A new(ish) way of considering Historic Preservation

I still have a blog, really!

Part of the reason I haven't been writing more is that I've become really really busy again. I've gone back to graduate school, this time for Historic Preservation. My girlfriend is trying grad school out for the first time; she's doing Architecture and working 16hr days, 7days/week. I don't know how she's doing it, but she is. Luckily, our programs are in the same building so we can eat lunch together.

Engaging with the philosophical and ethical aspects of Historic Preservation is somewhat new to me. My previous experiences have been practical/material, or legal/policy-related. However, a lot of the philosophical/ethical issues have been addressed in past classes I took on anthropology and museum studies, so this stuff is fairly comfortable, just not exciting.

Something that came up in a random research dive is the Ship of Theseus Paradox, or more simply the Theseus Paradox. In it's shortest form, the philosophical paradox reads:

"If an object composed of multiple parts gradually has its parts replaced over time, at what point does it cease to be the original object, and becomes a new object?"

I was absolutely gobsmacked that I had never encountered this concept in its named, simply-stated form, as I had been unwittingly been addressing this paradox since my first year of college! The first class I took as an undergraduate was called "Primitive Skills in the Modern World," where we demonstrated and discussed traditional skills like pottery, woodcarving, and hair-braiding to each other. My undergraduate adviser is a renowned expert in the making and throwing of stone-tipped spears, and he guided my senior research in non-synthetic, traditional adhesive recipes.

More after the jump...

Fiona the hippo

The Cincinnati Zoo's social media strategy over the past year has been fascinating. Last year, the loss of their gorilla Harambe became so deeply viral that the Zoo was effectively unable to do anything online without being spammed or hacked.

Luckily, they've had some replacement news, now that "Team Harambe" has accomplished its goals of making people miserable before getting distracted.

Fiona, a Nile Hippopotamus, was born several weeks premature, but besides her medical care, her social media presence has been brilliantly managed by the zoo, with various multimedia being posted on a consistent basis on multiple websites, including her own http://cincinnatizoo.org/blog/2017/01/25/premature-hippo-baby-updates/

While being naturally photogenic (she loves to photobomb her mother), I think that her web presence has been brilliantly-managed.

Since hippos vulnerable to habitat loss/fragmentation as well as poaching, she and her parents are excellent spokeshippos for conservation in Africa as well!

While I wish I could've gotten a picture of myself with Fiona (probably the most famous Cincinnati resident right now), the line to see her up close was quite long, and she was hiding behind her mother.

But that's okay. As long as she's happy, and we all learn what matters most in life from her - enjoy your time with those you love, and to protect nature.

Anti-Utopianism (is this even the right term?)

In my last entry, I briefly mentioned my drifting away from Utopian idealism as I became an adult. Right now, I'm working to formulate a theory of anti-Utopian government. In my last blog entry, I said:

• "As a youth, I was definitely a starry-eyed Utopian liberal, but have since seen the error of those ways. A perfect society cannot be created out of inherently-imperfect individuals. Instead, politics is an eternal contest between forces that adapt to each other, and everyone aligns themselves with those forces based on incomplete or false information."

I'm going to try and elaborate on that a bit more here.

Basically, every time someone thinks they have the way to create a perfect society, or return to an idealized previous social state, bad things happen. Much of the mass death of the past 100 years are due to Utopians of various stripes - Fascists, Communists, Nationalists, religious Fundamentalists, etc, etc.

Therefore, the best society is one that acknowledges the impossibility of perfection. Striving for an ideal state/State is worse than pointless, it's dangerous! Better would be something that is adaptable to changing circumstances, because nothing forms in a vacuum. Historically, governments are among the most static human institutions, as they are either based upon the decree of a ruler or a code of written laws. However, corporations, religious groups, and militias are increasingly running circles around government, siphoning resources away from the latter. What can be done?

