Alternate History

[Diamond Spear]

Fantasy Hero seems to be the perfect springboard for a game set in the Age of Exploration. A little tweaking of history and instead of the Age of Exploration resulting in, well the events that actually transpired, perhaps you end up with the cultures of the Americas being able to meet the Europeans on equal or near equal military/technological terms. Or perhaps the inhabitants of the Americas have built their empires based on magic which the Europeans are completely unprepared for.

 

Moving the time up by a century or so and the Age of Piracy becomes not an offshoot of, and side-show to, the wars in Europe and the European settlement/exploration of the Americas, but perhaps the Caribbean is the place where the dominate powers of Europe and the Americas meet to trade, negotiate, spy, raid and trade, all in the hopes of gaining some advantage over their cross-ocean rivals as well as the countries right next door.

 

If you want to add even a little bit more to the mix perhaps the Viking cultures never accepted Christianity and were able to settle the northern part of North American, modern day Canada and the northern-most parts of the United States. Vikings allied with Northern native tribes could make for formidable foes. Plus the thought of a Viking longship armed with cannon and packed with musket wielding Vikings is both terrible and glorious. And if runic magic actually works....

 

So what do you guys think? Any additional suggestions? Directions such alternate history might take? Is this a nifty idea worthy of a game or just silly?

Edited January 25, 2015 by Diamond Spear

[Mzimwi]

That ship has sailed...I'm finishing up the first book now, based on Bantu Africa. The meta-setting is called 'Refugium' or perhaps 'Refugia' - a world where cultures that lost out on our world get another chance, with magic and without colonialism. All of them reach the Age of Sail at the present time for the setting. I'm almost certain the first book will go on into layout this summer and be on kickstarter asap. There's a link to the current version of the PDF in my sig. If you're really interested, I'd LOVE a partner/co-author.

 

The name problem - I started out calling it Ubantu, which is protoBantu for 'Land of the People' but that's too close to Ubuntu, the Linux distro, so I need a new name. Alternatives:  Ulimwengu - Swahili for universe; Umphasi - Zulu for Earth; some contraction of 'Mdala wa Uhai' - the Cloth of Being, as the cosmos is called; Afrikajabu - a contraction of Afrika ya Ajabu, Africa of Marvels; or Ekong - Duala/Cameroonian for 'they have transported us to another world'. Any input here would be very helpful.

 

I've got a bit done on the next one, Nèf Guinée:

 

 

Akeyi a Paría ak Nèf Guinée

Welcome to Paría and Nèf Guinée

Paría is a fantastic setting with two themes:  pre-Columbian South America and Afro-Caribbean cultures, In our world, many native South American cultures are extinct or seriously threatened, in Paría some of them have become world powers. Likewise with the Caribbean states - rather than Haiti being a failed state, the descendents of the rebellion control an empire where slavery is verboten, Voudu is a world religion and magic is technology.

The land is an equatorial continent like South American minus the horn, with a large chain of islands to the north-east that resemble the Caribbean Islands, called the Ouakaéra Islands. This area was occupied by cultures very similar to those found in the pre-Columbian Americas, from the 'Incas' to the Taíno on the islands.  On our Earth on the island of Hispaniola, in August of 1792, Dutty Boukman, an escaped slave, enacted an incredibly powerful ritual, meaning to free his people from the French forever - and did he succeed.  His last name was based on his possession of several grimoires, including the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, a secret grimoire of Kabalistic rituals. Using his powers as a Voudu priest, he and Cécile Fatiman reworked the ritual Moses used to part the Red Sea. The entire island of Hispaniola was copied to Refugium. The storm his ritual created  left a wandering dimension gateway that meandered through the regions for decades, picking up people, ships and whole towns and moving them to Refugium. Now, 200 years later, almost all of the islands are in the hands of Africans or Europeans, as is parts of the eastern coast of Paría.

The cultures of Paría are mainly based on the Inca/Quechua, the Muísca, the Machupe, the Arawak, the Tupi-Guarini, the Taíno and the Kalina. South America of our world has dozens more cultures, but in Paría the empowerment of some groups, mostly due to magic, has lead to a decline in cultural diversity. Because magic works here, the civilizations of the mainland are were advanced in 1792 than in our world. In the Tawatinsuyu Empire (aka Incan), have a fully recorded language, though using knotted strings rather than paper, and have begun using llama-drawn carts on their elaborate road system. The other major civilization, that of the Muísca, has recently invented a very strong version of bronze, The Machupe, to the south, have brought back horses from a perilous island to the south of Paría, and have begun taming them.

