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Yora
2014-08-02, 08:37 AM
Most fantasy settings and campaigns take place in a world losely modeled after the Middle Ages or early Modernity. Personally, I am a much bigger fan of styles inspired by Antiquity. However, when looking for RPG material for such campaigns, it's usually almost entirely the world of Greek Myth, sometimes with historical place names filed off, but almost everything else still in place. But other cultures that would fit the theme would also be Egypt, Mesopotamian Empires, India, and even China, and for a fantasy world Central and South America also have cultures and technologies that look like they could exist side by side (even though there is well over a 1000 years between mediterranean Antiquity and the American nations first encountered by Europeans).

What should you do different when preparing and running a campaign set in such a world, as compared to a common medieval-type one?
I believe adjusting the lists for weapons and armor would probably be the easiest part and very quickly be done with. No plate armor, no two-handed swords, and crossbows at the GMs discretion.
When playing a game that uses character classes, there probably isn't going to be much need to make changes. A paladin might be standing out as a bit unexpected, but bards, assassins, knights, and wizards would all have their place. They would just dress a bit differently.

But what I am mostly wondering about is how things are changing for PCs as they are exploring and traveling through such a world. What things they would be dealing with in a medieval style world would likely be absent and what would they find instead? Would the situations that need the help of brave heroes be different ones?

I think there are two primary differences.
For one thing, it seems to me that in an ancient world, much larger parts of the world would be unknown and unexplored. In a medieval style campaign, PCs are unlikely to ever reach the edge of their maps and discovering places that nobody back home had ever heard off. In an ancient style campaign, being blown off course by a storm and landing on a completely unknown shore seems like a common occourance, while that isn't so much the case in medieval fantasy. Medieval heroes might get shipwreked as well, but they would wander around for a bit until they find a village where someone can get them to the next town, where they can regain their bearings.
The other thing would be, that at least the civilized places seem a lot more modern in the way society is made up and things are run. While there are plenty monarchs, they rule not as tribal chiefs but with the help of a great host of professional government officials, who are keeping records on taxes and do accounting for the national treasury, and there's lawyers who are debating in public courts. That's something that appears to disappear in the middle ages and only returns much later (at least as far as popular perception goes, which is the real basis for fantasy).

Dawgmoah
2014-08-02, 10:21 AM
And I would politely disagree...

To the common man, toiling in his fields, anything outside of his local village or town was unexplored, frightening, and full of monsters and hazards of ungodly proportions. They were born, had children, and worked themselves into an early grave for untold generations.

To the sages and learned of the realm, whichever realm you want to use, they were aware of other civilizations. Which one would you like to use as an example? The Greeks? The same people that settled from Spain to up into Russia several thousand years ago? The Egyptians? Go far enough back, 4,000 or more years ago and they may not have known about too much. But then again Egypt was several kingdoms, they knew of Ur and other places in Mesopotamia as well as kingdoms and realms to the south. Fast forward a bit on the Greeks to the time of Alexander and his army: they marched into India and founded what we call Kabul today. The Indus, or Harappan Civilization had running water and sewage three thousand years ago in their cities. Then the Dravidians arrived....

That being said I would layer the knowledge the people have. The common working stiff? His brother in law may have served on a ship or something and sailed to another land. That makes him exotic to the farmers and townsfolk. The priests, merchant princes, and arcane types probably have a good understanding of what it out there as far as civilizations. The rulers would know for sure who could be a threat to them and watch accordingly.

Looking at it from another angle you have two widely used concepts in roleplaying games: The ancients were more powerful and smarter than us, and the "Young Earth" where humanity is but one of several races struggling for domination (which for the most part in standard DND worlds they won.)

Maybe the gods walk the earth; perhaps their homes are in the cities and they are truly god-kings.

There you have a decision to make. Do your folk know more or less as far as magic, psionics, etc, than the standard DND game world? Has magic missile been invented, or ninth level spells for that matter?

CombatOwl
2014-08-02, 10:42 AM
What should you do different when preparing and running a campaign set in such a world, as compared to a common medieval-type one?

Where? Specifically. Because that matters a lot.


I believe adjusting the lists for weapons and armor would probably be the easiest part and very quickly be done with. No plate armor, no two-handed swords, and crossbows at the GMs discretion.

The type of bows available should vary greatly depending on location. For example, the short bow is pretty ubiquitous, but longbows aren't, neither are composite bows. Most of the polearms are also out (spear is about it for ancient polearms that also have D&D rules). Swords should pretty much be a huge variety of short swords with a few special region-specific weapons that might be longer. Armor is definitely restricted, more than just full plate being out.


When playing a game that uses character classes, there probably isn't going to be much need to make changes. A paladin might be standing out as a bit unexpected, but bards, assassins, knights, and wizards would all have their place. They would just dress a bit differently.

Though giving fighters engineering may be a bit odd. So is having ubiquitous literacy.


But what I am mostly wondering about is how things are changing for PCs as they are exploring and traveling through such a world. What things they would be dealing with in a medieval style world would likely be absent and what would they find instead?

Grab a copy of rolemaster and find out!


Would the situations that need the help of brave heroes be different ones?

Less monsters and ruins, more ruining other people's **** and extortion.


For one thing, it seems to me that in an ancient world, much larger parts of the world would be unknown and unexplored.

Sure, but there would also be less calling to go explore that, unless you're doing a nautical campaign. Also, if you want to emphasize exploration, you need to find a way to monetize it other than plopping down ancient ruins with piles of gold inside. Come up with some means for explorers to make a massive profit from the immense danger other than bags of loot. The culturally apropos means of monetizing exploration will vary greatly depending on the culture.

Plus, the unknown and unexplored parts of the world are probably going to be less interesting than going to the exotic but known locales.


In an ancient style campaign, being blown off course by a storm and landing on a completely unknown shore seems like a common occourance, while that isn't so much the case in medieval fantasy.

Well, if they're sailing in the Mediterranean, that's probably not very sensible. They may not know where they are, but that's just because their maps are ****ty.


The other thing would be, that at least the civilized places seem a lot more modern in the way society is made up and things are run. While there are plenty monarchs, they rule not as tribal chiefs but with the help of a great host of professional government officials, who are keeping records on taxes and do accounting for the national treasury, and there's lawyers who are debating in public courts.

Sure. Also far less modern in other ways, for example slavery and such.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-02, 10:47 AM
While some things might not need to change much, I think it might be better if they did... somewhat break the assumptions, for one, and also adapt to the specifics of the equipment and environment. I'd especially look to the social meanings of magic, and maybe play around with how it works.

Suppiluliuma
2014-08-02, 10:52 AM
much larger parts of the world would be unknown and unexplored

How true this is depends on the scale of your world. For example, ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, etc. all know about each other and about everything in between them. That's a pretty large "known world." Babylonians are also in contact (and often conflict) with groups living in Iran, but Egyptians may not know about them. If you go all the way to the Indus Valley and beyond (or an adaptation of these areas) then yes, you are going to have large areas that will be totally unknown to the players and the civilization(s) they are familiar with. Of course, there is also a large difference between the knowledge of a royal courtier whose job is to communicate with far-flung allies, trading partners, and competitors, and what your average person knows. Even in a small world, much could be unknown to the players. Also, even within "known" areas there is enough room for new groups to emerge and threaten existing ones, and for less powerful groups to grow and threaten (formerly) more powerful ones.


at least the civilized places seem a lot more modern in the way society is made up and things are run

This is a good characterization of some of the major empires and (I think) one of the more interesting reasons to go with an ancient setting. The ability of these empires to concentrate wealth and power is staggering. I can think of a couple of dynamics that are disruptive enough to create major conflicts (the kind that could require PC intervention!):


succession and/or usurpation and the need of new kings to eliminate internal and external threats
The cycle of conquest, payment of tribute, refusal to pay tribute, re-conquest (often triggered by the ascension of a new king)
power struggles between kings and priesthoods (Memphis priesthoods, Marduk priesthood, and others have a lot of power)
Sudden catastrophic collapse when a king fails to take care of any of the above. You can also provide new external threats to trigger this process (see, for example, the "Sea Peoples")


Some of this can be done in a medieval setting in one form or another, but the ancient setting allows for a grander scale. You have a relatively small number of power centers vying for control over a relatively large area (read: empires). You can draw on different time periods depending on what kind of power centers you want (Late Bronze Age competition between several roughly equal empires, early Iron Age domination of the known world by a single [Neo-Assyrian] Empire, etc.). There are also meaningful options in terms of where to situate the players. They could live in a major city of a major empire or a hapless city or town subject to regular imperial conquest. They could be part of a group of nomadic herders too mobile or too remote for imperial domination, or a mountain people that threatens to overthrow the empire next door. Within each of these (especially the first one or two) there is potentially severe and potentially volatile social stratification that you might be able to use.

Yora
2014-08-02, 11:32 AM
Though giving fighters engineering may be a bit odd. So is having ubiquitous literacy.
Good point there. Going over skills/proficiencies with attention to anachronisms is probably much more important than classes. Hadn't thought of this at all.

unless you're doing a nautical campaign.
Oh, great idea! It probably didn't play nearly as much an important role in Mesopotamia and India, but in the ancient Mediterranean, sea travel was of huge importance. If you wanted to get anywhere, going by ship was much more effective than trying to pull ox carts through rugged hills in hot weather. Emphasizing it should do a good deal in making the setting feel ancient.

LongVin
2014-08-02, 11:35 AM
Well if you go by the dungeonomicon. An excellent online sourcebook, the world of D&D culturally is more related to the age of antiquity than it is to medieval period. Aside from technology, the way most worlds are established resemble the ancient world more than a medieval setting.

http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeonomicon_(3.5e_Sourcebook)/Socialomicon

Edit: Great quote: "D&D at its core is about breaking into other peoples' homes, possibly killing the residents, and taking their stuff home with you in a sack. And in the context of the period, that is acceptable behavior for a hero. "

VoxRationis
2014-08-02, 12:07 PM
As far as political modernity goes, remember that a lot of monarchs in antiquity maintained the image that they were divine. Not just given a divine mandate, but literally of divine essence. Depending on how you want your setting to go, this may be true or it may just be a lie to maintain their power. In one of my settings, the Pharaoh is an 18th-level cleric by default simply because of his divine blood.
Also, remember that having a written code of laws was a big and revolutionary step in ancient societies. Whether you were guilty or not basically depended on how much the judge liked you.
The world was a harsher place back then. Slavery was ubiquitous, though the exact way in which slaves were treated varied. Unlike the colonial empires of the post-Renaissance, they needed no ideological or racial justification for the practice; you were a slave because you were unlucky enough to be born to one or to be captured in battle (or to have outstanding debts). One of my friends once described ancient thought on the matter to be "Yeah, it sucks; that's why you don't want it to happen to you." This idea extends to other things as well, like raiding, sacking other people's cities, outright killing everyone so you could take their land, etc.
Regarding "killing everyone so you could take their land," remember that conquest was an invention! King Sargon of Akkad was the first person we know of who created an empire by conquering a neighboring city, rather than just sacking it and taking all the loot home.

Yora
2014-08-02, 12:19 PM
I think the self proclaimed prophet who gathers an army of followers behind him and starts to threaten the established monarchs is also a quite common feature of ancient style fantasy. It's basically absent in medieval style fantasy, as medieval Europe is generally seen as fully christian. (Which it wasn't, but the northern crusades and the purges against christian heretics are barely known outside historian circles and don't appear in "historic fiction".)

Lord Raziere
2014-08-02, 01:12 PM
the big problem I have with ancient fantasy kind of stuff is visualizing it all. medieval, that imagery is obvious. but ancient fantasy stuff is harder, since I don't know how people are supposed to appear, what the buildings are supposed to be like, what weapons are available, what people would be doing everyday, that sort of thing. if there was a way to help me with that, it would be appreciated.

(its the same problem I have with steampunk, wuxia, and pulp, but those are other things not related to this discussion)

Yora
2014-08-02, 01:33 PM
In regards to how things would look like, I think there's a good amount of illustrations people have made for buildings, armor, clothing and such.
What people would be doing is one of the main subjects of this thread.

Oneris
2014-08-02, 01:33 PM
the big problem I have with ancient fantasy kind of stuff is visualizing it all. medieval, that imagery is obvious. but ancient fantasy stuff is harder, since I don't know how people are supposed to appear, what the buildings are supposed to be like, what weapons are available, what people would be doing everyday, that sort of thing. if there was a way to help me with that, it would be appreciated.

(its the same problem I have with steampunk, wuxia, and pulp, but those are other things not related to this discussion)

It's pretty much the same for visualizing any culture. Find references to work from. Books with illustrations or documentaries with live action reenactments. Maybe a virtual tour of a temple complex. Make a collection of images to assist you.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-02, 02:07 PM
The more I think about this, the more I think you'll want to look at Dark Sun.

Humancentric campaign world; though there are lots of demihumans, they're pretty clearly "outsiders" to the world. Local kings are god-kings, with divine power and a class of priests whose only real fears are their god-king and higher-ranked priests. Magic is somewhat rare, with built-in consequences. Life is cheap and water is expensive.

It's not perfect, but it's certainly a jumping off place for ideas.

Yora
2014-08-02, 02:29 PM
Yeah, Dark Sun is awesome. But as fantasy settings go, I think it's one of the more extreme "unusual ones", with the world in ruin and the few remaining city stares being ruled by despotic immortal and inhuman sorcerers, and people relying on giant insects and lizards as domestic animals. Certainly worth a look, especially for fans of desert settings, but I don't think it would make a good template for pre-medieval style fantasy in general.

While most desert settings and city state settings are focused very much on only humans, I don't think this needs to be a convention. As far as I am aware, Tolkien simply decided to have kingdoms of elves and dwarves in his world (the Age of Men only being at the very end of his works) though there wasn't any precedent for it at such a scope. And lots of people thought it was cool and did it as well. I don't see a compelling reason why it would be more appropriate for a medieval style world than for an antiquity style world. Pseudo-ancient Greece settings are not hard to find. But I would really like to explore fantasy that goes beyond that.
However, other humanoid races than humans do not have to be the same elves, dwarves, and halflings that have become common in medieval style fantasy. In Sword & Sorcery settings you often find a race of snakemen with great magical powers (which can be more or less close to the Indian naga). Lizardmen are also somewhat popular, though their resemblance to dinosaurs could make them a bit too far back for some people. Gnolls would make a great nonhuman race in an arrid subtropical setting, and you could also have gorillas of human intelligence.
In the end, it's a stilistic choice to make the world human only or not, but I think the considerations are not different than in a medieval style setting.

Another piece of window dressing that came to my mind are big cats. They are the top predators in Africa, Asia, and much of America, but nonexistant in Europe and most of northern America. So I think having them as animals of great cultural significance might be quite effective in triggering associations with antiquity in the audience.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-02, 03:21 PM
Yeah, Dark Sun is awesome. But as fantasy settings go, I think it's one of the more extreme "unusual ones", with the world in ruin and the few remaining city stares being ruled by despotic immortal and inhuman sorcerers, and people relying on giant insects and lizards as domestic animals. Certainly worth a look, especially for fans of desert settings, but I don't think it would make a good template for pre-medieval style fantasy in general.

Consider, though, that it somewhat matched the perception of the ancient world. The king was godlike (if not considered an actual god), with great power, that was enforced by officials who had relatively little accountability. While some of the trappings can be done away with (giant insects and lizards), others (such as slavery and bloodsports) are spot on, or at least what people have in mind.

