I want my fantasy setting to evoke a more iron-age feeling or early medieval instead of the more faux-Renaissance of...

It goes to reason that like technology, magic would be a cruder, ill-understood art whose practitioners are not scholarly wizards and sorcerers with unlimited resources who have solved world hunger through the scientific methood, but shamen, druids, and alchemists trying to figure out how to invent a version of fireball that doesn't burn your hands off upon use, or a heal spell that can heal more than flesh wounds, or are struggling in vain to resist the effects of vancian spellcasting, treating their abilities not as something reliable but as a near-superstition whose capabilities are based on conjecture.

Magic users are feared, but largely through overestimation of their abilities as well as their tendency to be willing to ignore taboos if it means they might be able to cast their spells more efficiently and the disastrous results this might end in, and whose entire knowledge base is devoted to a single spell which future generations might benefit from off of the hard backs of centuries of trial and error. Anyone who wants to get beyond this would have to make deals with literal magical creatures such as daemons and devils, and to do this would be a quest itself in simply finding one that doesn't want to bite your head off.

I find the best way is to really immerse my players and overly elaborate and use vocabulary that evokes the age. My players don't have +3 Fullplate, They have sabattons froma specialist, the breastplate has been potently enchanted and produced by Philistar in Barkholm, Their tabard has regalia they drew, I explained what a gorget is and the fighter has one. I build my cities historically and try and use historic titles. I'm careful to maintain a language barrier, currency weight and exchange, roleplay treks to and from dungeons.

Folk magic is also likely to be really common.

>Obsidian Entertainment
I'M GOOOONNA CUUUUUUUUUUM

Of course, that's not to say that priests and clerics don't exist, but at least for the not!Christianity of the setting, they're an incredibly recent phenomenon. So recent, that some of them might have been around when their god(s) physically roamed the Earth, and thus to be one is to implicitly be a high-ranking official in the infant hierarchy.

As some of the few users of reliable, non "roll the WHF miscast list" vancian nightmare magic, they have a huge responsibility civilizing the world and healing the sick and being a whole magnitude higher in ability to proto-wizards. This is both a positive and a negative thing as everyone else looks up to them as the fanasy equivalent of superheroes (being capable of going CODzilla where everyone else is stuck with the crappy predecessor of Colour Spray that only produces infrared and ultraviolet) and expects them to lift civilization out of the dark age while they likewise have to satisfy their patron deity, whom they might have literally shaken hands withs' will.

It certainly isn't a responsibility for everyone, and I'd treat it similar to how gunpowder is treated in conventional fantasy.

and everyone wore nothing but brown and was covered in mud and shit 24/7

Alright, I give up, where the fuck is Waldo?

I agree with animism is still present in most cultures at this time. Most crafts or pieces of knowledge that do not directly relate to day to day life have some element of mysticism to them. Even as late as the 13th century the practice of trades guilds is still referred to as "mysteries."

In many ways magic is more present in an iron age culture than it is in a late medieval one. Religion ,mysticism, is still very much communal and Christianity hasn't fully enveloped paganism. Shamans, who themselves can work minor wonders are part of the community without the separation of a monastery or foreign religious organisation. The bar for what counts as magic at that time is still low enough to be achievable by a mortal.
By the late medieval period most magicians are ether heretics or solitary scholars who are separate from the world. The bar for magic is specific and usually achievable only by the upper or middle-upper class. Religion has become in many ways undone and separate from craft or experience.

I get where you're coming from but I think that problem in particular is matter of making ANY meaningful facsimile of a time period on earth work. Powerful magic cannot reasonably be inserted into a real world take on a setting because that kind of power didn't exist in the real world. D&D-land looks a lot like the Renaissance but it is no more the Renaissance than it is the iron age or any other time period.

The exception of coarse being myth, but that on it's own is often an account of exceptional circumstances and supernatural other worlds. Oddly I think that is better suited to bronze, iron or stone age than it is to any later period because that is when most of those myths were ether written or held true in a meaningful way.

Make sure to add the dilapidated-but-still-functional ruins of the !Notromans that came before the barbarian destruction of it.