The last two centuries have been a time of great change in Paría. Smallpox and other European diseases wiped out the population of the Ouakaéra Islands and some of the coast before self-propagating magical cures could be found. Of the islands, only Nèf Guinée (formerly Hispaniola) came through reasonably intact, including a few ships and shipsyards, leading them to become the dominant power in the Bague Sea, making the Empire of Nèf Guinée a reality which control over Nobo Knen, Ile Mawon, Mbazakibala and Yurumaï, along with numerous smaller islands. Puerto Refugio, a primarily European island, resists them, first with canons and now with the help of Novo Lusitânia, as does Jaguacayno, a magically powerful Taíno island.

The Tawatinsuyu Empire is the largest and most powerful polity on Paría. The long planning Incas have used magical food preservation to end the cycles of famine keyed to ENSO-like climatic patterns, then gone beyond that to create a working socialist state. It's been a century since the Tawatinsuyu tried to expand militarily, after being beated by the horse-mounted Machupe in the south and the bronze-equipped Muísca in the north, but as soon as these two innovations have been assimilated, it's a sure beat the armies will march again.
 

 

The other potential worlds are

 

 

Shambhala - central plateau with Tibetans surrounded by Mongolians, Inuits, Sami and Siberians. Buddhism is mostly lost, though Atisha Dipankara Shrijnana, who renewed the Dharma in Tibet in our world was transported. Psychic lamaism, whaledreaming and dharmic shamanism are the dominant religions.

FourCorners - Native american continent. The five nations are Suanee (Cherokee/Iroquois), Teton Oyate (Lakota and other plains), Na'mima (pacific NW, especially Kwakiutl) and Cahokia (muscogee and moundbuilder culture). Nope, no aztecs. There are also Inuit tribes on the far north coast that trade with the Shambhala Inuit.

Bundahishn is a continent where the Zoroastrian religion survived and flourished. Bundahisn is the Land of Prophets and is regularly swept by waves of fairly peaceful religious fevor. The underlying culture is Persian mysticism, but there are sects that resemble Yazidis, Zurvanism, Madaeism, Manichaeism and Mazkadism.

Wainga Roa is a group of large islands with polynesian and oceanic cultures. There are five large islands Papua (Dani) Paliuli (Hawaiian), Hawaiki (Maori), Uluru (Aboriginal, mostly rainforest groups despite the name) and Tikopia (read J. Diamond's 'Collapse'). In Wainga Roa, the Dreamtime is alive and well. Dreamwalkers can walk from island to island and there are even bridges between sacred sites throughout WaingaRoa - the Dreamtime is become very important to that culture's developing magical technology.

Suvarnabhumi is the Indochinese continent. It is a blend of the Khmer Empire, ancient Indomalaysian mythology and Malagasy culture. There is some Hindu influence (Shaivism aided by hashish is the nominal religion) and lots of ancestor worship.

Between the  continents are smaller less technologically advanced islands, also from marginalized cultures. They are: Croatoa (English pilgrims), Euskadi (Basque), Eldrlend (old Norse Vinland), Mamihlapinatapai (Tierra del Fuego), Tenerife (Gaunchos of Canary Islands w/scientology) and  Mosirihi (Ainu).

 

I'm currently thinking of skipping to Bundahishn out of sympathy for the Kurds.

[Diamond Spear]

That ship has sailed...I'm finishing up the first book now, based on Bantu Africa. The meta-setting is called 'Refugium' or perhaps 'Refugia' - a world where cultures that lost out on our world get another chance, with magic and without colonialism. All of them reach the Age of Sail at the present time for the setting. I'm almost certain the first book will go on into layout this summer and be on kickstarter asap. There's a link to the current version of the PDF in my sig. If you're really interested, I'd LOVE a partner/co-author.

 

The name problem - I started out calling it Ubantu, which is protoBantu for 'Land of the People' but that's too close to Ubuntu, the Linux distro, so I need a new name. Alternatives:  Ulimwengu - Swahili for universe; Umphasi - Zulu for Earth; some contraction of 'Mdala wa Uhai' - the Cloth of Being, as the cosmos is called; Afrikajabu - a contraction of Afrika ya Ajabu, Africa of Marvels; or Ekong - Duala/Cameroonian for 'they have transported us to another world'. Any input here would be very helpful.

