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Yora
2018-08-03, 04:58 PM
I created a fantasy world that is very much an alien planet with dinosaurs and giant insects, inspired by Morrowind and Dark Sun. It's very much not a medieval setting, nor a (west/north/central) European one. And I want to give the players a good deal of assistance to not think of the world as such and bring assumptions about knights, vikings, dragons, and angels into the game.

My own ideas go somewhat further than that, but for the start I'd be more than happy to envision the world as some kind of Greek/Asian hybrid setting. Creating a civilization of coastal city states combined with numerous rival temples and societies that compete for magical and mystical knowledge and ancient artifacts and relics.
For that purpose I want to describe NPCs, places, and institutions by including plenty of small details that make them subconsciously think of Greece or China, without specifically stating it as such. This shorthand is only an approximation of what I've come up, it's not actually ancient Greece and ancient China with the serial numbers filed off.

Here's some elements I've been thinking of so far, but I'd love to see what else you think I might include.

Olives
Galleys
Bronze breast plates
Sandals
Goats
Oracles
Slaves

Tea
Rice
Bamboo
Naga
Gold and silver bars
Alchemists

iTreeby
2018-08-03, 10:45 PM
Use exotic instruments have wierd titles for nobility officers and such.

Knaight
2018-08-03, 10:55 PM
A lot of the time it's less what you describe and how you describe it - the term "panoply" showing up for armor hints Mediterranean, and if you're willing to go blatant you can directly use the term "wine-dark sea". Similarly you've mentioned galleys, but "triremes" is basically a magic word here.

For China, I'd also emphasize sophisticated waterways, the omniprescence of the imperial court, maybe name drop imperial examinations at some point, see how often I could work in spring and autumn imagery together, add millet as something mentioned for cuisine, mention jade and lacquer in the context of decoration, bring in monkeys as wildlife, etc.

I also notice that your list had nothing architectural on it - that's often an area particularly worth hitting. For China, that might involve the heavy use of wood, lacquer, and tile, plus silk screens and the like. For greece, marble, columns, friezes, etc.

VoxRationis
2018-08-04, 12:58 AM
I'm interested in how exactly your setting is similar to both Classical Greece and China, because those are two very different societies. A commonality with both of them is an architectural emphasis on the colonnade, so descriptions of courtyards flanked by covered walkways, or of a forest of columns surrounding and filling temples and palaces, would be helpful. Another commonality is a highly developed sense of "civilization" and "barbarism," with numerous peoples well within the cultural sphere considered to be semi-barbaric in various degrees, so if you're comfortable roleplaying that degree of cultural chauvinism, describing NPCs by degree of civilization as though that were clear and objective would help clue people into that mindset.

Yora
2018-08-04, 02:50 AM
Completely forgot about jade. That should have been an obvious one. Marble isn't quite as specific, but I think it should also contribute.

I also like the monkeys. Maybe I give them green fur and stripes to make them not exactly monkeys, but they are definately a strong Asian association, even more so than snakes.

Constantly complaining about barbarians is also a good one. :smallbiggrin: That's something those two cultures are associated with the most.

The general idea of the setting are bronze age city states scattered along a coast and islands like the Minoans and Myceneans, but adventures focusing on a sub-culture of mystic experts, like the kung fu masters of Wuxia. Just with more focus on knowledge to manipulate spirits than martial arts.
Not completely sure how well it works to decouple Wuxia from the imperial state, but a lot of stories take place in the most remote backwaters where the state has barely any presence at all, except for the village leader taking his legitimacy from the office of imperial magistrate. I think this should also work well enough with minor nobles belonging to a city state.

Thinker
2018-08-04, 06:50 AM
To promote themes and setting you have to look at what the players interact with the most - their character sheets. Change ability names, classes, and so on to evoke a feeling of being Mediterranean or East Asian. There's not a fighter, but there is a Demigod (or Champion or Companion). Wizards cast spells from the schools of magic Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind while sorcerers cast from Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Wood. Backgrounds and traits should reflect the setting.

Kiero
2018-08-04, 07:01 AM
There's an immediate clash of potentially incompatible societal constructs you have to resolve in the form of the oared galley. An oarsman is a skilled labourer and not a slave (Ben Hur's depiction of routine use of slaves chained to their benches was a fiction), they were either a citizen serving militia service, or effectively a mercenary hired by another community to serve.

Even in the ancient Mediterranean, this caused problems. Athens chose to go full democratisation, giving oarsmen citizenship rights in return for their service (because this gave them a massive source of manpower). Other states preferred to hire groups of men from other communities, so that they didn't have to grant rights to the men upon whom their naval power depended (but this was expensive and precarious). The Peloponnesian War was this conflict between two alternative ways of structuring society writ large - democracy (oligarchy really, but even so, power was more dispersed) vs monarchy.

As I understand ancient China, there were untold masses of peasants who were little better than serfs. Could they be recruited as oarsmen without giving them notions of their own power, which would lead to demands for participation in politics? Does your setting have a source of "foreign" oarsmen the state could draw upon and thus avoid empowering their peasantry? Or is there a social class above the peasantry who are large enough in numbers to provide a couple of hundred rowers per ship?

Cosi
2018-08-04, 10:50 AM
For China, you should probably add ancestor worship, eastern dragons, and the mandate of heaven. My understanding is that there was also a big difference between Chinese and Western understandings of the concept of "honor", so leaning on those could help establish the setting as unique. Also silk as an aspect of the setting's aesthetics. There's also more support for bureaucratic type heroes in Chinese fantasy than is typical in Western stories.

I might also consider reimagining the setting somewhat. I think it might be more interesting to do something that was basically "the Axial Age, but with magic" and have fantasy!Greece and fantasy!China as separate places (alongside fantasy!India and fantasy!Middle East). Something like Gore Vidal's Creation for a fantasy setting, with different philosophical and religious schools of thought as different magical traditions.


Naga

Naga are Indian, not Chinese. At least, they're much more strongly associated with India than China. This also segues into a natural question: roughly how much non-Chinese Asian culture are you intending to incorporate? Because I think a lot of people are going to look at this setting and ask "why can't I be a Samurai". Large portions of the history of China also involve contact with non-Chinese cultures.

Yora
2018-08-04, 11:31 AM
India is still Asia, that's good enough. As I said, having an accurate version of Fantasy-China and Fantasy-Greece isn't the goal. The goal is to have cults and societies fighting over magical knowledge in a Bronze Age city state environment. Using imagery that reminds players of Asia and Greek Myths is a simple tool to give them some points of reference in an unfamiliar setting.

Giving the dead ancestors a place seems like a good idea. It's important in East-Asian culture and you also have the dead hanging around in an eternal limbo in the Greek underworld. Being able to consult the ghosts of the dead seems like a neat element to have.

Another interesting overlap I've found is in regard to pride and arrogance. In wuxia, the drive towards excellence is often an important source of motivation and conflict and some historians have described Greek culture as being "obsessed with competition". But curiously, at the same time the very worst sin anyone could commit was pride. Always try to be the best, but don't let it get to your head. (Not familiar with something similar in India and Persia, though.)
I think this can be incorporated well into a game by NPCs constantly judging the PCs on their deeds and accomplishments. The players don't have to commit to it, but they will learn that if they want to be treated with respect they will have to impress other mystics and nobles.

Another minor background detail:
Amphorae.
And making absolutely everything out of bronze. Greece and China are the two places I associate the most with bronze object, while the material has pretty much disappeared from sight (though was actually still present in many special applications) in medieval Europe. And you don't find it much in Africa or at all in America.

Beneath
2018-08-04, 11:25 PM
For China, I'd also emphasize sophisticated waterways, the omniprescence of the imperial court, maybe name drop imperial examinations at some point, see how often I could work in spring and autumn imagery together, add millet as something mentioned for cuisine, mention jade and lacquer in the context of decoration, bring in monkeys as wildlife, etc.

Depending on what you want to do with time periods, I would advise against the imperial court and examinations. Spring and Autumn period China, which is the source of most ancient Chinese bronzework, did not have the bureaucratic systems that came to be associated with China later on; instead it had the philosophers who laid the groundwork for those systems to be imposed. The Spring and Autumn period is also an interregnum in terms of the emperors, between the decline of Zhou and the ascent of Qin at the end of the subsequent Warring States period, instead with a bunch of petty kingdoms.

This isn't too badly mismatched from Bronze Age Greece, politically; you have a bunch of small divided polities. China, though, they share land borders, while in Greece travel tends to be more by sea.

The big names in Greek philosophy, like Plato and Aristotle, on the other hand, come from after the Bronze age, though actually closer to contemporary than I'd have guessed (Plato was born only about half a century too late to have been contemporary with the Spring and Autumn period and with Confucius). Either Confucius or Plato is closer to being contemporary with Julius Caesar than with Achilles, though (and you want Achilles)

Obviously, this depends on how deep you want to focus on your time period in terms of aesthetic. There's plenty of precedent for having all of history and myth happen at once for this (Xena did it). On the other hand, it sounds like you want your world to be wild, and weird Sino-Hellenic city-states against a background of dinosaur wilderness is awesome. But hold the imperial court and instead have wandering philosophers staying on as guests of one king or another until their welcome runs out preaching about virtue. Maybe in the background Odysseus and Sun Wukong can team up

Knaight
2018-08-05, 01:23 AM
Depending on what you want to do with time periods, I would advise against the imperial court and examinations. Spring and Autumn period China, which is the source of most ancient Chinese bronzework, did not have the bureaucratic systems that came to be associated with China later on; instead it had the philosophers who laid the groundwork for those systems to be imposed. The Spring and Autumn period is also an interregnum in terms of the emperors, between the decline of Zhou and the ascent of Qin at the end of the subsequent Warring States period, instead with a bunch of petty kingdoms.

Those were more examples than anything - Qin China is not Song China is not the Warring States period is not Five Dynasties and Ten States China. Some of these stand out more immediately than others though, and in the context of a setting that's pulling wide but not deep where China as a whole is but one inspiration those particular examples fit well. Whereas if (for example) we were doing a dive into the material culture of Qing/Manchu China in particular the potato would have a notable spot on that list, where it currently has a very deliberate absence.

Florian
2018-08-05, 04:32 AM
So, you want to combine Greece and China and still cover their distinct flavors? Hm ....

Greece:
- Whitewashed houses to reduce the heat
- City states with large public spaces
- Marble
- Walled estates with internal gardens
- Heavy focus on sailing and trading
- Wine and amphoras
- Clothing that emphasizes the hot weather
- Large temples and Statues
- Dates and olive trees

China:
- Red roof tiles and red painted timber
- Highly structures bureaucracy
- Rice paddies
- Jade
- Very formal clothing, make-up and hairdos, based on station
- Large inns and traveling stations

Yora
2018-08-05, 06:44 AM
Again, my aim is for half-remembered pop-culture associations. Players don't even need to be able to point out what parts they reognize.
I want to basically go for the Star Wars method of self explaining settings: The stormtroopers wear armor that looks like skeletons. Their boss is a black knight with a skull helmet. The army is led by Nazi officers. Han is a smuggler working for a crime boss. Starfighters are World War 2 airplanes. Luke is a farmer, Jedi are kung fu monks. You may not recognize an of this at first, but it gives you an understanding of what is what and how it works in this sertting unlike anything you've ever seen before. This gives people a good amount of orientation and makes them feel like they can navigate this world without having needed a lot of spelled out exposition. That's the technique I want to use.
And some nice suggestions already.

That being said, is there any particular Chinese period I should look into for further ideas?

I've been thinking that it is probably a good idea to give the players a short list of virtues and vices by which people in the setting are judged. Bronze Age and Classical Greece and Wuxia aren't terribly well known with most people, and I think it's the way of thinking that determines much of the finer nuances.
Some ideas that I have so far:


Wisdom: Because sages are always super important business and I want to focus on adventures about discovering/stealing/protecting ancient mystic knowledge.
Loyalty and Duty: Making loyalty important is a great setup for having plenty of dramatic betrayals. Duty to family, masters, and kings (in that order!) in service to something greater than yourself is also very heroic and socially demanded.
Honesty and Politeness: Greek heroes seem to be regularly lacking it, but my impression is that this is generally a flaw, often even a fatal one. And having civil discussions with nasty villains is something I always find intriguing. Respecting enemies as honorable opponents also isn't foreign to Greek myth, I believe. Honesty is about not hiding your motives or your opinions to make others like you.
Cunning: Even though honesty is a virtue, cunning trickery is highly respected as well. Adhering to both can be difficult, but generally it is regarded as okay to lie and cheat as long as you don't make false claims of loyalty and friendship.
Humility: Nobody likes bragging and for the Greek, pride was the greatest sin that would lead to terrible disaster. Which is why so many characters were actually really bad at it. In China we would expect dignity and composure, which I think are roughly the same general idea.
Generosity and Hospitality: I don't remember these being terribly important in Greece and China in the way they are in other cultures. But I think most of the major grudges in Greek myth started with being rude to guests or hosts. Somehow it strikes me as virtues that are treated much more severely by common people who feel obliged to do whatever they can for heroes, sages, and aristocrats in need of accomodation, and for whom even small gifts of gratitude mean a great deal. I think this can be a great way to make the players feel that their characters are respected heroes and not renegade mercenaries.

Thrudd
2018-08-05, 12:33 PM
Again, my aim is for half-remembered pop-culture associations. Players don't even need to be able to point out what parts they reognize.
I want to basically go for the Star Wars method of self explaining settings: The stormtroopers wear armor that looks like skeletons. Their boss is a black knight with a skull helmet. The army is led by Nazi officers. Han is a smuggler working for a crime boss. Starfighters are World War 2 airplanes. Luke is a farmer, Jedi are kung fu monks. You may not recognize an of this at first, but it gives you an understanding of what is what and how it works in this sertting unlike anything you've ever seen before. This gives people a good amount of orientation and makes them feel like they can navigate this world without having needed a lot of spelled out exposition. That's the technique I want to use.
And some nice suggestions already.

That being said, is there any particular Chinese period I should look into for further ideas?

I've been thinking that it is probably a good idea to give the players a short list of virtues and vices by which people in the setting are judged. Bronze Age and Classical Greece and Wuxia aren't terribly well known with most people, and I think it's the way of thinking that determines much of the finer nuances.
Some ideas that I have so far:


Wisdom: Because sages are always super important business and I want to focus on adventures about discovering/stealing/protecting ancient mystic knowledge.
Loyalty and Duty: Making loyalty important is a great setup for having plenty of dramatic betrayals. Duty to family, masters, and kings (in that order!) in service to something greater than yourself is also very heroic and socially demanded.
Honesty and Politeness: Greek heroes seem to be regularly lacking it, but my impression is that this is generally a flaw, often even a fatal one. And having civil discussions with nasty villains is something I always find intriguing. Respecting enemies as honorable opponents also isn't foreign to Greek myth, I believe. Honesty is about not hiding your motives or your opinions to make others like you.
Cunning: Even though honesty is a virtue, cunning trickery is highly respected as well. Adhering to both can be difficult, but generally it is regarded as okay to lie and cheat as long as you don't make false claims of loyalty and friendship.
Humility: Nobody likes bragging and for the Greek, pride was the greatest sin that would lead to terrible disaster. Which is why so many characters were actually really bad at it. In China we would expect dignity and composure, which I think are roughly the same general idea.
Generosity and Hospitality: I don't remember these being terribly important in Greece and China in the way they are in other cultures. But I think most of the major grudges in Greek myth started with being rude to guests or hosts. Somehow it strikes me as virtues that are treated much more severely by common people who feel obliged to do whatever they can for heroes, sages, and aristocrats in need of accomodation, and for whom even small gifts of gratitude mean a great deal. I think this can be a great way to make the players feel that their characters are respected heroes and not renegade mercenaries.

Xenia, guest friendship, is extremely important in Homeric Greece. Basically the only people we hear about are aristocrats and heroes (who are all aristocrats), so it's hard to say what was expected of common people- they are usually only seen as the serfs and servants and satellites around the aristocratic households. Proper hospitality to travelers is a serious matter, especially between members of different aristocratic clans- that is how you maintain political ties between far flung estates.

Yora
2018-08-05, 01:01 PM
I think this political aspect is something that should be given more focus than in an adventurer/murderhobo campaign. Not necessarily government stuff, but primarily diplomacy. Even when you think you're a neutral actor with no ties to the various power groups, everything you do does not just impact your own reputation but also that of others. Even if it's your old teacher on whom you turned your back ages ago, or a sister who has been married off to a different kingdom for years now.

There is no riding into the sunset. Every stupid and seemingly irrelevant mistake you make will some day come back to bite you in the ass. You can make very bad enemies and not even realize it for years until they suddenly arrive at your door and want to murder you. Or arrived at your old teacher's door and murdered him. And no another of his disciples comes after you to avenge him. Or comes to you demanding that you go after the murderer and avenge him. I think in many stories it's not that the heroes are choosing their adventures because they sound fun, but because it's their duty to fix problems of people they are responsible for.

An interesting element is how often quests for revenge play out as tragedies. I can't really think of any specific examples where the hero avenges the crime and is happy about it, or both sides come to a peaceful agreement. Though I am not sure how to communicate this to players. If the villain is mean, it's easy to kill him in revenge. The players probably would want to kill him for free by the end. But with an antagonist who didn't mean it and who is repentant, I think most players would want to show mercy.

Pallas
2018-08-05, 04:41 PM
Bronze Age China would be the pre-Qin dynasties: Xia, Shang, and Zhou. Of these, we have a wealth of written records for Zhou dynasty, almost none for Shang, and the very existence of Xia Dynasty is debated.

The signature weapons of Bronze Age China were the dagger-axes and chariots, with crossbows being the dominant ranged weapons. Towards the end of this period, swords, cavalry, and halberds gained eminence.

The four classes were scholar-officials, peasants, labourers, and merchants in descending order of dignity. The classes were not set in stone, and it was not uncommon for scholar-officials to have worked the land earlier in their lives. The military was conscripted from the populace.

The sundry states of Zhou Dynasty were ruled by hereditary Princes who were (nominally) subservient to the "Son of Heaven", but in practice were largely autonomous. These states were not very distinct culturally, and a badly managed one would find itself losing population (i.e. potential conscripts and tax base) to a more prosperous neighbour.

The main staple of the period was millet, with wheat and legumes also frequently mentioned. Rice only became popular after southern regions were brought into the fold in early Imperial China.

Only aristocrats had family names, but everyone had clan names.

In the writing of that age, appropriate behaviour was a recurring theme. For example, early in Zhuo's Commentaries it was explained that the Chronicles omitted referring to Duan as the younger brother of the Duke because Duan was "not little brother" (translated less literally, he did not behave in a way appropriate for a little brother...like not trying to usurp the state). In another instance, it talked about how a duke was "not lord" and consequently trying was killed by a vassal.

Another constant theme in Chinese literature of that age (and succeeding ones) was filial piety: the duty a child owns to the parents. In the above story, the Duke reconciled with his mother despite her encouraging and abetting the little brother in his treachery.

-----

As for the Greek Bronze Age, I recommend reading Homer. Pay attention to the repeated mention of the guest-host relationship (and what happened when Paris violated it). Notice the emphasis Achilles put on personal honour, and realize that it's not just an Achilles thing when you see even level-headed Odysseus maintain his honour at the cost of safey (e.g. by giving his name to Polyphemus). Read over what food was served every time someone made land in the Odyssey, and what food Telemachus brought along for his voyage. Remark how often they end up in unknown lands, where the inhabitants can't be counted on to follow the same code of conduct the Greeks do (cyclops, Circe, Calypso): this theme doesn't really come up in Bronze Age China.

---

Hope that gives you some inspiration.

Thrudd
2018-08-05, 04:56 PM
I think this political aspect is something that should be given more focus than in an adventurer/murderhobo campaign. Not necessarily government stuff, but primarily diplomacy. Even when you think you're a neutral actor with no ties to the various power groups, everything you do does not just impact your own reputation but also that of others. Even if it's your old teacher on whom you turned your back ages ago, or a sister who has been married off to a different kingdom for years now.

There is no riding into the sunset. Every stupid and seemingly irrelevant mistake you make will some day come back to bite you in the ass. You can make very bad enemies and not even realize it for years until they suddenly arrive at your door and want to murder you. Or arrived at your old teacher's door and murdered him. And no another of his disciples comes after you to avenge him. Or comes to you demanding that you go after the murderer and avenge him. I think in many stories it's not that the heroes are choosing their adventures because they sound fun, but because it's their duty to fix problems of people they are responsible for.

An interesting element is how often quests for revenge play out as tragedies. I can't really think of any specific examples where the hero avenges the crime and is happy about it, or both sides come to a peaceful agreement. Though I am not sure how to communicate this to players. If the villain is mean, it's easy to kill him in revenge. The players probably would want to kill him for free by the end. But with an antagonist who didn't mean it and who is repentant, I think most players would want to show mercy.

Well, I don't think people killing each other naturally lends itself to happy endings. But remember that Greek tragedies basically all involve convoluted family relationships where there are no good actions that anyone can take. It's brother against brother, husband against wife, parents against children, grandchildren/cousins fighting each other. Nobody ought to be killing anyone in these scenarios, but somebody always steps over the line and something horrible happens, dooming their descendants to unending conflict and tragedy until the rule of law supplants the old ways (in Aeschylus' Eumenides). In kung fu movies/wuxia, there is a bit more chivalry involved and a bit less divinely-ordained fate/obligation which drives Greek stories. You can call someone out for their offense against you or your family, and both can agree to a fair-play contest that both sides agree will be final and binding - you often even see some form of contract that stipulates no-revenge seeking in the event of death. Of course, challenge can follow challenge, and so even if it isn't called "revenge", someone simply seeking to prove their strength can ask for a duel to the death to establish their reputation.

It really depends on what role the players will have in this world. In Homer and Greek stories, the heroes are all chieftains/nobility who are either proving themselves worthy of their inheritance, engaging in feuds or raids against other clans, or defending their right to rule against would-be usurpers. In wuxia Lakes and Rivers type stories, you have itinerant warriors upholding their individual honor and proving their skills in a relatively lawless land on the fringes of civilization. Honor and strength are very important in both, but the aims of these characters are very different. For the Greeks, the ends mostly justify the means - someone who deserves to die deserves to die, you don't challenge them to a duel. You put a spear through their throat before they have a chance to get up from the dinner table. The aim is to be known and accepted as the rightful chief of the community, and have respect among other chieftains. The consequences of failing to save face, of not killing someone that should be killed, is potential challenges to your authority to rule from within your clan and potential increased attacks from others who think who might lack the strength to punish them for it. But smart rulers could use debt to their advantage, and if you can force someone into your service because of the wrong they have done, maybe even earn their loyalty, you now have an extra ally against other threats. The question is always knowing who to trust, to whom to give a second chance, and who absolutely needs to die in order to keep your reputation and power intact.

The xia don't generally have any political or social clout, they have only their individual reputations as warriors. So the consequence of showing mercy on someone that has done wrong will not necessarily be severe, there might not be any at all, it might even earn them a new friend. The worst will be that the person still sees you as an enemy and might come back to try to hurt you later.

I can see a world that combines Homeric Greek culture with wuxia/kung fu movie society - you have no overall authority, only enclaves ruled by warrior chieftains like Homeric Greece. They make alliances with one another, some might be ancestral enemies and conduct raids against each other, but all are self contained and self-sufficient, engaging in trade mostly for political purposes. Each of these enclaves also practices a distinct martial arts style, and warriors gain reputation by traveling through the land challenging warriors of the other clans (preferably in honorable duels) and overcoming the hardships of the untamed regions in between the enclaves (that are mostly too rugged or otherwise unsuitable for farming or wide habitation). Tale-tellers travel between the settlements, observing and singing songs of heroics, like Greek poets, but reporting on contemporary things as well as preserving old tales.

Yora
2018-08-06, 05:20 AM
I am really surprised by the amount of constructive response here. Usually such questions mostly get "Your idea is bad." "You should play a historical campaign." "Just play D&D and change the names of classes." So far this has actually been really helpful. :smallbiggrin:


As for the Greek Bronze Age, I recommend reading Homer. Pay attention to the repeated mention of the guest-host relationship (and what happened when Paris violated it). Notice the emphasis Achilles put on personal honour, and realize that it's not just an Achilles thing when you see even level-headed Odysseus maintain his honour at the cost of safey (e.g. by giving his name to Polyphemus). Read over what food was served every time someone made land in the Odyssey, and what food Telemachus brought along for his voyage. Remark how often they end up in unknown lands, where the inhabitants can't be counted on to follow the same code of conduct the Greeks do (cyclops, Circe, Calypso): this theme doesn't really come up in Bronze Age China.
While it often seems unfortunate that one of the two remaining stories of the Epic Cycle has very little in the sense of plot, it's also a gift to history that the Iliad centers so heavily around social conventions and morality. Maybe not as entertaining, but much more valuable than monster fight scenes.

The role of PCs within the setting is probably the most important element to making a campaign click and run smoothly. And it's something I've always been struggling with in nonstandard fantasy settings. How to run a campaign around a group of treasure hunters and monster slayers for hire is well enough established and understood. Treasure and XP are an easy goal to grasp with clear ways to get them. But when it comes to campaigns about personal motivations and social obligations, RPG books tend to have very little to nothing in the way of guidance how that might actually look in practice.

At the very least, I can say that for this campaign I don't want the role of the PCs to be one of statesmen. I guess they could be aristocrats or in the service of the king, but tasks of administration should be completely absent from the campaign. While I think a game like Adventurer Conqueror King is a very worthwhile idea and looks like a fun way to play in an ancient setting (though I guess it's really just the art, not the rules) this is not the goal here.
I think "police work" can work here, but then it always needs to be personal for the respective PCs. Either the victim or the villain needs to have a close personal connection to the PC. To keep the connection to the city state model, I think it would be better if such PCs were a younger daughter or a nephew of a king who can be called on to do specific errands, but otherwise isn't tied up in governing and free to roam around or accompany other PCs on their quests.

What I also think doesn't look appropriate is signs "Hero wanted, apply inside." Somehow I think I am more influenced by Kurosawa and Leone here, but I feel that heroic PCs don't get hired to fix a problem. (Seven Samurai nonwithstanding.) Instead they get involved despite the objection of the locals and their insistance to just move on without making any more trouble. I think this is something that probably would have to be explained outright to the players at the start of the game. Otherwise they might want to be polite and miss all the offered quest hooks.

Another thing that comes to mind right now is that neither Greek Myth not Wuxia seems to be a place to count coins. I can't recall the prospect of great riches ever motivating any characters, either heroes or villains.
And funnily enough, even though there are plenty of magic items, they never seems to actually do anything in game mechanics terms. Swords and shields are made a huge deal of because of who they were owned by, not because they have any tangible special power. They are more trophies of extreme immaterial value but not so much special gear. What do the Aegis and the Golden Fleece do? It's not even clear what they are. Contemporary audiences might have known, but now they are pretty much the most ancient Macguffins.

Now here is an idea I'd like to her your thoughts about: With Wisdom being such a supreme virtue, could the default archetype for a PC be an individual of exceptional skill who is on a kind of roaming pilgrimage with the goal of obtaining greater insight about personal excelence or enlightenment? Greek heroes seem to be motivated by obtaining glory and wuxia heroes by perfecting their kung fu. I'm actually not super into martial arts and want to do more stuff with supernatural beings and places. Seeing the world and confronting the supernatural could be the default goal and being a champion of the common people an almost "accidental" byproduct. It's also a pursuit well suited to idle aristocrats reclusive sages, and wandering monks.

Satinavian
2018-08-06, 06:10 AM
Now here is an idea I'd like to her your thoughts about: With Wisdom being such a supreme virtue, could the default archetype for a PC be an individual of exceptional skill who is on a kind of roaming pilgrimage with the goal of obtaining greater insight about personal excelence or enlightenment? Greek heroes seem to be motivated by obtaining glory and wuxia heroes by perfecting their kung fu. I'm actually not super into martial arts and want to do more stuff with supernatural beings and places. Seeing the world and confronting the supernatural could be the default goal and being a champion of the common people an almost "accidental" byproduct. It's also a pursuit well suited to idle aristocrats reclusive sages, and wandering monks.Doesn't fit too well into Greek myths, but does fit with China as seen with the Eight Immortals.

Unfortunately most of the Taoist teaching is a bit too modern for the bronze age, even if somme immortals are supposed to have lived early enough and that also applies to most of the known stories about such wandering sages. But if you only want a rough inspiration, it might still work. To be honest, the same is kinda true for Homers texts which might contain far more from Homers time and culture than from the time of the Troja. It is obviously worse for Yuan era stuff, but whatever.


On pure aesthetics i want to suggest again using chariots a lot. They dominated bronze age armies both around the mediterranian and in China. I would rigorously exclude the existence of horses big and strong enough for proper cavalry and would also not include other suitable mounts. Everyone who doesn't live in utterly unpassable terrain should have chariots. The warrior class should be trained with chariots and supported by barely trained infantery. Army size should be measured in chariots.

That would be something that spells out "really not another medieval fantasy setting".

LibraryOgre
2018-08-06, 06:25 AM
Out-and-out Martial Arts contests. Not just "monks who live at these secluded monasteries practice kung fu as part of their meditation discipline", but throw in the Grecian wrestling, but with styles competing as much as individuals. Sure, you've got your pankratation grappling master, but can he defeat Leaping Tiger style?

If you want to emphasize Greekness, throw in the Olympics; if you want to emphasize a Chinese feel, make the rulers more important than the individuals they rule (at least, on a societal level). So, you have medals being awarded to the noble behind the best jumper and the best runner, not to the individual.

Yora
2018-08-06, 08:18 AM
I was thinking about unarmed combat yesterday as well. While "boxing" and "wrestling" aren't making most people immediately think of kung fu, that's very much what it is. Not quite sure how I want to handle it in Barbarians of Lemuria (by the book it's just nonlethal damage), but I think making unarmed attacks ignore armor feels like a good start.

My impression is that Greek glory is pretty much all about results. Aside from personal insults, the composure and conduct of great warriors does not seem to be important to their glory. On the other hand, Chinese respect seems to put a great importance on personal integrity. Backing up and being shamed is frequently considered as a viable option and the internal conflict is about abandoning your duties to family and teachers.
I'm not sure if these two approaches to personal improvement can be consolidated. They seem to be fundamentally opposed. Which I think is a case where you simply have to make a choice which direction to take. I'm more favoring integrity over glory. When you shift personal insults towards insults against the family, I think you can still capture much of the ancient Greek grudges.

Regarding mounts, I feel like the best use of dinosaurs is in the role of war elephants. :smallbiggrin: More Indian and Persian, and possibly a later period, but I think it still fits stylistically quite well.
Charriots are of course awesome, but they require battles in plains to have a plausible strong presence. Small scale action in forests or on water are one of the gimicks I want to go with.

Kiero
2018-08-06, 08:51 AM
I was thinking about unarmed combat yesterday as well. While "boxing" and "wrestling" aren't making most people immediately think of kung fu, that's very much what it is. Not quite sure how I want to handle it in Barbarians of Lemuria (by the book it's just nonlethal damage), but I think making unarmed attacks ignore armor feels like a good start.


Pankration was more than just boxing and wrestling, the notion that "real martial arts" was only an eastern phenomenon is a myth. While people are reconstructing from fragmentary evidence when trying to recreate ancient pankration, I wouldn't be surprised if it had kicking in it too. The ergonomics of the human body, upon which all martial arts are based, is universal.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-06, 09:57 AM
Well, I don't think people killing each other naturally lends itself to happy endings. But remember that Greek tragedies basically all involve convoluted family relationships where there are no good actions that anyone can take. It's brother against brother, husband against wife, parents against children, grandchildren/cousins fighting each other. Nobody ought to be killing anyone in these scenarios, but somebody always steps over the line and something horrible happens, dooming their descendants to unending conflict and tragedy until the rule of law supplants the old ways (in Aeschylus' Eumenides). In kung fu movies/wuxia, there is a bit more chivalry involved and a bit less divinely-ordained fate/obligation which drives Greek stories. You can call someone out for their offense against you or your family, and both can agree to a fair-play contest that both sides agree will be final and binding - you often even see some form of contract that stipulates no-revenge seeking in the event of death. Of course, challenge can follow challenge, and so even if it isn't called "revenge", someone simply seeking to prove their strength can ask for a duel to the death to establish their reputation.

It really depends on what role the players will have in this world. In Homer and Greek stories, the heroes are all chieftains/nobility who are either proving themselves worthy of their inheritance, engaging in feuds or raids against other clans, or defending their right to rule against would-be usurpers. In wuxia Lakes and Rivers type stories, you have itinerant warriors upholding their individual honor and proving their skills in a relatively lawless land on the fringes of civilization. Honor and strength are very important in both, but the aims of these characters are very different. For the Greeks, the ends mostly justify the means - someone who deserves to die deserves to die, you don't challenge them to a duel. You put a spear through their throat before they have a chance to get up from the dinner table. The aim is to be known and accepted as the rightful chief of the community, and have respect among other chieftains. The consequences of failing to save face, of not killing someone that should be killed, is potential challenges to your authority to rule from within your clan and potential increased attacks from others who think who might lack the strength to punish them for it. But smart rulers could use debt to their advantage, and if you can force someone into your service because of the wrong they have done, maybe even earn their loyalty, you now have an extra ally against other threats. The question is always knowing who to trust, to whom to give a second chance, and who absolutely needs to die in order to keep your reputation and power intact.

The xia don't generally have any political or social clout, they have only their individual reputations as warriors. So the consequence of showing mercy on someone that has done wrong will not necessarily be severe, there might not be any at all, it might even earn them a new friend. The worst will be that the person still sees you as an enemy and might come back to try to hurt you later.

I can see a world that combines Homeric Greek culture with wuxia/kung fu movie society - you have no overall authority, only enclaves ruled by warrior chieftains like Homeric Greece. They make alliances with one another, some might be ancestral enemies and conduct raids against each other, but all are self contained and self-sufficient, engaging in trade mostly for political purposes. Each of these enclaves also practices a distinct martial arts style, and warriors gain reputation by traveling through the land challenging warriors of the other clans (preferably in honorable duels) and overcoming the hardships of the untamed regions in between the enclaves (that are mostly too rugged or otherwise unsuitable for farming or wide habitation). Tale-tellers travel between the settlements, observing and singing songs of heroics, like Greek poets, but reporting on contemporary things as well as preserving old tales.


This actually ends up sounding somewhat like the "4th century BCE" setting I was (kinda am) working on.

There are city-states, and the remnants of an ancient road network that connect them, but away from the cities and the "road towns", out past the fields and pastures, things quick become isolated and/or untamed.

The rule of law and the rule of "personal honor" exist in a conceptual love-hate relationship, sometimes reinforcing each other, sometimes violently contradicting each other.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-06, 12:23 PM
My impression is that Greek glory is pretty much all about results. Aside from personal insults, the composure and conduct of great warriors does not seem to be important to their glory. On the other hand, Chinese respect seems to put a great importance on personal integrity. Backing up and being shamed is frequently considered as a viable option and the internal conflict is about abandoning your duties to family and teachers.

I'm not sure if these two approaches to personal improvement can be consolidated. They seem to be fundamentally opposed. Which I think is a case where you simply have to make a choice which direction to take. I'm more favoring integrity over glory. When you shift personal insults towards insults against the family, I think you can still capture much of the ancient Greek grudges.


Someone here, maybe Kiero, has talked about the movement in Greek thinking from emphasizing individual renown and glory (kleos) gained mainly in great deeds and warfare, to overall accomplishment and excellence as an individual and social virtue (arete).

Thrudd
2018-08-06, 03:13 PM
Note: martial arts does not just mean unarmed fighting. It is any sort of combat skill, which obviously and especially includes weapons. In wuxia fantasy, most people are not running around unarmed. The shaolin guy who chooses to go unarmed, with the magical impervious iron shirt kung fu and arms and legs that hit like they are made of steel, would be an outlier among warriors who generally are going to be armed with swords and spears and every other kind of weapon you can think of. Different schools or masters may specialize in certain weapons, or teach different strategies - like one may be especially defensive and makes a few very precise or powerful attacks, another may teach rapid attack sequences that tries to wear the opponent down with small wounds, another might specialize in sneaky tactics and hidden weapons, etc.

In respect to gaining wisdom/enlightenment and personal excellence, the question is how abstract do you want it to be. One approach is to award this basically as XP as the reward for their performance in the adventures, which in turn is used to advance the characters' abilities. You just call it "wisdom" or "enlightenment" instead of "experience", abstractly replicating the process of gaining personal wisdom. Rather than this, you could have more specific in-world goals that they need to meet in order to gain certain abilities. If they want to gain more spiritual power, they need to seek out a source of spiritual knowledge and then perform certain specified actions. Like you find an oracle or a scroll that says to increase your chi, you can imbibe a potion made of the ichor of a living shadow beast. Now the character has an in-world task and reward.

You could think of a number of different possible goals, different tracks of wisdom and excellence to pursue. One path might be seeking supreme health, longevity, immortality. Another is seeking perfect mind, awareness, maybe even transcendence of the physical. There might be a path of physical perfection, strength, agility. players gain new abilities for their characters by finding sources of knowledge of these different paths, completing specified trials.

Here's a possible system outline- character have one or more sets of "power points". These are earned as they overcome challenges - defeating opponents, surviving things, etc. In order to gain the benefits of different excellence paths, they either need to spend power points or meet a minimum threshold of power points. you could also think about connecting reputation to power points, having a track of virtuous reputation points and infamous reputation points that get awarded based on players performance and behavior in their trials as well. It may be necessary to have enough virtue points for a teacher (or god or other source) to accept you or to allow you access to another level of wisdom/secrets.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-06, 03:28 PM
The QIN setting (http://cubicle7.co.uk/what-is-qin/) might be a good resource for game-focused "warring states" info.

