# When Fantasy meets Medieval Europe



## Thomas Bowman (Mar 8, 2018)

1100 AD to be precise. Medieval Europe: This is the Dungeons & Dragons Map I plan on using.






Each hex is a combination of two or more terrain types for instance there is sand dunes and desert, forested mountains, desert mountains, there are three kinds of forest, pine forests, deciduous forests, and warm forests. pine forests are also cold forests, deciduous forests are also temperate forests, and warm forests are those forests made up of trees that do not drop their leaves, you could also call the tropical forests, there are also shrub lands, shrub lands with hills, mountains etcetera. There are three kinds of mountains, short medium and tall. Medium mountain hexes have three white capped mountains in a hex, large mountains are single white capped mountain hexes. There are also swamps, rivers, cities castles, ruins, oases and volcanos. the basic conceit of this map is that it centers on the human lands with human nations such as England and France. Elves come from "West over the Sea" in other words they are native to North America, they have discovered Europe in this setting rather than the Europeans discovering America, as of 1100 AD, this hasn't happened yet. Dwarves live in underground kingdoms in the various mountain ranges of Europe. Orcs come from the Asian steppe. Halflings and Gnomes come from South America. Half-elves and half-orcs are created from the Union of elves and humans in the first case and orcs and humans in the second.

Everything otherwise on this map is historical Europe with historical rulers, but with fantasy added.
Here is the political map of the same region:




So what do you think? Would this make a great Dungeons and Dragons setting?


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## Derren (Mar 8, 2018)

How historic do you want the setting to be in the first place?
The Americans discovering Europe is a major change in the history (as is they even having the technology to do so). And when are they slated to arrive? The historical 1492 date? So nearly 400 years without elves?

There is also a disconnect between the D&D rules and the historical middle ages. D&D is a very loose fantasy version of the middle ages but many things found in it like in the equipment section or your stereotypical D&D town or castle are more fitting to the renaissance era than 1100.
Then again, I doubt many people have much knowledge of that timeframe anyway.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 9, 2018)

A couple of things spring to mind. The mountains the Dwarves are in could have a huge geopolitical impact. A strong Drawven presence in the Alps/Switzerland could have prevented the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the second instance under Otto et al.
If the Elves can project power across the Atlantic then they have ships at least comparable with caravels/carracks and way ahead of anything in Europe a the time.  This give the Elves the opportunity to set up global maritime trade empires.


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## Sunseeker (Mar 9, 2018)

Dude that is an awesome map.  

I don't have anything else to contribute, sorry.


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## andyzone (Mar 9, 2018)

Great map! Really a lot of effort.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

Derren said:


> How historic do you want the setting to be in the first place?
> The Americans discovering Europe is a major change in the history (as is they even having the technology to do so). And when are they slated to arrive? The historical 1492 date? So nearly 400 years without elves?
> 
> There is also a disconnect between the D&D rules and the historical middle ages. D&D is a very loose fantasy version of the middle ages but many things found in it like in the equipment section or your stereotypical D&D town or castle are more fitting to the renaissance era than 1100.
> Then again, I doubt many people have much knowledge of that timeframe anyway.




Simple, the Elves sailed across the Atlantic to discover Europe and they brought Renaissance era technology with them minus gunpowder and guns, these elves also have full plate mail and the full assortment of equipment found in the Player's handbook, the humans being a quick study adopted this technology. The elves sailed into various ports in Europe starting at around 1100 AD, before that, history as we know it in Europe and Africa ran its course. The elves also sailed south and discovered South America, and picked up some Halflings and gnomes that live in that continent. Asia is pretty much the same as our Asia except Orcs replace the Mongols, and instead of riding on horses these orc ride on large worgs. the Orc lands begin at the Urals. West of the Urals are the Russian Principalities. Africa is pretty much Africa with some monsters and magic added. Europe is populated primarily by humans, but their are also kingdoms of dwarves living in the various mountain ranges, these ranges also act in many cases as the borders between human kingdoms, there are also monsters, both intelligent and not so intelligent, and dragons of various colors and metals. Magic is a part of the reality of Europe, their are wizards and sorcerers, clerics and druids, rangers, paladins, and bards, and of course monks fighters, rogues and barbarians. This hex map is the homeland of the elves:


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

ardoughter said:


> A couple of things spring to mind. The mountains the Dwarves are in could have a huge geopolitical impact. A strong Drawven presence in the Alps/Switzerland could have prevented the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the second instance under Otto et al.
> If the Elves can project power across the Atlantic then they have ships at least comparable with caravels/carracks and way ahead of anything in Europe a the time.  This give the Elves the opportunity to set up global maritime trade empires.




The elves are not united of course, there are several kingdoms of elves on the continent of North America, including the drow that live underground, and their are tribes of wild elves living between the elven kingdoms Aquatic elves live in the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, closer to Europe merfolk live on the continental shelf of Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean seas, and of course their are the evil aquatic races along with them, and various sea monsters as well. The gnomes and halflings live in the Southern portion of South America, about where Argentina and Chile is today, between them and the elves, is a continent full of dinosaurs, and tribes of amazons living in the Amazon rain forest. Amazons in this setting are their own separate race. There is a large wall at about where the Panama Canal is in our world, this wall serves to prevent the dinosaurs from migrating north into central and north America, it is believed that at one point in their history, the Amazons were more civilized and built this wall, but today they are splintered warring factions.


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## Jhaelen (Mar 9, 2018)

Nice effort!

But I have to admit, I'd never consider playing anything but Ars Magica in a 'mythic' Europe setting. It's simply the best fit. You get a ton of well-researched background material and the fantastic elements are so well integrated with the historical facts that everything makes sense.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

ardoughter said:


> A couple of things spring to mind. The mountains the Dwarves are in could have a huge geopolitical impact. A strong Drawven presence in the Alps/Switzerland could have prevented the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the second instance under Otto et al.
> If the Elves can project power across the Atlantic then they have ships at least comparable with caravels/carracks and way ahead of anything in Europe a the time.  This give the Elves the opportunity to set up global maritime trade empires.



There is no reason why a Dwarven Kingdom couldn't be part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire itself is made up of a number of subordinate kingdoms, and a Dwarven Kingdom would just be one more of those, the Emperor leaves the Dwarves alone in running their day to day affairs, the dwarves are very good at forging weapons and mining minerals out of their mountains, and they trade their products for food imports, as the Dwarves don't like to be bothered with farming on their mountain sides.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 9, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> The elves are not united of course, there are several kingdoms of elves on the continent of North America, including the drow that live underground, and their are tribes of wild elves living between the elven kingdoms Aquatic elves live in the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, closer to Europe merfolk live on the continental shelf of Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean seas, and of course their are the evil aquatic races along with them, and various sea monsters as well. The gnomes and halflings live in the Southern portion of South America, about where Argentina and Chile is today, between them and the elves, is a continent full of dinosaurs, and tribes of amazons living in the Amazon rain forest. Amazons in this setting are their own separate race. There is a large wall at about where the Panama Canal is in our world, this wall serves to prevent the dinosaurs from migrating north into central and north America, it is believed that at one point in their history, the Amazons were more civilized and built this wall, but today they are splintered warring factions.




If the elves are not united then that makes the Elven trade empire inevitable. Same drivers that drove the European empires. Where as China's expansionist policy under one emperor was reversed under another by the bureaucracy as it brought about too much change and was difficult to manage.
Of course, since elves are notoriously slow breeding, they will not have the population pressure to take over large areas like the Europeans did and it will be more trade enclaves like the early Portuguese and Dutch in our world.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 9, 2018)

Another thought the Greenland colony's first contact on the American mainland would be with elves with clearly superior tech and might overawe the Vikings enough to make the contact peaceful and so the Greenland settlement would have someone to trade with and might survive.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 9, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> There is no reason why a Dwarven Kingdom couldn't be part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire itself is made up of a number of subordinate kingdoms, and a Dwarven Kingdom would just be one more of those, the Emperor leaves the Dwarves alone in running their day to day affairs, the dwarves are very good at forging weapons and mining minerals out of their mountains, and they trade their products for food imports, as the Dwarves don't like to be bothered with farming on their mountain sides.




So are the Dwarves Catholic? that would have a fun impact on Medieval theology as would the appearance of clearly superior elves.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

Jhaelen said:


> Nice effort!
> 
> But I have to admit, I'd never consider playing anything but Ars Magica in a 'mythic' Europe setting. It's simply the best fit. You get a ton of well-researched background material and the fantastic elements are so well integrated with the historical facts that everything makes sense.



Well, Ars Magica isn't Dungeons & Dragons, and I wanted to use Dungeons & Dragons rather than break into a new system that I don't have. Basically what I want is a D&D World constructed around a historic medieval setting. The history gives me the names of the kingdoms, and cities, and also the rulers or each kingdom, I just have to look them up, but adding the rules changes some things to the setting as well, the races other than human come from off the edge of the map, I am not worried about anything off the edge of this map being historic, with the exceptions of the Dwarves, there are a lot of minor races and monsters who's kingdoms are small, nonexistent or underground, thus don't appear on the map. Creatures such as dragons are left alone, so long as they don't stir up too much trouble for the kingdoms they live in.

As for the existence of magic. Clerics cast spells, but they are part of the Church hierarchy, this is before the Reformation, so their are Catholics, and Orthodox Churches, a small percentage of Jews, and of course Muslims, but technically they all worship the same God, and the same God grants them their spells. God also grants Druids their spells, since this God is a God of Everything. There are pagan deities as well that grant spells to their followers, but their numbers are dwindling. Satan has a number of followers as well, he grants spells to his worshippers, a lot of people are accused of being Satan worshippers who actually aren't, so their number is actually magnified above that which actually exists. People fight wars over how they believe God wants to be worshipped, but God doesn't take sides in these disputes. Usually divine intervention involves sending an angel rather than God making a direct appearance himself. Sometimes the Devil has minions that pose as angels as well, and Satan makes more direct appearances himself, but mostly it is a demon or a lesser devil that makes the intervention.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

ardoughter said:


> So are the Dwarves Catholic? that would have a fun impact on Medieval theology as would the appearance of clearly superior elves.



The Dwarves worship God in their own way, most aren't Catholic, but the Emperor tolerates this. The Empire is very loosely organized, it is more of an alliance of mutual protection. 



This is the coat of Arms for the Empire and the Emperor

The Biblical God is the most powerful being that is worshipped. The Dwarves that do not Worship God worship the Norse deities that are left over from the Dark Ages. The Holy Roman Emperor at this Time is Henry IV, he is also the King of Burgundy, King of Italy, and King of Germany. Most of the dwarves speak German in addition to dwarvish, the nobles also speak Latin, as Latin is the "official language" of the Holy Roman Empire. Most of the inhabitants don't speak it or understand it, those with a formal education also know Latin, but most inhabitants conduct their local business in German, or Italian.

There is no reason why elves couldn't worship God in their own way, they tend to worship the same God in the same fashion that human druids do, it is more of a nature deity, as elves are close to nature. Elves do have cities in North America, I haven't mapped them yet, as I'm just getting started, one of those cities is located on Manhattan Island, it is a sea port where elvish ships are built, there is also an elf city on the site of Boston, there is another one at the mouth of the Mississippi river, and their are elvish ports on the west coast as well, the elves like the northwest better than the Southwest desert. One thing the elves don't have is horses, until they encounter Europeans riding them. the elves did very little animal husbandry, mostly they grow crops and supplement their diet with wild animals they catch in the forest, and they are very keen on forest management, so their numbers are few compared to what the land could support, they are also very long lived, so elf children are rarely ever seen.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

ardoughter said:


> Another thought the Greenland colony's first contact on the American mainland would be with elves with clearly superior tech and might overawe the Vikings enough to make the contact peaceful and so the Greenland settlement would have someone to trade with and might survive.



Yeah, your right, the first contact was probably with the Vikings at around the year 1000 AD. So the elves have been a part of this setting for around 100 years, and most of the elves whom the Vikings had contact with are still alive in the present. 100 years is not a long time for an elf.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

Since I am naming rulers here are some rulers for the various kingdoms.
In England we have *William Rufus* also known as William II of England.




followed by *Henry Beauclerc *on August 2, 1100, also known as Henry II.

King Philip I the Amorous is king of France




Poland is ruled by three dukes at this time
*Władysław I Herman* 




*Zbigniew* 




and *Bolesław III Wrymouth* 




*Magnus III Olafsson* is the king of Norway




*Eric I Evergood* is the ruler of Denmark




Inge the Elder rules Sweden

Muirchertach Ua Briain, is the high king of Ireland

That will get us started for now.


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## Lylandra (Mar 9, 2018)

mh, you may want to reconsider your "pantheon" or you might run into heated debates with people of various faiths 

Why not use the following: All divine spellcasters get their powers from a "divine source" they cannot grasp. Some think it is one deity (like your abrahamic faiths), some think it is mother nature, some think the source are multiple gods and some others think it might be the anima in all living things. 

And depending on how much you'd like to use real-world history events, you'd have to retcon some of them. Plagues etc. are far less common if you have clerics who can perform actual miracles. The pope or patriarch might have far more influence on the various nobles, including emperors, if he possesses the power to destroy you on spot, sanctified (presumably) by the deity you, too, worship. 

And magic of any kind can be a real game-changer, depending on how you'd like to implement it into society. It could be a strong equalizer (anybody can have a magic talent that makes him/her potentially dangerous), but also a gatekeeper (if only certain parts of the population are allowed to practise magic or if some schools or traditions are considered heresy). 

Oh, and I really dig your idea for elves in America.


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## Hussar (Mar 9, 2018)

There is another option for clerics.  Primeval Thule goes the "divine source" direction.  Basically, clerics are effectively wizards that draw on a different source.  Meaning that there is no direct connection between clerics and whatever diety (or, in the case of your setting, single diety) they happen to worship. 

Which makes it very, very easy to have factions and conflict within religions.  Clerics are more akin to cults in Thule - secretive organizations that jealously guard their secrets and use the power that they have to spread their influence.  On an individual level though, a given cleric can pretty much do whatever he or she wants, without having the fear of the flaming booger of the gawds keeping him or her in line.


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> mh, you may want to reconsider your "pantheon" or you might run into heated debates with people of various faiths




I suppose.  If you aren't a member of those "various faiths" I'm not sure your opinion as to what is offensive really counts.

Personally, as a member of those "various faiths", the big problem with God in an RPG setting is that it puts the GM in the position of having to speak for God.  So long as you avoid having to be the definitive "Word of God" within your setting and are otherwise respectful to the concept of God, you probably won't offend people of "various faiths".  

Tolkien managed to dance around this problem by having an analogous figure to God in his setting, but which operated under no traditional names for God.  That gives his setting some distance from the real world even if it is at some level ostensibly set in the real world.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 9, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> I suppose.  If you aren't a member of those "various faiths" I'm not sure your opinion as to what is offensive really counts.
> 
> Personally, as a member of those "various faiths", the big problem with God in an RPG setting is that it puts the GM in the position of having to speak for God.  So long as you avoid having to be the definitive "Word of God" within your setting and are otherwise respectful to the concept of God, you probably won't offend people of "various faiths".
> 
> Tolkien managed to dance around this problem by having an analogous figure to God in his setting, but which operated under no traditional names for God.  That gives his setting some distance from the real world even if it is at some level ostensibly set in the real world.



This setting is not a Biblical setting, God does not appear as a burning bush or a pillar of flames. God is very "hands off" in this setting. Clerics that pray to Him can receive spells, but Satan is also there granting spells to his followers and often times to clerics who think they are praying to God. The Devil will grant spells to anybody, not just clerics! Usually Satanic rituals are required to get his attention, and the Devil usually demands that a price be paid for the spells that he gives, he's very flexible in these arrangements, as he often gives the spell first and collects his "price" later! God acts through his angels in this setting, though such divine intervention is rather infrequent.


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## Celebrim (Mar 9, 2018)

[MENTION=6925649]Thomas Bowman[/MENTION]: I should warn you that an active Satanic presence is just as sensitive of a topic as a person representing themselves as God.  It's generally not considered a healthy topic to show interest in, and that fear of Satan borders on giving glory to him and results in severe error (such as the real world 'witch panic'), to say nothing of the problem of appearing dualist if you set him up as 'the evil god'.   But, I'm presuming also that it's likely that you've given some thought to this problem as well.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 10, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> [MENTION=6925649]Thomas Bowman[/MENTION]: I should warn you that an active Satanic presence is just as sensitive of a topic as a person representing themselves as God.  It's generally not considered a healthy topic to show interest in, and that fear of Satan borders on giving glory to him and results in severe error (such as the real world 'witch panic'), to say nothing of the problem of appearing dualist if you set him up as 'the evil god'.   But, I'm presuming also that it's likely that you've given some thought to this problem as well.




Well you need something to explain evil clerics casting spells. Satan is just something that grants clerical magic to evil clerics, also some zealots, inquisitors persecuting heretics did evil acts, now would a good God let evil clerics do evil in the name of God? Power corrupts and the clergy isn't any different from anyone else. So what happens if for instance you have a Catholic priest that rises high in the Church hierarchy, and he becomes corrupt persecuting various individuals simply because he sees them as a threat to his power base? What happens to the priest that tortures certain people in order to get him to confess to being a witch, and when he does, he burns him at the stake, if he casts a cleric spell, who grants him that spell? Would a good God grant an evil priest his spell? I think not, that is why you need a force of evil to grant the spells of evil clerics so they can be a challenge to player characters.

I really don't expect God to be used for much other than granting spells to clerics, having God step in and save the adventurers really undermines the challenge of the game, as God can do anything. Satan does the same thing for evil clerics, but he and his minions also take a more active role, and this is basically a problem for player characters to solve. It is the player's problem to defeat Satan and to slay demons. Sometimes their is an artifact such as the Ark of the Covenant, or perhaps the Holy Grail, that the player characters must find in order to defeat Satan and his minions. If the players do their part, then God acts, but the players need to do their part to make that happen.