Iron age and early medieval are quite far from each other

That mythic or fairy tale feeling is exactly what I want to go for.

>the CIA guy

He said Iron Age. The ancient ruins full of squatters would be not!Akkad and not!Egypt. The not!Romans would be an active or ascendant Empire.

Go with the opposite for stone/bronze age.

Have people wearing furs and elaborately patterned or dyed clothing. Give them clan tattoos and ritual scarification, deadlocks and woad, feathers and beads. It's just as likely.

other games to play besides Tranny

>Total War: Atilla
>King of Dragon Pass

WE NEED MORE WEAPON THANES

Oi!
The Romans had crossbows in service at this point. Just make them rare.

A lot of little tribes constantly at each others throats for shit like "proving muh honour" and one part of the map being controlled by a really power but thinly stretched Empire trying to bring a bunch of said tribals into their standards, complete with hellish amounts of paperwork.
Also, no gold outside of the Empire controlled area's, pure trading.

Play Runequest/Mythras.

What game?

Sounds like what I want to make. A mythic iron age fantasy but with real life-like fashions and customs.

King of Dragon pass.

Are you aiming for a more southern European-themed setting, or more Nordic/Celtic?

Amerimutts should be banned from discussing anything relating to European history desu desu

(you)

...

Then magic should be able to be powerful but also fragile. You don't get it just by being very good at "magical skill." In the same vein great warriors shouldnt be great because "martial skill" alone. They reach greatness by being clever. Powers are gained by making teneous pacts with dieties and spirits or by holding oneself to specific taboos.
Basic magic and martial power would be the hero's own ability. Basic magic might be curing alilments telling fortunes with reasonable relyability, spiting weakening curses or guessing gods will. These take talent and sometimes reasources, rare ones for tricky stuff but are known abilities of any competent town shaman.

Calling lighting, turning invisible, conjuring physical things should require a medium. The magician calls upon distant forces for these and needs to consider how they feel about his usage of them.
>Note: in norse lore casting runes should be saved for important decisions. The gods hate to be bothered and will curse shamans who call upon them constantly

Magic is discovered, taken, used or abused and lost or betrayed. Or found, earned and used sparingly for subtle purposes for a greater picture.

Its not about wierd eldritch effects its about mainting a delicate balance of power. Power is fleeting. Nothing built by magic alone lasts. Heroes are doomed to destroy themselves with poor decisions or to be struck impotent.

Consider these power sources.
>A pact with spirits or gods for personal power
>Rulership over men or spirits for power by extension
>Might blood or a great destiny that comes with a horrible character flaw or that makes one an unknowing pawn
>Stolen magic or a stolen identity
>Being a cunning free man with nothing but his wits

>>Being a cunning free man with nothing but his wits

How does this one work?

You are a nonexceptional person who makes smart choices. There would probably be no mechanical benifit or detriment. You'd be weaker then everyone else but you arnt wound into astral politics, sworn to a devil, you have no kingdom to maintain, no horrible curse to make you flip out, no destiny to ironicly kill you at an arbitrary point in time. You are just a skilled mortal.

From moment to moment you could pull one over enemies. Play to your enemies weakness, try to catch em off gaurd or win them over with words.

This wouldnt be a class or anything, just a way to be. This might be a hero before accepting boons or after falling from grace or a guy that just decides not to use that golden fiddle or take up the mantle of odin.

This works because in this world even mighty gods have limits to what they can see and hear, some character weakness and have some kind of achillies heel making them vulnarable to anyone armed with a bit of information, luck and a cunning plan.

just play The One Ring, dummy.

No more knights, no more plate armor, no more guns, boats are not all that big, forget about castles and you can count the number of countries with your fingers.

Also, if you don't like boring villages your only real options are the capitals and city-states, which are also likely to be thousands of year old.

The hottest thing in military warfare is spear and shield, horses are not all that competitive except for harassing and nobody uses lances when mounted.

For the magic aspect, there's no guilds or alchemists, just the city priests, maybe the odd druid in the backwoods and the blacksmits. Also, glass bottles are called jars, and are made of ceramic.