Oddly, given the prominent place assigned to it in conventional "western" history, ancient Greece has a dearth of RPG material focused on it. Best I've come across is the GURPS Greece (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/greece/) supplement.

I backed a new game, The Lost Age (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thumosgames/the-lost-age-rpg/description), that might give some inspiration for blended / unique settings that don't follow all the standard fantasy tropes.

gkathellar
2018-08-06, 07:23 PM
Those were more examples than anything - Qin China is not Song China is not the Warring States period is not Five Dynasties and Ten States China. Some of these stand out more immediately than others though, and in the context of a setting that's pulling wide but not deep where China as a whole is but one inspiration those particular examples fit well. Whereas if (for example) we were doing a dive into the material culture of Qing/Manchu China in particular the potato would have a notable spot on that list, where it currently has a very deliberate absence.

It's also worth noting that, Bronze Age accuracy or no, if the point here is to look like "Ancient China," one of the best way to do that is to have the sort of unusually strong state bureaucracy that people think of with respect to that ambiguously defined, imaginary point of reference. Once you start babbling about imperial examinations and the mandate of heaven and whatnot, people sit back and say, "Oh, I know what set of tropes this is grounded in."


The general idea of the setting are bronze age city states scattered along a coast and islands like the Minoans and Myceneans, but adventures focusing on a sub-culture of mystic experts, like the kung fu masters of Wuxia. Just with more focus on knowledge to manipulate spirits than martial arts.
Not completely sure how well it works to decouple Wuxia from the imperial state, but a lot of stories take place in the most remote backwaters where the state has barely any presence at all, except for the village leader taking his legitimacy from the office of imperial magistrate. I think this should also work well enough with minor nobles belonging to a city state.

The big thing to understand about wuxia, as a genre, is that it's not really about swords and backflips and shouting "hidden three yin explosion!" Those are the clothes it wears and the lipstick it puts on, but wuxia at its best is about the conflict between the individual and temporal power structures, as expressed by swords and backflips and shouting "antelope leaps over the battle formations!"

The core of this is the way wuxia grounds itself in a sort of parallel society, referred to as Jiang Hu, which literally means, "rivers and lakes," in reference to the itinerant lifestyle at its core. This is the shared social reality of martial artists, which occupies many of the same physical spaces as the broader Chinese society, but remains discrete, with its own norms, its own customs, its own history, and its own leadership. Honor, respect, loyalty, and personal strength are prized in Jiang Hu, while the importance of social harmony and hierarchy is comparatively diminished, and many class and gender norms are discarded entirely (vagrancy, in particular, is acceptable in Jiang Hu, and indeed the penniless, homeless youxia, or "wandering hero," is the heart and soul of the wuxia genre). Reputation and kung fu lineage take the place of political clout and family status, and on a personal level one's relationships with their sifu and their kung fu brothers and sisters may be of equal or greater import to the family they were born into. Fighters drift around the countryside righting wrongs and getting into duels, and occasionally drifting through the temples, medical clinics, mercenary companies, and secret societies that are Jiang Hu's institutional bedrock - of particular note in a lot of wuxia stories is the "beggars' society," an organization of kung fu experts that assume the collective identity of the penniless beggar and live in voluntary poverty so that they can get away with beating the snot out of criminals and corrupt government officials (yes, a lot of wuxia has a secret society of homeless kung fu superheroes in the background).

Wuxia stories sometimes take place entirely in the strange world Jiang Hu, but many of the best ones are born in the friction between its idealized kung fu meritocracy and the prosaic world everyone else lives in. Government officials may not take kindly to scruffy young people with swords wandering around like they own the place, and it may only take one fighter to completely destroy a balance of power they don't fully understand. Youxia searching for injustice can find themselves confounded by the messiness of reality, targeted by those who want to take advantage of their violent power, or simply caught between their lifestyle and their human desires. Fighters who have escaped into Jiang Hu from the obligations of their old lives may find themselves still in the crosshairs of whatever they thought they left behind (this is especially true for young noblewomen who are being forced into arranged marriages but really just want to cut guys' heads off), while those who have a sudden need to make inroads into polite society may be confounded by its impenetrability to someone whose entire skillset is "punch dudes, flip, shout a bunch." Established figures often have second lives as doctors, herbalists, priests, monks, mercenaries, spies, soldiers and even low-ranking government officials, and may be trapped between the demands of their two lifestyles. Masters also become responsible for policing Jiang Hu and protecting its reputation, even while protecting it from the power blocs that try to rein it in and control it.

All of this is typically presented with soap opera grandiosity, which makes wuxia a tonal balancing act between the excitement of pugilism and the melodrama of being a warrior of justice in a complicated world. At its heart is the notion of a parallel social reality of murderhobos, and the struggle of living in and protecting the shared murderhobo experience, and trying to keep one's good alignment. What makes a story wuxia isn't just being a murderhobo, but the notion the murderhobo-ing is an established culture that exists side-by-side with that of everybody else.


I was thinking about unarmed combat yesterday as well. While "boxing" and "wrestling" aren't making most people immediately think of kung fu, that's very much what it is.

The general-use term for a martial artist translates as "boxer," and plenty of stories will make it clear that a guy's a real badass by saying, something like "he had the thick neck of a boxer." Lots of Chinese martial art names are also best translated as "XYZ boxing" ("XYZ fist" is common and more literal but sort of misses the larger connotation of the word). Tai Chi Chuan can be rendered as "Two Great Extremes Boxing," Hsing Yi Chuan is "Form Intention Boxing," etc. Even more recently, if you go listen to old interviews of folks like Bruce Lee talking about Chinese martial arts, he describes it as "Chinese boxing."


My impression is that Greek glory is pretty much all about results. Aside from personal insults, the composure and conduct of great warriors does not seem to be important to their glory. On the other hand, Chinese respect seems to put a great importance on personal integrity. Backing up and being shamed is frequently considered as a viable option and the internal conflict is about abandoning your duties to family and teachers.
I'm not sure if these two approaches to personal improvement can be consolidated. They seem to be fundamentally opposed. Which I think is a case where you simply have to make a choice which direction to take. I'm more favoring integrity over glory. When you shift personal insults towards insults against the family, I think you can still capture much of the ancient Greek grudges.

I disagree. For one thing, that whole integrity thing? That's more of a Jiang Hu thing. I would say wuxia generally presupposes a broader culture that cares a lot more about harmony and order than anything else, so that it can place its heroes in contrast to that. Even in that broader culture, face is a big deal, and people will do crazy things to avoid being humiliated. It's just a different type of face, less about braggadocio and more about, "look how I am the model of the five relationships aren't I awesome?"

And remember, wuxia in particular is all about true hearts and loyalty - that is to say, outsize passions and honor conflicts. Like, say your kung fu brother turns evil? Chances are good that it's now your job to put him down, to defend the honor of your lineage both in the good-evil sense and also in the sense that if somebody else does it your school has now been defeated. Since Jiang Hu pretty much runs on reputation, face and honor are huge.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-06, 08:14 PM
The big thing to understand about wuxia, as a genre, is that it's not really about swords and backflips and shouting "hidden three yin explosion!" Those are the clothes it wears and the lipstick it puts on, but wuxia at its best is about the conflict between the individual and temporal power structures, as expressed by swords and backflips and shouting "antelope leaps over the battle formations!"

The core of this is the way wuxia grounds itself in a sort of parallel society, referred to as Jiang Hu, which literally means, "rivers and lakes," in reference to the itinerant lifestyle at its core. This is the shared social reality of martial artists, which occupies many of the same physical spaces as the broader Chinese society, but remains discrete, with its own norms, its own customs, its own history, and its own leadership. Honor, respect, loyalty, and personal strength are prized in Jiang Hu, while the importance of social harmony and hierarchy is comparatively diminished, and many class and gender norms are discarded entirely (vagrancy, in particular, is acceptable in Jiang Hu, and indeed the penniless, homeless youxia, or "wandering hero," is the heart and soul of the wuxia genre). Reputation and kung fu lineage take the place of political clout and family status, and on a personal level one's relationships with their sifu and their kung fu brothers and sisters may be of equal or greater import to the family they were born into. Fighters drift around the countryside righting wrongs and getting into duels, and occasionally drifting through the temples, medical clinics, mercenary companies, and secret societies that are Jiang Hu's institutional bedrock - of particular note in a lot of wuxia stories is the "beggars' society," an organization of kung fu experts that assume the collective identity of the penniless beggar and live in voluntary poverty so that they can get away with beating the snot out of criminals and corrupt government officials (yes, a lot of wuxia has a secret society of homeless kung fu superheroes in the background).

Wuxia stories sometimes take place entirely in the strange world Jiang Hu, but many of the best ones are born in the friction between its idealized kung fu meritocracy and the prosaic world everyone else lives in. Government officials may not take kindly to scruffy young people with swords wandering around like they own the place, and it may only take one fighter to completely destroy a balance of power they don't fully understand. Youxia searching for injustice can find themselves confounded by the messiness of reality, targeted by those who want to take advantage of their violent power, or simply caught between their lifestyle and their human desires. Fighters who have escaped into Jiang Hu from the obligations of their old lives may find themselves still in the crosshairs of whatever they thought they left behind (this is especially true for young noblewomen who are being forced into arranged marriages but really just want to cut guys' heads off), while those who have a sudden need to make inroads into polite society may be confounded by its impenetrability to someone whose entire skillset is "punch dudes, flip, shout a bunch." Established figures often have second lives as doctors, herbalists, priests, monks, mercenaries, spies, soldiers and even low-ranking government officials, and may be trapped between the demands of their two lifestyles. Masters also become responsible for policing Jiang Hu and protecting its reputation, even while protecting it from the power blocs that try to rein it in and control it.

All of this is typically presented with soap opera grandiosity, which makes wuxia a tonal balancing act between the excitement of pugilism and the melodrama of being a warrior of justice in a complicated world. At its heart is the notion of a parallel social reality of murderhobos, and the struggle of living in and protecting the shared murderhobo experience, and trying to keep one's good alignment. What makes a story wuxia isn't just being a murderhobo, but the notion the murderhobo-ing is an established culture that exists side-by-side with that of everybody else.


That description probably nails it on the head, as it immediately brings to mind the setting described in Qin, which is pretty much "Wuxia Warring States, the Game".




I disagree. For one thing, that whole integrity thing? That's more of a Jiang Hu thing. I would say wuxia generally presupposes a broader culture that cares a lot more about harmony and order than anything else, so that it can place its heroes in contrast to that. Even in that broader culture, face is a big deal, and people will do crazy things to avoid being humiliated. It's just a different type of face, less about braggadocio and more about, "look how I am the model of the five relationships aren't I awesome?"

And remember, wuxia in particular is all about true hearts and loyalty - that is to say, outsize passions and honor conflicts. Like, say your kung fu brother turns evil? Chances are good that it's now your job to put him down, to defend the honor of your lineage both in the good-evil sense and also in the sense that if somebody else does it your school has now been defeated. Since Jiang Hu pretty much runs on reputation, face and honor are huge.


Indeed, the broader culture and political structure is one that will accept injustice if it maintains order (especially order that supports those in power), and will ruthlessly reject justice that threatens order (especially if it threatens order that supports those in power).

Yora
2018-08-07, 03:18 AM
I think it's really the setting of jianghu and the dynamics of the wulin that I find the most compelling about wuxia. This is the main aspect that I would like to somehow integrate into a mediterranean Bronze Age environment with Greek city state kingdoms.

Beneath
2018-08-07, 12:26 PM
So the setting you're looking for is, like, if someone were to do a wuxia Iliad(/heroic Greece more generally) in a world of dinosaurs and giant insects?

Sounds like a fun setting

One thing to look at is that the reason Greece tended to be so much toward the small city-states side of things rather than unifying until it did is because it's so mountainous that the logistics of empire-building are much more difficult than the logistics of defending against empire (Thermopylae is but one example). If you go fully Greek though and make people sail everywhere that might give your youxia PCs more trouble than you'd like, especially if regular shipping isn't as much of a thing as it is in more stable ages (this is probably why all the heroes of the Iliad are petty kings). But basically the same forces that keep polities small make wandering independently difficult.

If you do want people without social ties to be able to get to where they want to be by sea, that might be a reason to have an emperor who is stronger than I suggested earlier, if only to be able to make sure the ships sail regularly. Every other power might have been doled out to local nobles, but the emperor makes sure the ships sail regularly and any noble who tries to take too much control over their ports and interfere with this gets smacked down by the rest.

A mountainous wilderness that's nigh-impassible and full of monsters (like in Greek myth) is also a great place to put secretive temples and fortresses of all kinds.

Nifft
2018-08-07, 12:43 PM
I think it's really the setting of jianghu and the dynamics of the wulin that I find the most compelling about wuxia. This is the main aspect that I would like to somehow integrate into a mediterranean Bronze Age environment with Greek city state kingdoms.

