African NPCs

African NPCs brings together rulers, heroes, scholars, legendary figures, explorers and literary characters connected with the continent’s many regions and traditions.

Africa is not one culture or one adventure environment. The linked characters belong to different political, religious and literary worlds: Nile kingdoms and Kemet, Ethiopia and the Horn, Sahel empires, Atlantic-facing kingdoms, Swahili trade cities, southern African states and later literary traditions all produce different kinds of power, conflict and identity.

Use each profile in its own context. A ruler such as Mansa Musa belongs to the commercial and political world of Mali; Memnon and Andromeda belong to ancient Aethiopian and Hellenic traditions; King Shaka belongs to southern African state formation and warfare; Imhotep emerges from the deep sacred history of Kemet. The archive also retains literary figures such as Tarzan and Allan Quatermain as adapted characters rather than treating their fiction as a substitute for African history.

For the wider historical framework, see African History – Common Era and the African geography collection.

• Allan Quatermain
• Memnon
• Prester John
• King Shaka
• Tarzan