I'm penning up a setting for a historically based period piece scenario that could be reused and changed based on the GM's preference. It's around the period of 800 BC and much like Birthright for D&D, will involve commanding large amount of common men to complete a quest or overall generic objective. I have a general idea of the groups involved, such as the early Etruscans, the Meshwesh, Thebes, the Neo-assryians and the rebelling states against them, the waning hittites, the judean clans, as well as the early Phoencians and celtic migrant tribes. Based on the region it'll either be about stabilizing your people's lands into a stable city-state, conquering a new one to form a territory for your tribe, unifying a fractured former empire or invading to save what's left of your people's power. There won't be classes in the sense of casters or magic, but things like sages, priests, priestesses, vestal virgins, druids, princes, generals, chiefs and specific ethnic and cultural roles will have immense social, material or martial power. Vehicles such as chariots and boats will be used, horses will have significant relevance but so will archers to counteract this. Any groups or events I should list down for making this? I just want input to see what would stick and actually interest people.
some more visuals for example.
anyone? ideas?
Which system do you plan to use?
>>98100711Why is /tg/ obssessed with the bronze age?
>>98100965I can't decide, D&D filters out any actual anons who give a shit but other systems are hard to nail for how easy and available D&D is. But Birthright as a system for what it enthuses definitely is the point.
>>98100994the question is why aren't you? what's wrong with not being 13th century generica?
>>98100711Needs that "everybody hates us" drip only Assyria can muster
>>98101101don't worry the Assyrians will almost certainly be the net negative reputation choice.
>>98101117"Into my land I carried off alive Mušēzib-Marduk, king of Babylonia, together with his family and officials. I counted out the wealth of that city—silver, gold, precious stones, property and goods—into the hands of my people; and they took it as their own. The hands of my people laid hold of the gods dwelling there and smashed them; they took their property and goods.I destroyed the city and its houses, from foundation to parapet; I devastated and burned them. I razed the brick and earthenwork of the outer and inner wall of the city, of the temples, and of the ziggurat; and I dumped these into the Araḫtu canal. I dug canals through the midst of that city, I overwhelmed it with water, I made its very foundations disappear, and I destroyed it more completely than a devastating flood. So that it might be impossible in future days to recognize the site of that city and its temples, I utterly dissolved it with water and made it like inundated land."- Sennacherib, King of Assyria, 705-681 BCIf the post-Bronze Age Collapse world was the world of Warmachine, the Assyrians would be the Orgoth.
>>98101156don't forget that this wasn't even the last king under the Neo-assryians. That guy took it to a whole new level just to cement his authority over his enemies, and unlike the rest it was done out of desperation.
>>98100711I'm fond of the Nuraghi myself.https://neroargento.com/index.htmThere's also the surprisingly reasonable speculation that some Minoan shrines or sanctuaries were part of a heliograph system. It would be a viable "ancient lost technology".https://minoanatlantis.com/Minoan_Mirror_Web.phpI like this wiki for Europa Barbarorum 2 because of the style of the written introductions.https://europabarbarorum.fandom.com/wiki/Lougiones#IntroductionDon't think this blog's speculations are really correct, but they are interesting nonetheless:https://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2014/08/bogovo-gumno-gods-threshing-floor.htmlhttps://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2014/03/henges-rondel-enclosures.htmlhttps://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2017/06/sun-thunder-fire.htmlhttps://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2019/10/myrmidons.htmlhttps://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.com/2024/07/fighting-men-in-hairy-trousers.htmlPossibly useful:https://gundobadgames.blogspot.com/2019/05/now-published-brazen-backgrounds.htmlhttps://gundobadgames.blogspot.com/2019/08/decline-collapse-and-campaign-settings.html
excellent. Now to work on the celts.
Don't forget in your tour of the Semites the then-polytheistic Israelites, and the smarmy Judeans who were deep in bed with Egypt
>>98101260cant forget the repeated slaughters by the Egyptians, or for that matter the clashes between each other like with the amalekites.
celts, now found. wonder if this is more 6th century BC then 8th though.
suprised that nobody's even talking about the fact Greece would be a PVP zone like it became during this period
seriously nobody's interested or even speculative about the post-bronze age collapse as a setting? That neolithic thread blew up like it was a Israeli missile facility.
>>98101443I'm interested, but also just woke up and have to go to work soon. I don't have much to contribute at this point, that is, and I'll probably be too tired to contribute much in the twelve or so hours when I come back home from work, too. The point here is not to blogpost about my day but to say that the seeming lack on interest in this thread might be more of a matter of timing.
>>98101552fuck..
There should definitely be a bronze age tabletop game that takes all bronze age civilizations and puts them on a single mega continent. Would be dope.
>>98100711>>98100844Try playing it and see what happens. Report back. Try not being a useless shit for once in your life.
>>98101798Nigger, I'm trying to find out if there's even a SYSTEM and a NARRATIVE that can even work for this. I could easily run d&d 5E with nothing but fighters and hirelings with some College of Eloquence bards but that's fucking boring and generic for anyone involved, retard.
>>98101818nta>SYSTEM Into the Bronze Blood & Bronze Mazes & Minotaurs Barbarians of Lemuria Runequest Hillfolk Probably more. >NARRATIVE >You're raiding and trading >You're defending from those fucking sea people raiding>The Iliad >The Odyssey >Some magi unleashed a bunch of plagues on the country, do something >Go get the golden fleece >Wife's dead, go get her back from the underworld >how did those assholes get horses, steal some for your people >cannibal stone tool users in the mountains, a strange foreigner and misfits have to go kill them >big flood's coming, have to build an arc and everyone around you is terrible
>>98101852reread the OP. it's post bronze age collapse. as in early early, pre hoplite and even city-state civilization. The Iliad would be a century old.
