Greetings!

In one of my campaigns set within the World of Thandor, I decided that the new campaign should be something a bit different in flavour. The group was also eager to explore something different than what they were used to, so everything was set.

I let the group start in a region of the world far to the east of where they had been with previous campaigns. The region they started the new campaign in is an area that is primarily Eastern European in flavour, mixed with ancient influences from the historical Norse, Germanic tribes, Baltic tribes, Finns, and the Slavic tribes. In addition, of course, I also use influences from the steppe peoples and cultures of Central Asia.

The technology level is mostly a blended spectrum of stone age, bronze age, and iron age; with some from later Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.

The religions are predominantly Pagan religions, though there are also some monotheistic religions making progress in the campaign milieu. I have found that having a monotheistic religion--or several--work very well alongside polytheistic Pagan religions.

The local cultures, the many different barbarian tribes and kingdoms, all create a very interesting environment. The primary civilized culture, while being somewhat advanced socially and technologically, and more unified, is still a kingdom that embraces a culture that is rough, harsh, and brutal. The culture can be very demanding. People are superstitious, devout, and spiritual. There are Faerie creatures everywhere, throughout the society. Not just in the wilderness, but also in the towns and cities, and in people's family homes, and other places, like the public bathhouse that every village and town typically has. In many areas, the barbarian tribes use a barter system of economy, or a mixed economy, so coins are not always offered or accepted. The people have expectations of honour and duties and obligations, and a very different frame of reference regarding class, status, authority and obedience.

As the campaign has developed, and I have jumped into additional research, the contrasts have been stark, when compared to the traditional Western European Disney Campaigns that have been so influential and dominant through the years. Even when such campaigns have embraced a rougher, more historical based milieu, the contrasts between many of those kinds of campaign dynamics, and various historical dynamics from an Eastern European or Central Asian flavour have been absolutely enormous. I have also included various elements of late iron ages Scandinavia, Finnish, Baltic and far Northern European and North-Asian elements. The religions are all very different from Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance, or Greyhawk. The whole culture and way of life is simple, harsh, and desperate. The geography is often times lethal, and a huge problem and obstacle everywhere for travel, trade, and communication. The climate is part of that lethality dynamic. Freezing cold winters, blazing, muggy hot summers, frequent rain. Lots of ice and snow, and dense, huge forests. Immense rivers everywhere. Vast, deep bogs and marshes. Huge, endless steppes. The distances can get crazy too. Brigands are a serious danger, nearly everywhere.

In culture and society, slavery is popular, and hatred and raiding and war is also everywhere. No one cares if your whole family, or your whole tribe has been exterminated. Or everyone has been killed, and the women have all been sold off into slavery. These things happen all the time. Everyone struggles for survival and dominance. There are enemies in every direction. This whole environment is terribly shocking in contrast to say, a Seattle 2019 culture. On several occasions, some payers have been gobsmacked by the brutal realities of living in a dark and savage age.

It has been enjoyable, and a fascinating and unexpected journey, not merely as the campaign has developed, but also learning about the real-world history and inspirations that have contributed to building the campaign.

Have some of your campaigns surprised you in various ways? How have your players responded to campaign dynamics that are very different from standard D&D?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

[video=youtube;b2lrFSQncUw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2lrFSQncUw[/youtube]

I found from writing the Wild North for Fight On #3 that writing a fantasy Russia involves several things.

Geography
Russia is vast compared to other regions of Europe. Also unique as a region of Europe is the three broad climate zones, the Taiga, the Mixed Forest Zone, and the Steppes. Russia also has several naviatable rivers. Which isn't unique but plays an important role in that they invariably run south towards the steppe region and the Black or Caspian Sea. Not north or west towards the Baltic or White Sea.

The People
Historical Russia was an almagation of three people, the eastern Slavs, the Finno-Ugric tribes, and Rus Vikings. The Finns are the original inhabitant when all this gets first recorded, the Slavs push in from the west, then Rus get involved and become the ruling class. Although the focus of the Rus was more on using the forementioned rivers as highways to the Black Sea and raiding. Just some of them stopped, conquered and settled. From this the first Russian state arose centered around Kiev.

Equally important is the use of the Steppe as an invasion route. Now written history for the region only emerges after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So we don't have a good record of how the Magyars, Alans, Scythians, Goths, etc interacted with the inhabitants of the northern Russia.

