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View Full Version : [3.PF] Thassilon and the Late Bronze Age Collapse - ROTR Spoilers



Sheogoroth
2017-08-18, 03:04 PM
My DM has us entrenched in Crimson Throne right now, but I'm planning on running Rise of the Runelords when we finish up. I bought the book, and I had an idea I'm really excited about. They seem to paint Thassilon with sort of an Eastern Magocracy vogue with the East Asian Hip-and-Gable Roofs in a lot of the art. But other than the fact that they tell you that the society is Ten-Thousand years old, it doesn't FEEL ten-thousand years old. There's nothing that really gives the ancient vibe

But I'm in the process of re-imagining everything about them to be sort of like interconnected real-world Bronze Age civilizations, then expanding that to the Ghol-gan Cyclopes, the Fangwood Elves, and the Serpentfolk which(other than the Ancient Aboleth) were the only things that could be considered a civilizations that we know about from that period.

Historically, you had this super rapid vaporization of civilization, culture, and the written word as a result of a mysterious doomsday phenomenon that we hardly understand today. Sounds a lot like the Starfall and the collapse every single contiguous civilization except for the Aboleth(and sort of the Elves, but counting them is really a stretch to begin with) I really want to create paint a historical backdrop and make this ancient, mysterious Civilization feel ancient and mysterious.

So I was thinking of ripping off a lot of the feel of Babylonian and Assyrian Architecture, maybe giving Karzoug a Babylonian Ring-beard and putting crazy Akkadian Sphinxes everywhere and rewriting all of the ancient writing with a Bronze-Age flavor to it, particularly with

My question is, do you guys know of any created Bronze-Age setting(or equivalently flavorful) modules in the vast expanse of all tabletopping that I could draw from, or maybe really good books or websites with bronze-age literature? I'm trying to immerse myself in the style so that I can look at ROTR with fresh eyes of how I want to make things feel.

DeTess
2017-08-18, 03:22 PM
This isn't quite the answer to your question, but have you watched Extra History's series on the Bronze Age collapse? If not, here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkMP328eU5Q&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5ABU4r0U2Mcj_Gj32UN80zX
There's a lot of cool things you could do with basing a campaign closely approximating the real event (as we understand it right now, at least).

Palanan
2017-08-18, 04:28 PM
On the real-world historical side, you might take a look at Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (https://www.amazon.com/1177-B-C-Civilization-Collapsed-Turning/dp/0691168385/), which is a recent book on the demise of Bronze Age Mediterranean societies.

He presents the collapse as a perfect storm of both human and natural calamities, and since he’s an experienced field archaeologist he knows the physical evidence firsthand. Could be very useful in helping you establish an authentic feel for your campaign.