Ages of empires when elves are around?

Cor Azer said:

Were these ancient empires from 15,000 years back of a similar technological and magical level as the current ones?

One of the reasons I'm curious about this is that I want to develop a history for one of my games that makes mention to ages earlier, but with certain long-lived races that becomes hard to do, because ancient to an elf isn't the same as for a human. Also, consider how much real-life humans have developed over, say, 15,000 years - we're talking possibly barely having fire and stone tools there. Why would fantasy worlds ramian so static (technologically and magically, if not politically)?

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I blame the infinitesimal growth of science/technolgoy on the presence of magic. Compare magic to science/technology. Both enable you to do incredible things, but magic is largely the province of individuals. (A select few know spells. A select few hold magic items.) Science/technology, once it's perfected, can be shared with the masses. Magic is also quicker and better at achieving things, but it doesn't really scale. Compare the use of teleport to the development the railroad. The former is more efficient for an individual, but the latter is better for a society. Basically, the availability of magic undermines the need for scientific advances among those with the coins to pay for either, as magic is better. As a result, the masses never get the benefit that science/technology investment, trapping society at one technology level.

--Eric

In the campaign setting I'm (slowly) working on, I really only have one long lived race (the elves). I've got it set up where elves live about 100 years in each "phase" of life (childhood, adulthood, middle age, old age, venerable age). The absolute maximum an elf will live is 500 years with most going much closer to 400. Dwarves I haven't really thought about as much, but I'm leaning toward making them live around 200-250, but they continue to "harden" as they get older until one day they turn into statues. Each clan would have its own catacomb where it honors its fallen by preserving their statues for as long as possible, believing it to be a recepticle of the dead dwarf's spirit.

Longevity isn't really a problem in my setting because 1) the dwarves kept mostly to themselves until recent religious wars (within the past hundred years) drove them out of their deep holdfasts and into the larger world and 2) the elves actively suppress knowledge of the ancient empire that once spread across the mainland.

See, one of the major things I'm doing with this campaign setting is setting up conflict as a major reoccuring theme - Angels versus Lucavi, the Unitarian Church versus pagan faiths, alchemy (arcana magic) versus mysticism (divine magic), and so forth. So the elves had an "opposition" race that was as equally long-lived as they were. The elves lived on their island home while their "twin" race, the idra, lived on the mainland. The elves believed in working with the land and were slowly mastering the elemental magic of alchemy. The idra believed in conquering the land and were slowly mastering steam and hydro power to construct more advanced technology. The elves and the idra had tense though peaceful relations until the idra tired of sharing the civilized world. They lusted after the resources on the elven homeland and decided the only way they could claim it was to master alchemy as well. They experimented with mixing alchemy into their technology, but the experiments went horribly wrong. The result was magitech so infused with chaos that it destroyed the idra empire and (as far as the elves know) the idra themselves.

Down the line when nomadic human tribes ventured north and settled the region that the idra once dominated, the elves expanded their holdings aggresively into that region to prevent humanity from discovering any magitech that might have survived the destruction of the idra. Of course, over time the founders of the Unitarian Church used religion to brand alchemy a heresy and launch a war that cast the elves out of the mainland. The elves did their best to expunge all record of the idra, but after the war they basically said the heck with it, if humanity wants to destroy themselves, let them.

the world I am setting up is run exactly on your orginal premise.
long lasting human empires last 300-400 years (only rome has beaten this- possibly early eygypt) Short lived empires last 100 and single ruler empires 20-30 and a drak age or decline follows the end of an empire, freqeuntly lasting the same length as the empire lasted.

so in my world elves get a multipler of 5, dwarves x4, gnomes x3 halflings x1.5

-5000 BHR The Ancient Ones
-2000 First Dark Age, Dwarf/ Orc Wars (1200 yrs from dwarf multiplier)
a bronze age culture, dwarves and orcs created then revolted against their creators
creation similar to domestication of dogs, used as beasts of burdan.
-1000 to -500 BHR Golden age of elves
a short empire but remembered in legend elves were the first to use arcane magic and they ruled the world - well they had small scattered colonies where they opressed the primitive races. Eventually they were destroyed by internal conflict and abandoned the magic gates. they had little tech exept magic (no ships, no horses, poor farming, leather armor and crude bows.)