>>98100711>This thread again>Except this time around, as a blatant filler and image dump
>>98101915Reread the response where there are 6+ systems and 10+ narrative suggestions and stop being a fucking idiot.
so this is how a thread with cool pics dies?with no replies on page 10?
>>98100711The sea peoples should be an underwater Atlantis-like civilization, an obvious idea that it seems nobody takes advantage of
>>98101176If you're referring to Assurbanipal II, he definitely did not do his most brutal actions (those against the elamites) in desperation. His horrific brutality as best as we can tell was due him being personally betrayed and upset by the Elamties for supporting the claims of his brother who was king of Babylon. This campaign along with his Egyptian campaign were likely net benefits on assyrian authority and likely highly profitable.The really decline in Assyrian power came from Anatolia and along the Hurian frontier. The first wave of steppe peoples, the Crimmerians, were invading this area, and to the credit of the Assyrians they did seem to repulse their invasions. However between this and the endless proxy wars with the Lydians and Phrygians we see a massive drain on Assyrian resources.A lot of Assurbanipal II's divination tables either concern Anatolia or the fate of his ancestors, particularly Sargon II his great-grandfather who died in battle as well as his father Esarhaddon who seemed to have been severely depressed after having killed his brothers in a civil war, just like Assurbanipal II. By all accounts Assurbanipal II was a rather melancholic bookworm by Assyrian standards, which makes him a very interesting man to me. He held the empire together despite a serious civil war and the first major war involving horse archers in the region. I personally blame his sons for fucking things up, and based on how long the war to destroy assyria lasted, Assyria was savable as a state if not a hegemon even a half decade after his death.
I like the iron age more
An interesting concept to play with are the Bronze Age myths that are probably popular in the mouths of people centuries later in the time of your setting.Troy, Achilles etc.More than one leader would be likely to claim direct ancestry to a legendary hero or even pantheon from their mysterious prosperous age from centuries before.
>>98106358>The really decline in Assyrian power came from Anatolia and along the Hurian frontier.Modern scholarship downplays those factors in favor of the Medean assault backed by the Babylon backstab allowing the Medes through their territory to attack Nimrud, Ninevah, and Ashur directly, but I think your point touches on the profound item of interest: the Assyrian army was away in the north blocking that Anatolian problem, leaving the realm's heart lightly defended and ripe for betrayal from within.
>>98106790Interesting! As far as I understand it the Babylonian backstab predates the medes by some time and the medes primacy only occured due to the collapse of Elamite rule in the zagros mountains. Weren't the Neo-Baylonians less of a backstab and more of a bandwagoning regional revolt after the successional civil war at a much later date? I'm definitely open to changing my mind, however. I haven't read deeply on the subject in some time, and I refuse to be a retard who doesn't engage with the current lit. Any good sources I should look into?
>>98106879https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpAphcaVJIsThis has been my most recent foray into the era
You've yet to establish how your bronze age setting will be any different than your average generic medieval setting. The aesthetics and pictures you're using are different, yes. But quantitatively how is it different? Even how you've described it sounds like it could be any period or place in history.
>>98101053Dude, it's been at least ten years since I've touched dnd. When I play medieval, I play historical or at least historical with some magic /horror. Dont' assume every group is creatively bankrupt and drone-like as yours seems to be.>>98106905This. At least once the bronzefags tried to sell you at as SS setting. Which... could be, if you don't believe Conan is "bronze age", mind you. But the shit they come up with now >>98101852 are boring as fuck straight outta "local lord gives you quest" dnd mindset. The one you could save is the underworld, but no system here would work with some Nergal sheaninigans.
>>98101691>440 BC>bronzeMight as well throw up some early byzantium at this point.
>>981007110dnd + chainmail or any other skirmish game with some hero/character focused rules bolted on really. Do we have any other war games frequently discussed games on the board that aren't only used to play out white room tournament matches?
>>98107204Because Bronzeagefags are delusional retards who don't even know the period they claim to love so much and love claiming other non bronze age periods like Classical Greece as "bronze age" for some weird reason.Like how they have tried to pretend a setting with Knights and Castles and Chivalry created by a Texan who loved the middle ages and wild west is "bronze age" on this board for years now.
>>98101766Pretty sure that's Jackals
>>98100758>ArpadHungary Strong :musculeemoji:
For 800 BC specifically, there's the well preserved Late Geometric Greek town of Zagora on the island of Andros, with its defensive works built some time before 850 BC. The short 110m long, 2.5m high wall on the northeast landward side made mostly of local schist protected an area of some seven hectares on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by high cliffs. The site had a population of a few hundred and was abandoned around 700 BC, perhaps with its population moving to a bigger town on the island via the process of synoikism (the amalgamation of an Archaic/Classical Greek polis), or joining a colonization effort overseas. Despite Andros being a large Aegean island with plentiful farmland in fertile valleys with many springs, this town curiously had no easy, obvious supply of freshwater. Rainwater collected from the flat roofs of buildings was probably an important source of such.https://zagoraarchaeologicalproject.org/the-site/about-zagora/
>>98107204>>98108572Did you not see the words “post” and “collapse” in the OP? This is an Early Iron Age thread. Though I will say that 440 BC is far removed from the post-Collapse era.
