Remixing Eberron—the setting Post II

I've come around to some Principles of remixing Eberron, although I haven't yet spelled them out exactly.  Before I start the next nations on this survey, how about I "chat" about them, just a bit?

• Eberron is a D&D setting, but the pulp and noir elements that inform its tone clash with D&D as it has become (D&D is not cinematic, action-packed or swashbuckling; it's careful, cautious and tactical, and it actively punishes anyone who tries to by pulpy or swashbuckling.)  The very first thing I noted that is important to successfully "remix" the setting is to find a new system for it that better accommodates its tone.  There are a number of potential options (any swashbuckling fantasy system can be adopted—Savage Worlds, FATE, or even—ironically—old school D&D or retroclones.  I've picked m20, both because I really like m20, and because it accomplishes this goal while also making the use of existing Eberron d20 material very, very easy.
• Along those lines, pulpy, swashbuckling settings from the actual pulp era were much more humano-centric, and D&D was initially expected to be so as well.  The more I've thought about it, the more I've come around to the wisdom of humano-centric settings.  I used to be perfectly fine with weird, cosompolitan, and fantasy-alien settings, but that doesn't really work well for the tone of Eberron.  The tone of swashbuckling pulp and noir really needs to be humano-centric.  So, for every nation, I've changed the population balance to greatly increase the expectation of humans, and greatly reduce the expectation of non-humans.  I haven't necessarily spelled this out in numbers of percentages, but as an example, let's look at Breland.  The official population breakdown is:
• Humans: 44%
• Gnomes: 14%
• Half-elves: 10%
• Elves: 8%
• Dwarves: 7%
• Halflings: 4%
• Changelings: 4%
• Goblinoids: 4%
• Orcs: 3%
• Other: 2%
• My breakdown, on the other hand, would look more like the following—and again, this is meant to be merely a sample, with similar changes applied to every other country.  And also keep in mind that Breland is relatively diverse compared to most of the other nations of Khorvaire.  I want the nations to actually be nations, not "proposition nations"; the definition of which is "a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, and language, inhabiting a particular country or territory."
• Humans: 88%
• Half-elves: 3%
• Gnomes: 2%
• Elves: 2%
• Dwarves: 1%
• Orcs: 1%
• Goblinoids" 1%
• Other: 2%
• It's also striking how much social justice dogma has infiltrated any official D&D publication.  I'm very interested in remixing out any of those strains of melody (to probably take the remixing analogy a little too far.)  The former point actually supports this; an understanding of biological HBD, for instance, makes social justice equalitarianism ridiculous.  The piling on on traditional institutions of Western civilization (or their fantasy surrogates) is to stop, the elevation of strange hippiness will cease, most of the female adventuring/warrior NPCs will be re-gendered to the sex that actually does that well, etc.  But this is stuff that I don't need to actually detail too much; just point out that I'm making that a principle of EBERRON REMIXED.  
• Finally, I just want a more coherent whole.  I've always thought that coherency is one of the things that Eberron lacked, because, as Keith Baker said repeatedly, everything from D&D had to have a place.  I'm totally OK with taking some esoteric D&Disms and removing them altogether.  If that means I need to replace them with FANTASY HACK equivalents, well, that's OK.

Anyway, on to the nations for Post II

Zilargo.  Gnomes in EBERRON REMIXED probably aren't quite as tiny as they are in D&D. They'll be small-statured, but probably averaging more like 5 ft. something tall and slight rather than hobbit-sized.  Within the range of some human populations, really—I think of them as like the most indio of Mexican in terms of average size, or maybe a shade smaller (not that the gnomes look like central Americans.) Zilargo is, however, the one specifically gnomish nation on the planet (not that gnomes don't live elsewhere as well) and this is their homeland.  While not a particularly war-like people, they are somewhat belligerent in their own way, and their political meddling is notorious.  They often make use of mercenary companies for protection, however.

Darguun.  This nation can be used more or less exactly as written.  I'd increase the percentage of goblinoids just a bit (because I have no kobolds, for one thing).  If you really need bugbears too, which are not part of the FANTASY HACK rules, you can use the thurse stats for them. (The Thurse is meant to be any powerful, savage creature; a gnoph-keh, or sasquatch, or Neanderthals of the Neanderthal Predation Theory.  Bugbears are right there in the exact same type of creature.)

The Mournland.  This also has little need of alteration.  Some of the specific magic effects don't work as advertised because they have no exact equivalent in FANTASY HACK, but otherwise, this needs little to no change.  As with other Galifarian nations, the Cyran refugees are not a mixed bag of all kinds of races so much as they are humans.  And the Mournland itself has become a refugee for anti-social warforged, since the cursed effects don't bother them.

Karrnath.  This is another nation that, other than upping the population percentage of humans, can be used more or less as is, without needing to change much.  I love the idea of institutionalized undead in a nation that isn't actually evil... but which is certainly kind of creepy and dark.  Fun stuff.  One of my favorite Eberron elements in general.

The Talenta Plains.  Eh... this one, on the other hand, I think needs some work.  First off; I think the names Clawfoot and Fastieth and whatnot are stupid.  Call dinosaurs by names that are familiar, or nicknames that are obvious.  Raptors, pterosaurs, etc.—I hate the Eberron dinosaur names.  I also think this nation is really bizarre as conceived as nomadic, dino-riding Plains Indian halflings.  It's the last word in that sequence that throws it off.  I'd prefer to have halflings be what they normally are; rarely occurring, rural hobbit-like creatures with a few enclaves here and there—maybe a bit more like Bree than like the Shire; or like the Shire, except much smaller, and there's more than one of them.  The Talenta Plains nomads, on the other hand, can be jann, from the FANTASY HACK monster list or Appendix II.

Other than that rather significant switch, though—I'm leaving them mostly as is.  One quick note; the romanticization of the primitive Plains Indian life is not really apparent here.  Do some reading of the actual history and practices of the Comancheria, and you'll get a better idea of what the Talenta Plains is like.

Valenar.  Another nation that can be used almost exactly as is.  I'd maybe make the elves a bit more common, reduce the half-elves numbers to coincide with that, and make the relationship between the Cyran refugees and the elves a little bit more fraught with tension, but otherwise... yeah.  No major change needed.

Q'Barra.  This is another one that needs relatively little change.  The changes that are needed are mostly 1) to point out that lizardmen in FANTASY HACK are really more like lizardmen in Warhammer than they are like "lizardfolk" in D&D.  Maybe this isn't a big deal in actual practice.  And, 2) there aren't any kobolds, so any references to them need to be replaced with something else.