Oh, and commerce is a pretty global thing. Get to a merchant city and you can get stuff from one corner of the world to the other. Not people though, just stuff.

Ruins, not all that many. Dungeons are not really a thing, but ancient mausoleums could work. Barbarians, they are not all that different from the peasants, except they don't have giant cities with elevated palaces several stories high.

Lastly, faith. Yours won't work beyond your nation, unless your deity of choice just goes by another name and customs in the new land. So no paladins outside their land.

That just sounds like 7th century Europe.

But no castles, they are called fortresses, and they are manned, not using as some noble's bunk.

In many ways the ancient world resembled more the modern one than the medieval one. There were less small, fractured, isolated and ethnically homogeneous micro-states, or at least they weren't recognized as such when compared to the might of the rich nations. It was all gold and barbarians, for a very ample definiton of barbarian.

Well, at least until it all ended in blood. But the greek poleis carried on some of that ancient glory, babylon too, and then the romans came and unified the world* once again.

And then rome fell, and we get to the classical D&D settings.

*well, the mediterranean coast and half an island, but that was pretty much the world back then, the rest were barbarian lands, parthian lands, irrelevant glorious-empire-on-the-far-east lands, and decent-sized kingdoms along the road.

is there any good art of the guy with the full body armor?

Never played so no idea what I'd search

Do you want monsters? Giants and trolls are probably good choices. Dragons, too.

Has Wally been shopped out of that. Also got a chuckle out of CIA

Hill forts with wood palisades and roundhouses. very little in terms of siege engines.

It's Waldo you limy bastard

I found Wanda; maybe it's from one of the later books where Waldo isn't in every picture.

Is he not bottom left quadrant behind three guys holding Arrow shields?

I like this post.

One thing though: in a fantasy setting, you could still easily have ruins, if there was a catastrophic event that destroyed the previous civilization. How it could work is that as nature reasserted itself new humans evolved from basically square one. Over the centuries as their cultures developed, they saw strange ruins dotting the landscape, but have no way of repurposing what they find within.
And of course, you could go any route with what type of ruins they are. They could be long-dead modern-esque ruins or temple ruins or castle ruins.
That's the cool thing about fantasy; it doesn't have to completely follow historical accuracy.

Have you tried looking for music that fits the setting? There is a lot out there on youtube and sound is a great way to get the party immersed.

It might be worthwhile for you to actually ask them if they like your playlist though.

>Keep magic rare and scary, if it is even present at all

This is something I don't understand. It's all right in a sword and sorcery setting, where the heroes are supposed to be people who succeed by their swords, cunning and/or oiled muscles whilst fighting the forces of evil wizards who look like Michael Berryman.

But in an iron age setting, magic would be an everyday thing. You cast a little spell when you go fishing for good hauls, a little spell to heal that nick you got from your knife, another to stop your jealous neighbour from spoiling your cow's milk with his curse, and so forth.

Yeah. I found the bone (In the middle of the film crew, centre),
Wanda's camera (middle left, below the guy with the crown shield,
The wizards scroll (Bottom right, below the guy with he smiley face shield),
Wanda (Bottom right below the shields with the dog cat mouse chase scene),
Oddjob (Bottom right, up and to the right of the pointing finger shields)

I can't find the wizard, or the dogs tail.

I Found the wizard! 2nd tower from the left

Oh and Quentin Tarintino, Bane and CIA of course.

>Keep civilizations small, scattered, and separate. Refer to settlements that would register as towns as "cities". People seldom know more about any other neighboring settlements. Travelers are rare. If knowledge checks are a thing in your system, knowing about the outside world should be tough.

This is probably the best advice. Outside of a few big time merchants virtually no one is going to have traveled to another city. Villagers have likely never gone any further than maybe the nearest town 5-10 miles away if even that.

