Working on a D&D setting, advice welcome

[RossN]

I've been toying with starting up a D&D game recently. My tastes are rather retro (I grew up on 2e and early 3e and I'm leaning towards using a retroclone for the actual system) and one thing I definitely wanted was to include the core races - Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings and Orcs.

I decided to steal borrow from history and in particular from the ancient Mediterranean; a nearly landlocked and calm sea with plenty of islands and a very long coastline. My version is further north and decidely more temperate so there are more forests and fewer deserts but I like the idea.

The Elves are modeled on Pharonic Egypt during the age of the Roman Republic. Not specifically culturally (no Elven pyramids) but in the sense of an ancient, great civilisation ruled by a theocratic monarchy stuck in stagnation and decline. Still rich and powerful but a kingdom with a great future behind it at the mercy of upstart powers like the humans.

The Gnomes are the Ancient Greeks, especially the Athenians. Militarily they are not powerful and politically they are not united but their colonies dot the coastlines of the Middle Sea and their culture, whether spread by merchants or philosophers is very influential.

The Dwarves are the Macedonians; a great military power that once conquered the world but has long since fractured and faded away. The old home land is a backwater and while Dwarven familes rule many states across the world they have either 'gone native' or are dependent on the economic and cultural power of the Gnomes.

Still working on the Halflings...

[mad_brewer]

You have some good ideas, but what kind of advice are you looking for, exactly?

[Edenbeast]

I see you're mostly in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. So how about the west.. The halflings could be based on ancient Carthage. Traders with a large navy and depending heavily on mercenaries and slaves.. (halflings being not so though).

You haven't mentioned humans and orcs. How about basing the orcs on the germanic tribes from the north, and humans on the highly adaptive Romans..

[Thunderfist12]

I'll post again when I know what advice you need...

[Cyclone231]

I'd recommend picking up books on the historical Mediterranean in the period you're modeling. Not so that you can be more "accurate", but because historical peoples had complex and vibrant cultures that often can serve as inspiration for other ideas, mixing and matching and drawing off of history. For example, the Egyptians had extensive, technical manuals for what to do when you die. Rome had a major class conflict between the patricians and the plebes. The Pythagoreans believed in the transmigration of the soul, attributed everything they discovered to their centuries-dead founder, thought that numbers and math had a mystical element, and were basically a cult full of mathematicians.

None of these particularly necessitates you take it over to the appropriate culture, but just getting into these sometimes helps to remind you questions you don't even ask. For example, do the locals fall into an epistemology that's a fantasy setting's approximation of modern materialism, or do they have a perspective on the way the world works that's really crazy, like the Platonic theory of forms? Do they organize their families into an approximation of the American nuclear ideal, or do they raise children communally like on the kibbutz or believe in partible paternity like the Aché and practice polyandry? Plus, when you're coming up with ideas, mixing and matching of various ideas you've read about in other sources can help, a lot, in creating something interesting and original.

[Endarire]

The Elves remind me of Eberron's Undying Court, where certain Elves get preserved as Deathless or positive energy-fueled Undead.

[Penguin_God]

1-I decided to steal borrow from history and in particular from the ancient Mediterranean; a nearly landlocked and calm sea with plenty of islands and a very long coastline. My version is further north and decidely more temperate so there are more forests and fewer deserts but I like the idea.

2-The Elves are modeled on Pharonic Egypt during the age of the Roman Republic. Not specifically culturally (no Elven pyramids) but in the sense of an ancient, great civilisation ruled by a theocratic monarchy stuck in stagnation and decline. Still rich and powerful but a kingdom with a great future behind it at the mercy of upstart powers like the humans.

3-The Gnomes are the Ancient Greeks, especially the Athenians. Militarily they are not powerful and politically they are not united but their colonies dot the coastlines of the Middle Sea and their culture, whether spread by merchants or philosophers is very influential.

4-The Dwarves are the Macedonians; a great military power that once conquered the world but has long since fractured and faded away. The old home land is a backwater and while Dwarven familes rule many states across the world they have either 'gone native' or are dependent on the economic and cultural power of the Gnomes.

Still working on the Halflings...

1-Consider the Europa Barbarorum mod as a source of information about ancient times. Quite detailed, interesting, paints a different picture.

2-Giant trees could fulfill the role of pyramids, no? As the pyramids were cannibalized and plundered, the trees could have its precious bark removed by thieves, invaders, the elves themselves, to pay their debts...

Also, I think the Egypt at this time was already ptolemaic.

3-Do they also depend on a silver mine tended by slaves to afford the free time?

4-I ask, how they conquered the world? Macedonians depended on their cavarly as much as the phalanx, and I fail to see dwarves with solid cavarly.

About the halflings, suggest celts/picts/la tene culture.

[redzimmer]

Halflings could fill in the role of Judea, defiant but completely outmatched.

And make it complete with a current apocalyptic bring it on, our Messiah's on His way attitude.

Hobgoblins could serve the role of Hunnish steppe nomads, and I second the orcs/half-orcs as the Germanic goth tribes.

[Jadev]

I agree with the halflings being Judaic, and the Orcs as germanic tribes-- with half-orcs usually being those that have integrated.

Perhaps the Dwarves have heavy siege weapons and a large base of other heavy troopers, or a set of particularly brilliant generals who beat out other inexperienced races.