Thematically Satan exists in order for their to be free will to choose between good and evil. If God were to smite all evil, he would also eliminate free will to choose between good and evil. God could destroy Satan but he does not because to do so would also destroy free will, and without free will, the idea of sin would be meaningless. That is the philosophic underpinnings as to why Satan is allowed to exist.

Polytheistic religions don't have the same problem explaining the existence of evil as do Monotheistic religions. Multiple gods pursuing their own agendas often has a lot of evil effects for mortals, but put one God in charge of it all and if it is a good God, you have the problem of explaining why evil exists. In the Christian religion that force of evil is Satan or the Devil, its kind of a necessity that such a being exists in a monotheistic world.


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## Lylandra (Mar 10, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> I suppose.  If you aren't a member of those "various faiths" I'm not sure your opinion as to what is offensive really counts.
> 
> Personally, as a member of those "various faiths", the big problem with God in an RPG setting is that it puts the GM in the position of having to speak for God.  So long as you avoid having to be the definitive "Word of God" within your setting and are otherwise respectful to the concept of God, you probably won't offend people of "various faiths".
> 
> Tolkien managed to dance around this problem by having an analogous figure to God in his setting, but which operated under no traditional names for God.  That gives his setting some distance from the real world even if it is at some level ostensibly set in the real world.




First, I said nothing about "offensive" when I meant "heated debates". I can see people get offended on such notions, but I really meant debates on how the divine system works in a quasi-historical fantasy setting if you try to incorporate some theological aspects like omnipotency or "being The One God" while having several other pagan gods who are not the same besides that deity. 

Second, I'm no atheist either. 

That being said, you are right that "speaking for god" is another problematic aspect and also that using a different creation myth, like Tolkien did in his Akallabeth, gets you easily out of the uncanny valley. 



Thomas Bowman said:


> As for the existence of magic. Clerics cast spells, but they are part of the Church hierarchy, this is before the Reformation, so their are Catholics, and Orthodox Churches, a small percentage of Jews, and of course Muslims, but technically they all worship the same God, and the same God grants them their spells. God also grants Druids their spells, since this God is a God of Everything. There are pagan deities as well that grant spells to their followers, but their numbers are dwindling. Satan has a number of followers as well, he grants spells to his worshippers, a lot of people are accused of being Satan worshippers who actually aren't, so their number is actually magnified above that which actually exists. People fight wars over how they believe God wants to be worshipped, but God doesn't take sides in these disputes. Usually divine intervention involves sending an angel rather than God making a direct appearance himself. Sometimes the Devil has minions that pose as angels as well, and Satan makes more direct appearances himself, but mostly it is a demon or a lesser devil that makes the intervention.




There is where my problem lies. What about these pagan deities? Are they gods? And if yes, how do they relate to the abrahamic "one god of all"? If yes, how does this work with a "God is everything" approach?

Paganism and Polytheism existed way before any abrahamic faith. If these gods are real, if they do grant powers, and if they are different entities than "God" then how and why would God come into existence? How and why would he suddenly be worshipped?

Also, the way you described God in your first iteration is pretty neutral. Your God isn't necessarily "good", as he is a distant "being of everything" hence no real need for an evil antithesis, just to have someone grant evil spells. Again, be careful with your theological construct as you're venturing into the uncanny valley once more. 
The question "If God exists they why is there evil in this world?" is basically old as dirt and it is one of the fundamental theological questions. I don't know if "because Satan" is the best answer in this case (as in: using it in an RPG setting), unless you de-divinify or caricaturize your God (like some graphic novels did). 

Try to make a clear cut between your setting cosmology&pantheon, the character's beliefs and whatever real-world faiths' stances are. The first one should be internally consistent. And could be as easy as an undefined "No one knows".


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 10, 2018)

Lets think of God as a living incarnation of all good and neutral alignments and Satan gets all the evil ones. Pagan deities are more limited, they have specific portfolios, and their following is limited to certain geographic regions where people still worship them. In the 1100s for example their are still people who worship the Norse deities for example. There could be elves worshipping elven deities or other nature deities. The old Roman and Greek gods are still around, they are dormant and require something significant to wake them up. The most powerful of the Roman/Greek deities are Mars/Venus and Venus/Aphrodite, they have their own planets specifically Mars and Venus, unlike our own Solar System, these planets are habitable and have humans living on them that still worship them. Monotheism has yet to make major inroads on these planets. Certain rituals may draw the attention of these two Roman deities, they are quite powerful on their respective planets and are not by any means dormant, unlike the rest of their pantheon. 

Lets me say this both Mars and Venus the gods invest a significant proportion of their divine powers just to keep their respective planets habitable, that power they have left over after doing this they grant to clerics, druids, paladins etc. Venus is neutral with good tendencies and Mars is neutral with evil tendencies, their portfolios of love and war give them their respective good and evil tendencies. Mars loves a good war, and as their are plenty of wars on Earth, he tends to be very interested in them, and each war fought unbeknownst to the participants gives Mars power. Mars is always seeking ways to fan the flames of war on Earth, and his own planet is pretty chaotic and war torn as well. 

Venus is fueled by love and romance, active worship of this goddess, is not out in the open, and of course people don't realize they are giving power to a deity that exists. Venus just loves to tempt Catholic Priests, monks and nuns into illicit love affairs. She doesn't care about social norms or other religions' traditions and rules for their clergy, that is a human thing, Venus doesn't think in such terms. Venus is always at work starting all sorts of romantic relationships whether licit or illicit, inside or outside of marriage, she is not the goddess of marriage after all, that is someone else.

Sub-Saharan Africa has a number of pagan deities that are still actively worshipped, as Christian and Muslim missionaries have yet to convert them. India has Hinduism, which has many gods, they are active. There is a China and Japan, they have their own traditions and belief systems, those gods or whatever are active there and a source of power. Polynesians in the Pacific, which are yet to be discovered by the Europeans, have their gods as well.


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## Yunru (Mar 10, 2018)

Or you could just not use an abrihamic religion? Not like Paganism, Norse mythology, etc. didn't exist.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 11, 2018)

Yunru said:


> Or you could just not use an abrihamic religion? Not like Paganism, Norse mythology, etc. didn't exist.




Why should I do that?
1) D&D is based on Medieval folklore and fairy tales.
2) D&D has clerics and druids that get their spells from deities.
3) The technology of D&D is Medieval, not Ancient as in Ancient Rome and earlier which was the time of those pagan deities.
4) In 1100 AD, In Europe, the Ancient Gods are in decline or a thing of the past, the new religion is Christianity and Islam, but I am not bringing up Jesus. Both religions worship one God, what they believe about that God is different, but I am not getting into that. What is true is that the pagan gods of Europe belong more in the classical period and earlier, the days of the Roman Empire. 

5) If I'm going to base this campaign world on history and have recognizable place names and cultures, then I have to use Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I don't have to get into the specifics, all I need to do is explain how the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim clerics get their spells from. They believe in different things about God and everything, but the one factor they have in common is a belief in a single God, so I'm going with that. This God does not typically make personal appearances, Jesus is not around in this time period and neither is Mohammad or Moses. So I don't have to involve them. All I really require here is a mechanism for monotheistic clerics to get their spells, their agendas are their own. So I have a force for good and a force for evil, that evil force is Satan, all three religions have a Satan or something like him. I don't care about the minutia of each religion or what drives them to go to war with each other, such as in the Crusades, it is a conflict between humans, not between gods or a God with himself.


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## Yunru (Mar 11, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Why should I do that?
> 1) D&D is based on Medieval folklore and fairy tales.
> 2) D&D has clerics and druids that get their spells from deities.
> 3) The technology of D&D is Medieval, not Ancient as in Ancient Rome and earlier which was the time of those pagan deities.
> ...



Because it's a hot-button topic?
One easily avoidable by just having Rome not convert.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 11, 2018)

Yunru said:


> Because it's a hot-button topic?
> One easily avoidable by just having Rome not convert.



Creating this alternate history would create a lot of extra work for me.





Do you want me to give the Roman Empire 600 extra years of history? This would be a different world than Feudal Europe. History would be a lot different without Christianity. Do you want the Roman Empire to still exist in what would have been 1100 AD? Without Christianity, there would not be an 1100 AD, all the common references would be gone, the countries would be different, with lots of Butterfly effects. I would have a lot of writing to do to fill in 600 years of history that never was. There is a thread called d20 Pirates, it posits such a world, Europe is dominated by something called the Northern Empire, and my map with the political boundaries would be useless if I go with such a radical departure. There are other roleplaying games that take place in a monotheistic World, and no one makes any bones that actual churches and religions are represented.


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## Yunru (Mar 11, 2018)

No reason everything else can't be the same. Not like you can't just replace one pantheon with another and still have the same outcomes.

Plus the monotheistic religions are very restrictive, which is cool if you're set on the "one god" thing, but multitheistic religions are far easier to associate with each other, allowing multiple religions even when one's dominant (just look at greeks and romans).


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 11, 2018)

Pagan religions aren't Medieval. We don't really have a historic example of a bunch of pagan nations existing in a Medieval Europe. Your grafting something that more properly belongs in Ancient times into a Medieval setting. the Church was a very powerful organization in Europe in 1100 AD. You know Christianity is an international religion, what existed before that was a bunch of National religions, each nation had its own set of gods. Judaism was a national religion Christianity crossed national borders, and Islam followed its example. Without Christianity and Islam, there could be no Church. The Roman Pantheon would have died with the Empire, unless you want that Empire to still be around, in which case there would be no knights in shining armor, no feudalism, there would be slaves, and arenas and centurions and all that stuff.


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## Yunru (Mar 11, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Pagan religions aren't Medieval. We don't really have a historic example of a bunch of pagan nations existing in a Medieval Europe. Your grafting something that more properly belongs in Ancient times into a Medieval setting. the Church was a very powerful organization in Europe in 1100 AD. You know Christianity is an international religion, what existed before that was a bunch of National religions, each nation had its own set of gods. Judaism was a national religion Christianity crossed national borders, and Islam followed its example. Without Christianity and Islam, there could be no Church. The Roman Pantheon would have died with the Empire, unless you want that Empire to still be around, in which case there would be no knights in shining armor, no feudalism, there would be slaves, and arenas and centurions and all that stuff.



That's... a lot of assumptions.
The primary one I can see is that the Roman religion would die with Rome.
Why?

It didn't, after all, hence why Christianity is still an international religion. Being a different religion wouldn't change that.


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## pemerton (Mar 11, 2018)

This is in the general RPG thread, though some version of D&D seems to be involved.

In any event, I don't see any trouble using a monotheistic assumption for classic AD&D at least: clerics and paladins have such assumptions built right into them!

For what it's worth, I would treat druids as magic-users (some sort of witch variant), not a clerical sub-class, if the assumption is monotheism.

Evil clerics (anti-clerics to use the old-fashioned terminology) are a bit of a puzzle here, but I think being powered up by Satan is as good an approach as any. I think I've seem some Ars Magica supplements take that approach.


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## Lylandra (Mar 11, 2018)

And then again, would it be wrong to go with "Factually, they don't know where their 'miracles' come from"?

From what I get is that you wish to use all D&D classes and put them into a scenario of Medieval Europe at 1100 AD which is about to be visited by Renaissance-Era elves from the Americas. 

So you don't really need a cosmological explanation for the source of divine spells. They just believe that God (or gods or forces of nature) grant them. Some of them think that a form of primeval evil exists and call that "The Devil" or "Satan" and get powers from that source. However, no one_ knows for sure_. 

Angels and Demons can exist in your scenario, depending on whether or not you use a planar system. They are forces of good and evil which intervene when they see it fitting. 

(and as a sidenote: Be careful with that whole Venus & Mars stuff, interesting as this may be. You're just opening another big can of worms by making our sister planets not only habitable, but inhabited. This, and the existence of actual, powerful _romano-greek_ gods (or... aliens?), changes a LOT from the 1100 AD you'd like to portray.)


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## Aldarc (Mar 11, 2018)

pemerton said:


> For what it's worth, I would treat druids as magic-users (some sort of witch variant), not a clerical sub-class, if the assumption is monotheism.



They could even be "monks" contemplating the unity of the created world or desiring to live in harmony and austerity with the created world. 



> Evil clerics (anti-clerics to use the old-fashioned terminology) are a bit of a puzzle here, but I think being powered up by Satan is as good an approach as any. I think I've seem some Ars Magica supplements take that approach.



Not really that tough. It depends on how clerics receive their power. If it is simply their own faith as a battery for a universal divine power, then even evil people could call upon God. Or maybe they have become corrupt through power or deeds in their service to the Church or secular powers.


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## pemerton (Mar 11, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> They could even be "monks" contemplating the unity of the created world or desiring to live in harmony and austerity with the created world.



I think that's fine for the true neutral alignment, but doesn't really explain the flavour of their spells (again, I'm thinking AD&D here - so plants, insects and other animals, plus some modest elementalism).


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## Aldarc (Mar 11, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I think that's fine for the true neutral alignment, but doesn't really explain the flavour of their spells (again, I'm thinking AD&D here - so plants, insects and other animals, plus some modest elementalism).



The Creator created the World, the biblical texts are ripe with nature singing praise of Elohim. Why wouldn't it work?


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 11, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> And then again, would it be wrong to go with "Factually, they don't know where their 'miracles' come from"?
> 
> From what I get is that you wish to use all D&D classes and put them into a scenario of Medieval Europe at 1100 AD which is about to be visited by Renaissance-Era elves from the Americas.
> 
> ...



I think the gods Venus and Mars are consumed by maintaining their own planets, they have little time an energy left over for dealing with Earthlings once they stopped believing and worshipping them. During their heyday the Roman gods got associated with the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, but only Venus and Mars are capable of being habitable. Venus is a very old goddess, there are versions of her that existed prior to Roman times, under different names such as Aphrodite and Isthar, and even as far back as the stone age, Mars is a someone younger god but still very old, he goes back to before the Romans as well. An aspect of Venus still exists under the name "Freya" in the Norse pantheon, so she still has a little bit of a following on Earth, Mars goes under the alias of "Thor" as that is effectively the Viking God of War. 

Because Venus and Mars have large populations of humans that worship these two deities, they are still active. People on Earth who still worship Venus and Mars, usually keep that fact a secret, lest they be burned as witches, this is true in central and southern Europe and in the Middle East, in Scandinavia, this is tolerated a bit more as that region is still in transition from paganism to Christianity. Lots of bloodlust and warfare still keep the god of war going, even if they are fighting over Christian causes. In some respects, one can say, they God of War managed to subvert the Christian Crusade against Islam, by getting the Crusaders more interested in looting and pillaging than in conversions! Mars loves battle for its own sake, he doesn't care about the underlying reason for the conflict! Venus is much the same but with love, she finds Priest's Monk's vows and chastity a bit of a challenge for her, and she loves to test their faith! Sometimes clerics of Venus and Mars will masquerade as Catholic Priests to advance their true devotions, these pagan deities will grant their spells, thus allowing them to blend in with their true believers. 

Usually its bloodlust which allows Mars to corrupt militant Catholic Priests, Mars will often answer their prayers instead of God, if they are really determined to carry out their battles against the Muslim Infidels, and you know Venus can cause a priest to meet a beautiful woman, and maybe she can get something started between them in secret. Priests that give into their temptations with a woman, may find their prayers sometimes being answered by Venus and they might fall into her orbit, while at the same time maintaining their positions within the Catholic Church for as long as they can get away with it. Venus often helps them to maintain their secret affairs for as long as possible, she loves illicit affairs, having had a few of those herself.

As for the other two planets Mars and Venus, a teleport spell can get you there. If one is a high enough level of wizard and can see the planet Venus or Mars in the sky, he can cast a teleport spell and go there. Teleporting to Venus is a little more risky than teleporting to Mars. The elves have optical telescopes for seeing these planets, but Venus is covered with a perpetual layer of clouds and 80% of its surface is covered with water, so a wizard is at risk of teleporting to an ocean surface if he goes there. Mars on the other hand is 80% dry land, it is a warlike place however, so anyone who teleports there had better go well armed!

Please tell me how this would change things? Some people who have teleport spells can go to those planets because they can see them in the sky. Elven astronomers can determine their distances, and so by that means they can teleport to them. People on those two planets can also teleport to Earth. Martians may have a bit of a problem dealing with Earth's gravity if they are not used to it, but their are spells that can overcome this problem.

Venusians have to get above their planet's cloud layer so they can see Earth in their night sky before they can teleport there, teleporting back to Venus is a bit of a problem for them because they can't see where they are going, but if they have been to a place on Venus before and can remember it, they can go to that place.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 11, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> And then again, would it be wrong to go with "Factually, they don't know where their 'miracles' come from"?
> 
> From what I get is that you wish to use all D&D classes and put them into a scenario of Medieval Europe at 1100 AD which is about to be visited by Renaissance-Era elves from the Americas.
> 
> ...




The planar system is mostly the same as in Standard D&D, Satan has dominion over all of the lower planes, the Lords of those planes are working for him. God has dominion over the upper planes.


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## pemerton (Mar 11, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> The Creator created the World, the biblical texts are ripe with nature singing praise of Elohim. Why wouldn't it work?



I guess so. Entangle and Barkskin and the like just seem a bit wonky to me. If they don't for you (or, I guess, the OP) then go for it!


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 12, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> @_*Thomas Bowman*_: I should warn you that an active Satanic presence is just as sensitive of a topic as a person representing themselves as God.  It's generally not considered a healthy topic to show interest in, and that fear of Satan borders on giving glory to him and results in severe error (such as the real world 'witch panic'), to say nothing of the problem of appearing dualist if you set him up as 'the evil god'.   But, I'm presuming also that it's likely that you've given some thought to this problem as well.



