alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

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fruityloops
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alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by fruityloops »

Dragon's dawn is a bit different from the many settings that use the dragon riders trope. One thing is the setting is more....dare I say, "tribal". not like tribal divisions, like face paint, slightly stone age tech (mixed with more advanced things), etc etc. my only real problem is a find the word "tribal" very questionable. Sure, my tribes aren't based on any real life cultures, but i wanna find less questionable ways to describe my setting to other people.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Creyeditor »

Stone Age Fantasy maybe? Otherwise face paint and stone age tech are often an essentialist view of some ethnical groups, I guess.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by elemtilas »

Stonepunk is a thing.

"Tribal", I agree, is questionable, but really only because it describes the nature of society. I mean, you literally hear about tribalism in modern Afghanistan in the news. I would argue that street gangs in American suburbia are tribal societies as well.

You seem to be looking for a broader label, and I think Creyeditor is pointing you in the right direction. I mention Stonepunk because it is an actual subgenre label especially because you're hinting at technology or realia that are conceptually beyond what we think we know of actual stone age culture.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Lambuzhao »

Rock Stick Bone?

Stone Stick Bone?

In my journal, I've referred to stories/films like The Dark Crystal, as a kind of Rock,Stick & Bone fantasy.

I've also referred to the Dark Ages of my conworld Tirga as the Age of Stone, Stick & Bone.

:wat:
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Isfendil »

Lambuzhao wrote: 20 Oct 2018 04:59 Rock Stick Bone?

Stone Stick Bone?

In my journal, I've referred to stories/films like The Dark Crystal, as a kind of Rock,Stick & Bone fantasy.

I've also referred to the Dark Ages of my conworld Tirga as the Age of Stone, Stick & Bone.

:wat:
That's great. I just wanted to comment on how perfect that imagery is.

If the word stone is not elegant enough for you fruity, you can call it Lithic fantasy, after the Lithic [stone] ages.

Alternatively, consider Ochloic fantasy, after one of the greek words for gang or tribe
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

Stonepunk is an actual subgenre now, along with Bronzepunk and Plaguepunk. And Woodpunk, Ironpunk, Steelpunk, etc.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Lambuzhao »

Hmmm… since our technology is based on silicon, are we not already in a sort of "Stonepunk" world?
:wat:
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by elemtilas »

Lambuzhao wrote: 10 Nov 2018 06:19 Hmmm… since our technology is based on silicon, are we not already in a sort of "Stonepunk" world?
:wat:
Right‽

We've already had a paleolithic and a neolithic.

What comes after neo- in Greek to mark our present stonepunky world?

:wat:
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by eldin raigmore »

Post-Lithic?
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Lambuzhao »

Postlithic
Yes, indeed.

Or:

Metalithic ≊ Postlithic
Hyperlithic 'Above/Beyond Stone'
Electrolithic 'Electric Stone'
Peranlithic 'Beyond Stone'
Perissolithic 'Remarkable/Outré/Uncommon/Odd Stone'

On reflection, Perissolithic might convey more the notion of 'Fantastical Stone (Age)' :wat:
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by elemtilas »

Lambuzhao wrote: 13 Nov 2018 04:03
Postlithic
Yes, indeed.

Or:

Metalithic ≊ Postlithic
Hyperlithic 'Above/Beyond Stone'
Electrolithic 'Electric Stone'
Peranlithic 'Beyond Stone'
Perissolithic 'Remarkable/Outré/Uncommon/Odd Stone'

On reflection, Perissolithic might convey more the notion of 'Fantastical Stone (Age)' :wat:
Well, computers are pretty fantastical uses of stone!

Perissolithic -- the Extraordinary Stone Age.

And now we've come full circle.

Fifty million years ago, our ancestors got along by beating each other over the head with chunks of silicate rock.

And we were happy for a long, long time, through the long ages of the Protolithic, the Paleolithic, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.

And then we evolved.

We took to clubbing each other with bronze maces.