 

I've got a bit done on the next one, Nèf Guinée:

 

 

The other potential worlds are

 

 

I'm currently thinking of skipping to Bundahishn out of sympathy for the Kurds.

 

 

First of all, thank you for your response. I don't think, however, that “That ship has sailed” really describes the situation. I appreciate that you are working on a similar idea and will absolutely take a look at it with an eye towards seeing if I can make a meaningful contribution to it, however my idea differs in a few key ways.

 

First I'm looking at much more of a “kitchen-sink” setting especially considering the inclusion of Vikings. Secondly I'm looking at a much less, I guess “structured” would be the word, setting. I'm going for more of a floating concept to be customized by how any individual game progresses rather than a completely mapped out and stated out setting.

 

Secondly, and I'm basing this more on other posts I've read about your setting rather than a perusal of the actual Gazetteer, the games/setting that I'm envisioning is much more High Fantasy/Swashbuckler/Spies and Intrigue than what you're doing.

 

Thirdly, the cultures, empires, etc. are based much more on our popular perception of those cultures rather than the reality of those cultures. For instance, historical pirates were really not nice people but our modern perception of them in fiction is much less objectionable. Another example would be the fact that most people, not being history majors, have only a vague idea of what the great native empires (Aztec, Inca, etc.) of the Americas were like and for my idea that works just fine as such cultures can be expanded on and described in each individual game.

 

I think the major difference between our ideas is that what I'm talking about is a general type of game and what you're working on is an actual setting for a game. Neither idea is superior they're just different ways of approaching things. Does that make sense?

 

EDIT: Skimming over your map and Gazetteer you seem to be developing a setting that is not the "real world" while what I'm proposing is setting adventures in a fictionalized version of our actual, real world.

 

EDIT THE SECOND: Your work is strictly a different version of Africa while I'm talking about the Caribbean and the Americas so a completely different thing. Going back to your first sentence I'm thinking our ships are sailing in completely different directions.

[Mzimwi]

Uh - humor much? "that ship has sailed" was a humorous reference to the "age of sail'. Your response was rather tetchy, but I'm going to assume that I accidentally offended you and apologize for that, so perhaps we can start again.

 

 

Thirdly, the cultures, empires, etc. are based much more on our popular perception of those cultures rather than the reality of those cultures. For instance, historical pirates were really not nice people but our modern perception of them in fiction is much less objectionable. Another example would be the fact that most people, not being history majors, have only a vague idea of what the great native empires (Aztec, Inca, etc.) of the Americas were like and for my idea that works just fine as such cultures can be expanded on and described in each individual game.

 

The above is not at all clear as to whether you are talking about what you want to do or what I've been doing. If you're saying that Ubantu is based on the popular perception of Africa, you honestly couldn't be more wrong. That's Nyambe and Spears of Dawn, what I call "Guinea Perdu" - the bizarre romanticized notion of Africa held by many African-Americans who couldn't tell Nubia from Lesotho with both hands and a flashlight. I find that, well, offensive. Throwing together orishas and Pharaohs and Shaka Zulu all willy-nilly...As for grim reality, Ubantu features a slave race of sentient baboons that work on cotton and corn plantations, I discuss female genital mutilation and the customary practice of infanticide in the cases of twins and turn the typical Bantu oppression of witches into a eugenics pogrom aimed at the obliteration of human psychic potential.

 

 

First I'm looking at much more of a “kitchen-sink” setting especially considering the inclusion of Vikings. Secondly I'm looking at a much less, I guess “structured” would be the word, setting. I'm going for more of a floating concept to be customized by how any individual game progresses rather than a completely mapped out and stated out setting.

 

Refugium is meant to be modular. It began as an expansion for the GURPS Banestorm setting, which is a kind of alternate Europe. You should be able to add in what areas you like, to your taste. I don't really understand what you mean by "floating concept" - what exactly do you want to present? Also, again, I can't tell if you like or dislike the Vikings. Do you mean that you want a 'kitchen sink' that includes more stuff?

 

 

I think the major difference between our ideas is that what I'm talking about is a general type of game and what you're working on is an actual setting for a game. Neither idea is superior they're just different ways of approaching things. Does that make sense?