There is a god and their is God. God with a capital 'G' is all powerful, a god with a lower case 'g' is not, I tend to make a distinction between the two. Satan can be thought of as an "evil god" in the pagan sense, but he is not God in the Biblical sense. Other pagan deities, such as Mars and Venus, are gods with a lower case 'g', they are powerful compared to us, within the context of the game universe, but they are not all powerful. Now just to remind you, this is in the game universe I'm creating, I don't want to get into an argument with a priest about theology. Technically Satan is a devil not a god, but he has powers just like any of a number of pagan gods who are not God, it is a difference without a distinction.


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## Lylandra (Mar 12, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> There is a god and their is God. God with a capital 'G' is all powerful, a god with a lower case 'g' is not, I tend to make a distinction between the two. Satan can be thought of as an "evil god" in the pagan sense, but he is not God in the Biblical sense. Other pagan deities, such as Mars and Venus, are gods with a lower case 'g', they are powerful compared to us, within the context of the game universe, but they are not all powerful. Now just to remind you, this is in the game universe I'm creating, I don't want to get into an argument with a priest about theology. Technically Satan is a devil not a god, but he has powers just like any of a number of pagan gods who are not God, it is a difference without a distinction.




But you might get into a theological argument with anyone if you try to "define" God in a way that's not clearly distinct from what RL people believe is God OR a faithful (haha, pun intended) representation that could withstand at least a basic theological debate. In your scenario, I'm afraid it doesn't. 

Unless you define that your "God" is an entity that represents what your 1100 AD people believed God and Satan and Pagan/Elven Deities to be. Now, that could make an interesting setting premise if you continue this thought. 

Unlike using the "real 1100 AD" as basis and simply strap-on D&D tropes, you could prefer to take the magic, creatures, beliefs, myths etc. people of 1100 AD *believed in* and make them real in their world. So there would be trolls in Finland, a child-eating witch in the HRE, satyrs and nymphs in Byzantine, faeries everywhere and the blood of dragons could work miracles.  

This way you'd also avoid dragging RL theology into your setting...


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## Jhaelen (Mar 12, 2018)

Well, historically, magic and spell-casting doesn't really mesh with faith in the Christian God. According to the Bible it's just witch-craft - the Devil's domain. It's one of many reasons why I have trouble to think of D&D as a good basis for a medieval setting that is supposed to be mostly historically accurate.

In Ars Magica that's one of the main reasons why the Church is wary of Magi. Some rare beings have 'True Faith' which allows them to pray for Miracles, which is completely different from using magic. First, there's no guarantee anything will happen, and second the actual effect of the Miracles isn't under the control of the supplicant.
Pagan gods are 'just' considered powerful faerie beings in this system, btw. Which makes sense since faeries draw their power from (re-)creating tales and legends told by humanity. Devil worshippers are granted powers by Demons in exchange for their souls. These 'gifts' are invariably tainted and granted in the hope of leading to sinful behavior and causing others to commit sins. In fact, the most powerful abilities of Demons in Ars Magica are their 'Psychomachia' which allow them to cause humans to experience sinful emotions. (It's important to note that since the victims of Psychomachia aren't acting out of their own free will, this doesn't actually endanger their souls directly. The idea is to make them 'get used' to sinful behavior and make them commit sins consciously at some future point.)

I get that you don't care about historical accuracy as much and mostly want to benefit from a well-defined setting and still use D&D mostly unchanged, but it's tricky to explain why the changes you are making to the setting's reality don't completely change its nature. Even if you don't care about using a different RPG system, which I completely understand, it can be beneficial to read about different ideas on how to solve these conflicts in ways that make sense.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 12, 2018)

Jhaelen said:


> Well, historically, magic and spell-casting doesn't really mesh with faith in the Christian God. According to the Bible it's just witch-craft - the Devil's domain. It's one of many reasons why I have trouble to think of D&D as a good basis for a medieval setting that is supposed to be mostly historically accurate.
> 
> In Ars Magica that's one of the main reasons why the Church is wary of Magi. Some rare beings have 'True Faith' which allows them to pray for Miracles, which is completely different from using magic. First, there's no guarantee anything will happen, and second the actual effect of the Miracles isn't under the control of the supplicant.
> Pagan gods are 'just' considered powerful faerie beings in this system, btw. Which makes sense since faeries draw their power from (re-)creating tales and legends told by humanity. Devil worshippers are granted powers by Demons in exchange for their souls. These 'gifts' are invariably tainted and granted in the hope of leading to sinful behavior and causing others to commit sins. In fact, the most powerful abilities of Demons in Ars Magica are their 'Psychomachia' which allow them to cause humans to experience sinful emotions. (It's important to note that since the victims of Psychomachia aren't acting out of their own free will, this doesn't actually endanger their souls directly. The idea is to make them 'get used' to sinful behavior and make them commit sins consciously at some future point.)
> ...




I was at an RPG and Comic book store called "Gamers Gambit" yesterday, and I saw Ars Magica in the shelf, I picked it up and looked though it, a lot of interesting stuff in there, but I wasn't ready to make an investment in it yet. I would like to see what would happen if I adapted a historical setting to Dungeons & Dragons, either 3.5 edition or 5th edition, I haven't decided yet, I am more familiar with 3.5 but I have both. I am working on a map, a more clearer image than the one I showed you of Europe. Basically I'm replacing every hex at twice the resolution and renumbering and relabeling  each hex. The numbers are somewhat indistinct when you look at the hexes close. I am almost finished with hex replacement and will post that map when I'm done, this will be a map without labels, just the terrain hexes, and I will overlay the labels and city locations and so forth. Once that map is complete, I intend to make encounter tables for each hex type.

For the record, I always thought medieval people were a little nuts about religion for instance when I google "Medieval Paintings" I get this:















These are the first four images I got, medieval people lived and breathed religion, when ever a medieval artist picked up a paint brush and wanted to paint something, it usually was of a subject having something to do with religion, which is not usually the subject of what you'd find in a fantasy novel. Most fantasies graft a pagan religion, with a bunch of made up gods I never heard of, with a pseudo-medieval setting with medieval weapons. Most of the elements of the D&D game were inspired by myth that occurred during the middle ages, such as King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. When people got more secular, and wanted to avoid offending people by portraying real world religions, they started grafting pagan deities in place of God and the Church into their setting to explain divine powers and clerical spells.

The thing about the real middle ages that I find interesting is that people believed in witches enough to burn people at the stake whom they accused of practicing witchcraft, but in their lives they never actually experienced magic themselves, they were quick to point their fingers at someone and call them a witch, but somehow, they were always brave enough to round up said witches and burn them at the stake without fear of reprisals by the so called "witches" themselves, so they believed at a certain level that those they accused were not actually witches, they just wanted an excuse the gullible peasants would accept so they could burn someone at the stake and take their property which they very much wanted, and get the Church's sanction for doing so, after maybe making a generous contribution to the Church and some Church official to buy their support.

I think there were two kinds of people, those who believed and those who went along with that belief because the Church was a source of political power, it was bigger than any single kingdom in Europe, so Kings had to tread carefully here, lest they be overthrown for offending too many lay people who believed in the Church and who thought the ruling monarch was a bit of a heretic. Others waiting in the wings who wanted to be king, would be quick to point fingers so they could gain the church's support and ursurp the throne. 

The thing is, most people who lived in the middle ages were very religious, those who were not went through the motions so they would not be accused of heresy or witchcraft, and so stay safe from the Inquisition. According to the Inquisition, witches were all over the place, every little thing that could not be explained could be attributed to witchcraft. People in the church derived their power from it, the more corrupt ones defending their power base could order executions, if they could justify it on the pasis of someone practicing witchcraft, so you see the Middle Ages were a little crazy with witch hunts and people protecting their power.

I ask they question is what would be different if Magic were actually real? Not just any magic, but D&D magic? The World would have to accommodate itself to this fact and change their behavior accordingly, here magic is not just hearsay and an excuse for a witch trial. If their are real witches, they will not be burned so easily, especially if people were afraid of being turned into toads and actually were!

Basically, I am keeping to the flow of history, the Kings and Queens we know from the history books are in charge when we are talking about places on the Map of Europe, and the Mediterranean World, that means the three big religions are Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. There are a few pagans left, and to some degree the World is in transition though in Europe it is mostly converted to Christianity. 

If I translate these beliefs into Game reality that makes God an overwhelming power in this world, but Medieval history does not contain a lot of acts of God, mostly just humans fighting each other trying to gain power at one another's expense, there has been plagues, that many have attributed to sinfulness and God's wrath, and Invasion by the Mongols and so forth. Insert D&D magic and monsters into this mix and it changes things somewhat. The Church and the Kingdoms have to accommodate this some how. That priests cast spells is accepted as semi-routine. No one bats an eye when a priest lays his hands one someone and heals their wounds, that is just a part of everyday life, not the "big deal" it would be in the actual Middle Ages! Wizards and Sorcerers cast spells and craft magic items, I have to alter this world minimally so society accepts this and does not go bat crazy every time some mage casts a spell. W

itch hunts are usually reserved for evil witches, and are usually led by other spell casters, and is truly a matter of safety and protection. Spell casters that go about their business and don't threaten the community are usually left alone. Wizards are out in the open, just as D&D suggests, they don' hide or form secret societies usually unless they are really up to no good! If someone sees a dragon, and it does not burn down the village, it is not that big a deal. If elves and dwarves come to a village to buy stuff, people don't usually go nuts over that, Orcs maybe, but this is a part of everyday life, everything else is based on historical Europe. Northern Africa is much the same. Unexplored parts of the World can be very different from what we know them to be, hence the elves in the Americas, they have to live somewhere you know!

Real World religions cannot be excised easily without changing what remains into something unrecognizable, so Christianity remains, because as you can see from those paintings, that really is the backbone of Medieval Europe. Magic and monsters can be added, but the belief system has to stay, and that way I can use existing kings and queens and cities as a backdrop. If I got rid of the Big Three religions, I'd have to replace history going all the way back to the early Roman Empire, and I'd rather not do that.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 12, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> But you might get into a theological argument with anyone if you try to "define" God in a way that's not clearly distinct from what RL people believe is God OR a faithful (haha, pun intended) representation that could withstand at least a basic theological debate. In your scenario, I'm afraid it doesn't.
> 
> Unless you define that your "God" is an entity that represents what your 1100 AD people believed God and Satan and Pagan/Elven Deities to be. Now, that could make an interesting setting premise if you continue this thought.
> 
> ...



I intend to keep RL theology to a minimum. A cleric casting a healing spell using the power of God is not theology in my opinion. God takes a general hands off approach and people need to solve their own problems without relying so much on divine intervention, they main exception to this rule would be divine artifacts which may be quested for. Divine artifacts can sometimes invoke an act of god, these are rare however and not acquired easily. The World in general is governed through the acts of mortals, some mortals have magic, some have that magic through their devotion to their God. But in this setting player characters are the heroes, not gods! As far as the villains are concerned, Demons and devils take a more active role, angels are really rare, sometimes artifacts can summon them, but for the most part they are out of the picture. if their are demons to slay, then PCs slay them, not angels sent by God which would leave the PCs as bystanders.


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## Celebrim (Mar 12, 2018)

[MENTION=6925649]Thomas Bowman[/MENTION]: All I'm try to say is that the problem with running a fantasy universe with close parallels to reality is that you are going to be inevitably perceived as not only making commentary on the fantasy reality, but making commentary on the real world as well.

I do understand that it is a game universe you are creating, but the closer you make that game universe to reality, the more likely you are to getting into an argument over whether your game reality accurately reflects the real reality.


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## Celebrim (Mar 12, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> The thing about the real middle ages that I find interesting is that people believed in witches enough to burn people at the stake whom they accused of practicing witchcraft...




Speaking of basing things on reality, but offending people because it isn't close enough to reality, that would be an example.

Anyone that is actually a historian of the middle ages knows that during the middle ages no one believed in witchcraft.  They didn't burn witches at the stake during the middle ages.  In fact, they were explicitly forbidden by the Catholic church of accusing people of being witches, and the official church position of all the doctors of the church to that point was that people could not perform magic and that belief in witches was pagan superstition.

The witch panic, like so many other things we think of as being part of the middle ages, only actually occurred after the middle ages were over.   The burning of witches is something that was widespread in the early modern period.

While I'm on my soap box, the medieval people were fairly clean.  They bathed at least monthly, and more often during the summer months when water was readily available.  Most medieval towns still had public baths in the Roman model.  People in Europe didn't stop bathing until the very end of the middle ages, when the fear of the black death closed down the public baths and left people afraid to bathe.   The really dirty and stinky period of European history was the early modern period.

Likewise 'the Inquisition' wasn't a very big part of the Middle Ages either.   The various inquisitions were mostly a function of again the Early Modern period, and in particular the political and social instability that occurred as a fallout of the Protestant Reformation.  (The two big exceptions would be the campaigns against the Cathars and the Waldensians, but those were very different than what most people imagine as an 'inquisition', and were more like internal European crusades.)  And most of inquisitions weren't actually a function of church government, but were run by secular powers.   For example, the 'Spanish Inquisition' that everyone has heard of wasn't run by the Catholic Church.  In fact, the Pope explicitly condemned it.   It was run by secular authorities in Spain, who decided they were powerful enough to ignore the church.   It wasn't founded until 1478, well after the middle ages had ended.  And for that matter, the 'Spanish Inquisition' wasn't nearly as brutal and corrupt as the English inquisition and persecution of Catholics.  Most of what everyone knows about the 'Spanish Inquisition' was a product of English propaganda.


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## Aldarc (Mar 12, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> There is a god and their is God. God with a capital 'G' is all powerful, a god with a lower case 'g' is not, I tend to make a distinction between the two. Satan can be thought of as an "evil god" in the pagan sense, but he is not God in the Biblical sense. Other pagan deities, such as Mars and Venus, are gods with a lower case 'g', they are powerful compared to us, within the context of the game universe, but they are not all powerful. Now just to remind you, this is in the game universe I'm creating, I don't want to get into an argument with a priest about theology. Technically Satan is a devil not a god, but he has powers just like any of a number of pagan gods who are not God, it is a difference without a distinction.



Then couldn't you hypothetically switch the terminology to "angels" and/or "devils/demons/fiends" such that these intermediary figures feature more akin to lower case "gods" for the purposes of your world? 



Celebrim said:


> Likewise 'the Inquisition' wasn't a very big part of the Middle Ages either.   The various inquisitions were mostly a function of again the Early Modern period, and in particular the political and social instability that occurred as a fallout of the Protestant Reformation.  (The two big exceptions would be the campaigns against the Cathars and the Waldensians, but those were very different than what most people imagine as an 'inquisition', and were more like internal European crusades.)  And most of inquisitions weren't actually a function of church government, but were run by secular powers.   For example, the 'Spanish Inquisition' that everyone has heard of wasn't run by the Catholic Church.  In fact, the Pope explicitly condemned it.   It was run by secular authorities in Spain, who decided they were powerful enough to ignore the church.   It wasn't founded until 1478, well after the middle ages had ended.  And for that matter, the 'Spanish Inquisition' wasn't nearly as brutal and corrupt as the English inquisition and persecution of Catholics.  Most of what everyone knows about the 'Spanish Inquisition' was a product of English propaganda.



Yeah, I was listening to a fascinating lecture in one conference that mentioned how most witchcraft trials occurred in the areas we think of as "Germany" and the "Holy Roman Empire" and not the Spanish Inquisition, which generally had more safeguards and legal procedures for protections for the people against such accusations.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 12, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Then couldn't you hypothetically switch the terminology to "angels" and/or "devils/demons/fiends" such that these intermediary figures feature more akin to lower case "gods" for the purposes of your world?
> 
> Yeah, I was listening to a fascinating lecture in one conference that mentioned how most witchcraft trials occurred in the areas we think of as "Germany" and the "Holy Roman Empire" and not the Spanish Inquisition, which generally had more safeguards and legal procedures for protections for the people against such accusations.




The way I see it, the Devil is born out of the absence of good, he is everything God is not. God could destroy him, but if he did, he would also be destroying free will and the ability to choose between good and evil. So in my World, the Devil or Satan is a manifestation of people's freedom to choose evil.


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## Aldarc (Mar 12, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> *The way I see it, the Devil is born out of the absence of good,* he is everything God is not. God could destroy him, but if he did, he would also be destroying free will and the ability to choose between good and evil. So in my World, the Devil or Satan is a manifestation of people's freedom to choose evil.



Heavy flavors of Augustine of Hippo there. 

You may also want to check out the Leaves of Chiaroscuro. It's a 3pp setting for Fate Core. But it builds off the idea of an Italian Renaissance where magic (and other fantastical creatures) exists. 

But from both a history of religions perspective and conceptual history perspective, I have some problems with the core assumption that Roman Catholic Christianity would be an outcome in a world where essentially (D&D) magic exists. One armed with only a cursory knowledge of both Christian theology and D&D magic would likely spot the issue fairly quickly, namely the Resurrection. Just about everything about Medieval Christianity is predicated on a particular view of reality that D&D's magic does not support.


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## Celebrim (Mar 12, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> But from both a history of religions perspective and conceptual history perspective, I have some problems with the core assumption that Roman Catholic Christianity would be an outcome in a world where essentially (D&D) magic exists...




My fundamental problem is not that you couldn't do D&D in a very close pastiche of Medieval Europe.  My fundamental problem is that you couldn't do a very close pastiche of Medieval Europe and also have D&D classes like cleric and wizard.  Neither class captures in any fashion how the people of the middle ages perceived magic, and they perceived magic in that way precisely because things like clerics and wizards did not exist.

D&D spell-casting classes are increasingly self-referential tropes.  They work as game elements.  They can work as verisimilitude to narrative if you sand off the details.  What they don't work as is simulations of anything but D&D, and pretty much as soon as you start doing this detailed world-building to create a pastiche Medieval Europe you've launched yourself into high simulation.  And if you do that, it's only going to be internally consistent if you get rid of most D&D classes and come up with something that fits the setting more perfectly - theurgists, miracle workers, natural philosophers, goetists and magicians - none of whom are really going to regularly have access to the splashy sort of power associated with D&D spell-casters and none of whom are going to neatly separate themselves from occult or religious concerns.


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## Aldarc (Mar 12, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> My fundamental problem is not that you couldn't do D&D in a very close pastiche of Medieval Europe.  My fundamental problem is that you couldn't do a very close pastiche of Medieval Europe and also have D&D classes like cleric and wizard.  Neither class captures in any fashion how the people of the middle ages perceived magic, and they perceived magic in that way precisely because things like clerics and wizards did not exist.



This.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 12, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Heavy flavors of Augustine of Hippo there.
> 
> You may also want to check out the Leaves of Chiaroscuro. It's a 3pp setting for Fate Core. But it builds off the idea of an Italian Renaissance where magic (and other fantastical creatures) exists.
> 
> But from both a history of religions perspective and conceptual history perspective, I have some problems with the core assumption that Roman Catholic Christianity would be an outcome in a world where essentially (D&D) magic exists. One armed with only a cursory knowledge of both Christian theology and D&D magic would likely spot the issue fairly quickly, namely the Resurrection. Just about everything about Medieval Christianity is predicated on a particular view of reality that D&D's magic does not support.



Lucky thing then that the Resurrection didn't happen in 1100 AD, there are people who both believed it happened and those that didn't and as a DM I don't have to resolve this issue. There are three main religions in this setting, one of those, Christianity, believes there was a Resurrection, the other two, Jews and Muslims do not, and I can present all three viewpoints and yet have the clerics of all three religions still receive spells from God when they pray, it is not a big issue unless I set the campaign at a time when Christ lived, but I'm not going to do that! The Bible says Christ ascended into Heaven after he was resurrected, and that's fine with me, because I don't have Christ make personal appearances in my campaign either, that way Jews and Muslims don't get offended, and the clerics they play still receive their spells in this campaign, as do the Clerics of pagan religions by the way, whatever their are left in the continent of Europe.

Officially, this campaign takes place in a parallel prime material plane in the multiverse, this one happens to be a semi-historic echo with standard D&D magic, it exists in a parallel plane where their is life on Mars and Venus as well. Venus is a Swamp/Jungle world with humans, dinosaurs, and other prehistoric and non-prehistoric monsters. It is a more primitive and primeval version of Earth, where the Goddess Venus is a major deity  maintaining the place and keeping it habitable. Since it exists on the same prime material plane as this Earth that I'm detailing here, one from Earth can teleport to it.





This is a global map of Venus with place names that I am using, but this is not what Medieval astronomers from Earth see, they see a bright white morning and evening star, all this continental detail is shrouded by the planets perpetual cloud cover, and only a even telescope can resolve Venus into a featureless disk. Venus uses most of her finite power to maintain this cloud cover over the entire planet, to protect it from the overly intense Sun's rays at its closer proximity to that star. She has been doing this for a while now, the worship of the inhabitants of this planet are what maintain her and which keep her from going dormant like most of the other gods of Olympus.





The surface of Mars looks something like this when viewed though a telescope, though of course it is not spread out over a flat map when viewed through the eye piece, but this shows the surface details of the planet. One can aim for the land when teleporting there, what one will find is anyone's guess as the telescope doesn't resolve this detail, a crystal ball might. Mars has forests near its bodies of water, but over all, its largely a desert planet. There are humans and other races here. I imagine some Earth wizards may have teleported here and to Venus. The first time teleporting to Venus, one lands in a random spot that stands a good chance to be an ocean surface. Venus' oceans are filled with sea monsters, so that is not the safest place to swim. Once one has teleported there for the first time, the spell caster can remember the place and teleport there again with some knowledge of where he is going.

Venus also has a giant gate to a parallel plane of existence where Venus has a carbon dioxide atmosphere, and lowed down it is a high pressure heat oven where the clouds above are made of sulfuric acid droplets, this would be the World Venus would become if not for the Goddess' powers to maintain it.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 12, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> My fundamental problem is not that you couldn't do D&D in a very close pastiche of Medieval Europe.  My fundamental problem is that you couldn't do a very close pastiche of Medieval Europe and also have D&D classes like cleric and wizard.  Neither class captures in any fashion how the people of the middle ages perceived magic, and they perceived magic in that way precisely because things like clerics and wizards did not exist.
> 
> D&D spell-casting classes are increasingly self-referential tropes.  They work as game elements.  They can work as verisimilitude to narrative if you sand off the details.  What they don't work as is simulations of anything but D&D, and pretty much as soon as you start doing this detailed world-building to create a pastiche Medieval Europe you've launched yourself into high simulation.  And if you do that, it's only going to be internally consistent if you get rid of most D&D classes and come up with something that fits the setting more perfectly - theurgists, miracle workers, natural philosophers, goetists and magicians - none of whom are really going to regularly have access to the splashy sort of power associated with D&D spell-casters and none of whom are going to neatly separate themselves from occult or religious concerns.



I'm not a purist, and I don't care what medieval people thought and believed, to the extend that I can mold this D&D setting to their beliefs without changing the classes or how magic works, I will. Basically I am substituting this historic setting for something comparable to the Forgotten Realms. So this World is basically a hybrid between a Standard D&D World an a historic simulation. the medeaval people who live in this setting have basically got to adjust their beliefs to fit in and deal with Wizards, Druids, Clerics, Paladins, Bards, Rangers, and various races such as elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, and other intelligent and non-intelligent monsters sharing their world. That is where the fun is at, I am not here to educate players about medieval history, but I am using it as a guide to shape this world's politics and believes, but not to the extent of changing classes and magic to fit a believed Medieval setting.

I saw a book about Middle Earth which uses a version of 5e D&D, it is a low magic setting, lower magic than what I propose here. This Medieval Earth has standard magic, the year is 1100 AD, future years don't have to follow history, the future from this point on is unknown, and of course magic and monsters will affect it.

There is a character named Genghis Khan or Chinggis Khaan[note 3] (born Temüjin,[note 4] c. 1162 – August 18, 1227), he isn't born yet, but his people do exist in this setting, as they are off the map, they are a bunch of orcs instead of humans. Someone named Genghis Khan might not ever be born in the future history of this setting, but someone like him may be, and perhaps even sooner than history books say. if they invade Europe they will do so on the backs of large worgs instead of the small ponies the Mongols rode on, this is more formidable, but the Europeans will also have magic to defend themselves with so things may balance out.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 12, 2018)

Aldarc said:


> Heavy flavors of Augustine of Hippo there.
> 
> You may also want to check out the Leaves of Chiaroscuro. It's a 3pp setting for Fate Core. But it builds off the idea of an Italian Renaissance where magic (and other fantastical creatures) exists.
> 
> But from both a history of religions perspective and conceptual history perspective, I have some problems with the core assumption that Roman Catholic Christianity would be an outcome in a world where essentially (D&D) magic exists. One armed with only a cursory knowledge of both Christian theology and D&D magic would likely spot the issue fairly quickly, namely the Resurrection. Just about everything about Medieval Christianity is predicated on a particular view of reality that D&D's magic does not support.




Lets just suppose this world was created on the apparent date of January 1, 1100 AD on what would be Greenwhich mean time on the Julian calendar. People are created with memories of a historic past, with these fantastic creatures and magic included in their memories so it seems as if nothing strange. Magic does change things from this point forward however. What's over the horizon in the New World is different. About two weeks later after that the first ship with elven explorers crosses the ocean and discovers Europe. The Elves memories are shaped similarly in that they have a fictional elven past with a fictional elven history, but somehow only now they got the idea to cross the Atlantic ocean and see what is there, and they found humans! They knew about dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and orcs for some time, but humans are something new for them, and they don't quite know what to think yet, neither do the humans they meet. 

The technological differences aren't so great that the elves quickly conquer the Old World, but the technology they do have is easily copied by the humans, they notice the shape of the sails on their ships as they enter port, and they figure out ways of building similar ships, and through trial and error they get their ships a few years later and are able to explore the New World as well. Australia is a land of Dragons and the dragon born, the dragons have a large wingspan and can fly a long distance, this is how they travel to other continents. First they are seen in Southeast Asia, then China, India and they make their way through the Middle East and into Europe.


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## Celebrim (Mar 12, 2018)

[MENTION=6925649]Thomas Bowman[/MENTION]: Then my advice to you is enjoy researching European medieval history and riffing on it however you like to create whatever fantasy world you enjoy.  Just don't share it on EnWorld, because sharing it will only bring your grief.


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## arjomanes (Mar 12, 2018)

There is a lot of D&D material for historical/mythic-fantasy. TSR did historical sourcebooks for 2e; Green Ronin did some excellent sourcebook for historical time periods; many Dragon magazine articles explored themes of medieval history and religion. I remember one about Satan in a very early issue of The Dragon. 

My current campaign is set in 1255 AD in Livonia, in the middle of a crusade between Catholics v Orthodox v pagans. So the game is all about not only religious war, but also Germans vs Russians vs Balts vs Swedes, and popes vs anti-popes, and emperors vs usurpers, and every nobleman vs their cousin vs the peasants vs outlaws. Oh yeah, and monsters and dungeons and stuff, but they all are tied more closely to the stories. Green humanoids are based on myth whenever possible, and bad people are more prominent. Orcs are the orcs from Beowulf—brutish men possessed by evil spirits. Goblins are the goblins from Labyrinth, Hobgoblins are the slaves of the fairy kings, Kobolds are greedy dwarflike misers in the hills, and the Bugbear is a creature in the woods that can slip in and out of shadows, that can smell fear, and will steal children. There are of course a lot more Baltic, Russian, and German monsters than English. 

My game uses OD&D as a chassis, and there are not a bunch of spell-slinging wizards or clerics hanging around. Sure the pope has access to lots of spellbooks and powerful relics, but he's more a noble with a theocratic kingdom than a classic D&D cleric. Using a rules-light system allows for a lot of flexibility in how much magic influences the world. I have just three alignments (Law/Chaos/Neutral), and those who worship a monotheistic deity are Lawful, so that's the Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, any Manichaeans who are still hanging around, and a handful of secret Atenist cults. Most Christian heretics are lawful as well, including proto-protestants like the Waldensians, though Cathars/Bogomils are unique in that they are Neutral. Most magic, all elf/fairy cults, and the pagan religions that are based on them are Chaotic. Initiation into a cult/religion gives you an alignment—baptism/circumcision/khitan/wiccaning/pact/summon familiar—and regular ritual keeps your alignment stable—eucharist/shabbat/salat/esbat/etc.

Magic users can learn lawful spells from scripture, enochian magic from esoteric writings, natural magic from philosophical and alchemical treatises, fairy magic from elfish runes, sorcery from mystical grimoires, and goetia from demonic inscriptions. Any spell in the game is learnable by a magic-user, but the character's alignment will allow or disallow use of the spell. Clerics are warrior-priests who take monastic vows to gain their powers without needing books (paladins would fit this same role if they were in my game). It's possible to make a pact with a fairy, demon, angel, or pagan god, but that isn't a class feature as much as meeting one and convincing it to give you powers in exchange for favors. 

So the game basically operates on the idea that what medieval people thought, that's what's more or less true. And I'm fine with some ambiguity/contradiction (my Syrian magic-user, Swedish Knight Templar, Dwarf, and elf-stolen barbarians all have different religious beliefs—are they right or not?).  So yes, Saint Christopher was a giant jackel-headed saint, Saint George really did fight a dragon, spiders hid Saint Felix from Roman soldiers, etc. The Four Elements influence everything from alchemy to personality and health (if demons aren't messing with them), and relics, icons, and symbols are very important. Elfs are fairies and are feared/worshipped, so they can't be PC classes. But half-elves exist as changelings and fey-stolen humans. Halflings are children who can never grow up because they were stolen by elves. Dwarfs are dwarfs, and very rare and said to possess magical powers and the ability to create any thing.   

It's working ok so far. It required a fair amount of research since I didn't know that much about which Russian Principalities survived the Golden Horde mostly intact, or when different regions of Latvia fell to the crusader armies, or how much insurgency was common at that time. I had to create a couple subsystem (and they're a work-in-progress) for the social estates, humourism, piety/cabalism, and supernatural pacts. 

So tl;dr: historical/mythic fantasy can be a lot of fun. I wanted to make medieval religion make sense by aligning it with the alignment system. I also wanted to make sure the monsters were mythic/folkloric and there weren't nation-states of alien creatures (unless they were hidden; the Kingdom of Heaven is full of angels, the Fairies hold court in the fairy realm, there are goblins lurking in the Woods, etc). Don't be afraid to overturn apple carts. If someone wants to debate if Saint Cristopher really was Cynocephalic or not, that can be handled after the session. Also, know your audience. I'm a religion nerd, so a lot of my religion ideas aren't being used by my players who equate religion to eating broccoli.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 13, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> [MENTION=6925649]Thomas Bowman[/MENTION]: Then my advice to you is enjoy researching European medieval history and riffing on it however you like to create whatever fantasy world you enjoy.  Just don't share it on EnWorld, because sharing it will only bring your grief.




Why is that? D20 Modern takes place in the "real world", sort of. in that world their are Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Buddists, Hindus and whatever. But there are also monsters and magic. So imagine D20 Modern taking place in the Middle Ages and Substituting D&D classes for the Modern classes. is that so hard? in the real middle ages, there was no magic, magic was just a bunch of stories and fairy tales. Why should actual magic back then have any relation to what stories were told around the fireplace? Just saying, if Magic is a real phenomenon, why should it hew to what people back then thought magic should be?


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## Celebrim (Mar 13, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Why is that?




Because right now the griefers and the haters are busy distracted with another thread.  But as soon as they get bored there or they succeed in locking that thread, they are going to come around here and notice this thread.


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## Knightfall (Mar 13, 2018)

Okay, so you're creating an alternate version of Earth that exists on its own Prime Material Plane. You're using the Holy Roman Empire near the end of Henry IV's reign as your starting point. This puts the setting in the time period of the High Middle Ages. You want God and the Devil (or Satan) to exist but that "Capital G" Deity isn't meant to be any real world God(s) that is worshiped by Christians, Jewish people, or Muslims. Yet, that Deity stands in for God for those religions. Personally, I think you're going to end up with a lot of friction if any of your players are religious. (BTW, I'm Agnostic, but I grew up Christian.) Of course, it will depend on the players you select for the campaign. If you know them very well and have talked to them ahead of time, it probably will end up being okay. But if you recruit new players or select a group of players that might object, it could go very, very badly.

One suggestion I have is to give your fictional God a campaign specific name to separate the Deity from the God(s) of real world religions. Since this is the Holy Roman Empire, you could simply use a Latin word for God such as Deus or Divus. If those don't appeal to you, you can use Google Translate to pick something else. Of course, Satan is already a Latin word for the Devil, but you could also use either Diabolus or maybe even Antitheus. Or perhaps instead of saying worshipers of the Devil are satanists, say they are diabolists. It is similar but unique "gaming" enough that you won't have to deal with players cringing when 'sensitive' real world terminology comes up in-game.

Also you could use this Latin word for Christianity, Christianitas, to create a fictionalized version of the religion. Then again, you could also use the Latin word 'Nazarene' and call your in-game version of the Christian religion, Nazarenity (or maybe Nazarenitas). (Those might feel weird to use, but it's a good alternative if you want to truly fictionalize your alternate Earth.) You could do the same for Muslim (Latin: Musulmanus) and Judaism (Latin: Judaismus). Of course, all that might feel to forced for you and your players, but it might prevent any real world religious debates that could come up between you and your players.

Also, I'm assuming that when it comes to the Americas, your elves and halflings won't have any connection to Indigenous religious beliefs. Or am I wrong? Of course, your players might hear that elves are the 'natives' of North America and they'll play them as Indigenous Peoples of North America (likely with bad tropes attached). It something for you to consider when creating this setting. Let them know ahead of time that elves and the other races follow the norms for those races as presented in D&D, if that is your plan.

There is a books series you might want to read: Deryni Universe by Katherine Kurtz.


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## Hussar (Mar 13, 2018)

Thomas B - don't let [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] worry you too much.  I'd amend his claims to be closer to, "If you post this on En World with the pretensions that you are an expert and that any and all criticisms can be brushed away" then you might have problems.

Otherwise, nobody is going to bother you in the slightest about this.  We reap what we sow after all.


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## Jhaelen (Mar 13, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> I'm not a purist, and I don't care what medieval people thought and believed, to the extend that I can mold this D&D setting to their beliefs without changing the classes or how magic works, I will. Basically I am substituting this historic setting for something comparable to the Forgotten Realms.



Oh, okay. Nevermind, then.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 13, 2018)

Knightfall said:


> Okay, so you're creating an alternate version of Earth that exists on its own Prime Material Plane. You're using the Holy Roman Empire near the end of Henry IV's reign as your starting point. This puts the setting in the time period of the High Middle Ages. You want God and the Devil (or Satan) to exist but that "Capital G" Deity isn't meant to be any real world God(s) that is worshiped by Christians, Jewish people, or Muslims. Yet, that Deity stands in for God for those religions. Personally, I think you're going to end up with a lot of friction if any of your players are religious. (BTW, I'm Agnostic, but I grew up Christian.) Of course, it will depend on the players you select for the campaign. If you know them very well and have talked to them ahead of time, it probably will end up being okay. But if you recruit new players or select a group of players that might object, it could go very, very badly.
> 
> One suggestion I have is to give your fictional God a campaign specific name to separate the Deity from the God(s) of real world religions. Since this is the Holy Roman Empire, you could simply use a Latin word for God such as Deus or Divus. If those don't appeal to you, you can use Google Translate to pick something else. Of course, Satan is already a Latin word for the Devil, but you could also use either Diabolus or maybe even Antitheus. Or perhaps instead of saying worshipers of the Devil are satanists, say they are diabolists. It is similar but unique "gaming" enough that you won't have to deal with players cringing when 'sensitive' real world terminology comes up in-game.
> 
> ...