I think he said Iron Age, not early medieval. Although that depends on whether or not you are traveling around !notgermania or traveling around !notrome

I've been planning something similar for not- dark ages Britain, here's what I have for armour currently
AC1 heavy woolen clothing
AC2 heavy woolen clothing and helmet
AC 3 Cloth armour and helmet
AC 4 scale armour and helmet
AC 5 light mail and helmet
AC 6 heavy mail and helmet
Not sure about scale but I need something for that gap and it does give a bit of variety

I like it, but it might be a little easier to just assume a helmet adds +1 AC and keep the AC levels tied to the armor directly, in the event someone loses or gets the armor without a helmet.

Originally I did have
AC1 heavy woolen clothing
AC3 cloth armour
AC5 mail
And a helmet was +1 AC

This looked very neat but then some troop types from Adventurer Conqueror King would be running around with nice armour on but no helmets which is a bit daft.

I was reading 5e the other day and I have no reason to believe that it wouldn't be the case with previous editions that helmets come with armour and if you choose to go without it that's -1 AC. But maybe there's a better way to word what I wrote so it fits the paradigm.
>AC1 heavy woolen clothing without helmet
>AC2 heavy woolen clothing
>AC 3 Cloth armour
>AC 4 scale armour
>AC 5 light mail
>AC 6 heavy mail
Or something similar

I'm going to try to help you with the early medieval part. it's what I like best, after all. Not so much mechanics, I leave that part to others. Just setting details.

First, kingdoms. Some time ago (maybe a few decades, maybe one or two centuries) there was an empire. That empire isn't around anymore. Maybe it fell to civil wars, economical depression, foreign invasion, or a combination of it all. Whatever if caused it, the political estructure of the empire fell. That doesn't mean the empire is entirely gone. Some of its cities still exist, although most of the more grandiose buildings are in disrepair or ruins, while others (such as palaces, or particularly nice villas and mansions) are in good condition due to continued use and inhabitation.

The empire was replaced by kingdoms of barbarian or semi-barbarian origin. Some of these kingdoms try to keep the memory of the empire alive. They adopt titles, clothing and traditions from the good ol' days, and mingle with the old imperial aristocracy (if it's still around and hasn't fully integrated into the new predominan culture). Maybe some of them even mint coinage with imperial motifs and imagery. Others don't care about that and keep their own culture more or less intact, although the try to maintain good relations with the old imperial aristocracy. And some others go full blown arsonist and burn everything that remotely reminds anyone of the days of the empire (obviously, their relationship with the imperial aristocracy isn't exactly friendly). Politically, these kingdoms are proto-feudal. They have a king and a ruling class of nobles, most of whom are landowners and maintain vast networks of patronage and clientship. Some nobles themselves might be clients of the king or his family. This doesn't mean that nobles hold absolute authority in their domains, although some may behave like they do.

The kings themselves are "primus inter pares". Kingship is prestigious, but not sacred. It may not be hereditary, although most kingdoms usually have a traditional royal family. Sometimes, inheritance laws mean that a kingdom is divided between several sons, who then fight between them to reunite the kingdom. Most of the time, however, succession is more or less peaceful (although you can be sure that the first few years of any new king will be spent fighting rebellions from relatives or nobles that refuse to recognise his authority).

Outside the aristocracy, life is more or less what you would expect. If you live in the countryside (and you probably live there), you're a farmer, either a freeholder or a noble's client (or slave). There are a few towns, where most of the craftsmen and merchants live. Most people don't travel too far from their homeland, but that doesn't mean they don't leave their villages in their entire lives, and they usually visit neighbouring villages or towns to trade, visit family and friends, go to festivals, etc. They usually know the lands between and around these settlements pretty well and will be informed about what happens in the region.

From time to time, the king or the land's lord sends a call to arms and you have to take your shield, your spear and your long knife and go raid someone's land. You probably have a helmet. If you're lucky, you also have a sword. If you're very lucky or somewhat wealthy, you have armour (most often a hauberk or, if you live in the East, lamellar). If you're extremely lucky or wealthy enough, you have a horse.

Conflict is endemic but mostly of low intensity. Most of the time is just a few border raids, skirmishes and cattle rustling. Walled towns and strongholds go mostly untouched unless shit hits the fan really hard, which it usually does in late spring or summer, the campaign season. Sieges are rare, most of the fighting is done in open battle. Kings may fight in the front line.

