#i'm on my way to work but I just want to keep writiiiing HELP

[twistedapple]

With my post sharing a part of the WIP for the introduction of my BG3 fanfic, I've had a lot of consideration regarding the depiction of Calimshan and how Raphael fits into it.

Having been an art student, I received a bit of education regarding orientalism, and digging into Calimshan's lore made me take that into consideration, because the place is clearly inspired by the Ottoman empire with more Middle-Eastern traits blended into it, but I didn't want to run into the pitfall of antiquated stereotypes.

I decided to separate the Ottoman inspiration from the Middle-Eastern one (which is given to the Peninsula of Zakhara instead), and run with a more Ottoman setting as a consequence. It means a (fake) historical and social context befitting of the Land of Intrigues, as one of the hallmarks of the Ottoman empire IRL was power reach and political intrigues, all well-hidden under the veneer of elegant luxury. I am going for a cloak and dagger type of story, if you will.

Now, you may think it's dangerous to throw devils into the mix, when I pretend to walk around stereotypes. I've decided to justify their presence not because "urrdurr middle-eastern weird with djinns and all", but by pulling directly from the recent history of Calimshan, how its inhabitants tend to behave, and how devils could be very interested in meddling with mortal affairs as a consequence. The state of Calimshan, and more specifically Calimport, by 1479DR, is pretty fucking dreadful. My story starts a bit later, in 1482DR. With the murder of Pasha Marod el Arhapan (by his own estranged son, no less) and the fall of his floating Palace on a very packed arena, I do imagine that things are quite wild in the region afterwards. There's a power vacuum waiting to be filled with a new dynasty of Syl-Pasha, a plot to get the djinn Calim out of his banishment to the Elemental Chaos, the Sharran Church is active, there's also an active cell of the Night Parade (who're basically the local boogeymen - quite literally, since they kidnap children to transform them into monstrous creatures and help the Night Parade invade the Mortal Plane to flee the demiplane of Nightmares. Of course, they used to be Netherese lol) despite it being severely damaged by the Harpers, slavery of anybody not Genasi is still very much a thing (except Genasi are losing their hold on the whole situation and slave revolts are brewing, led by the city of Almraiven)...

I do think there's a lot of reasons for devils to prey on locals, in Calimshan. In Calimport especially, things were pretty damn shite under Marod's rule. The man had a taste for blood and focused on brutal gladiatorial fights as entertainment. Meanwhile, his Vizar had his own agenda to fill, and now he has to deal with the consequences of Marod's rule and murder while still having to handle his own plans. I think it makes a neat parallel with Raphael, who dips his toes in many-a-plot to use them as propelling boards for his own agenda. As for Nuria, she's a pawn in all of that - but a valuable one, with her own agenda as well.

Ngl it's quite exciting to work on that, because the whole setting fits exactly into the type of story I like best (cool stuff like The Lies of Locke Lamora or To the Victors go the Spoils). I hope my own work will be of interest, especially since I have a free pass on the context between 1482DR and 1492DR as fsr as Calimshan lore is concerned - the last we know of it stops at 1479DR (Sandstorm novel), and 5e doesn't exactly delve into the Land of Intrigues the way 4e did.