For example, Balic. In theory, Androponis is elected; his templars even are elected, themselves. But Androponis has great power within this pseudo-democracy, serving as a monarch, even though he pretends to be subject to the will of the people. You then look at Gulg or Urik, where the sorcerer-king is regarded as an actual deity, and each manages their templars and city differently.

Dawgmoah
2014-08-02, 04:48 PM
Another piece of window dressing that came to my mind are big cats. They are the top predators in Africa, Asia, and much of America, but nonexistant in Europe and most of northern America. So I think having them as animals of great cultural significance might be quite effective in triggering associations with antiquity in the audience.

Actually, the Caspian Tiger was hunted into extinction in the 19th century; it's range extended into the Balkans and Hungary. The European Lion was driven to extinction in the time of the Roman Empire, or so it is surmised. Many of those lions that were fed Christians were from Europe, not Africa. Then if you want to go back to a bit, say to the Pleistocene again, you have the Cave Lion; 364 kilograms of coiled muscle and death.

"It was more expensive to send grain 320 kilometers from northern Moldavia to the Black Sea coast than it was to ship it from the Black Sea to Britain." Arthur Moresby, British trade agent, 1904.

Almost everything moved by water; especially bulk goods like food and fuel. Roads were pretty much nonexistent in Eastern Europe and North America as late as the 1800s. Western Europe saw an explosion of canal digging in order to move goods. With few exceptions, every great Empire had a large military and mercantile fleet. Sometimes they were one and the same. But of course that also depends on how much magic is being thrown around. Teleport Circles invented yet?

Want to throw your players into a world of change? Have one kingdom discover iron weapons while everyone else is using bronze. Or have something similar to the Hyskos invade on their horses while the Egyptians were still using chariots.

Arbane
2014-08-02, 08:37 PM
Want to throw your players into a world of change? Have one kingdom discover iron weapons while everyone else is using bronze. Or have something similar to the Hyskos invade on their horses while the Egyptians were still using chariots.

That's one thing - stirrups as New Military Technology. Without those, fighting on horseback becomes a much worse idea.

Jeff the Green
2014-08-03, 01:24 AM
I'd start with The Golden Bough, honestly. While it's quite dated, somewhat racist, and focused on magic and religion, it's got a ton of information on literally hundreds of ancient societies' beliefs and how that shaped their daily lives. I'd also read the Old Testament, Plato, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Enuma Elish, and the Rigveda. Also secondary texts on Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and pagan Europe.

First, religion played an enormous role in daily life, possibly even more than in the Middle Ages. Second, very few people are unfamiliar with what the religions of medieval Europe and the Middle East were like, while pre-Christian religions are stranger to modern eyes. Finally, in such a setting you're unlikely to see the same god worshipped at all in more than a couple cities, and many will be exclusive to a small area, so you'll want to understand how these religions interacted. You'll also want to make sure your characters are properly ignorant of foreign religious practices unless they're scholars, and even then they should have incomplete information and will probably believe it bogus and it's practitioners dolts (cf. Herodotus and Zalmoxis).

Yora
2014-08-03, 04:16 AM
Actually, the Caspian Tiger was hunted into extinction in the 19th century; it's range extended into the Balkans and Hungary. The European Lion was driven to extinction in the time of the Roman Empire, or so it is surmised.
I rather doubt that. Their range is usually estimated to reach to Armenia at the most, which admitedly is still at the black sea. And while we did have European lions, those lived in the time and location of the Ancient World, fitting the theme.


Want to throw your players into a world of change? Have one kingdom discover iron weapons while everyone else is using bronze. Or have something similar to the Hyskos invade on their horses while the Egyptians were still using chariots.
From all the information I could find over the last years, the only real advantage of steel is, that it's cheaper on a large scale, once you know how to make it and have the infrastructure in place. The advantage lies in equipping larger armies with less need to import materials, but once two forces meet, the material of their equipment doesn't make much, if any difference.

VoxRationis
2014-08-03, 10:56 AM
Want to throw your players into a world of change? Have one kingdom discover iron weapons while everyone else is using bronze. Or have something similar to the Hyskos invade on their horses while the Egyptians were still using chariots.

I seem to recall that the Hyskos were the ones who introduced the chariot to the Egyptians, who had heretofore been fighting on foot.

Dawgmoah
2014-08-03, 11:26 AM
I rather doubt that. Their range is usually estimated to reach to Armenia at the most, which admitedly is still at the black sea. And while we did have European lions, those lived in the time and location of the Ancient World, fitting the theme.


From all the information I could find over the last years, the only real advantage of steel is, that it's cheaper on a large scale, once you know how to make it and have the infrastructure in place. The advantage lies in equipping larger armies with less need to import materials, but once two forces meet, the material of their equipment doesn't make much, if any difference.

There were supposed sightings of Caspian Tigers in the Balkans. This is based on Russian reports during a survey of what is now Bulgaria after the Ottomans were forced out. But if you don't want to believe Russians, I understand.

Any difference? Seriously? A steel sword will cut through a bronze one. That's one reason the Hittites became such a power for a while.

Guess the point is still: you can pick and choose what you want to do in your game. Do you want it to be purely based on our own history? I doubt it based on the mythical and fantasy animals you have mentioned. So Arbane pointed out the stirrup which was a very powerful and game changing (no pun intended) invention which allowed the knight to evolve and so on. This happened after the classical age here on Earth though.

You never responded on the subject of magic: will it be right out of the rulebooks or will you modify it up or down? Will primitive spellcasters, Shamans, be the norm, or will Sorcerers rule while Wizard are stuck with clay tablets of cuneiform?

Vox: I stand corrected. I was thinking of a 16th Dynasty fight and had my dates wrong. The Hyksos were in their waning years and their main weapon, the chariot, was proven obsolete.

If you do pattern anything in your campaign world on the Egyptians, consider they prized iron for jewelry. It just wasn't plentiful in Egypt. Then imagine when people start showing up with iron tools and steel weapons.

Green Ronin also published a Biblical Era RPG. I think it is available on Drivethrurpg.com now.

Yora
2014-08-03, 12:08 PM
Magic is an interesting topic.

I think in generic fantasy settings, the really big magic is almost always the domain of wizards. Priests are treated as low- to mid-level healers and that usually is it. Even cults who are trying to summon a demon lord to this world appear to be lead more often by a wizard than a genuine priest.
I think in an antiquity style setting, it would feel quite appropriate to reverse the roles. Priests have great political powers and divine kings are often high priests as well. And at least as the common people see it, their magical rituals keep the world intact against a cosmic threat of chaos and demons. Wizards often do exist, but often take the form of witches living in remote corners of the world. And while some can be very powerful, they are mostly concerned with their own little corner of the world, but are not great movers and shakers like priests.

While historically magic has always been strongly connected to spirits, this aspect seems to be generally ignored by most medieval style fantasy works. For an antiquity style world, I would give it more emphasis. Both priests ad wizards are consulting the spirits of the dead, the otherworld, or nature as a primary source for their knowledge, and also power. For wizards, I would try to move away from book learning and shift the focus more to direct teachings by either masters or consulted spirits.

VoxRationis
2014-08-03, 12:54 PM
I don't think steel vs. bronze is an apt comparison here. We're talking about iron vs. bronze, and early iron working was indeed very primitive, and often of inferior quality to bronze. The main advantage with "entry-level" iron working, if I recall correctly, is that the ore is easier to come by, once you have the technology to smelt it.

Yora
2014-08-03, 01:08 PM
Depends of course on the specific time period and the skill of the steel producer. Modern steel can be extremely tough compared to ancient steel and the best bronze you can get.
Early steel was used mostly because bronze became unaffordable and was both a cheaper and inferior substitute. Once the manufacturing processes became well established, their performed about equally for a very long period of time. But with steel still much more affordable.
Most tests of banging a steel sword against a bronze sword that I have seen are very far removed from actually plausible combat and didn't mention what type of steel was used for the steel sword. And even then the steel sword was not able to make the bronze sword unusable. Because unlike medium quality steel, bronze doesn't fracture, it just bends. And while a big chink on the edge does reduce cutting ability, it's still a working weapon that can totally kill you. Test in which the blades were actually swung in ways that are plausible in a fight, the effect was barely noticable.
I think the impact on warfare was primarily an economic one. If you can produce three times s many weapons as your enemy for the same price, you do have a huge advantage on your side.

Someone mentioned charriots. If the terrain allows it, those really add to the ancientfeel of a scenario.

El Dorado
2014-08-03, 04:11 PM
While limiting armor, weapons, and technology can go a long way to setting the stage, I think it's vital to similarly customize magic to maintain the atmosphere. Seeing the same bards, clerics, and wizards with normal access to the same spell lists can break immersion as easily as full plate and greatswords.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-03, 05:06 PM
Hmm, one thing I'd like to invoke is everything is magical. That completely 'mundane' bronze sickle sword or spear? It isn't so much a work of technology as we think of it but of a complex and precise ritual in which many spirits were invoked to do the impossible and form from mere rock a new metal. Much secrets and mysteries were involved to create what you hold. That clay pot? Formed of a magic that turned mud, which would ordinarily wash away in rain, into a container of stone. Crafts people are not just workers of a trade; they work a magic needed to keep the world spinning, with little gods and fetishes that, while generally obedient, have wills of their own. Knowledge and superstition are mixed, with a thousand thousands warding words and gestures to keep curses and evil at bay, and an amulet for occasion.
EDIT: Oh, and less of a line between priests and wizards. Magician comes from Magi after all.

Sartharina
2014-08-03, 05:24 PM
Any difference? Seriously? A steel sword will cut through a bronze one. That's one reason the Hittites became such a power for a while. An iron/steel sword will cut through a copper sword (Which you're stuck with if you can't get the tin to make Bronze). The Greeks recognized Iron as inferior, but common compared to Bronze (Hence their 'back in my day everything was better' name for ages went Gold-Silver-Bronze-Iron). But copper and tin aren't found in the same areas.


While most desert settings and city state settings are focused very much on only humans, I don't think this needs to be a convention. As far as I am aware, Tolkien simply decided to have kingdoms of elves and dwarves in his world (the Age of Men only being at the very end of his works) though there wasn't any precedent for it at such a scope. And lots of people thought it was cool and did it as well. I don't see a compelling reason why it would be more appropriate for a medieval style world than for an antiquity style world. Pseudo-ancient Greece settings are not hard to find. But I would really like to explore fantasy that goes beyond that.
However, other humanoid races than humans do not have to be the same elves, dwarves, and halflings that have become common in medieval style fantasy. In Sword & Sorcery settings you often find a race of snakemen with great magical powers (which can be more or less close to the Indian naga). Lizardmen are also somewhat popular, though their resemblance to dinosaurs could make them a bit too far back for some people. Gnolls would make a great nonhuman race in an arrid subtropical setting, and you could also have gorillas of human intelligence.
In the end, it's a stilistic choice to make the world human only or not, but I think the considerations are not different than in a medieval style setting.I kinda wish my kind haven't corrupted the idea of more animalistic people reinforcing the 'otherness' of how people perceived different tribes/groups... but human-only might result in too much sympathy for the 'other side'.

Tvtyrant
2014-08-03, 05:28 PM
I think the largest aspect to an ancient campaign is the often present existence of mass slavery amongst the civilized, and its lack amongst "Barbarians." Greece, Rome, Carthage, Babylon, etc. all had tremendous numbers of slaves and they were used in every form, from chattel plantations to private tutors. Owning individuals would not have a noticeable moral aspect at all, while being owned would be common but ignoble.

Grinner
2014-08-03, 05:34 PM
While historically magic has always been strongly connected to spirits, this aspect seems to be generally ignored by most medieval style fantasy works. For an antiquity style world, I would give it more emphasis. Both priests ad wizards are consulting the spirits of the dead, the otherworld, or nature as a primary source for their knowledge, and also power. For wizards, I would try to move away from book learning and shift the focus more to direct teachings by either masters or consulted spirits.

What happened to that wonderful casting system you had in the Ancient Lands setting? The one where the caster would try to draw spirits into a person's body with painted runes?


I think the impact on warfare was primarily an economic one. If you can produce three times s many weapons as your enemy for the same price, you do have a huge advantage on your side.

Consider this though: if a craftsman can produce a steel sword of better quality than even the finest bronze, even...no, especially with great difficulty, is that not the perfect plot hook?


That clay pot? Formed of a magic that turned mud, which would ordinarily wash away in rain, into a container of stone.

This brings up a point. I recall once reading that, in the ancient mindset, metalworking was seen as an almost magical craft. Would the same apply to a more accessible one such as pottery?


Crafts people are not just workers of a trade; they work a magic needed to keep the world spinning, with little gods and fetishes that, while generally obedient, have wills of their own. Knowledge and superstition are mixed, with a thousand thousands warding words and gestures to keep curses and evil at bay, and an amulet for occasion.

Definitely.

Knaight
2014-08-03, 05:39 PM
Hmm, one thing I'd like to invoke is everything is magical. That completely 'mundane' bronze sickle sword or spear? It isn't so much a work of technology as we think of it but of a complex and precise ritual in which many spirits were invoked to do the impossible and form from mere rock a new metal. Much secrets and mysteries were involved to create what you hold. That clay pot? Formed of a magic that turned mud, which would ordinarily wash away in rain, into a container of stone. Crafts people are not just workers of a trade; they work a magic needed to keep the world spinning, with little gods and fetishes that, while generally obedient, have wills of their own. Knowledge and superstition are mixed, with a thousand thousands warding words and gestures to keep curses and evil at bay, and an amulet for occasion.
EDIT: Oh, and less of a line between priests and wizards. Magician comes from Magi after all.

There's a concept behind this called the Mythic worldview, which might be worth looking into, particularly in scholarly articles (web searches are way more likely to pull up bizarre modern stuff that co-opted the term). It's not just that secrets and mysteries are involved in creating things. Telling stories about natural phenomena was a totally acceptable way of finding out what they actually were. The sun is a mysterious thing, so you tell stories about it, it gets personified, and you just assume that the stories that emerge are what is actually there.

As for less of a line between priests and wizards, I'd go a step further than that. The only people practicing magic as an art (rather than using magic and mysticism in crafts) are in the priesthood. Cities have their own patron gods, conquering empires build pantheons as they go, and the wars and policy behind them are all divine will. The temple is the center of city life, for craftspeople and merchants, moneylenders and political figures, and the priesthood hold the reigns of power. Everyone deals with the spirits, only the priesthood deals directly with the gods - a category that certainly includes the political leader of cities or empires.

On a completely different note - there are a handful of ancient technologies and ancient buildings that are particularly evocative of the time to modern people. Bringing them up explicitly can do a lot for flavor. Pottery is ubiquitous. Wicker is ubiquitous, with particular emphasis on baskets. Ziggurats are visible from anywhere in town. Flood plains are prominent. The center of many homes is the hearth. Chariots are strongly associated with the period.

Similarly, there are things that come up a lot in more medieval based settings that need to be avoided. Some are technology that simply wasn't around at the time, at least not to any real extent - one watermill shows up, and a lot of the ancient feeling is down the drain. Ubiquitous stone construction, and a lot of the ancient feeling is down the drain, though more recent antiquity had plenty. The presence of too many forests gives things a medieval tinge, just because forests are so associated with the period, even though they were hardly absent during antiquity - though asia minor, the fertile crescent, Egypt, and the north coast of Africa aren't exactly heavily forested, and those areas tend to be the focus of ancient civilizations. Plus, even a mesoamerican focused campaign is far more likely to see rainforests and jungle than just forests.

Basically, there's a huge amount that can be done to get players into the zone for the campaign just by playing up the distinctive trappings of the period. Trappings are a powerful signifier, and should be used liberally.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-03, 06:01 PM
This brings up a point. I recall once reading that, in the ancient mindset, metalworking was seen as an almost magical craft. Would the same apply to a more accessible one such as pottery?

Not everyone would have access to a kiln or the knowledge of such mysteries, so while it might be a somewhat lesser magic, it would still be such,
Heck, consider brewing. From simple grain and water is formed a beverage to gladden men's hearts and loosen their tongues. It would be a fairly 'mundane' magic, but still something treated with a modicum of wonder.



Definitely.
Glad you approve.
@Knaight: Nice, I like that. Oh, lots of divination. From the patterns of rising smoke, to the flight of birds, to the entrails of small animals, to the passing of comets, omens are everywhere, and are pretty much required before any undertaking.
Another feature of how we think of the era would be accepted and expected polygamy.
Depending on culture, slavery may or may not be a life long thing, with some perhaps allowing slaves to buy themselves free or being released after so many years.

Sartharina
2014-08-03, 06:06 PM
Something you might want to do, if it's a D&D-style game, is swap the armor value of Shields and armor, to emphasize shield use as a primary defense, while armor is more for protecting against incidental blows.

Knaight
2014-08-03, 06:19 PM
@Knaight: Nice, I like that. Oh, lots of divination. From the patterns of rising smoke, to the flight of birds, to the entrails of small animals, to the passing of comets, omens are everywhere, and are pretty much required before any undertaking.
Another feature of how we think of the era would be accepted and expected polygamy.
Depending on culture, slavery may or may not be a life long thing, with some perhaps allowing slaves to buy themselves free or being released after so many years.

Divination really should be the bulk of magic, and there's tons of it. Bird flight, turtle shell cracking, smoke patterns, mouse movements*, egg cracking*, so on and so forth. It wouldn't be a bad use of prep time to just go through an online dictionary and find every word with the "-mancy" suffix.

*Myomancy and oomancy, respectively.

Grinner
2014-08-03, 06:25 PM
Divination really should be the bulk of magic, and there's tons of it. Bird flight, turtle shell cracking, smoke patterns, mouse movements*, egg cracking*, so on and so forth. It wouldn't be a bad use of prep time to just go through an online dictionary and find every word with the "-mancy" suffix.

*Myomancy and oomancy, respectively.

It may also be wise to read summaries of each, just to get an idea of what the practitioner is looking for. Otherwise, the GM will be fairly limited in the ways he can describe them.

It also occurs to me that it would help set limits on what kind of information can be obtained (probably nothing more than vague impressions).

Ravens_cry
2014-08-03, 06:43 PM
Another idea, all gods are venerated to greater and lesser degrees. After all, you wouldn't want to piss off some powerful entity or the other. I would also remove the distinction between good and evil gods. They simply are.

Arbane
2014-08-03, 08:00 PM
If not for its zooful of non-human intelligent creatures, I'd advice the OP to read every RuneQuest book they can find - the game does a good job of making this sort of mindset part of the game.

Larkas
2014-08-03, 10:10 PM
Watching videos 1-13 (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9) might be helpful to remember some things about the ancient world.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-04, 03:42 AM
It may also be wise to read summaries of each, just to get an idea of what the practitioner is looking for. Otherwise, the GM will be fairly limited in the ways he can describe them.

It also occurs to me that it would help set limits on what kind of information can be obtained (probably nothing more than vague impressions).
Like the scene near the start of Princess Mononoke, it can be a way to add foreshadowing and such. Also, one thing I see missing in a lot of setting is the little rituals of society, and casting the lots or consulting fortune tellers before an undertaken is one way to do so. Also, since these people hear everything, they can be valuable sources of information *if* you convince them to do so, though they will likely shroud it in their best bafflegab even if they do.

Yora
2014-08-04, 03:51 AM
What happened to that wonderful casting system you had in the Ancient Lands setting? The one where the caster would try to draw spirits into a person's body with painted runes?
I still got it somewhere, but I made it as something specific to a culture I havn't really developed yet.

Which brings me to the subject of amulets. In christian Europe, you would wear a cross, and that's it. In polytheistic or animistic cultures, you can, and should, have a huge variety of amulets people are using for all kinds of purposes. To ward against disease, fire in the home, possession by demons, luck in battle, and anything you can think of. Be it small pendants or runes painted on your equipment or buildings.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-04, 05:25 AM
I still got it somewhere, but I made it as something specific to a culture I havn't really developed yet.

Which brings me to the subject of amulets. In christian Europe, you would wear a cross, and that's it. In polytheistic or animistic cultures, you can, and should, have a huge variety of amulets people are using for all kinds of purposes. To ward against disease, fire in the home, possession by demons, luck in battle, and anything you can think of. Be it small pendants or runes painted on your equipment or buildings.
And people think the Christmas tree effect is a new thing.:smallbiggrin: As for how to add them to a game, some might be useless, some might provide minor behind the screen bonuses, while others might have very limited, but quite significant abilities that might be one use even.

GraaEminense
2014-08-04, 06:44 AM
Which brings me to the subject of amulets. In christian Europe, you would wear a cross, and that's it. In polytheistic or animistic cultures, you can, and should, have a huge variety of amulets people are using for all kinds of purposes. To ward against disease, fire in the home, possession by demons, luck in battle, and anything you can think of. Be it small pendants or runes painted on your equipment or buildings.
Actually, lucky amulets and wards of all sorts were common long after Christianity became dominant in Europe (and never really went away). Many of these were based on Christianity -relics and pilgrim badges were huge industries. My favourites are the wooden amulets with religious quotes (written in runes) found here in Norway.

At the same time, magic and rituals survive: Wearing certain flowers, putting seven different flowers under your pillow midsummer night to dream of your spouse-to-be, nailing a horseshoe over the door to keep the bogeymen out. Again, Christianity played a prominent role: Communion wine and wafers were considered so powerful (and so holy) that they had to be carefully guarded against parishioners trying to use them for their own ends. Many places, Christian priests were thought to have powerful magic abilities -healing the sick, binding and banishing the devil, putting out fires and so on.

My point is this: You don't have to go very far back or very far away to find magic and religion playing a prominent role in society -much more than in most societies today. Trying to influence the world to our benefit is a very human thing to do, after all. Realistically, this kind of thing should be far more present in most settings, but I think it's one of the most important ways to present "ancient times" and a the magical worldview -or mythic, as it was called above. Rituals, spells, lucky charms and minor invocations should be everywhere. All actions, all meals, all decisions should incorporate minor rituals not even considered such by the natives (much like washing hands before eating today, to ward off the sickness-causing bacteria-spirits).

For inspiration, go to folklore and old wives' remedies of the recent past. It's essentially the same thing, and more available than Ancient spells.

Oh, and read Hammurabi's Code (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.asp). It's the first known legal code, and a wonderful source documenting what were considered important (and frequent) enough problems that legislation was needed. It gives a surprising amount of insight into Ancient Babylonian society, especially if you pay attention to what is not included.

Suppiluliuma
2014-08-04, 09:07 AM
Oh, and read Hammurabi's Code (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/hamcode.asp). It's the first known legal code

Actually, a couple of older codes have been found, the oldest one being the Laws of Ur-Namma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu) (or Ur-Nammu). I would also stress that the most likely function of Hammurabi's Code (and many other ancient law codes) was political/propagandistic rather than juridical. Hammurabi's Code is meant to demonstrate what a just and powerful king Hammurabi is, not to be the basis on which judges rendered verdicts. Nevertheless, you are absolutely right that Hammurabi's Code preserves valuable information about the world of ancient Babylon.

For the OP, and for anyone else who is interested, I would recommend Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (http://books.google.com/books/about/Law_collections_from_Mesopotamia_and_Asi.html?id=0 WfuAAAAMAAJ), which provides translations of many of the oldest known law codes.

GraaEminense
2014-08-04, 10:50 AM
Actually, a couple of older codes have been found, the oldest one being the Laws of Ur-Namma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu) (or Ur-Nammu). I would also stress that the most likely function of Hammurabi's Code (and many other ancient law codes) was political/propagandistic rather than juridical. Hammurabi's Code is meant to demonstrate what a just and powerful king Hammurabi is, not to be the basis on which judges rendered verdicts. Nevertheless, you are absolutely right that Hammurabi's Code preserves valuable information about the world of ancient Babylon.

For the OP, and for anyone else who is interested, I would recommend Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (http://books.google.com/books/about/Law_collections_from_Mesopotamia_and_Asi.html?id=0 WfuAAAAMAAJ), which provides translations of many of the oldest known law codes.
I have obviously been deceived by outdated information. Thanks for the heads-up, I have some reading to do.

That aside -the ancient laws are obviously political statements first and foremost, but they still hold up certain ideals and are likely meant to deal with actual issues in society. A quick skim of Hammurabi's show several interesting trends:
*Women have rights, including property rights, but are still considered the property of the "master of the house" to a certain degree (as are children, servants and slaves). Marriages require dowries and contracts.
*Contract law (including marital infidelity) seems to be more important than criminal law.
*An eye for an eye is a common punishment. This includes killing your children if you killed someone else's. The death penalty is used a lot. Fines, including selling the criminal or contract-breaker into slavery, is the most used punishment.
*Craftsmen, including doctors, who fail at their job are fined.
*In land-lease especially, there seems to be some effort made to differentiate between the unlucky, who get off easy, and the incompetent or immoral, who pay the full price.

And so on. Lots of interesting stuff to steal.

Larkas
2014-08-04, 11:19 AM
Okay, now that I've read the whole thread I can properly contribute.

One thing that you have to keep in mind is this: there were lots of cultural exchange in the ancient world (a lot more than most of us usually have come to expect), but still there were lots of different cultures! There was no homogenization! Furthermore, the Antiquity encompassed a very long period of time. Just consider for a minute that Cleopatra is "closer in time" to us than to the time of construction of the Great Pyramid and this should settle in. Anyways, without further ado, let's tackle a few points:

1) How do you want to model the immediate surroundings of the setting? Do you want a Mesopotamia-like region of warring cities, each with their own patron god? Do you want to mimic a prosperous kingdom like Egypt, where there is a tightly knit, if incredibly expansive, pantheon of gods governing every day life? Do you want a handful of Greek-like city-states with shared cultural background but very diverse political outlook, with a pantheon of human-like gods? Do you want an empire the likes of Persia, expansionist and with a state religion, but which still allowed their subjects religious freedom? Do you want an empire like Rome, which depends on continual expansion to exist and in which corruption is rampant? Do you want caste-based society the likes of India, in which the focus of religion isn't so much on gods but on escaping the shackles of existence? Do you want a nation state, China-like place, with rigid social structures and in which the Emperor is only allowed to lead as long as he follows the Mandate of Heaven? Do you want a Harappan-like society, in which warfare is practically unheard of and trade is the order of the day? Or would you rather simply have the adventure be among long-ranging nomads which trade with most of the above civilizations (lacking a strong warlord to simply conquer them all)? This is a very important choice because it will mold where you will focus your attention first. As I said before, the ancient world was anything but homogeneous, and I think that most of the fun in playing such a setting is exactly that heterogeneity among its peoples.

2) Remember one word when discussing the ancient world: trade. I think we tend to underestimate the amount of trade in the Antiquity because of the following period, in which very little trade went on in Western Europe. It's a little difficult to imagine how far goods went, but consider this: Roman Senators wore silk that was woven in China! The Silk Road was a very important trade route (actually, it wasn't a singular trade route, but more on that in a minute), and goods, but more importantly ideas, were carried far and wide along it. Most of the comings and goings, at least initially, weren't carried about by professional traders, but actually by nomadic peoples. The majority of the trade was land-based, but there were a few sea routes through the Indian Ocean too. Most of the ancient old world civilizations were interconnected, and even though most of the goods were expensive and hence the domain of the elites, ideas flowed freely. Of course, you can make a setting without trade between civilizations, but you would be inadvertently throwing much of the color from the ancient world out of the window.

3) War, real war, is large scale. There should be thousands or tens of thousands of warriors clashing in battles. The death toll was much higher than in Middle Ages' confrontations.

4) This one is the easiest to understand, but it bears pointing out that cities were bigger and more advanced than the settlements in the Middle Ages. Sanitation existed, and so did aqueducts. People used to bathe much more frequently than in the following period, and diseases, though obviously still a problem, were more difficultly spread.

With all that in mind, a few fantastic considerations of such a setting:

a) These civilizations could be "pre-apocalyptic" (vs. most other fantasy settings, which are usually post-apocalyptic). There's a brave new world out there waiting to be explored, and you are much more likely to find new peoples to interact with than old ruins to delve into!

b) Divine magic could be the big shot in most civilizations, with wizardly arcane magic being mostly practiced (and developed!) in more "humanistic" civilizations (like the Greek, and obviously the Roman). Of course, I can also see a dynasty of in-born arcane magic casters playing an important part somewhere.

VoxRationis
2014-08-04, 11:40 AM
Actually, there'd still be a lot of ruins to delve into. Consider your Cleopatra example. Many nations rose and fell before Antiquity even really got off the ground.

Larkas
2014-08-04, 11:58 AM
Actually, there'd still be a lot of ruins to delve into. Consider your Cleopatra example. Many nations rose and fell before Antiquity even really got off the ground.

That's why I said "could" and not "should"! :smallbiggrin:

Yora
2014-08-04, 12:44 PM
Which also brings up the subject of barbarians. We know quite a lot about imperial aristocrats in their big cities, and a bit about their servants living inside and in front of the city walls. But these would still be only part of the total population of a larger area. Given the number of people their large scale agriculture could support, these city people might not necessarily have been a minority, but when you go outside and travel the world off the main roads, most places you'd encounter would be living very differently.
Unfortunately, as barbarians go, only the Vikings and Mongols are relatively well known, and they were not exactly primitive brutes either, in their times. They just practiced a lifestyle that didn't have some of the luxuries which the people who wrote about them took for granted. When it comes to fringe societies in antiquity, I really don't know anything.
Except maybe Asterix.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-04, 12:58 PM
1) How do you want to model the immediate surroundings of the setting? Do you want a Mesopotamia-like region of warring cities, each with their own patron god? Do you want to mimic a prosperous kingdom like Egypt, where there is a tightly knit, if incredibly expansive, pantheon of gods governing every day life? Do you want a handful of Greek-like city-states with shared cultural background but very diverse political outlook, with a pantheon of human-like gods? Do you want an empire the likes of Persia, expansionist and with a state religion, but which still allowed their subjects religious freedom? Do you want an empire like Rome, which depends on continual expansion to exist and in which corruption is rampant? Do you want caste-based society the likes of India, in which the focus of religion isn't so much on gods but on escaping the shackles of existence? Do you want a nation state, China-like place, with rigid social structures and in which the Emperor is only allowed to lead as long as he follows the Mandate of Heaven? Do you want a Harappan-like society, in which warfare is practically unheard of and trade is the order of the day? Or would you rather simply have the adventure be among long-ranging nomads which trade with most of the above civilizations (lacking a strong warlord to simply conquer them all)? This is a very important choice because it will mold where you will focus your attention first. As I said before, the ancient world was anything but homogeneous, and I think that most of the fun in playing such a setting is exactly that heterogeneity among its peoples.


aaaaaaaaah. this might explain why I can't visualize it well. The picture is too complex and there is not much of a way to generalize anything. there is no overarching state of civilization, they're all doing their own little thing. I'll have to adjust for that. though I recently discovered runequest 6th edition and conan rpg second edition, so those things will help. I was particularly surprised when Runequest separated the concept of Nomads and Primitives into separate backgrounds while sorting Barbarians into being the ones that are CLOSER to civilization than either of them, which really opened my eyes into how complex this sort of thing is, before then my conception of such things was no better than the awkwardly stereotypical, with Barbarian, Nomad and Primitive being mixed into one vague group I had no idea about.

Larkas
2014-08-04, 02:37 PM
Which also brings up the subject of barbarians. We know quite a lot about imperial aristocrats in their big cities, and a bit about their servants living inside and in front of the city walls. But these would still be only part of the total population of a larger area. Given the number of people their large scale agriculture could support, these city people might not necessarily have been a minority, but when you go outside and travel the world off the main roads, most places you'd encounter would be living very differently.
Unfortunately, as barbarians go, only the Vikings and Mongols are relatively well known, and they were not exactly primitive brutes either, in their times. They just practiced a lifestyle that didn't have some of the luxuries which the people who wrote about them took for granted. When it comes to fringe societies in antiquity, I really don't know anything.
Except maybe Asterix.

Actually, I'd refrain from using the word "barbarian" when talking about these peoples, at least out-of-game. That's a very biased historical term. This is not a criticism, by the way. If anyone's to blame, it's the ancient Greeks, who classified anyone who didn't speak Greek as barbarians. As to the etymology of the word? Greeks couldn't understand a word these guys were speaking, which sounded to them as BAR BAR BAR BAR BAR. Hence, barbarians. Yep, it's as silly as that. Apparently, they couldn't be bothered to learn other languages either. :smalltongue: If anything, the word "barbarian" says more about the moral relativism of the ancient Greeks than about the peoples the term refers to.

Anyways, as shown above, any non-Greek speaker was originally considered a barbarian. Strictly speaking, this encompassed not only nomadic cultures, but also what we usually consider "civilized peoples", such as Egyptians, Romans, Persians, etc. This was taken to such an extreme that high-class Romans used to study Greek to "rise above barbarianism". That is probably not what we want from the term out-of-game (calling everyone not of your nationality a "barbarian" seems very reasonable in-game, though), but what meaning of the term should we analyze? Is any culture that didn't build cities barbaric? Many of the "barbarian" cultures did build settlements. Is any non-imperial civilization barbaric? Then pre-Alexander Greeks should qualify, and yet they are never called so; also, the Mongols usually qualify. Is any nomadic culture barbaric? Then why not call them simply "nomadic" instead of "barbaric"?

As should be clear by now, "barbarian" is not an useful historical term. It's usually used to denote cultures either considered "unworthy" of civilization status (another contentious term, but which at least has its uses) or that lost something to the "historical winners". In other terms, "barbarian" usually more or less means "other", which is pretty useless when you're analyzing History, as opposed to "history as perceived by a certain people".

With that aside (sorry for the long rant), it really depends on the culture you want to analyze. Many of the relevant cultures were nomadic or semi-nomadic, and herded their animals in search of better pastures all year round. They were anything but primitive, and were among the first long-range traders in the Antiquity ("if we're going that way, might as well bring something rare there to make some profit"). They did occasionally raid settlements and such, but don't fall into the trap of thinking they were alone in this: "civilized" people, like the Greek, did this too. Basically, they were roaming peoples because they relied primarily in herding and not in agriculture. Other cultures were merely "different", in that they had different customs and different values. The Celts, for example, were a tribal people that did practice agriculture, iron-working and, as was common for that time, slavery, which of course led to the building of settlements. But they were fundamentally different from the Romans in that they were more or less monarchical and had a more animistic religion. And of course, they didn't speak Greek nor Latin. The Goths were less sedentary, and husbandry played an important role in their society. Slavery was also less common among them, and gender equality was much greater. Their religion was a very tribal polytheism which held ancestor worship in high regard. They didn't speak Greek nor Latin either. The Vikings aren't really an ancient culture, but bear in mind that they were traders first and raiders second. In fact, "viking" merely refers to an expedition overseas. Greek or Latin fell into disuse long before they arose.


aaaaaaaaah. this might explain why I can't visualize it well. The picture is too complex and there is not much of a way to generalize anything. there is no overarching state of civilization, they're all doing their own little thing. I'll have to adjust for that. though I recently discovered runequest 6th edition and conan rpg second edition, so those things will help. I was particularly surprised when Runequest separated the concept of Nomads and Primitives into separate backgrounds while sorting Barbarians into being the ones that are CLOSER to civilization than either of them, which really opened my eyes into how complex this sort of thing is, before then my conception of such things was no better than the awkwardly stereotypical, with Barbarian, Nomad and Primitive being mixed into one vague group I had no idea about.

Exactly! That's an interesting take on barbarians too. For someone to be called a barbarian, s/he must have had contact with a(nother) civilization to call him/her so. Makes a lot of sense.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-04, 02:49 PM
Exactly! That's an interesting take on barbarians too. For someone to be called a barbarian, s/he must have had contact with a(nother) civilization to call him/her so. Makes a lot of sense.

No its more like, that Primitive is hunter-gatherers living in caves and such, Nomads are well...Nomads with all that implies, and Barbarians are people who live in towns, but are not soft Civilized people who live in walled cities and such, they live in towns that open to the frontier and everyone has to fight. meaning the Barbarians in Runequest are technically more civilized or whatever than the Primitive or the Nomad.

where before, my mind sort of thought of Barbarians, Primitives and Nomads as all the same thing.

Sartharina
2014-08-04, 03:02 PM
So... Barbarians are like Spartans.

Larkas
2014-08-04, 03:07 PM
No its more like, that Primitive is hunter-gatherers living in caves and such, Nomads are well...Nomads with all that implies, and Barbarians are people who live in towns, but are not soft Civilized people who live in walled cities and such, they live in towns that open to the frontier and everyone has to fight. meaning the Barbarians in Runequest are technically more civilized or whatever than the Primitive or the Nomad.

where before, my mind sort of thought of Barbarians, Primitives and Nomads as all the same thing.

Awwww, that sucks. Then it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-04, 03:17 PM
So... Barbarians are like Spartans.

In Runequest 6th edition, maybe, perhaps.

now that I think about it, Sparta is kind of confounding from a Runequest POV. the obsessive focus on fighting, yet dwelling in a polis like all the other Greeks....keep in mind, the Barbarians I'm talking about, dwell in towns, but they're smaller and not big Civilized stuff, according to it. the quote that they give the barbarians basically says that they have a strong oral tradition, that their laws are embodied in their customs and traditions, and that they find raiding a normal part of life and point out how Civilized wars are bigger and people die in the thousands, so Civilized people really have no ground to throw stones.

so, Sparta is probably Civilized. just a very combat focused one, because runequest 6th edition plays up its customizable aspect- the Civilized background is very general, and so are all the others.

Yora
2014-08-04, 03:50 PM
I think when creating a fantasy setting, popular images might actually be more important than historic accuracy. If you want to run a historic game, that's of course a much better approach. But as I said in the opening post, there's already a bunch of good material for that, both RPG and scholary.
When creating a fantasy setting, I would put a stronger focus on evoking the hazy images people have somewhere in the back of their mind. Like Star Wars does so well, you should make the preconceptions of the audience do a lot of the work for you. If historic accuracy makes the fiction move to far away from common, though false, preconceptions you run into the risk of losing this very valuable resource. I think Dark Sun is another exaple of a setting, where you only need a few basic facts and everything else falls in place by itself.
While I hate the phrase in the context of cyberpunk sci-fi, I think fantasy worlds do benefit significantly from "style over substance". It doesn't have to be well researched if it looks cool.
But sometimes you just don't have any readily available archetypes, and I think when in doubt, history is probably our best source for ideas that feel reasonably consistent with what we already have. But I wouldn't bother too much with accuracy. What we need is a basic idea to use as a starting point. When we can make up things that seem to mesh better with the popular image of the ancient world than the actual facts do, I would start relying more on the fiction.

And that's why I used the term barbarians intentionally. I think it would be a useful approach to divide society into urban and frontier. In which case the "sub-urban" farming villages that supply the cities would still be part of the urban societies.
For urban cultures, we have a good number of examples, of which many are reasonably well known to most people. Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, Aztects, and maybe even some much less well defined Indian kingdoms. When it comes to frontier cultures, things get more difficult. I think the only really well known example would be the Gauls from Asterix. Which is a decent start, make no mistake there. But it does have a strong western European atmosphere, which limits it's use as a generic template. What do we really know about the neighbors of Egypt and Persia? I don't even know what they are called. The Greeks had the Scythians, but which again refers to pretty much everyone north of Greece and Persia. And again, there isn't really a preexisting image that most people would have about any of those people.
While the actual Mongols were 2000 years later, I think they could still be used as a practical starting template. Mounted archers from the steppes always work and I think they've been a threat to the many civilizations of Mesopotamia from a very early time. Someone once said "the ancient history of Mesopotamia is actually very simple. Every 500 years a new horde comes from the north and takes over everything." Not sure how accurate that is, but I think it feels right.
Another fringe population, which I think would work quite well, would be pirates. These wouldn't cruise arround in big galleys like the major naval power, but instead be more like coastal bandits, who hide in coves and caves with small and fast ships and rob whatever merchant ships are coming nearby. More Somali pirates than Pirates of the Carribean. Highwaymen of the sea. I think to vaguely remember them being an actual problem in the ancient world, and they do come up a lot in the stories of Conan, so they would be recognizable to people who read some of those.

Larkas
2014-08-04, 04:38 PM
Fair enough, that makes a lot of sense. It's just that actual ancient history is so... Well, fantastic and wondrous that I stand in awe facing the possibility of using it as a template for a fantasy RPG. Or at least the "fast-forward version" of it. 😄

EDIT: Still, if I had to emphasize only one aspect of real ancient history in a game, it would be the free trading of ideas and goods among cultures without associated culture homogenization, even among "cultured" and "barbaric" peoples. For me, it's the most marked difference between the Antiquity and the Middle Ages!

mig el pig
2014-08-04, 04:43 PM
http://livingancestor.wikispaces.com/file/view/WGmontage.jpg/142063889/685x513/WGmontage.jpg

If you're looking for a Ancient Fantasy setting you might want to check Wargods Of Aegyptus. It is from a miniature wargame but it fits the bill perfectly.

Sartharina
2014-08-05, 06:57 PM
Ooh! That image reminds me of the Best part about ancient eras: The fashion!

Ravens_cry
2014-08-06, 02:12 PM
I guess if you're going for a Sword and Sandals, Conan and Moses Fight Necromancer Julies Caesar for the Staff of Ra, style game, historical accuracy isn't really a thing. On the other hand, a game where you have to immerse yourself in the setting and mindset of the era to really grok it, like what Ars Magica basically does for its quasi-Medieval setting, could certainly have a certain charm.

Yora
2014-08-06, 03:27 PM
True. But aren't there already a couple like that?

Kiero
2014-08-06, 06:36 PM
No one has mentioned one of the big differences between antiquity and a lot of the medieval era: scale. Medieval armies, for the most part, were tiny. Hundreds or low-thousands of men on each side. Hellenistic and Roman armies were tens of thousands on each side, an army of 25,000 men was a pretty routine and regular size, and there were battles with hundreds of thousands of participants all told. That's without getting into the level of labour mobilisation necessary for naval warfare on this scale, when a single warship required 200 or more rowers for motive power.

Knaight
2014-08-06, 07:02 PM
No one has mentioned one of the big differences between antiquity and a lot of the medieval era: scale. Medieval armies, for the most part, were tiny. Hundreds or low-thousands of men on each side. Hellenistic and Roman armies were tens of thousands on each side, an army of 25,000 men was a pretty routine and regular size, and there were battles with hundreds of thousands of participants all told. That's without getting into the level of labour mobilisation necessary for naval warfare on this scale, when a single warship required 200 or more rowers for motive power.

It depends on the period with Rome, honestly. The battle of Cannae had tens of thousands on each side, and over 100,000 total. Roman activity in Britain in the 400's often involved armies better measured in dozens than hundreds.

Larkas
2014-08-06, 07:23 PM
No one has mentioned one of the big differences between antiquity and a lot of the medieval era: scale. Medieval armies, for the most part, were tiny. Hundreds or low-thousands of men on each side. Hellenistic and Roman armies were tens of thousands on each side, an army of 25,000 men was a pretty routine and regular size, and there were battles with hundreds of thousands of participants all told. That's without getting into the level of labour mobilisation necessary for naval warfare on this scale, when a single warship required 200 or more rowers for motive power.

Wait didn't I say just that? Let's see...


3) War, real war, is large scale. There should be thousands or tens of thousands of warriors clashing in battles. The death toll was much higher than in Middle Ages' confrontations.

Oh, so I did! :smallbiggrin:

Ravens_cry
2014-08-06, 08:46 PM
True. But aren't there already a couple like that?
Which "that"?

Ninjadeadbeard
2014-08-06, 09:48 PM
Just throwing in my 2 denarii. WARNING! I WILL be quoting HBO's Rome extensively. :smalltongue: NSFW is in effect for video links, just in case I missed something.


Everything was big. Huge. Dare I say, Colossal? You didn't just dig a well, you built an aquaduct. You didn't just put up a statue, you placed a Colossus striding across a straight. You didn't carve out a kingdom, you built an Empire. Heroes were Gods, Fate was Mighty, and men numbering in their millions mobilized for war.
Religion was big (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myAOjN8oYoo)
On the subject of Paladins, there is a precedence for them. Religion, as has been noted, was a Big Deal (http://youtu.be/gLjgrFciJhE?t=2m2s). The Romans believed that the Republic itself was a Divine Institution, that is had a Spirit, and was in and of itself a God of sorts. One that must be appeased, and one that must be defended. Enter, the Evocati (http://youtu.be/g1PBt0NDv64?t=1m18s).
This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGYI1UHK5jM) is just cool.

I will be over here now, enjoying the thread.

Arbane
2014-08-07, 12:56 AM
That reminds me - I remember reading somewhere that the Romans were in the habit of bribing their enemies' gods to join their side before big battles. There's got to be a way to use that in a fantasy game...

Yora
2014-08-07, 03:28 AM
Something that I think should be done in most fantasy settings, but was actually very common in antiquity, was to assume that other people worshiped the same gods, only under different names with different rituals. Which actually was kind of the case. The European and South-Asian religions all descend from the same early culture, that split into two branches that moved both west and east. Sometimes you have some minor deities that were retained from earlier local religions, but you find the same common elements over and over. The sky god who throws lightning at the head of the pantheon, his jealous wife, the sun as a god on a charriot, the messenger god, two groups of gods and anti-gods (Deva/Asura, Aesir/Vanir), three goddesses of fate, and a couple more. So it came very natural to the Romans to say that the Germans worshiped Hercules (Thor), Mercury (Odin), and Mars (possibly Tyr). An unusual case in the Mediterranean was Isis, who was hugely popular, but came from a completely different culture, entirely unconnected to theirs.
Instead of multiple moon deities for each major culture, I'd instead go the way that Moon is Moon, and all who worship it identify it as one single deity.

Which "that"?

I meant "game where you have to immerse yourself in the setting and mindset of the era to really grok it, like what Ars Magica basically does for its quasi-Medieval setting". But I can't think of any that step away from the mythological setting of real world culturs and go full out fantasy. Maybe Dark Sun being one notable exception.

Oneris
2014-08-07, 04:22 AM
Not only did they identify foreign deities with their own, prayers and dedications to the gods were offered to the gods before every major and most minor undertakings by almost everyone, not just the priests. Perhaps a table could be used to track favor among the gods, with various boons granted for being sufficiently pious.

WarKitty
2014-08-07, 04:25 AM
How ancient are we talking? If we're talking back to the Homeric era, notice how powerful champions were. PC's could most likely become leaders very quickly. A powerful fighter would attract attention and quite likely be seen as a threat.

Writing is quite likely to be seen as sacred or magical. It's an uncommon art. As a corollary, memory is greatly prized. The bard is seen as a much more important figure and is quite respected for his ability to remember and repeat stories.

Yora
2014-08-07, 05:21 AM
Technically the Romans would still be Antiquity. But personally, I feel that Roman culture is so familiar with us and we seem to equate many roman institutions with modern ones, making it feel quite different. I would focus more on earlier cultures, say 400 BC and earlier.
However, that date becomes irrelevant when you move outside the Mediterranean region and dealing with Asia, central and southern Africa, and America. The Aztecs and Inca were 2000 years later, but I think can still make good references.

Kiero
2014-08-07, 05:34 AM
Technically the Romans would still be Antiquity. But personally, I feel that Roman culture is so familiar with us and we seem to equate many roman institutions with modern ones, making it feel quite different. I would focus more on earlier cultures, say 400 BC and earlier.
However, that date becomes irrelevant when you move outside the Mediterranean region and dealing with Asia, central and southern Africa, and America. The Aztecs and Inca were 2000 years later, but I think can still make good references.

There was still Roman culture to talk about in 400BC, though it was mostly just a city-state in Latium, rather than a political force in the region (and the middle Republic is barely recognisable to people familiar with the Principate/Empire). But as far as the Mediterranean goes, in 400BC you're talking primarily about Greeks and Persians. Ironically, the Greeks are weakened compared to a half-century before; the Athenian "empire" of the Delian League has been dismantled after Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, and the Persian Empire restored some of its power and prestige, defeating internal crises which were in part instigated by the Greeks. Persia is no longer the unchallenged, pre-eminent power, but it's still clearly more significant than divided Greece.

In the western Mediterranean, the Carthaginians are growing in power, contested only by local players like the Etruscans and Syracuse. Greek and Phoenician colonies throughout the region create ties back to what's going on in the eastern Mediterranean/Near East.

There's an erroneous assumption in places that antiquity means Bronze Age, pretty much anything after 600BC (and earlier for the Near East) is Iron Age. One materials-related point, in 400BC mail probably hadn't been invented yet. That seems to appear around 300BC.

Yora
2014-08-07, 05:43 AM
"and earlier".

Also: Fantasy.
The importance lies in inspiration, not authenticity.

Kiero
2014-08-07, 05:49 AM
"and earlier".

Also: Fantasy.
The importance lies in inspiration, not authenticity.

Inspiration can come from authenticity. Even the fragments and conjecture from them of the period provide a rich tapestry that I find far more interesting than any fictional setting. Especially if you look more deeply at how the societies worked and interacted with each other. For example, go and read about the Achaemenid Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire), one of the greatest empires there's been, yet barely known about because they weren't Romans.

Frankly, history-inspired fantasy pastiche is often a pale shadow to straight historical.

Yora
2014-08-07, 06:55 AM
That's why you should add a good dose of fantasy to make it worth the effort.:smallamused:

Kiero
2014-08-07, 07:14 AM
That's why you should add a good dose of fantasy to make it worth the effort.:smallamused:

Nah, it's not necessary. But this is your thread, so I'll say no more on that front.

Yora
2014-08-07, 08:28 AM
One subject we haven't really mentioned yet are monsters. We only had nonhuman races, I believe.

Greek monsters are of course the first ones that come to me. Everyone knows them, everyone recognizes them as part of Greek myth. But again, that can be a bit of a problem if you want to make a world that is not meant to be fantasy Greece. But if you mix them with enough other creatures, that should not become too much of a problem. Griffons, harpies, and nymphs are all generic enough by now.

One theme that comes up frequently is the idea of giants as an elder race that is both less and more than just humans. You got them in Greece, Skandinavia, Ireland, and probably numerous other places as well. I think that should evoke some images of ancient myth, and even more so if they are not just degenerate savages, but the still powerful descendants of old civilizations. In Dungeons & Dragons there are the cloud giants and storm giants who fill such a role, but they were rarely used for anything. Probably because they were just too strong for all but the highest level groups.

I'd also say you can never go wrong with snake people as a race of ancient sorcerers, but they are used with such frequency that they become more of a cliche, so there are good reasons to have something else take a similar role.

Something I personally wouldn't use are mastermind dragons, at least as they are used in D&D. Fire breathing flying lizards seem fine, but as ancient sages of the arcane they just seem out of place in an ancient world for some reason.

Another possible, but potentially problematic monster type would be dinosaurs. Their role in fantasy is mostly limited to the Lost World genre, which is quite different from and not resembling antiquity at all. What I did with my own setting is to have giant lizards, but not have them be any actual dinosaur species from Earth. Instead I use bisons or camels and turn them into reptiles, but otherwise just fill the same role as they usually do.

Giant versions of common predators also always work great.
Which reminds me that sheep nd goats were the primary lifestock that was raised in antiquity, as opposed to cattle and pigs. Which really is just a result of the climate. Sheep and goats (which are very closely related) can do reasonably fine on dry grass and shrubs, while cattle need a lot more food and pigs require food that would mostly be also edible by humans. It just doesn't make any sense to raise pigs if you have to ration your water for your own grains and vegetables. But even without such a climatic environment, I think making sheep and goats a big aspect of food and clothing production should add a bit more ancient feel to the setting. Just because we remember that there's always a lot of goatherders in Greek stories.

And if a lot of travel is done by sea, there should of course be plenty of sea monsters.

Kiero
2014-08-07, 09:10 AM
Giant versions of common predators also always work great.
Which reminds me that sheep nd goats were the primary lifestock that was raised in antiquity, as opposed to cattle and pigs. Which really is just a result of the climate. Sheep and goats (which are very closely related) can do reasonably fine on dry grass and shrubs, while cattle need a lot more food and pigs require food that would mostly be also edible by humans. It just doesn't make any sense to raise pigs if you have to ration your water for your own grains and vegetables. But even without such a climatic environment, I think making sheep and goats a big aspect of food and clothing production should add a bit more ancient feel to the setting. Just because we remember that there's always a lot of goatherders in Greek stories.

You don't even need giant versions of bears, wolves, lions and such to be a threat. A pack of wolves, working in concert to take out the party's pack animals or pick off weaker hench-folk could be a real danger.

They, along with boar, deer and so on are also a source of another sort of challenge: hunting. Aristocrats hunted, though traditions varied as to whether it was to be done mounted or on foot.


And if a lot of travel is done by sea, there should of course be plenty of sea monsters.

Undead. Given the number of people who died at sea (especially in great naval battles - thousands drowned in a matter of hours), zombie mariners and rotting galleys rowed by undead oarsmen and captained by ghouls, wights or the like must be a thing.

Yora
2014-08-07, 09:17 AM
I think wights work wonderfully not as just upgraded ghouls, but as immortal ancestors or kings of the past. Very similar to mummies.
Which of course, are also a great type of undead you don't see in pseuo-european fantasy worlds.

Kiero
2014-08-07, 09:24 AM
I think wights work wonderfully not as just upgraded ghouls, but as immortal ancestors or kings of the past. Very similar to mummies.
Which of course, are also a great type of undead you don't see in pseuo-european fantasy worlds.

Better than immortal ancestors, cursed men from the past.

Knaight
2014-08-07, 02:19 PM
As far as monsters go, there's also the good old fashioned human head on animal body or vice versa. There were a lot of those in mythical narratives from the period.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-07, 03:08 PM
Better than immortal ancestors, cursed men from the past.
Cursed with a dying man's curse. Few curses more potent than that.


Also: Fantasy.
The importance lies in inspiration, not authenticity.
Well, perhaps, but I still think it would be neat to have an RPG that pretty much emulates how people thought the world worked back then. Sword and Sandles is fun, but it still could be intriguing.

Yora
2014-08-07, 04:57 PM
As far as monsters go, there's also the good old fashioned human head on animal body or vice versa. There were a lot of those in mythical narratives from the period.
Talking apes are always nice. Especially when they also have shamans and witch doctors.

Wardog
2014-08-07, 06:00 PM
I think another really important thing about an Antiquity or earlier setting:

It would be relatively easy for a charismatic leader to gather a few followers and their families and servants, and set out and found an entire new kingdom.

Either by taking over a pre-existing mini-civilization, or just finding prime land that no one was living on yet.



***

Also, on the subject of international trade, barbarians, etc:

According to this book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empires-Silk-Road-History-Central/dp/0691150346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407451272&sr=8-1&keywords=empires+of+the+silk+road), it was the "barbarians" that were responsible for the Silk Road economy. The ultimate driver was the politics and culture of the "barbarian" society, based around the chief and his sword band of warriors, who he attracted to his cause and retained the loyalty of with feasting and gift-giving. To do this they needed to get exotic goods (treasure, silk, wine, etc), and trade was an important part of this. The Romans thought it was ridiculous that they could buy slaves from the Gauls with amphorae of wine (one amphora = 1 slave). But from the Gauls' perspective, the chief who threw the best feasts, with lots of imported Roman wine, would get the most and best warriors following him, and so would win the most battles, and get the most plunder (to gift to his warriors) and captives (to sell to the Romans for more wine).

And it was this trade (by and for the "barbarians") that resulted in the transfer of goods between China and Europe. (Nobody was going to China, buying silk, and carrying it all the way to Europe. Rather, the price gradient meant that people living in central Eurasia could make a profit by travelling some way east, buying silk, and bringing it back west to sell (or going west and buying whatever it was that was more valuable further east), and this resulted in a gradual movement of goods between east and west).

(Note: I'm using "barbarian" for convenience. The author dislikes the term, and only uses it to disparage it).

Sartharina
2014-08-07, 07:17 PM
As far as monsters go, there's also the good old fashioned human head on animal body or vice versa. There were a lot of those in mythical narratives from the period.

Make them playable races as well, and keyed to certain geographic areas. (Animal dermis in addition to animal head is optional)

VoxRationis
2014-08-07, 07:56 PM
For a good example of getting the "feel" of an ancient era as opposed to a more modern era in the same culture, look at the video game Skyrim. (I have a lot of problems with the setting, but we'll leave them aside for now.) In it, you explore a LOT of ancient ruins built by the ancestors of the current inhabitants of the province, and you see aspects of the same culture, but also lots of differences:
Rule by tyrannical priest-kings, rather than warrior-kings;

Larger-scaled architecture, filled with enormous chambers, steep staircases, and substantial decorative elements, but more "primitive," with strange log-staircases, no round arches, etc.

Elaborate burial preparations, complete with preservation of the body and provisions to support the deceased in the afterlife;

Indications of increased societal ruthlessness (sacrifices of followers in particular)

Beleriphon
2014-08-07, 08:55 PM
I don't think steel vs. bronze is an apt comparison here. We're talking about iron vs. bronze, and early iron working was indeed very primitive, and often of inferior quality to bronze. The main advantage with "entry-level" iron working, if I recall correctly, is that the ore is easier to come by, once you have the technology to smelt it.

Bronze is actually really easy to make and copper is actually pretty dang common as far as minerals go. What you have problems with is the tin, which is far rarer. With limited tin resources you can add arsenic as a hardening agent to the tin. The problem is of course that arsenic is poisonous and can cause mobility disabilities, which is part of the reason that Hephaestus is described as having a physical disability. It also means many people in the ancient world were familiar with the idea of a disabled smith.


For a good example of getting the "feel" of an ancient era as opposed to a more modern era in the same culture, look at the video game Skyrim. (I have a lot of problems with the setting, but we'll leave them aside for now.) In it, you explore a LOT of ancient ruins built by the ancestors of the current inhabitants of the province, and you see aspects of the same culture, but also lots of differences:
Rule by tyrannical priest-kings, rather than warrior-kings;

Larger-scaled architecture, filled with enormous chambers, steep staircases, and substantial decorative elements, but more "primitive," with strange log-staircases, no round arches, etc.

Elaborate burial preparations, complete with preservation of the body and provisions to support the deceased in the afterlife;

Indications of increased societal ruthlessness (sacrifices of followers in particular)


On the note of large scale architecture most cultures had no idea how to build massive buildings without a large number of massive pillars. The Parthenon is a good example, it isn't just pillars on the exterior they also run through the whole stucture holding up the roof. The Egyptians build a number of very large temples, but they were full of massive pillars some of which were up to twenty feet in circumference. Those temples would have been full of shadows and probably quite dimly lit despite the fact they didn't have walls. Remember, nobody had discovered the use of arches in the ancient world, fly buttresses let alone rebar reinforced concrete walls or high tension concrete floors. As a point of comparison the Collesium is made out of concreate which is why it can be such a massive open structure compared to something like the Great Hypostyle Hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hypostyle_Hall,_Karnak#) or the Pyramids of Giza.

Ninjadeadbeard
2014-08-07, 10:37 PM
Bronze is actually really easy to make and copper is actually pretty dang common as far as minerals go. What you have problems with is the tin, which is far rarer. With limited tin resources you can add arsenic as a hardening agent to the tin. The problem is of course that arsenic is poisonous and can cause mobility disabilities, which is part of the reason that Hephaestus is described as having a physical disability. It also means many people in the ancient world were familiar with the idea of a disabled smith.

Interestingly, most tin came from Britain during the Bronze Age, meaning long-distance trade has always been a big thing with humans. Just a cool thing to think about.


On the note of large scale architecture most cultures had no idea how to build massive buildings without a large number of massive pillars.

That's not entirely true (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch). The Pantheon, for instance, is one massive concrete dome with some pillars for outer support. And let's not forget aqueducts were basically water-carrying arches.

VoxRationis
2014-08-07, 11:05 PM
The Pantheon is hardly the antiquity I think we're getting at; if I recall correctly, it was built during the Empire, and represented more or less the height of Imperial Roman architecture. I was under the impression that people were trying to get at a Hellenistic or pre-Hellenistic era.

Arbane
2014-08-07, 11:55 PM
The Pantheon is hardly the antiquity I think we're getting at; if I recall correctly, it was built during the Empire, and represented more or less the height of Imperial Roman architecture. I was under the impression that people were trying to get at a Hellenistic or pre-Hellenistic era.

Apropos of very little, I read today that Queen Cleopatra (born 69 BC) lived closer to the modern day than to the construction of the Great Pyramid (finished 2540 BC). Boggles the mind how OLD Egypt was.

Ninjadeadbeard
2014-08-08, 12:27 AM
Apropos of very little, I read today that Queen Cleopatra (born 69 BC) lived closer to the modern day than to the construction of the Great Pyramid (finished 2540 BC). Boggles the mind how OLD Egypt was.

I love the Egypt equivalent in Discworld. A country so old, so OLD, that they were discovering gravity and building pyramids when most other people were still EARLY HOMINIDS. The entire civilization is not built within a desert, it was built atop a lush green field, and so many thousands of years and people have passed by that the dust left behind has become sand. Some of the tombs are supposed to be so old they RETURNED TO SAND BY EROSION!

It didn't help that Pyramids focus Time Magic to the point of shattering spacetime, or that: The High Priest is so old that he has lived since the first Pharoh, and keeps jumping back to the beginning of time to do it all over again, WITHOUT DE-AGING HIMSELF. He is just that damn old!

Ravens_cry
2014-08-08, 01:09 AM
Apropos of very little, I read today that Queen Cleopatra (born 69 BC) lived closer to the modern day than to the construction of the Great Pyramid (finished 2540 BC). Boggles the mind how OLD Egypt was.
I think that was mentioned earlier in the thread, but, yeah, it's a pretty headbanging thought, and that's nothing compared to the depths of prehistory.

Ninjadeadbeard
2014-08-08, 01:51 AM
I think that was mentioned earlier in the thread, but, yeah, it's a pretty headbanging thought, and that's nothing compared to the depths of prehistory.

Considering how long Humans may have existed in our present forms, I've heard people say we have lost something like 99% of our history just because no one was writing it down. Keeps me awake at night.

JusticeZero
2014-08-08, 03:02 AM
It gets worse. Writing it down isn't enough. The only reason we know about places like Egypt and Babylon and the like is because they had a thing for writing things on chunks of rock, then putting the writing in sealed containers in a dry climate. Scrolls, books, and anything else would all be dust, and even buildings and technology would have disintegrated completely after a couple of millennia.

Arbane
2014-08-08, 03:56 AM
It gets worse. Writing it down isn't enough. The only reason we know about places like Egypt and Babylon and the like is because they had a thing for writing things on chunks of rock, then putting the writing in sealed containers in a dry climate. Scrolls, books, and anything else would all be dust, and even buildings and technology would have disintegrated completely after a couple of millennia.

I'm not sure if that's quite true - I heard somewhere that pottery and books are humanity's two most durable creations. (But yeah, books written ON POTTERY are more durable than either. :smallbiggrin:)

Kiero
2014-08-08, 04:02 AM
Interestingly, most tin came from Britain during the Bronze Age, meaning long-distance trade has always been a big thing with humans. Just a cool thing to think about.

Tin came from some other places in Europe too, but it was mostly tapped out by the late Classical era, leaving just Britain as the most plentiful source.

The people of Britain at the time didn't trade directly with the Mediterranean. They traded with continental Celts in Gallia, and later with Carthaginian factors. Note the Carthaginian navy closed the Straits of Gibraltar to any other ships to protect their monopoly on the tin trade.


The Pantheon is hardly the antiquity I think we're getting at; if I recall correctly, it was built during the Empire, and represented more or less the height of Imperial Roman architecture. I was under the impression that people were trying to get at a Hellenistic or pre-Hellenistic era.

Pre-Hellenistic at least. The Hellenistic era began after the death of Alexander the Great in 323BC. The OP has said they're looking at 400BC or earlier, so more like the Classical era.


I'm not sure if that's quite true - I heard somewhere that pottery and books are humanity's two most durable creations. (But yeah, books written ON POTTERY are more durable than either. :smallbiggrin:)

A significant amount of what is found at archaeological sites from antiquity is broken pottery. Which is essentially trash. Sites all along the rivers in France have thick layers of broken amphorae.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-08, 04:22 AM
Bah. I'm pretty sure most of any history we haven't discovered yet is just the same tune sang to different lyrics anyways. whatever that tune is.

Kiero
2014-08-08, 04:46 AM
Bah. I'm pretty sure most of any history we haven't discovered yet is just the same tune sang to different lyrics anyways. whatever that tune is.

What an ignorant thing to say. We haven't discovered vast swathes of history, even what we do know is only from the limited documentary evidence and just as limited physical evidence that survived the passage of time.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-08, 04:59 AM
What an ignorant thing to say. We haven't discovered vast swathes of history, even what we do know is only from the limited documentary evidence and just as limited physical evidence that survived the passage of time.

not ignorance. wisdom. everything has patterns to them. after a while, they can be predicted. and while history does not repeat itself, it does rhyme.

JusticeZero
2014-08-08, 09:28 AM
That doesn't mean it's any less interesting. You want to learn about a TV show, you know it's fairly formulaic, but that doesn't mean you can't be a bit put out to find that the earliest recording of it was season 76.

VeliciaL
2014-08-08, 11:44 AM
not ignorance. wisdom. everything has patterns to them. after a while, they can be predicted. and while history does not repeat itself, it does rhyme.

And with each new discovery we learn more about the rhyme. The fact history has patterns to it is no reason to ignore it, but a very compelling reason to study it.

Yora
2014-08-08, 12:40 PM
Interestingly, most tin came from Britain during the Bronze Age, meaning long-distance trade has always been a big thing with humans. Just a cool thing to think about.
I know that precolonial Australia had very large and far reaching trade networks for rare resources like materials for tools and weapons. And that place was basically a stone age desert.

There are also some places in Scotland where they discovered absolutely enormous piles of mussle shells from the ice age. While the people were still nomadic, there was large scale farming for a very long time. And there are other places in the area where other foods were harvested in large quantities.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-08, 01:34 PM
I know that precolonial Australia had very large and far reaching trade networks for rare resources like materials for tools and weapons. And that place was basically a stone age desert.

There are also some places in Scotland where they discovered absolutely enormous piles of mussle shells from the ice age. While the people were still nomadic, there was large scale farming for a very long time. And there are other places in the area where other foods were harvested in large quantities.
Well, I wouldn't say that is evidence of farming. Coming back to the same area year after year, sure, but farming implies more than harvesting.

Yora
2014-08-08, 02:52 PM
I meant that in the sensr of the slang term. :smallwink:

It's in no form agriculture, but the existance of specialized sites where specific resources where gathered in large quantities indicates that these people were already trading among each other in some form of band based division of labor. Just for your personal supply it seems overly complicated to travel to each of these sites that are separated by considerable distances.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-08, 03:15 PM
I meant that in the sensr of the slang term. :smallwink:
I suppose it's 'farming' in the RPG sense, but any form of hunting and gathering counts as 'farming' then.


It's in no form agriculture, but the existance of specialized sites where specific resources where gathered in large quantities indicates that these people were already trading among each other in some form of band based division of labor. Just for your personal supply it seems overly complicated to travel to each of these sites that are separated by considerable distances.
Well, the fact that all the shells were there suggests just that, that people were coming to the areas a regular thing to eat shellfish. Clams and oysters are very perishable anyway, so they would not make the best trade goods anyhow.
From what I understand, there's other evidence that can be better correlated with ancient trade, like the ochre lumps found as grave goods from many miles from the graves. At the very least, that shows an appreciation for objects whose only purpose is beauty.

Beleriphon
2014-08-08, 05:51 PM
Apropos of very little, I read today that Queen Cleopatra (born 69 BC) lived closer to the modern day than to the construction of the Great Pyramid (finished 2540 BC). Boggles the mind how OLD

I like to think of it this way, the pyramids were over a thousand years old when Tutankhamun died in 1323 BCE. They were as old to him as the end of the Roman Empire is to us.

For ancient as well there's the temple at Göbekli Tepe, which is so old it predates the invention of agriculture.

Rion
2014-08-09, 04:19 AM
Regarding "Barbarians", an important thing to note is that just because a civilisation is less advanced than others in some fields, doesn't mean they can't be [I]more[/] advanced in others.

For example, once Rome abandoned the Greek Hoplite way of fighting, their favorite armour was maille (they used maille before the famous Segmentata armour, they used maille after it was abandoned and the officers used maille while the Segmentata was in use), and yet maille was by all indications invented by the Celts, who were using it while Rome was still using Hoplite tactics.

I also remember reading that during the Roman Civil War that followed the Gallic Wars, one of the ways in which Caesar's veterans were superior to the other legions, were the fact that they had discarded their standard bronze Montefortino helmets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montefortino_helmet) (a Gallic design) and replaced them with looted iron helmets of much higher quality (since the Montefortino helmets were after all another Celtic invention).

Yora
2014-08-09, 04:20 AM
Now that I think of it, the idea of temples outside of settlements seems to be rather rare in fantasy. Only monasteries where monks study in seclusion seem to show up occasionally. Putting temples into places that are selected because of the special nature of the site, instead of where the people are, could be quite interesting.

There's also of course Stonehenge (though I don't know if there were in fact settlements nearby). The Temple of Apollo in Delphi did have it's own village around it, with the whole divination industry going on, but it's located pretty high up on a mountain, because that's where the oracle site is. I once was at the oracle in Cumae, and while also not exactly in the wilderness, it's build into a cave at an entrance to the underworld. And in earlier times, the hill in Glastonbury was surrounded by swamp, making it look like a mountain rising out of a lake in an otherwise flat country. There's been temples and later churches up there for ages.

Kiero
2014-08-09, 05:26 AM
Temples outside settlements only works with dedicated priesthoods or the like - which were rare outside of Egypt in the ancient world. Most priests were aristocrats performing a function on the feast days or other festivals, but who otherwise led normal lives. Being a priest was a sinecure, an honour you could be elected to (by a closed, elite group), not a lifelong career/calling.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-09, 10:21 AM
Tin came from some other places in Europe too, but it was mostly tapped out by the late Classical era, leaving just Britain as the most plentiful source.

The people of Britain at the time didn't trade directly with the Mediterranean. They traded with continental Celts in Gallia, and later with Carthaginian factors. Note the Carthaginian navy closed the Straits of Gibraltar to any other ships to protect their monopoly on the tin trade.


The Celtiberians on the north coast of Spain had a fair amount of tin, as I recall.

VoxRationis
2014-08-09, 01:02 PM
Temples outside settlements only works with dedicated priesthoods or the like - which were rare outside of Egypt in the ancient world. Most priests were aristocrats performing a function on the feast days or other festivals, but who otherwise led normal lives. Being a priest was a sinecure, an honour you could be elected to (by a closed, elite group), not a lifelong career/calling.

I know that was true for Rome, and probably the average Greek priest as well, but Sumer? Babylon?

Sartharina
2014-08-09, 01:16 PM
I thought that there weren't any temples outside of settlements because they build the temple first, and then a settlement springs up around it.

Yora
2014-08-09, 01:26 PM
I have a kind of problem with my own setting. There is a region with a geography like Skandinavia or Canada, inhabited by elves and a few minor populations of gnomes and humans, and I just don't have any idea what kind of cultural style to give to the region. I know I don't want the people to look like vikings, but I am pretty much at a loss what kind of style else could exist in such an environment.
Maybe early russian (though that's technically still a 1000 years after the targeted time)?

Thinker
2014-08-09, 02:27 PM
I have a kind of problem with my own setting. There is a region with a geography like Skandinavia or Canada, inhabited by elves and a few minor populations of gnomes and humans, and I just don't have any idea what kind of cultural style to give to the region. I know I don't want the people to look like vikings, but I am pretty much at a loss what kind of style else could exist in such an environment.
Maybe early russian (though that's technically still a 1000 years after the targeted time)?

Use the Wyandot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyandot_people)or some other northern North American tribe for inspiration. They were very un-Vikinglike and had Stone Age technology until they encountered Europeans.

LibraryOgre
2014-08-09, 02:40 PM
I have a kind of problem with my own setting. There is a region with a geography like Skandinavia or Canada, inhabited by elves and a few minor populations of gnomes and humans, and I just don't have any idea what kind of cultural style to give to the region. I know I don't want the people to look like vikings, but I am pretty much at a loss what kind of style else could exist in such an environment.
Maybe early russian (though that's technically still a 1000 years after the targeted time)?

Ok, "Scandinavia or Canada" is gonna be hard to pin down... are we talking fjords with isolated communities, connected largely by water? Are we talking the plains of Saskatchewan, where the only thing to block the wind from the pole is passing reindeer? Because they're going to produce pretty different cultures.

In the case of the fjords, consider that both Greece and Scandinavia had some geographic similarities (namely, the isolation of livable areas), and developed some similarities in government styles... namely, while they acknowledged a cultural connection, each city-state or fjord was independent, and tended to be very individualistic as a response). I know Ravenloft went with pseudo-greek gnomes, living in clans that were at least semi-democratic.

Now, if you're looking at a great plain situation, you're probably looking at something more nomadic, perhaps with seasonal camps that are revisited year after year... they may move throughout the summer, coming to their winter camps en masse. Or perhaps their summers are great herds, while they scatter to smaller units for winter when forage is scarce. Permanent settlements are not common, and are going to be close to watercourses, especially fords (or the rare bridge) and confluences of rivers.

Personally, I'd lean towards nomadic elves... a cross between Sioux and Mongol, with gnomish clansmen, perhaps along the waters. The gnomes are clannish... closemouthed with strangers, maintaining a trade network through the rivers, but talkative enough with their friends and neighbors and with good hospitality to strangers. I might steal a bit of Maine/rural New England for the gnomes... lots of "Ayup"s, especially when someone says something obvious as if you're supposed to have an opinion on it.

The elves are either mounted (and you might consider what kind of mounts they have... deer? bison? horses) or similar to Dark Sun's elongated runner-elves. As a result of their harsh environment (cold winters, short summers), they all pitch into the work of the tribe, but "tribe" is loosely defined; if you've got a problem with Bob, and Bob isn't leaving, you go to join another band for a while. They don't have a lot of war, but their eldest can remember incursions from other races, and they still train.

Some humans live among the elves, others touch frequently on the gnomes. With the elves, they've integrated, living among the bands, sometimes in human-only groups, usually in mixed groups (elf-only groups are a lot more common, though they're usually a matter of there not being in humans in them, rather than actual exclusion). Other humans live between the gnomes... they swim better than gnomes, and tend to be the trade network, using superior strength and watercraft to move goods along the rivers to the gnomes they know. They produce little, fish and forage lots, and trade for everything else.

Kiero
2014-08-09, 04:46 PM
I know that was true for Rome, and probably the average Greek priest as well, but Sumer? Babylon?

In Babylon, I believe only kings could sacrifice at the temples. So the same thing, only an even more elitist grouping.

I believe the same was true of certain Phoenician rites as well, the Siege of Tyre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre_%28332_BC%29) happened precisely because the Tyrians refused Alexander's request to sacrifice at their temple of Melqart (it was only for the king and they didn't want foreigners in their city).

Priestly castes, like that of Egypt, were the exception, not the rule. Priesthoods were simply another way the aristocracy gathered power unto themselves in antiquity.


I thought that there weren't any temples outside of settlements because they build the temple first, and then a settlement springs up around it.

Not in the case of the Greeks or Phoenicians who put colonies all over the place. A market and a fortified place to retreat to (a citadel) came first. Temples might be built on the citadel later on. Holy sites are an exception, but most temples were within settlements.

Yora
2014-08-09, 04:52 PM
When did the Brahmans in India evolve? They were a later development in Indian society, but I believe they already existed in some form in 600 BC.
Orders of ascetic monks where already well established at that time.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-09, 04:59 PM
So....priesthoods and religion were even more intertwined and muddled with politics in antiquity.....argh....that is a little hard to think about for some reason. for some reason it doesn't sound like a straight theocracy but neither does it sound they were separate things from nobility and politics.

or maybe since they believed that gods existed, that ALL forms of government were some form of theocracy.....since kings were often believed to have a divine right to their power, while older emperors outright declared themselves gods. but at the same time, religion had nothing to do with morality so....its making me think that the whole thing was just a way to justify why some people had more power than others: the gods say they do, therefore they have more power.