Could you fit the imperial bureaucracy / virtuous scholarship / meritocratic officer-by-examination thing into a Greek-esque city-state thing?

Maybe have a distant imperial presence, which sends periodic tax collectors & circuit judges around to uphold virtue throughout the lands, but travel is very dangerous because of monsters / spirits / druids / etc. and there's work for adventurers as these dangers appear.

For a Greek-esque slant, maybe each city-state has a legit protector deity whose power is limited in range, but very potent within the protected locale. This gives you safe-haven areas which might have magically enforced laws or magically fruitful customs, and could add to the sense of wonder as the PCs travel from place to place. It would also help explain why each city is different, in spite of the Wuxia-esque overarching imperial bureaucracy.

For a more swords-and-sorcery horror slant, maybe sometimes the protector deity isn't a god at all, but rather an evil spirit / fiend / dragon / aberration. Sure, there's a maze where you send sacrificial children, but it's not a minotaur lurking in the center. It's an Aboleth, and it's the shadowy mind behind the island city's maritime trade successes.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-07, 01:18 PM
I think it's really the setting of jianghu and the dynamics of the wulin that I find the most compelling about wuxia. This is the main aspect that I would like to somehow integrate into a mediterranean Bronze Age environment with Greek city state kingdoms.


Could you fit the imperial bureaucracy / virtuous scholarship / meritocratic officer-by-examination thing into a Greek-esque city-state thing?

Maybe have a distant imperial presence, which sends periodic tax collectors & circuit judges around to uphold virtue throughout the lands, but travel is very dangerous because of monsters / spirits / druids / etc. and there's work for adventurers as these dangers appear.

For a Greek-esque slant, maybe each city-state has a legit protector deity whose power is limited in range, but very potent within the protected locale. This gives you safe-haven areas which might have magically enforced laws or magically fruitful customs, and could add to the sense of wonder as the PCs travel from place to place. It would also help explain why each city is different, in spite of the Wuxia-esque overarching imperial bureaucracy.

For a more swords-and-sorcery horror slant, maybe sometimes the protector deity isn't a god at all, but rather an evil spirit / fiend / dragon / aberration. Sure, there's a maze where you send sacrificial children, but it's not a minotaur lurking in the center. It's an Aboleth, and it's the shadowy mind behind the island city's maritime trade successes.

Is an overarching Imperial structure necessary for the jianghu/Wulin "feel"?

Some of the same tension might be found in the displacement of "hero" culture by "civic" culture that occurred in Greece (especially in Greece's view of itself at a certain point), with the civic culture of later Greece (particularly Athens) baring some similarity to the "Imperial" culture of order and "each person in their place", and the wandering heroes of both cultures having some parallels.

Knaight
2018-08-07, 01:28 PM
Is an overarching Imperial structure necessary for the jianghu/Wulin "feel"?

Some of the same tension might be found in the displacement of "hero" culture by "civic" culture that occurred in Greece (especially in Greece's view of itself at a certain point), with the civic culture of later Greece (particularly Athens) baring some similarity to the "Imperial" culture of order and "each person in their place", and the wandering heroes of both cultures having some parallels.

I'd say it isn't, and that the civic culture would work just as well. The imperial structure is more a matter of signaling the use of Chinese history and literature as a source of inspiration, and if the jianghu side is what's largely wanted it can be dispensed with.

Also, as I'm sure you know but not everyone in the thread necessarily does the major greek city states often had a lot of influence well outside their borders. Athens was a powerful city state, yes, but it also had a whole bunch of colonies reporting to it. The same applies to a lot of other city states, and it applying to Sparta is a large part of the reason the Peloponnesian war was as large as it was.

That said, some of the specific clashes of values don't transfer quite as well. There's an element of a lot of wuxia where the values of the jianghu clash with Confucianism in particular, and Greece didn't have that.

Yora
2018-08-07, 01:36 PM
I had this idea that in three of the cities, the rulers take the Bronze Age model of the priest-king, who represents the people before the gods, to the point of presenting themselves as god-kings. Which actually did happen in Egypt. I intended to make them somewhat like the sorcerer kings in Dark Sun and give them an army of templars. But like in Dark Sun, templars don't just need to be temple soldiers but can also make up the administrative staff of the city. This can really be shaped to be very much like the imperial adminstrative service, just with a slight reflavoring of making all civil servants also priests or acolytes.

And I just happened to be watching something about Dark Souls 3 when checking the forum and in that setting the gods are all ascended humans who acquired the divine essence of their slain predecessors.
How about instead of everyone (in the supernatural scholar community) seeking for wisdom, the goal is to cultivate yourself and discover the occult knowledge to gain divinity. There's a similar thing going on in Dark Sun.
And it just happens that the recently popular xianxia genre has its focus on the pursuit of obtaining immortality, which I assume means more than just infinite lifespan.

And of course, demigods are no strangers to Greek myth. Most of them are born with divine essence, but I think there is also the implication that one can reach a similar state by gaining the favor of the gods through extraordinary heroic deeds.

Even if not all PCs are trying to become immortal gods, it still makes for a great motivation for antagonists. For the sake of keeping things reasonably down to earth, I would make it a sudden transformation and not a gradual development. With the later you'd be back to a zero to hero setting, which would be more zero to superhero. Which is not my type of tea. I think truly ascended god kings should be unplayable and unfightable. But as a context for why everyone is fighting over relics and scraps of esoteric writing I find it quite appealing,

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-07, 02:05 PM
I'd say it isn't, and that the civic culture would work just as well. The imperial structure is more a matter of signaling the use of Chinese history and literature as a source of inspiration, and if the jianghu side is what's largely wanted it can be dispensed with.

Also, as I'm sure you know but not everyone in the thread necessarily does the major greek city states often had a lot of influence well outside their borders. Athens was a powerful city state, yes, but it also had a whole bunch of colonies reporting to it. The same applies to a lot of other city states, and it applying to Sparta is a large part of the reason the Peloponnesian war was as large as it was.


True, and interlaced networks of "alliances" with the dominant polities seeking to enforce their practices and policies on the lesser polities could function in place of a singular "imperial" bureaucracy. "notAthens" has "inspectors" in place to ensure that the local city-state isn't making secret alliances, holding back funds from the "alliance", or otherwise getting out of line.




That said, some of the specific clashes of values don't transfer quite as well. There's an element of a lot of wuxia where the values of the jianghu clash with Confucianism in particular, and Greece didn't have that.


I think some of that conflict can be replaced with or merged with a more Greek conflict.

IIRC, there was a point when Athens had strict rules on tomb-building, in part so that a family couldn't turn the tomb of a famous relative into a defacto temple to a new hero cult. See also practice of Ostracism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism), sometimes considered a way to keep anyone from gaining too much fame and power and influence.

To me, this seems like a conflict between the individual hero living on their own terms, and the structured order of the civil culture expecting dedication to the greater polity.

gkathellar
2018-08-07, 02:19 PM
Is an overarching Imperial structure necessary for the jianghu/Wulin "feel"?

Some of the same tension might be found in the displacement of "hero" culture by "civic" culture that occurred in Greece (especially in Greece's view of itself at a certain point), with the civic culture of later Greece (particularly Athens) baring some similarity to the "Imperial" culture of order and "each person in their place", and the wandering heroes of both cultures having some parallels.

You can also have some of both, if you assume a ruling dynasty that's currently in decline, with evil ministers and petty nobility jockeying to create their own little obedient fiefdoms.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-07, 02:23 PM
I had this idea that in three of the cities, the rulers take the Bronze Age model of the priest-king, who represents the people before the gods, to the point of presenting themselves as god-kings. Which actually did happen in Egypt. I intended to make them somewhat like the sorcerer kings in Dark Sun and give them an army of templars. But like in Dark Sun, templars don't just need to be temple soldiers but can also make up the administrative staff of the city. This can really be shaped to be very much like the imperial adminstrative service, just with a slight reflavoring of making all civil servants also priests or acolytes.

And I just happened to be watching something about Dark Souls 3 when checking the forum and in that setting the gods are all ascended humans who acquired the divine essence of their slain predecessors.

How about instead of everyone (in the supernatural scholar community) seeking for wisdom, the goal is to cultivate yourself and discover the occult knowledge to gain divinity. There's a similar thing going on in Dark Sun.

And it just happens that the recently popular xianxia genre has its focus on the pursuit of obtaining immortality, which I assume means more than just infinite lifespan.

And of course, demigods are no strangers to Greek myth. Most of them are born with divine essence, but I think there is also the implication that one can reach a similar state by gaining the favor of the gods through extraordinary heroic deeds.

Even if not all PCs are trying to become immortal gods, it still makes for a great motivation for antagonists. For the sake of keeping things reasonably down to earth, I would make it a sudden transformation and not a gradual development. With the later you'd be back to a zero to hero setting, which would be more zero to superhero. Which is not my type of tea. I think truly ascended god kings should be unplayable and unfightable. But as a context for why everyone is fighting over relics and scraps of esoteric writing I find it quite appealing,

I don't think that outright "god kings" fit either culture, or a Greco-Chinese fusion. They're far more fitting for a Sumerian or Persian or Egyptian "expy".

In Greek myth, even when demigods become rulers, their lines usually don't last -- there's no "divine right", and their rule often ends in tragedy.

In China, the quest for immortality is far more personal and often in the form of aestheticism and/or alchemy.

Yora
2018-08-07, 03:02 PM
That's true, for semi-historical campaigns. But as you said, it's not a concept foreign to both the general period or geographic region. I don't think it would feel out of place in a fantastical setting that takes thematic inspirations from multiple different cultures.

The vague image in my head is that of lower aristocrats and ambitious scholars seeking immortality as a means to becoming kings. There are a few precedences of that actually working, but it's not the default way that cities are run. That would be more the priest-kings whose legitimacy comes from being the wealthiest patriarchs of their region and their efforts to maintain the goodwill of local mountains and river gods. Which I guess does have some similarities to the mandate of haven, but that assumes that the king has been appointed by the gods. I believe in Bronze Age tribal confederations that grow into city states, the idea is more of a high priest appointed by the people who gets to keep his job for as long as the people are happy with the results he delivers. The "people" here mostly being the patriarchs of the other aristorcratic families.

Thrudd
2018-08-07, 03:11 PM
I had this idea that in three of the cities, the rulers take the Bronze Age model of the priest-king, who represents the people before the gods, to the point of presenting themselves as god-kings. Which actually did happen in Egypt. I intended to make them somewhat like the sorcerer kings in Dark Sun and give them an army of templars. But like in Dark Sun, templars don't just need to be temple soldiers but can also make up the administrative staff of the city. This can really be shaped to be very much like the imperial adminstrative service, just with a slight reflavoring of making all civil servants also priests or acolytes.

And I just happened to be watching something about Dark Souls 3 when checking the forum and in that setting the gods are all ascended humans who acquired the divine essence of their slain predecessors.
How about instead of everyone (in the supernatural scholar community) seeking for wisdom, the goal is to cultivate yourself and discover the occult knowledge to gain divinity. There's a similar thing going on in Dark Sun.
And it just happens that the recently popular xianxia genre has its focus on the pursuit of obtaining immortality, which I assume means more than just infinite lifespan.

And of course, demigods are no strangers to Greek myth. Most of them are born with divine essence, but I think there is also the implication that one can reach a similar state by gaining the favor of the gods through extraordinary heroic deeds.

Even if not all PCs are trying to become immortal gods, it still makes for a great motivation for antagonists. For the sake of keeping things reasonably down to earth, I would make it a sudden transformation and not a gradual development. With the later you'd be back to a zero to hero setting, which would be more zero to superhero. Which is not my type of tea. I think truly ascended god kings should be unplayable and unfightable. But as a context for why everyone is fighting over relics and scraps of esoteric writing I find it quite appealing,

Society organized around central palaces with a priest/king is not too far off from the palace society of Mycenaeans and Minoans. There was a hierarchy in place, different ranks of bureaucrats, administrators and religious officials, working out of the palace which was administrative, religious and commercial center as well as storehouse and distribution center. The difference is that they didn't seem to view the palace ruler as divine in the same way as Egyptians and Mesopotamians, there were separate religious leaders. The palace was a center for certain aspects of religious life, but there were also caves and mountain top sanctuaries that served important roles, and probably rituals involving processions from the palace to the wilderness sanctuaries (which remained a tradition in Greek religion in some form for over a millennium).

Definitely, Greek myths see the rulers of these palace kingdoms as demi-gods, they are almost all the descendants of one god or another. They aren't worshipped as proxies for their divine parents, but there's no reason they couldn't be in your fictional world.

