Long Timelines

[PhilFleischmann]

We've had a lot of discussion about how magic changes the world from how it was historically, but I have another world-altering question:

How does the long history and timelines given for many fantasy worlds (especially Epic Fantasy) affect things? ITRW, there was only about 10,000 years between the dawn of history (the first cities, writing, irrigation) and fully modern technology (moon landings, cell phones, the internet, nuclear weapons, plastic, refridgerators, etc.)

Many fantasy worlds have intricate backgrounds laid out for them and a history spanning as much as 100,000 years. What prevented them from ever inventing gunpowder, or the printing press, or the cotton gin? With all the supposed ancient wisdom they had, and the long lifespans of some fantasy races, why didn't they advance technology in all that time? Sure there were occasional cataclysms (often with a capital C), but between these there was often more time for civilization to evolve then there has been in the real world since the dawn of history! And these guys are far beyond the ancient Sumerians: they have crossbows, trebuchets, wind and water mills, weaving, steel, and stellar navigation.

How do we explain the lack of progress?

[Old Man]

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann
How do we explain the lack of progress?

In my proto-setting, there are few (if any) explosives, no electricity except for lightning, and steam does not generate pressure.

But you don't have to go that far. Remember that for spans of hundreds or thousands of years there was no progress and sometimes even regression. Consider feudal Japan, where technology remained static for almost a thousand years, or the Middle Ages, where 'civilization' (as evidenced by engineering, politics, and health care) regressed from the Roman era. In both these cases the reasons are more social/traditional than anything else.

And then there are entire civilizations that arose and disappeared over the course of history, sometimes inexplicably. The Mayans, the Babylonians, the Nubians, the people at Angkor Wat, and all kinds of lesser Central Asian civilizations that practically no one has even heard of.

[assault]

Originally posted by Old Man
Consider feudal Japan, where technology remained static for almost a thousand years,

When?

On the main point of the thread...

First of all - a lot of these long histories aren't really well thought out! They don't make sense.

Second, you can possibly weasel things a little with a "history repeats itself" theory. Personally, I'm not fond of it, but it's an option.

Third, the presence of supernatural entities will change things dramatically. If every village or town actually has a god living in its temple, the rate of social change will be dramatically slowed. This is, of course, especially true if the entities in question aren't exactly benevolent. They don't have to be soul-sucking demons either - just the kind that get jealous of other gods...

In fact, you could write an interesting history where humanity actually needs to rebel against the gods/demons/whatever in order to progress. Of course, that could well result in the odd cataclysm. It could also be quite an interesting twist on some of the "monster" games, where the various vampires, werewolves and so on get overthrown by a rebellious humanity.

If the dice are too stacked against humanity, you could give them a protector of some sort - a Prometheus bringing enlightenment to them. But how is such a figure different to any of the other godlets that send their followers off on a holy war against the followers of their rivals?

This kind of history could be as long as you want.

If you are so inclined, you could possibly use the kind of "Serpent Men" ideas that appear in some of Howard's stories. These were adopted to some extent by H. P. Lovecraft.

In this case, the Serpent Men are the "gods" who have enslaved humanity since time immemorial...

Of course the real question to "why hasn't humanity advanced" is quite simple - advancing to a Neolithic society can take millions of years, and advancing beyond one can take thousands of years. Add the kind of pressures I have suggested above, and a more or less Neolithic/early Bronze Age culture could be around for tens of thousands of years. Advancing beyond that would be rather difficult.

Alan

[Solomon]

This is much of a genre thing. After all, the very idea of progress and evolution is fairly modern. Up until a few centuries ago, most people had little or no idea of just how much human technology and society had evolved over time. So I have a feeling that, by introducing progress in a fantasy setting, you're sapping one of its basic assumptions: that of a static or cyclic world.

If you still want a rationale for the lack of technology, you may consider that technology is often driven by need. If you have access to healing magic, you probably lack the drive and dedication to pursue scientific medical research, for instance.

[Ghost who Walks]

You could explain the lask of progress a couple of ways

1) If you can make food or other stuff by magic, do you need to trade? In D&D you could make food by magic. What about spices? :)

2) Whoever is in charge does not want things to change.

3) There isn't sufficient trade to start the technological revolution.

3) The elves are behind it.

[Seenar]

It would seem to me that really long lived people would tend not to progress as fast as us short lived ones.

[AnotherSkip]

Actually _any_ race could be behind it. Orcs because they can better use manpower and labor saving devices get rid of their advantage in having enough people to do everything.

perhaps the Dwarves are behind it. They have such a tried and true philosophy that if a machine fails 1in 10 times it is not worth pursuing perfecting it until it is 1failure in 100 or 1 in 10, 000.

Elder races could have dampened some of the ideas "Cinterallius tried that 2,000 years ago and he got nowhere... ... trust me, I know, I was his apprentice then."

Or spectacular failures could be construed as "angering the gods". one steam engine explosion, one failed bessemer process, one time the saltpeter mixture does not explode because it wasn't just right and you have the gods angered at you.

[McCoy]

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann
With all the supposed ancient wisdom they had, and the long lifespans of some fantasy races, why didn't they advance technology in all that time?
It's often observed that a scientific revolution suceeds only as the old guard dies off, so long lifespands would work against technological advances.

[farik]

I'm a big advocate of the long lifespans work against technology theory but I think culture is the biggest culprit. Most Fantasy cultures seem to focus more on craftsmanship over production. With the industrial revolution things got cheaper so more people had things that were previously luxuries so new luxuries took their place and the Industrial juggernaut just keeps on chugging. Now with magic, long life spans, and guardian beings to offset the disastrous calamities you have periods of Dark Age like conditions and then things get peaceful and prosperous so you don't have to focus on production you can take great pride in your work. As a result you have diversified economy/culture like an advanced form of renaissance but no push for Industrialization becuase the average person is "happy". With a history of these feast or famine conditions a lack of technological progression is reasonable.

[Alcamtar]

Because they have reached the limit of what is technologically possible in the fantasy universe. At some point you have to reach the point where you are incapable of progressing further, either because you've learned all there is to learn, or because you are incapable of understanding more.

If magic stands in for technology, then most fantasy worlds are already pretty "high tech." Compared to modern earth, they have better healing, instantaneous transportation and communication, heavy artillery, mind control... The big difference is that fantasy-tech ("magic") is not easily mass-produced, but requires long years to master. If wizards spend their whole lives trying to master the complexities of magic, they have little chance to surpass their teachers, much less discover the "deep secrets" of the universe. Maybe the "deeper secrets" are of such a mind-wrenching nature that they will never be comprehended except by the rare genius?

In any case, "progress" is not really a theme in fantasy. Most fantasy worlds were *created* by the gods at a given level of technology, and never advance much beyond it. They have neither a stone age, nor a space age.

If you consider that a fantasy world is normally near its technological ceiling, except during such times as war or adversity causes a temporary regression and loss of knowledge, then it works out okay.

Anyway, that's one possible explanation. :-)

Mike

[assault]

Originally posted by Alcamtar
If magic stands in for technology, then most fantasy worlds are already pretty "high tech." Compared to modern earth, they have better healing, instantaneous transportation and communication, heavy artillery, mind control...

...

In any case, "progress" is not really a theme in fantasy. Most fantasy worlds were *created* by the gods at a given level of technology, and never advance much beyond it. They have neither a stone age, nor a space age.

