Fantastical bronze age adventures. How would they differ from the 'standard' setting of fantasy medieval land?

Honestly, I'd rather run and play a bronze age game where the gods aren't real/active, and the players are just regular schmucks.

The gods could just be powerful entities such as dragons and giant mineral men.

Conflict between civilization vs barbarism, and at this point, it's still a much more even competition. Each city-state is like an isolated patch of light in the middle of a murky darkness. You don't have to walk far to find yourself in the wilderness, you don't have to travel far to find strange people with unfamiliar gods. It's the opposite end of history to the modern information age, everything is mysterious.

This is from the oldest text ever discovered, a compilation of advice for young people:

etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section5/tr561.htm

>266-271 To get lost is bad for a dog; but terrible for a man (1 ms. has instead: An unknown place is terrible; to get lost is shameful (?) for a dog). On the unfamiliar way at the edge of the mountains, the gods of the mountains are man-eaters. They do not build houses there as men do; they do not build cities there as men do.

Naval warfare is much different from age of sail. The primary means of locomotion are bake of oars (rowed by professionals, not slaves). Combat consists of raking the enemy with arrows, attempting to set the enemy on fire, and ramming an enemy (boarding optional). For the most part, ships are very ill-suited for deep ocean travel, and navigation knowledge and technology tend to be pretty low.

I imagine armor wouldn't be a thing, or at least not as much as a dark age fantasy.

Hahahahaha, you fucking idiot.

Plate armour was invented in the bronze age, fool.

It was a very different creature then.

Armor was, for most civs, not common and not heavy where present. Obviously, there were exceptions, heavy infantry were still a thing, but by and large the main defensive contrivances were shields and helmets.

>The primary means of locomotion are bake of oars
For military warships and only in combat. Sails were a thing back then and most merchant ships traveled by sail only supplemented by oars occasionally.

Naval combat wasn't that much of a thing before the collapse, anyway.

Massive rowed boats that rammed each other are much more an Iron Age thing.

If they're heros, the "regular schmucks" would still claim to have divine/supernatural blood. If they don't for whatever reason, the other people will claim it for them when they start doing relevant stuff.

Actually, in most stuff like Greek mythology having divine blood doesn't really do shit for you at all if you're a human being.
People forget (or never knew at all) that Herakles was NOT strong because he was Zeus's child, what with there being several other children of Zeus with no superpowers at all.

A random idea for a new god could be like, some mason walking around a mountain side. He finds a rock that, to him, Looks totally like some guy with a beak (or whatever) and it has to be a sign from some god.
So he starts working on said rock unitl it actually looks like something. He goes back to town and tells everyone about that new god he found, but of course forgets to mention that he made some adjustments.
The amazed town folks carefully dig up the rock turned Idol and brings it back to town, worshipping it.

Or maybe try not copying history word for word and be creative.

Chariotniggery

Also you can now justify lewd clothing.

How about fuck off. This gets brought up every fucking time there is a bronze age thread. We get it, there was a bunch of raiders and looters who fucked up the mediterranean and ended the bronze age.

How about they get left to the dustbin of history and we focus on the more interesting parts than the vaguely vikingboo shit that brought about the end of it.

The gods weren't literal idols, they were the conduits by which the gods received their prayers and sacrifices. No Idol, no prayers, no blessings. The gods would act through these idols, and in a fantasy setting, would more than likely animate them to bring miracles.

What would be the difference between bronze and iron age settings? Seem to be very similar.

About 1.5 Mohs

Are you trying to claim that pic related was common equipment as far as armour went? If that's the case then you are definately the fool. Just becase bronze plate armour was availible doesn't mean that most folks could afford it.

>Including hordes of mysterious minions of a Dark God who are trying to bring about the End of the World is copying history.

>Chariotniggery

KEK

Left armor was a thing?

Pcs earning such armor crafted by the coin of the king and blessed by the gods for a special task would be a great way to show the stakes are raised.

How about you fuck the fuck off? OP asked for characteristics that set a fantasy bronze age setting apart from a medieval one. Watery raiders of Doom fit that to a tee. The vikings aren't an equivalent as they supplanted and intermingled rather than destroyed and didn't do it on the scale of the stereotypic view of the sea peoples. Making such a comparison would be as idiotic as saying that city states shouldn't be included in a bronze age setting due to the fact that medieval northern italy was full of them.

>Regarding the gods.
That might be true, atleast it seems way more plausible than what I mentioned but to me the idea of most cities and villages having some kind of slumbering "god" present in their location is just too cool not to use. Especially for dragonfags.

Yep. It's campy as fuck but atleast it looks to provide good protection.

>campy

I'm sure you mean cool as fuck.

Some motherfucker clad in that as a mysterious travelling weapon-master or warlord antagonist

Indeed. Another thing which might be neat to do is to treat iron weapons (which actually did exist during the bronze age but were super rare due to them being mined from comets and meteorites IIRC) as magical weapons. Their ability to not break combined with their origin would certainly imply some supernatural shenanigans in a fantasy setting.

He looks like a walking kettle.