 To a degree. Suppose perhaps that I had several books done. Would you then like to add in the meta-culture of world travelling explorers? I want, at some point, to have this - perhaps and empty continent filled with riches and ruins and mystery, where everyone meets and mixes. I've seriously thought about adding zeppelins . But still - you want to write something about a type of game? I'm working on the campaigns and adventures section of my book. I just don't get it - it's an idea, but what are you going to *make*? I'm being serious, not snotty, I really don't understand what you want.

 

 

EDIT: Skimming over your map and Gazetteer you seem to be developing a setting that is not the "real world" while what I'm proposing is setting adventures in a fictionalized version of our actual, real world.

 

EDIT THE SECOND: Your work is strictly a different version of Africa while I'm talking about the Caribbean and the Americas so a completely different thing. Going back to your first sentence I'm thinking our ships are sailing in completely different directions.

 

??? No, not the real world. Magic works. There are real ogres and ghosts and the Ancestors can send you mail. What on earth (or off) do you mean by a 'fictionalized version of our real, actual world' and how is that different from a setting that is 'not the real world'? Ubantu is a version of Africa. Nèf Guinée, the next book, is a version of the Caribbean and South America. They are not connected - you can use them completely separately, or if you so desire, have the intrepid waChomba sailors from Ubantu cross the ocean and call upon Nèf Guinée or Tawatinsuyu (Inca). Ubantu departs from our world a 1000 years ago, NG less than three hundred. Originally, I designed Milikyunjovu, the Empire in Ubantu, as a challenge for the pseudo-Catholic and Islamic nations in GURPS Banestorm, but to integrate the two I'd have to have elves and dwarves and I just hate all that 'halflings in the jungle' crap. Hasn't D&D butchered enough cultures?

 

Sigh - okay - so, please, please, take a bit to explain what you're interested in. I have a feel for you're your going for, and I like it - it's a part of something I can see in the dim future of what I'm working on, but you seem to have a much better feel for the whole postmodern swashbuckler pirates bit. Talk to me....

 

Asante sana, ndugu

[Ndreare]

Mzimwi the way I read your post it seams like you are inferring having permission for Diamond Spear to develop his ideas would come from you. Is that your intent?

 

Diamond Spear I like your idea and have tried it in casual games before.

I am not sure for me it would be worth the effort to create a setting book of my own. But perhaps buying our using someone else's work would be awesome. My personal experience however has always been that games with rally high detail like the ones mentioned above lose something as many player just do not give a crapand will not read 200 pages to save their own lives. Leaving me as a frustrated GM with players who do not get the world around them.

[Diamond Spear]

Sorry guys, I think that I may have given the wrong impression. I was more making a post to see what people would think about a game run in such a setting not about me sitting down and writing up a full setting. I guess my "defense" of my first post did a poor job of making that clear. Sorry.

[Mzimwi]

Mzimwi the way I read your post it seams like you are inferring having permission for Diamond Spear to develop his ideas would come from you. Is that your intent?

 

Diamond Spear I like your idea and have tried it in casual games before.

I am not sure for me it would be worth the effort to create a setting book of my own. But perhaps buying our using someone else's work would be awesome. My personal experience however has always been that games with rally high detail like the ones mentioned above lose something as many player just do not give a crapand will not read 200 pages to save their own lives. Leaving me as a frustrated GM with players who do not get the world around them.

 

Huh? I've been working on Refugium and Ubantu for over a decade - it's 150pgs of PDF and a hundred more of notes. I taught myself to read Swahili with Alice in Wonderland/Elisi katika Nchi ya Ajabu. I honestly have no idea what you're asking. Am I giving him permission to work with my ideas? I invited him to join me, hell, I'd LOVE for him to work with me - but for some reason I seem to have offended him, even though I can't make heads or tails of his objections.

 

As for your other point about detail - yes, fine. Some people like that. I once tried to play a Savage Worlds game about SF priests fighting zombies - but the GM couldn't tell me what the Church believed in. I couldn't play it. I *love* reading good source material. Tekumel is recreational, and I'm a long term GURPS fan. BUT I've also gone out of my way to make it easy for people who don't like that, by including some fairly familiar roles and simple essays like "Being Mbantu". You can play an Ogre Thug, if you like. OTOH, Ubantu has another purpose - I'm trying to pump life into a rapidly disappearing mythohistory. Kids in East Africa know more about Harry Potter than the legends of their own cultures. I'm trying to put those together and make them *vivid* - a bright, shining powerful Africa, what Africa should have been. I can't just siphon off another people's history and turn it into a Tarzan movie. Refugium is about more than a weird place to kill weird things and take their weird stuff - it's a dream, a world of mind. And if it kills me, I'm going to see it distributed in Africa. Just sayin'.