-500 to 1 BHR Second dark age
0 to 400 HR Age of Hero’s – Human Ascension
400 to 500 HR Third Dark age, the coming of the six (gods), Hairfoot immigration
This dark age is offically broken up by the age of magic, in truth 2 other generals conqured much of the continent before they died and chaos returned. The next true civilization is the tauresci empire
500 to 600 HR Age of Magic
(for humans had developed technology with very little magic, but were introdudced to true power by elves, the result was human mages taking over, then falling into chaos fighting each other. Liches may still remain from this time)
600 to 750 HR Mage wars
682 HR King of Arvodel crowned (elven city state, still exists)
751 HR Modern Era. Tauresci Empire founded
858 HR Stouts immigration
867 HR New Fostern founded – Duarchs (religion) begins spreading
968 HR Current Day
the tauresci empire is in decline and several provinces have broken away, and and idelogical war with the Duarchs is brewing - It will come to a head in the battle of the ravens, the opening of the gates of hell and the founding of an undead kindom - there is a campaign to be run here.

Dates before the modern Era are approximate. Each age is named for the highpoint, none after the ancients actually controlled the entire continent. Visitors from other lands speak of the green Age lasting 1000 years (gnome/halfling), and the First and Second Ages of the Dragon Kings (human). Elves are still officially in a dark age - scattered around the world, and having learned most of their technology from humans.
Horses were domesticated on another continent and while they were imported in large numbers in 0 -400 HR, they are no heavy war horses as there are on the other continent.

Although I admit this was revised as I wrote it up for posting - with tech notes added.

ericlboyd said:

I blame the infinitesimal growth of science/technolgoy on the presence of magic. Compare magic to science/technology. Both enable you to do incredible things, but magic is largely the province of individuals. (A select few know spells. A select few hold magic items.) Science/technology, once it's perfected, can be shared with the masses. Magic is also quicker and better at achieving things, but it doesn't really scale. Compare the use of teleport to the development the railroad. The former is more efficient for an individual, but the latter is better for a society. Basically, the availability of magic undermines the need for scientific advances among those with the coins to pay for either, as magic is better. As a result, the masses never get the benefit that science/technology investment, trapping society at one technology level.

--Eric

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Huh... That's incredibly thought provoking. Very interesting, the fact that magic limits technology is basically a side effect rather than a deliberate counter. I must needs keep that in mind.

I've used the different lifespans in two different ways. In After the Overrunning, the elves, as near-fey, were charged by the faeries with keeping the other races in check. Then the faeries got pissed off and took over the whole place. Now it's a couple elven generations later, so many of the elves have personally talked with people who saw the time before the Overrunning. But the rest of the races are at least ten generations, and in some cases closer to a hundred, removed from the old world. [Keep in mind, this is using AD&D1 lifespans, so elves live 2000-3000 years, and even dwarves only live a couple hundred.] So for the humans and goblins and gnomes and orcs and so on, the time before the faeries is mythic time, while for the elves, it's recent history. Means that the "wise elves" can pretty much shape the past as they want, and are doing so to help foment rebellion. Also means that the elves are the most vehement supporters of the underground, because (1) they truly remember how it used to be, and (2) they feel like they lost the most when the faeries "betrayed" them.

Similarly, in my SpellJammer campaign, i took the concept, often mentioned in history, and especially history of science, research, that what it takes for a truly radical shift is for all the old proponents to die off. So while the orcs actually have more-or-less reformed in response to the Unhuman War of a couple hundred years ago (the most militant died in the war, plus they were soundly trounced, which combines to produce a general shift in cultural attitudes), the elves are still stuck on old attitudes, and can't recognize this cultural shift.

In my old homebrew, Back In The Day, i assumed more typical racial relations, so the only thing that came out of the long lifespans of elves, dragons, and kobolds [hey, they're reptiles, right? so, if they miraculously avoid traumatic death, they can live a *long* time.] was longer-lived ancient empires in the campaign's background history. Think of it like this: we've had several century+ empires in the real world (British, Holy Roman, Austro-Hungarian, USian, Malian, to start with), where generation time is (or, at least, was) well under 20 years, and lifespans were on the order of 50-60yrs. And then there's the Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Dynastic Egypt, Dynastic China, Mayans, Incas, and ancient empires in India and Africa whose names i'm blanking on at the moment. Several of these lasted 500+ years. So that's something like 10+ lifespans, or 25+ generations. Apply to elven lifespans, and you get an empire that's stable for at least several thousand years. Apply it to dragons, and you might have a stable government that lasted hundreds of thousands of years.

