Fantasy does NOT have to follow real world rules. Fantasy does NOT have to relate to some real world event, country, concept, law, or history. Fantasy does NOT have to mirror any particular time period or country, even if you’re basing your world on a real world one. There is NO SUCH THING as “historical accuracy” in fantasy as it relates to the real world.
THE ONLY THING Fantasy has to do to be believable is follow the established rules OF ITS OWN WORLD. Fantasy can literally be anything you imagine it to be.
If your fantasy world excludes people of color or those belonging to the LGBT+ community, if it’s grossly misogynistic and white cis-male centric, that’s because YOU made it that way. Stop blaming “historical accuracy” or “believability”. It’s not the genre; it’s YOU.
*shakes fantasy authors by the shoulders* You have magic! You have other worlds! You can do literally anything! Stop writing about bland white people oppressing other bland white people for their ability to shoot multicolored sparklers out of their fingers! Where are my black-skinned dragon riders? Where are my alternate magical philosophies between cultures? Where are my stories about indigenous civilizations using magic to fight off would-be colonizers? Where are my mathemagicians? Why are you like this?!
i really want us to get along and i invite you over to my apartment after i had spent hours hiding away all my strange plants and potions and fancy magical rocks and moving star charts and kick my cat familiar out for a day. Everything looks incredibly normal and non-magic and things are going great until i see u accidently touch a thing i forgot to put away THAT YOU ARE NOT TO MEANT TO TOUCH
i get a cold and when im sick i really can’t be around non-magic people but u show up at my door and i try to shoo u away but u come in and see my apartment but tomy relief u think i’m just really into weird crap, but then my cat starts talking and u notice some of my furniture are walking around the house and u swore u saw that house plant wave at you
you’re always finding weird trinkets in your clothes such as colourful feathers, smooth rocks, glinting scales or peculiar miniature marble carvings and you don’t know where they’re coming from but they’re actually good luck charms that i slip into pockets
whenever we touch im so nervous and i cant keep my magic in check and i slip up so whenever ur hand brushes mine for a brief moment you see spirits/ghosts or light bulb bursts or door slams open and i’m so sorry cause now you think i’m haunted or something
my kitchen’s a mess and inside a fridge is a mixture of drinks, food, potions and potion ingredients and u drink what you thought was some weird cordial and now you’re having a 24hr out of sense experience and you’re seeing and saying really delusional crap and i have to keep you here overnight so you don’t die
An elf maiden dances on feet of living wood sung into shape, planted in soil and watered when she takes them off. Every year she plants the old ones and sings a new pair. (Incidentally, the pair of peach saplings from three years ago have produced an excellent crop- She makes preserves from them, and despite the inevitable jokes about “toe-jam”, they are appreciated.)
A dwarf king has a metal fist, all tiny gears and fine wires, kept wound by a mischievous mine-spirit bound to the spring as punishment- the more it struggles, the tighter the spring.
An orc chieftaness is regularly asked for the story of how she earned the name Wyrmthrottler- she boasts of how she strangled the dragon that ate her arm, and had her shaman make a new arm from its bones, with its fangs as the fingers.
A necromancer simply re-attached his old leg bones- Sacrificing a few mice each day keeps it going.
A pirate captain lost her arm to a shark attack: a passing selkie saved her, and gave her tattoos of kraken blood. Now she has an arm made of salt-water, that grows and wanes with the tides, and swings a cutlass as well as the original. (She doesn’t sail as far these days though: she doesn’t want her wife to worry.)
A wandering swordsman was broken at the waist- his ancestral armour allows him to walk again, as long as he keeps it polished, and burns incense to the ancestors regularly.
A high priestess has an eye made from a crystal ball- to predict the future, all she has to do is wink.
A bard was struck deaf by illness- he struck a deal with the god of music. Now he wears hearing-trumpets made from his old pipes, and dedicates his every song to the god of music- the better he plays, the better his hearing. (It is said his music could make statues weep, and he can hear a mouse fart at 60 paces.)
A princess has the arm of a golem, enchanted clay with mystic words carved in- her music tutor despairs of how her harp playing has become even worse, but her calligraphy tutor is ecstatic over her handwriting.
A goblin pickpocket has an arm made of whatever he steals- no-one feels his fingers, and even if they did, they couldn’t find their possessions amongst all the rest.
A witch has eyes made from shadow and starlight, given to her in a game with a demon. Nobody dares to ask what she wagered- they aren’t even sure she won.
A warg was born deaf and blind- his people learned of his power when the nearest birds started staring at them, and dogs pricked up their ears as he walked past.
starry-eyed 