And then stabbing each other with iron spears.

And then shooting each other with lead bullets.

And then electrocuting each other with ever higher energies.

And then we evolved.

Anymore we're content to slouch down on davenport and couch and beat each other's digital avatars over the head by means of bits & bytes of silicate rock.

We’ve come full circle; stone age to stone age.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Ahzoh »

We’re mostly metal and plastic
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Scytheria »

Rightly or wrongly, the word 'tribal' suggests a sort of spear-chucking, constantly warring societal structure in which the main purpose of tribes is to differentiate competitors/enemies (and thus make it vaguely more tolerable when you have to pillage, rape and kill them). A softer word would be 'clan', which does not immediately conjure these images. Consider:

The tribes have come together to fight the walrus-demons - there's some implication that otherwise they'd just be killing each other
The clans have come together to fight the walrus-demons - there's some implication that the clans all belong to some big cultural family and are currently supporting each other

BTW - somebody please write about walrus-demons.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Creyeditor »

Scytheria wrote: 15 Nov 2018 12:05 Rightly or wrongly, the word 'tribal' suggests a sort of spear-chucking, constantly warring societal structure in which the main purpose of tribes is to differentiate competitors/enemies (and thus make it vaguely more tolerable when you have to pillage, rape and kill them). A softer word would be 'clan', which does not immediately conjure these images.
Wrongly! I thought that was OP's reason for posting this. The word 'tribal' in the sense you described it, is rooted in colonial contexts, where the assumed civilizational inferiority of some people was used as an excuse to invade and enslave them. So it was claimed that it's okay to colonize Papua/Africa/etc because they are just spear-chucking, constantly warring societies that would pillage, rape and kill each other if the Europeans would not pacify them. Which is kind of ironic if we look at European history.
Sorry for sounding mean, I just wanted to stress the point that tribal has two meanings and the stone-age war one is at least not as innocent as one would like it to be as a conworlder. It has some unfortunate implications.

Similarly for clan, there is the more scientific sense in which this is a genalogical unit above the family with a legendary common ancestor. And there is the colloquial meaning, which could be seen as judgemental.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Ahzoh »

Scytheria wrote: 15 Nov 2018 12:05 BTW - somebody please write about walrus-demons.
The Onschen people in my conworld fight walrus demons and there’s also psychic dolphin demons that hunt people from under the ice.
Last edited by Ahzoh on 16 Nov 2018 17:02, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Ahzoh »

Stonepunk is an actual subgenre now, along with Bronzepunk and Plaguepunk. And Woodpunk, Ironpunk, Steelpunk, etc.
Maybe the conworld which Vrkhazh is found in would be an ironpunk world.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Scytheria »

Creyeditor wrote: 15 Nov 2018 12:30
Scytheria wrote: 15 Nov 2018 12:05 Rightly or wrongly, the word 'tribal' suggests a sort of spear-chucking, constantly warring societal structure in which the main purpose of tribes is to differentiate competitors/enemies (and thus make it vaguely more tolerable when you have to pillage, rape and kill them). A softer word would be 'clan', which does not immediately conjure these images.
Wrongly! I thought that was OP's reason for posting this. The word 'tribal' in the sense you described it, is rooted in colonial contexts, where the assumed civilizational inferiority of some people was used as an excuse to invade and enslave them. So it was claimed that it's okay to colonize Papua/Africa/etc because they are just spear-chucking, constantly warring societies that would pillage, rape and kill each other if the Europeans would not pacify them. Which is kind of ironic if we look at European history.
Sorry for sounding mean, I just wanted to stress the point that tribal has two meanings and the stone-age war one is at least not as innocent as one would like it to be as a conworlder. It has some unfortunate implications.
Not mean at all. If a writer intends for 'tribe' to mean one thing and somebody else reads it at something else, somebody is in the wrong... either the writer for picking the wrong word or the reader for not understanding it (or maybe both of them). My use of 'rightly or wrongly' was not a neutral judgement, more an acceptance of the ambiguity of meanings.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Salmoneus »

