New World Order

As I mentioned in my last post, I want to set the world up from a point 10,000 years prior to the present and let it naturally evolve from there. In general, I would like to couple mythologies with the cultures that spawned them. This means that the mythological creatures that are associated with the various legends need a home too. Beyond that, there will be races and creatures you'll want to throw in. These need a home, too.

Naturally, your world may be totally different from our earth in every meaningful way. The Core Rules should be similar in any case.

Also, one could stop the timeline moving forward to a pre-historic, hunter-gatherer society, or travel past my intended time-frame to a near Victorian steampunk genre. There is all kinds of flexibility, and it might be fun to consider.

Since I am concentrating on Europe for my own campaign, I will touch on some considerations that I am looking at to give an idea of how things might progress.

From earlier migrations out of Africa, Europe is already populated by many humanoid races and mythical creatures humans arrive (vs just Neanderthals in our own world). These human tribes migrate through the Middle East and up through the Danube river valley and spread out from there. This was the Stone Age, which lasted until about 3,000 BC. It was replaced by the Bronze Age which lasted until about 600 BC, and then the Iron Age took hold.

While I intend to start my campaign during the Iron Age, many artifacts will be preserved from the Bronze Age. As mentioned in previous posts, Spiritual power can reside in any item carried and used by a powerful hero of ages past. Also, as the Magical items are created, extra care will be taken to preserve these items. I mention this now, to help put in the back of our minds where ancient civilizations rose and fell, and where their artifacts may be found. Also, when ancient tomb is uncovered, arrowheads and other items will not likely be made of iron and so forth.

The Classical Greek and Roman Empires took place during the Bronze Age.

The questions I have are as follows:
1. What races were in Europe before humans arrived?
2. How does the presence of these races influence/change the eventual distribution of humans?
3. How does magic affect the timeline?
4. How do gods affect the cultures?

Of course, all these questions are inter-related.

We know that written languages came into use during the Bronze Age, and this would be an important development in the retaining and spread of magical power. Elemental magics in their raw, naturally occurring forms would be discovered prior to this in the Stone Age, but only simple, direct uses would  be practiced by the various tribes. Much more common in the late Stone Age would be spiritual magic, as agriculture and animal husbandry would give rise to a power priest class (among others). Sustained prosperity (praise the gods!) would mean booming populations and much higher pressures to expand or protect power bases. This would push technological growth.

I would argue that these pressures would be come super-inflated, causing incredible wars and conflicts during the Middle Bronze Age. Clearly, more cultures attuned to worshipping the sources of spiritual power on scale with Egypt would have arisen and conflicted. Pharaohs and other priest-king-gods would arise and convert, sublimate or kill all who opposed them.

For the sake of simplicity, one could argue that all bonuses on a national scale equalled out in proportion with historical advantages and the same cultures dominated in much the same way. I would argue against this idea, but many of us do not have enough time to reinvent the wheel in this case. The balance of power between Egyptians, Hittites, Kassites and Hurrians might have been completely different. The Assyrian empire might have risen sooner, or the Egyptians might have dominated completely.

Certainly, the even earlier Sumerian empire could have survived and flourished and with strong magics might have expanded to the area of the later Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, or Persian Empire with Gilgamesh as their leader!
Fortunately, there are not that many major human cultures to look at and analyze, so it becomes a matter of what story you want to tell. For my part, I do not want to add too many other races to these old kingdoms, but it might be interesting to allow another race to assume the role of one of the old kingdoms.

Rather than expand old empires, you may wish to have evolutionary pressures from magic to cause all such cultures to be lessened or restrained. Other angles have played out in D&D, such as the rise of Necromancer kings and their legions of undead fighting for control of the old kingdoms. There is little doubt that many interesting ways can be invented to explain the past history of your world and how things came to be.

Back to Europe. Our European tribes left well before these Old Empires formed, though they will be influenced by any powerful cultures that enter their territory.

The Greeks and Romans are two big areas of development. Greek myths, which the Romans copied in so many ways, are very rich in content. The Greeks not only provide strong spiritual forces, they also start to define much of the material world. The Greek world and the Mediterranean are ideal for a Bronze Age campaign. As the Greeks and Romans have a direct role in the formation of Europe, their cultures will have to be quantified more carefully. The Germanic/Norse culture and the Celtic cultures also seem strong enough to hold their own in a fantasy setting, it just depends on which you want to emphasize.

All the European cultures have variations of similar creatures, such as fairies, elves, sprites, gnomes, goblins, etc. I leave it to you to develop whichever best fits your story. In my mind, Europe is largely unconquered by humans, and many forests (gone on modern maps) and mountain regions are controlled by other races. These races have variations themselves. As I mentioned earlier, there will be nine races of elf in my campaign world. Sprites will be much more varied.

Orc is largely Tolkien's name for a race of evil humanoids (akin to ogres of legend), but has been used so often, that one would think orcs were as solid as Dragons in ancient folklore. Not so much. Goblins enjoy a much longer history, and much more variation. Of course, you could name your evil humanoids 'n00bs' if you wanted to, but Tolkien showed exactly how rich a bit of research can make a fantasy writing effort. And his names all derive from his strong understanding of ancient languages and lore.

Also take into consideration the geography and ecology of your world. The entire area of eastern Europe was originally covered by virgin forests. Travel by people was limited to river routes until about the 14th century; roads and bridges appeared much later. Many places in Europe were 'remote' and sheltered. Living in or near a forest in a world or long, dark, cold winters would make anyone cautious. When those same forests are the homes of goblins or worse, no one is going to be overly adventurous.

So, I'm looking at cultures that hug waterways and fortify heavily. Hunting parties travel in large groups, and trade is slow to develop. Spirit worship is very strong and is a big part of survival. Cities have large temples, and every village has a shrine. Religious conflicts are common. Slavery is common. Theft is common. Suffering among the weak is common.