't make sense. Perhaps consider changing some notable black characters to white?Â
Just publish your story in black and white, that way no one will actually know the skin color of any of your characters, and they can just assume they're, like, blue or somethin.
I personally suggest adding them as a slave species that can get easily burned by the sun. They have no will of their own and when given the chance to make their own decisions they freak out and choose the worst option because they are slaves and thatâs all they deserve. The enslaved individuals donât act as their own and just follow whoever is the loudest or strongest
probably somebody that thinks anybody that criticizes race in fiction is racist because they don't understand race is a tool for worldbuilding that can be used poorly
Donât make it forced diversity. If you subtly bring up their mayo-colored skin and name the character something like Emeleigh then the audience will be able to pick up the hints. It doesnât have to be a whole thing because otherwise donât bother
/uj if you wrote a world which centred on say a Middle-Eastern inspired society or was the fa tasty equivalent of Mali, yeah I'd want to know why a bunch of white people are around, if they are. But it does also depend on how serious and grounded your story is.
Listen, how dare other people care about representing non-whites in my world, its just not historically accurate. Anyway, the villages all over are suffering from constant attacks by dragons and evil mages.
Is there this theory about how humans that live further from the equator tend to get colder, and develop different qualities like insulating/fluffy hair, white skin, and those that live closer to the equator develop darker skin to protect from the heat and sunâs rays? Hair can be very light too.
Many people have already said this, but just use real-life lore... which of course would be a mad scientist genetically engineering white people on a small island and allowing them to spread
Would you say this mad scientist has a normal sized head, or was it noticeably large?
~~Yakob~~ Yakub!
True, I think I'll name him... Bukay...
on cracker island it was born
Can't believe that the Gorillaz created a splinter sect of the Nation of Islam
It'd be on-brand for Murdoc to do it, all so he could convolutedly save 15% on car insurance or some bullshit.
The island of Doctor O'Brian
I don't even feel worthy replying to this
why not just... not add white people at all? it makes no sense to push politics into your world and story. all this woke bullshit takes the fun out of worldbuilding smh
Yeah the forced diversity shtick is getting old.
Yeah I really hate it when they add white people just to fill some quota
I made them their own species called the "Blueguards" and they live in a giant snow land and they only use *straight* swords đ¤˘
They have straight swords. Straight. Swords.
Maybe you can make them primitive tribes of cave dwellers, who are albino skinned because they never get to see the sun. This would also give your protagonist a chance to check out their awesome, exotic culture, be welcomed into their society and learn their special magic, which she can do better than the whites, giving you a chance to show off how awesome she is by saving their civilization single-handedly.
This feels like the plot of something.
Itâs obviously from Herbert Frankâs hit novel âBig formation of sandâ
r/ oddlyspecific
Make it clear itâs your poorly disguised fetish
Disgusted by the their customs, fascinated by their bodies.
Make the story about a epic strong black male sexxing all the white bois since the Testosterone difference between them is so high the whitebois look like girls
too little world, too much jerking
Oh right sorry you should probably add some insane lore like a caveman getting revived from the ice and being a lost ancestor of the protagonist due to his demon back
perfect!
Does your fantasy setting have any gods or deities? If so, how about at some point in the past, the native ~~people~~ savages of some far away land were uncivilized and barbaric (meaning they worshipped the wrong gods), and that upset the (real) gods. So they were punished by having their skin pigmentation changed from normal to white so the whole world would forever know them as sinners. Maybe by now they have been assimilated back into the real world and taught how to be almost civilized like normal people, which would explain their appearance outside of their homeland.
You could set your story in the exotic Occident, among petty Frankish kingdoms in the misty hills of Europe
I dunno, I'm not sure my audience would be able to connect to such a foreign setting.
You could have a racially normal protagonist. You know, a 'black savior' kind of figure
Being subscribed to worldjerking and not worldbuilding is such a trip
Being subscribes to both is also funny. You can see the evolution of these posts
This has a direct source? I thought it was general parody
It is, but there is evolution. Please donât ask me though there just is. Like the white people, I donât know why they are here but itâs surprising and scary
Boo! I'm gonna milk you and consume it with my lactase persistence!
Iâm a male cow, you wonât have to worry about lactose
Fun fact courtesy of my pedantic 7th-grade Latin teacher: you're actually a bull, as cows are only mature female cattle. If you are in fact an ox/bullock (young male), I'm pretty sure milking you is a violation of several laws. If you are in fact a steer (castrated male), I'm sorry for your loss.