I've read some pieces that seem to be stepping in the direction I'm looking for, but so far haven't found anyone that's out-and-out blasted Utopian thinking overall. Chuck Marohn and Steve Hilton seem to be going in the right direction, in that both advocate a nimble, responsive, bottom-up approach to governance, especially at the municipal level. However, I'm not sure if either of them are still caught up in the Utopian paradigm of free-market capitalism, i.e. that "the free market will solve problems," or that "government should be more like a private business." Remember Americans: market capitalism is not the natural state humans! It's an invention, just like weekends and banking!

Many historical dystopias arise out of an effort to create utopia. American society today could be argued to be a dystopia, a product of trying to create a capitalist utopia - see Kansas and other states going down the path of privatization, government shrinkage at all costs, etc.

What really got me into thinking about Anti-Utopianism was reading about the origins of Salafist Islam in Vali Nasr's The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future.

Salafi Islam is supposedly based around emulation of the "devout ancestors" (Salafim). How it was originally formulated as an Islamic response to modernity in the 19th century. The idea was to integrate a few of the "best" elements of "Western Civilization" with Islam's "original/purest" values
It was ultimately co-opted by Wahhabi Islam (the often-violent sect that the Saudis export everywhere), as returning to the "pure original" values came to mean Quranic literalism, wiping out folk beliefs, killing people who disagree with you, etc. If these things sound familiar, it's because it's another Utopian ideal, just like Communism, Fascism, and manifest destiny capitalism!

*Of course, I don't want to be caught stealing from the collective unconscious. So I'm doing research in my recently-copious spare time to see if these ideas really are that original, or whether I'm blinded by the myopia of specialization in only one cluster of intellectual disciplines, rather than being a Renaissance man. Of course, being a Renaissance Man is basically impossible these days, but whatever.

If anyone knows about anyone discussing such an impulse against Utopian idealism please let me know!

A new(er) world disorder

I've been sitting on this essay for a couple months. However, recent events provoked me into correcting it and posting it.
It's political, so avoid reading it if you don't care for that sort of thing. If you disagree with my opinions, that's fine too. Just don't embarrass yourself over it.

Mushroom gravy (vegetarian)

Honestly, I'm putting this up here so that I remember to use it again!

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1-lb. container of mushrooms, hacked to pieces
• 1 normal onion, hacked to pieces
• Several minced cloves of garlic, to taste.
• 2 cups of water or vegetable stock (or reserved soaking water from dried mushrooms)
• Liquid addition(s): can be Soy Sauce, Tamari, Worcestershire Sauce, or a similar source of concentrated savory flavor. This supplements the natural flavors of the mushroom.
• Thickener: a tablespoon corn meal/starch, potato starch, or flour.

1. Cook butter over medium-low heat until melted and the color starts to change.
2. Toss in garlic, cooking until golden in color. 
3. Toss in onion, spreading around the pan into a thin layer. Stir every minute or so until onion changes in color, or keep going for awhile until it caramelizes. If you want caramelization, it's over a quarter-hour of consistent stirring. 
4. Toss in mushrooms once onion is a satisfactory color for you. Increase heat to medium-high, stir a tablespoon of Soy /Worcestershire/whatever sauce. Keep stirring until all liquid present evaporates, mushrooms dry out and change color. 
5. Add the thickener plus enough water/stock to make a roux or slurry, then cook on medium until the thickener changes color. 
6. Pour in the rest of the water/stock. Bring to boil, then simmer until liquid is reduced and feels thickened. Serve hot. 

This is really good with anything involving potatoes or other tubers. 

More on colleges and superhumans

A follow-up to my earlier entry on the Massachusetts Intercollegiate Mecha League.

At least since Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created the X-Men, a secluded private school for young superbeings has been a staple of the Superhero genre. The X-Men are located in Westchester County, New York, an affluent area north of NYC.

As a college student in rural Iowa, I considered that the many small liberal arts colleges that dot the Midwest would make excellent fictional settings for superhero stories. The Midwest has many virtues for such stories - a combination of centrality, proximity to major cities like Chicago and Minneapolis. Fairly flat terrain allows for a proving ground of various genre elements like super-speed, exotic vehicles, and human flight. After all, Superman is originally from rural Kansas.