Cluedrew
2018-08-07, 03:27 PM
Even if not all PCs are trying to become immortal gods, it still makes for a great motivation for antagonists. For the sake of keeping things reasonably down to earth, I would make it a sudden transformation and not a gradual development. With the later you'd be back to a zero to hero setting, which would be more zero to superhero. Which is not my type of tea. I think truly ascended god kings should be unplayable and unfightable. But as a context for why everyone is fighting over relics and scraps of esoteric writing I find it quite appealing,Or you could break it into several distinct stages.

Normal: Starting from 0. Normal people, and by normal I mean usually background NPCs.
Beginning: Where most PCs and characters notable for their personal power are. Only a step above the normal group, and still ways below even the next one.
Ending: A sort of transitional state, extremely powerful but also limited in many ways. The two uses of this in my mind are for REALLY big boss fights (give the players one last crack at stopping the villain) and some great spirit-type things that are almost personified forces of nature.
Complete: The god endgame that people are aiming for. Not even entirely physically present in the world.

A part of the advantage of the system is it give a nice blanket answer for why the PCs are all so awesome. You may not want that, I know there are people who don't like the idea of inherent specialness. But it does give space for powerful, but inherently limited, beings which are real convenient for creating enemies. Not sure if that is a problem for you though.

I will tack on one comment on the end. Which is I wouldn't try to emulate many of the Greek stories. Many of them are about wars, getting people to fight in wars and the aftermath of wars. That is not terrible but it doesn't quite seem to match what you are going for. Plus wars tend not swayed by individuals as much, even if we sometimes tell it like that.

Knaight
2018-08-07, 03:45 PM
A part of the advantage of the system is it give a nice blanket answer for why the PCs are all so awesome. You may not want that, I know there are people who don't like the idea of inherent specialness. But it does give space for powerful, but inherently limited, beings which are real convenient for creating enemies. Not sure if that is a problem for you though.

The inherent specialness is another one of those conflicts. It's about as Greek hero as it gets, with the vast majority of them being inherently special for some reason or other, with more than a few having divine heritage. Wuxia? Wuxia spits in the face of that entire concept - a lot of the heroes are still aristocrats, sure, but basically all the normal nobility and bureaucracy up to but just shy of the emperor are suspect at best.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-07, 04:07 PM
Society organized around central palaces with a priest/king is not too far off from the palace society of Mycenaeans and Minoans. There was a hierarchy in place, different ranks of bureaucrats, administrators and religious officials, working out of the palace which was administrative, religious and commercial center as well as storehouse and distribution center. The difference is that they didn't seem to view the palace ruler as divine in the same way as Egyptians and Mesopotamians, there were separate religious leaders. The palace was a center for certain aspects of religious life, but there were also caves and mountain top sanctuaries that served important roles, and probably rituals involving processions from the palace to the wilderness sanctuaries (which remained a tradition in Greek religion in some form for over a millennium).

Definitely, Greek myths see the rulers of these palace kingdoms as demi-gods, they are almost all the descendants of one god or another. They aren't worshipped as proxies for their divine parents, but there's no reason they couldn't be in your fictional world.

Regarding the part I bolded, to me, there's a distinct line between priest-kings, and god-kings.

Thrudd
2018-08-07, 04:28 PM
Regarding the part I bolded, to me, there's a distinct line between priest-kings, and god-kings.

There's definitely a distinct line. But the similarity is in centralized bureaucracy with a single all-powerful ruler, operating out of a massive building complex (often fortified). In Mesopotamia they are walled cities with a ziggurat in the middle. On Crete and Greece, they are not quite as large or well fortified, and the central building/palace might have had more functions than the Ziggurat did (maybe because the natural geography made large attacks more difficult). Whether the ruler was seen as divine himself or as a chosen intermediary, the politics are about the same: divine or no, rule can be contested and rulers died and were killed all the time. Their status didn't stop other, equally "divine" people from trying to take power. The way the religion functions would be different. In a fantasy world, the difference will be larger if a king actually has divine powers, and/or is immortal. Although the politics might end up about the same, since other people can work to gain divine powers of their own and challenge the rulers. It's just a fantasy exaggeration of the historical distinction between aristocracy and the commoners - and also makes uprisings of the lower classes much less likely.

gkathellar
2018-08-07, 06:46 PM
Here's a question: what is the nature of evil in this setting? Does evil arise from hubris and ignoring divine law, a sort of natural process brought about by divine embodiments of vengeance and destructive irony? Is it the result of the distortion of nature and the proper order of things, and if so, whose order? Is there a difference between the petty evils of human beings and the capital-e Evils of the divine? If you asked people in the setting, how would they answer? Are they right? How subjective are these questions?


The vague image in my head is that of lower aristocrats and ambitious scholars seeking immortality as a means to becoming kings. There are a few precedences of that actually working, but it's not the default way that cities are run.

My concern is that this cuts out a recurring motif in both Greek and Chinese mythology: namely, the king's doomed efforts to forestall death. The Greek version of this trope is more about hubris and the consequences of attempting to cheat death, while the Chinese iteration centers on the way that the type of person who rules an empire and the type of person who can achieve immortality are not convergent classes of person (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Mother_of_the_West#King_Mu_of_the_Zhou_dynas ty), but in either case a big deal is made about the limitations of temporal power. The main difference is that in Chinese folklore folks actually can achieve immortality - but they tend not to stick around after, typically faking their deaths or else just wandering off towards heaven in a drunken haze (many Taoist traditions depict immortals as perpetually intoxicated).


That would be more the priest-kings whose legitimacy comes from being the wealthiest patriarchs of their region and their efforts to maintain the goodwill of local mountains and river gods. Which I guess does have some similarities to the mandate of haven, but that assumes that the king has been appointed by the gods. I believe in Bronze Age tribal confederations that grow into city states, the idea is more of a high priest appointed by the people who gets to keep his job for as long as the people are happy with the results he delivers. The "people" here mostly being the patriarchs of the other aristorcratic families.

That's actually not far from the historical function of the Emperor, who was among other things the intermediary between the Celestial Bureaucracy and the Middle Kingdom, and had a variety of ritual duties (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Heaven) meant to foster that relationship. There's a material component to this, and the Mandate of Heaven can be seen as a sort of gauge of good government - an Emperor who doesn't have his priorities in order will fail to prepare for the worst, and so when the worst happens, people will say, "Thousands were killed in the floods! Plague ravages the countryside! Barbarians are on our very doorstep! Clearly the Emperor is no longer favored by Heaven!" It's how dynasties ended, a lot of the time.

All of this discussion of gods and god-kings also raises another question: how is Heaven organized? (Is it organized?) Is there a Jade Emperor who presides over the divine beings of the Celestial Bureaucracy? Do the Immortals all wander around Mt. Penglai drunk? Are the Buddha's five fingers the five directional pillars of the cosmos, and does he kick back on the Spirit Mountain in the West with his various enlightened homies? Chinese mythology really, really loves to categorize and enumerate the various astrological houses and heavenly bureaus and chief administrators and whatnot - how much do you want to get into that? Depending on the way you spin it, a city or two run by a literal god may not be unreasonable.


The inherent specialness is another one of those conflicts. It's about as Greek hero as it gets, with the vast majority of them being inherently special for some reason or other, with more than a few having divine heritage. Wuxia? Wuxia spits in the face of that entire concept - a lot of the heroes are still aristocrats, sure, but basically all the normal nobility and bureaucracy up to but just shy of the emperor are suspect at best.

Indeed. Wuxia has a lot of roots in peasant folk heroes and folklore surrounding the Taoist immortals (Lu Dongbin and Iron Crutch Li in particular), and looks askance, at the very least, at the entire social hierarchy. Moreover, a big part of Jiang Hu's premise is that its inhabitants are, at least in their context as fighters, unwelcome in traditional power structures (this is a real thing - my sifu recently had to move his studio in Chinatown because the building owners didn't like having a martial arts school on the premises). If and when they have status in the mainstream, it's always in a mainstream context. The oft-depicted Shaolin and Wudang, for instance, are first and foremost religious organizations, and their relationship with Jiang Hu can be a source of problems. None of this quite works if having superpowers elevates you socially, as there's no reason for a parallel culture that celebrates self-cultivation and adventuring if self-cultivation and adventuring are already exalted ways of life.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-07, 07:12 PM
It seems like there's an inherent tension between Taoism and Confucianism in wuxia.

Can a parallel be tension be found in ancient Greek thinking, thus drawing the two together? That's what I've been trying to figure out so far.

Thrudd
2018-08-07, 09:31 PM
It seems like there's an inherent tension between Taoism and Confucianism in wuxia.

Can a parallel be tension be found in ancient Greek thinking, thus drawing the two together? That's what I've been trying to figure out so far.

The tension in Greek myths could be seen in a number of levels. There isn't any sort of religious or philosophical tension like you see between Chinese traditions. But there is often a tension in having to choose between one virtue or another, competing loyalties. What is right to do when there is nothing but wrong choices? Which custom to obey? Do I avenge my father or be a good son to my mother (his murderer)? I'm fated to die if I do this, but honor demands I do it. I must avenge a great wrong, but I need to commit a great wrong to fulfill my duty.

Yora
2018-08-08, 04:19 AM
Here's a question: what is the nature of evil in this setting? Does evil arise from hubris and ignoring divine law, a sort of natural process brought about by divine embodiments of vengeance and destructive irony? Is it the result of the distortion of nature and the proper order of things, and if so, whose order? Is there a difference between the petty evils of human beings and the capital-e Evils of the divine? If you asked people in the setting, how would they answer? Are they right? How subjective are these questions?

Now this is something about the setting which I think is mostly original and based on neither Greek nor Chinese thought. It's more the other way around in that I am looking for elements from ancient Greece and China that I can use to support it.
The core concept I am working with is that nature is neither pretty nor nice and that in the bigger picture people don't matter. The spirits that govern natural processes are not concerned about the wellbeing of mortals unless there is a specific agreement between an individual spirit and one community to exchange worship and offerings for protection from the randomness of weather, seasons, and natural disasters. Without the protection of a river or a mountain god, agriculture is not possible. Civilizatiion taking the form of city states led by priest kings is a direct result of that. But even in the best of circumstannces, such pacts between mortals and spirits only last for a couple of centuries and then the cities become unsustainable and have to be abandoned. And as far as anyone can remember, this is an eternal cycle of new cities being founded and then being reclaimed by the wilderness. (But without proper record keeping and ruins quickly being overgrown, who knows how long this has actually been going on so far?)
In previous campaigns I tried to make the game all about wilderness survival and dungeon exploration. But that didn't actually make a useful approach to wondrous encounters with the supernatural and mystical adventures.

I long had this idea to approach evil and chaos as "all troubles are caused by human greed, hatred, and pride". Which I think is neither very Greek nor Chinese, but actually much more buddhist. But I barely know anything about Indian mythology and the local cultures don't inspire me in the way these other two do.
There is no capital-E Evil and I don't even use the term evil at all. Spirits simply are. They do their things as they have been for all time and they don't consider people to be worth any more or less attention than any other animals. A powerful spirit that agrees to enforce an area in which nature does behave in much more predictable patterns is the exception. It's rare and there are only one or two dozen such places in the entire known world at any given time. Sometimes such a guardian spirit loses power or interest and it just can't be helped. But much more often this stability comes to an end because someone is disrupting it. And both these disruptions of the social order that maintains good relationships with the spirits, as well as personal conflicts, always start because someone is acting motivated by greed, by hatred, or by pride. Not necessarily as a fixed law of nature, but it's the narrative theme I want to work with as GM.
Greed is simple: Someone wants to have something and is willing to cause harm to other people or to society to get it. When this interferes with the rituals and offerings to the spirits, this can become a threat to the survivial of the city state.
Hatred means that someone wishes someone else to suffer harm or being denied something they want simply out of spite. Often caused by a perceived insult, or out of envy (which is basically a form of greed).
Pride is the feeling of entitlement to more. Be it to more power or recognition, or simply to more wealth (which again is greed). Greed and hatred are simple sins, generally directed against a specific object or target. In contrast, pride is not simply about wanting something, but the feeling of deserving something and having the right to it. And unlike the other two, it is never satisfied. Someone acting on pride always needs to get more power, fame, and wealth. It's the need to be continiously elevated above everyone else.

Because of this, the morality of the common people focuses on the three virtues of generosity, hospitality, and humility, which together with the rites and offerings to the spirits of the land makes up the mainstream religion. (There is also various mystery cults.) Which in theory should also apply to the aristocracy and merchants, but in practice these are much more vulnerable to greed and pride.
The three god kings claim to possess the supernatural power to maintain a region of stability around their cities and keeping the lesser spirits controlled. And for now it's actually working. But of course they are all consumed by pride and the people in othe city states (and some in their own) believe that nothing good can come of this in the long run. And in one other case, a city is ruled by a group of sorcerers who have created and maintain a powerful magical aura that lets them govern the environment directly and takes away control from the spirits entirely. In theory this makes them independent from unreliable spirits and allows their city to exist and even expand forever. But they don't understand the complexities of thousands of spirits working together to maintain the natural cycles that govern the land and as time progresses, more and more damage is being done to the environment, even though it's not obviously visible yet. The sorcerers are certain they will simply be able to fix any problems that will come up with the power they have over the land, but there are plenty of blighted areas haunted by undead covering the continent where previous sorcerers seem to have thought the same thing.

