Earth Tribe Edition
Tell us about your Bronze Age games, Veeky Forums. Do you prefer with or without magic? Are you strictly historical, mythic fantasy, or do you play in a strange world like Glorantha?
What systems do you use? Gritty realistic, fluffly narrative, and mythic high adventure are all welcome.
Last thread: user shared some sweet art from the upcoming Glorantha Sourcebook.
I'm going to run a GURPS game set in Glorantha, hopefully with a mix of gritty realism and mythic fantasy.
If I'm playing a bronze age game, the first thing I want to do is steer as far away from Glorantha as possible.
Why? What's glorantha got that the bronze age didn't? What games do bronze age better? other than Mazes and Minotaurs, of course....
I can always depend on the Glorantha hate brigade to keep my threads bumped.
I've been craving a Bronze age game for a while. Something with a Connan the Barbarian (movie) or Jason and the Argonauts feel. A campaign where the players are like Achilles or Odysseus and monsters like the Chimera are rare and powerful and the gods are real and cruel.
What system are you thinking of using?
Barbarians of Lemuria may be a good choice for that Conan feel.
Never played it. I think there's a thread up on it, though.
Wanna give us a run down of what it's like?
I've also never actually played it. I just know it's generally well regarded, and made for that sort of thing.
Ah, too bad. I've not heard much about it, but the game seems pretty low-budget. I suppose that doesn't necessarily equate to low quality, though.
Important thing to remember about Glorantha
The mystic and religious stuff that fills any discussion about the setting.
Not relevant
You are a character who has lived in this world their whole life, you know the rituals and rites and the stories. You hold the gods in as much reverence as a D&D character; a lot since they're real but unlike D&D all the myths are recorded rather than being cooked up by game designer meeting TSR's deadline.
All the myths in the world may make the crops grow, and prayers sharpen swords. But you can't do shit if you don't know how to hold a sword or have the food to eat.
You are an adventurer, you make money by killing things and taking their stuff. Magic comes from gods and joining cults, but they don't mean shit unless you have money.
Are Morokanth meat-eaters who eat their herdmen?
Or are they herbivores who use their herdmen to gather high-value food?
The choice will surprise you
Go away greg
It has to be Bronze age only? Not other tribals or steel allowed?
Oh look, Romans. Again.
I can post different tribals warriors, but if only bronze is permited it's more limeted.
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How do you guys use spirits and the like in your games? Do you let all players interact with them or only shamans?
Also how expensive is armor for your average adventurer? And what armors do you guys allow?
Would you guys allow players to take slaves and sell/profit from them? How important the Clan/polis is in the game?
Also anyone knows a way to use chariots in games? I didn't find rules for them in any game I read.
Chariots have mostly fallen out of favor in Glorantha, but if they're not in the Mythic Britain book, there'll be some online houserules.
I HAVE NO IDEA!
I was thinking just 5e and limiting stuff that people could take and reflavoring the rest. It's one of the biggest reasons I'm irritated that the UA's haven't had anything like a more druid-y cleric or an elementalist wizard.
I remember reading RQ supplement that had rules for chariot racing and even a long list of chariots from 2 wheelers to 6 wheelers
Does anyone remember what it was called?
It's not monster coliseum btw
Well it helps that they provide the greek pantheon in the back of the PHB.
There's a lot of fun you could have with the heroic age of Greece.
For example, Arcadia is mythologically associated with Pan, and was often pictured as a wilderness. The native Arcadians were claimed to have pre-dated the Greeks.
So play this up, make Arcadia a nation of primitive humans, satyrs and centaurs. They worship the gods of the wilderness (Pan, Dionysus, Artemis, Hermes) and are home to druids, rangers (such as the famous Atalanta) and barbarians.
Then there's Crete. Famous of course for the legendary labyrinth, for the bull of Minos, and the bull dancers. Go further, use the UA Minotaur race (from Waterborne Adventures) and have them act and dress like minoans, naturally their patron would be Poseidon.
I am hesitant to just copypasta Helenistic Greece. I thought about it, but I also wanna include some of the other cultures of the time. It's Iron Age, but I just finished reading a book called Bard that, cheesy as it sounds, really brought ancient Celtic society to life and I really wanted to include that. A friend recently found a tabletop from Mierce mini's called Darklands and It's fueling it too. He's been trying to get the rest of our group into it to the degree of he bought us armies. It's decidedly at least Iron Age too but it has that feeling of ancientness.