OK, well the "better healing" etc is mostly a DnDism. Most fantasy literature doesn't feature this stuff, or at least have it particularly widespread. Nor does mythology, epic poetry and most of the other sources.

But it's true that "progress" is not really a fantasy theme. In fact, there is a conservative streak in it - a certain wishing for the good old days. Tolkien is a particularly good example - the Shire is a romanticised pre-industrial/rural England.

More generally, legends tend to be timeless.

Of course, some modern fantasy (usually from the US) tends to feature more "modern" (usually US) belief systems. That's fine too, of course.

In my opinion, fantasy world creation ultimately boils down to deciding what the world you want to create is like, and then saying that that's how it is! I don't generally go with hugely long histories - the past, beyond a few generations, is buried in legend. Of course, it's difficult doing that if you have lots of immortals and near-immortals around!

In fact, one history I developed had the world being created about 500 years before the start of the game! A lot of the Elves that were around were amongst the First Born. They clearly remembered the first humans they encountered... The first Dragons were born in historical time...

This was a cut down version of one of Tolkien's early timelines as it appeared in one of the books his son edited.

The biggest problem was justifying a decent population of humans. This is mainly why I don't still use it.

Alan

[Catseye]

My answer is similar to most of the others here, though it goes deeper intio the psychology of the "old races."

In my game the old races were created as basically static entities with fixed roles to play in the world. Although they did develop some of their skills somewhat, they didn't have the drive that the new races have to build tools and improve their situation. In fact, it was wandering away from their purpsoe that eventually doomed them.

The history of the young races is still very new. Of the young races the Humans (who are the shortest lived and reproduce the fastest) are both the most driven and the most flexible.

Why? 'cause I'm G-d and thats how i made em all!

Next question? :)

[Markdoc]

I thought about this question when setting up my game. My answers are:

A) some of these 100,000 year histories are just silly. Just as in some fantasy books, the writers have no idea of time. "Here are the ruins of Al-Thargede, which was deserted 50,000 years ago!" Yeah, right. Like there would be two stones left standing after 10% of that time.

B) I cannot think of a single era or region of history where technoogy stood still* except those places which remained mired in stone age technology due the the failure to progress beyond the family/Clan level or orgainsation. Such groupings are small enough that they cannot retain advances. There is a whole arm of technology theory devoted to the question "how large must a population be to retain technology?" But that answer clearly does not apply to most fantasy worlds.

*Japan? Not hardly. The feudal rulers of the 16th C outlawed the gun and sailing technology, but in many areas they progressed significantly. And Japan changed enormously between 1000 AD and 2000 AD! (or between 500 AD and 1500, if you prefer).
The Mayans? Likewise, no deal. Over the course of 1000 years they progressed from wandering hunters to the builders of mighty cities - which then collapsed under the pressure of over-population and environmental degradation.
Medieval times? You have *got* to be kiding me. In the course of 1000 years after the collapse of the western Roman empire we went from primitive feudalism to the establishment of nation-states with great libraries and trade networks, and fleets scouring the coast of Africa and the Americas. We went through romanesque and gothic architecture to the Italiante. In military technology, we went from feudal levies through the high age of chivalry, to armies of cavalry and pikemen supplemented with firearms.

2) I have, nonetheless a game history stretching uncountable eons into the past. I manage this by simply detailing 5,000 years of past history and saying that almost nothing significant remains from earlier times.

In addition, I adopt the "Canticle for Liebowitz" approach of occasionally burning everything to the waterline with an invasion of extradimensional nasties, or intercontinental war between civilisations with armies of powerful wizards (a fairly standard fantasy trope, as it leves the landscape littered with ruins and interesting thingies from times gone by).

The third element is that I agree that really long-lived people tend towards conservatism - aided by the fact that in a fantasy world with magic and mighty heroes, individuals can make a difference. The end result is that powerful individuals can shape society - and then stay alive to see it stays shaped the way they want, which means stamping on anyone espousing theories they do not like. I have no elves and dwarves, but anyone with enough wealth can get access to immortality magic.

Finally, I take the approach that generally magic renders the use of early technology redundant at best, and that it is actively eradicated by those in power at worst.

I mentioned Japan above to make this point. The Shogun got rid of the gun because it passed military supremacy back to the person with the most samurai - and no-one had more than him. Removing guns also made the defence of castles harder, which the ruler also had an interest in.

Think of a fantasy world. If anyone ever developed gunpowder weapons, the initial iterations would probably resemble earthly ones: slow to make and use, unreliable, heavy, noisy and smelly. A single semi-competent wizard could devastate whole companies of gonne-bearers. Where's the incentive to develop it? Moreover, the people in power probably already have wizards (or they won't stay in power very long) so they have an incentive to wipe out technology that threatens their status.

The same applies to any field of technology where magic competes with tech - unless your magic is under-developed compared to most fantasy worlds: in which case you might get a fusion. It didn't happen in the real world, because there is/was no alternative to tech. It was a case of innovate or die. Magic gives you a third option - so in my game magic DOES evolve over time, becoming more sophisticated and powerful. But unlike tech, magic is strictly a craftsman thing. You can't mass produce mages - they have to be slowly and carefully trained, one by one.

Applying these kinds of limits (and I am sure there are others) gives you a "realistic" but slow-changing fantasy civilisations.

cheers, Mark

[Storn]

My timeline starts "before the concept of time"... took humans arriving on the scene to even have that concept... humans arrive on the scene some 6,000 years ago.

Bane, god of evil, destruction, mad elven sorcerer who became a God, was killed some 700 years ago...which was the conclusion of a 200 year, continent wide war. This depopulated the continent by 2/3rds... mostly through disease and starvation than actual combat. Btw, I'm NEVER resurrecting Bane... the Evil God Comes Back storyline is NOT happening... too much of a cliche... although his evil lieutenants are still lurking about.

Not only does the population drop drastically in those 200 years of war, but it basically uses up vast amounts of magic. The next 700 years before the first PC ever steps on the stage is one of slow rebuilding.

Now the PCs show up in the modern age. The printing press has been around for 50 years, invented by the dwarves. The population, while still low, is creating a need for trade. Naval warfare has focuses ship technology and ships are considerably better. And gunpowder has been invented in the last 5 years although, again by the dwarves and there are about 50 firearms for all the Realms... they build slow, beautifully crafted firearms...not sitting at the feet of Ford's assembly line theory yet.

And Magic is back!!! In a big way, the rubber band has snapped back into shape. Elven and dwarven populations have huge birth rate increases, human mages are being born in great numbers, the walls between dimensions is thin and things pop up all the time. This is a world that is going through a reineissance.

So I built Change into the timeline even before the PCs showed up. Now that I've run 8 campaigns in that world, there is even more Change happening. I had a PC just introduce public education for the young in his dukedom... that is social change of the highest order. A popular emporer who once was a slave, just eliminated slavery... to all kinds of social and economic ramifications, including a recent unsucessful coup.

So I feel like I"m certainly picking and choosing what "advances" are made, but there is a steady progression since the Bane war of technology and societies.

[keithcurtis]

Just to throw this thought in. In the Tolkein model, something quite different is going on. Technology de-volves. There was a golden age of high learning and art from which each successive generation forgets or loses a bit until normal folk stand amidst high and fantastic things that they can no longer make or really understand.

Here's some more thought on the matter.