>...available doesn't mean that most folks could afford it.
Most soldiers throughout history, unless provided by a state armory, could only afford the most minimal of armor anyway. Velites wore leather. Padded armor was the way to go for most soldiers up through the Hundred Years War.

Some examples of muscle cuirass seems to have actually been used in battle, but the vast majority of pre-bronze-age collapse militia (whether in the Mediterranean or in contemporary civilizations elsewhere) would be wearing cloth/linen, maybe greaves and some form of bracer/arm protection (doesn't even have to be fastened, as curved bronze plates adhere via friction fairly well), with a shield, and a spear of some sort.

Almost guaranteed nobody would be traveling wearing that much bronze.

Indeed.
Also, fucking awesomely cute pic!

1) Because copper + tin are not found in the same location (except for a few small areas in Spain), the existence of bronze means, at least on Earth, the existence of trade routes between city-states, and competition therein

2) Chariots. Horses bred for war were not large/strong enough to be ridden, although this slowly changes in the latter stages of this period.

3) Almost all modern day iron alloy products are made via blast furnaces, which produce pig iron, as opposed to bloomeries (which would have existed in the bronze age and into medieval times), which produces wrought iron. Most modern 'wrought iron' is mild steel and not wrought iron (which has graining similar to wood).

This kind of iron during the bronze age is fairly malleable, but isn't as hard and doesn't hold as good an edge as a well forged piece of bronze, so with the exception of meteoric iron, lots of 'higher class' spearpoints, blades, crossbow triggers, etc, were made of bronze in this period. It's loss of trading routes that forced the transition to the iron age as much as better steel-making techniques.

4) There's lots of different kinds of bronze! Depending on what other metal is alloyed with copper, you get lots of funky materials, though if the society doesn't use tin, then they're technically still Chalcolithic.

Pic unrelated

Some other thoughts on differences:
Late-bronze age/iron age/classical antiquity armies are GARGANTUAN in comparison to medieval armies. Whereas a medieval armies may number 5 or 10 thousand strong (the 30,000 men fighting for the French/HRE at Crecy in 1346 was enormous for its time), ancient armies, when they did amass, were much larger.

And no, it's not down to mythological exaggerations of millions of men. Kadesh featured 20,000-50,000 men a side. Marathon featured 25,000 infantrymen and more than 100,000 sailors on the Persian side. Hannibal overran 86,400 troops at Cannae. Crassus led 40-50,000 legionnaires to their doom at Carrhae.

This has some implications for warfare/architecture. In the medieval period you could hold out in a castle with just a few guys against an army if it wasn't too big, so strongholds became more fortified. In the ancient world, you had to wall up your entire city or the opposing force will very quickly build earthen ramparts (or, in Alexander's case, entire peninsula) up to your gates.

Large formations of men don't really reach ancient-world-levels until the very late 17th and early 18th centuries, well into the Renaissance and Scientific/Industrial Revolution periods. (for instance, Malplaquet in the War of Spanish Succession had 85k per side).

What was the reason for this? You'd think that antiquity farming methods were less developed and could sustain only smaller populations?

Looks dope af
youtube.com/watch?v=5kH0Bag0akc

less grey morality bullshit
bronze age adventures feature MIGHTY heroes against EVIL monsters MYSTERIOUS wizards and COWARDLY rogues with AMBITIOUS warlords.
emotions run high, and you probably fuck a goddess at some point and piss off half of your pantheon but it's ok cuz you have HONOR unlike those EVIL COWARDS

Not him but I would speculate that the extensive trade networks and reasonably interconnectivity had something to do with it. Large empires can also afford larger population pools in a similar way as they can afford extensive specialisation such as having Egypt feeding the italian peninsula. They hadn't suffered from such horrors as the Black Death and Plague of Justinian neither which helps.

Not him, but it's less about population and more about organization. Medieval states did have populations in the millions, larger ones in the double digit millions, but could still only field armies in the 5-20,000 range, and then not for long.

But it turns out decentralizing your political structure to an enormous extent, and having poor roads and other means of communication, makes it hard to amass supplies or gather men from all over the polity for a concerted campaign. Hell, it even made it difficult to do something as simple as "Let's store a portion of the next 5 or 6 harvests for the campaign we're planning down the line".

Plus, you started haphazardly getting actual professional/career troops. The Roman army shrunk enormously when they transitioned over to the Marian model, and later medieval states, despite the memes about peasant hordes, were mostly men-at arms who were career soldiers, supplemented by other career soldiers in the forms of mercenaries. (Although there was a lot of variation). A citizen's militiaman can be economically productive, train on a couple of weekends a year, and grab his weapons and other kit when the call to war comes. A permanent soldier requires the economic support of quite a few people to create his weapons and armor and feed him and the like; one of the reasons armies ballooned again in the later gunpowder era is that you started getting mass levies again, as you could make an acceptable soldier out of someone with only a few months training.

Not him, but this was partially due to feudalism being a shit system for having big armies standing around.

...

That said, bronze age morality might not exactly mesh with modern morality.