Creyeditor wrote: 15 Nov 2018 12:30 So it was claimed that it's okay to colonize Papua/Africa/etc because they are just spear-chucking, constantly warring societies that would pillage, rape and kill each other if the Europeans would not pacify them. Which is kind of ironic if we look at European history.
Well, factually speaking, they WERE spear-chucking, constantly-warring societies that would pillage, rape and kill each other if the Europeans didn't pacify them. Papua New Guinea was orders of magnitude more violent than Europe! If you want to argue that it was wrong to stop them, you have to argue that it's wrong to prevent bloodshed when the perpetrators are from another culture - not argue, against the facts, that there was no bloodshed. [and then you have to explain why it's wrong to interfere to stop, for instance, headhunting and child abductions, but right to interfere to stop, for instance, genital mutilation. Or else abandon the absolute position and instead argue that that these things should have been stopped in a different way, although of course any other way would also have come with a cost in lives].


I'm not sure 'clan' suggests anything less warlike than 'tribe', though. In fact, I'd suggest the opposite - the celtic clans still have a reputation for chaos, whereas 'tribe' has been rehabilitated by modern noble savage rhetoric.


Ahzoh: yes, in realistic terms, the iron age was followed by the steel age, and the steel age has been followed by our current age, the age of plastics. It's likely that this will in turn be followed by the age of allotropic carbons.

(this isn't a new stone age, but if it were we'd probably be calling it the cenolithic)
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by elemtilas »

Salmoneus wrote: 16 Nov 2018 13:42(this isn't a new stone age, but if it were we'd probably be calling it the cenolithic)
It's arguable whether this is a "stone age" or not: clearly our reliance on silicon as the foundation of modern tools (computers in all their forms) argues very strongly for it in both literal and figurative domains. Plastics (yes, they predate the perissolithic) and modern composites and so forth may contend, but they too are reliant on the modern stone and they don't replace it.

For what it's worth, Cenolithic already seems to be spoken for. A long time ago, it seems to have been used as one of the divisions of the cenozoic. Recently, it appears, particularly in Latin American archaeology and related, as the tail end of the Stone Age (roughly from the end of the last glaciation to about 5000bc). Too much room for confusion there!

Clans & tribes & violence assorted: I concur entirely.
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Re: alternate ways to say "tribal fantasy"

Post by Ahzoh »

Salmoneus wrote: 16 Nov 2018 13:42
Creyeditor wrote: 15 Nov 2018 12:30 So it was claimed that it's okay to colonize Papua/Africa/etc because they are just spear-chucking, constantly warring societies that would pillage, rape and kill each other if the Europeans would not pacify them. Which is kind of ironic if we look at European history.
Well, factually speaking, they WERE spear-chucking, constantly-warring societies that would pillage, rape and kill each other if the Europeans didn't pacify them. Papua New Guinea was orders of magnitude more violent than Europe! If you want to argue that it was wrong to stop them, you have to argue that it's wrong to prevent bloodshed when the perpetrators are from another culture - not argue, against the facts, that there was no bloodshed. [and then you have to explain why it's wrong to interfere to stop, for instance, headhunting and child abductions, but right to interfere to stop, for instance, genital mutilation. Or else abandon the absolute position and instead argue that that these things should have been stopped in a different way, although of course any other way would also have come with a cost in lives].
Oi, what are you saying? This sounds like the usual colonialist, racist narrative that everywhere else was uncivilized and violent and that European colonists somehow had moral authority and responsibility to decide what to do about other civilizations. Yea, it's important to stop bloodshed and practises that are harmful to others but it's quite arrogant to think only Europeans--especially when they had their own garbage practises--could pacify them and, above all, that colonial subjugation/invasion was in any way ever justifiable.

This is a terrible take mate and I have to question your "facts" if they lead you to believe this.
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