Tropes that describe entire fictional cultures, nations or ethnic groups.
See also National Stereotypes for tropes that relate to the fictional portrayals of specific Real Life nations.
Fantastic cultures:
- Always Chaotic Evil: An entire race of people who are simply evil.
- Always Lawful Good: ...And its exact opposite.
- Anti-Magical Faction: A distinct culture of magic-haters.
- Barbarian Tribe: Uneducated and often chaotic, ranging from Always Chaotic Evil mooks to Proud Warrior Race Noble Savages.
- Bee People: A race with a eusocial hive-like society similar to real-life bees and ants.
- Born in the Saddle: A culture centered around horses and horseriding.
- Born Under the Sail: A culture centered around sailing.
- Crystal Spires and Togas: A highly advanced civilization that resembles an elegant ancient one, plus technology.
- Culture Chop Suey: Fantasy Counterpart Culture cobbled together from several real ones.
- Elemental Nation: Nations divided based on Elemental Powers.
- Eminently Enigmatic Race: A species primarily known for being unknowable.
- Fantastic Caste System: A society divided into very different and distinct cultures, and nearly always lacking individual freedom to move between them.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Cultures on non-Earth worlds that are similar to real ones.
- Fantasy Counterpart Religion: Religious mythologies loosely inspired by anything from the real world.
- Fictional Combat Troop: While the country may be real, the combat unit serving it is at best only loosely inspired by the real world.
- Fictional Flag: If you have a fictional country, it will probably have a fictional flag as well.
- Fictional United Nations: A government of governments, mediating between nations.
- Hordes from the East: Lots of feared enemies coming from the east.
- Lady Land: A female-dominated society.
- Magical Society: A distinct culture of magic-users.
- Modern Mayincatec Empire: Alternate History has let a Native American empire survive and flourish into the modern day.
- Multicultural Alien Planet: A planet with multiple distinct native cultures.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: A character rejects their culture's practices.
- Non-Heteronormative Society: A society whose dominant sexual ethos doesn't center around heterosexuality.
- Planet of Hats: A planet where everyone has the same theme or identifying characteristic.
- Proud Hunter Race: A race built around hunting.
- Proud Industrious Race: A race built around being diligent and hard-working.
- Proud Merchant Race: A race built around making money.
- Proud Scholar Race: A race built around learning and knowledge.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: A member of a race/culture built around warfare and honor.
- Scary Dogmatic Aliens: Evil aliens with an obvious dogma, usually a stand-in for real life ideologies.
- Single-Species Nations: Nations populated primarily by a single species.
- Slave Race: A race of people enslaved by another race.
- Sneaky Spy Species: A race built around espionage and covert ops.
- Society of Immortals: A species or civilization whose members are all immortal.
- Sons of Slaves: A free culture descended from slaves.
- Space Jews: An alien culture which resembles a stereotypical version of a human ethnicity or nationality.
- Space Nomads: Peoples who spend their life traveling around space without a permanent home.
- Space Romans: An alien culture that strongly resembles one from Earth's history.
- Tribe of Priests: A race built around religion.
- Wacky Wayside Tribe: A culture which is small and eccentric compared to its neighbours.
- Wandering Culture: A nomadic culture.
Cultures to base your fictional culture upon:
- Ancient Egypt, because Egypt Is Still Ancient.
- Ancient Rome: Gladiators, Emperors, and an army that you don't want to mess with.
- Commie Land: Soviet-inspired military and ruthless politics. City of Spies everywhere.
- Darkest Africa
- Eagleland: American styled culture based around democracy, liberty, and freedom. For better or for worse.
- Eskimo Land: The Horny Vikings to the Injun Country.
- Far East: Samurai, Ninjas, and Yōkai
- Horny Vikings: Northern Northmen who base their lives on fighting and glory.
- Injun Country: People commune with the forces of nature, living in tipis, and believe in totems.
- Medieval European Fantasy: Many (if not most) fantasy stories are set in a world that is (very loosely) based on the European Middle Ages.
Cultures defined by their government:
- The Alliance: A group of smaller nations banded together for political strength, usually versus The Empire.
- The Dictatorship: An evil, undemocratic government ruled by a single man or small clique.
- The Empire: Evil, regimented, and intent upon world domination.
- The Federation: A generally good, generally democratic Reasonable Authority Figure.
- Foreign Ruling Class: A society where the region's native people are ruled by a group originally from another region.
- The Good Kingdom: A usually small, usually good, sometimes magical kingdom.
- Hegemonic Empire: An empire which absorbs instead of conquers and makes people want to be a part of it.
- The Horde: Loosely-connected barbarian masses.
- Micro Monarchy: A tiny country with a monarchy, usually modern and liberalized.
- Multiple Government Polity: A large empire or federation encompasses smaller countries that might be republics, kingdoms, or other.