Perhaps your laws of magic (or technology) change over time, either slowly or catastrophically. The former means that people are forever playng "catch-up" and never get to advance beyond a certain point of dynamic equilibrium. The latter is the aforementioned Canticle model. Every now and then, someone hits that great big re-set button in the sky and we have to start all over. We remember what has gone before, but must struggle to understand it, perhaps held back by the fear that by pursuing such knowledge we may actually cause the fall again.

Keith "Just throwing out ideas" Curtis

[Pteryx]

As far as gunpowder goes, Uncle Figgy's Guide to Good Fantasy (http://members.aol.com/dwcope/guides.htm) provides a good answer to the question of why a fantasy world would have no guns or gunpowder -- wizards make them impractical. Water makes it necessary to repellet gunpowder, and fire... well, you do the math.

The printing press (more specifically, moveable type) or an equivalent spell is more difficult to explain the absence of, as such a thing would remain useful even if you couldn't make magical scrolls with it. For that matter, I don't off the top of my head see why there aren't all kinds of different alloys made possible through magic like there are magical hybrids. Of course, in one setting of mine, alloying of this sort has been invented -- specifically, a mithril/silver alloy that's effective against lycanthropes yet isn't too soft for everything else. -- Pteryx

[Terry Wilcox]

A lot of fantasy literature is based on post-apocalytic worlds. Often the world is "early in the third age", meaning that the last two ages ended in some horrible world-ending conflagration that nuked almost everybody back to the stone age. Except those damn elves.

An apocalypse is a good way to set up forgotten civilizations, lost cities, and ancient magics. Have an apocalypse, then wait for your players to find the lost goodies.

100,000 years may seem excessive, but but it's relatively tame compared to flying cities, gods, giants who don't need knee braces, etc. Fantasy is prone to hyperbole.

As for technology, consider where medical science would go if diseases and infections were caused by evil spirits and the local priest could pray your wounds away. There wouldn't be much need for disinfectant or stitches. Or surgery. Or doctors. Or much medical science.

A world with wizards who can conjure up a wind wouldn't need steam ships. It just needs more wizards.

Necessity is the mother of invention. If you have magic to fill the need, technology isn't required.

[Old Man]

I sort of hate to use magic as an excuse to not develop technology because it implies that magic is more prevalent than I would like it to be.

But then again, who is to say that ten thousand years is such a long time? We don't really have very many real-life data points to determine how advanced a civilization ought to be after ten millennia.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Markdoc
Japan? Not hardly. The feudal rulers of the 16th C outlawed the gun and sailing technology, but in many areas they progressed significantly. And Japan changed enormously between 1000 AD and 2000 AD! (or between 500 AD and 1500, if you prefer).

The Mayans? Likewise, no deal. Over the course of 1000 years they progressed from wandering hunters to the builders of mighty cities - which then collapsed under the pressure of over-population and environmental degradation.

Medieval times? You have *got* to be kiding me. In the course of 1000 years after the collapse of the western Roman empire we went from primitive feudalism to the establishment of nation-states with great libraries and trade networks, and fleets scouring the coast of Africa and the Americas. We went through romanesque and gothic architecture to the Italiante. In military technology, we went from feudal levies through the high age of chivalry, to armies of cavalry and pikemen supplemented with firearms.


In Japan and Europe from 500AD-1500AD, was there change? Sure. Was there progress? Hardly. Any progress that did occur happened at a snail's pace, especially when compared to the most recent three hundred years of history in Europe and the last 100 years in Japan. Europe only popped with the advent of the printing press and improved celestial navigation. Japan only changed when technologically advanced European societies sailed into their harbors.

To wit: In ~500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. In ~1500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. The swords got a little better, and the art and architecture and borders changed a little, but there was no real groundbreaking change in arms, engineering, or political systems in that time.

The Mayans, of course, went from nothing to empire to nothing in 1000 years, which was my point--that progress over time is not a given. Regress is just as likely.

[assault]

Originally posted by Old Man
To wit: In ~500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. In ~1500AD, Europe and Japan were feudal societies ruled by men with swords on horseback. The swords got a little better, and the art and architecture and borders changed a little, but there was no real groundbreaking change in arms, engineering, or political systems in that time.

Wow. How wrong can you get in a single paragraph?

I can't adequately demonstrate the changes in Japan, but they happened... I'll use Europe to prove the point instead.

Arms: gunpowder weapons were all over the place in 1500. While smallarms were still fairly marginal, artillery was beginning to make the medieval castle obsolete.

Engineering: Tricky... but the ships Columbus was using in 1492 weren't around in 500AD...

Political systems: You're kidding, right? Feudalism was just getting started around 500AD. It simply didn't exist in a good part of Europe. By 1500AD you had absolutist monarchies presiding over things that were beginning to resemble modern nation states. That's: standing armies, rather than tribal levies. In more general social terms, the status of the peasant had changed wildly (but inconsistently) in various areas. At one point or another, serfdom had been generalised at the expense of both slavery and free peasant societies. By 1500, serfdom was on its way out in most of Europe. (It later recovered to some extent in some areas.)

Of course, there are problems with the whole concept of "progress". It's a value laden term. "Progress" isn't a good thing if it happens at your expense! After all, by 1500AD, European civilisation was beginning to spread down the coast of Africa and to the Americas - but that "progress" was at the expense of the societies that already existed there. If smallpox and slavery is "progress", then there are some interesting philosophical questions raised, isn't there?

Alan

[Old Man]

Originally posted by assault

I can't adequately demonstrate the changes in Japan...

Perhaps because they didn't happen? Seriously, the only real change there was the advent of the Shogunate, which came and went.


Arms: gunpowder weapons were all over the place in 1500. While smallarms were still fairly marginal, artillery was beginning to make the medieval castle obsolete.

The key word there is "beginning". Gunpowder weapons were successfully used as early as 1377, but they weren't commonplace until after the invention of the arquebus in the 16th century.

Engineering: Tricky... but the ships Columbus was using in 1492 weren't around in 500AD...

Political systems: You're kidding, right? Feudalism was just getting started around 500AD. It simply didn't exist in a good part of Europe. By 1500AD you had absolutist monarchies presiding over things that were beginning to resemble modern nation states.

So to sum, over the course of a thousand years Europe went from small ships to bigger ships, and from small feudal states to bigger feudal states. That's progress, sure, but it's so pathetic that it easily fits my definition of stagnation. And if we were to change the parameters to include the thousand year span from 0AD-1000AD a strong case could be made that technology, engineering, and political systems actually regressed.

[assault]

Originally posted by Old Man
Perhaps because they didn't happen? Seriously, the only real change there was the advent of the Shogunate, which came and went.


Not to mention the rise of the Samurai class, replacing an earlier Chinese-style system. All this, of course, was just the tip of the social iceberg - the condition of the peasantry is the main point, and unfortunately I don't have good sources on this.

And then there was the conquest of the indigenous populations of northern Japan... Japan as we know it didn't exist at the beginning of the period. By the end, it was beginning to take shape. It would be another century before a stable, unified national government would emerge, but the tendencies towards it were there.


The key word there is "beginning". Gunpowder weapons were successfully used as early as 1377, but they weren't commonplace until after the invention of the arquebus in the 16th century.


Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

Cannon were a routine, indeed, key, feature of siege warfare by the mid to late 15th century.