I will consider this advice, but really it is just a Generic Monotheistic God, many religions have their different and conflicting belief in this God, but God is not revealing who is right and who is wrong in this, that I why their are Holy Wars. In this setting God answers prayers but so do other deities as well. God is not the deitie's proper name, Christian call him "Jehovah", Jews call him "Yahweh", and Muslims call him "Allah". I don't plan on using those religious words except in quotation when referring to them. I think the term God is sufficiently generic. If you like we can assume it is a parallel God, not the ones that real world Christians, Jews, and Muslim worship, this is a fictional world after all. It is a fictional Three worlds in fact. Venus is closer to being a standard D&D world, it has cities, it has wizards, clerics, and druids, and it is mainly a pagan setting. Wizards from Earth, who for the most part have the ability to teleport there, have no interest in acting as missionaries for the Church, they have better things to do with their time and with their spells. Venus has two large gates above its South Pole connecting that Venus to our Venus. The gate does not allow the passage of atmosphere just solid objects such as spaceships like this one:









The BFR in question was investigating an atmospheric anomaly in the upper atmosphere of our Venus and it got sucked through the gate, and was forced to land. The crew of that spaceship is sort of stuck on Venus at the start of this campaign, and has to deal with the natives, some of whom can cast spells. the people on the Earth I am talking about here, don't know about this yet. The ship can reach orbit if it fills its tanks with methane and oxygen, the natives don't have this refueling capacity, as they are stuck in the Bronze age. The crew might be doing something about that! he ship's lift capacity is much reduced without that bottom stage, but it can reach orbit, can't go beyond that however! Perhaps it can pass through the gate back to our Venus and reach orbit there. But first it must be refueled, and if it was refueled, it can't carry all 100 passengers, maybe 3, and then someone would have to rescue them in low Venus Orbit before their life support runs out! They could launch though the gate, reach orbit, and then send a message back to Earth, and then reenter the atmosphere, pass through the gate and then land the ship once again and wait to be rescued, that is the current plan, as they can't communicate with Earth from the surface of the planet they are now standing on. Until that happens, they will just be deemed as missing by SpaceX and presumed dead. The passengers were colonists bound for a floating aerostat high in Venus' poisonous atmosphere, they would have been dropped of and the crew would have returned to orbit once the fuel for reaching orbit was manufactured onboard the aerostat, for te return trip to orbit, and then a mothership would take them back to Earth. But they aerostat can't provide fuel if there is no people onboard, and there are no people on board, instead they are on the surface of the other Venus when the ship was sucked through the gate. the crew and passengers were presumed lost in in accident. That is what is going on at Venus at the time of his campaign.

I'm not interested in religion other than to complete this setting, and I'm not going to dwell on this subject, I am moving on and completing my map.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 13, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> Because right now the griefers and the haters are busy distracted with another thread.  But as soon as they get bored there or they succeed in locking that thread, they are going to come around here and notice this thread.



By the time they do that, I will tell them, I am not interested in discussing religion with them, and suggest they go to another site. I am moving on and discussing other aspects of this world, their time to talk about God and religion is passed, too bad for them!


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## Lylandra (Mar 13, 2018)

Umm, so do I get this right that your earth gods (minus Mars/Venus) are just for earth and have no business in the rest of your universe? And Mars/Venus are quasi-omnipotent active caretakers of their respective, habited planets? 
Then why would anyone be polytheistic (and not monotheistic) on these two planets?

Oh and: Am I right to assume that the people on Mars/Venus were created or at least brought there by their gods?


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 13, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> Umm, so do I get this right that your earth gods (minus Mars/Venus) are just for earth and have no business in the rest of your universe? And Mars/Venus are quasi-omnipotent active caretakers of their respective, habited planets?
> Then why would anyone be polytheistic (and not monotheistic) on these two planets?
> 
> Oh and: Am I right to assume that the people on Mars/Venus were created or at least brought there by their gods?




That is correct, in ancient Greek and Roman times of this world, the gods were associated with six planets. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The Earth goddess is also known as Terra to the Romans or Gaia to the Greeks. Gaia was the primordia deity, she is the mother of all the other gods of Olympus, and also the mother of their adversaries the Titans. She spends most of her time sleeping, or so the legend goes, when she wakes you have things like Earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, she is also known as "Mother Nature" and the "Mother of Monsters". Venus is like that for her planet as well. Mars plays that role for his planet as well, besides being the "God of War" Mars is also worshipped on Venus and Venus is worshipped on Mars, and each planet has its own set of local deities as well. the other gods weren't able to do much with their planets. Mercury was too close to the Sun, the Moon didn't have enough gravity, Jupiter and Saturn didn't have a solid surface to stand on.

Venus brought some of her worshippers, and those include not just the Greeks and Romans, she goes as far back as Ancient Babylon where she was known as Ishtar, she was Isis to the Egyptians, and Freya to the Norse people, she has been doing this for thousands of years all the way back to the stone ages from before there was writing.

Mars requires some additional work, it has a high tech past, has cities of great technology and magic, it was settled by the Ancient Atlanteans before their continent sank beneath the waves on Earth. Some of the Atlanteans became Merfolk living in their sunken kingdom out beyond the Pillars of Hercules (The straights of Gibraltrar), but others were taken by Ares to settle on the planet Mars. Ares/Mars might have had something to do with the destruction of Atlantis, there were rumors of a civil war there prior to its sinking. Kind of ironic that descendents of the Atlanteans would settle on a planet that is mostly desert. For a time they had a great civilization and dug canals to distribute the water from the poles to the drier areas, but then their civilization fell to warfare and never quite recovered since. Perhaps Ares just got bored and decided to start something.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 14, 2018)

Here is my map of Europe with the labels removed and the hexes renumbered. There are some stray hexes I have to take care of, but here is what I have so far, to give you an idea of what I'm working on.

This can be found at https://thomasbowman255.deviantart....Hex-Map-735444935?ga_submit_new=10:1521038663


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 14, 2018)

This is the map without the hex numbering
found at
https://orig00.deviantart.net/482f/...100_ad_hex_map_by_thomasbowman255-dc5v7f2.png






I am working on this map, replacing labeled hexes with unlabeled ones and then putting the labels back on for a much clearer map, and with layering I can use this empty Europe map to detail other settings that take place on a version of Earth. This is as far as I have gotten so far.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 15, 2018)

Back to this setting, the way I see it, it could be used with D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, and possibly D&D 5.0, and since I introduced a spaceship from our near future, I would say D20 Modern/Future, since that is compatible with those other systems. Originally I got this idea as a setting with an habitable and inhabited Venus and Mars, the best way to do this is to have a gate to a parallel universe, one with magic, the magic includes magical beings called "gods" two of these "gods" terraformed these two planets and populated them, yet I wanted characters we would recognize from our own future, I am thinking sometime in the 2030s perhaps. Elon Musk's dream has gotten off the ground, he has started a colony on Mars and other people are looking to start a colony in the clouds of Venus where the pressures and temperatures are tolerable. I am thinking of a starter colony of 100 people, an aerostat, gets sucked into the gate along with a spaceship.









After repairing the refueling the spaceship, they can use it to resume contact with Earth, and with some help from their mother planet, they can explore other parts of the parallel Solar System. So now we come to the idea of what to put on Earth in the fantasy Solar System, so I figured it would be a Medieval Earth approximating the year 1100 AD since I found this Hex map of 1100 AD. Since the original map was small, I enlarged it by 200%, each hex is numbered, but the numbers were blurry when I look at them close. I can fix that, or maybe put the numbers on the edge of the map instead of in each hex. Eventually someone from the near future Earth is going to land a spaceship here, what happens then? Interplanetary travel is still expensive. Ticket prices are about $200,000 per individual, to send a family of 5 would cost $1,000,000. Since there are now habitable planets to colonize, the incentive to bring down costs increases. SpaceX is working to reduce costs further, but now their is the question of original inhabitants of these planets, that matter is being brought up by the United Nations. The population of the Future Earth is around 8 billion, and to suddenly have 3 additional planets to colonize is a very tempting prospect. There are people both pro and con. The gate high in the atmosphere of Venus is making some NASA scientists nervous, they wonder what kind of technology could produce such a warp in the fabric of space in close proximity to a planet? Maybe an extraterrestrial civilization. The inhabitants of the Venus on the other side of the gate look primitive, and their technology does not look capable of producing such a gate, the idea of magic doesn't immediately occur to them, until they are forced to confront it. All this is going on unbeknownst to the people of the fantasy Medieval Earth.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 15, 2018)

For added fun and games, you could make the D&D Earth follow Aristotelian physics (object move if force is applied and otherwise fall down)  and the Ptolemaic cosmology (earth centered and all planets move in their own crystal sphere). At least on the prime material plane. However, the ethereal plane is close enough to real world physics for the space ships to operate.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 15, 2018)

It would be hard to have three habitable planets in a Ptolemaic cosmology. One of those three planets would have to be in the center of the Solar System. So the Sun orbits the Earth at 1 astronomical unit or about 93 million miles. The Sun only holds a relatively constant distance from one of those planets, the others would have variable distances from the Sun, since they would be orbiting one of those planets along with the Sun. Copernicus' idea was just common sense. How could a big star 333,000 times the mass of the Earth orbit around the Earth at an average distance of 93 million miles? the other planets Venus and Mars would have to do what to stay a constant distance from that Sun? You can see why Galileo rejected that physics when he observed mountains on the Moon.

Naw, I figure I'd stick to conventional physics so I can have three habitable planets, just add D&D magic and monsters.

Anyway I want to create a setting that accommodates both science fiction and fantasy. Mars has in places a higher technology that future Earth does, I think denizens from the Starfinder Alien Archive could inhabit its surface as Martians. Humans live there too of course. But the Martian ecology is much more "alien" than either Earth or Venus, items of technology exist on the red planet's surface and of course techno-magic taken from the core rulebook of Starfinder as well as character classes, and the spell lists found there. Most of Mars' technology is equivalent to early gunpowder era, they have muskets and swords, with pockets of technology that is much more advanced. What draws the Earthling on Venus to Mars is the fact that they receive a radio signal from that planet, and their is also magic as well. The Deity Mars has been a lot more creative with his planet than Venus was. Venus is a sort of "Land of the Lost" with dinosaurs, cavemen and women, lizardfolk and other primitive and prehistoric creatures.


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## UngainlyTitan (Mar 15, 2018)

Common sense has nothing to do with, I thought it would be a fun idea because it was how it was believed at the time and the because was God willed it so. It is, however, your game and I will say no more.


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## Hussar (Mar 15, 2018)

This is just way too cool.

As an option, and I know I've brought up Primeval Thule before, but, they use the other planets as the home of demons and any other extra-planar goodies.  Instead of demons and devils being from other planes, they're just aliens from another planet.  Also works for aberrations too.  Just to borrow from a very Lovecraftian approach to critters.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 16, 2018)

Hussar said:


> This is just way too cool.
> 
> As an option, and I know I've brought up Primeval Thule before, but, they use the other planets as the home of demons and any other extra-planar goodies.  Instead of demons and devils being from other planes, they're just aliens from another planet.  Also works for aberrations too.  Just to borrow from a very Lovecraftian approach to critters.




To give you an idea, science works in this universe just as it does in our own, the same laws apply, but magic also works. In the future Earth side of the gate, magic doesn't work except for gods. Venus's avatar can fly through the gate and teleport herself to "Future Earth" where technology works but magic does not work for mortals. She brings her own magic with her, in fact Venus created the gate in the first place. Now what would be her motivation for doing so? I got one, a god's powers are directly proportional to the number of worshippers he or she has. Venus has managed to stay active because she has a planet with a bunch of worshippers on it, but those worshippers number a few million only, it is a very primitive world. Mars on the other hand is more technologically advanced, and despite its smaller size, this technology has allowed Mars to have a higher population than Venus, and thus the God Mars is growing more powerful in relation to Venus. 

Now on fantasy Earth, the God of the Christians, Jews, and Muslims is supplanting the worship of pagan deities like herself, but Venus has discovered another Earth through her extra-planar travels, this one is populated by 8 billion humans, magic does not work for them, and they are not so religious as the people on fantasy Earth, and much more importantly Technological Earth has a much higher population that the Medieval fantasy Earth, if she can bring some over to her planet, and get some of them to worship her, she would grow more powerful too, but first she would have to lure some of those other Earth humans over to her planet, perhaps she could give them some sort of mystery to investigate, and atmospheric anomaly, yes, that will work! Unsuspecting humans from Earth get sucked through the gate to her planet, and they discover a habitable planet with natives capable of using magic, and more importantly they can use it themselves if they care to learn it! They would also bring their technology, and that could be helpful too! As for the native cultures on her planet, she reasons that they'll adapt. Earth humans will come in at only a trickle at first, as interplanetary travel is still expensive, but costs will come down over time.


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## Angus MacDonald (Mar 17, 2018)

When I first ran _Ars Magica_ at UC Santa Barbara ... most of my gamers were in the PhD program in Medieval History.  So, yeah, this is home turf for me.  I love the 11th & 12th century and can muck around with it like crazy.  I have run in straight and I have run it variant.  Just depends on who I am dealing with and how immersed they want to get in this history/philosophy/music/literature.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 17, 2018)

Angus MacDonald said:


> When I first ran _Ars Magica_ at UC Santa Barbara ... most of my gamers were in the PhD program in Medieval History.  So, yeah, this is home turf for me.  I love the 11th & 12th century and can muck around with it like crazy.  I have run in straight and I have run it variant.  Just depends on who I am dealing with and how immersed they want to get in this history/philosophy/music/literature.




I am working on a map of Europe in the year 1100 AD, at a certain point, I'm going to put cities on it, and for the purposes of Dungeons and Dragons, I would like to know who the rulers are of the various cities at that time. What is the best place to look them up at, any suggestions? I kind of want to put together a Gazateer, and will want to include the major cities, and what I don't know, I'll just make up.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 20, 2018)

Here is my map of Europe with more clearly numbered hexes than the original that I started out with:
https://orig00.deviantart.net/91fc/...mbered_hex_map_by_thomasbowman255-dc6fqoe.png





Now all that remains is to put the cities and labels back on the map for a brand new clearer image.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 20, 2018)

Here is the maps showing the largest cities in Europe at around 1100, these cities have populations of 25,000 or more and are called Metropolises according to the standard 3.5 rules.
https://orig00.deviantart.net/e0dd/...mbered_hex_map_by_thomasbowman255-dc6gpdq.png


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## Legatus Legionis (Mar 21, 2018)

I think this is great.

The Forgotten Realms is a great source for how kingdoms and such would work in a continent, so having a map of Europe would work.

Also, since Conan's Hyberian Age was based off of Europe/Northern Africa map, using those "kingdoms" works well here as well.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 21, 2018)

Here are the populations of the metropolises:
Hex     Name                  Population
00 58  Marrakech            325,000
05 54  Fez                      33,000
08 48  Cordoba               31,000
25 30  Paris                    28,000
28 29  Gent                    40,000
32 40  Genoa                  390,000
33 38  Milano                  40,000
35 41  Firenze                 35,000
37 39  Venezia                160,000
38 53  Palermo                103,000
63 46  Konstantinopolis    718,000
70 68  Cairo                     673,000
93 56  Baghdad                613,000
93 47  Tabriz                    169,000
108 48 Nishapur                592,000

I rolled them up randomly, they are not based on actual census records from 1100 AD. I did make sure Konstantinopolis  has a large population, I switched it with a number I rolled for another city, it is supposed to be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire after all!


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## Hussar (Mar 21, 2018)

Neat.  How did you get such pretty hex numbering?  Plug in for Photoshop or Gimp?  I would love that one.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 21, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Neat.  How did you get such pretty hex numbering?  Plug in for Photoshop or Gimp?  I would love that one.




It took a while. I was working on this before I started discussing it. I found the map on the internet, buy googling Dungeons and Dragons Map of Europe, and someone made a map. The original map was half the size of this one. I imported it to my paint program, and then I doubled the size, so each pixel became four pixels. I then copied each hex type, I erased the original hex number as it was blurry, and I created a generic hex for each hex type I then went over the map, pasting a generic terrain hex over each hex of a given terrain covering over cities, names of cities, labels and so forth until their were nothing but unnumbered terrain hexes. I then created a blank hex map with a background color of dark blue.