But subsequent Russian history was profoundly shaped by the arrival of the Mongols the last and perhaps greatest of the steppe invaders..

The Culture
Because fertile lands did not make up a large proportion of the Taiga or Mixed Forest Zones, Russian settlement were often further apart from their Western European counterparts. Of all the regions of medieval Europe, medieval Russia before the Mongols was perhaps the closest to the traditional depiction of a D&D realms.

The forest often ran up to the edge of their cities. The cities were supplied by holding and estates clustered scattered up and down the rivers.

The Taiga was largely infertile thus lightly settled as a result. Nearly a world girdling forest of evergreen darkness and bogs.

Then there are the specifics of Russian myths and legends. I recommend GURPS Russia as an outstanding starting point. It still available in print from Amazon.

However as far as brutality of existence, Russia is no less or more remarkable then other regions of the world in various time periods. However Russia (and Eastern Europe) was behind Western European by a century or two. So issues and situations that were long resolved in western European were still being played out the further east you went. Then came the Mongol conquest which pushed Russia off into a divergent path of development.

Wrapping it up
For the Wild North (both the Fight On version and the upcoming Blackmarsh version) I simplified the cultures; the Sorobes or Elk Hunters are the original inhabitants, the Vasan Vikings swept in following the rivers into the heart of the Wild North. Within a couple of generation the two groups merged and formed the Rurasin.

The three geographic zones are present but instead of having an outside group emerge from the steppe, I have an alternative Rurasin culture called the Sons of Vadim living in the Steppe.

Early Rurasin culture was shaped by the fact the founding king, named Rurasin, had two sons. The eldest Vladimir became the next king but had no sons on daughters, the younger Vadim, had many sons but they were all denied the succession.

Much of the history of the Wild North is shaped by the conflict between "Sons" of Vladimir, and the Sons of Vadim.

For the rest, I used GURPS Russia bibliography as a guide and read up on Russian and Slavic mythology. One thing to keep in mind that documented Russian history only begins in the 8th and 9th century. There some material from the 7th century on Slavic mythology but it is thin. The Baltic tribes and the Finns are also their own thing.

The most details are from more recent material starting in the 15th century onwards. But they reflect heavily the Orthodox Christianity of Russia. Which something to keep aware of.

Finally the key to making it feel different is focus on how people are different. What they do to live out their lives even in a fantasy setting. So if you going for a slavic or russia feel the elements one picks needs reflect that even though they are not a carbon copy of history.

Several years ago I got Mythic Russia which is pretty awesome even if I'm not a fan of Heroquest. It makes for a somewhat familiar but still very different from Western Europe setting.

The past 2 years I've visited Denmark, Sweden and Norway, all of which still preserve a lot of their Viking and early Christian history. You can still see the viking influences in the design of the modern fising boats and much of the architecture. You don't just walk in with your new religion and slap it down on vikings, so the change came later and was more incremental than in much of Europe.

Since those visits I've thought a game loosely set around Northern Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltics in the period from 1000-1200 would be a lot of fun. The church has become established with many Scandinavian kingdoms proclaiming the region christian, but the vikings are still present, some at least nominally adopting Christianity and others still following the older pagan beliefs. Then you have the Holy Roman Empire south, and the largely pagan Baltics and Russia to the east.

Greetings!

Here are some notes on a few resources that I have enjoyed and been inspired by.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Bibliography

Russian, Slavic and Baltic Resources (30 Books)

Russian Fairy Tales
(The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library); 1976; Aleksandr Afanas'ev

Russian Fairy Tales
(The Planet); 2012; Aleksandr Afanas'ev

Russian Folk Belief
Ivanits, Linda J.

Myths and Folk-tales of the Russians, Western Slavs, and Magyars
Curtin, Jeremiah

Creatures of Slavic Myth (The Slavic Way) (Volume 4)
Kushnir, Dmitriy

Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend
Dixon-Kennedy, Mike

Slavic Folklore: A Handbook (Greenwood Folklore Handbooks)
Kononenko, Natalie

New Researches on the Religion and Mythology of the Pagan Slavs
Lajove, Patrice

Medieval Russia, 980-1584, Second Edition (Cambridge Medieval Textbooks)
Martin, Janet

A History of Russia to 1855-Volume 1
Riasanovsky, Nicholas

The Crisis of Medieval Russia 1200-1304 (Longman History of Russia)
Fennel, John

Medieval Russia-A Sourcebook, 900-1700
Dmytryshyn, Basil

The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471
Forbes, Nevill

The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text
Cross, Samuel Hazzard

The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (Vintage)
James H. Billington

Reinterpreting Russian History: Readings 860-1860s
Kaiser, Daniel H.

Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales
Zenkovsky, Serge A.

The "Domostroi": Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible
Pouncy, Carolyn Johnston

The Time of Troubles: A Historical Study of the Internal Crisis and Social Struggle in Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-Century Muscovy
S.F. Platonov

Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History
Halperin, Charles

Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture (Midland Book)
Hubbs, Joanna

World of the Ancient Slavs
Vana, Zdenek

The Emergence of Rus 750-1200; 750-1200
Franklin, Simon

Formation of Muscovy 1304-1613, The (Longman History of Russia)
Crummey, Robert O.

Russia in World History (New Oxford World History)
Engel, Barbara Alpern

Medieval Russia: The History and Legacy of the Groups that Developed the Russian State in the Middle Ages
Charles River Editors

Ivan the Terrible: A Captivating Guide to the First Tsar of Russia and His Imact on Russian History
History, Captivating

Russian History: A Captivating Guide to the History of Russia, Including Events Such as the Mongol Invasion, the Napoleonic Invasion, Reforms of Peter the Great, the Fall of the Soviet Union, and More
History, Captivating

The Northern Crusades: Second Edition
Christiansen, Eric

A History of the Baltic States (Palgrave Essential Histories series)
Kasekamp, A.

Germanic, Medieval and Norse Resources (17 Books)

The Sagas of Icelanders: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Robert Kellogg

Njal's Saga (Penguin Classics)
Anonymous

The Vinland Sagas (Penguin Classics)
Keneva Kunz

Egil's Saga (Penguin Classics)
Anonymous

The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology (Penguin Classics)
Sturluson, Snorri

Encyclopedia of Norse and Germanic Folklore, Mythology and Magic
Lecouteux, Claude

A History of the Franks (Penguin Classics)
Gregory of Tours

The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians
Bury, J.B.

Germania: Newly Revised Edition on The Origin and Situation of the Germanic People
Tacitus

The Gothic History of Jordanes in English Version;
Jordanes, 6th cent

The Story of the Goths, from the Earliest Times to the End of the Gothic Dominion in Spain
Bradley, Henry

Barbarian Rites: The Spiritual World of the Vikings and the Germanic Tribes
Hasenfratz, Ph.D., Hans-Peter

The Early Germans
Todd, Malcolm

The Middle Ages: Everyday Life in Medieval Europe
Singman, Jeffrey L.

Viking Age: Everyday Life During the Extraordinary Era of the Norsemen
Wolf, Kirsten

The Dark Ages 476-918 A.D.
Oman, Charles

Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North (Penguin Classics)
Ibn Fadlan

General History Resources and Gaming Books (3 Books)

Military History Book (Dk General History)
Dorling Kindersley

Weapon: A Visual History of Arms and Armor
Ford, Roger

GURPS Russia
Ross, S. John

The Steppes, Central Asia and Far Asia (7 Books)

Central Asia in World History (New Oxford World History)
Golden, Peter B.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
Jack Weatherford

Genghis Khan: The Man Who Conquered the World
Mclynn, Frank

Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy
Mclynn, Frank

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire
Weatherford, Jack

Warriors Of The Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 BC To 1700 AD
Hildinger, Erik

The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia
Grousset, Rene

Quote from: estar;1116281I found from writing the Wild North for Fight On #3 that writing a fantasy Russia involves several things.

Geography
Russia is vast compared to other regions of Europe. Also unique as a region of Europe is the three broad climate zones, the Taiga, the Mixed Forest Zone, and the Steppes. Russia also has several naviatable rivers. Which isn't unique but plays an important role in that they invariably run south towards the steppe region and the Black or Caspian Sea. Not north or west towards the Baltic or White Sea.

The People
Historical Russia was an almagation of three people, the eastern Slavs, the Finno-Ugric tribes, and Rus Vikings. The Finns are the original inhabitant when all this gets first recorded, the Slavs push in from the west, then Rus get involved and become the ruling class. Although the focus of the Rus was more on using the forementioned rivers as highways to the Black Sea and raiding. Just some of them stopped, conquered and settled. From this the first Russian state arose centered around Kiev.