Writing about a college with either an overt or covert school-within-a-school for supers would be pretty fun, especially if it combines with the typical hi-jinx associated with normal teenagers and disaffected twenty-somethings. Perhaps Hero High fits the bill? Or maybe the sillier GURPS I.O.U?

Underground training facilities and research labs lurking beneath the prairie soil is a must!

Part 2, I guess??

In the 1950's, we reached the point where a single individual could induce global catastrophe through atomic weapons. We have been living under that Sword of Damocles for over half a century. However, we are now reaching the point where a private individual without state backing could achieve nearly the same effect, whether through pathogens or computer malware. A fairly small cabal of determined individuals could also achieve the same ends through acquisition of existing nuclear weapon stocks in Pakistan, North Korea, or Russia. 

Regardless of the how or why, we're approaching a point where genocide can be accessible to the common man. And what is our response to this inevitability? Openly, we ignore it, just like we've ignored the atomic weaponry scattered around the world for 60+ years. Privately, I suspect that the curtailment of civil liberties and increase in surveillance states this century is in part a response to those existential threats. The fact that private information is also a medium of exchange among the new, data-driven elite is just a market incentive to accelerate the ascension of the digital police state. 

Does the line from Ben Franklin "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" still apply in an era where existential threats can only become more numerous and deadly? Should every human have the freedom to potentially kill millions, if not billions?

I don't think I'm going to like the answer, regardless of whether the question can be answered.

However, that doesn't prevent others from formulating an answer.
Authoritarianism, thought to be on the wane at the end of the last century, is definitely back in vogue. Countries like China have long proven that economic freedom and individual freedom are separable, and the authoritarian-populist-nationalist wave sweeping the globe shows that such ideas have appeal for the under-employed masses, with the traditional excuse of "If you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to be afraid of" sufficing for many.

The genius of data-gathering smartphone apps lies in the fact that, not only have we consented to being watched, but that we seek it out and will pay for the privilege of privacy violation. Who knows? You might go viral and make millions! Who cares about privacy? It's insidiously brilliant.

Of course, I too use a smartphone and have a car with a GPS tracker in it - most cars newer than a certain vintage do. I don't see myself as a hypocrite for pointing all these things out - merely that one should be aware of the underlying reasons why, for instance, social media websites are free (Answer: they sell user data). 

Freedom is life! Freedom is death!

Inspired by, among other things, this article:

As a child of the liberal-humanist Enlightenment, I did not realize how peculiar a thing personal liberty is until well into adulthood.

Our hunter-gatherer forebears were free to do as they chose, although their choices were severely proscribed by the necessities of survival, and probably by deference to their elders.

Then as now, the personal liberty of children is necessarily curtailed by their parents and elders, for children (especially the very young) do not understand consequences, and infants are too undeveloped to even have agency. The lone infant is free to die from hunger or exposure if not taken into someone's arms. The toddler is free to crawl into an oven, if not for an observant caregiver.

The development of villages and (soon after) agriculture caused humans to cluster together in groups larger than the family units exhibited by hunter-gatherers. For around ten millennia, the march of time has placed many of us into larger and larger groups, until today the majority of humans live in cities, many of them holding over a million. With ever-larger populations, we are exposed to ever-more strangers; those who aren't kin. A farming village; a cluster of a few clans (see image below) is a good way to organize a small community based on Dunbar's Number, better known as the Monkeysphere.

Everybody knows everybody in such a village, and everybody has their place. You know what people don't have much of in these settings? Personal freedom. Much waking time is dedicated to agricultural labor, although agricultural success is still often dependent on vagaries of weather. Thus, these societies tend toward religiosity and conservatism, as any disruption of the social order becomes apparent quickly, either socially or supernaturally (which can be considered the same thing). 