More to the point, they weren't there at all at the beginning of the period.


So to sum, over the course of a thousand years Europe went from small ships to bigger ships, and from small feudal states to bigger feudal states. That's progress, sure, but it's so pathetic that it easily fits my definition of stagnation. And if we were to change the parameters to include the thousand year span from 0AD-1000AD a strong case could be made that technology, engineering, and political systems actually regressed.

Well, of course, with the proper definition of stagnation, there is no difference between the Europe of Theodoric the Ostrogoth and that of Ferdinand and Isabella. The scattered pre-feudal tribes, and early/proto-feudal kingdoms of 500AD were _obviously_ identical to the unifying nation states of 1500AD, weren't they?

Let's face it - with the proper definition, there was only stagnation since 1000AD and 2000AD. After all, the world is still fragmented into lots of little states, there are wars, epidemics and famines...

0AD to 1000AD? Sure, but you might also note that these tendencies weren't uniform, and that there were upward trends in the later part of the period. And, of course, if you look at the area outside the Roman Empire, you would find a different situation from that inside it!

Ireland, Scotland, Germany and Scandinavia definitely _advanced_ during the "Dark Ages".

There are other odd cases too: what about Spain? Islamic Spain was a bastion of civilisation in no way inferior to what it was in the Roman period. It had had its hard times, and more were to come, but you would actually have to come out with some hard evidence to prove your point here, and not just make sweeping assertions...

Alan

[Markdoc]

>>>Originally posted by assault
I can't adequately demonstrate the changes in Japan... <<<

But I can :)

>>>Perhaps because they didn't happen? Seriously, the only real change there was the advent of the Shogunate, which came and went.<<<

Nope: in 500 AD, Japan had a relatively small population, mostly centred in the south, with an animistic religion, no written script, simple wood-based architecure, and - as far as we can tell - a relatively flat social structure, with a poorly defined noble class (a lot of this speculative, I admit because there are so few traces left we can clearly interpret - but that by itself indicates how much things changed).

In 1500, we had a (mostly) unified nation state with a clear national identity, and a clearly defined social structure, with defined castes. Not just one, but two new monotheistic religions had come into being and swept the whole country, two written languages had evolved, the spoken language had probably changed out of all recognition, architecture had definately changed out of all recognition, technology at everylevel had elvolved, gunpowder was in the process of revolutionising warfare (and class structure) all over again, and so on.

Basically, over that 1000 year period, the only thing that had NOT changed was mount fuji....

I really think we can take change as a given: certainly, by 1500 AD, in Europe, social and technological change was rapid enough that people were discussing it in much the same terms we do today.

As for the effect of gunpowder, the crushing defeat of the formerly mighty English longbows at Formingny in 1450 was attributed to the small cannon the French had with them. 100 years later, the equally crushing defeat of Charles V at Pavia saw the flower of french chivalry shot to pieces by a numerically inferior force of landskneckt arquebusiers - by that time the age of the knight (a totally unknown concept in 500 AD) had clearly passed. So in a thousand years Europe had passed from tribalism, through feudalism and was entering the modern age. That may or may not be progress, but it is sure as hell change.

And - as pointed out - change can be a regression as well a progression.

You can, of course, build an unchanging society if you wish: if you have meddling gods, it could easily be arranged, and an inventive GM could easily come up with other plausible solutions. I think the only thing that is "unrealistic" is to build a pseudo-medieval society and then let it fester unchanged for 2000 years.

cheers, Mark

[Alcamtar]

I just want to point out that social and political change is quite common in fantasy. Races are created or evolve or devolve, empires rise and fall, peoples migrate around, whole societies are enslaved and then freed and then enslaved again, religions rise and fall, languages mutate and evolve, even magic often evolves or devolves. About the only thing that tends to be static is "physical" technology, like swords and castles and ships, and even that varies considerably between barbarism and high medieval and classical.

So sure, societies on earth progressed to nation-states, or got new religions, or abolished/formed caste systems, and so forth. But fantasy worlds do that too. Also I question whether moving from semi-barbaric feudalism to a nation-state, or from monarchy to democracy is "progress."

Mike

[Markdoc]

>>> So sure, societies on earth progressed to nation-states, or got new religions, or abolished/formed caste systems, and so forth. But fantasy worlds do that too. Also I question whether moving from semi-barbaric feudalism to a nation-state, or from monarchy to democracy is "progress."<<<<

I think we made the last point already :-)

And in good fantasy novels and good fantasy games, that kind of change happens - or if it doesn't, the reason is explained (Lord of Light is a fantasy/Sci Fi novel that springs to mind, where technology and social change is arrested for a very good reason).

But Phil's original point was "how likely was technology to be arrested over vast spans of time?" - as happens in some badly thought-out fantasy novels and fantasy games. The answer I'm getting off this thread is "not very".

As an aside - IMG there is a theocracy where technology is relatively backward - especially magic-related or information-related - compared to its neighboours.

As Keith posted:
>>>Every now and then, someone hits that great big re-set button in the sky and we have to start all over. We remember what has gone before, but must struggle to understand it, perhaps held back by the fear that by pursuing such knowledge we may actually cause the fall again.<<<

and this is precisely the case: the religious organization even knows who some of the people responsible for the last cataclysm were, so their apparently arbitrary rules (Women may never hold positions of authority, Never teach sorcery to foreigners, No weather magic, etc) are based on the rules they put in place to make sure it never happens again. Of course, now the rules ARE arbitrary because over the last 1200 years, everybody has forgotten the real reasons for them - well almost everyone - there are still a few people living who were around then...

In the end, it's just a game, but to my mind, building a little historical veracity into a game goes a long way to giving it a feeling of depth.

cheers,Mark

[Terry Wilcox]

Originally posted by Old Man
I sort of hate to use magic as an excuse to not develop technology because it implies that magic is more prevalent than I would like it to be.

If you want to keep magic rare but also explain why we don't have flying cars yet, use the standard reasons for technology not advancing. Lack of resources, lack of knowledge transfer from other civilizations, persecution of inventors by whoever is in charge, etc.

But it doesn't take much magic to stifle innovation. Superstition works just as well. Priests of the Harvest Goddess frowning at the idea of a new plow works, especially if the Harvest Goddess really exists and the priests do have some power.

[Storn]

Horse/sword/spear around 500 ad. No stirrup. lIghtly armored. No real calvary tactics besides teh roman version of using horse to move light calvary around.

Stirrup changes horse combat and the projection of military power as political means forever. That is a change.

Horse/sword/spear and most important, horse bow circa 1350. Sophisticated armor. Incredibly sophisticated tactics that are still studied as the basis of modern tank armor warfare. Incredibly sophisticated organization (10 men= 1 squad, 100 men = company, 1000 men = brigade etc). Combat medics. Incredibly sophisticated pony express including the use of mirrors to dispatch armies over long distance (and the ruling of a large empire). Very sophisticated law and tax structures. Very sophisticated religious views, all religions were considered equal WAAAY before Jeffersonian democracy was a twinkle in anyone's eye. Very sophisticated trade, diplomacy AND sophisticated espionage (can you say Venetians vs. the Pope?)

I'm talking about the Mongols.. tactics that were sharpened from that 500 AD period of steppe cultures... and an empire who mutated into the Ottoman Empire and lasted til WWI.