For my campaign, i addressed the issue of progress in two ways. First, some of the governing forces would've worked actively against technological development, because it brings power to the people. Second, in a world with ubiquitous magic, there's less incentive to develop technological solutions to problems. Just as, in our own world, there's not much impetus for hydrogen-powered cars, and if they do get developed they're going to initially be seen as vastly inferior to gas-powered cars, because of the established infrastructure for gas-powered cars (gas stations, service stations, etc.). If there isn't a problem, putting up with the initial poor solutions [that primitive technology provide] isn't worth it. And, of course, add the occasional mythic-level upheaval to set progress back hundreds or thousands of years (this is fantasy, after all), and a little bit of hand-waving, and there wasn't nearly as much progress in my fantasy world as in the real world over similar timespans. [On the other hand, animal life is a product of "progress"--an invention, really--of one of teh oldest civilization, back when there were only plants. Magic-use and the elemental planes are also inventions in that setting.] Though i did use evolution to some degree: some races were divinely created, but others were natural evolutions from those. Frex, humans are the result of elf-dwarf crossbreeding in the distant past.

Consider also that while some elves may have lots of first or second-hand knowledge of ancient empires, these may be the more venerable & conservative elders of elven society who now spend their days among their own people with little or no contact with other races. The elves that humans & other races encounter are usually the young, spending their fool-hardy first few centuries of youth traipsing around the world exploring; though they may have heard tales of the older empires, they didn't necessarily pay much attention to them & may be more focused (for an elf) on the present anyway.

What is ancient and what is not differs depending on the race you are talking to... think of it like B.C. and A.D.

For humans the "Rising of the Waters", which happened when the High Elf spells controlling the worlds climate broke down, represents the change from old-ancient. ~2800 years ago

For Elves the beginning of Empress Serenity's reign, and the creation of those climate controlling spells, marks the change. ~4000 years ago

For Dwarves it is the crowning of the first High King, marking the end of the Wandering Time. ~4500 years ago

As for technology/magic...

Magic, a true understanding of magic, is far beyond even the most powerful mortals. Magic users IMC are little more then technicians, they can run the spells and even make some modifications but true innovation is beyond them (which is why things went so horribly wrong when the High Elves tried to manipulate the worlds climate). More importantly there are very few who actually TRY to be innovative with regards to magic, magic research is digging up old scrolls or finding old ruins, not creating new spells.

technology is a bit different, and largely depends on the race involved.

Humans are technological innovators, before the "Rising of the Waters" human technology was roughly equivalent to early Middle Ages. Following the destruction humanity again fell back to Bronze Age level tech. After humans recovered technology reached to the high Middle Ages before the fall of the Western Empire drove everyone back to the Iron Age. Every time a cataclysm comes along that drives mankind back a bit, but never below the previous cataclysm so humanity is steadily improving over time. This is largely due to humanities limited knowledge of magic, as they cannot rely on spells the way other races can.

Dwarves are a highly conservative race; they make gradual improvements rather then sudden jumps. As such they had black powder weapons for over a thousand years before putting them into practical use. Dwarves progress in a linear manner, and though moving slowly they are advancing.

Elven technology is relatively advanced but static in nature. They prefer to work on refining what they know rather then moving into new areas. They are very advanced in mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry but are actually trailing in applied mechanics, engineering, and physics. They make up for these gaps through the use of magic, and as such have little interest in researching these fields.

It will be interesting when humanity really starts pulling ahead of the older races, which will happen in a few generations.

During my age of empire, elves were wandering gypsies that kept no records. They also only live to be 150, so no worries.

War. Have the Elves get overrun by Orcs a few thousand years ago and their great libraries and records were all destroyed. All they have are fragments and oral traditions of the earlier times passed down from the few survivors. Think about how modern historians constantly bemoan the loss of the Library at Alexandria.