I originally tried white as a background color, but when I typed the numbers at the top of each hex, even if those numbers were a dark color, the edge pixels had that color blended in with the background color of white, thus giving it highlights, that made the numbers hard to read when they were on a dark background hex on the map. So I redid the numbers on a dark blue blackground, so now the dark font color blended with the dark blue background color creating dark numbering. The coordinates are an (x,y) coordinate system, the first hex number is the number of hexes across from left to right numbering 0 to 109. the second number is the number of hexes from top to bottom which were numbered from 0 to 72. So I typed the second number first, which is the number of hexes down from the top. I typed the numbers on the top right to create the first column. I then made the background color Dark blue transparent and then I copied the whole column and pasted it over the next 109 columns to the right. And then I typed the horizontal numbers at the top left of each column. I made sure to leave the second row starting with column 3 black so I could number that second row from left to right. I then copied the second row with the background dark blue as the transparent color and then pasted that seconf row on top of all the other rows, I then completed numbering the hexes left black until I filled all the blue hexes on the black map. Then I copied the entire black map with dark blue as the transparent color and pasted it over the map of Europe I created, and that way I numbered all the hexes on the map. These numbers are the same as on the original map, only clearer and sharper. I then when over the original, and on a notepad coped a hex number for each hex with a metropolis on it, then next to it I wrote the name of the city, and I rolled the population of each city with a d100 using this method:

Roll 1d100: If result is from 1 to 25 multiply by 1,000 and add 25,000 to get the population; if the result is from 26 to 50 multiply the result by 3,000 and add 25,000 to get the population; if the result is from 51 to 75 multiply by 5,000  and add 25,000 to get the population; and if the result is from 76 to 100 then multiply by 7,000 and add 25,000 to that number to get the population. These are the largest cities in Europe, I'm not sure what the actual populations were in 1100 AD. I suppose I could look it up somewhere and their were some educated guesses based on archeological evidence, but this is a magical world paralleling our own, but not 100%, so I don't let the facts get in the way of creating this campaign world. Next up are the large and the small cities. Anything smaller than a small city is too small to appear on this map, as each hex is 31 miles. The original map had hexes as 50 kilometers, so I converted it to Imperial Units and got the number as 31 miles. The metric system just doesn't look good in a fantasy universe, customary measures imbues an more traditional feel to the setting without the science metric system, which describes better a science fiction universe. I don't think knights in shining armor should be talking in kilometers but in miles, so this is the in game unit of measure and the units the players use to measure the map scale.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 21, 2018)

Here is the first city that I randomly rolled using 3.5 rules:

*Hex#* 00 58 *Marrakech* (Metropolis): Conventional: AL LG, Nonstandard: AL LG, Conventional: LN, Conventional: AL NG; *100,000 gp limit*; *Assets* 1,625,000,000 gp; *Population* 325,000; Mixed (*human* 79%, *halfling* 9%, *elf *5%, *dwarf* 3%, *gnome* 2%, *half-elf* 1%, *half-orc* 1%); *Highest level locals* (*Adept* 16th, 14th, 14th, 16th levels, , *Aristocrat* 14th, 15th, 16th, 16th levels, *Barbarian* 14th 13th, 15th, 14th levels, *Bard* 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th levels, *Cleric* 15th, 14th, 18th, 18th levels, *Commoner* 21st, 25th, 20th, 18th levels, *Druid* 13th, 15th, 14th, 18th level, *Expert* 23rd, 16th, 20th, 19th levels, *Fighter* 13th, 13th, 17th, 20th levels, *Monk* 14th, 14th, 14th, 14th levels, *Paladin* 13th, 14th, 13th, 15th levels, *Ranger* 13th, 13th, 14th, 15th levels, *Rogue* 14th, 14th, 13th, 14th levels, *Sorcerer *14th, 16th, 13th, 13th levels, *Warrior* 17th, 16th, 14th, 17th levels, *Wizard* 14th, 14th, 13th, 15th levels); *Captain of the Guard:* dwarf 17th level warrior, *Primary Language Spoken:* Berber. Kingdom of Morocco, *Majority Religion* Islam.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 24, 2018)

Here is three cities:

00 58 *Marrakech (Metropolis):* Conventional: AL LG, Nonstandard: AL LG, Conventional: LN, Conventional: AL NG; 100,000 gp limit; Assets 1,625,000,000 gp; *Population* 325,000; Mixed (human 79%, halfling 9%, elf 5%, dwarf 3%, gnome 2%, half-elf 1%, half-orc 1%); *Highest level locals* (*Adept* 16th, 14th, 14th, 16th levels, , *Aristocrat* 14th, 15th, 16th, 16th levels, *Barbarian* 14th 13th, 15th, 14th levels, *Bard* 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th levels, *Cleric* 15th, 14th, 18th, 18th levels, *Commoner* 21st, 25th, 20th, 18th levels, *Druid* 13th, 15th, 14th, 18th level, *Expert* 23rd, 16th, 20th, 19th levels, *Fighter* 13th, 13th, 17th, 20th levels, *Monk* 14th, 14th, 14th, 14th levels,* Paladin* 13th, 14th, 13th, 15th levels, *Ranger *13th, 13th, 14th, 15th levels, *Rogue* 14th, 14th, 13th, 14th levels, *Sorcerer* 14th, 16th, 13th, 13th levels, *Warrior* 17th, 16th, 14th, 17th levels, *Wizard* 14th, 14th, 13th, 15th levels); *Captain of the Guard:* dwarf 17th level warrior.

05 54 *Fez*  (Metropolis): Conventional: AL LG, Nonstandard: LG, Conventional AL LN, Conventional AL LG; 100,000 gp limit; Assets 165,000,000 gp; *Population* 33,000; Mixed (humans 75%, halflings 8%, elf 5%, dwarf 5%, gnome 3%, half-elf 2%, half-orc 2%); *Highest level locals* (*Adept* 14th, 16th, 13th, 18th levels, *Aristocrat* 15th, 15th, 16th, 14th levels *Barbarian* 16th, 14th, 14th, 14th levels, *Bard* 15th, 16th, 13th, 15th levels, *Cleric* 18th, 17th, 16th, 18th levels, *Commoner* 20th, 25th, 24th, 23rd levels, *Druid* 14th, 15th, 17th, 15th levels, *Expert* 19th, 18th, 19th, 17th levels,* Fighter* 14th, 15th, 17th, 15th levels, *Monk* 15th, 14th, 16th, 16th levels, *Paladin* 15th, 15th, 15th, 13th levels, *Range*r 13th, 15th, 15th, 15th levels, *Sorcerer* 13th, 16th, 16th, 16th levels, *Warriors* 18th, 17th, 17th, 19th levels); *Captain of the Guard:* human 17th level fighter.

08 48 *Cordoba*  (Metropolis): Nonstandard: AL LN, Conventional: LE, Conventional: LG, Magical: LE; 100,000 gp limit; Assets 153,000,000 gp; *Population* 31,000; Mixed (humans 74%, halfling 8%, elf 7%, dwarf 4%, gnome 2%, half-elf 3%, half-orc 2%); *Highest level locals* (*Adept* 13th, 17th, 16th, 14th levels, *Aristocrat* 13th, 14th, 14th, 14th level, *Barbarian* 15th, 13th, 14th, 13th levels, *Bard* 17th, 17th, 13th, 13th levels, *Cleric* 17th, 14th, 14th, 13th levels, *Commoner* 22nd, 21st, 24th, 19th levels, *Druid* 15th, 18th, 18th, 17th levels, *Expert* 22nd, 17th, 19th, 18th levels, *Fighter* 19th, 17th, 15th, 14th levels, *Monk* 13th, 15th, 13th, 14th levels, *Paladin* 13th, 13th, 14th, 13th levels, *Ranger* 14th, 14th, 14th, 15th levels, *Rogue* 17th, 19th, 13th, 14th levels, *Sorcerer* 13th, 16th, 16th, 14th levels, *Warrio*r 16th, 18th, 19th, 19th levels, *Wizard* 16th, 14th, 13th, 16th levels); *Captain of the Guard:* human 19th level warrior.

Still working on some more, and on some encounter tables when the die rolling gets monotonous.


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## CapnZapp (Mar 24, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Here are the populations of the metropolises:
> Hex     Name                  Population
> 00 58  Marrakech            325,000
> 05 54  Fez                      33,000
> ...



Why on earth would you randomize the populations? Perhaps you come from outside Europe so you don't know what cities were historically large? I would have thought finding out real numbers (if approximate) would be relatively quick, and it would yield much more satisfying results.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 24, 2018)

These are the ones I found
Hex Name Population
00 58 Marrakech 325,000
05 54 Fez 33,000
08 48 Cordoba 31,000 Actual population *450,000*
25 30 Paris 28,000 Actual population *50,000*
28 29 Gent 40,000 Actual population *10,000 (small city)*
32 40 Genoa 390,000 Actual population* 50,000*
33 38 Milano 40,000 (Actual population in 1200 AD) *90,000*
35 41 Firenze 35,000 Actual population (Florence) *50,000*
37 39 Venezia 160,000 Actual population* 60,000*
38 53 Palermo 103,000 Actual population *350,000*
63 46 Konstantinopolis 718,000 Actual population *500,000
*70 68 Cairo 673,000
93 56 Baghdad 613,000
93 47 Tabriz 169,000
108 48 Nishapur 592,000

I couldn't find sources for North African, Middle eastern, or western Asian cities, but I think I'll go with those actual population. It appears Gent got demoted from a metropolis to a small city according to the DMG 3.5 definition.

Here is the entry for Cordoba with the actual population:
08 48 ​*Cordoba  (Metropolis): Nonstandard: AL LN, Conventional: LE, Conventional: LG, Magical: LE; 100,000 gp limit; Assets 2,250,000,000 gp; ​Population 450,000; Mixed (humans 74%, halfling 8%, elf 7%, dwarf 4%, gnome 2%, half-elf 3%, half-orc 2%); ​Highest level locals (​Adept 13th, 17th, 16th, 14th levels, ​Aristocrat 13th, 14th, 14th, 14th level, ​Barbarian 15th, 13th, 14th, 13th levels, ​Bard 17th, 17th, 13th, 13th levels, ​Cleric 17th, 14th, 14th, 13th levels, ​Commoner 22nd, 21st, 24th, 19th levels, ​Druid 15th, 18th, 18th, 17th levels, ​Expert 22nd, 17th, 19th, 18th levels, ​Fighter 19th, 17th, 15th, 14th levels, ​Monk 13th, 15th, 13th, 14th levels, ​Paladin 13th, 13th, 14th, 13th levels, ​Ranger 14th, 14th, 14th, 15th levels, ​Rogue 17th, 19th, 13th, 14th levels, ​Sorcerer 13th, 16th, 16th, 14th levels, ​Warrior 16th, 18th, 19th, 19th levels, ​Wizard 16th, 14th, 13th, 16th levels); ​Captain of the Guard: human 19th level warrior.

Cordoba's status as a Metropolis doesn't change, so the only thing the increased population affects is the Assets which is calculated as One tenth the population time one half the gp limit this number is 2,250,000,000 gp.
​**
​*


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 25, 2018)

Here is the first installment of the encounters tables:


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## Lylandra (Mar 26, 2018)

so the female commoner is the leader?


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 27, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> so the female commoner is the leader?




It is incomplete, I was just giving you what I had so far. Stating out the cities was a bit tedious so I needed a change of pace, these stats don't represent warriors, I am doing that later. The Commoner is the most numerous character class out there, most of them are farmers or peasants, when they are traveling in the forest, they do go armed. I made a mistake with the woman, a Commoner is only proficient with one simple weapon and I gave her three, it is also a known fact that on average men are bigger and stronger than women. Both stats are given Elite ability scores, the Male has Strength as his strongest ability and he gets a 15, the Female has hers in Charisma, she also has a dexterity of 14, so she gets the ranged weapon and the male gets a long spear to do melee, I'm going to use a feat to make her proficient with a short bow and I'm going to give her a short bow, since one of her skills is Craft(bowmaking), she can probably give herself a discount when she makes one. I got the character sheets for them see below. If you want, you can fill in the blanks and use them as player character sheets, it would be an interesting challenge to play a commoner. You got any good names for them? I thought of a couple, I call the woman Gretel, and the man's name is Hansel, these two are brother and sister, and also twins, that had a traumatic experience some time ago in the Black Forest of the Holy Roman Empire when they were children, having to do with a cannibalistic witch living in an edible home. This is them about 15 years later.








Here is the Encounter Table and the related subtables, I still have a warrior character sheet to fill out.


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## CapnZapp (Mar 27, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> it is also a known fact that on average men are bigger and stronger than women.



It is also a known fact that rpgs have moved beyond gender issues a long time ago.

The modern approach is to call these two stat blocks something like *warrior* and *hunter* and relegate sex to mere description; so that female warriors and male hunters aren't excluded from the outset.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 27, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> It is also a known fact that rpgs have moved beyond gender issues a long time ago.
> 
> The modern approach is to call these two stat blocks something like *warrior* and *hunter* and relegate sex to mere description; so that female warriors and male hunters aren't excluded from the outset.




Well they are commoners not warriors, thus they are most of the population, according to the DMG the commoner class is proficient in just one simple weapon, but they are farmers, the weapons they carry are for self defense and for hunting. I want the World I am portraying to have a certain level or reality to it, most women I meet in my world aren't "Six-foot tall Amazons ready for battle," The commoner is the "everyman" and the "everywoman", there are physical differences on average between men and women, so most women on this World aren't going to be the warrior type, they will be mothers, farm hands, they will take care of the children and the household. the men do the heavy lifting, and the back breaking work out on the field, women help out too, but their roles are clearly defined in medieval Europe, and that is what this thread is about. When I do warriors, I think about 20% of them will be women, and this would be overly generous for the setting that I am describing, but the fact remains, most warriors will be men, even in our modern world, despite all the advancements, most soldiers in the Army are men, and that's not because women aren't allowed to join, but because most aren't interested in a career in the military, although there are exceptions. A significant percentage of women are at home with children in the Middle ages, so they are not available to strap on armor and to serve in the military, even if the military would allow them to join. Many women in villages would be informal combatants, that is they practice with weapons to defend their children from attack, but they are not usually part of any military units.

I think perhaps 50% of Barbarians would be women, that is because being an Barbarian is an identity and not a profession. Female Clerics could get in big trouble in Medieval Europe, as there are not supposed to be any, but the God granting spells does not have to obey church rules made by men. So female clerics will not be Catholic Priests, and not all Catholic Priests will be of the character Class Cleric either. Druids are 50/50, maybe more of them are women perhaps, that would make sense since Druids exist outside of Church structures, and are liable to be accused of witchcraft, that is why they meet in secret and live out in the forest. Since the priesthood is exclusively men, that reduces the amount of available men to become druids, so you will see more female druids than male druids. Some Nuns in convents are also Clerics. 

Catholic Monks do not fight, they are not especially skilled in hand to hand combat without weapons, the D&D class Monk is another category altogether. A lot of women are Bards, about 50/50. Anyone can be a fighter, though women fighters will tend to go with more ranged weapons as accuracy is more important with those than brute strength, and an Orc that is shot and killed with an arrow is one less orc that you have to wrestle with. Rangers can be equally men or women. Most of these Player Character classes do not make a significant proportion of the population so members of these classes tend not to be average. I think someone like Joan of Arc could be classified as a Paladin in this World, the fantasy version of Joan would have spells to cast in this setting. Women would make great Sorcerers, as being a Wizard would require something of an education, something that is less available to women in medieval times, but being a sorcerer would be an innate ability that one is born with. Women make great Rogues, as Rogues main attribute is dexterity, and a woman can use a charisma skill to distract a male and perhaps pick his pocket!

You see here I'm trying to make a compromise with what D&D is with what the Medieval World was, nothing is perfect. With classes that make up a large percentage of the population, such as commoner, I have to give a nod to statistical averages, with less common classes, that is less true. With Magic using classes, that is not true at all. I would say that perhaps the availability of magic would tend to be an equalizer between men and women.

Getting back to the D&D Monk, their specialty is unarmed combat, they are not required to take a vow of chastity, they do not necessarily live in Monasteries, they come mostly from the peasant class, as that class is restricted in their weapons choice in many places, so they learn unarmed combat to help with their self-defense, and orders of Combat Monks have developed from that. Although some Catholic Monks may also be the other kind of Monk as well.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 27, 2018)

Here are the Warrior Character sheets, I decided to do one for a Male Warrior and another for a female Warrior. the Female has slightly better ability scores, since I had to up her strength from 8 to 11 so she can carry all her equipment and armor.






 Made the female human warrior a little taller than the commoner with more of an athletic build.
And this is the male human warrior:


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## CapnZapp (Mar 27, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> long reply is long



Then stat them up as Commoners. 

There's no need to differentiate between the miniscule differences of a "strength-based commoner" and a "dex-based commoner". They all have +0 in every ability and skill. If one is a blacksmith, give him (or her) advantage. If another is a basketweaver, give her (or him) advantage. Simple.

The point is that it was a long time ago the rules proscribed strength differences between the sexes.

If you want to describe the male commoners as stronger and the female commoners as faster, that's your call and I have no beef with that. 

But you're going further than that - you're *encoding gender into the stat blocks*, and I'm calling you out on it.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 28, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Then stat them up as Commoners.
> 
> There's no need to differentiate between the miniscule differences of a "strength-based commoner" and a "dex-based commoner". They all have +0 in every ability and skill. If one is a blacksmith, give him (or her) advantage. If another is a basketweaver, give her (or him) advantage. Simple.
> 
> ...



There are no specific rules that say men are stronger than women, these are NPCs, player characters don't have to adhere to them. You can have a female player character with a strength of 18, but in this world, on average women won't be as strong as men. Player characters don't have to be average. As for stat blocks, I figure I'm not going to bother, the character sheets have all the information you need to use them as NPCs, their purpose is to add a layer of realism. Women warriors are unusual, they are above average, is that a problem? A woman who picks up a sword and wants to be a soldier has got to accept that in the ranks they will be out numbered by men, that is just how it is, right or wrong. NPCs and PCs are different. With PCs their are no rules separating the sexes as far as combat stats go, and if your player character encounter some human NPCs, they might want to know if they have names and what gender they are, so the players can form a picture of them in their minds, thus making the game session seem more real to them.

If you have an army of soldiers where exactly 50% of them are women and 50% are men, where does this happen? Not in the real world. Not in the United States, not in any country I know of. Some women want to be soldiers, but most women do not. I'm not saying they shouldn't be, I believe it is up to them, that is just my experience after talking to many women. I've talked to a few female soldiers, and I can tell you that it was really special to meet them, I respect what they are doing for the country, and I appreciate their sacrifice. I am just trying to be realistic. Medieval Europe was a certain way, that is history, I can't change it, but I am trying to bring out a little of that atmosphere, it adds to the drama more, than to have unrealistic absolute equality between the sexes in medieval times. I am sorry, but there is something unusual about a woman wearing plate mail armor on the back of a horse, it is the exception to the rule that draw attention and makes people famous.








This is a site rarely seen in the middle ages, this is Joan of Arc, most women didn't do this, but Joan did! is it wrong for me to acknowledge that fact that this is unusual? Should I have half the knights in my campaign be women? What do you think? In my campaign unicorns do exist, just like women warriors in a suit of plate mail, are they a common site? Not really, but that makes them all the more special!