You're in a historical inspiration thread

Are you stupid

no see, this is a misconception, Iron really isn't that impressive in terms of its inherent qualities when compared to bronze. Its about equal in terms of durability and only better at holding an edge.

what makes Iron stand out is you only need iron to get a useful product. To get bronze you need copper and tin.

That's where reading the Ilyad provides inspiration and insight. It is of great honor to be a good raider in the bronze age

Oh my bad then. I was under the impression that bronze, while more brittle and less capable of holding an edge also could be made sharper than iron.

Nah. All the Tin just was the issue. They were importing it from like Afghanistan. Or what would become it at least.

no no, if anything IRON is more brittle than bronze, that's what helps it hold its edge. Bronze is very tough but a little bit softer so it doesn't hold an edge as well.

Also meteoric iron has a ton of impurities in it so you have to fold it a whole lot, katanas are shaped the way they are because japan doesn't have much iron and what they do is low quality so they shape the blade and place soft steel at the core to back the sharp brittle edge, as a consequence a lot of them tend to bend and remain at an angle until fixed.

Bronze meanwhile has to be sharpened more often but is as durable as iron.

You honestly can't make a metal weapon sharper than another based on bronze versus iron qualities. The bronze edge won't last as long but they'll be comparably sharp.

The main issue is that copper and tin aren't located near one another, which is why you also saw tin and copper armor and weapons. The locals made do with what they had.

This is where legends of shit like orichalcum come from, you're running around with tin or copper armor and weapons and in comes this asshole with golden armor and weapons who absolutely wrecks you and takes all your shit.

I would love a bronze age campaign about hunting gods.

>not one mentioned Glorantha

>copper and tin aren't located near one another

bullshit!

>For military warships and only in combat.

Yes, we're talking about naval warfare, not sailing.

Holy fuck, THIS.

Come on folks. Glorantha and RuneQuest have been doing this genre for as long as they've existed.

Iron also rusts.

Iron is more brittle than bronze. Bronze is a (relatively) soft metal that does not hold an edge as well, but can easily be brought back to spec.

So iron would still be remarkable then, if only for its ability to hold an edge for longer than bronze.

Glorantha is closer to iron age, really.

as pointed out Iron also rusts, if it weren't so cheap these days we wouldn't use it.

Well the end of the Second Age is basically the Late Bronze Age Collapse but otherwise the setting is a setting mix of both the bronze and iron age altough more "advanced" in some aspects.

How sharp you can make something is a matter of geometry.

How long the edge stays like that depends on the material.

>that's what helps it hold its edge

While it's somewhat common for a harder material to be less tough, and vice versa, that's not always true. In addition, a very brittle material will rapidly loose its edge to chipping, while the softer material will loose it to rolling and abrasion.

To hold an edge well you need a material that is both hard and tough.

>and what they do is low quality so they shape the blade and place soft steel at the core to back the sharp brittle edge

That combining harder and tougher material together to get the best of both is somethign you see said about, for example, European pattern welded blades too, where a pattern welded mixed-metal core is given steel-only edges. Other kinds of lamination, combining steel parts with lower carbon material in various ways are seen throughout much of the world.

But it probably wasn't done to add toughness to a brittle edge steel. The toughness of these materials would have been bottle necked by inclusion count rather than carbon content. As such, the softer material won't have any extra toughness worth mentioning to add to it all. The reason for its presence is rather simply because it is cheaper, so you see it added wherever it's lesser hardness and strength won't have much impact on the overall properties of the blade.

>This is where legends of shit like orichalcum come from

Orichalcum is a real, naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. Since we don't see much legends about gold weapons, I suspect any legends about orichalcum ones will mostly be found in recent fiction, written by those who didn't do their research.

And I strongly doubt anyone ever made weapon from tin. They'd be awful, and copper wasn't that hard to find.

*fantasy mix

>Bronze is a (relatively) soft metal

Hammer the edges, as they would have done, and it gets to a reasonable hardness compared to iron/steel. Steel blades at this time would not have been properly hardened, maybe a slack quench, but I got the feeling even that would be rare in ancient times.

Rust can be overcome. Iron/steel is generally impressively strong, can be highly tailored to various purposes, and has just the right thermal expansion coefficient to make reinforced concrete possible.

Do you think the artist had an erection while painting this?

>Orichalcum is a real, naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver.
No it isn't. The alloy of gold and silver is called electrum.

No way, the dude that's depicted is a ginger.

orichalcum isn't real and never has been. Electrum is the gold and silver alloy.

Bronze, when polished looks golden, as does steel if tempered at the proper temperature.

and people will make weapons out of what they have on hand, even tin is better than stone in some ways.

Seems I got them mixed up, yes.

Bump

"Pseudo-Aristotle in De mirabilibus auscultationibus describes a type of copper that is "very shiny and white, not because there is tin mixed with it, but because some earth is combined and molten with it." This might be a reference to orichalcum obtained during the smelting of copper with the addition of "cadmia", a kind of earth formerly found on the shores of the Black Sea, which is attributed to be zinc oxide."