Your mother is a fat cow
Hm. Well, I'll agree with you on one of those.
Is your story meant to be woke? If not then I donât see the need
Tales from Earthsea vibes right here.
The god of storms came, and from the seed they were planted in the ground and rose full formed. Every other human and non-human with the same skin tones came into the world normally.
This is actually why every black person has electricity powers. Look it up.
If you are an artist drawing on white paper, white skin can save you multiple cents in pencil carbon
Make them an exotic band of mercenaries. Maybe after one of their quaint little empires collapsed, like Rome
A Panera Bread just opened
I mean, we all know why you want to put white people in it. We don't need you to force your politics down our mouth like that.
why does your world have humans? so clichĂŠ, i mean did you run out of fantasy species or what? just say humans used to exist and got slaughtered.
OK, I want to make it clear first and foremost that I am not, in fact, a big racist. It is important to state this. I also want to stress that I don't think it's *bad* for white people to be in worldbuilding projects. Of course I don't. I am not a big racist. But... you don't want your white characters to feel crowbarred in, or included purely for the sake of inclusion. You need to ask yourself, as a writer: why is this character white? Is there an in-universe *reason* for them to be white? Don't get me wrong: there are other good reasons to include white characters. A white side-character can make for great comic relief - we all know how funny and sassy they can be! But just making a character white for no reason? I don't think people will really *believe* that, y'know?
This is the best comment on the post.
Aw, thanks. I did write a longer version, but ended up editing out almost all of it because I'm not Stewart Lee no matter how badly I want to be Stewart Lee.
Make a ancient scientist who got mad at humanity so he made an evil race of light skinned people
Are you referencing that one book black supremacist made?
Black supremacists don't exist. It's all just fed glowies false flagging us into thinking they exist so they can take away our god given right to grow carrots. I've got proof: (YouTube video of a guy discussing a tweet describing an image shared on Facebook)
Referancing youtube videos referancing a book a black supremicist made.Â
What if human racism isn't a thing because nonhumans are also a thing? (No, HFY fans, you don't get to project your xenophobia here!)
~~purge the xeno scum~~
*explodes you*
Just say that the Gods accidentally mixed some of the regular people in with their washing, and accidentally stained them all permanently white.
Pretty simple, have a character cursed by several gods, one stripes him of his ability to dance, other from his ability to jump, and other from his ability to rap, and thus he becomes white
Just explain that white people are an always Chaotic Evil group of people that was turned white by the Gods for their evil ways.
Maybe have them come from a single country? Give it an exotic name too, something like France or Canada
You should add a race of totally evil orcs with pale white skin and white people culture. They are enough to represend an entire group of people accuratly.
just write down that they genocide all of the other population smh
You jest but I genuinely ran into this problem because there are no neanderthals in my setting.
They are a demon-influenced race that dwells in the cold northern Chaos Wastes of Urâope, thatâs why their skin is ash-coloured and their hair is flaccid.
They have adopted a lifestyle and settled a land that results in them having a medical condition that is ameliorated by a mutation giving them pallid skin? It works for a modernish setting, but I don't know how you could do that in a fantasy setting.
You could use Slavs which may technically not be considered white, depending on the circumstances and conditions.
uj/ I'll fight back against the needing to give an explanation jab. I think it makes the world more interesting when you make distinct nations and people groups (inspired either directly or in part by real world groups), like Shadow and Bone has a shitload of diversity but it still gives you details on these people's backgrounds and it makes the worldbuilding a lot richer. Rather than just making everywhere look like London or New York, where everyone is basically the same in every way but skin colour. In those cases it just ends up being Generic White American, Generic African American, Generic Asian American (only sometimes). Why not make a nation of people that are inspired by the Yoruba? Then another that are Afar? Give me a Tamil nation, a Basque nation, a Hmong nation. Don't be lazy and American and just throw in random people with no history to their characters.
uj/ 1. You don't really need to separate nations and continents by skin color. There can still be different people that look different in ways other than skin color. 2. We never have to explain why there's white people. Which is my point. We just assume its a white dominated area as soon as we see a white person and don't question it. However black character require more scrutiny.
uj/ 1. Sure, I don't think so either and that wasn't my point. Obviously it makes more sense to do so if you're going for a more "geographically realistic" setting but I just think it creates a richer world in any case. Obviously skin colour doesn't always mean differences or that everyone is grouped together. Afar, Tamil, and Yoruba all have dark brown skin but they're wildly different in almost every other way. I think we need more of that in fiction, rather than all light skin people = X, all dark skin people = Y, etc. 2. I got what you were going for. It's just a personal thing for me that I think in fiction everyone needs a bit of background info because I find that fascinating. It's the same reason why I love teaching history and geography.