- People's Republic of Tyranny: The Empire trying to pass itself off as The Federation. Includes in its name words referring to freedom and democracy.
- The Republic: Usually capitalist, democratic, and humanitarian heroic culture, more tight-knit than The Federation.
- Resurgent Empire: An empire rises Back from the Brink.
- Rising Empire: A proud race in an expansionist phase, usually led by The Conqueror.
- The Theocracy: A society in which the Church is the government.
- Vestigial Empire: An empire which has seen better days.
- Voluntary Vassal: A culture that has willingly sworn to The Empire and receives better treatment than those who have been subjugated.
Cultural details that make a culture more fantastic:
- Advanced Civilization, Hollow Imagination: A civilization has no capacity for comparatively expansive culture and variety, despite being so advanced and intelligent.
- Aliens Never Invented Democracy
- Aliens Never Invented the Wheel
- Bazaar of the Bizarre: A marketplace selling strange and wonderful things.
- Conlang: The author makes up entire languages.
- Exotic Extended Marriage: Exotic cultures are more open to unusual marriage arrangements.
- Extreme Speculative Stratification: The rich and poor are starkly and absolutely divided.
- Fantastic Honorifics: This culture uses unusual manners of address to show status.
- Fantastic Naming Convention: People in this culture have names in an unusual format.
- Fantastic Racism: People in this culture are racist for unusual reasons.
- Fantastic Rank System: This culture's military uses a fictional system of ranks.
- Fantasy World Map: The author has detailed the geography of the world.
- Fantasy Pantheon: An invented set of deities for the culture to worship.
- Fictional Age of Majority: An age-based threshold for someone to be considered an adult, join the army, bear the crown or some other plot-relevant thing.
- Fictional Constellations: An invented set of constellations perceived in the night sky.
- Fictional Currency: A form of currency invented for a fictional setting.
- Fictional Greetings and Farewells: A different type of greeting or farewell than is used in real-life languages.
- Fictional Zodiac: The culture has its own version of the zodiac.
- Invented Linguistic Distinction: The culture has its own dialect, language, or other linguistic trait that sets it apart from other cultures.
- Left-Justified Fantasy Map: If the work contains only part of a world map, it normally shows that the main cultures are on the western part of the continent, and "the east" is undefined.
- Low Culture, High Tech: A civilization is more advanced technologically than they are socially.
- Mechanistic Alien Culture
- Namedworld and Namedland: The country is named "something-land".
- No Blood Ties: A society in which parents are not expected to raise their own offspring.
- No Fathers Allowed: A culture or society in which everyone has a Disappeared Dad.
- No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture
- One Man's Trash Is Another's Treasure: People in this culture find mundane things amazing or amazing things mundane.
- Socially Scored Society: In this culture, each person's reputation is somehow given a rank or score. The higher it is, the better their life is.
- Speculative Fiction LGBT
- Terminally Dependent Society: A society that depends on a single piece of Applied Phlebotinum to survive.
Fictional settings for these cultures:
- Americasia: A setting where the dominant culture is a blend of American and Asian culture.
- Arcadia: A gentle, utopic countryside where people are In Harmony with Nature.
- Atlantis: An ancient island civilization which sank into the ocean for one reason or another.
- Banana Republic: A fictional developing tropical nation, usually of Central or South America, populated by militias and tinpot dictators.
- Bulungi: A fictional developing country wedged into sub-Saharan Africa.
- Enchanted Forest: Vast old forest, home to strange things and secrets.
- Fictional Country: A fictional nation-state in an otherwise real-world setting.
- Fictional Province: A fictional province/state/county/etc. set within an otherwise real country.
- Ghibli Hills: Pristine and usually not-too-dangerous wilderness near civilization.
- Grim Up North: The frigid north is a place of darkness and danger, and possibly evil.
- Land of One City: The setting (country, kingdom, planet...) has only one city, making it a City-State.
- Magical Land: The "other world" which people from ours visit.
- North Is Cold, South Is Hot: When the north of the world map has all the cold regions, and the south has all the warm regions.
- Post-Soviet Reunion: Russia reunites with post-Soviet states into an alliance, supranational union or superstate.
- Qurac: A generic North African, Middle Eastern, Central or South Asian country populated by sand, camels, optional oil, and either sultans or terrorists.
- Ruritania: A small backwards country in Southern, Central or Eastern Europe.
- The Savage South: The south is barbaric, inhospitable, and hot.
- Tropical Island Adventure: A tropical island, usually located in or based on the Caribbean, Oceania or Southeast Asia.
- Überwald: A dark and gothic Eastern European setting.
- United Europe: Europe has become a unified entity.
- Wutai: A generic Far East-flavored setting in Medieval Fantasy.
