I hope that's not directed at me... I was trying to explain why having a Mexican Galahad (as an example) for no good reason would be insulting and tokenistic. If they have a good reason, then great, but that's a hard thing to shoehorn with Arthurian knights, as the four main squad people supposedly are.
Now, jmood88, there's actually a pretty good example of this sort of thing in recent contemporary media - remember when they cast Idris Elba as Heimdall in the Thor movies? The Stormfront types went fucking crazy. And on the surface I can see this being the same case Thor is magical, this is essentially magical, therefore what's the problem if one of them is dark skinned or southeast asian or whatever? We've tossed out all the rules, right? That's your argument.
But in terms of story, if you have a connection that's based on existing fiction, such as Knights of the Round table, and all those characters are known (and white) then you need to explain to the viewer/player why this Galahad or whomever is different. And if there isn't a good internally consistent reasoning in the fiction, it comes across as pandering, or at the very least poorly thought out. I'll get back to Heimdall in a sec.
The Order's history doesn't seem to even attempt to bend the English societal setup. They've bent technology, and thrown in some supernatural elements. Everything else is basically "the same" from that forked point in history. Therefore Mexican Galahad would be, frankly, distracting. If they had gone deeper and shown the world significantly rearranged, or set in the future, you could do something like that (and it actually sounds cool now that I think of it) but they put this Arthurian/Victorian frame around their world-building. If you're going to criticise the lack of inclusiveness in this game, criticize that choice.
To bring it back around to Heimdall he was a god, portrayed many different ways, and gods are not just magical but almost super-magical. Odin liked to show up in different forms, etc. Elba's Heimdall didn't bother me at all, I thought he looked badass, but I did think the choice was odd when I read it, just because I couldn't picture it. As it turned out it was practically an aesthetic choice (well, besides him being quite an excellent actor and all, of course) His look was almost completely bronze. And it worked, because he was also holding a 7 foot sword and wearing preposterous god-armour and had glowing eyes. You wouldn't be able to do the same thing in The Order's sort of story, because it doesn't push the suspension of disbelief that far.
Anyways. Hope I don't eat a ban for that, it's an interesting topic. I don't agree that "magic" is a binary on/off switch that allows for supreme internal fictional consistency between any element, if present. That's what I meant about the aliens, faeries etc. You have to explain all of it, in a fantasy setting, so people have a grasp on the internal consistency of the world. If you have a black character in this setting you need to set up how s/he got there and do justice to it. You know the old saying: the difference between fiction and truth is that fiction has to make sense.