[Mzimwi]

Sorry guys, I think that I may have given the wrong impression. I was more making a post to see what people would think about a game run in such a setting not about me sitting down and writing up a full setting. I guess my "defense" of my first post did a poor job of making that clear. Sorry.

 

Cool, but then please, by the Ancestors, HELP ME PLAY TEST IT. Tell me what you want to see, and I'll fix it...

[Lucius]

Ubantu has another purpose - I'm trying to pump life into a rapidly disappearing mythohistory. Kids in East Africa know more about Harry Potter than the legends of their own cultures. I'm trying to put those together and make them *vivid* - a bright, shining powerful Africa, what Africa should have been. I can't just siphon off another people's history and turn it into a Tarzan movie. Refugium is about more than a weird place to kill weird things and take their weird stuff - it's a dream, a world of mind. And if it kills me, I'm going to see it distributed in Africa. Just sayin'.

That purpose might be better served by writing fiction rather than game design.

 

Not that I necessarily want to discourage you, but it's often stories that get people into games rather than the other way around......perhaps you can take a two-pronged approach and attempt both?

 

As for the misunderstandings in the thread, I can see the joke you were attempting with "that ship has sailed" but the usual understanding of that phrase seems to be "you cannot or should not attempt what you are talking about because it is too late." I know you weren't trying to tell Diamond Spear to back off, but some people I think got that impression.

 

But even I am a little confused by "HELP ME PLAY TEST IT." I dare say I've probably been reading your offerings with more care and attention than most, but I don't always understand you. Join the club; I'm not always well understood either.

 

But it's obvious to me that what Diamond Spear is talking about is very different than what you are talking about you. You have obviously immersed yourself deeply in the mythos and ethos of a particular set of cultures that you find fascinating and you wish to share a unique world-vision that you feel is in danger of fading away entirely - you see a bright thread of the Human tapestry that seems to be unraveling and you want to weave it back into our collective imagination because the whole world is poorer if it is to be irretrievably lost.

 

Diamond Spear is just throwing around ideas for what he hopes would be a fun kind of game. In fact, I think what Diamond Spear has himself posted gives me a clear idea of where he is coming from, and as he puts it, your ships are sailing in different directions. If you read his posts and still don't understand what he's saying, I am not sure how to clarify it any further.

 

Well, maybe I'll take a stab at explaining one aspect of the difference.

 

What Diamond Spear is talking about is Alternate History. The world of the kind of game he envisions is "like our world, but..." so he refers to it as "a fictionalized version of our world."

 

Your world is a completely different world altogether even though it is populated with people descended of refugees from our world's past. It isn't Earth as we know it and never was. Do you understand now the distinction being drawn?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says they are not just sailing in different directions, they are on different seas under different stars.

[Lucius]

Cool, but then please, by the Ancestors, HELP ME PLAY TEST IT. Tell me what you want to see, and I'll fix it...

 

Okay, I have to ask - are you begging for someone to help you playtest your ideas, or are you begging Diamond Spear to provide information on his own ideas that you could use to playtest them?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary as usual is in two minds about it

[Ndreare]

You know diamond spear thinking about your idea, I imagine if I pitched it to my players as a mundane setting everyone would buy into it for a few rounds. Digesting it in my mind it becomes more and more appealing by the moment.

[Diamond Spear]

That purpose might be better served by writing fiction rather than game design.

 

Not that I necessarily want to discourage you, but it's often stories that get people into games rather than the other way around......perhaps you can take a two-pronged approach and attempt both?

 

As for the misunderstandings in the thread, I can see the joke you were attempting with "that ship has sailed" but the usual understanding of that phrase seems to be "you cannot or should not attempt what you are talking about because it is too late." I know you weren't trying to tell Diamond Spear to back off, but some people I think got that impression.

 

But even I am a little confused by "HELP ME PLAY TEST IT." I dare say I've probably been reading your offerings with more care and attention than most, but I don't always understand you. Join the club; I'm not always well understood either.