The difference to Greek myth is that no angry god will show up to smite them for their heretical ideas of controling the land better than the spirits do it. Instead it's an inevitable consequence of mortals not realizing that this world extends into spheres beyond their comprehension or even perception. It's a bit like Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror, with the main difference that mortals could continue to live in the modest prosperity and security of the city states forever if they simply accept their place in the middle of the hierarchy of beings. Individual cities will fall and be abandoned, but there will always be new ones.

gkathellar
2018-08-08, 09:42 AM
It seems like there's an inherent tension between Taoism and Confucianism in wuxia.

FWIW, that's not unique to wuxia. Taoist texts spend a perhaps-surprising amount of time badmouthing the Confucians.


Now this is something about the setting which I think is mostly original and based on neither Greek nor Chinese thought. It's more the other way around in that I am looking for elements from ancient Greece and China that I can use to support it.
[SPOILER]The core concept I am working with is that nature is neither pretty nor nice and that in the bigger picture people don't matter.

I think that's not as far from Ancient Greek or Taoist attitudes as it might seem, as both worldviews tend to view cosmic balance as something completely inescapable. In Greek myth, humans who step out of line get destroyed by Nemesis in return for their hubris (which doesn't even always constitute an action on their part, as is the case for characters like Medusa and Psyche, both of whom are victimized by the gods and then punished for their victimization). A lot of Taoist cosmology likewise portrays the balance of nature as brute fact in which human existence depends on a more-or-less fragile confluence of parameters; attempting to subvert or alter the behaviors of yin and yang, the five phases, or the eight trigrams is a disastrous and stupid thing to do, and if you're lucky it'll just get you killed instead of driving you insane or turning you into a hideous, poisonous monster. What's different is that in both of those worldviews (and in a lot of other ancient worldviews), natural forces and the gods are functionally blameless - "evil" is pretty much defined as "that which stands in opposition to the celestial order."


The spirits that govern natural processes are not concerned about the wellbeing of mortals unless there is a specific agreement between an individual spirit and one community to exchange worship and offerings for protection from the randomness of weather, seasons, and natural disasters. Without the protection of a river or a mountain god, agriculture is not possible. Civilizatiion taking the form of city states led by priest kings is a direct result of that. But even in the best of circumstannces, such pacts between mortals and spirits only last for a couple of centuries and then the cities become unsustainable and have to be abandoned. And as far as anyone can remember, this is an eternal cycle of new cities being founded and then being reclaimed by the wilderness. (But without proper record keeping and ruins quickly being overgrown, who knows how long this has actually been going on so far?)

This definitely has a lot of conceptual compatibility with the role of the Emperor (and the monarch in general) in Chinese history, although with a more local feel. The Mandate of Heaven was once explained to me as "allocating appropriate funding to levy construction on the Yangtze and Yellow River," so it seems reasonable that you could make that into "mandate of the local deities." Maybe we should be looking to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Dynasties_and_Ten_Kingdoms_period) for ideas, given you want a whole bunch of nominally-divine kings running city-states.

It also brings to mind the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula, who went through convulsions of civilization pretty much exactly like what you're describing, in which local kingdoms would emerge for a few hundred years, vanish into the jungle for one reason or another, and then be replaced by new kingdoms on the exact same spots. (Fun fact: this pattern was reinforced by the unusual geology of the region, which is basically all limestone and has no overland rivers, forcing the Maya to rely on sinkholes known as cenotes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenote) for basically all of their water requirements.)


I long had this idea to approach evil and chaos as "all troubles are caused by human greed, hatred, and pride". Which I think is neither very Greek nor Chinese, but actually much more buddhist. But I barely know anything about Indian mythology and the local cultures don't inspire me in the way these other two do.

Well, Chinese culture is rife with Buddhist ideas, and I think that idea is pretty close to the Taoist conception - although for the Taoists, the emphasis is on the futility of trying to force one's desires on the world. Hell, even the Confucians and Legalists have shades of it, although formulated around notions of leadership. Wuxia often questions the way power structures claim to forestall evil, but I don't think it ever rejects the preoccupation with disorder and corruption as the source of all that is bad in the universe.


There is no capital-E Evil and I don't even use the term evil at all. Spirits simply are. They do their things as they have been for all time and they don't consider people to be worth any more or less attention than any other animals. A powerful spirit that agrees to enforce an area in which nature does behave in much more predictable patterns is the exception. It's rare and there are only one or two dozen such places in the entire known world at any given time. Sometimes such a guardian spirit loses power or interest and it just can't be helped. But much more often this stability comes to an end because someone is disrupting it. And both these disruptions of the social order that maintains good relationships with the spirits, as well as personal conflicts, always start because someone is acting motivated by greed, by hatred, or by pride.

Shinto might be a useful source of inspiration, then. In the Shinto conception, the aspect of a spirit that you end up dealing with is often a function of how you approach them in the first place. The same spirit can be gentle and benevolent or wrathful and destructive depending on the context in which it is treated. There's often a sense that with the spirits, you tend to get back exactly what you put in. If you're familiar with it, Avatar: The Last Airbender does a pretty good job of summarizing the concept in its two-parter "The Winter Solstice."


Because of this, the morality of the common people focuses on the three virtues of generosity, hospitality, and humility, which together with the rites and offerings to the spirits of the land makes up the mainstream religion.

That sounds like an intentional twist on the Three Treasures. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Treasures_(Taoism)) I like that compassion has been replaced with hospitality! Very fitting.


The three god kings claim to possess the supernatural power to maintain a region of stability around their cities and keeping the lesser spirits controlled. And for now it's actually working. But of course they are all consumed by pride and the people in othe city states (and some in their own) believe that nothing good can come of this in the long run. And in one other case, a city is ruled by a group of sorcerers who have created and maintain a powerful magical aura that lets them govern the environment directly and takes away control from the spirits entirely. In theory this makes them independent from unreliable spirits and allows their city to exist and even expand forever. But they don't understand the complexities of thousands of spirits working together to maintain the natural cycles that govern the land and as time progresses, more and more damage is being done to the environment, even though it's not obviously visible yet. The sorcerers are certain they will simply be able to fix any problems that will come up with the power they have over the land, but there are plenty of blighted areas haunted by undead covering the continent where previous sorcerers seem to have thought the same thing.

The difference to Greek myth is that no angry god will show up to smite them for their heretical ideas of controling the land better than the spirits do it. Instead it's an inevitable consequence of mortals not realizing that this world extends into spheres beyond their comprehension or even perception. It's a bit like Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror, with the main difference that mortals could continue to live in the modest prosperity and security of the city states forever if they simply accept their place in the middle of the hierarchy of beings. Individual cities will fall and be abandoned, but there will always be new ones.

This is all sounding pretty good - it reminds me of your source material without seeming excessively derivative. One thing I might do to inject some more Ancient Greek flavor is to play up the existence of Nemesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis), as a pillar of cosmic law if not a literal being. She's the big one, but a lot of the other lesser-known female divinities might also be worth tapping for their complex roles as inhuman embodiments of seemingly human experiences (the Furies, Metis, Mnemosyne, etc).

Yora
2018-08-08, 10:23 AM
The Mandate of Heaven was once explained to me as "allocating appropriate funding to levy construction on the Yangtze and Yellow River," so it seems reasonable that you could make that into "mandate of the local deities." Maybe we should be looking to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Dynasties_and_Ten_Kingdoms_period) for ideas, given you want a whole bunch of nominally-divine kings running city-states.
In the early periods I can definately see the taming of the rivers being the most important function of emperors/kings. Which in practice would have had to include overseeing the engineers and would have been understood as a matter requiring much more than just prayer.

I really think I have to take some looks into the Shang.


Shinto might be a useful source of inspiration, then. In the Shinto conception, the aspect of a spirit that you end up dealing with is often a function of how you approach them in the first place. The same spirit can be gentle and benevolent or wrathful and destructive depending on the context in which it is treated. There's often a sense that with the spirits, you tend to get back exactly what you put in. If you're familiar with it, Avatar: The Last Airbender does a pretty good job of summarizing the concept in its two-parter "The Winter Solstice."
Shinto and Buddhism were my main field of focus when I was attending such lectures in university. Sadly the department only had an India and a Japan expert but none really familiar with China. I'd have loved to hear some lectures on Taoism.
And Avatar is amazing at doing a great fictional setting that uses general ideas of East Asia without creating the appearance of trying to represent Asian culture.


That sounds like an intentional twist on the Three Treasures. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Treasures_(Taoism)) I like that compassion has been replaced with hospitality! Very fitting.
Now that's entirely coincidental. At least as coincidental as it gets when thinking of virtues to oppose the three obstacles to nirvana in Buddhism that are greed, hatred, and delusion (which I think has a huge overlap with hybris).
Compassion is the first one that comes to mind, but I was thinking what kind of semi-divine culture heroes a society would worship that is incredibly focused on not losing the foundations of their agrarian way of life. And I came up with the Protector of the Fields, the Protector of the Herds, and the Protector of the House. (Basically Demeter, Hermes, and Hestia.) From fields you get generosity and you can associate a herder with humility. But I think the house is better represented by hospitality then the more general compassion.

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-08, 03:51 PM
Yora -- as a side note, the "bronze age fantasy" RPG I mentioned earlier is available pre-order if you're interested -- https://thelostagegame.com/


On the subject of "taming the rivers" and "bringing water to the land", that sort of massive-scale, long-term public works is integral to the history and emergence of "kingship" in both Mesopotamia and Egypt.


(Avatar, both TLA and LofK, were amazing series.)

Yora
2018-08-12, 03:20 PM
One period I find highly fascinating, but which I never was able to learn much about, is the Hellenic Kingdoms that resulted from the Persian Empire fracturing after Alexander conquered it and then died without a recognized heir. To my knowledge there wasn't any real colonization taking place with only limited numbers of Greeks being added to the regional aristocracies but not completely replacing them. And the lower classes would have been almost entirely natives with only the regular amount of immigrant minorities that were common in ancient empires.
But even being a small minority, being the rulers meant that the Greeks had a huge impact on local culture and created fascinating examples of different ancient cultures being fused together. Even though some of these states were still pretty sizeable empires, they don't seem to have been single centralized states, but included lots of somewhat independent kingdoms. Which frequently switched sides between their overlords. I find it all very fascinating, but it's a somewhat obscure part of history. (Probably because it took place mostly outside of Europe. Our history jumps straight from Athens to Rome as if there was nothing going on inbetween.)

Anyone familiar with this subject and having suggestions for specific aspects that would make contributions to this theme of blending Greek and Asian elements?

Max_Killjoy
2018-08-12, 03:44 PM
One period I find highly fascinating, but which I never was able to learn much about, is the Hellenic Kingdoms that resulted from the Persian Empire fracturing after Alexander conquered it and then died without a recognized heir. To my knowledge there wasn't any real colonization taking place with only limited numbers of Greeks being added to the regional aristocracies but not completely replacing them. And the lower classes would have been almost entirely natives with only the regular amount of immigrant minorities that were common in ancient empires.
But even being a small minority, being the rulers meant that the Greeks had a huge impact on local culture and created fascinating examples of different ancient cultures being fused together. Even though some of these states were still pretty sizeable empires, they don't seem to have been single centralized states, but included lots of somewhat independent kingdoms. Which frequently switched sides between their overlords. I find it all very fascinating, but it's a somewhat obscure part of history. (Probably because it took place mostly outside of Europe. Our history jumps straight from Athens to Rome as if there was nothing going on inbetween.)

Anyone familiar with this subject and having suggestions for specific aspects that would make contributions to this theme of blending Greek and Asian elements?

There does seem to be this "Alexander died, some people fought over this empire, Rome comes along, something something Ptolemies links the two, etc" skimming over that period outside of specialized study, doesn't there? It's like "Well, Alexander's gone, Rome is rising, what does it matter what's happening off to the east now?" In part I think this traces back to my bugbears, Renaissance and Victorian scholars, who were fixated on the glory of Athens and Rome, and looked down their noses at everything outside or between those two "pinnacles".

Given how you want to blend Greek and "Asian" concepts, perhaps the Greco-Bactrian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom#Contacts_with_the_Han_Empire) kingdom would be of the most interest.

