Adaptations for Ancient Greece

[ObsidianRose]

Now, for those of you who have seen my thread in the gaming forum, I'm going to be DMing a Greek campaign soon. I was thinking about reasonable adaptations, and I'm thinking

Spartans = Dwarves (able to take Dwarven PrCs and stuff) with 30 foot move speed and a +4 bonus to intimidate inreturn for losing a bonus language and darkvision. In addition, stone cunning and other stone abilities change to corpse cunning, and Spartans can determine the freshness of a corpse. Also, replace waraxe and urgosh with Doru (1d8/1d6 19-20/*x4, reach with the d8 end, and can be wielded one handed if with a shield) and Greatspear. Deepstone Sentinel adapted to Corpse Mountain Sentinel, etc.

Athenians = Grey Elves

Oracles of Delphi = Star Elf Spirit Shamans

Aracadians = Orcs

Thespians = High Elves

Persians = LA 0 Centaur Variant

Alexandrians = Gnomes bumped to medium size

Carthaginians = Halflings


In addition, plate armor, banded mail, chainmail, and chain shirts will be restricted. Any other additions needed?

[Neon Knight]

Alexandrians? What the heck are they? Do you mean the Macedonians of Alexander the Great, or inhabitants of the city of Alexandria in Egypt?

[ObsidianRose]

Inhabitants of Alexandria.

[Piedmon_Sama]

It -was- considered the center of learning across the world for centuries. Makes sense for a Gnome city state.

[Neon Knight]

Okay- Have you considered who would be the Thracian and Macedonian equivalents?

Also- I feel Spartans are closer to Hobgoblins than Dwarves. Hobgoblins are highly militaristic, expansionist, imperialist, etc. Dwarves are borderline isolationist.

[Mr Pants]

I think he was going for a match stat-wise, not actual culture-wise

[Matthew]

There was talk of this sort of thing on the 'Medieval Europe' Thread and I have to ask the same question. Why take real historical peoples and equate them with D&D Races? Wouldn't it be easier to just 'add' the D&D Races onto the existing historical and literary archetypes?

Two alternative approaches:

Separated Society

Dwarves, Elves and other 'Demi Humans' exist outside of Human Society, their Kingdoms are hidden, but there is a degree of traffic between them and the Greek City States. Orcs and other Monstrous Humanoids are found in the uncivilised lands outside of the usual knowledge of Men.

Integrated Society

As in the Grey Hawk Campaign World, Demi Humans and Monstrous Humanoids are part of Human Society, existing to different degrees within City States and fully accepted into Citizenship or Slavery, depending on individual fortune. Some City States have more X and less Y, but most are a mix of races. The same holds true outside of the 'civilised world'.

[belboz]

Another vote for Matthew's point. Also a note that we have to tread carefully here; that other thread almost got in trouble for discussing real-world ethnic groups. (Not, I think, that the Oracles have any known particular equivalent in modern day--but some of those others ["Persians" comes to mind] do.)