The monkeysphere isn't the perfect theory to explain human behavior by any means, but the monkeysphere theory's estimated optimum size for human groups (150) is a reasonable size for a lot of horticultural/agricultural societies. Anyone outside the "monkeysphere"/social network isn't really considered a "real" person. An effectively-universal human trait is Xenophobia, fear of "that which isn't us." An unknown quantity is a potential threat, and can be treated as such. How much of folklore and mythology concerned with fear of the stranger? Enough that the parable of The Good Samaritan, or the reminder "For you were strangers in the land of Egypt" stand out as truly extraordinary, and often forgotten in practice.  

"Western Civilization" is largely beyond that organizational level, as can be potentially connected to anyone, anywhere (intentionally or otherwise). However, we are forced to interact with strangers constantly - driving on the road with them, using products made by them, learning of distant events through them, reading blogs by them, etc. The fundamental terror of Civilization is that one (or more) of those strangers is a threat, and we won't know it until it's too late. You could call it the "They Live!"  phenomenon. It's probably one of the reasons why city dwellers have higher rates of mental illness - we're constantly alone, lost in a crowd. 

On the other hand, we are pretty damn free to do as we please: 

• Fail to obtain the necessities of life? The social safety net intervenes. 
• Run in front of a car for fun? You're taken to a hospital and treated. 
• Say something horrible about the authorities? No legal consequences. 

Of course, all these situations have caveats, but there are exceptions to every rule. By a number of standards, we are historically fortunate. However, I'm not sure how long it will last. 

Curating a collection of software

A substantial part of my professional background lies in collections management - mostly archival or museum.
I showed an early aptitude for this when I began cataloging my Mother's collection of comic books from her adolescence, circa late 1960's-early 1970's. Gingerly manipulating back issues of Action Comics into Mylar baggies was great preparation for my future work-life.

In graduate school, I learned that the most important skill of a curator is learning when to refuse a new item, or when to downsize a collection.
The lines between curator, collector, and hoarder are precious thin, and your institution's budget should be respected by not acquiring items that do not contribute to your organization's mission.

• A curator should accumulate and maintain a collection to the highest standards available to their skills, workplace, and profession. 
• A collector accumulates based on theme and desire. 
• A hoarder...just accumulates things. 

Don't be a collector or hoarder. That lies on the path to neglecting what matters most - the collection.

This outlook is so all-consuming for me that I do this in my spare time for friends. One friend is accumulating a research collection of games (digital and analog) for a major university, so I'm doing my best advising him how to go about things. Of course, he's worked in major museums internationally, so who am I to talk about this stuff?

When putting together a collection of games, software, or other material that is wholly or partially digital:

• Having a collecting strategy is important, especially since you're dealing with a variety of item types, from software, to boxes filled with tiny things, to books. 
• Usage of online software archives is a good thing for software, especially if you can get permission from the webmasters of said archives to download their stuff onto your server. That negates many of the issues of preserving data on obsolete formats like Floppy disks, as much of the work has already been done for you. 
• You'll want a mission statement for collections, as nobody stays at an institution forever - have everything in writing; leave nothing in your head. 
• Any collection of digital content needs a mix of stuff that's not for sale anymore, doesn't work on current machines, etc. This is known as AbandonWare or Orphaned Works. 
• It's super-fortunate that this problem is being (partially) solved with the rash of Remastered Editions, Humble Bundles, Gog.com, Archive.org efforts, etc. However, availability is of course a fickle thing, as shown by Alan Wake, which now unavailable on all online sales due to its soundtrack-licensing deals expiring, and the publisher being unable to renew them as of yet. 
• The other challenge for a collecting strategy (as you've likely noticed by now) is whether to collect the well-known, the exemplars of the genre, the innovative, the obscure, or some combination of the above. Connoisseurs of pretty much anything will inevitably encounter noble junk (good ideas poorly executed). As a repository for research purposes, you can choose to include content that is an evolutionary "dead end," critical success/commercial failure, etc.
• Don't automatically-reject commercial successes out of hand, merely that such content must have some other feature that merits their inclusion within the collection.  
• Another question of collection strategy is selecting what to collect from a franchise. The first or most recent entry in a franchise may not be the one most meritorious of inclusion. Choose the entry that exemplifies the entire franchise, or the entry that is most innovative. 
• So which of these do you acquire for the collection? That must be answered and articulated by you.

