How do you justify a civilization having almost zero contact

Impregnable mountain rages. Look at Kashmir, it had contact with other cultures, because it wanted to, though it was able to shut itself up almost completely.

Huge ass jungle, desert, tundra or steppe in between, like IRL. Or a fuckton of mountains, of course.

It's less developed, and other civilizations don't contact it on purpose. Look up "uncontacted peoples".

Natural barriers like others have said, or having a completely different mode of existence. For instance, a race that lives entirely underground while all the other cultures live entirely on the surface.

>what was india
>what was tibet
>what is indigenous tribes in modern south america

They're inconvenient to reach, live in a complete shithole, and don't have anything of value.

If they're xenophobic it justifies it better too, or if primaries/advanced

>>52481456
I homebrewed fantasy Louisiana for a 5e campaign for my character's far traveler background. It's a trap for refugees/nomads/outlaws/people who aren't seasoned explorers. One of the mountain passes that seems safe gradually lowers in elevation, and towards the end people can see a mountain pass above a fog cloud downhill in what looks like a small forest. Long explanation later there's a bunch of this fey algea growing everywhere, pumping out steam pretty much constantly. Due to forest magic shenanigans it's nearly impossible to navigate out of and over time stories built up of people getting lost in the woods and never coming out, so people stopped using the path unless somehow desperation led them there.

Though the reason my character isn't still in there is because after a disaster the algea died off and the permaswamp is colder and a lot of people are starting to leave now that the fog has partially cleared.

1) Geographic, as pointed out by other anons

2) psychological. Two independent civilizations may develop a fear of what lies beyond the frontier, and stay put / not adventure too far away

3) munsters. The forests between the two civilizations are a guaranteed death sentence, filled with gnoll war bands or a black dragon

4) political. A guild has a stranglehold on trade and likes the fact that they are the only one who can provide some good. They work with crony politicians to sabotage ventures beyond a certain point

5) mysterious. Sometimes the best solutions are retroactive. Leave it open ended and figure it out down the line.

I did this in a campaign. There's a very short distance between two civilizations, with a small strait between them, yet they've never met.

A long time ago, two empires long forgotten warred on opposite sides of the strait and left a bloodbath and marred battlefields on either shore. They succumbed to attrition and collapsed.

Two new empires continued to expand and discovered the ruins of lost empires. They are eager to expand. However, there's two problems:

1) the strait is covered in mist, cold mountain air that settles in the strait just between the lowlands in the valley.

2) the most is thick, and the ships must rely on crude navigation to find harbor. They see a light, circling, glowing, and head towards the lighthouse. Little do they know it's a will o wisp from the long forgotten battlefield, luring them to crash upon the rocky shores.

As a result, ships that sail into the mist become lost, and strange shipwrecks with languages unknown mysteriously appear in the shallows of the strait. Coinage never used washes up on the few places of harbor, and bodies of people most alien are found floating in the docks, brought by the mist.

It's no wonder both civilizations refer to this body of water, in their respective tongues, by the same name: the strait of shipwrecks.

>>52481456
The un-contacted society is xenophobic and convinced of its own superiority. The rest of civilization has chosen to allow them to conserve their way of life. So the un-contacted seeks to avoid contact, while the rest try to help them out for humanitarian reasons.

Or, in short: exactly the way that un-contacted tribes still exist today.

>>52481456
It happens in the Amazon. They're uncontacted because nobody makes contact and lives.

>>52482466
They're uncontacted because various governments have set up strict conservation laws that make it "we shoot you for trying" illegal to contact them.

So I guess your statement is sorta true.

>>52481667
You mean a mountain pass on the way, right? Not actually in Louisiana?

>>52481568
The first two don't apply dipshit.

>>52481568
Kek, India. How can one be so retarded?

Forget continents, in Papua New Guinea the mountain ranges are so steep and jungles so impassable that there are different languages on opposite sides.

>>52482952
There is an un-contacted tribe off the coast of India, in case you didn't get other anon's reference.

>>52482771
The tribes themselves have the same policy. They shoot down helicopters with arrows and spears.

>>52481456
This basically describes all of Africa and South America. Geographic barriers do just fine.

>>52481456
How about the religion of this civilization states that if a non beliver sees your face you lose your soul. I have read a book where there was this kind of civilization and when they wanted to contact other cizilizations they had to put on masks to protect them self from losing there soul.

>>52481456
An entire campaign's worth of extremely dangerous monsters.

BIG. ASS. MONSTERS. Or just dangerous ones. Something that occupies expanses of land that can't be crossed by small bands.

>>52484453
What about small-ass monsters?

Instead of mountains between valleys, flip it to lowlands between plains. River valleys and canyons so broad they turn into marshes, where a fungus grows whose airborne spores kill anything large enough to breath them in.

>>52484045
Yep.
Chilean here.
Getting in and outta the south was a nightmare.
Now is just a major inconvenience.

>>52481456
natural barriers. if that's not enough, make it to where the culture of that region is so mysterious and alien that fearful superstitions start circled around it, scaring off even seasoned adventurers.

>>52481456
Zero mutually desired resources