Re: Harem Collector
"I promise, my game isn't racist. Now lets talk about enslaving some blacks."
...Wow, yeah. I totally didn't think of that one. Well, hey, at least you're enslaving all races equally.
I kid, I kid. Ethnocultural diversity will improve the game. And with all of the unethical slave raids going on, it makes sense that the Middle Kingdom could have developed quite a bit of variety in what people look like.
Not to mention it being a coastal country with a large magic school. I haven't done the actual Docks district of Southport yet (obviously) but it and Westcastle are both going to be the big cultural hodgepodge places where I'm going to have lots of fun writing in weird customs and odd cultures.
Still, I'm glad that plantation farms don't seem to be a thing.
Well, I think on occasion someone tries, but on the whole it's cheaper and less logistically problematic to hire labourers. There are lots of unskilled plebs who aren't even good to enough to pass the Slaver Guild's QA in the slums, and the docks area of Southport and Civilian District of Eastfort are going to be very similar economically speaking.
Example: the foresters in Lumberhill. They could have been slaves, but labourers are easy to find and if you don't own them you're not obligated to pay for a healer when a tree inevitably falls on one.
Question: how racially diverse is the aristocracy going to be? Is gaining title meritocratic enough that someone from a racial minority could become a lord without being a special snowflake?
In the Middle Kingdom, the aristocracy is all native to the area and been there for generations. The class system in the MK is fluid to a point, and the nobles tend to interbreed a lot with each other or at most a rich local with a known lineage. However, nobles are only one half of the story- MK merchants can becomes powerful enough to rival the noble families and there's nothing stopping a foreigner from gathering that much power so long as they're not a dirty, dirty Kellosian.
Kellos, being a militant, expansionist empire, is both more brutal but more upwardly mobile. All that is required to become a noble is to be a good enough soldier that the Empress chooses to reward you with title and land, and the Kellos military makes heavy use of both slave soldiers and auxiliaries. Case in point is the Five Heroes of Kellos. Evanie the Sword-Saint is not local to Kellos- she actually comes from the same pseudo-Japanese country Chimei is from. She started life as a slave who was raised in Kellos but taught the fighting style of her homeland, and eventually rose to the highest position possible outside the Imperial family. At least one other of the Five Heroes used to be an auxiliary.
As for the actual Africa-inspired country that the MK will try to colonize in a later episode, I'm drawing from ancient Egypt, Nubia and Zimbabwe for it's tone and customs. This mostly comes from my own interests though, and not merely an attempt at moar diversity- I've thought for a long time that Nubia and ancient Zimbabwe were criminally under-represented in fantasy fiction, and I can't think off the top of my head of an attempt at "fantasy Africa" except for the Conan novels and Quest for Glory 3.
. I am sure you will get around to it eventually and I can wait until then.