Editing Greg Fulton/Fanstratics Newsletters/6 (section)

== Fanstratics Questions ==
'''Astrologers from HoMM3 but have long been a meme. Will they proclaim weeks and months in the Fanstratics?'''

Fanstratics will have weekly and monthly Astrological events.


'''Gamers in Russia and the CIS countries are very fond of HoMM3 and are one of the most active community of the game. In this case, have you thought about adding creatures from Russian/Slavic mythology and fairy tales or about creating a faction in the Slavic style in the Fanstratics?'''

Truthfully, I have investigated Slavic mythology, but shied away from it.  In my estimation, one of the reasons why HoMM3 was successful, was in how it embraced stereotypical fantasy creatures: dragons, unicorns, dwarves, elves, etc.  Worldwide fantasy tropes are largely driven by Western and Central European mythology, specifically Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of Rings’ (which largely inspired ‘Dungeons & Dragons’).  Other fantasy tropes... Chinese, Japanese, Indian, African, North/South American, Russian/Slavic, etc... have for the most part... stayed regional.

With this in mind, there is a fair amount of visual crossover between Central/Western/Eastern mythology.  For example, if outside of Russia or East Europe, I showed most people a picture of a Zmei... they would tell me it was a Hydra.  Another example would be the Psoglav (human torso, horse legs, dog’s head, one eye), which most people would see as a weird-looking, cyclopean Werewolf (which, by the way, is a lot of fun).

In the end, when you have 60+ creatures, quick identification and natural assumptions, are especially paramount.  So, it’s safer to embrace common stereotypes, and avoid any potential for confusion.  This being said, I’ll take another look into Russian/Slavic mythology, and see if I can’t sprinkle a couple creatures into the Neutral roster.