 

But it's obvious to me that what Diamond Spear is talking about is very different than what you are talking about you. You have obviously immersed yourself deeply in the mythos and ethos of a particular set of cultures that you find fascinating and you wish to share a unique world-vision that you feel is in danger of fading away entirely - you see a bright thread of the Human tapestry that seems to be unraveling and you want to weave it back into our collective imagination because the whole world is poorer if it is to be irretrievably lost.

 

Diamond Spear is just throwing around ideas for what he hopes would be a fun kind of game. In fact, I think what Diamond Spear has himself posted gives me a clear idea of where he is coming from, and as he puts it, your ships are sailing in different directions. If you read his posts and still don't understand what he's saying, I am not sure how to clarify it any further.

 

Well, maybe I'll take a stab at explaining one aspect of the difference.

 

What Diamond Spear is talking about is Alternate History. The world of the kind of game he envisions is "like our world, but..." so he refers to it as "a fictionalized version of our world."

 

Your world is a completely different world altogether even though it is populated with people descended of refugees from our world's past. It isn't Earth as we know it and never was. Do you understand now the distinction being drawn?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says they are not just sailing in different directions, they are on different seas under different stars.

 

 

Thank you for saying what I wanted to say better than I said it.

[Diamond Spear]

You know diamond spear thinking about your idea, I imagine if I pitched it to my players as a mundane setting everyone would buy into it for a few rounds. Digesting it in my mind it becomes more and more appealing by the moment.

 

Thank you very much.

[Mzimwi]

 

Well, maybe I'll take a stab at explaining one aspect of the difference.

 

What Diamond Spear is talking about is Alternate History. The world of the kind of game he envisions is "like our world, but..." so he refers to it as "a fictionalized version of our world."

 

Your world is a completely different world altogether even though it is populated with people descended of refugees from our world's past. It isn't Earth as we know it and never was. Do you understand now the distinction being drawn?

 

Hmm - interesting. Here a link to my fiction about the first days of Ubantu posted on the Alternate History forum. I'm not throwing that up at you, I just thought it was funny that that is exactly what I was trying and where I was trying it. OTOH, if Diamond Spear's (great name, BTW) world has magic, it's not alternate history - or, at least as the AH folks say, it's alien space bats. Still, I get the point - he wants something more Earth like.

 

About me and fiction. See, when I first dropped out of grad school, I decided to try my hand at fiction. Being that my favorite book is Naked Lunch and that I know from experience that I'm a much better writer while under the influence of opiates (Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. ) I decided very purposefully to become addicted to morphine. I found my sister's old dealer, bought a huge amount of pills and got him to teach me to shoot up. I even bought an Interzone t-shirt, then began writing first book of my psychedelic fantasy series, "Welcome to the Occupation, Lotus Position Book One" . And it was brilliant. I can't explain how the prose just flows as fast as I can type, from by dreaming mind to the page, guided by Morpheus, my muse. Too bad I'm an insulin dependent diabetic and *really* bad at shooting up - after three months I had cellulitus so bad I couldn't move my arm, much less type and was having seriously dangerous blood sugar spikes. I quit. I wish I could go that way, but I can't. And without it, infotainment writing is all I'm really good for. And maybe my fiction wasn't that great - if you're not a fan of China Mievilla and the New Weird, it'll probably be unreadable. Hell, you be the judge - here's a sample chapter..."The Meeting of the Bored".

 

 

But even I am a little confused by "HELP ME PLAY TEST IT." I dare say I've probably been reading your offerings with more care and attention than most, but I don't always understand you. Join the club; I'm not always well understood either.

 

Perhaps playtest isn't the right word - I'd like his, or anyone's input. Just a review. Though I know I'm lucky in getting the HERO himself Mr Long to look it over, and I'm desperately trying to live up to his critiques and advice. I've put SO MUCH work into this, and I have no idea whether or not I've written myself into corner....it's a scary. I did have a bit of a brain bloom thinking about pirates and swashbucklers, that aspect of Ubantu is not well done. Thanks, though. Right now I'm reading about Bantu jurisprudence, so I'm going to give you a praise name, "Induna Mngariza" or "Sharpeyed Mediator".

[Mzimwi]

Oh, and just in case you're still with me, I do have the outline of a series of books for Ubantu...