Chili

As a Texan by upbringing, I am contractually obligated to make chili now and then. It was the first thing I learned to cook, and one of a small list of things that I make from memory.
Of course, being chili, I don't really make it from memory - I make it up as I go along, with whatever is taking up space in the fridge/pantry/freezer.

Most of the chili I've made is vegetarian, because I prefer supporting industrialized slaughterhouses as little as possible, and I don't like paying a premium for "happy cows." More recently, I've even developed a vegetarian chili that has no beans, just to see how far I could push the envelope of avoiding common food sensitivities. I love beans, so this recipe I use now is more a supplement to a normal chili, rather than a stand-alone.

Eggplant, mushrooms, and cauliflower (especially the latter) seem to be very in right now. I'd say that part of their popularity is because of their use as providing healthy substitutes to meat, while not trying to be meat. Particularly when roasted, these three foods develop a wonderful texture, caramelization, and savory-sweet flavor.

What does this have to do with chili? Well, those who are willing to wait all day for chili (and you should, because good chili is worth cooking all day), use these three things to improve your veggie stews. Oil up a big roasting pan - slice eggplant into 1-inch rounds - roughly chop mushrooms and cauliflower - line the bottom of the pan with eggplant, then layer on the other stuff.

Heavily season with chili powder, black pepper, and cumin before baking at 450 degrees F for...a while. This usually takes upwards of 45 minutes. If you're feeling extra-lazy in food prep, throw in some chopped onions and tomatoes to simmer in their juices and flavor everything in there. Garlic cloves and sweet bell peppers can go in at the half-way point of the roasting, which is also when everything needs to be stirred. Keep roasting this mess until everything is browned and about to blacken. You now have something akin to a sofrito, mirepoix, or włoszczyzna (never, ever ask me how to pronounce the latter) without all the work of sauteing and sweating over the stove-top.

I did this a couple times as an experiment to produce bean-less vegetarian chili and was pleasantly surprised. I still prefer it mixed with beans, however, as it provides a nice, meaty texture and absorbs seasonings better than tofu would.

I also made vegetarian shepherd's pie for the 14th of March (or "Pi-day"). The Greek letter on top of the pie is made from homemade mushroom gravy, which takes a infuriating amount of simmering to make, but is well worthwhile as a topping for potatoes or biscuits.

I really need to make this again...

A society of letters/Respublica Literaria

Sometimes it's nearly impossible to find people to play games with in-person. My father, an avid board-gamer in his younger days, would play Chess and Diplomacy by postcard. I'm sure people in earlier days did similar things through the post or telegram. 

But what if there were games that were meant to be played long-distance? That eliminates social contract issues that can arise in not doing things face-to-face. I'll admit that I've played essentially-zero long-distance games, message board or otherwise. I dislike long-distance games even more than long-distance relationships. But perhaps with a rules-set built for distance play would be better?

For thousands of years, long-distance communication was done through a mix of couriers and written texts. Both were a strategic asset - interference with mail remains a serious crime today, and impeding the business of an imperial courier could be a capital crime. Typically, international correspondence would be between rulers or their emissaries. Classical civilization made scholarly correspondence international, and Christianity and Islam further increased correspondence to clergy, who were often also scholars as well. 

Starting with the Rennaissance, letter-writing became a major pursuit of the educated elite, who would often be literature in a common language (e.g. Latin, Greek, or French) and created a multi-century network of correspondence that came to be known as Respublica Literaria (Republic of Letters). This informal, international fellowship was primarily male, bourgeoisie, or nobility, and remotely collaborated on various projects. The link goes to a site with visualizations of this network. While this "Republic" was concentrated in Europe, human nodes of the network, like Benjamin Franklin and Athanasius Kircher, maintained intercontinental connections. 

