As someone who has quite a lot of tattoo work (full sleeves, knuckle tattoos, and a chestpiece), I think about tattoos a lot. I've been interested in tattoos in tabletop games for a while. Over a decade ago in Listen Check, a campaign I got to podcast and play on live radio, I had a player use my custom magic system to create a massive and intricate back tattoo of the deity Wee Jas. Ever since, I've been obsessed with what tattoos would be like in the gameworld. I've never taken the time--until now--to really explore this idea, and I'm excited to see what comes of getting into it.
The following is a profile on the ways that each racial culture in my homebrew D&D setting, Evanoch, views and practices tattoo art.
Daltoners:
Content - Daltoners did not develop the technology for tattooing on their home island, and so there is no real tradition of tattooing. However, dissident Daltoner have come to prize tattoos and often get images that reflect their dissident beliefs--perhaps the most common is a subversion of the Dalton Church of Pelor holy symbol, depicting Pelor with his eyes closed and his mouth dripping with blood. Other common symbols include clashed swords, ships, and simple portraits.
Style - Daltoners adapted their simplistic art style to tattooing when they adopted it; with bold primary colors and simple shapes, their art is recognizable and stylized. The Daltoner tattoo style is beginning to catch on in other communities, often with tweaks from the adapting artists.
Location - Daltoners tend to get tattoos on the arms, chest, and neck. There is an emphasis on the way that tattoos can be easily hidden by typical clothing because of the Daltoner feeling against tattoos.
Meaning - For Daltoners, a tattoo is almost always about voicing dissent in some way since it marks them as outsiders. Tattoos tend to be meaningful in that they represent larger concepts and ideals. Aesthetics are considered, but less than meaning.
Faninites:
Content - Faninites had developed tattoo technology before they reached Evanoch's shores, and they had turned it into a social institution. Positions of social honor, such as clan leader, warchief, or village elder, all come with associated facial tattoos. Faninites say that this began as a way to make leaders easy to find in their society. Tattoos for Faninites tend to be simple geometric designs, such as stripes, Xs, and large dots.
Style - Because Faninite tattoos almost exclusively use simple geometry for their tattoos, their style is mostly derived from the ways the design interacts with the person's body shape. Specifically, Faninite tattoos tend to be on the face, hands, arms, and chest; a village elder may have large green stripes up and down their face with matching stripes on their hands, while a warchief might have a large black X on their face and red dots on their hands.
Location - As mentioned, Faninite tattoos tend to be on the face, hands, arms, and chest. There is an emphasis on how difficult it would be to hide the tattoos--the tattoo makes the wearer a constant beacon to those who need help.
Meaning - As simple as the designs are, the tie to social meaning makes Faninite tattoos especially venerated. Young Faninites often dream of earning tattoos of their own. Applying a tattoo without first earning it would be a mark of great shame in Faninite culture.
Elves:
Content - Elves adopted tattooing a few thousand years ago, and though it is still catching on in some of the more traditional elven circles, most elves have come to accept it as a form of art. The most common theme in elven tattooing is nature; it is not uncommon to see leaves, trees, rivers, and clouds in elven tattoos.
Style - Elven tattoos follow the principle of elven fine art: graceful, curving lines and fine detail. Because of this latter point--the level of detail--many tattoo enthusiasts travel to meet with elven artists. Some elven tattoo artists boast that they individually shade every leaf of every tree.
Location - Elven tattoos tend to be on the back, the legs, and occasionally the area around the eyes. The back and legs receive larger designs, while the eyes are usually adorned with no more than a grouping of leaves near the edge of the eye.
Meaning - Elven tattooing has very little interest in any kind of symbolic meaning beyond the beauty of nature. Some elven tattoo artists can be convinced to work on less aesthetically-driven pieces, and some have even taken to advertising based on the fact.
Half-elves:
Content - More interested than their elven predecessors in the Faninite take on tattoo art, half-elves have combined the work of their parent races by using the content of both. Half-elven tattoos use the composition of Faninite tattoos--pieces that cover entire parts of the visible body--with the content of elven tattoos--natural scenes that follow geometric patterns.
Style - Half-elven tattoos, as stated above, combine elven and Faninite styles. In the world of style, this means that the simple shapes and lines of Faninite tattoos are replaced with elven shapes; one might see a cascade of leaves on someone's hand or crossing rivers on someone's face.
Location - Half-elves have no real restrictions in terms of location, though they tend to follow the standard of Faninite tattoos by utilizing the hands and face. However, their work as tattoo artists tends to attract people of all cultures, and they are happy to emulate the styles and locations of other cultures.
Meaning - In the customs of half-elven tattooing, getting a tattoo is meant to mark an occasion. Like attaining a rank of power for Faninites, it is meant to be a moment of understanding something vital about the world or oneself. Consequently, getting a tattoo is a great occasion for celebration for half-elves.