To me, that is progress, that is not stagnation. That is change on all fronts, technology, engineering (mongols, despite the horse culture, were sophisticated combat engineers... that takes some doing), social etc.

And I picked ONE culture in that time period.

Sarajevo was run by a democratic merchant guilds before the word guild was used (circa 1000 ad). They had wooden streets. There was freedom of religion. That is pretty amazing...yes, it didn't last. But it happened.

Poland went through vast changes in the time period up for discussion. Tons of up and down. Yet Russia was very stagnant for most of its history.

Norse shipping and art certainly changes within that period and transforms not only Europe, but touches all the way to China and to Africa.

I think that the major problem is that since we are English speaking peoples for the most part... the history we study and the history that is taught is Anglo centric. So we talk about France, England and Italy in the 500-1500 period. We don't talk about Poland, Balkans, Asia Minor, Spain, Middle East, Egypt is still a player til Napoleon...they don't fade away..even though no one discusses them.

And England and France were depopulated horrendously by disease... there was a bit of stagnation between 500-1500. So we have this sense that the Dark Ages/Middle Ages were stagnant. They were not. Not even in Europe.

But that stagnation of especially England is one of the HUGE galvanizing historical force that launches around 1400 to becoming the global power that it will be for the next 400/500 years.

So...no change between 500-1500... nope, don't buy it.

[Terry Wilcox]

Originally posted by Old Man
So to sum, over the course of a thousand years Europe went from small ships to bigger ships, and from small feudal states to bigger feudal states.

But that would be incorrect.

I recommend Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060925817/102-5161672-3443328?v=glance) as a more detailed summary.

And this (http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/Technology.html) appears to be a reasonably good quick overview.

[Ghost who Walks]

Getting somewhere back on topic.

Using the analogy of Earth history really doesn't work.
~No (provable) magic
~No non-human races

The qustion is how to explain a lack of progress in these really long histories.

I'd like to add at least one more. In most fantasy world, magic spells are written in their own "secret" language or in some long dead one. Literacy is usually rare, often only restricted to wizards/scribes.

An argument might be made that the lack of literacy could slow down the transmission of ideas fro mone generation to the next. In European history, the centers of literacy were the monestaries, which were essentially semi-fortified compounds protected by the state religion. The church also had its own courts, in case you bothered any of the monks.

Compare this to the fantasy world, where the "party" sacks the evil temple, and butchers the "evil" priests.

Add in various non-human races, whose long lifespans mean they could have oral histories, and not bother writing much down. Low population growth among most of them means they can take their time educating the young.

[assault]

Originally posted by Storn
Horse/sword/spear around 500 ad. No stirrup. lIghtly armored. No real calvary tactics besides teh roman version of using horse to move light calvary around.

Stirrup changes horse combat and the projection of military power as political means forever. That is a change.


Old myth here.

Heavy lancer cavalry had been around for at least a thousand years.

A decent saddle does most of the stuff attributed to stirrups.

Roman military techniques were "real cavalry tactics" with a sophistication not seen in Europe until probably the 16th Century. (I'm ignoring the fact that the last bits of the Roman empire only fell in the 1460s.)

"Stirrup changes horse combat and the projection of military power as political means forever. " is a pretty wildly generalised statement. Yes, it did change horse combat in a technical sense. Changing "the projection of military power as political means" is a wild overstatement. Did Alexander the Great have problems with the projection of military power? Caesar? Attila the Hun? None of their armies had stirrups.

And incidentally, nomadic horse archers are precisely the people who need stirrups least in combat.

On that topic... the Mongol empire was only the largest of a whole sequence of large civilised nomadic empires. Its military organisation was superior to that previously existing _amongst the Mongols_, but wasn't necessarily any more so than that existing amongst its neighbours and predecessors.

Of course, by bringing Europe, India, China and the Islamic world into contact with each other, the rise of the Mongol empire actually _did_ represent progress - while it lasted. :)

But that's the kind of progress that another poster has defined out of existence.

Alan

[assault]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks
Compare this to the fantasy world, where the "party" sacks the evil temple, and butchers the "evil" priests.


Conan started it!

Of course, this is another area where DnD has infected fantasy RPGs in general. But it is reflected to some extent in the source material.

Alan

[cutsleeve]

One major factor in our teochnological developement is lack of an easier method. In a world with high magic technology would be magic and magic would eventually be technology. Most things would be created, powered, and controlled by magic because it is a tool like any other. in those worlds you might have someone make firearms or many other inventions but they would be just another tool. In a high magic world sword daggers bows crossbows and gun are not very effective weapons.

In a moderately magical world a firearms would still only be just another kind of weapon. It may replace the bow in some respects but some people might still use them. I would imagine people would use bows because they are cheap and easy to get ammunition for a firearms would be more expensive. They may also be regulated by whatever principality is in charge.

In low magic worlds the progression of technology would be close to our normal historical technological progression. With ebbs and flows of technology like the tide coming in and going out. but constantly moving.

If magic where to exsist it would change things in extrodinary ways. Maic wouldnt change a few things it would change almost every aspect of the society in the same measure with which it is prevelant in the world.

This doesnt mean technology and magic arent compatible. I have always taken the route that magic and technology could work in tandum. both fufilling particular needs of the societies which they where in. Wizards would study thaumaturgy and engineering because they wouldnt want to waste magic on something that just requires a little brain power. eventually in the distant future because the scientific mind exsisted and the prevelancy of magic magic and technology would merge into one another and there would be neither there would be science and magic would be just another aspect of it.

On another note technological developement is spurred by many things. if the Nations of islam hadnt invaded europe and prussia there would have been no renisaunce. If Budhism and zen hadn't entered japan the bushi would not have been contemplating the philosphical implications of their servitude to the local land owners and would not have developed the way of the bushi and would have never become samurai. without samurai the major motivating force behind the authority of the shogun would not have exsisted and would have degenerated even more rapidly into structural decay resulting in even more war and strife in japan which would have slowed technological developement until around 1540 when the spaniards would arrive and promptly invade and conquer japan destroying not a prosperous honorable society but a loose unorganized psuedo feudal governing body.

[Markdoc]

Slightly off-topic for a second: This exchange is from Dr Strangelove (just saw it at the movies a couple of days ago). Bat Guano is a paratrooper, not a superhero :)

>>>>Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel, Colonel, I must know what you think has been going on here.
Col. "Bat" Guano: You wanna know what I think?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes.
Col. "Bat" Guano: I think you're some kind of deviated prevert. I think General Ripper found out about your prevertion, and you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts.
~Bat Guano, 1950's era superhero.<<<

Back on topic again - I don't think anyone (at least, not me) is arguing that change is inevitable, merely that under normal circumstances (ie: here on earth) it has always happened. So if you don't want it to happen in your fantasy game/story you need a reason.

As already pointed out, there are lots of reasons it might not happen - you can choose one that please you as a GM. In my game, I chose to retard technology, in some areas, but not stop it - so in the 5000 year history, my game races have gone from wandering tribes with shamanistic magicians, to the equivalent of 21st century technology - ie: sophisticated nation states with international trade and communications, a pofessional military, high quality healthcare and orbital space stations (OK, orbital castles, but you get the point). The printing press exists and (in some areas) is widely used. The difference is that mass production doesn't exist, because most of the "high-Tech" is actually high magic. And as noted in the Fantasy currency thread, IMG mages can make gold, so their interests are primarily not economic. Most mages would not take the job of providing city lighting (for example) for mere cash - what's the point?

