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Kiero
Acolyte
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Sep 2012 : 23:50:10
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Greetings, one and all! I've been pointed in your direction from another forum. This is part history question, part GMing advice, part ideas mining. I should note at the start I'm after fluff/setting material/system-free stuff - I'll likely be using The 13th Age to run this thing, not a published edition of D&D.
That out of the way, ever since I was first introduced to the Days of Thunder in Neverwinter Nights, I've liked the notion of a sword and sorcery setting hiding in the Realms' prehistory. A time before dragons and giants, elves and dwarves and orcs, when the evil magics of the sarrukh empires kept humans in bondage. It's ripe for all sorts of very different adventures to the usual trad-fantasy fare.
My players like the notion of it too, but what I'm lacking is much of a grounding in the era beyond A Grand History of the Realms, which is rather brief.
From there I've found a rough when that I want it set - somewhen near -31,500DR when the Sarrukh Empire(s) proper have gone, leaving successor states ruled by yuan-ti. I'm also open to going a little earlier, close to -33,500DR if we're emphasising less development amongst the humans and a more recent fall of the sarrukh. Either way, for my purposes, I'd like to use Mhairshaulk as the villain, with the (human) PCs coming from the variety of tribes and proto-nations to the west of it.
The batrachi are a sort of agent provocateur in all this, trading with the human tribes and arming them with bronze to even out their conflict with the Scaled Ones to a degree (contrary to popular gamer myth, well-worked bronze is not inferior to iron or even some grades of steel) and weaken a mutual enemy.
So I have lots at the high level, but nothing of detail on the ground. While I'm fine with making this up collaboratively with my group, if there's any stuff people have already done/thought about I could draw on, that would be a great help.
I'm emphasising a pretty stark divide between the magic humans do and that of their enemies. Essentially, no humans can use arcane magic, only divine/primal. Arcane is the magic of the evil reptilians. How might that impact conflicts between humans and reptilians?
What do we know about the Sarrukh Empire and it's successors? What sorts of species would remain available to Mhairshaulk to recruit into their armies?
What do we know about the batrachi?
How big did human settlements get in this era? Are we capping out at villages, or might there be towns, or even the odd city (I note in real world history the first city was in the Bronze Age)? I'm thinking here about whether or not urbanised PCs make sense at all.
Which gods might have been around back then? What about nature spirits and the like?
What other sources (preferably freely available web-ones) should I be reading up on?
Any/all help greatly appreciated.
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Edited by - Kiero on 24 Sep 2012 23:52:57
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2450 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2012 : 23:59:26
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First of all, welcome! Always good to see new faces.
Second, boy are you in luck. We've been going over just this sort of a campaign for the past few weeks. The thread's fallen off the first page, but here's a link. You should find a lot of interest in there.
http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16929
Third, I unfortunately don't have time to give your questions the detailed response they deserve right now, so I'll just try for one: there's no evidence, and actually some contrary evidence, of humans above the stone age during the Days of Thunder, and especially during the sarrukh era. There's even been some hints that the humans were so primitive no one even bothered enslaving them.
On the plus side, if you want to bring in Neanderthals, and have them and homo sapiens duking it out amongst each other while everyone else is worried about much bigger problems (and probably smacking down caves of humans as barely-noticed collateral damage), that's definitely a possibility. But for the most part, I'd leave the humans in the caves, and ignored. |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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Kiero
Acolyte
United Kingdom
2 Posts |
Posted - 25 Sep 2012 : 00:38:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Hoondatha
First of all, welcome! Always good to see new faces.
Second, boy are you in luck. We've been going over just this sort of a campaign for the past few weeks. The thread's fallen off the first page, but here's a link. You should find a lot of interest in there.
http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16929
Thanks for the welcome and the link, I'll have a read.
quote:
Originally posted by HoondathaThird, I unfortunately don't have time to give your questions the detailed response they deserve right now, so I'll just try for one: there's no evidence, and actually some contrary evidence, of humans above the stone age during the Days of Thunder, and especially during the sarrukh era. There's even been some hints that the humans were so primitive no one even bothered enslaving them.
On the plus side, if you want to bring in Neanderthals, and have them and homo sapiens duking it out amongst each other while everyone else is worried about much bigger problems (and probably smacking down caves of humans as barely-noticed collateral damage), that's definitely a possibility. But for the most part, I'd leave the humans in the caves, and ignored.
To be honest I'm less worried about evidence than I am some neat things to use. I fully expect to make stuff up and draw only on whatever established/evidenced bits support the aims of the game and enhance the setting.
I'm drawing on that (I believe Candlekeep-produced) web-book which shows vaguely collected tribes of humans in contact with the yuan-ti nation of Mhairshaulk. That's enough for me to assume meaningful conflict .
To be clear, the presence of homo sapiens is a necessary condition of this game, I want all the PCs to be human and active in a meaningful way, not just some savages in caves. Nor will the addition of Neanderthals do, or some sideshow where humans fight Neanderthals. I'm not about to run a game where the PCs are basically irrelevant.
What I'm thinking is that while most of their tech is stone age, barring those valuable items they've traded with the batrachi for. The PCs might be gifted their tribes' most precious bronze heirlooms (or stuff they trade at great cost). This isn't a bad thing; it helps make things really distinct and different from your usual medieval milieu.
I want a classic S&S-esque humans against reptiles setup where (arcane) magic is evil and forbidden. |
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Marc
Senior Scribe
662 Posts |
Posted - 25 Sep 2012 : 13:53:27
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| Have you seen the 10,000 BC film? that's the closest I picture humans living in some urban setting, working for creatures they believe to be gods. |
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
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Days of Thunder: Against the Reptilian Empire!
