Wind Waker: Nifo’oti from the thousand isles of the Master Navigators.

 Wind Waker: Nifo’oti from the thousand isles of the Master Navigators.

Phantom Ganon's Sword: Phantom Ganon is the first manifestation of Gannondorf’s power that Link must face in his adventure. When Link is ready to face the ultimate evil threatening the Great Sea, he must defeat Phantom Ganon repeatedly to find his way through a maze. At the end of the maze, Link must take up the vanquished phantom’s sword and shatter a barrier blocking his way.

In the Isles of the Master Navigators, there is little enough metal to make tools and too much wet salt air to keep metal tools safe from rust. Instead, the craftspeople of the islands turn to wood, stone, shells, and teeth for their tools. With tools and weapons that exist in harmony with the seas, the Master Navigators have successfully beaten back the self-important metal-clad invaders for generations.

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Nifo'oti are real Polynesian cane knives made in various forms by the many different Polynesian peoples. The Pacific Islands were first discovered and settled by humans using navigational techniques that include knowing what types of clouds form near or far from land and how birds behave near and far from land. The Polynesian explorers accomplished incredible feats earning their status as master navigators.  

Trying to unlearn the "colonialism is a good thing" lessons I was taught as a kid is hard work. Taming an “undiscovered” land of savages is often a default plot that still bubbles up, but there are some cool inversions of that story that show the experience from the indigenous people’s perspective.

A cool world concept and art project that would be a great game setting is the Orken World from SixMoreVodka that shows the various tribes of orcs uniting to resist the colonial expansion of pale-faced humans that are the most thinly veiled reference to actual colonial invaders. 

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Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph