Any Eastern Europe/Central Asia settings?

[Yora]

I think it's a very interesting background, both culturally and as an environment. It's where most languages of Europe and much of South Asia originated, as well as the "classic" pantheon of gods that shows up all over the place in Eurasia. It's also where people first domesticated horses and it has both the largest forests and plains in the world. But I don't really know of any fantasy settings that draw on the region as a source. The map of Earthdawn is based on the region north of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, but I don't know if there are any cultural elements in it.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm writing a setting that covers Central Asia and East Asia, but I can't think of any official material for D&D at least which covers anything except for Japan and Europe, which annoyed me when I cracked open Oriental Adventures and expected to be able to run a low powered Wuxia campaign. I think I remember an 'Arabian Nights' Forgotten Realms subsetting, but I have no idea how accurate it is, or if it's based off the myths more than the culture.

[Yora]

It's also Arabian. I am looking for the region between Germany, Arabia, India, and China. The best you usually get is something based on Mongols, but those are hardly representative of all the many cultures of the region.

[Eisenheim]

It's not fully developed as a setting, but there's a seed for something like this in the Fate System Toolkit. One of the the suggested magic systems, the Six Viziers, is imagined as a russian/central asian setting. You could also look at 7th sea, specifically material dealing with Ussura for some inspiration, again mostly with russian feel. I haven't looked at it, but I think there's some Legend of 5 Rings material for that world's version of the eastern part of central asia, a gobi-desert analog type thing.

I don't really know of any games that are primarily aimed in that direction, though.

One of the problems you run into is that we have very little settled history for the steppe before the mongols, because those nomadic cultures didn't leave a lot of material culture behind.

[Darth Ultron]

The Hordelands area of the Forgotten Realms covers a lot of ''east Europe'' and ''west Asia''. It has a lot of focus on the ''Moguls'', but does touch on others. Reshemen does have a nice ''east Europe'' or ''Germanic'' feel too.

[Anxe]

The With Fire and Sword series covers that area, but those are novels and they're more modern.

[Yora]

Is anyone familiar with Midgard? Despite the name being as Germanic as it gets, I've heard some hints that it's more of a Slavic setting?

[Maglubiyet]

Are you specifically looking for D&D settings?

For background material there's a GURPS Russia sourcebook from 2nd or 3rd ed. you can download from SJ Games.

[Yora]

Did anyone say D&D?

Anything goes, but I am mostly interested in premodern settings and with decent amounts of fantasy.

[Maglubiyet]

Well, yeah, GURPS Russia covers historical campaigns and fantasy ideas from the region's mythology.

Gygax's little-known Mythus/Dangerous Journeys setting has a large high-fantasy area based on Central Asia.

In Conan's world of Hyboria, by Robert Howard, the nations of Hyrkania and Hyperboria are loosely modeled on the areas you're interested in.

I kind of remember something about the original Runequest setting, Glorantha, as being based on Central Asia too, but it's been a while since I looked through that stuff.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I had a setting in the Worldbuilding forum that was largely based off Eastern Europe and Russia. Still compiling a pdf for my players. Cover art/link below.

I originally planned to use it as a DnD5E setting, and so far my players have loved it.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s231/sithlord7/frotn%20page2_zpstz1laycp.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zk2v219x9f2tbkp/Godori%20PHB%20for%20me.pdf?dl=0

[Wardog]

Would this be of use?
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?products_id=86214

[LibraryOgre]

IIRC, there was a game called Mythic Russia, which I always got confused with Ars Magica's book about Russia in Mythic Europe.

[Flickerdart]

For D&D specifically, there's a 3rd party sourcebook called Frost and Fur which has a bunch of content (though not, perhaps, a full setting) similar to the feel you're after.


http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s231/sithlord7/frotn%20page2_zpstz1laycp.png
I'm assuming you got that from an auto-translator? You actually want something like this:

Годори: Степи и Чародейство
Игровой мир
Подземелья и Драконы (5-я редакция)

If you feel like going above and beyond, consider replacing the Roman typeface with something more historically Russian (http://www.irmologion.ru/fonts.html). The download links for those fonts are the brown links in the far right column of the tables where it says "True Type" and the date; the tall narrow letters are the ones typically used for titles while the short fat ones are more appropriate as subtitles or body copy. They actually don't seem to have the one I was thinking of, but I think I have the file at home and will look for it in the evening.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

I'm assuming you got that from an auto-translator? You actually want something like this:

Годори: Степи и Чародейство
Игровой мир
Подземелья и Драконы (5-я редакция)

If you feel like going above and beyond, consider replacing the Roman typeface with something more historically Russian (http://www.irmologion.ru/fonts.html). The download links for those fonts are the brown links in the far right column of the tables where it says "True Type" and the date; the tall narrow letters are the ones typically used for titles while the short fat ones are more appropriate as subtitles or body copy. They actually don't seem to have the one I was thinking of, but I think I have the file at home and will look for it in the evening.