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## CapnZapp (Mar 28, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> another long reply



What I'm telling you is, that specifying gender for stat blocks is something to avoid. 

This leaves the interpretation and presentation up to each DM, without forcing them to go against the written material.

It's not about you making women warriors in your campaign special and rare; it's about you enforcing that view on others.

What you do in your private life is one thing, but since you want to make a public contribution, you need to hear that is no longer appreciated. 

I suggest you look closely at how WotC presents NPCs nowadays. 

Let me take a recent example from Tomb of Annihilation: in the snake headquarters in Omu, the bad guy has a harem. In previous years this would surely be presented as filled with beautiful women, including long loving description of their unclothed bodies. 

This is no longer the case. Read the text closely and you'll find that it carefully avoids specifying the appearance and gender of the sex slaves.

This allows each DM to decide for him or herself whether the bad guy is into men, women or both. Or other.

It goes without saying that most DMs will assume he's heterosexual and that the harem consists of women but the adventure text *does not enforce that*, and doesn't force DMs with other tastes to go against the written text.

You should de-gender your status blocks and leave it up to the DM.

This will probably mean most campaigns will still feature strong and brawny men and dexterous and charismatic women (including mine) but *leave that choice to the DM *, is what I'm telling you is the modern design choice.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 28, 2018)

Okay, that sounds reasonable, Here are the new character sheets:

*Commoner, Archer*



*Commoner, Spearman*



*Warrior, Archer*



*Warrior, Swordsman*





It was very simple to do, I just erased the words "Male" and "Female" from the Gender blank lines in each sheet. Now the DM can fill them in as he or she wishes, how is that? Of course everything else about the stats are the same. Archers are a little shorter, and weaker than the melee people are, they stand back and fire arrows at the enemy while the stronger and brawnier people fight in hand to hand combat, and hopefully they don't get shot with an arrow in the back.


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## Lylandra (Mar 28, 2018)

while you're at it (and this is why I bluntly made my statement earlier): Don't do obvious mis-statting when you're using NPC with elite arrays. Your "Archer" has no reason to have 15 Cha. Unless it is an archer leader, which charisma implies. An archer would have 15 Dex. And no Str 8 either. Because - and you often quote the "realism - you need a certain strength to pull a bowstring. 

Same thing with commoner-ing. A real, medieval, rural commoner with Str 8 wouldn't fare too well. They do bodily work all the time. And Str is a trained thing. Also, you'd either be a hunter OR a farmer. Profession implies a certain amount of specialization. 

As an advice: If you wish to have your setting make sense, then 1) read up about real medieval life. In scientific textbooks. 
And 2) think about cause and effect. I know, it is un-historic for a real historian to do linear cause-effect-chains (it's far more complicated that that!), but right now I don't see a causal, red line in your setting besides "that's how I want it to be" and "this is my interpretation of medieval Europe".

And playing in a setting that doesn't seem to make too much sense in terms of internal consistency isn't for everyone.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 28, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> while you're at it (and this is why I bluntly made my statement earlier): Don't do obvious mis-statting when you're using NPC with elite arrays. Your "Archer" has no reason to have 15 Cha. Unless it is an archer leader, which charisma implies. An archer would have 15 Dex. And no Str 8 either. Because - and you often quote the "realism - you need a certain strength to pull a bowstring.
> 
> Same thing with commoner-ing. A real, medieval, rural commoner with Str 8 wouldn't fare too well. They do bodily work all the time. And Str is a trained thing. Also, you'd either be a hunter OR a farmer. Profession implies a certain amount of specialization.
> 
> ...




I appreciate your advice, I had to look in the Monster Manual to get the more common array of ability scores, they are 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, for a warrior, the minimum strength needs to be 11 to carry all the equipment, probably the 12 would go for intelligence, as I want to get that +1 to preserve the skill set, 13 would go for Dexterity, so I got three ability scores left, that would be Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma, so Lylandra, if it was you, how would you arrange those scores? Lets imagine this is a farmer's wife protecting her homestead from attacking orcs, her husband is away, and she has children. the orcs are attacking the village. How would you arrange those scores so she would be the best help to the community in fighting off those orcs? 

There are two cases, the Warrior and the commoner. the Warrior has a longbow, the commoner has a shortbow, they don't want to get into a melee with those orcs, so their aim is to kill them before they get close. I think the commoner doesn't wear armor, because she is not a warrior. the commoner stands 5'3" tall, while the warrior is a more muscular woman that stands at 5'6" tall with a more athletic build. the community needs everyone they can get to fend off the orc attack, even children are pressed into service, lets say 13 years old and up.


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## Lylandra (Mar 28, 2018)

Okay, so a medieval commoner who'd go with a high dex/bow user build? And I got 13, 12,11,10,9,8?

Str 10, Dex 13, Con 12, Wis 11, Int 9, Cha 8. Maybe change Con and Wis if you're more of a hunter. But you'd get Wis once you reach middle age anyway. These people are neither educated, nor are they natural leaders. 

The archer warrior would prolly have Str 11, Dex 13, Con 12, mental stats as you'd wish to arrange. Could change Con to a 10, but that wouldn't be a hardy warrior. 

But I wouldn't shy away to make these farmer women stronger, melee-oriented combatants as they are typically out in the fields, doing hard work all the day while the young kids are looked after by the elderly. Because in medieval times there was no such thing as a nuclear family, especially not in rural areas 

Children would have very different stats. Especially far lower Str.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 28, 2018)

A 13-14 year old boy would probably be the equivalent of his mother in combat statistics, since he is not fully grown, though I think maybe his mom would be a better shot with the bow, since she had longer to practice her archery skills. The boy would probably be armed with a sharp edged farming implement and a dagger. a 15-16 year old boy would be bigger and stronger than his younger brother, his sister, also 15-16 years old would have a knife and a short bow.


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## Lylandra (Mar 28, 2018)

I doubt that. If you take the middle ages' nourishment standard, then kids would hit puberty and the corresponding change in hormones ~2-3 years later than today. And even I would totally thrash 13-14yo boys today who already got their testosterone levels increased in a fight.  

And that is only if you'd really want to go there and try to mix D&D and RL biology and physics which is really not what the system is meant for. Or even remotely good at.


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## Derren (Mar 29, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Archers are a little shorter, and weaker than the melee people are, they stand back and fire arrows at the enemy while the stronger and brawnier people fight in hand to hand combat, and hopefully they don't get shot with an arrow in the back.




By the way, that archers are weak is a common misconception in RPGs. They had to be rather strong to fire war bows over a longer timespan. And in case of longbows a larger size was also an advantage.
But as RPGs tend to follow the "nimble archer" trope you end up with low Str high Dex characters.


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## Eltab (Mar 29, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Let me take a recent example from Tomb of Annihilation: in the snake headquarters in Omu, the bad guy has a harem. In previous years this would surely be presented as filled with beautiful women, *including long loving description of their unclothed bodies*.



Where are you finding the extra pages from those old modules?


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 29, 2018)

Derren said:


> By the way, that archers are weak is a common misconception un ROGs. They had to be rather strong to fire war bows over a longer timespan. And in case of longbows a larger size was also an advantage.
> But as RPGs tend to follow the "nimble archer" trope you end up with low Str high Dex characters.



Well when your dealing with the average array, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8, the low scores have to go somewhere. Being strong does no good if your arrows miss. So basically two scores get a +1, two scores get a +0, and two scores get a -1. Now these aren't composite longbows or short bows, so strength don't give you an advantage if you are firing arrows, you just have to be accurate so those arrows hit, that means a high dexterity, I chose to give the 12 to intelligence so the character can have more skills, I think the Con gets an 11 or 10, doesn't make a difference, Wisdom gets an 11 or 10, that leaves 9 and 8 for the two remaining attributes, strength and charisma, or perhaps the character doesn't have to be as wise, its a tough choice. Which would you pick?


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## Derren (Mar 29, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Which would you pick?




For RPG characters that is fine. As I said for some reason many RPGs have decided that you have to be dexterous to use a bow, so archers for this system need to be dexterous at the sacrifice of strenght. I just wanted to point out that this is completely ahistorical as most dedicated archers were quite strong (had to be).
They werent short either. The archers on the Mary Rose were 1,80m or more I think.


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## Lylandra (Mar 29, 2018)

IIRC the archer in D&D would get a penalty if they had a negative Str modifier. So Str 10 is really the minimum. 

Also, a warrior doesn't need many skills. And I doubt that they were the most intelligent or educated folks. Unless you're looking at actual knights who'd be elite fighters anyway. 

So you can easily cut ride (unless the warrior is trained to ride horses. But horses are too expensive for common troops), and maybe handle animal (unless the warrior is used to train dogs or horses). Maybe add 1 rank in profession (soldier) if the warrior is doing this stuff for a living. Or survival if the warrior is used to venture the wilderness.


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## billd91 (Mar 29, 2018)

Derren said:


> By the way, that archers are weak is a common misconception in RPGs. They had to be rather strong to fire war bows over a longer timespan. And in case of longbows a larger size was also an advantage.
> But as RPGs tend to follow the "nimble archer" trope you end up with low Str high Dex characters.




I'd argue that it's less RPGs that do this than the players taking advantage of certain bonuses the rules give based on stats and making their choices (as well as putting pressure on designers to allow more bonus concentration like having Dex boost damage instead of just attack rolls). D&D could do more to encourage stronger archers by imposing more stringent requirements on certain kinds of bows - like a minimum strength without incurring a penalty. But chances are - players would complain about that anyway.


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## Derren (Mar 29, 2018)

billd91 said:


> I'd argue that it's less RPGs that do this than the players taking advantage of certain bonuses the rules give based on stats and making their choices (as well as putting pressure on designers to allow more bonus concentration like having Dex boost damage instead of just attack rolls). D&D could do more to encourage stronger archers by imposing more stringent requirements on certain kinds of bows - like a minimum strength without incurring a penalty. But chances are - players would complain about that anyway.




Well the RPG writers decide what bonuses there are. For example they decide that bows add DEX to damage and not STR despite the latter to be more logical, or that there is no STR requirement for bows.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 30, 2018)

Derren said:


> Well the RPG writers decide what bonuses there are. For example they decide that bows add DEX to damage and not STR despite the latter to be more logical, or that there is no STR requirement for bows.



Lets suppose a warrior had a strength of 18 and a dexterity of 3, would that make a great archer? What would that mean? The warrior with the bow would keep tripping over his own two feet and bumping into archers standing next to him as he fires his arrows, most of the landing in the dirt.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 30, 2018)

billd91 said:


> I'd argue that it's less RPGs that do this than the players taking advantage of certain bonuses the rules give based on stats and making their choices (as well as putting pressure on designers to allow more bonus concentration like having Dex boost damage instead of just attack rolls). D&D could do more to encourage stronger archers by imposing more stringent requirements on certain kinds of bows - like a minimum strength without incurring a penalty. But chances are - players would complain about that anyway.



Dexterity should never boost damage, its all about accuracy. it does no good to be strong if you keep on missing, and it does not good to hit if you don't do any damage.


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## Derren (Mar 30, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Lets suppose a warrior had a strength of 18 and a dexterity of 3, would that make a great archer? What would that mean? The warrior with the bow would keep tripping over his own two feet and bumping into archers standing next to him as he fires his arrows, most of the landing in the dirt.




If he constantly trips he would make an even worse melee fighter. And if the stats were reversed he could not even attempt to fire a bow.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 30, 2018)

Derren said:


> If he constantly trips he would make an even worse melee fighter. And if the stats were reversed he could not even attempt to fire a bow.




A crossbow perhaps, as that uses the leverage principle.


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## Lylandra (Mar 30, 2018)

That's why crossbows don't have a STR penalty and are all about DEX. 

One could argue that DEX to damage is appropriate as there are more or less sensitive parts of the body you're aiming at. Same as STR where you'd pull the string harder, therefore increasing the momentum/speed of an arrow. 

But D&D stats are already pretty muddy per definition as some parts of DEX are definitely more STR-oriented "control of one's body parts" than just being agile and having a great hand-eye-coordination or manual dexterity. 

For example, aiming properly with a bow or crossbow requires a certain amount of strength to hold your weapon still for a while. But Str 10-11 should be sufficient for a hunting bow. And farmers/warriors would most certainly ALL have that amount of strength at least.


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## Derren (Mar 30, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> A crossbow perhaps, as that uses the leverage principle.




He still needs to load the crossbow. Even with a winch that would be problematic (and very slow).


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 31, 2018)

Here is the Commoner Archer






Here is the Commoner spearman


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## Lylandra (Mar 31, 2018)

Now the commoner archer still has Cha 13 and con 9 - why? Why would the highest stat of an archer who's a commoner on top of that be Charisma? 
Why would the archer have any need to be *5 points* more charismatic than the spearman?  

Also, the spearman appears to be a hunter and trapper. He wouldn't be a *professional* farmer unless he switched his job. Also, this combo would be better used for the archer since most hunters didn't hunt with spears.

Same thing with the archer. Either farmer OR hunter. And a farmer would have knowledge (nature) or heal or

And please cut ride. They wouldn't have horses. Horses are too expensive, luxury goods. Unless you wish to use this skill with an oxen. And I doubt you'd need skilled ride for a slow beast like that. 

What I don't understand is: Are these specific NPC? Or are these one-of-a-thousand standard commoners? If the former, forget what I just said. If the latter, then well...


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 31, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> Now the commoner archer still has Cha 13 and con 9 - why? Why would the highest stat of an archer who's a commoner on top of that be Charisma?
> Why would the archer have any need to be *5 points* more charismatic than the spearman?
> 
> Also, the spearman appears to be a hunter and trapper. He wouldn't be a *professional* farmer unless he switched his job. Also, this combo would be better used for the archer since most hunters didn't hunt with spears.
> ...



That's because she is not primarily an archer, she has another life besides firing her bow and arrow, she represents a farmer's wife, she uses a bow because she is not especially good at hand to hand combat, so she figures it is better to kill her enemies from a distance, she also has a dagger which doubles as a kitchen knife, well its use as a kitchen knife is its primary use, she uses it to cut the heads off of chickens and to butcher farm animals. if pressed into a fight, this is what she uses.

These are Russian farmers living in the shadows of the Ural Mountains There is a lot of land here for horses, so they are somewhat common, if fact there are wild horses here, and the threat of orc raids is ever present.
Here is a map showing the Russian principalities:



*
*​


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## Lylandra (Mar 31, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> That's because she is not primarily an archer, she has another life besides firing her bow and arrow, she represents a farmer's wife, she uses a bow because she is not especially good at hand to hand combat, so she figures it is better to kill her enemies from a distance, she also has a dagger which doubles as a kitchen knife, well its use as a kitchen knife is its primary use, she uses it to cut the heads off of chickens and to butcher farm animals. if pressed into a fight, this is what she uses.
> 
> These are Russian farmers living in the shadows of the Ural Mountains There is a lot of land here for horses, so they are somewhat common, if fact there are wild horses here, and the threat of orc raids is ever present.
> Here is a map showing the Russian principalities:
> ...



Again, why does this farmer woman need 13 Cha?

If she was a merchant, then this would make perfect sense. But she's doing a physical job. Probably managing a farm (and maybe serfs) in addition to working on the field and bringing the harvest to nearby mills/markets. Or, if she's among the lowliest of peasants, she'd have no management to do and only be working on the field during the day. 

Okay you never said that you specifically meant russian farmers/commoners. Earlier you mentioned Hänsel and Gretel which is why I'd placed them in the HRE.


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## Thomas Bowman (Mar 31, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> Again, why does this farmer woman need 13 Cha?
> 
> If she was a merchant, then this would make perfect sense. But she's doing a physical job. Probably managing a farm (and maybe serfs) in addition to working on the field and bringing the harvest to nearby mills/markets. Or, if she's among the lowliest of peasants, she'd have no management to do and only be working on the field during the day.
> 
> Okay you never said that you specifically meant russian farmers/commoners. Earlier you mentioned Hänsel and Gretel which is why I'd placed them in the HRE.




More of an example, it could be any farmer, but if I want a farmer with a horse that knows how to ride one, I don't want to have to create a new set of statistics. The Russian example comes to mind because they abut the orc territories, if their are orc raids, then the Russian principalities have to deal with them. The stats have the skills ride  just in case there is a horse, but if there isn't one, that skill doesn't get used, the PCs won't notice commoner with that skill not using it. Its more versatility in the stats. So basically they are the stats of a well to do peasant that owns a horse, if there is a peasant without one, then that statistic does not come into play. As for the Charisma, not all peasants are ugly looking or have no social skills. There are peasants in Germany too that own horses. Horses are typically used for farm work, such as in pulling a plow, or a cart carrying produce to market. As for Hansel and Gretel, I was thinking about that, but these are intended to be generic stats with some versatility, they would cover a whole range of peasants from poor ones to well off ones. It is easier to do that stats for a well off peasant and then don't use the skill for riding if she doesn't have a horse, than to make up stats without that skill and then have to change them if their is a peasant that has a horse. For instance if the PCs want to buy a horse, it is likely to be from a peasant that has one, for the normal riding variety and of course some peasants will specialize in breeding horses and selling them for profit.


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## Lylandra (Mar 31, 2018)

Okay, I understand where you're coming from, but these commoners are actual people. Don't design them from a player's point of view or you lose much of the "realism" you seem to be so focused at. 

You can always go with an "either or" option where a commoner would have *one* profession (DM's choice, depending on region and occupation) and then either ride or knowledge (nature) etc. 

For the charisma: sure, not all people are born or educated the same. There would of course be commoners with a high cha out there and these people are more likely to make good deals at the market or become mayor. There could be commoners with 9 con and they might even survive their childhood should they happen to catch no nasty disease.

But your "random encounter commoners" should be standard people who are good at the stuff they're doing for a living. And that could be hunting or farming or milling or shepherding - bodily work. Not necessarily combat and also not necessarily being the natural born leader of your village. 