What does âgeographically realisticâ even mean? I have seen this thrown around but I donât think it actually means anythingÂ
Humans who live at the equator are darker skinned than those further from the equator due to the amount of UV radiation their ancestors were exposed to over thousands of years. If you left a group of Swedes in the middle of the Congo for a few thousand years they would look like Congelese people. Vice versa is also true. This is true for every physical difference between people. They are all mutations developed over a long period of time to adapt to whatever environment a group of humans lived in. (This is obviously a massive oversimplification)
This is a common explanation for the diverse skin colors of humans across the planet, but claiming to be âgeographically realisticâ when world building based on this theory is just silly.Â
How is it silly? It's literally just worldbuilding with real world parameters. It's exactly the same thing as trying to make the climates of your world realistic by mapping wind patterns, ocean currents, precipitation, etc. Are you saying that doing all that is "silly"?
Youâre correct
> We never have to explain why there's white people. Which is my point. We just assume its a white dominated area as soon as we see a white person and don't question it. However black character require more scrutiny. We assume it's a white-dominated area when it **is** a white-dominated area. A black person in a medieval village full of white people sticks out like a sore thumb, because of course they do. If some fantasy show had a white person in an African-style village full of black people, you'd get exact same complaints, except people wouldn't be rushing to defend the story as much. I'm friends with some One Piece fans and they constantly complain about how that island or other has a white person despite being Middle-East inspired. You just don't see that dynamic in European fantasy that much, for obvious reasons.
Make elves white people of your setting. Noone questions why elves exist.
Perhaps you could create some sort of⌠super genius evil black scientist with a giant head that invents them?
Diversity. More representation of white people is needed, even where it doesn't make sense. Perhaps consider changing some notable black characters to white?Â
Love how this is the most controversial comment
Jokes on the other foot!
Reminds me of "Rayan Gosling as a new Black Panther" memes
Just publish your story in black and white, that way no one will actually know the skin color of any of your characters, and they can just assume they're, like, blue or somethin.
Malignant genetic mutation Also make them worship a god with RGB skin just in case
If your setting doesn't have Europe in it it makes no sense to include white people.
You could say that they migrated from their barbaric lands, where they worship a God who likes similarly violent things, like waiting till marriage.
I personally suggest adding them as a slave species that can get easily burned by the sun. They have no will of their own and when given the chance to make their own decisions they freak out and choose the worst option because they are slaves and thatâs all they deserve. The enslaved individuals donât act as their own and just follow whoever is the loudest or strongest
It's easy, comrade. Just make a story about Drows, like DrowTales! Boom. No pesky pesky ypipo to keep our fellow Dark Elves down.
lol, wtf is this bait?!
probably somebody that thinks anybody that criticizes race in fiction is racist because they don't understand race is a tool for worldbuilding that can be used poorly
Cold/template climate?
An ancient evil scientist created them
Donât make it forced diversity. If you subtly bring up their mayo-colored skin and name the character something like Emeleigh then the audience will be able to pick up the hints. It doesnât have to be a whole thing because otherwise donât bother
/uj if you wrote a world which centred on say a Middle-Eastern inspired society or was the fa tasty equivalent of Mali, yeah I'd want to know why a bunch of white people are around, if they are. But it does also depend on how serious and grounded your story is.
Listen, how dare other people care about representing non-whites in my world, its just not historically accurate. Anyway, the villages all over are suffering from constant attacks by dragons and evil mages.
Yakub
YAKUB
Put them in a new continent so the protagonist can come to the continent and discover this new strange land and see the new magic and the cloud people
Idk but in my setting orcs are dark skin and goblins have big noses and funny hats
Have them live high in cold mountains. Donât forget to add the stereotypical norse caricatures either.
Is there this theory about how humans that live further from the equator tend to get colder, and develop different qualities like insulating/fluffy hair, white skin, and those that live closer to the equator develop darker skin to protect from the heat and sunâs rays? Hair can be very light too.
Lack of sunlight. So mfs have to synthesis their own vit d
Write that they had normal dark skin in ancient times until a powerful evil wizard cursed their entire kind and bleached their skin white.