I might look at that, although the type used was just the default DnD font. And yes, Google Translate was used since I don't speak Russian, and I don't know anyone who does.

Did you like it?

[Flickerdart]

I might look at that, although the type used was just the default DnD font. And yes, Google Translate was used since I don't speak Russian, and I don't know anyone who does.
Feel free to hit me up whenever you need pointers with the language. Also, it turns out I don't have that font I was thinking of after all, which is a shame.


Did you like it?
I skimmed it, seems pretty solid. Some notes, though:

I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but in your comparison of races to existing cultures you seem to be missing the native Steppe peoples (Tatars, Khazars, Pechenegs, and Cumans) who were quite distinct from the Mongols that came later. I would actually recommend the Dragonborn race for them - they are heavily associated with adversarial dragons in Slavic legends (see Tugarin Zmeyevich). Speaking of him, his arch-enemies the bogatyrs would be an excellent example of what a fighter (though paladin or barbarian would also be a decent fit) is supposed to look like. Also, read all of Pushkin.

I'm not sure why the fey are decidedly Western but maybe that's also a stylistic choice. Archfiends are in the same camp - Slavic paganism had no evil gods - but you gotta have archfiends in D&D. For some other powerful evils that could serve as gods or monsters, take a look at Zmey Gorynych, Vij, and Koschei the Deathless.

I'm surprised that you have Perun but not Veles in the pantheon. In general, there wasn't much Russian paganism around even in 1000CE. The Mongols were pagans though, and Tengrism's twin creator gods seem like a good fit for the niche that Rathism occupies in your setting.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Feel free to hit me up whenever you need pointers with the language. Also, it turns out I don't have that font I was thinking of after all, which is a shame.

Thank you very much. I will, at that.


I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but in your comparison of races to existing cultures you seem to be missing the native Steppe peoples (Tatars, Khazars, Pechenegs, and Cumans) who were quite distinct from the Mongols that came later. I would actually recommend the Dragonborn race for them - they are heavily associated with adversarial dragons in Slavic legends (see Tugarin Zmeyevich). Speaking of him, his arch-enemies the bogatyrs would be an excellent example of what a fighter (though paladin or barbarian would also be a decent fit) is supposed to look like. Also, read all of Pushkin.

I haven't updated the pdf in a while, but the Half-Orcs and Vednyek largely cover the Steppe-warrior archetypes. They are a little undeveloped at the moment only because my players are in the west. And the Dragonborn are currently in the south doing their own thing. I love the imagery though! Which is why I'm now torn on how to handle things. Bring more Dragonborn north?


I'm not sure why the fey are decidedly Western but maybe that's also a stylistic choice. Archfiends are in the same camp - Slavic paganism had no evil gods - but you gotta have archfiends in D&D. For some other powerful evils that could serve as gods or monsters, take a look at Zmey Gorynych, Vij, and Koschei the Deathless.


Well, it's a Not!Russia setting using 5E rules, so compromises were made. I needed the Planar basics (Celestial, Fiendish, Fey, and Other) for the classes to function. And, at least in the case of Koschei, he's there. Somewhere...:smallbiggrin:


I'm surprised that you have Perun but not Veles in the pantheon. In general, there wasn't much Russian paganism around even in 1000CE. The Mongols were pagans though, and Tengrism's twin creator gods seem like a good fit for the niche that Rathism occupies in your setting.

Veles is also there, but altered. I took him and made him into Volkos, the Evil God. And while there was little paganism post 1000CE, that's no fun in a game. :smallwink: Multiple gods was more interesting to do.

[Flickerdart]

And the Dragonborn are currently in the south doing their own thing. I love the imagery though! Which is why I'm now torn on how to handle things. Bring more Dragonborn north?
Considerable amounts of what we know about the ancient Slavs come from Arab traders, so peddlers of exotic wares would be a pretty good way of bringing more of them to where the action is.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Considerable amounts of what we know about the ancient Slavs come from Arab traders, so peddlers of exotic wares would be a pretty good way of bringing more of them to where the action is.

Sooooo a little of A, a little of Б? :smalltongue:

[Beleriphon]

Considerable amounts of what we know about the ancient Slavs come from Arab traders, so peddlers of exotic wares would be a pretty good way of bringing more of them to where the action is.

And the one best source is actually derived from the Ahmad ibn Fadlan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan). He did see a Viking ship burial, and moved through regions that we assoiate with Turkey and eastern Europe. If you can find some translations of his accounts they'd make an excellent source.