I didn't find anything but eh, it isn't that important.
Mierce has cool minis, never played the game tough. Also no one is stoping you to steal from other tribal cultures (Native americans, Euro/Asian folklore) and add tidbits to your nations, I for example tend to add Spanish folklore to my not-Iberians. One of those is than pregnat women can assist to any reunion than they desire, because not helping a woman with her "antojos" would perjudice the kid and no one wants that. So military councils tend to be interrupted be strutting low-key pregnat women checking everything. Another is than no military leader can be out of shape, or god forbid, fat or the obsesion with honour and honra, the terrible oaths and pacts between men and gods than bind the society etc.
I like the "No Fatties Need Apply" one.
It's one that's actually Iberian/celt-iberian. I think it was the Vacceos destroyed a roman legion. After rounding the survivors they let go the legate because it was an old, fat men and they couldn't concieve that pitiful excuse of a man to be the comander of an entire legion.
Charisma was incredible important to them, like luck.
That's some nice art, brov.
This was for I have a wee collection of Iberian/celt-iberians, and of course of a lot of other cultures to take inspiration. I can post a few to bump the thread.
Those are galaicans for example,far Norh-Western tribes and the ones with more Gaulish influence, even then they are quite unique looking.
The Ratty looking guy is an Edetanian, a Pure iberian tribe. They put a sacred mud in they extremities for luck in battles, and minor protection. You can see a run of the mill Phalangitai, a Noble from carthago Aping Not-Hercules, a Numidian warrior extremely well equiped (it used to be than only the numidians riders were well armed) and an archer.
This guy is a well to do merc of the North-Eastern tribes, the one than had more contact with the Greeks and were hired to them (specially in the Magna Grecia), relations with the Colonies and the Iberians were mostly pacific.
A noble lady of the Northern tribes (Cantabrians and Astures are the most famed), the most savage and with the fiercest and most feared warriors, Pre-celt indoeuropeans mostly with lots of influences from the Aquitanians/Basques and the Meseta celt-iberians.
But even then they had some degrees of civilization (even if they "cities" were the smallest and tended to be glorified oppida).
Iberians were mostly javelineers, they were in general less well armored than Gauls (specially they nobles) and specially the Romans (at first with Hannibal even refused to wear mail, but at the times of Sertorious they could field units as well equiped as Legionaries).
Fighting they were quite orderly, with banners and musicians, and in line they could hold vs Romans and defeat them. Where they truly were outmatched was in leadership, apart of some truly great leader like Corocotta, Viriatus and the leaders of the Numantines, the romans tended to beat them in strategy and logistic planning be a hugh margin, and were desunited as fuck, raiding each other and alling with Rome to curbstomp older enemies. Even then the Romans didn't conquer completly Hispania until 200 hundred years (give or take) after they initiall campaign to kick out the Carthaginians.
Awww Jeez sorry for a moment I tought I was in Veeky Forums, I will stop sperging about iberians I swear.
I prefer thinking of magic as a long lost art that people are in the midst of rediscovering
Also, how much of the cultural/social stuff do you take from the bronze-age sources? Should I risk losing the familiarity of the players?
Personally I prefer things where it's hard to tell if magic is real or not.
The characters believe it is, and that's enough for me.
Have you read the Winter King by Bernard Cornwell? It's not exactly bronze age, but it's a retelling of King Arthur in pseudo-historical style, and magic is definitely a maybe is/maybe is not real proposition.
Very good series.
>tfw nobody remembers Tartessos
Isketerol failed us.
Just started looking at Blood and Bronze - Conanesque OSR Mesapotamia. Sumeria n the like. Courtier and Shaman and Seers as classes.
Sounds comfy, can you go full Enkidu?
The Saxon Chronicles is very good too, dem Shield wall combat.
>You will never conquer the known world, taste the pussy of all the lands, fight with your bros for the supremacy of your culture and go afterward to have fun with boypussy.
Don't worry, you'd be the one who caught an arrow in the first minor skirmish and then spent the next week dying of gas gangrene.
Sounds like my luck alright.
You know I couldn't stand those. Couldn't make it past the first book.
The get repetitive because he use a similar formula every book, but I enjoyed it, It also opened to me a chunk of history than didn't seem very interesting at first glance, Dark Age england (Brytenwalda mod fo M&B did a lot too).
