An explanation, justification, and archive for my ongoing survey of the depictions of shamans and shamanism throughout the history of Dungeons & Dragons. Scroll down to the bottom to skip the cruft and get to the posts.
The Un-Pivot to Video
A few years ago I got the idea to try and start a YouTube channel, partially in emulation of the video essayists I put on a pedestal so much, and partly so I could hop on that sweet, sweet 15¢ a month ad revenue gravy train. So I bought a microphone, downloaded some software, and started writing a script.
Obviously it never worked out because I don't have any production or editing skills or on-mic charisma, and I can't speak for more than 2 minutes without the fire station or car wash across the street exploding into background static. But the script for what was to be my inaugural video was more than half-written, and I haven't deleted it from Google Docs yet.
That video was going to be about shamans. Specifically, the portrayal of shamans and shamanism throughout the history of official (and semi-official) Dungeons & Dragons publications.
I've been obsessed with shamans ever since they first appeared to me in early 2000s pop-fantasy games and visual media. Usually they were mangled beyond all recognition of their origins, but I still found them interesting for what they were. Over time that interest led me to research the reality behind them and come to a fuller appreciation of the character archetype and real-world religious practices both- which gives me some faint hope that comically historically-inaccurate movies are not the societal doom I've always feared they are.
From the surprisingly early appearance of the concept right at the game's inception all the way through the '80s, '90s, and early 21st century, shamans appear haphazardly and without a consistent class identity like clerics or wizards enjoy. Yet they keep popping up throughout D&D's history as generations of writers revisit the concept to tweak, fiddle, or completely transform it again and again.
I find that story really compelling, and not just because it lies at an intersection between my fixations on history, fantasy games, and real world mythology. There's something tantalizing about shamanism and animism through the eyes of a lot of Western fantasy media that undeniably has an Orientalist aspect, but it can't be entirely explained away with just that. There's a complex relationship at play here that's worth exploring. And I figured I'd try, in a medium that is more conducive to going back and correcting mistakes than video, where everything is written in digital stone barring a highly disruptive reupload.
So I'm taking the old script and editing and carving it up into chunks that you can read at your leisure, rather than strapping in and listening to my nasally caffeine voice for I-don't-know-how-many combined hours.
This project freely weaves in and out of the history of D&D as a whole as well, so you might pick up a couple of fun facts along the way, like behind-the-scenes legal battles or Gary Gygax's coke habit.
Fun stuff!
Disclaimer
A quick disclaimer before we get into it: I am not a trained anthropologist. I went to school for historical studies, and while I might have familiarity with the ethnographic histories of cultures where shamanism can be found, that does not mean anything I say here is a replacement for an up-to-date professional anthropological take on any of the complex topics I bring up.
Note also that a strictly academic perspective cannot fill in for the perspectives of the indigenous peoples who are so often muffled when they are written about from the outside by scholars and fiction writers alike. Those too are perspectives which I lack as a shut-in of mostly Euro-American upbringing (with just a dash of Puerto Rican for seasoning, if I’m being generous).
I bring these points up not to shield myself from criticism, but to welcome it- I'm bound to make mistakes or misrepresent things. My sources are often general, and sometimes decades old (but at least most of them are of the 21st century). I'm a novice writing about two intersecting interests, and I want to be as accurate and open to discussion as possible.
Another structural bit to bring up ahead of time is that I will be mostly limiting myself to official, first-party D&D publications, whoever that party happens to be at that moment in history. I will briefly touch on magazines like Dragon and Dungeon when relevant, but if I allowed the scope to expand much past that point, this project would start to bloat with a lot of redundancies. Not to mention it would never be finished.
Let's Go!
Now that I’ve thoroughly disqualified myself, I feel comfortable getting into it.
We have a long road ahead, and lots of academia to discuss before we get to the actual fantasy bits, because this is my show and I want to be thorough. I'm publishing two posts to start off, but after that you can probably expect a new chapter every few weeks or once-per-month until we hit modern times, and I run out of material. You will see the word “shaman” written so many times that it will cease to be a word with meaning and become just letters and sounds.
So join me for a ramble as I look through past and present presentations of the shaman and shamanism throughout the many eras of Dungeons & Dragons, the World’s Oldest RPG.
Or whatever stupid prestige euphemism Wizards of the Coast is trying to get us to call it to guard their precious copyright these days. Honestly, it's like there’s a bigger taboo against writing the letters “D&D” than there is against speaking of the Devil, or Candleja-
Spirits & Spookiness: A History of Shamans in D&D
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| Nomad Shaman by Jason Engle, Dragonlance: Age of Mortals |
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