The basic and most used formation is the shieldwall. A bunch of dudes get together, put their shields in front of them and start hacking and slashing at the other side. Most of the dudes don't get killed in the clash of shieldwalls, but in the retreat that happens when one of the sides breaks. Before the clash, someone may issue a challenge to single combat, which may happen on foot or on horse.

Ambushes still happen. Because ambushes are a basic tactic and allows an inferior force to kick their stronger enemis in the balls.

And I'm not sure right now if you might need anything in particular, so well. See you tomorrow.

Barik. Hard to find art of him. His life is one of misfortune.

Not a whole lot to see besides screenshots, his portrait, and a few simple images from the game unfortunately.

>The hottest thing in military warfare is spear and shield, horses are not all that competitive except for harassing and nobody uses lances when mounted.
wewlad. This is just false. In the ancient world cavalry was recognized as a major threat. For example, in Ancient Greece:

During the Athenian punitive expedition against Thessaly in the First Peoloponnesian War, enemy horsemen kept them confined to their camp, they could not to anything and were forced home. (Thuc. 1.111.1). In a similar scenario the Athenian cavalry was able to contain the invading Peloponnesians. (Thuc. 3.1.2). Thrasyboulos raised force of 70 horsemen against the oligarchs of Athens made none but the enemy cavalry leave the city gates to face him. (Xen Hell. 2.4.25-26).

At Solygia 200 horsemen decided the outcome of battle. (Thuc. 4.42.1). 60 Phliasians horsemen managed to rout the enitre rearguard of the Argives (Xen. Hell. 7.2.4) Just 50 Syracusan horsemen managed to play the enitirity of the Boiotian army "according to their own will" (Xen. Hell. 7.1.21)

While what you say is essentially accurate, I'd remind everybody to take what Xenophon says regarding decisive cavalry actions with a grain of salt, since he was a huge cavaboo who (most likely) served in the Athenian cavalry under the Thirty Tyrants, whose son died in a cavalry action at Second Mantinea, and spent a bunch of time raising horses during his Peloponnesian exile. So yes, at any possible opportunity he got, he hyped the hell out of the horsemen.

This was very informative; thank you!

I wouldn't dismiss it at all. It's a common theme found throughout Classical Greek history. Xenophon was a veteran of the mercenary army of the Ten Thousand who got stranded in the heartland of the Persian Empire following the death of Kyros the Younger. If you want to know more about Greek tactics and warfare, especially on combined arms, I wrote something up you could check instead of taking up multiple posts:

>I want my fantasy setting to evoke a more iron-age feeling or early medieval
Those are two completely different things, which one do you want?

>in the retreat that happens when one of the sides breaks

Or in the absolute worst scenario, get hit in the flank or the rear by cavalry. I read somewhere that Breton horsemen (who loved javelins) were really good at doing this - coming out of seemingly nowhere, doing the ol' javelin throw, then wheeling away for another go, all the while their opponents were locked in close combat.

Also, don't forget the importance of the leader. If your leader gets it in the battle, there's a decent chance of his side's morale breaks as well.

get this guy really studied the iron age feel for his setting. Everything is detailed and accurate.

...

Holy shit, where did you get this? Did teevee make a wheres waldo edit?

>no crossbows
you are so fucking stupid

No, it's an actual Where's Wally book. This one's "Horseplay in Troy".

Depends on when and where, but they actually DID have crossbows back then.
The vast majority of societies did not, but specifically cultures with a stronger link to the Romans (who had hand-held crossbows themselves) such as the various Frankish groups often had access to simpler crossbows due to a somewhat more sophisticated technology base. I actually think a really old term for a certain kind of crossbow back then was in fact a “Frankish Bow”.

Look in the canal thing in the upper left.

Aye, and there's a face shopped onto the film director (middleish right, to the left of the blokes with percentage shields, but that's an actual WW image it's based on.