So I have tried to balance off what I wanted : medieval/renaissance technology levels, with a fanatsy ambiance and a long history - with what we know about humans and the way the world works.

I am not saying this is the only solution - there's a near infinitude of good options to do this kind of thing. But if you want a long history, with relatively stable societies, you should at least try to explain it.

Of course one option is to state that the gods behind the gods created the whole thing a couple of months ago, complete with fake gods, fake ancient ruins and fake memories, just for laughs. That could be a real shocker for the players, if they ever find out.

cheers, Mark

[Ghost who Walks]

Originally posted by Markdoc
Slightly off-topic for a second: This exchange is from Dr Strangelove (just saw it at the movies a couple of days ago). Bat Guano is a paratrooper, not a superhero :)

>>>>Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel, Colonel, I must know what you think has been going on here.
Col. "Bat" Guano: You wanna know what I think?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Yes.
Col. "Bat" Guano: I think you're some kind of deviated prevert. I think General Ripper found out about your prevertion, and you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts.
~Bat Guano, 1950's era superhero.<<<
Heh, Someone finally caught the reference. :) However, it is precisely what a 1950's superhero would say, IMHO. Colonel Guano also refuses to shoot a vending machine, claiming it is private property.

Back on topic
If you want to have gunpowder, and still have other weaposn about, one solution might be to use "the properties of magic". Perhaps magic is more conductive when dealing with natural objects, suh as wood. This would make sense if elf-types are supposed to be magic masters. Dwarves would be poor at magic.

This could mean, for example, that a wizard could casta spell to increase the damage caused by an arrow. He could not cast it on a bullet however. Naturally, everyone would start carrying bows and arrows.

I have sen this carried to the other extreme, there magic offers no protection at all from non-natural forces. (like bullets)

Natural in this case, is that which is found in nature. Iron counts as non-natural, which is why in legend many creatures of faerie are damaged by it.

Just a thought, so I could respond to the Strangelove quote. :)

[assault]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks
Perhaps magic is more conductive when dealing with natural objects, suh as wood. This would make sense if elf-types are supposed to be magic masters. Dwarves would be poor at magic.


Loud "Feh!" sound.

Arneson and Gygax really owe the world an apology for the "non-magical Dwarves" thing.

Even cultures that don't have Dwarves know that blacksmiths work magic. Like it doesn't take magic to make a sword...

Sheesh.

Alan

[Count Zero]

Originally posted by Terry Wilcox
A lot of fantasy literature is based on post-apocalytic worlds. Often the world is "early in the third age", meaning that the last two ages ended in some horrible world-ending conflagration that nuked almost everybody back to the stone age.


Wouldn't the Dark Ages have felt like an Apocolyptic Age compared to the "enlighted age" of the Romans... apocolypse is a perspective in most fantasy worlds.

As to why fantasy worlds don't advance... well in the Tolkien model, the writer hated most modern technology. He saw the internal combustion engine as one of the worst things to befall mankind (who knows... he might be right) and kind of believed he was born a few hundred years to late. There is also the aspect that it is fantasy. You can't really use traditional common sense. Also keep in mind that humanity only really started making major advances in about the past 200 - 400 years. We have advanced in leaps and bounds in the past 60 years. Perhaps these cultures haven't hit that point yet. They haven't been through a rebirth and enlightenment. Also, keep in mind that when you thing about the fact that it took about 700 years to move from bronze to iron to steel.. that is pretty slow development, but we tend to forget that.

Jonathan

[tkdguy]

Don't count stirrups out though. You wouldn't have jousting without them. The Normans didn't have stirrups when they conquered England, so true, cavalry didn't *absolutely* need them. But the Normans wielded their lances in the Roman style (raised above their heads). They didn't tuck their lances under their armpits like you see in the documentaries so often. Anyone who tried a lance charge that way without stirrups would have been knocked off his horse upon impact.

If you look closely in the movie "Gladiator," you'll see the riders using stirrups. The reason for this is that they tried not to use them, but everyone was riding crooked (or so I heard). So that historical inaccuracy was a necessary evil.

[assault]

Originally posted by tkdguy
Don't count stirrups out though. You wouldn't have jousting without them. The Normans didn't have stirrups when they conquered England, so true, cavalry didn't *absolutely* need them. But the Normans wielded their lances in the Roman style (raised above their heads). They didn't tuck their lances under their armpits like you see in the documentaries so often. Anyone who tried a lance charge that way without stirrups would have been knocked off his horse upon impact.

Major "Bzzt".

1. The Normans most certainly did have stirrups.
2. Lancer cavalry had been around since well before Alexander the Great's time.... And what do you think Alexander and his buds were using? Baseball bats?

Alan

[tkdguy]

Originally posted by assault
Major "Bzzt".

1. The Normans most certainly did have stirrups.
2. Lancer cavalry had been around since well before Alexander the Great's time.... And what do you think Alexander and his buds were using? Baseball bats?

Alan

It seems that whether the Normans had stirrups or not is debatable. I've heard sources claiming they didn't.

In any case nobody claimed lancer cavalry hasn't been around for a long time. The issue is their technique. If you read it carefully, you'd understand that. But please feel free to prove me wrong. Show me someone who can do a lance charge the way a medieval knight did without stirrups and keep himself from falling. That was my main point after all, right?

[tkdguy]

Okay, looking at the Bayeux Tapestry, it seems that there are riders using stirrups, so my original source must have been mistaken.

But you still can't joust without them. You can still do a cavalry charge (I never disputed that), just not the way knights did at the lists.

[assault]

Originally posted by tkdguy
But you still can't joust without them. You can still do a cavalry charge (I never disputed that), just not the way knights did at the lists.

Most ancient lancers seemed to have held their lances with two hands, and not used shields. This is recorded in various works of art. It is further supported by literary sources.

Aside from Alexander's crowd, notable lancers included the Sarmatians, Armenians, Parthians, and Palmyrans. The Romans had some too. Various groups further east used them too.

Modern experiments suggest that a decent saddle is more important than stirrups.

May I suggest you do a little research if you want to continue to discuss this topic? There should be some useful sources on the net.

Alan

[LordGhee]

In the early 80”s I read a British modeling magazine a friend of mine owned with an article on the reconstruction of a Macedonian saddle. The article explains how the author a history professor had gotten the design off tomb statures, mosaics and drawings. The saddle had a high back and two horns that came over the top of the rider’s thighs from the pommel. After getting a saddler to make a Macedonian saddle the author a historian took the saddle to the local jousting club. With out telling the jousters what kind of saddle it was, he asked them to joust with it. The riders after using it felt that the horns and back locked the rider in place just fine. Once they had developed a confidence with this “new” saddle the jousters jousted just fine. What you could not do is what stirrups allow one to do, get on the horse easier, rise up and lean over with the weight on one foot which allowed one to stab the ground with ones sword. Most cavalry used javelins in the Ancient period probably for the reach to get at infantry lying on the ground. The author felt that the reports of Macedonian cavalry using shock action were correct. It is to my regret that I did not get the name of the magazine or the author.

Lord Ghee.

[Agent X]

Point of comparison: Complex societies in South and Central America appear a few thousand years after they appear in the Middle East. Mesopotamian and Egyptian Civilization are at least two thousand years older than the Olmecs and the Moche Cultures. The Americas would not make practical use of the wheel and would not develop extensive use of metals as tools.