Letter-writing is becoming a lost art. Many arts are always endangered, but that is a blog topic for another day. I learned to write a decent letter to my grandparents, particularly my grandfather, who has earned the right to avoid what technology he can get away with. Hand-written thank-you notes are also a valuable tool in the arsenal of the grateful, or those who wish to appear grateful. Perhaps an RPG/storytelling exercise based around letters would allow the preservation of such things? After all, the most popular role-playing games take place in a pseudo-medieval world, where literacy is precious and communication can be slow without certain magic. 

Alternatively, letter-writing in the classroom can potentially be a powerful exercise. Students can practice their skill at description, persuasion, formatting, etc. Or make them role-play out writing a letter, either as a character in literature, or someone living through a historical event. Yes, much of it will be cringe-worthy, but it might reach a pupil that otherwise won't be by conventional writing exercises, and they'll learn how to write a letter to boot. 

I'll put down more about letter-writing in RPG settings in another blog entry. 

Humanzees

I've referenced the podcast Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff  before on this blog. They're a pair of writers that frequently collaborate on RPG-related projects, and have overlapping interests in fiction and non-fiction (though Ken is more of a historian, while Robin is more of a narrative critic). Since their podcast has literally hundreds of episodes and I spend a lot of time in my car or doing data entry, I have copious opportunity to listen to their back-catalog.

Most recently, I listened with much pleasure to Episode 163, in which they discuss the history and stories surrounding attempts to create Humanzees - Human/Chimpanzee hybrids. These attempts were actually made, by Americans, the Soviets, and Imperial Germany, at minimum. They were also multi-decade efforts, running from the late 19th century to the height of the Cold War. Unsurprisingly, there was a military interest in creating super-strong but not-so-smart soldiers, particularly on the part of Josef Stalin, who sponsored research in his native Georgia (Sakartvelo) by Ilya Ivanovitch Ivanov.

Darkest Dungeon

I really have no idea why I put off buying Darkest Dungeon, nor why I've put off updating this blog. The answer for both is probably the same - I was busy with class, replaying Medieval II: Total War, and trying out Endless Legend. All are very fun games, and at least two of these are objectively "well-designed" games. M2TW is fun, but there's a fundamental contradiction in the game, in which you want to manipulate the strategic layer to avoid having to fight the tactical battles. This is accomplished by only attacking with overwhelming force, and only going into tactical battles when the odds are a coin-toss or a superior foe has forced your hand.

Back to the original topic. In an earlier blog entry, I mused about a compromise system for tactical battles that abstracts the "grid" that is common to many tactical games, whether based on squares, hexes, or pixels. Instead, the focus is on ranks or ranges.

Darkest Dungeon's system is firmly rooted in the "ranks" idea, as heroes and foes' abilities can often only be activated in certain ranks (out of four) and often only target those in certain ranks (again, out of four). Some characters are only effective in certain ranks (such as the Leper or Arbalest). Other heroes change role, depending on where they're placed in marching order (the Man-at-Arms can be kitted out for a frontline tank role or rearguard leader role, buffing and de-buffing). Still others move in rank during fights, shifting position with their various skills used (Bard, Highwayman, Grave-Robber).

Monsters will do this too, so it behooves the wise player to push melee enemies back and pull archers or spellcasters forward to limit their attacks. Suffice to say, I'm completely enthused with this game!

One way in which a system like this could go farther would be in breaking ranks. Much like football or similar games, decisive moments occur in which a line is broken. In combat terms, this would historically be a line of shields, pole-arms, and field fortifications like stakes, pits, or the ever-reliable stakes-in-pit-filled-with-poo.

My fantasy idea of Darkest Dungeon II could incorporate these elements, with a fifth (or fourth) party position reserved for a flanker/skirmisher/berserker operating out of formation, either protecting the party's flanks, harassing, or breaking through the enemy's front lines, wildly attacking those behind. These ideas may form up again at some point in my brain after I finish my final exam next week for my Remote Sensing class.

Valentine's day post - a superior salad dressing

If you're lazy sometimes - and who isn't? - you sometimes need quick recipes to appear classier than you actually are. Here's something you can put on your salads that tastes really good, is good for you, and exploits what would otherwise be a minor annoyance in trying to live cheaply.

