Non-Northern European Fantasy

[Ice Spider]

Is there anyone else who prefers to write outside the traditional setting of Northern Europe-inspired lands in fantasy (not that all fantasy uses this setting, but it still seems to be pretty common). My invented world is sort of a blend of Italy and Persia, with some Caribbean thrown in for good measure. I also invented my own race of beings as opposed to using dwarves/elves.

Don't get me wrong, I really love the traditional fantasies (being mostly of British/Irish descent myself), but am kind of sad that this is such a disproportionately huge share of the market. Especially since this genre is supposed to be rooted in imagination (not saying that people who write traditional fantasy lack imagination, far from it, it just seems like a shame to limit yourself to it). Maybe I am just not looking hard enough?

Anyway, was just wondering what settings people here are making their stories take place in.

 

[sashamerideth]

I am using a South American style setting for a large part of my story, lots of small warlike tribes, a few big empires, and steam.

 

[ThinkerX]

One of the primary cultures of my 'secondary' world is very roughly patterned after a sort of 'mythical India'.

 

[Taytortots]

I don't much think of the correlation to our world when I'm writing in my own. Thinking about it now, I have a little bit of everything, with my own cultures sort of placed in the region.
A large majority of the places are not northern European. I have Egypt, India, Italy and some South America. In the novel, they're traveling, so there is a wide variety of places and cultures.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

God knows where my place is based on, haha. Climate-wise its pretty unpredictable, but maybe mid European. I would like to work with a sandy, dry location at some point.