In regards to generalizations, why are often Sultans and other Middle eastern esque nobles typically portrayed as being much more capable of splendor and decadence than other counterparts?
>Fantasy european esque King might go hunting, have a feast day, a carnival or two in his capital
>Fantasy asian emperor/noble has a harem and many servants to pamper them, but typically are portrayed more reserved and cloistered in the forbidden city. Less likely to drink and feast, more likely to sip tea or make wise quotes
>Fantasy Sultan
>Has an entire harem plus endless selection of slave girls and dancers
>Smokes hookas in rooms full of silk and golden pillows and lounge furniture
>Gets exotic animals from around the world for feasting tables or as pets
>slave gladiator pits and battle arenas with fighters from around the world to fight each other and wild animals
>Gold and treasure everywhere and in your face, along with the severed hands of thieves as decoration
>More likely to build giant statues and monuments and other fantastical architecture where European fantasy kings often just have their castle and city
Even the way they are addressed tends to be more bombastic. "Your Majesty" vs "Sultan of Sultans, may you live forever"
Saudi Arabia.
Because Europeans are prudes, and Amerifats are doubleprudes.
Its because of how europeans looked at the islamic empires of their time. Same with pagans in europe.
The islamic empire is strong and an economic powerhouse, Therefore they are decadent and degenerate unlike our pure homelands. If the islamic empire is weak and struggling then they are savages and cultists unlike our rich and civilized homelands.
Pagans face this by their symbols of protection becoming symbols of evil.
Anyway the reason the sultan is seen as super degenerate and despodent is because the enemy might be richer and stronger but they dont have our morals. The truth is emperors acted the same always. Political harems that made them wish they didnt have dicks and the occassional exotic thing showed to them to curry favour.
These ideas of the past grew and changed but kept the essence. Which is why the pentagram is still satanic while its common knowledge it isnt
Moreover they keep the exotic factor but not too exotic. No faraway land you wanna learn about. Its those weird neighbours to the south
probably because middle-eastern/western-asian derived fantasy civs generally also sit on trade centres where they can act as middle-men for fantasy europeans and fantasy asians. also because there's frick-all to do in the desert so you may as well PARTY HARD
My guess is that most fantasy writers are european or euro-adjacent and that making arab stand-ins decadent hedonists allows them to enter their magical realm without arousing as much suspicion as it would from a euro stand-in. For example, suppose a french-equivalent warlord has three wives, thirty concubines, and spends most of his days drinking and fornicating. For a euro reading a story written by a euro, that's suspicious, but if the same warlord were an umayyad, it wouldn't be anywhere near as strange brcause the default assumption that the author is self-inserting their perversions is largely absent.
It's because most if these tropes from a 19th century exoticized and sensationalist European view of the Ottomans
Only true Arabs are the Bedouin tribes like in Lawrence of Arabia all other Arabs are just posers
Bollocks. They're just the opposite side of the story empires like to tell about those they've conquered.
https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/
Funny thing was that the Romans did this to the rich and monarchal east while they propagandized against the poor, tribal west (with them as the perfect medium of course). It's amazing how much history is really self-portrait.
In my setting the Sultan has elves in his harem and has a few half-elf children (Although the Crown Prince is human)
Talking about Sultans, fantasy artwork of Middle Eastern Sultans is very lacking for some reason. I'm probably going to commission some all-purpose Sultan art for the Sultan in my setting and was wondering what things I should include. I was thinking a decadent palace throne made of cushions for his seat. Any other suggestions?
a ladyboy harem wench
NGL it will get really expensive If i start adding other characters to the commission
this is what they used to show the decadence of the Sultan when they made a movie from a polish national epic, in the backward, intolerant year of 1999.
drug paraphernalia
some stupid exotic fruit
something very impractical made of gold
funny ceremonial weapon, Sikh 'sword' style
something made of ice
The Ottoman empire.
Wealthy elite Turks were damn near hedomism nexuses in the universe for the better part of 300 years. The picture of wealthy Ottoman with legions of slaves, including harem, indoor white slaves, outside black slaves, slave soldiers, and fancy foreign ones to show off were a standard status symbol among the nobility.
What are some good resources for creating Arabian-based settings? What about common misconceptions regarding said settings?
One of the best Arabian settings I've seen was Book of Horn and Ivory
It's part of Ironclaw so I hope you're okay with furries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism
>Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world.
That doesn’t answer why moron, that’s just the name of the trope.
This is the objective correct answer, the ottomans were based big time ballers with the strongest empire in the world for a while, but also insanely decadent and degenerate by European standards
>but also insanely decadent and degenerate by European standards
I mean they were a Roman successor state...
No one was buying the Sultan of Rum story.
Probably not. But when you and the lads finally storm that big city and see it comes with hot and cold running women and all the gold you can eat, you're going to look back at your yurt and think frick that for a game of sipahis. Especially when you find out there's even BIGGER cities if you just keep kicking arse.
Because it's cool and exotic
The sultan is a gigachad and rich as frick, the king is a chad but also a poorgay, and while the emperor is rich he is also an autismus maximus.
i dont think you understand anon i cannot over state the fact i fricking love kilij crossguards, i dont care if its a mismash of parts, i will put it on a gladius and i will put on a katana and longsword and it will turn me on and with it i will be better than you in dueling
i will put it this way putting this type of crossguard on any sword is like dressing up pale redheads, blondies, brunettes and petite jade skinned asian beauties in sultry arabian/middle eastern harem or belly dancer ware, that what it does for me, especially those engravings on the guard like love marks and womb tattoes and the curves crafted in such a way seeming like a trance putting hypnotic lap dance for you only engoring your lordly vigour, while your opponent is seething he cant get crossguards that hot or reach your level of enlightenment, holy shit im cumming buckets