The BR campaign setting has a wide variety of cultures, concepts and

themes. However, some things aren`t in the campaign materials that might

be useful, or that figure prominently in other settings. In several cases

these things are specifically and purposefully excluded (psionics, frenetic

gnomes, a system of unarmed martial arts) but in other cases they might

have been included in the setting. For instance, the Cerilian human

cultures represent a nice range of European cultures, but an Italian/Roman

culture is missing, and that`s an influence I`ve noticed several times when

fiddling around with the campaign materials. One might argue that there

are bits of Italy or Roman Empire influence in a couple of the existing

human cultures--the way Celtic culture exists in several BR races--but I`d

counter that such an influence is relatively slight if it exists at all,

and in the main what I`m talking about here is the existence of a whole

culture, not simply hints of it.



Similarly, there are no Greek or Egyptian cultures in Cerilia for all that

those cultures have broad impacts on several of the cultures that are

represented in the campaign. These cultures might exist on other

continents of Aebrynis, or they might be seen in the extinct Masetians, but

they are absent from the campaign materials, and any such inclusion must be

an extrapolation. Along those lines, there are no "wood elves" in Cerilia

per se, or other types of elves that exist in D&D. Rather, Cerilian elves

are generally of a type. Their differences exist, but by and large those

differences are pretty minor, and have more to do with provincial

boundaries than they do with a culture at large. Would the inclusion of

wood elves or drow improve the setting?



What cultures might be included in the BR setting that aren`t? Which ones

do you specifically miss? Optionally, if one were rewriting or putting

together an alternate continent for the campaign materials that would

include all the influences that aren`t in the existing materials which ones

might one include? What other things that exist in other campaign settings

(an Underdark, a planar system, non-human races like thri-kreen or orcs)

might be useful in BR?



Gary