So when I began constructing the land of Chicora, it was not the real colonial America I kept in mind, but instead the one inside the minds of the European explorers. What was the New World of their imagination? Their prejudices?

So using the colony of Charlestown, South Carolina, as a model, Praxis City was born. Pirates, gentlemen smugglers, gentile society, and the rich landscape of coastal Carolina are all wonderful places from which to draw inspiration. No guns or smallpox came with the colonists this time, putting the natives on much better footing.

Several Southern stereotypes are explored and generally poked fun at in the Doom Lounge Writing Project. The dwarves are grim little Confederate veterans, and the Folke are rednecks. One of the richest sources for exploration in Chicora is the use of half-orcs instead of the slave population of the early colonies. By portraying the enslaved population as the primitive animal-like humaniods that existed in the minds of their masters, we discover not even the half-orcs fit in such a stereotype, challenging today's lingering prejudices from the inside out.

By blending heavily from traditional fantasy and American folklore, we see Orges instead of Big Foot roam the forests, and was that swamp gas or a will-o-wisp there in the trees?

Our modern culture, with all of its scientific explanation, still holds on to its ghost stories and flying saucer sightings. We cling to the last shreds of the fantastic, in desperate hope that there are more things out there than we can explain. There is a part of us that are happy when we discover the African river clams that scientist can't explain why they glow in the dark. There is a part of our souls that celebrate a little when science cannot explain why a duck does not echo. It is in the playground of the pretend that we discover our own potential.