Isolationism and the lack of Large Load-Bearing Mammals is very important in explaining the slower pace of development in the Americas than in the Old World. It is important to note, that in certain areas the Amerinds had achieved a great deal to rival the Old World although they were collaterally behind the Old World in development.

These are things you might explore in your fantasy world.

Concerning the Mongols, it wasn't simply the Ordu or stirrups that made them so unique. They had a gifted leader, a military expert, a charismatic politician, and a law giver. The Yasa was very important in understanding why the Mongols exploded onto the scene. It didn't hurt that they faced weakened states in Song China and Abbasid Persia.

Isolationism slowed development in the Americas. Conversely, the transmission of ideas, goods, and technologies along trade routes between China, India, Southwest Asia, the Mediterranean, and Peripheral Areas stimulated growth and development. It also stimulated pandemics.

Western Europe would eventually dominate sea-lanes along the coasts of the Old World through the use of the sternpost rudder (China), improved magnetic compass (China), and gunpowder (China). It would produce these goods through the gift of appropriate natural resources within Europe and the application of windpower and waterpower that had been underexploited through much of the Old World. In this case, this was a local improvement. The invention of the Cam in the so-called Dark Ages/Medieval Era allowed them to exploit tidal mills, watermills, and windmills to produce many items. Populations in Western Europe grew as the heavy plow and the horse collar transformed the countryside. Europe experienced a great deal of deforestation. In fact, the forested area of Europe is greater today than it was at the height of the Medieval Agricultural Revolution. The sciences and overall learning had improved through the rediscovery of Classical Learning preserved by Byzantium and the Arabs (although some had always been preserved by the Catholic Church). Advances in various sciences made by Arabs to Classical Learning were also transmitted. Indian and Arab advanced mathetmatics were also transmitted. As many have mentioned the stirrup arrived in Europe in early Medieval times. Learning and Literacy would explode in Western Europe with a innovative printing press whose ancestor was invented in China. During Medieval Times, Manorialism begat Feudalism and inexorably resulted in the growth of Nation-States. Mercantile City-States and Monasteries were busy experimenting in various ways that would prove important to improving business, manufacturing, horticulture, etc.

As these nation-states grew and trade flowed thanks to the Pax Mongolica (Mongolian Peace), this greater contact would also lead to plague. The plague would devastate the European population which would create a labor shortage that would encourage greater efficiency and an eye for labor-saving methods and technology.

If you notice, this involves a great deal of transfer between various "cultural hearths." A great deal of this transfer was by shipping, horse, donkey, mule, ass, ox, cow, and camel.

If you want to slow things down you can:
Find reasons for greater isolation between different cultures.
This can be accomplished with massive natural barriers, magical curses, and plagues that depopulate large regions and encourage insularity.
Eliminate many of the large load-bearing mammals.
This is tricky because it radically transforms the "look" of the campaign.
Perhaps the presence of the ravening hordes of humanoids produces additional pressures and isolation.
Perhaps past advances have led to bad outcomes, a sort of Tower of Babel approach - certain technologies become taboo

One last comment: The Medieval Period was by no means a period of stagnation. Northern Europe and Western Europe were areas of great innovation and agricultural adaptations to an environment not suited to Meditteranean agricultural practices were key to much of this. Southern Europe quickly rebounded from the fall of the Western Empire and kept on plugging away at trade. Byzantium still reigned as Constantinople and would not fall until the Ottomans used a great cannon to breach their walls in 1453. Where did the makers of such a fine cannon come from you might ask? Hungary

One more last comment: Japan is the poster child for progress between 500AD and 1500AD - a simple society begins to borrow from China, the growth of centralized regional and eventually centralized national government, an explosion in arts and architecture, fantastic advances in metallurgy, a greatly expanding area of geographical knowledge and trading partners, more sophisticated approaches to religion and philosophy, more and more sophisticated agricultural methods, what many consider to be the first novel ever written in the world

[Ghost who Walks]

Good post Agent X.

I would also addd something about language.

Most fantasy worlds have a "common" language, which would cause innovations, invention, and trade to occur more rapidly.

A slower development might be caused by more languages, europe used to have a many different languages, so did North and South America.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks
Good post Agent X.

I would also addd something about language.

Most fantasy worlds have a "common" language, which would cause innovations, invention, and trade to occur more rapidly.

A slower development might be caused by more languages, europe used to have a many different languages, so did North and South America. Excellent point. The Tower of Babel might be an inspiration for a curse.

In real history the reason for the predominance of language groups in the Old World is presumed by many to be because groups with the "father" to the language group gained an advantage over other population groups whether it be use of the horse (Indo-European), use of bronze, agriculture (Semitic), or the like.

It would be difficult to rationalize empire-building in the past without some sort of Tower of Babel event after the fact though.

[AnotherSkip]

Mayhaps the "language of magic"?

Only those who are unaffected by the curse for whatever reason can communicate/understand the true language which allows the use of magics.

hmmm a Magic System that requires a Skill roll (ancient Speech), a Language skill and a Talent(immune to the Barbar Curse). In order to get thngs done "magically"

[tkdguy]

Originally posted by assault
Most ancient lancers seemed to have held their lances with two hands, and not used shields. This is recorded in various works of art. It is further supported by literary sources.

Aside from Alexander's crowd, notable lancers included the Sarmatians, Armenians, Parthians, and Palmyrans. The Romans had some too. Various groups further east used them too.

Modern experiments suggest that a decent saddle is more important than stirrups.

May I suggest you do a little research if you want to continue to discuss this topic? There should be some useful sources on the net.

Alan

May I suggest you divulge where you find your conclusions. I've researched into this matter for a while. Where are you getting your stuff?

[Terry Wilcox]

Originally posted by Count Zero
Wouldn't the Dark Ages have felt like an Apocolyptic Age compared to the "enlighted age" of the Romans... apocolypse is a perspective in most fantasy worlds.


That really depends on your perspective. If you're a dirt poor peasant, the so-called Dark Ages were no worse than the so-called "enlightened age". You're still down-trodden and dirt poor. People still tramp through your village killing and pillaging.

The dark ages weren't particularly dark. They just got a bad reputation by lacking the huge empires that impress western civilization.

[Markdoc]

Yep. To someone living in say, Provence, having all these huge hairy people stomping through your garden, kicking the heads off your garden gnomes (Vandals!) and peeing in your fish pond, the period after the collapse of the western Empire probably seemed like the Dark Ages.

To someone living in Southern Arabia, the same era was the beginning of "Let the good times roll!"

And to someone living in Lithuania the entire thing would have seemed much of a muchness.

A good example: here in Scandinavia, the tenant farmers of the 1700's - the so-called era of enlightenment were in general poorer, and less well nourished than the peasant farmers of the so-called dark ages, a thousand years before...

cheers, Mark

[Storn]

Yep. To someone living in say, Provence, having all these huge hairy people stomping through your garden, kicking the heads off your garden gnomes (Vandals!) and peeing in your fish pond, the period after the collapse of the western Empire probably seemed like the Dark Ages.

An interesting theory on the "fall" of Rome. My very good friend and fellow gamer went to Harvard for history. HIs study was Papal politics. HIs good friend and fellow classmate was studying Rome and came up with this:. A interesting tidbit... the families the owned the land (and the records in Italy are pretty good, it was literate culture and survived) before the "fall", still owned the land and in many cases are still on the same land right up to today. The same families. They weren't killed or driven off. They didn't take on "Barbarian" surnames... in fact, it seems that many German tribes married into the italian families and took italian surnames.