Orcs:
Content - Orcs have had a tumultuous relationship with tattoos in that orcs once uniformly had many tattoos that covered the body for many generations. But in the last thousand years or so, as orcs have spread more into civilization from the more tribal living in the orcish homelands and left the battle-related tattoos behind. The tattoos that orcs used to get were irregular dark shapes, a type of permanent camouflage; the tattoos they get today are more often small pieces depicting portraits of loved ones.
Style - The style of these portraits is not strictly realistic, though many orcish tattoo artists will work realistically on demand. Rather, orcish tattoos are almost caricature-like in the way they exaggerate features. However, unlike caricatures in our world, which are considered mildly irreverent, these portraits are meant to present people as in memory: slightly skewed.
Location - One thing that never changed about orcish tattooing was the location. Orcs typically get tattooed anywhere on the body, though the most coveted locations for tattoo portraits is typically on the shoulder, the chest, and and the back. Nevertheless, many orcs are covered from head to toe with tattoos.
Meaning - An orcish portrait tattoo is perhaps the ultimate way of paying respect in orcish society. Many orcs think of getting the portrait tattoo as a formal commitment to emulating the ways of that person. This can range from getting a tattoo of a loved one to serve, a hero to strive to be like, or even a trusted animal companion.
Dwarves:
Content - Dwarves come from a society where being given a tattoo is a thing which requires formal approval from clan leadership. Because dwarves believe that each dwarf represents the clan, the clan elders insist on being able to approve or deny designs. As a result, nearly all dwarven tattoos are very traditional, depicting Moradin, dwarven heroes, and simple tools like the hammer and anvil.
Style - The dwarven style of art has always striven for the greatest level of realism possible, and dwarven tattoos are no exception. The art itself is always done with a stippling effect, and dwarven shading is considered some of the finest in the land. In particular, depictions of Moradin are often so lifelike that people who know the tattooed person often feel more connected to the god.
Location - Dwarven tattoos are usually fairly small, but they use the body's larger canvasses such as the chest and back. Increasingly popular in dwarven circles in recent years is the shaving of the head and placing a tattoo there, which can be easily hidden in dwarven society and prominently displayed elsewhere.
Meaning - Dwarves who get tattoos do so at great effort and social cost, and so the meanings of the tattoos that they receive are very often deeply meaningful to them. It is observed that dwarves tend to be more emotionally attached to their tattoos than in other cultures.
Gnomes:
Content - Gnomish tattoos are incredibly varied, but they generally fall into three categories. The first category is social significance--simple designs that indicate someone is married, a parent, or some other significant relation. The second category is intense geometric patterns, things like wobbling spirals, interlaced hexagons, and interlocking irregular shapes. The third category is abstract art, usually depicting animals.
Style - Gnomish tattoo style is also varied, but there are general associations to the above categories. Socially significant tattoos are meant to be easily recognizable, and they are thus kept as simple as possible. The geometric patterns, on the other hand, are generally as complicated as possible. Finally, the abstract animal art tends to make the animals seem either humanoid-like or somewhat supernatural.
Location - Gnomish tattoos differ by type. Tattoos for social significance are tattooed on the back of the hand so that they are easily visible. Geometric patterns are often covering arms, legs, and the chest, as are the abstract animals. Nowhere is off limits.
Meaning - The meaning of a gnomish tattoo is entirely dependent on the gnome. While some will adopt a tattoo because it is a deeply meaningful indicator (such as getting married or having a child), others will simply enjoy the aesthetics of a geometric pattern.
Halflings:
Content - Halflings are said to be the first to have developed tattooing technology around the time that recorded history began. They used the diverse plantlife surrounding them to develop the first inks which were suitable for humanoid skin, and their use of tattooing has changed quite notably every few hundred years. The major movements include the early stages, in which images of gods in particular were tattooed; the middle stages, in which increasingly detailed scenes were tattooed; and finally the late stages, in which increasingly symbolic work was done. Aside from the holy symbols of the early period, no dominant images stand.
Style - Halfling art styles have also changed with time, but the enduring elements which make it recognizable are the uses of contrasting colors and the near-realistic but slightly representative style it employs. Halfling art styles tend to be the styles Evanines think of when they think of tattoos.
Location - Halfling tattoos range across the body, but the trademark halfling art style covers the arms in intricate sleeves. Halfling sleeves are the defining feature, but it is very fair to say that any halfling artist would be experienced in working on practically any part of the body.
Meaning - Halflings tend to be very private about their tattoos and their meanings. It is believed by many that their reticence to discuss their tattoos means that they are very private meanings indeed, but others believe that halflings are embarrassed to admit that they purely care for aesthetics. Halfling tattoo artists never ask their customers what a tattoo means.
There you have it--a full guide to tattoo work across all the cultures in my homebrew setting. Now in my games, I can provide more detailed and interesting descriptions of tattoos. More importantly, this may help me to include more NPCs with tattoos, which is a detail I often don't think about. That would create a more colorful and engaging world for my players, and I'm excited about it.
That's all for now. Coming soon: a profile on the island of Dalton from my homebrew setting, a one-shot based on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and a guide to recreating other genres in D&D. Until then, happy gaming!
Back to the homepage (where you can find everything!)
No comments:
Post a Comment