Thinker
2014-08-09, 05:13 PM
So....priesthoods and religion were even more intertwined and muddled with politics in antiquity.....argh....that is a little hard to think about for some reason. for some reason it doesn't sound like a straight theocracy but neither does it sound they were separate things from nobility and politics.

or maybe since they believed that gods existed, that ALL forms of government were some form of theocracy.....since kings were often believed to have a divine right to their power, while older emperors outright declared themselves gods. but at the same time, religion had nothing to do with morality so....its making me think that the whole thing was just a way to justify why some people had more power than others: the gods say they do, therefore they have more power.

There was no real distinction between religion and law most of the time. That's why so many sacred texts concern themselves with laws.

Yora
2014-08-09, 05:23 PM
At the most you have theology as a branch of philosophy. Religion is much more about interaction with invisible beings and forces than believes. If you want something from the gods, you get to pay them a sacrifice. The community has to perform services and offerings as their part of an agreement that the gods would provide them with prosperity. As leader of the people, it falls to the king to represent them in interactions with the gods.
That's a principle you find all over the world.

In some cultures, the relationship is not just between a city and the gods, but the priest/kings represent all of humanity. They have to make sure that not only the city prospers, but that the entire world is not destroyed.

Wardog
2014-08-10, 01:45 PM
Use the Wyandot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyandot_people)or some other northern North American tribe for inspiration. They were very un-Vikinglike and had Stone Age technology until they encountered Europeans.

What about nomadic reindeer herders like the Sami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people) (north Scandinavia) and Nenets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nenets_people) (north European Russia and NW Siberia)?

Thinker
2014-08-10, 02:04 PM
What about nomadic reindeer herders like the Sami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people) (north Scandinavia) and Nenets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nenets_people) (north European Russia and NW Siberia)?

Those are good ideas, too. You could also probably argue for various cultures from the Himalayas since, while they aren't northern cold, they are still from a harsh climate in a region that promotes small communities with poor farming prospects who have to deal with harsh winters.

Ravens_cry
2014-08-10, 03:52 PM
Have you read Hard Boiled Shaman (http://hardboiledshaman.com/)? It's the story of a shaman in that kind of tribe, using a lot of the tropes of classic noir. I was lucky enough to read the whole thing once, though even the first chapter is pretty inspiring. Some of it may be NSFW, it's being a while since I read it.

oudeis
2014-10-27, 06:49 PM
I'd opened this thread in a background tab some months ago and never got around to going through it. Now that I've finally read it beginning to end, I'm dying to find out where the OP is with all this.

oudeis
2014-11-05, 01:25 PM
@Yora:

Do you have any updates on this? I'd love to learn what you've come up with so far.

Sol
2014-11-05, 02:00 PM
(even though there is well over a 1000 years between mediterranean Antiquity and the American nations first encountered by Europeans)

Or so the history books would like you to believe, regardless of the compelling evidence to the contrary.

I think Mesoamerica is a great place to look towards. Between the Olmec, Aztec, Maya, and Inca, you can get a sense of everything from available equipment, to the importance of religion, to a properly polytheistic society, to bizarre and brutal rituals that sound barbaric to a modern sensibility, but which weren't being performed by an oppressive dictatorship, but were merely part of life. On top of that, they had impressive, out-of-place technological feats, including a calendar system more accurate than our own, lighthouses which used two beams of light cast by proto-candles converging on gaps in the reefs surrounding their seaside settlements. Temples cut with mind-boggling precision, such that they cast incredibly specific shadows on specific days of the year.

There's enough really intense, interesting information to create a unique campaign around, while our incomplete records (thanks, catholic church) leave enough holes to insert d&d mechanics.

Sartharina
2014-11-05, 02:07 PM
It's still telling that the Mesoamericans seemed to be at the same place in 1500 AD that that the Mesopotamians were in the 1500s BC. (Okay, so I'm probably exaggerating.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't move to the other side of the world before Colonizing your first city in Civilization.

jedipotter
2014-11-05, 04:41 PM
But what I am mostly wondering about is how things are changing for PCs as they are exploring and traveling through such a world. What things they would be dealing with in a medieval style world would likely be absent and what would they find instead? Would the situations that need the help of brave heroes be different ones?

I think there are two primary differences.

For one thing, it seems to me that in an ancient world, much larger parts of the world would be unknown and unexplored.

The other thing would be, that at least the civilized places seem a lot more modern in the way society is made up and things are run.

Well, it took about till the 19th century for the world to be mapped. Before then, lots of maps just had blank spots that said things like 'wilderness' on them.

But a big thing about fantasy worlds is they have lots of races, and they don't always share. Take the human kingdom of Dorn. They know the dwarf kingdom of Zon is in the north mountains, but no human has gone there. So the north mountains, and the lands around them are unknown. The same way if a dragon or other monster lived in an area people would avoid it and hence not have a map of it.

And if your world does not have a printing press, or writing or map making....then even the known lands are only know to a few handfulls of people.

Then add in ''evil places''(or ''good ones'') and ''magical places'' and ''strange places'' and you get lots of unknown places.

Society is much more tricky...as what is modern? They beheaded people in public....in what century, the 21st or the 12th? If you worshiped Thor you were made fun of and not treated like a real faith in the 21st century or the 14th? A long time ago many wives was fine, but modern times says just one...except that is not true everywhere all the time.

Yora
2014-11-05, 05:26 PM
@Yora:

Do you have any updates on this? I'd love to learn what you've come up with so far.
I am not doing anything specific with it, I just like this style of fantasy.

Honest Tiefling
2014-11-06, 06:21 PM
Oddly enough, I think one of the biggest hurdles of this is the concept of justice. I have only poked at Wikipedia, but I doubt that the one floating around nowadays would make an ancient fantasy culture seem alive. Apparently, some cultures were fine and dandy with criminals just up and leaving because that meant they'll be someone else's problem.

As for the wife thing, you forgot concubines (which is not sexist, because many societies had male AND female ones, so ha!) which figure into a lot of different cultures. More if you count temporary wives as being something similar.

Kiero
2014-11-07, 04:01 AM
Oddly enough, I think one of the biggest hurdles of this is the concept of justice. I have only poked at Wikipedia, but I doubt that the one floating around nowadays would make an ancient fantasy culture seem alive. Apparently, some cultures were fine and dandy with criminals just up and leaving because that meant they'll be someone else's problem.

Well, there was little public expenditure and no prisons. Generally there were three punishments for crimes: execution, exile or a fine.

Jeff the Green
2014-11-07, 06:16 AM
Well, there was little public expenditure and no prisons. Generally there were three punishments for crimes: execution, exile or a fine.

Also mutilation. That's the whole point of the lex talionis: if someone pokes your eye out, you don't get to kill him but instead he gets his eye removed. Similarly a thief may have his hand cut off or a rapist castrated. "An eye for an eye" was designed to be merciful and prevent feuds, and it actually worked. It's actually a foundational point of law in Europe and the Near East, that punishments must reflect the severity of the crime and not be disproportionately punitive.

Yora
2014-11-07, 07:07 AM
Exile also isn't "just walking away". Because where would they go to? And a persons wealth would often be measured not in money that could be carried, but in cattle, land, and slaves, which would have to be left behind. Also, it usually meant you were outlawed, in which case you had no protection but your own weapon. With nobody to come to your aid or avenge your death, things get very dangerous.
And I think even people who don't want to rob or enslave you probably wouldn't show hospitality to an outcast. He was exiled for a reason, and after all, which tribe or clan will be offended if you chase him away and not be a generous host.
The entire tribal system of law and justice is based on having lots of friends who have the combined military and economic power to be a real problem for anyone who gets on their bad side. Even if you have good friends outside your own group, they probably won't risk offending an ally by taking in one of their exiles, therefore negating the punishment.
Best thing you could probably hope for was to live as a hunter in the hills. Joining a group of bandits might be an option, but I am not sure what life expectancy those had in real life.

Kiero
2014-11-07, 08:23 AM
Exile also isn't "just walking away". Because where would they go to? And a persons wealth would often be measured not in money that could be carried, but in cattle, land, and slaves, which would have to be left behind. Also, it usually meant you were outlawed, in which case you had no protection but your own weapon. With nobody to come to your aid or avenge your death, things get very dangerous.
And I think even people who don't want to rob or enslave you probably wouldn't show hospitality to an outcast. He was exiled for a reason, and after all, which tribe or clan will be offended if you chase him away and not be a generous host.
The entire tribal system of law and justice is based on having lots of friends who have the combined military and economic power to be a real problem for anyone who gets on their bad side. Even if you have good friends outside your own group, they probably won't risk offending an ally by taking in one of their exiles, therefore negating the punishment.
Best thing you could probably hope for was to live as a hunter in the hills. Joining a group of bandits might be an option, but I am not sure what life expectancy those had in real life.

It's more than that. Citizenship was a very important concept in antiquity, all rights (public in particular, but also some private) flowed from your status as either citizen or foreigner. Usually someone had citizenship in only one place, getting it elsewhere could range from costly/difficult to impossible. Exile often removed the only citizenship someone had, making them a foreigner in whatever place they took refuge.

Ravens_cry
2014-11-07, 09:07 PM
It's more than that. Citizenship was a very important concept in antiquity, all rights (public in particular, but also some private) flowed from your status as either citizen or foreigner. Usually someone had citizenship in only one place, getting it elsewhere could range from costly/difficult to impossible. Exile often removed the only citizenship someone had, making them a foreigner in whatever place they took refuge.
There is a commonly available source that can show just how screwed a foreigner was compared to members of the Ancient societies, male members especially.
I recently started reading Between the Rivers by Harry Turtledove, and it really delves into the mindset of the time. The hero even does things that, today, are considered completely objectionable and wrong, but were how society worked back then.

Yora
2014-11-10, 12:35 PM
Assuming a tribal society with no central state and codified law: If someone invites a guest into his house and it turns out the guest is hunted for a crime by another group, what options would the host have to deal with the situation?
If he believes the guest to be innocent, he would probably be obliged to protect him and send the pursuers away, even if that will mean trouble for himself later. But what if it seems quite possible that the guest did actually commit such a crime, or even admits that he did? Would the host be permitted to hand him over to the people he wronged without violating hospitality?

In Germanic tribal culture, one solution might be to keep the guest until the next assembly of local community leaders and then have a trial in which his guilt is determined, and the wronged party would be oblidged to accept that judgement and they no longer have a claim to avenge the crime.
But did such institutions exist in other parts of the world as well? What if there wasn't anything comparable and the host would be forced to come to a solution with the pursuers by himself?

Ravian
2014-11-10, 02:11 PM
Assuming a tribal society with no central state and codified law: If someone invites a guest into his house and it turns out the guest is hunted for a crime by another group, what options would the host have to deal with the situation?
If he believes the guest to be innocent, he would probably be obliged to protect him and send the pursuers away, even if that will mean trouble for himself later. But what if it seems quite possible that the guest did actually commit such a crime, or even admits that he did? Would the host be permitted to hand him over to the people he wronged without violating hospitality?

In Germanic tribal culture, one solution might be to keep the guest until the next assembly of local community leaders and then have a trial in which his guilt is determined, and the wronged party would be oblidged to accept that judgement and they no longer have a claim to avenge the crime.
But did such institutions exist in other parts of the world as well? What if there wasn't anything comparable and the host would be forced to come to a solution with the pursuers by himself?

I believe the celts had this sort of hospitality issue. They ultimately ranked hospitality higher than feuding, so a host was fairly obligated to keep a guest in their home from coming to harm regardless of what those outside wanted. (the degree that they valued this actually goes to some ridiculous extents. A few myths involve the sidhe tricking a king by arriving at their home, then using a magic sack that can never be filled to take all his food, since no king who wanted to be respected would ever let a guest leave without filling their pack for the journey ahead.) Of course ultimately this would eventually come to the attention of a druid, who had enough respect knowledge and authority to resolve the issue.

Honest Tiefling
2014-11-10, 02:38 PM
It might also depend on the type of crime. You could have it that certain crimes are crimes against the gods (Murder in particular instances, stealing from temples, entering holy ground without permission, assault against a priest/priestess) supersede certain other laws. However, you would need an agent of the gods to extract said person. Might be that the host has to entertain the guest, but oaths to law and lord might mean he cannot raise a hand against those who remove him from his hall as well.

I also would not be surprised if there were some limits on the hospitality. In Ancient Greece, for instance, you weren't supposed to be a burden to your host, unlike certain sidhe. I think this is one reason Ulysses is able to kill all of the suitors camping out in his hall without fear of punishment. There were also a lot of expectations of reciprocation down the line in a few cultures.

I also believe that in the myth of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, his mother was forced/encouraged by custom to take in some wandering bards. However, when her castle was under attack, she could also call upon said bards to defend it. But given that the version I read was in a children's book, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some errors, but I think the idea of guests having to defend their host would be pretty common, nonetheless.

Ravens_cry
2014-11-10, 02:52 PM
Hospitality is sacred, and turning over someone who committed a crime would almost certainly be breaking that trust. Often, there is a certain time limit involved, and if they leave, they are fair game, but, during that time, they are under your protection and vise verse.

Knaight
2014-11-10, 03:16 PM
Hospitality is sacred, and turning over someone who committed a crime would almost certainly be breaking that trust. Often, there is a certain time limit involved, and if they leave, they are fair game, but, during that time, they are under your protection and vise verse.

This was pretty variable. The big thing about hospitality standards is that they tend to come with inhospitable environments. For instance, Norse and Bedouin cultures both had substantial hospitality rites (though they're a bit out of the time range to some extent). They are also characterized by absolutely brutal environments. Mesopotamia also had notable hospitality rites compared to other civilizations, e.g. Egypt. It also had more unpredictable rivers regarding flooding, frequently inhospitable weather conditions, etc, so they emerged. Egypt didn't see the emergence of a really major hospitality culture until later, when there was heavy cultural exchange with the Arabian peninsula. Egypt also has an incredibly reliable river (the Nile), generally sunny conditions absent much in the way of major storms, etc. The heat was pretty bad, but besides that it was generally a pretty hospitable place, and a hospitality culture didn't emerge to anywhere near the extent it did in less nice places.

Ravens_cry
2014-11-10, 03:42 PM
It's probably why they have faded of late in modern culture, that and centralized authority. Egypt also had a very centralized system as well.
All was the Pharaoh's, basically,

Yora
2014-11-10, 04:15 PM
If you can call some kind of police or magistrate to deal with the situation, things are relatively easy. With the exception of medieval churches, I don't think a hosts protection of his guests could apply against the official authorities. (There have been a few cases in Germany just a few years ago, where churches did offer protection to refugees whose request for asylum were denied. Since they hadn't done any crime other than being illegal aliens, no police wanted to get into the news for storming church property, though there isn't any law that would grant any such previlege to a church these days.)

Assuming the guest knows that he is hunted, but keeps this information from his hosts until he already had been invited. Couldn't the host claim an abuse of hospitality, having being tricked to make his entire household into a human shield for the fugitive? In that case, the granting of hospitality would be void, and he would have the right to expell the visitor.
Of course, he could still retroactively give permission anyway, if he believes the fugitives actions had been just, or he simply thinks he's strong enough to not be afraid of any consequences for himself. If he would send the fugitive away, other people would probably accept that, but if he can show how far he will go to protect his guests, even beyond what is demanded or reasonable, it would surely improve his prestige quite a bit.

Haldir
2014-11-10, 04:26 PM
It's still telling that the Mesoamericans seemed to be at the same place in 1500 AD that that the Mesopotamians were in the 1500s BC. (Okay, so I'm probably exaggerating.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't move to the other side of the world before Colonizing your first city in Civilization.