This is true. Cavalry is still a threat, either in the form of skirmishers/mounted archers harassing the enemy formations or in the form of heavy cavalry. For example, in the Eastern Roman and Sassanian empires heavy cavalry was a very important part of the army, and the battle of the Catalaunian Plains was supposedly won thanks to the charge of the visigothic cavalry led by Thorismund. So yeah, cavalry is not as important as it was in the later parts of the Middle Ages, but it's still a useful tool and may be decisive in the hands of a good general.

About the leader's importance, what you say it's still true, but there's other outcomes to consider. A leader's death may go unnoticed in the chaos of the battlefield, at least for a while, and even if it's noticed, there's a chance someone takes his place, especially if it's his son and heir. And thing may go the other way, too. Maybe the lord's death spurs his troops into a vengeful frenzy, especially if he was perceived as a good lord or king.

Glorantha is ever good to pick some stuff, even if you dislike lots of things about the setting it ooze Folklore and Stone/Iron/bronze/Early medieval flavour.

REMOVE MOROKANTH remove morokanth

No crossbows was less about them not existing and more about
>I want my fantasy setting to evoke a more iron-age feeling or early medieval instead of the more faux-Renaissance of "generic" fantasy settings.

What's going to be the default ranged weapon in faux-Renaissance fantasy? A crossbow. So make it feel different by removing it.

Are those people so fucking hipster they actually made a Tapir-person race?

If by hipster you mean "were doing so much drugs", then yeah. Morokanth predate hipsters by decades. The same people also made Donald Duck hardcore.

>Rip off Tyranny's art designs
Just don't rip off anything else from Tyranny. Lets read a little bit about one of the companions in that game, an official character breakdown, if you will:
>Kills-in-Shadow is the last of the Shadowhunters, a powerful Haven tribe of beasts that destroyed tribes such as King-Vipers, Alerion, and Thornstags. She is a pack alpha, broodmother, and even has magical abilities usually reserved for tribe mystics. She’s also frightening, hairy, stinks of wet animal and has an insatiable bloodlust for violence and slaughter. Beyond that, she is also a clever hunter, a brutish, skilled fighter, and is tenaciously loyal (unless, of course, she has sensed a weakness) to whomever she chooses to follow, whether that be her ruthless sister, Creeping-Death, who was the last leader of their savage tribe, or a human Fatebinder stronger than even the toughest of Beastwomen. Kills-in-Shadow is intelligent but uneducated, hulking but agile, and an unapologetic killer but not evil. She’s a highly evolved predator, forever marked by the magic of Haven’s dark forests–primarily driven by instinct and an insatiable lust for violence. She is also boastful, daring, smart, easily excited, and has a quirky sense of humor. She often snorts, snarls, growls, and chuffs with laughter.

Only a decade? Glorantha was one of the first settings for BRP, than it's one of the first RPG after DnD.

>Glorantha was one of the first settings

Yep, that's why I said it predates hipsters by decades.

>just play The One Ring, dummy.

I was gonna say this.

Shadap, don't make me release my humans at you.

>Yep, that's why I said it predates hipsters by decades.

Hipsters are old as fuck, user. They didn't just start in the past decade or two. Every young generation has a movement where it skewers that which came before and tries to be different, but act like it doesn't give a shit. Flappers, Beatniks, Hippies, whatever.

Yeah...I knew there was a reason I left her at camp in favor of the other crazies. Barik and Siren are the closest things to normal, well adjusted people in your posse...well them plus that scribe, and all of them are pretty horrible people by any modern standard.

Oh wow. Also a cursory glance at the art and its pretty meh.

There wasn't a whole lot to armor back then, but yeah, it is kind of bland.

You would be surprised,the Greeks did have full plate bronze armor since the Dark Age for example. It was too expensive, cumbersome and not ideal for Hoplite wars tough.

Look up Zenobia and 43 AD. Rules-light system explicitly based in and around the Roman Empire, in very different places and a few hundred years apart, but with a heavy 'semi-historical' theme where magic is nebulously real and there are monsters in the hidden places of the world.

Good Orlanth just seeing that pic makes me think of that arsehole morokanth slaver in Pavis.

So these tapir-people have pet humans?