The Harvard fellow's opinion was that there was NO fall of Rome. Sure, Rome changed. Rome absorbed and adapted and as a gov't structure it was decentralized and would stay decentralized til 1930s. But the people stayed. The power stayed where it has always been up to recent times, in the land. So if there is no Fall, then what do you predicate the beginning of the Dark Ages on? Now, I think the counter arguement is that Rome as an expansionistic power, fell. But I do wonder just how Dark those ages really were. I think a lot less dark than we think.

Just what I think is an interesting nugget.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Storn
An interesting theory on the "fall" of Rome. My very good friend and fellow gamer went to Harvard for history. HIs study was Papal politics. HIs good friend and fellow classmate was studying Rome and came up with this:. A interesting tidbit... the families the owned the land (and the records in Italy are pretty good, it was literate culture and survived) before the "fall", still owned the land and in many cases are still on the same land right up to today. The same families. They weren't killed or driven off. They didn't take on "Barbarian" surnames... in fact, it seems that many German tribes married into the italian families and took italian surnames.

The Harvard fellow's opinion was that there was NO fall of Rome. Sure, Rome changed. Rome absorbed and adapted and as a gov't structure it was decentralized and would stay decentralized til 1930s. But the people stayed. The power stayed where it has always been up to recent times, in the land. So if there is no Fall, then what do you predicate the beginning of the Dark Ages on? Now, I think the counter arguement is that Rome as an expansionistic power, fell. But I do wonder just how Dark those ages really were. I think a lot less dark than we think.

Just what I think is an interesting nugget. Did the Harvard fellow discuss the massive decrease in population largely due to disease, decrease in urbanization, and massive disruption of commerce with the decline of Rome? Roman legions stopped garrisoning fortresses, patrols ceased and the countryside grew to depend upon the landed and the strongmen. I'm no fan of the term Dark Ages but I think his description of the changes wrought is understated just as the term Dark Ages is overstated.

[Markdoc]

I think the truth is in between the two things. Rome really did "fall" in that it went from being the capital of a huge empire to being a large city with significant burnt-out areas. Local power moved to Ravenna, imperialpower move dto Constantinople. The disappearance of the legions also made a differnce - though not as much as you might think. Even at its height Rome only fielded 35 legions. That's less than 200,000 men to hold down all of Europe, the middle east and North Africa - an area with a population in the range of 20-40 million. The myth of the legion was as important as the fact, and when Rome was sacked, that myth went "poof!"

But Storn's friends are also right - the local barbarians who moved in did not do so in huge numbers, in contrast to the population that were already there. They did however grab a lot of the best stuff (castles, grazing land, people's daughters). Many historians point to this as one of the underpinnings of the feudal system: the grafting of the Germanic system of blood oaths onto an existing system of civitas. I think it is one of the important reasons European civilisation developed as it did: it divorced the bulk of the nobility from the church - especially outside Italy. Previously the nobles provided the upper ranks of the church as well. The seperation between church and state did not arise in Williamsburg - it's a direct outgrowth of the battle between kings with Germanic roots and a papacy with largely Italian ones.

Some cities, such as Vence, flourished under the Romans, became briefly independent - and flourished, fell under the control of the Lombards - and flourished, became independant and kept on flourishing...until the focus of trade moved to northern France in the late middle ages, at which point it shrivelled away (It's still there, though as are many roman buildings)

So "Dark ages" probably is a myth. Some areas, primarily in Italy, suffered catastrophically - invasion, loss of income and food. The European population continued to grow - it wasn't until 1000 AD that deforestation started to definitively outstrip forest growth and it had never done that under the Romans.

But with the fall of Rome (which I don't think is a myth), the old western empire fragmented. That did not stop technological development or trading or lots of other things. But it did lead to increased internal war, slower transmission of goods and ideas, etc.

cheers, Mark

[Maelstrom]

If you still want a rationale for the lack of technology, you may consider that technology is often driven by need. If you have access to healing magic, you probably lack the drive and dedication to pursue scientific medical research, for instance.


This is an excellent point, and one that I often investigate in the course of the game. If you consider magic not anti-technology, but an alternate technology, you can see why the tech that we use and enjoy today would never develop. As I said (and later saw in a short story) any sufficiently developed magic is indistinguishable from technology.

[Kraven Kor]

Well, for my world, I used a combination of the above ideas.

Now, lets look at this from another angle. Every now and then you'll hear some funky story which tosses our idea of history on its ear. I am no historian, but in high school Egypt was ranked as the oldest society at about 5500 BC as its "dawn." Then they find ruins somewhere that date to 6000 BC. Then someone claims this temple in Peru is actually 17,000 years old and still has accurate solar, lunar, or celestial calendars built into it or whatever. Then you hear about a battery, that should have worked to produce electricity, is found in some sumerian ruin.

So exactly how well do we know our own history? Was Noah's Ark a legend, a true story, or some part of both? I can pull up scientific evidence that the flood did or did not happen, and I can show you one expert who will say it covered all the earth and another who claims the whole story is folklore about when the Mediterranean overflowed into the Persian Gulf and took out many inhabitants of a once fertile valley, and that the great flood hardly covered the whole world.


This uncertainty is a great tool in thinking of Fantasy worlds. I make up history as it actually happened -- a general idea at least -- but only focus on recent history for the real details.

My world has three (now starting the fourth) "ages." The First Age was a span of time unknown, and was the time where the gods were creating the old races (Elves, Ogres, Gith/Lizarmen, Gnomes, Dwarves) and nobody knows much about this time -- this is the equivalent of cave man times. The Age of War was when the races began fighting their gods' jealous wars, and is a long story. During the age of war, the world did indeed have high tech -- energy weapons, nuclear devices, aircraft -- and the destruction they caused is one of the main reasons they will likely never be seen again. After the Age of War, Vau -- "GOD" -- did a number of things to ensure the Age of War would never repeat. The world took a LONG time to recover, still hasn't in places -- but the Age of Darkness lasted for god knows how long while the world recovered, and now the Age of Men has begun. Humans, too, advanced to almost industrial age technology before the Gith Wars gave them their own Dark Ages to deal with. Humans have a history of about 5500 years, a little longer if you include their legends and folklore concerning the earlier times. Elves have a written history of about 20,000 years -- from the day their new city, Solacia, was founded on Telos. They know of what happened prior to this, but not how long it took to transpire. The elves spent the dark ages wandering the wilderness, and in most places are still a nomadic and primitive people, only in Solacia have they reclaimed their former nobility. Most people, even most young elves, find anything further back than the Gith Wars as mere legend. Few landmarks remain to tell these tales -- there are some ruins and ancient writings that hint at things, and I even plan on introducing some very very ancient stuff to the players at some point.

Long histories mean tons of lost civilizations, ancient runes, and long-sought-after items of power. In short, long histories are easy to pull story ideas from. They don't make sense, and are impossible to justify to anyone who tries to throw real world logic at them.

Tech doesn't exist (much) on my world partially because magic makes it impractical, partially because everytime anyone gets close the world tries to blow up, and partially because the powers that be like to ensure that their creation does not wind up a smoking cinder again.