Yora
2018-08-13, 02:16 AM
"Victorian scholars". Imagine me making repulsed faces at that phrase. Everything I hear of it makes me think of Victorian Revisionist Propaganda. They don't seem to have been interested in the truth, only in making themselves look superior to everyone else.
Any time you learn about a historical misconception or lie and want to find out where it comes from, you almost certainly can trace it back to "Victorian Scholars". I often wonder if as a hole, they did more harm to history than good. Persia being completely absent from history unless it's fighting Greece or Rome is almost certainly entirely their fault.

It's not like Ptolemeios or Seleucos are uninteresting characters who didn't do anything flashy and entertaining. Even if you're into history only for the spectacle, there is plenty to be found there.

Kiero
2018-08-13, 04:11 PM
One period I find highly fascinating, but which I never was able to learn much about, is the Hellenic Kingdoms that resulted from the Persian Empire fracturing after Alexander conquered it and then died without a recognized heir. To my knowledge there wasn't any real colonization taking place with only limited numbers of Greeks being added to the regional aristocracies but not completely replacing them. And the lower classes would have been almost entirely natives with only the regular amount of immigrant minorities that were common in ancient empires.
But even being a small minority, being the rulers meant that the Greeks had a huge impact on local culture and created fascinating examples of different ancient cultures being fused together. Even though some of these states were still pretty sizeable empires, they don't seem to have been single centralized states, but included lots of somewhat independent kingdoms. Which frequently switched sides between their overlords. I find it all very fascinating, but it's a somewhat obscure part of history. (Probably because it took place mostly outside of Europe. Our history jumps straight from Athens to Rome as if there was nothing going on inbetween.)

Anyone familiar with this subject and having suggestions for specific aspects that would make contributions to this theme of blending Greek and Asian elements?

There was a shed-load of colonisation going on during the Hellenistic era, just not so much of Greeks from Greece proper.

The Seleukids settled Thessalians in their thousands in Syria to give them disciplined heavy cavalry to recruit (Persians fielded lots of heavy cavalry, just not very well ordered). They also facilitated the movement of Anatolians and Thracians eastwards into Iran and central Asia. Many of the "Greeks" in the Baktrian kingdom were actually Anatolians and Hellenised Iranians, not real Greeks from Hellas. There was also a significant programme of trying to lure Makedonian settlers to form the basis of the phalanx by the Seleukids in Anatolian, Syria and western Iran.

Ptolemaic Egypt also tried to encourage Makedonians to settle in Egypt to give them a real phalanx, rather than having to rely solely on mercenaries. The Ptolemies were extremely loath to recruit amongst the native population, even the traditional warrior class, the Machimoi, were only used within Egypt for policing and garrison duties.

In both states they essentially replaced the Persian elite with a Makedonian and Greek elite - the top positions held for Makedonians, with the Greeks filling out the next layer of the pyramid, with Hellenised natives filling the next tier. They didn't even make any serious attempts to change the pre-existing Persian systems of administration, they simply replaced the people at the top and carried on raking in their taxes. At ground level almost nothing would have changed.

The Seleukid empire was significantly more decentralised than the Ptolemaic kingdom, and there was an ongoing tension of trying to hold Anatolia while also holding the Upper Satrapies bordering on central Asia. Again the Persian system of satrapies persisted with each satrap enjoying considerable power as long as they enjoyed the confidence of the king.

Yora
2018-08-14, 10:44 AM
With all he great advice and suggestions here, I have started to work on the preparations of a new campaign:

The setting consists of a long stretch of rocky coast, full of bays, coves, caves, and reefs and countless small and mid-size islands. Beyond the coasts lies an endless expanse of thick forests. About two dozen city states exist around natural harbors which are usually ruled by a priest-king who is also in charge of performing the rites and offerings to appease the many spirits of the sourrounding lands to keep them safe from storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and droughts and keep away the numerous enormous beasts that roam the deeper parts of the forests and depths of the sea. Farmland is limited to the small areas around the city states and the only practical means to move any good between them is by ship. The cities frequently form alliances or launch raids against each other, and occasionally overthrow other kings to replace them with one of their own princes who serves as a vassal to his father. However, out in the wilderness also exist countless barbaric clans that survive as often semi-nomadic hunters.

In addition to the currently existing city states there are also many scattered along the coast and islands that have fallen into ruin and have been mostly or entirely abandoned. Without a king keeping the spirits at peace, these places become wild and dangerous, and often haunted by remnants of the terrors that accompanied their fall. Sometimes such places become the site for new cities many centuries later, when a new king makes a pact with the spirits of that land, with the old ruins still lying below the streets and palaces.

The PCs are lesser nobles or low-ranking princess or princesses of minor city states who have no direct role in the administration of the domains, but who have proven themselves to have the skills to survive the dangers of the wilds and the courage to brave the ferocious beasts and insidious spirits that rule there. When the courts are in need of someone venturing out into the wilderness or entering the old ruins, these are usually the people they look to for help. Other PCs can be loyal personal guards or servants who also possess the abilities to follow their masters or friends on their adventures. It's probably best if noble PCs come from different cities so that they can call on each other's help when they have to perform a service for their king. But they can also hear rumors about threats troubling friendly kings or answer the call for allies.

At the heart of the campaign is the exploration of ruins and the attempt to discover the actual story of their doom and return with scrolls or legendary relics that can help with banishing the threats that are arising in the presence. However, there are always many priests, sorcerers, or other heroes who would very much have those finds only for themselves. Not only might they also race to the ruins to get their hands on them first, but they also might be working within the shadows of the places, so adventures are not entirely limited to exploring ruins.
I think wilderness travel can be entirely ommited. To get from a city to a ruin one simply hops on a ship owned by the king. Though perhaps sometimes there might be an additional stop in another port to get information from a scholar or a magic relic required to deal with a major threat haunting the ruin. And more opportunity to run into rivals trying to sabotage their quest.
For the ruins I am imagining huge sprawling dungeons with several sub-areas that are stuffed with statues, scrolls, and creatures that provide plenty but insufficient information to understand what the places originally were, what happened to them, and what's going on in them now. An approach very much like in the Dark Souls games, but with much less fighting (since there is no respawning). Understanding the places at least at some very basic level is required to progress into the deeper areas where the goal of their quest can be found. I want to make the ruins feel like ruined cities or palaces, but not quite at the full scope of megadungeons. Getting through them in four to eight sessions seems like a good target line to me. You got to return as triumphant heroes at some point.

It makes me feel like I am kind of obliged to use Caverns of Thracia for one of the ruins. The Lost City and Dwellers of the Forbidden City also seem like good template to build on. And I am even tempted to lift heavily from Slumbering Tsar (though not making it a monster grinder.)

Beneath
2018-08-14, 11:26 AM
Have you dropped the idea of having a parallel heroic social order?

I don't know your players, but if I presented this setting I'd expect someone to ask if they can play a barbarian. I'd also want to explore their relationships with the city-folk more. They live in a harsh dinosaur-filled wilderness without consistent natural behavior, but there's no reason why they wouldn't come by to trade on occasion. or take in outlaws from the cities. Plus, like, if your world has dinosaurs in it, someone's going to want to ride one. and this is the class that would.

Also, inland, mountaintop monasteries are a trope and it'd be cooler if they weren't dropped completely. Though arguably, especially if the monasteries are landlords supported by peasants, they are in effect miniature kingdoms (though ones that can only be reached overland, which isolates them. which is fine, because they're cloisters)

Similarly, you might want to do something with rivers; rivers provide a way for ships, or at least boats, to get inland, which means you can have cities along them

Yora
2018-08-15, 02:50 AM
Networks between experts of magic, monsters, and ruins are still in place. Though perhaps it's all much less formal as it's often treated in Wuxia.

Playing barbarians definitly should be an option. I have to give this some more deep thought.

Remote monasteries or similar sites really have to be a thing. They are too good not to have. Especially when it seems there is something fishy going on.
Monks also make for good PCs other than nobles. I can also see scoundrels who have learned that mystics and philosophers give handscome rewards to anyone who can retrieve scrolls of rare knowledge or ancient relics from ruins being a good fit. Having thought on it some more, I am actually not so thrilled anymore by PCs being tied to courts. Nobles who have left court life behind them to pursue the mysteries of the universe seem like a better match for the general tone I am aiming for.

Monasteries are good candidates for people living deeper inland along the rivers. Having several micro-kingdoms that exist in the domains of intermediate power spirits that are too small to support a city also seems like a great addition. These are great candidates for being vassals to the larger city states.

Earthwalker
2018-08-20, 06:30 AM
I am sorry but I don't have anything to add for the Original Question but I did want to say.

These posts are awesome and I find the wealth of knowledge contained within fascinating.

Long may you keep asking interesting questions Yora. I have certainly come away from this with ideas for my own games, even just notes you started with.

So Thank you all.

Minty
2018-08-20, 05:29 PM
I created a fantasy world that is very much an alien planet with dinosaurs and giant insects, inspired by Morrowind and Dark Sun.

Oh cool, I'd never heard of Dark Sun before. It's like someone took the opening 3 minutes of Conan the Destroyer and turned it into an entire setting.

redwizard007
2018-08-20, 06:37 PM
Oh cool, I'd never heard of Dark Sun before. It's like someone took the opening 3 minutes of Conan the Destroyer and turned it into an entire setting.

Oh Em Gee! Eye Dee Eee Kay!


Any thread that adds to the Dark Sun community is an instant win.

Beneath
2018-08-21, 11:50 PM
It occurs to me that with monasteries, and this is entirely not bronze age themed but whatever, you could have, like, people who have reached enlightenment/immortality and transcended that serving as basically patron saints to these monasteries, possibly in the role of the intermediate spirits who allow them to exist

Knaight
2018-08-22, 12:07 AM
It occurs to me that with monasteries, and this is entirely not bronze age themed but whatever, you could have, like, people who have reached enlightenment/immortality and transcended that serving as basically patron saints to these monasteries, possibly in the role of the intermediate spirits who allow them to exist

Monasteries qua monasteries aren't necessarily the most bronze age thing, but isolated holy people that potentially have a small organization built around them absolutely are. The Oracle at Delphi, anyone? Then there's the matter of just sufficiently remote temples, which crop up in both Greece and China during their respective bronze ages.

Epimethee
2018-08-22, 05:41 AM
Don't call them monasteries, call them sanctuaries.

Their role is not so different than the role of the first christian monasteries in early medieval period, as they were political and economical places as much as holly sites.

Delphi was rightly pointed out, but you would have also Eleusis, or Olympia, or Delos...
Mainly, you would have a difference according to the place of the sanctuary: in the city, it was one of the main component of the public space, near or on the acropolis or the agora, and one of the axis of activity, think of Corinth or the Acropolis in Athen.

Then you have sanctuaries on the boundaries of the city, like the Demeter sanctuary in Eleusis, the sanctuaries of Apollo in Thebes, Argos or Naxos, or Artemis. in Sparta, Delos or Ephesus.

A third category would be rural places, meaning that they were still in the Chora of a Polis, on the territory, easy to access but away from the habitations. That's the case with Olympia, Zeus is often concerned, like in Némée, But also Apollo in Epidaurus, Poseidon in Sounion near Athen, and so on...

Some sanctuaries, the eschatia, would be on the fringe, often dedicated to Artemis like the Mount Munichia.

This of course tie with the sacred space occupied by a polis. So priest would also be very different according to their role. Some would be as much political than religious characters. In fact, this kind of priest would be more like an administrative function, Eleusis would be the more famous example. They would not have a specific hierarchical organisation but would occupy a public fonction.
This is the space of the realization of rituals, the hieros. Those actions are circumstacial, important for the relationship between the gods and the polis but non essential for the nature of the divine. That's like the cultural aspect of the religion, as opposed to the sacred by itself.

Then you have the Hagios, closer to the latin sacer, what is definitively outside the common experience by its purity. (The word is used today to describe orthodox saints.)
In Greece, the temenos, the sacred space, is the main manifestation of hagios. The places of theophanies, be it a place touched by lightning or one described in mythology, would usually be specified and delimited.
As you would be permitted to enter safely only with the correct rites and the correct purity, a sanctuary would always be a temenos.

Then you have also hosios, roughly what is permitted. ta osia mean the divine law, as opposed to dikaia, the human one. You would often need purification to become hosios, to be pure enough to enter a sanctuary.

Then only would you have the oracles.

You have space for a lot of religious figure in such a scape.

LibraryOgre
2018-08-23, 12:28 PM
Oh cool, I'd never heard of Dark Sun before. It's like someone took the opening 3 minutes of Conan the Destroyer and turned it into an entire setting.

There's a lot of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom in there, too... consider the Thri-Kreen as Green Martian stand-ins, for example.

Kyrell1978
2018-08-23, 12:42 PM
Use traditional greek monsters (cyclops, minotaur, satyr) along with the naga, oni, etc. of asia (The creatures of rokugan would be a good resource for this). Also, use a couple of races like Kitsune and Ratkin to give that feel.