Also, just because you got a 9 or 10 cha that doesn't mean you're ugly. You could even be really beautiful, but shy or tactless or simply not... charismatic. Social skills are, as you called them, skills. Which can be learned by spending skill points. 

For the horses: Most peasants who owned horses (or mules) used them as pack animals. They were probably not trained or bred for riding as this takes a lot of time that the peasantry doesn't really have to spare. This doesn't mean they can't be ridden, but one should not expect them to abide standard commands.

Unless you talk about a wandering tribe of humans, who would also be commoners, but not peasants or farmers. They'd most likely have trained horses and might even hunt from horseback.


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 1, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> Okay, I understand where you're coming from, but these commoners are actual people. Don't design them from a player's point of view or you lose much of the "realism" you seem to be so focused at.
> 
> You can always go with an "either or" option where a commoner would have *one* profession (DM's choice, depending on region and occupation) and then either ride or knowledge (nature) etc.
> 
> ...




You make a good point. Here's what I can do, I will take the Commoner Spearman, and trade out his feat Animal Affinity for Martial Arts proficiency in a short bow and give him a short bow with arrows for ranged combat, and a longspear for melee combat. The longspear is basically a sharpened stick or a pointy farm implement, the bow is for hunting and for protecting livestock from predators and rustlers I will switch the scores for Dexterity and Constitution so Dexterity gets the 12 and the +1 bonus, and Constitution loses the +1 to hit points. This will be the average commoner equally capable in both ranged and melee combat. Not a warrior by any means, but he will defend his farm and family. No more two kinds of commoner, I won't distinguish between male and female. Since this is first level the Commoner gets the maximum of 4 hit points.

A warrior gets an upgrade, unlike the commoner, he wear leather armor and carries a wooden shield, his ability scores will be the same as the Commoner, but instead of being armed with a longspear, he gets a long sword, instead of a shortbow, he gets a longbow, he is part of a militia or the town guard, probably in charge of law enforcement in some cases.

After that, I will use the elite array to create a 1st level fighter, this character is typically a hired mercenary, or maybe a knight's squire, he wears studded leather armor and carries a steel shield.

Then I will do a Barbarian, followed by a Ranger these will use the elite array as well

Another step up is a knight, this is a 1st level Aristocrat, he is decked out in plate armor and has a war horse, and has a longsword, a crossbow, and a lance for charging opponents on horseback, the Aristocrat knight has the average array ability scores.

A 1st level Paladin is next, he gets the same equipment as the Aristocrat knight, but uses the Elite array, and has the benefits and abilities of a Paladin.

Next up is the Rogue, he uses the elite array, the order of these character classes is in decreasing frequency.
After that comes the Cleric, every town has a cleric of some sort, usually the leader of the local church or a subordinate working in that church, or he can even be a cult leader or perhaps an unaffiliated holy man outside of the Church hierarchy.

Next comes the Bard, then comes the Druid, Druids are rare, they tend to be loners preferring the company of animals to humans. Bards and Druids use the Elite array
Finally we get to Wizards and Sorcerers, probably of the two Wizards are less common, Sorcerers are born with the talent of spell casting, they often hide their true nature for fear of being accused of practicing witchcraft. Wizards study for the spells, they do so out of a desire for power, they are willing to defy community prejudices against arcane magic in order to acquire this power. Many wizards and clerics are in the employ of nobles and kings, they figure it is better to have such people on their side as employers and as protection against the Church and Community prejudices.


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## Ancalagon (Apr 1, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> Why should I do that?
> 
> 3) The technology of D&D is Medieval, not Ancient as in Ancient Rome and earlier which was the time of those pagan deities.




First of all, bravo for attempting this, I did something quite similar but using a different rule set (warhammer frpg 2nd ed) and a different locale (started in Anatolia, headed east).  Time period was very similar (1150). I also of course had very different assumptions than you - my elves weren't in America...

But anyway.  I'm afraid you are incorrect on #3.  The technology of D&D is not medieval, it's early renaissance.  There is no full plate in 1100, and there aren't any rapiers either (or halberds...).  In fact the whole armor section is a mess.  Studded leather *doesn't exist*.  

(I'm not done reading the thread but I wanted to point this out in case it wasn't picked up and I forgot)


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## Ancalagon (Apr 1, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> [MENTION=6925649]Thomas Bowman[/MENTION]: All I'm try to say is that the problem with running a fantasy universe with close parallels to reality is that you are going to be inevitably perceived as not only making commentary on the fantasy reality, but making commentary on the real world as well.
> 
> I do understand that it is a game universe you are creating, but the closer you make that game universe to reality, the more likely you are to getting into an argument over whether your game reality accurately reflects the real reality.




This is one of the issues that have kept me from publishing my work.  Is it "accurate enough"?  And would it offend some people - from the errors, but also from some of the game design choices - would people from culture X be offended that they are represented by hobgoblins?  

The other two main issues were potential licensing (it uses the warhammer rules after all...) and well, the sheer amount of work involved


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## Ancalagon (Apr 1, 2018)

Knightfall said:


> One suggestion I have is to give your fictional God a campaign specific name to separate the Deity from the God(s) of real world religions. Since this is the Holy Roman Empire, you could simply use a Latin word for God such as Deus or Divus. If those don't appeal to you, you can use Google Translate to pick something else. Of course, Satan is already a Latin word for the Devil, but you could also use either Diabolus or maybe even Antitheus. Or perhaps instead of saying worshipers of the Devil are satanists, say they are diabolists. It is similar but unique "gaming" enough that you won't have to deal with players cringing when 'sensitive' real world terminology comes up in-game.




I second this suggestion.

In my game, I decided to borrow from Guy Gavriel Kay and use his pseudo historical take on religion.

Christianity became followers of Jad, who worshiped the sun, and honored his son who was nailed to a tree - although factions hotly debate the details.  The Muslims became Asharites, who followed the word of  the Prophet who revealed the divinity of the starts.  And the Jews (the fictional name escapes me at the moment) worshiped the moon.  

Even though it was obviously a pastiche of real world religion, it added a nice... buffer... almost.  Also, in my game, there was (like in real life) uncertainty about who was the "real" god.  Some Jadite priests got spells, and so did some Asharites priests.


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## Ancalagon (Apr 1, 2018)

Lastly... what are you trying to *achieve* here?

Is this for a game you are going to run?  A setting you are going to publish?  

One thing we tend to forget is how ... big ... the world is when you don't have modern transportation.  Right now I could hop in a car and drive to montreal, a city 200 km away, in about 2 hours.  A bit of a trip, but very doable - I could go there, do stuff and come back in one day.  But if you're on foot, that trip will now take 40 hours of travel - more of you don't have good roads.  That's nearly a week of travel!  In the modern world, with a week you could reach almost anywhere on earth.    

What I'm getting at is that if you want to run a game, you don't need the entirety of Europe detailed.  The first half of my campaign was done on a segment of map about 8 by 12 hexes, and that was plenty of room, with one journey (from Zeugma to near Bagdad) being weeks long.


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> I second this suggestion.
> 
> In my game, I decided to borrow from Guy Gavriel Kay and use his pseudo historical take on religion.
> 
> ...




I think "God" is a sufficiently generic name, there is a specific name for the Christian God, "Jehovah", which I shall not use. I think "God" is sufficiently generic without breaking into foreign words, in the 18th century they used the term "Supreme Being", but I think the word "God" is fine.


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> Lastly... what are you trying to *achieve* here?
> 
> Is this for a game you are going to run?  A setting you are going to publish?
> 
> ...




That would be interesting, I never published anything before, I am hoping to create a setting which other people will use, if I can find a way to get paid for it, I could work harder on this project and produce a better product ultimately, I think I am at a point here where I'm trying to ignite interest, later on maybe do some formal write ups and introduce adventures in this setting.


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## Ancalagon (Apr 1, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> I think "God" is a sufficiently generic name, there is a specific name for the Christian God, "Jehovah", which I shall not use. I think "God" is sufficiently generic without breaking into foreign words, in the 18th century they used the term "Supreme Being", but I think the word "God" is fine.




God may have been a generic term but 

1:  It is the term used by Christians today
2:  All claim of generic god went out the window when you added Satan.


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> God may have been a generic term but
> 
> 1:  It is the term used by Christians today
> 2:  All claim of generic god went out the window when you added Satan.




It is also the term used by secular Muslims and Jews as well as Aristotle. "God" is sufficiently generic to be used on our Dollar bill which says, "In God we trust" Anyway, I am not willing to go through "contortions" just to avoid offending people who may be too easily offended. "Deus" sounds more like a specific god's name to the uneducated. I think "God" is fine, and if Atheists are offended, then so be it, this is not an Atheist Europe I am depicting, but I'm not expecting much divine intervention either, so it doesn't matter. Clerics get their spells when they pray, that is all that matters.


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> Lastly... what are you trying to *achieve* here?
> 
> Is this for a game you are going to run?  A setting you are going to publish?
> 
> ...




The center of Europe is more exacting than the periphery. Europe is above all a mostly human continent, most of the other races, except for dwarves and monsters living underground, come from some place else. The center of the campaign is in Europe, and Elves brought over renaissance technology, so that is where the full plate mail and other things that did not exist in historical 1100 AD Europe comes from. History is the outline, but the details are mine. I don't worry too much about historical accuracy, but when I am looking for ideas, I look to the history, and if it inspires me, I use it, otherwise I don't sweat it too much. If I want to put King Arthur in charge of Britain, and this contradicts history, I don't worry about it, if it makes a great story idea I could use it.


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> I second this suggestion.
> 
> In my game, I decided to borrow from Guy Gavriel Kay and use his pseudo historical take on religion.
> 
> ...




In this campaign, "God" is more like the Light side of the Force in Star Wars, the deity does not make personal appearances, mortals have got to solve their own problems, maybe using God as a force to help in this, but they are doing it or not, without the help of angels. Demons and Devils are there aplenty as foes for the PCs to combat. I'm not sure if using a pseudo-pagan religion in place of Christianity would be any less offensive than just using "God" and not get too detailed, or having Gods act through vessels that are not clerics or druids. It is a human drama that I am presenting, not a clash between Heaven and Hell.


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 1, 2018)

Ancalagon said:


> This is one of the issues that have kept me from publishing my work.  Is it "accurate enough"?  And would it offend some people - from the errors, but also from some of the game design choices - would people from culture X be offended that they are represented by hobgoblins?
> 
> The other two main issues were potential licensing (it uses the warhammer rules after all...) and well, the sheer amount of work involved




I do have orcs stand in for Mongols, would the Mongols that live today be offended? There ancestors did some terrible things under Genghis Khan after all. to give a more modern example, would Germans be offended today if I portrayed the Nazis as orcs?


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## Lylandra (Apr 1, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> To give a more modern example, would Germans be offended today if I portrayed the Nazis as orcs?




German here, and yes, I would deem that problematic under most circumstances (I'd find it okay in non-realistic, satire settings where you'd use "teh evöl Nazis" as caricatures). 

Why? Mainly because it downplays the fact that Nazis were humans. And that we, humans, are capable of commiting such atrocities or looking away or knowingly profit from genocide. Making them orcs writes them off as non-human, evil "other" creatures, therefore sanctifying human nature. 

The other aspect is because the descendants of these Nazis are living human beings, not orcs. They struggle with what their parents or grandparents might have done. They try to build a better, more resilient, more humane society. I wouldn't wish to be demonized, at least not in a "realistic" setting. 

Now I wouldn't have the same problem if you just erased all human Germans in your setting and turned them into faeries. Because there is no equivalent, no trope, no stereotype connecting Germans and fey (and no, Grimm's stories don't count).


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## Chad Hooper (Apr 1, 2018)

Hey, Thomas,

A couple of random thoughts for things that might be fun in your setting(s):

If you ever run a campaign in your Venus setting, I recommend you read David Drake's novel "The Jungle" or Henry Kuttner's works the Venus setting is drawn from.  Some very interesting ideas for carnivorous and otherwise dangerous plants in there.

If you run a campaign in Elven North America, deciding what Sasquatch are and how they fit in could give you some fodder for stories.  I had three of them appear at various points in a modern-setting Ars Magica story called "New World Grendel" that was inspired by and centered on the rune stone outside Heavener, Oklahoma.  I made my Sasquatch a long-lived faerie race to contrast with the enormous hairy troll that the villain (same species as Grendel) of the story was.


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## Ancalagon (Apr 2, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> It is also the term used by secular Muslims and Jews as well as Aristotle. "God" is sufficiently generic to be used on our Dollar bill which says, "In God we trust" Anyway, I am not willing to go through "contortions" just to avoid offending people who may be too easily offended. "Deus" sounds more like a specific god's name to the uneducated. I think "God" is fine, and if Atheists are offended, then so be it, this is not an Atheist Europe I am depicting, but I'm not expecting much divine intervention either, so it doesn't matter. Clerics get their spells when they pray, that is all that matters.




You ... are aware that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God ... they just disagree on some important details.  Again, by using the term Satan, you make it clear that it's not just a reference to "some monotheistic deity", it's a reference to the one worshiped on Earth.

That may not be your intention, but that is how 90% of your readers will interpret it.  



Thomas Bowman said:


> The center of Europe is more exacting than the periphery. Europe is above all a mostly human continent, most of the other races, except for dwarves and monsters living underground, come from some place else. The center of the campaign is in Europe, and Elves brought over renaissance technology, so that is where the full plate mail and other things that did not exist in historical 1100 AD Europe comes from. History is the outline, but the details are mine. I don't worry too much about historical accuracy, but when I am looking for ideas, I look to the history, and if it inspires me, I use it, otherwise I don't sweat it too much. If I want to put King Arthur in charge of Britain, and this contradicts history, I don't worry about it, if it makes a great story idea I could use it.




Ok, are you trying to be historically accurate, or not?   If in your 1100 elves have brought in new technology, then the D&D technology is not medieval (it never has been).    You protest that Pagan gods were not worshiped in 1100 Europe, therefore we can't have them, and then turn around and add plate mail and King Arthur...


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## Thomas Bowman (Apr 2, 2018)

Lylandra said:


> German here, and yes, I would deem that problematic under most circumstances (I'd find it okay in non-realistic, satire settings where you'd use "teh evöl Nazis" as caricatures).
> 
> Why? Mainly because it downplays the fact that Nazis were humans. And that we, humans, are capable of commiting such atrocities or looking away or knowingly profit from genocide. Making them orcs writes them off as non-human, evil "other" creatures, therefore sanctifying human nature.
> 
> ...



You are not them! Dungeons & Dragons makes things a little simpler by letting the bad guys be monsters. The way I look at it is that we have monsters in our world, but those monsters look like human beings. It is hard to tell if a person is evil just by looking at them. Where I live, there was an evil person named Adam Lanza who murdered a bunch of Elementary School Children at Sandy Hook, in Newtown, Connecticut, it was just the next town over from where I live in Danbury.





This was the evil person who murdered those children, he first killed his mother, took her gun and shot his way into an elementary school and murdered a bunch of school children. 

On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. Before driving to the school, Lanza shot and killed his mother Nancy at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

What​ do you think? Is he a monster? I can't think of any circumstances that would make me act like him. He does have a weird expression in his face though. I don't think he could hold a candle to what Hitler had done, but nevertheless, he was the local evil person in my community. I don't really know why we get evil people like him. The main difference between him and Hitler I think is that Adam Lanza did all his evil by himself, he didn't have help. World War II and the Holocaust were communal acts of evil rather than the act of a lone individual such as Adam Lanza, and as such, it is harder to understand. How do you deal with it? I never had to grow up in a country like yours, what is it like?

As for Dungeons & Dragons, I guess we need villains to make the game interesting to play, orcs and other creatures like that usually fit the bill.

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## Ancalagon (Apr 2, 2018)

This thread is rather frustrating because part of me really wants to cheer for what you are doing yet... I find it difficult.

So... you say "would Germans be offended today if I portrayed the Nazis as orcs?".

A German says that yes, it would be.  And then you go into a spiel about Adam Lanza...  That is a very particular response.



Thomas Bowman said:


> As for Dungeons & Dragons, I guess we need villains to make the game interesting to play, orcs and other creatures like that usually fit the bill.




And you are making the mongols into orcs, or, as you say, villains.  How would that not be offensive?  

When I made some of my cultures as D&D races (example: hobgoblins) I was quite concerned about being offensive, so I made sure that those cultures would not be depicted as *villains*.  Hobgoblins were sometimes foes  yes, but no more than that - heck a party member was a hobgoblin!  The other thing I did is that well, I never published.


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## Hussar (Apr 2, 2018)

Yeah, really, at the end of the day, if you're going to pick a culture, and then bowdlerize that culture into a specific race, then, yeah, you're probably going to offend someone.  There's no real way to avoid it.  So, either don't do it, or do it and accept that people are going to react negatively to it.


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## CapnZapp (Apr 2, 2018)

Hussar said:


> Yeah, really, at the end of the day, if you're going to pick a culture, and then bowdlerize that culture into a specific race, then, yeah, you're probably going to offend someone.  There's no real way to avoid it.  So, either don't do it, or do it and accept that people are going to react negatively to it.




And if you plant to publish, that advice can be shortened to just "don't do it".


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## Morrus (Apr 2, 2018)

Thomas Bowman said:


> You are not them! Dungeons & Dragons makes things a little simpler by letting the bad guys be monsters. The way I look at it is that we have monsters in our world, but those monsters look like human beings. It is hard to tell if a person is evil just by looking at them. Where I live, there was an evil person named Adam Lanza who murdered a bunch of Elementary School Children at Sandy Hook, in Newtown, Connecticut, it was just the next town over from where I live in Danbury.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




What on earth do you think you're doing? Keep the real world politics off this forum, please. And don't post again in this thread.


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## Morrus (Apr 2, 2018)

Since this appears to now be a thread about modern day politics, mass shooting, and the Holocaust, I'm closing it down. These are not suitable subjects for this forum.


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