You need

• A nearly empty jar/bottle of mustard (preferably a good mustard)
• Tablespoon of olive oil (extra-virgin, duh!)
• Tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (buy the real thing from Modena)

1. Take the top off your mustard bottle or jar
2. Add the oil and vinegar
3. Put the top back on, closing it tightly
4. Shake the daylights out of the bottle
5. Squirt delicious vinaigrette onto the salad in front of you and your sweetie. 

Making food for a date is a nice, cheap alternative to taking someone out, especially if you make something light like salad and soup for dinner. Heavy food like steak or pasta can impede the romantic possibilities, and leaves less room for chocolate (aka the real reason for Valentine's day)

Nyambe

http://www.atlas-games.com/nyambe/

Although d20 isn't as popular as it used to be, there is still plenty of room for RPGs that take influences from beyond Germanic mythology, Star **** media, or Martial-Arts films.

Nyambe is based on (Sub-Saharan) African myth and history, with a little bit of the Middle East and Indian Ocean cultures worked in, as the North and East of Africa were heavily-influenced by interactions with Arabia, India, etc. Traditional F20* races and classes are adjusted accordingly, particularly for the lack of heavy armor in hotter climates.


*http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/see-p-xx-the-f20-era/

Belief in "short people living underground" and "forest-spirit-people" are also known from Africa, as are various mythic beasts that resemble Dragons and more disturbing things. Seriously; there are some creepy monsters in African folklore. 

In Nyambe, oral histories go back to the doorstep of creation, but knowledge of the ancient ruins doesn't make them any less deadly. Unlike some settings, humans are divided into several ethnic groups, some with kingdoms, others without. Demihumans resemble beings from African myth, and wild/dire animals can be as dangerous as any monster. Adventurers will look and act differently, due to environmental and cultural factors.


Human Ethnicities

• Azzazza = Punt/Nubia
• Hutali = Buganda?
• Marak'ka = ?
• Mbanta = Dogon
• NaBula = Songhai
• Shombe = Masai
• Tisambe = Dahomey
• Tembu = Shona
• Tuslan = KhoiSan
• Xon'mo = Yoruba?
• Zamara = Azande
• Nghoi = Mbuti

Demihumans

• Agogwe = Halflings adapted for burrowing with large badger claws. They take their names from dangerous beasts or monsters with supernatural abilities. 
• Kitunusi = Gnomes comfortable with darkness & bureaucracy. Live in partially-submerged cities. Like other gnomes, they're gifted at magic. 
• Ngoloko = Half-Orcs constantly tempted by dark magic. Hairier than normal Orc-kin. 
• Unthlatu = Lizardfolk with Dragon blood. Aquatic abilities, but weak culture due to lack of parental involvement; children are ready to hunt and swim once hatched.  
• Utucheckulu = Dwarves adapted for volcanic, hilly terrain. Ritualistic heart-eating and similarly-disturbing practices.
• Wakyambi = Arboreal Elves with tails; fond of benign meddling and gift-giving.  

New Classes: 

• Gamba = Fighter, with less armor, more dodging and grit.
• Mchawi = Dark wizards, can't be good, a penchant for necromancy and other suspect magic.
• N'anga = Cleric that talks to spirits: natural, ancestral, celestial, fiendish, geographic, etc.
• Nanala = Rogue, with less gimmickry, more dirty fighting.
• Ngoma = Bard with Divine magic. Drummer & dancer. See Unearthed Arcana. 
• Sei = Sorceror, with more overt Draconic power (bonus spells and breath weapons).
• Other classes are less well known, such as the Engolo wrestlers (Monks). 

Foreign adventurers are also present, referenced as being "Near Easterners," "Far Easterners," and "Northerners." However, they usually need local assistance in dealing with the tropical climate and different customs. 

As a partial setting, Nyambe could easily be fit into another setting. I've really wanted to insert it into Eberron, given the latter's relatively small world size and room for another continent. Obviously, there are questions that must be answered (by the GM to themselves) before such a thing would be done.