Equally important is the use of the Steppe as an invasion route. Now written history for the region only emerges after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. So we don't have a good record of how the Magyars, Alans, Scythians, Goths, etc interacted with the inhabitants of the northern Russia.

But subsequent Russian history was profoundly shaped by the arrival of the Mongols the last and perhaps greatest of the steppe invaders..

The Culture
Because fertile lands did not make up a large proportion of the Taiga or Mixed Forest Zones, Russian settlement were often further apart from their Western European counterparts. Of all the regions of medieval Europe, medieval Russia before the Mongols was perhaps the closest to the traditional depiction of a D&D realms.

The forest often ran up to the edge of their cities. The cities were supplied by holding and estates clustered scattered up and down the rivers.

The Taiga was largely infertile thus lightly settled as a result. Nearly a world girdling forest of evergreen darkness and bogs.

Then there are the specifics of Russian myths and legends. I recommend GURPS Russia as an outstanding starting point. It still available in print from Amazon.

However as far as brutality of existence, Russia is no less or more remarkable then other regions of the world in various time periods. However Russia (and Eastern Europe) was behind Western European by a century or two. So issues and situations that were long resolved in western European were still being played out the further east you went. Then came the Mongol conquest which pushed Russia off into a divergent path of development.

Wrapping it up
For the Wild North (both the Fight On version and the upcoming Blackmarsh version) I simplified the cultures; the Sorobes or Elk Hunters are the original inhabitants, the Vasan Vikings swept in following the rivers into the heart of the Wild North. Within a couple of generation the two groups merged and formed the Rurasin.

The three geographic zones are present but instead of having an outside group emerge from the steppe, I have an alternative Rurasin culture called the Sons of Vadim living in the Steppe.

Early Rurasin culture was shaped by the fact the founding king, named Rurasin, had two sons. The eldest Vladimir became the next king but had no sons on daughters, the younger Vadim, had many sons but they were all denied the succession.

Much of the history of the Wild North is shaped by the conflict between "Sons" of Vladimir, and the Sons of Vadim.

For the rest, I used GURPS Russia bibliography as a guide and read up on Russian and Slavic mythology. One thing to keep in mind that documented Russian history only begins in the 8th and 9th century. There some material from the 7th century on Slavic mythology but it is thin. The Baltic tribes and the Finns are also their own thing.

The most details are from more recent material starting in the 15th century onwards. But they reflect heavily the Orthodox Christianity of Russia. Which something to keep aware of.

Finally the key to making it feel different is focus on how people are different. What they do to live out their lives even in a fantasy setting. So if you going for a slavic or russia feel the elements one picks needs reflect that even though they are not a carbon copy of history.

Greetings!

Excellent commentary, my friend! I agree entirely. I think so much of Eastern Europe, and even much of Northern European history and mythology has been largely overlooked by many gamers, authors, and publishers.

There is so much to jump into and to be inspired by, you know?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1116350Greetings!

Here are some notes on a few resources that I have enjoyed and been inspired by.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Bibliography

snip

The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire
Weatherford, Jack

Shark, that is quite a list. I really want to read this one though, it sounds like a great world building resource.

Quote from: ElBorak;1116420Shark, that is quite a list. I really want to read this one though, it sounds like a great world building resource.

Greetings!

Yes, ElBorak, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens is an excellent book! The author, Jack Weatherford, is a long-time scholar of Mongolian History and culture, and has researched a wide variety of often overlooked historical sources, often isolated manuscripts from not only Mongolian sources, but also Persian, Muslim, and Chinese scholarship at the time, as well as commentaries by diplomats and so on. In addition, naturally, to analysis of the Secret History of the Mongols, the main primary source. The picture that emerges is well-reasoned, and illuminating on how the Mongol Queens ruled, governed, schemed, and also fought. There was a lot going on there back then for sure. With my own knowledge of ancient Chinese history, in seeing how quite involved various Chinese Queens, Empresses, Empress-Dowagers, Regents, and concubines were throughout Chinese history, it doesn't surprise me that the Mongol queens were also heavily involved in the politics of the Mongol Empire. It's a fascinating book, that will drive you to read it quickly! I was glued to it for two days solid before finishing the book. It's very interesting!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK