It is high time that every person interested in playing tabletop games is exposed to characters and relationships to which they can relate and that feel familiar or sought after.
Speaking as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I think I can safely say that we have VERY rarely seen any examples of characters who are able to have romantic relationships portrayed in a tabletop game (albeit, this is not a particularly common thing to begin with) have access to something other than heteronormative options.
POCs have been woefully underrepresented in games. Heaven forfend if you are a POC and LGBTQ+! There is almost nothing that reflects you in the gaming world. While some of us like to play a character in a game that is nothing like ourselves, we are rarely afforded the opportunity to play one that does look or feel like us.
To address these issues I am building a fictional setting for Living Saga that is founded upon the notion that its emergent cultures (from the fantasy setting of Living Empires to the contemporary superhero setting of Living Metropolis to the futuristic setting of Living Starship) never developed institutionalized gender or racial disparity.
Cultural divisions arise from other sources such as the deep religious differences in Living Empires. Magic is a balancing force that engenders much greater egalitarianism between the genders and the distinct biological differences infused in people, plants and animals according to their religious affiliation create conflict between faiths and not races.
In the character art we have developed for Living Starship - drawn magnificently by Angela Schmer - reflects all skin tones. Body types depicted are representative of a culture that, overall, makes sure to keep its populace relatively fit and healthy with proper nutrition. The one race that is purely "human", the Evor Danteen, have no set look or racial profile and Angela drew the two examples we have to be ethnically mixed (though I think I might detect an ever-so-slight extra tinge of Asian-ness to them, which is not surprising given that Angela herself is Asian).
I certainly hope that as we progress with development of the three Living Saga games that more and more different types of players can see more and more of themselves reflected in what we create.
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