You're actually understating the issue here. Due to the smaller initial seed size of American Corn compared to the plethora of Mesopotamian grains, most scholars estimate that American societies were as much as 6000 years behind Eurasian societies in terms of food production, which is the primary factor for population size and societal complexity.

If you are interested in the methods that ancient civilizations used to deal with crime, there's plenty of great documentation of how tribes that exist in modernity deal with justice. Usually a smaller tribe or band had a "Big Man," an elder man or woman who through force of personality assumed the rule of leader, and consulted intimately with the tribe when passing judgement.

It is through taxes or tribute that we stop considering a group a "tribe," because it requires extra social apparatus like collectors, scholars, and peacekeepers. So you see an actual government starting to form.

Knaight
2014-11-10, 04:29 PM
It's probably why they have faded of late in modern culture, that and centralized authority. Egypt also had a very centralized system as well.
All was the Pharaoh's, basically,

That's probably a large part of it, though the centralized authority bit gets tricky - the exact same situations that lead to the emergence of a hospitality culture make getting a centralized authority somewhat more difficult. A centralized authority needs things like well developed trade routes, communications, etc. Those are somewhat easier to develop in somewhere like ancient Egypt, where the problem solving pretty much comes down to "run something up or down the Nile", than Scandinavia. With that said, I will point to Bedouin culture again - there very much were sophisticated trade routes, communications weren't too terrible, and the hospitality culture persisted well into the age of central authority over the Arabian Peninsula. It was largely during the Ottoman period where it became more deemphasized (though by modern standards the entire region still has a pretty strong hospitality culture).

Ravens_cry
2014-11-10, 04:29 PM
There is historical basis for 'sanctuary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary#Human_sanctuary)', even, yes, from legal authority. Since giving someone over to the legal authorities would mean them coming to harm, I seriously doubt most ancient codes of hospitality would allow it under almost any circumstances.

Knaight
2014-11-10, 04:43 PM
There is historical basis for 'sanctuary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary#Human_sanctuary)', even, yes, from legal authority. Since giving someone over to the legal authorities would mean them coming to harm, I seriously doubt most ancient codes of hospitality would allow it under almost any circumstances.

With that said, outside of situations where the person providing hospitality has an armed retinue (which wasn't necessarily that uncommon in areas, and was probably disproportionately common where people who need to be worried about legal authority are concerned), there's not necessarily all that much preventing the legal authority from just busting in and grabbing the person.

This is before getting to the matter of how much "legal authority" was necessarily even a thing in the cultures.

Ravens_cry
2014-11-10, 04:53 PM
With that said, outside of situations where the person providing hospitality has an armed retinue (which wasn't necessarily that uncommon in areas, and was probably disproportionately common where people who need to be worried about legal authority are concerned), there's not necessarily all that much preventing the legal authority from just busting in and grabbing the person.

This is before getting to the matter of how much "legal authority" was necessarily even a thing in the cultures.
Well, it certainly varied, to be sure. City states were much more common than outright nations how we think of it,

Yora
2014-11-10, 05:14 PM
As I understand it, hospitality rules, revenge, and feuds existed to provide security in a society that completely lacks official authorities. Once you have a form of police and charitable institutions, those older customs stand in direct conflict to them. Which was why early Islam got such a great reception in Arabia. It was both religion and state, and a state that included legal institutions that can take care of crime and ensure order in a much more efficient way. The old customs still continued because there are many areas that were still quite isolated until the arrival of satelite phone reception. If you have police, but the next police station is 10 days away, you still need the old costoms to deal with problems.
I wouldn't be surprised if bedouins from the Sahara in 1000 AD had a very different idea of hospitality than people in Bagdad.

Even in Western culture we still have a special case in which the ancient hospitality rules apply, which is in the world of sea vessels. If you encounter another ship in distress, you have to try save them. If there are people nearby in the water, you try to get all of them out, even if they are enemies whose ship you just sank.
Simply because it's an environment where there is no neutral authority present, and there is no way to get help from your own people back at your home. The only people who can save you are strangers, so you want to make sure that everyone is in the habbit of saving strangers, which you do by acting accordingly when other are in need of your help.

It would be interesting to know how the founders of empires dealt with that situation. Hospitality doesn't create that much problems, but avenging crimes certainly would. In a nation state or empire, the police has a monopoly on using force, and only the courts can speak justice. People ignoring these institutions and applying the old tribal customs when it pleases them would be a major disruption of the public order. One that founders of empires surely must have been facing a lot.
But ideally, you only have one of the two in place: Tribal customs or a code of law. If you have both, you have a conflict between tribal leaders and the official government. Which, as we know, many countries still have.

Kiero
2014-11-10, 05:18 PM
For a real-life, still-practised code featuring hospitality, feuds and so on, see Pashtunwali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali). Note which elements are first and second (hospitality and asylum).

LibraryOgre
2014-11-12, 02:05 PM
Well, there was little public expenditure and no prisons. Generally there were three punishments for crimes: execution, exile or a fine.

Having been working on Game of Thrones, I'd also point to options like The Wall, in certain settings.

Wardog
2014-11-13, 03:48 PM
Well, there was little public expenditure and no prisons. Generally there were three punishments for crimes: execution, exile or a fine.

To expand on that, my understanding is that (in the UK at least) using prison as a punishment for general criminality is actually a very modern (19th century) idea.

Before then, prison/jail was primarily used for
a) Holding political prisoners/hostages.
b) Holding debtors until they managed to pay off their debts.
c) Holding suspects awaiting trial, and convicts awaiting punishment.

Knaight
2014-11-13, 04:09 PM
To expand on that, my understanding is that (in the UK at least) using prison as a punishment for general criminality is actually a very modern (19th century) idea.

Before then, prison/jail was primarily used for
a) Holding political prisoners/hostages.
b) Holding debtors until they managed to pay off their debts.
c) Holding suspects awaiting trial, and convicts awaiting punishment.

The capacity to operate prisons at that level is comparatively recent - there's the constant resource expenditure involved (which is a lot easier with current levels of food production, energy production, etc.), and then the material and construction costs of creating prisons in the first place. The latter of these gets really important in sufficiently ancient settings, prior to the development of any real masonry.

Sartharina
2014-11-13, 05:42 PM
Slavery/pseudo-slavery is also a great way to hold people you'd otherwise try to imprison.

Ravian
2014-11-13, 08:08 PM
Of course you can't discount the importance of blood feuds and honor in these sorts of societies. In many cases a king was only called in when it couldn't be cleanly resolved by the parties in question. (This was especially true in less organized societies where kings were less powerful). Sometimes these situations were... interesting.

The Celts in particular had a great emphasis on their honor and were quick to demand reparations. Obviously in the more serious cases this could be resolved in a fight. But in more minor situations when there was just hostility and one of the parties demanded an apology from the other, Celts would often use a more unorthodox method.

Basically they would take a seat right outside the offenders house and refused to leave until an apology was given. Typically they would refuse food during this ordeal. This had the purpose of guilting the offending party into apologizing, especially since it was seen as a great dishonor to have someone starving outside of your house.

Unfortunately the Romans never quite got it and were no doubt confused why there were always people starving themselves on their doorstep.

Arbane
2014-11-14, 05:19 AM
Well, there was little public expenditure and no prisons. Generally there were three punishments for crimes: execution, exile or a fine.


Slavery/pseudo-slavery is also a great way to hold people you'd otherwise try to imprison.

Yep. The salt mines always need more miners... since working conditions were hellish and unsafe.

Beleriphon
2014-11-14, 08:40 AM
Unfortunately the Romans never quite got it and were no doubt confused why there were always people starving themselves on their doorstep.

I think they might have, but as all things Roman I'm not sure they actually cared.

Kiero
2014-11-14, 09:38 AM
Yep. The salt mines always need more miners... since working conditions were hellish and unsafe.

Any kind of mines were hellish in antiquity. A lot of precious metals are pretty poisonous in their natural forms, as if all the risks of being buried alive and working with poor ventilation weren't bad enough.

Larkas
2014-11-23, 08:58 PM
Any kind of mines were hellish in antiquity. A lot of precious metals are pretty poisonous in their natural forms, as if all the risks of being buried alive and working with poor ventilation weren't bad enough.

Were mines even a thing back then? I was always under the impression that the norm back then was surface mining, though I can't say if that was actually the case.

Jeff the Green
2014-11-23, 10:29 PM
I think they might have, but as all things Roman I'm not sure they actually cared.

"Oh, these barbarians that hate us are starving themselves on the lawn? Cool. Alert the groundskeeper once they've died."

Yora
2014-11-24, 05:00 AM
Were mines even a thing back then? I was always under the impression that the norm back then was surface mining, though I can't say if that was actually the case.

Mines go back really far. Early on it was basically bashing a hard rock against the somewhat softer rock of the ground and carrying the debris out in baskets. Those mines tended to be mostly very narrow with low ceilings, often you had to crawl to move around. Which is why children were so useful, they can crawl into smaller holes and work there. Many of those mines would look more like scaled up mole tunnels and not like neatly enginered underground architecture at all. Though if they came on a deposite of minerals that was closely packed together, those miners sometimes dug out really big chambers.

Kiero
2014-11-24, 05:52 AM
Were mines even a thing back then? I was always under the impression that the norm back then was surface mining, though I can't say if that was actually the case.

Surface mining is a 16th century (AD) invention; digging holes deep into the earth, on the other hand is ancient (the earliest known from 5000BC).

Here's an example of an ancient copper mine in Israel:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/TimnaChalcolithicMine.JPG/1280px-TimnaChalcolithicMine.JPG

Larkas
2014-11-24, 12:33 PM
Mines go back really far. Early on it was basically bashing a hard rock against the somewhat softer rock of the ground and carrying the debris out in baskets. Those mines tended to be mostly very narrow with low ceilings, often you had to crawl to move around. Which is why children were so useful, they can crawl into smaller holes and work there. Many of those mines would look more like scaled up mole tunnels and not like neatly enginered underground architecture at all. Though if they came on a deposite of minerals that was closely packed together, those miners sometimes dug out really big chambers.


Surface mining is a 16th century (AD) invention; digging holes deep into the earth, on the other hand is ancient (the earliest known from 5000BC).

Here's an example of an ancient copper mine in Israel:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/TimnaChalcolithicMine.JPG/1280px-TimnaChalcolithicMine.JPG

Wow! I guess it makes sense to go after a specific vein of ore rather than digging up lots of dirt and sort through it to find the material you're looking for, but I was really under the impression that the latter required more technology than the former! Well, you learn something every day! :)

Yora
2014-11-24, 12:53 PM
If you manage to find a deposit that is open to the surface, you are of course going to dig that one up first. But these will be exhausted pretty quickly, especially once you have a local economy for export growing around it. The easist deposites are always the first that get mined. After that, you have to dig into the ground.
Modern strip mining or pit mining really is only possibly with heavy machines because there is such a huge amount of rubble you have to clear away. It does have the advantage that you can move said heavy machines around easily and don't have to worry about tunnel size and supporting the ceiling.

However, the Romans did some pretty extreme mining in Spain. They figured out a way to drill holes into sandstone and using water pressure to transform whole mountains into rubble. They called it Mountain Wrecking for good reasons. I assume after that they somehow had to sift through it to pick out the gold ore they were after.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1378/749901641_56afab8a7b_z.jpg
However, the Romans were an industrial powerhouse with highly advanced engineering we could now call "1000 years ahead of it's time". Tin mining in Cornwall for international export had been around 2000 years before that.

Beleriphon
2014-11-27, 04:04 PM
However, the Romans did some pretty extreme mining in Spain. They figured out a way to drill holes into sandstone and using water pressure to transform whole mountains into rubble. They called it Mountain Wrecking for good reasons. I assume after that they somehow had to sift through it to pick out the gold ore they were after.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1378/749901641_56afab8a7b_z.jpg
However, the Romans were an industrial powerhouse with highly advanced engineering we could now call "1000 years ahead of it's time". Tin mining in Cornwall for international export had been around 2000 years before that.

Holy shazballs! That's awesome, I had no idea that Roman mining extended as far as collapsing a mountain to get gold.

I did find this quote from Pliny the Elder:


What happens is far beyond the work of giants. The mountains are bored with corridors and galleries made by lamplight with a duration that is used to measure the shifts. For months, the miners cannot see the sunlight and many of them die inside the tunnels. This type of mine has been given the name of ruina montium. The cracks made in the entrails of the stone are so dangerous that it would be easier to find purpurine or pearls at the bottom of the sea than make scars in the rock. How dangerous we have made the Earth!

Kiero
2014-11-27, 06:02 PM
However, the Romans were an industrial powerhouse with highly advanced engineering we could now call "1000 years ahead of it's time".

And their logistical expertise wasn't matched until the 19th century.

Larkas
2014-11-30, 09:19 PM
And their logistical expertise wasn't matched until the 19th century.

I know, right? I know it's technically and conceptually wrong to call the Middle Ages the "Dark Ages", but you can't help but be a little sad when you contemplate how much was lost during that period.

kardar233
2014-12-03, 03:38 AM
I haven't read through the whole thread but I like the idea of doing an ancient world game of some kind, and I thought I'd point you all to Kinslayer (http://julea-kinslayer.com), a webcomic set in a fantastical Bronze Age/early Iron Age world.

Ravian
2014-12-04, 06:12 PM
I know, right? I know it's technically and conceptually wrong to call the Middle Ages the "Dark Ages", but you can't help but be a little sad when you contemplate how much was lost during that period.

Yeah essentially the period after Rome could accurately be considered a post-apocalyptic world. However that doesn't mean that it was primitive. Things were lost, but they still developed quite well all things considered, just like a real apocalypse would probably go down. (Society doesn't break down completely, it just reorganizes itself to accommodate the new changes, and just keeps right on trucking.)

Unfortunately the renaissance misunderstood post-apocalyptic society development about as much as we do today so they just decided that the era of Rome must have been some sort of utopian society that lost all of its awesome stuff in a millennium long roll through the mud. This of course meant that most of them decided to focus on rediscovering lost knowledge (and largely just stagnating things) while the important pioneers like Da Vinchi, Galileo, Copernicus and Newton, were jeered, mocked and persecuted for coming up with new things.

Yora
2014-12-04, 06:44 PM
I think in that regard those Rennaisance Men were no different from the English Victorians. The best way to make yourself look great is to make everything that came before you look worse. I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of all false rumors of history can be traced back to 19th century London.
And I think in the Rennaisance, people were not even interested in knowing what the past 1000 years had been like. They needed Rome and Greece to be Utopians, so they could even surpass that mystical high point of humanity.

Thinker
2014-12-05, 10:18 AM
I think in that regard those Rennaisance Men were no different from the English Victorians. The best way to make yourself look great is to make everything that came before you look worse. I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of all false rumors of history can be traced back to 19th century London.
And I think in the Rennaisance, people were not even interested in knowing what the past 1000 years had been like. They needed Rome and Greece to be Utopians, so they could even surpass that mystical high point of humanity.

I think a part of that was also not having total knowledge of the circumstances. Being considered an expert on something and then having to say, "I don't know" can ruin someone's credibility. It is much easier to make assumptions based on logic and what you do know than to not know something at all. In some cases the person who came up with the idea might believe it is absolutely what happened, while others merely intended for the statement to be taken as a possibility, but it was repeated as gospel by later students.