 

 

Novel storyline....follow the history in the Gazetteer, with Ditaolane killing the swallowing monster and saving the people and building the city of Siyathemba. In this world, magic works VERY well...too well. Not only can oracles and diviners contact the Ancestors, but very soon the Ancestors are controlling every facet of life, setting up an Orwellian police state, a Tyranny of the Dead. Progress comes to a halt and the people start to worship tradition for its own sake.

Then comes Ditaolane XI, king of Siyathema. He wants to free his people, but he believes that the ends justify the means. He turns to witchcraft, after being tempted by a were-leopardess. He casts a terrible ritual that pulls all of the ancestors out of the Land of the Dead and binds them back in their rotten bodies. He meant to break the power of the Tyranny of the Dead, but was corrupted by the evil of black magic. Now he is its slave and sends his monstrous army out against his own people.

The people fight back, and now they are fighting on their own without their ancestors to guide them. They have to learn to think for themselves, but they do it and beat the zombie army (because everyone loves zombies) back. When it looks like a stalemate, the Queen of the Ogres comes to the human rebels and offers a deal:  her people will turn on the WitchKing, but they must be treated as citizens in whatever kingdom replaces him. At the appointed hour, the Ogre Queen overturns her massive iron cauldron and hammers it with a stone so it can be heard for mile. The ogres soldiers in the WitchKing's army turn on him and destroy his other creatures, forcing him to retreat to the walls of Siyathemba.

The wall of the city that was once Siyathemba were impenetrable before the WitchKing's magics. Now it looks like the city will sit on the plains like a suppurating wound  forever. Then, deus ex machina, (which is very common in Bantu stories), a line of elephants with men on their backs comes over the horizon. They are the Elephant Clan, the baNjovu, a group of mystics who have learned to commune with the elephants - which are not at all like African elephants.  These waJovu are a race of powerful psychic with an ancient non-verbal culture. They offer to use their powers to banish the city of the WitchKing to the underworld, just as they do their own dead, but the people must agree to be ruled by the humans of the baNjovu clan. In return the baNjovu and waJovu will make sure the Empire is forever free of witchcraft. The elder talk, and agree. The elephants march in a circle around the city, raising a huge cloud of dust, and it sinks into the underworld.

After the dust settles, the Ancestors hold an Indaba. They agree that they will guide the people, but not lead them. They will help, but in the way of a parent who wishes his child to grow up and learn for himself. And a new age is born,  The End.

Okay, yeah, a bit much. It's all part of the history of this setting, it's just the most story like part of the history. The symbology concerns Africa's struggle with tradition and progress. The Tyranny of the Dead represents the old Africa, while the WitchKing is one of the post-colonial dictators, bloodyminded progressives who turn on tradition mindlessly. The ogres cause I like ogres (or Western mercenaries). The elephants represent the wisdom of the land itself, Mother Africa, showing the people a new way forward. Instead of destroying the past, they learn from Mother Africa herself, and find a new way to live with traditions while moving forward.

[DShomshak]

Diamond Spear: I ran a campaign (actually three in the same setting) sorta kinda like what you propose, in that it was fantasy set in an alternate history with magic. It was set in an "alternate present" (1990s) rather than an alternate Age of Exploration, though.

 

The second campaign took the PCs to the Caribbean, where the European colonies -- left on their own for decades after Europe nearly destroyed itself in magical versions of the World Wars -- were menaced by post-Aztecs who'd built a giant barge with a gilded pyramid-temple so they could take their powerful sacrificial magic to the high seas.

 

In this alternate history, European colonization of "Terranova" didn't get much past the Caribbean. In part this was because native American cultures had magic; but more because the Age of Exploration began a century or so later, and the first would-be conquistadors found an Aztec Empire that had consolidated itself, had a politically and militarily astute ruler, and the Europeans didn't arrive in a year of special religious significance. So, instead of recruiting a bunch of subject tribes to rebel against an overly-cautious emperor, the first swaggering, gold-hungry freebooters were swiftly crushed by superior numbers and their guns and steel were completely useless. Pretty much the same thing happened to the first group that tried conquering the Incas in South America. Without easy fluke victories as an example, Europeans put more effort into trade and less into conquest.

 

(European diseases still ravaged Native Americans, and this was one of the grievances the post-Aztecs had against the Caribbean colonists. Not the only one, though: Europeans *did* conquer parts of Mexico, which the post-Aztecs reconquered during the decades of transatlantic isolation.)

 

So, I know your idea can work for a campaign.

 

Dean Shomshak