They made a show out of it too. Did you watch it?
How would you deal with magic in this kind of setting? Consider that you have to make a fantasy game based on the Mediterranean bronze age and it's supposed to have magic users playable. Because all that -mancy shit was basically scrying.
Hardmode: they must be regular mortals.
Question is a little vague. What kind of magic is it supposed to be?
I'd say first off that any magic would have to be channeled divine power.
Yah, it's good, the MC was shit tough, it didn't look like the Book main at all, the rest was awesome and apart of some anachronic details here and there with the equipment, it's better in that regard than anything in TV right now for the epoch, 8/10.
I steal from a lot of sources, Dominions 4/CoE, Akelerre, folklore and CoC magic mostly, with more spirits than "concede" Spells. Using magic points as mana too because I don't like vancian magic, everyone cast minor spells ala runequest but they gain Mp at 1/5 of the Pow per day. I use a bastard version of BRP mixed with Rq6 and other games than I been madly gathering.
As I said, based on Mediterranean bronze age, so the pointy hat-wizard with his spellbooks might not work here. Though the pointy hat is appropriate if we go further north Just imagine you want to play in a fantasy-setting somewhat based on that era and one of your players wants to throw fireballs at problems. What would you tell them?
>I'd say first off that any magic would have to be channeled divine power
So, this is already a good starting point, they would lore-wise merge with clerics and the like.
I'd tell them that there are no fireballs in Mediterranean Bronze Age Fantasy.
Magic back then was of the supernatural variety, of performing superhuman feats with divine inspiration.
While that is true for the most part it really boils down to what kind of game you are playing and what system you use.
It's equally viable to play as the normal people who's magical connections are shallow trying to make ends meat to the heroes who gets to tap deep into the supernatural and go on heroquests and into the otherworlds on semi-regular basis for glory and power.
If going D&D, then maybe no wizards, just sorcerers and warlocks.
Or maybe have wizards be limited to Egyptians and Mesopotamians with their papyrus and tablets.
Maybe also Persians, even though that might be too far away. The word "mage" comes from the Persian "Mager".
Why would you use DnD for a pseudo-historical game?
Because you're familiar with it?
Also, because sometimes psuedo-historical stuff seems very D&D-like
When I think pseudo-historical I think reality but different, e.g., the addition of monsters and magic to an otherwise mundane world following normal rules.
DnD isn't realistic. I'd avoid it right off the bat. That's just me though.
Realistic in what sense?
The entire party isn't rolling save-or-die against dysentery every day.
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I'd make any magic user the descendant of a god. Not like they say they are... I mean the character is actually the child of a god or demi-god. The power is not limitless like the ancestor, but it is supernatural to a normal mortal
So, what tropes define a bronze age setting?
What do you guys pull from most? Epics a la the Odyssey? Been Hurt? Conan?
>Heroic warfare over Total War:
The warriors are not rank and file soldiers pulled from ordinary men. These are extraordinary warriors doing things they were born to do. Their physiques, their looks, their skills, and whatever other aspect you can drum up about them will be better than most of the others.
>Xenophilia
The Bronze Age saw a massive network of trade routes spring up for the first time in history - that we know of. Amber from the North Sea's shores made jewelry for Minoans who could then sell it to Egyptians and other Fertile Crescent empires. The routes could be reversed too with goods leaving the "civilized" world and ending up in places where a little bronze could make a warlord's weapon far superior to his rivals'. Warriors and nobility could have a whole treasure trove of items on them from across the world
>Priests
No, not your average Sunday-school operating priest with conservative robes and little money. I am talking about Priests and Priestesses that could make kings and nobility bow before them. Religion was not just an aspect of life... it really was life or death for the people of the Bronze Age. You wanted to go to war? Better consult the Priests first. Think pissing off the Priest(s) is a good idea? Better be ready to fight a civil war with them. The temples and temple complexes are a great and powerful place. They should be revered as well as feared.
>Civilization hanging by a thread
Pretty straight forward. Writing is new. Farming is new. Stateship is new. Only takes a couple major cities falling to raiders and you end up losing decades of progress in one year.
Not him but what I dislike about DnD are levels, health sponges and how slow the combat it is in higher levels. And in sense it's too rigid, I like to handwave a lot and it's easier with BRP.
Where's the tin on the British Isles? I thought there was tin there.