Arimathean
Villager
Jackals describes itself as a "game of Bronze Age sword and sorcery." I might describe it as a mashup of Conan and the OT book of Judges.
Bronze Age Fantasy
MGibster
Legend
A bronze age fantasy game sounds like fun. What themes would you want in such a game though? The only fiction I've ever read from the era was the Epic of Gilgamesh in high school and again in one of my university literature classes and I'd probably use that as my basis for what kind of adventures to run. Things like tyrants and kings, domesticity civilizing wild men, confronting your mortality, etc., etc. I wouldn't want it to just be another game about kicking down doors, killing bad guys, and taking their treasure. We can have some of that though.
Yora
Legend
I think the main thing that makes the Bronze Age interesting as a different reference point for fantasy game worlds is the social structure.
Yes, you have "kingdoms", but these are neither feudal nor absolutist. You have palace economies (which are fairly collectivist) and the role of king is both that of a ruler and that of an intermediary between the people and the gods.
Civilizations also control fairly small areas compared to the scale of the surrounding wilderness, though that depends on how far you're extending the edges of the map past the borders of the kingdoms. They are also based around rivers, with the capital typically being at the middle point of the river, instead of being close to the coast in later ages when international sea travel becomes more important than short communication distances to all towns in your kingdom.
And I feel that in Bronze Age Fantasy, it does seem more appropriate to have a more frequent presence of demons as part of how the world is, instead of being the catastrophic exception it tends to be in settings with a later cultural reference frame.
Yes, you have "kingdoms", but these are neither feudal nor absolutist. You have palace economies (which are fairly collectivist) and the role of king is both that of a ruler and that of an intermediary between the people and the gods.
Civilizations also control fairly small areas compared to the scale of the surrounding wilderness, though that depends on how far you're extending the edges of the map past the borders of the kingdoms. They are also based around rivers, with the capital typically being at the middle point of the river, instead of being close to the coast in later ages when international sea travel becomes more important than short communication distances to all towns in your kingdom.
And I feel that in Bronze Age Fantasy, it does seem more appropriate to have a more frequent presence of demons as part of how the world is, instead of being the catastrophic exception it tends to be in settings with a later cultural reference frame.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
raiding barbarian tribes, warring city-states with tyrant-kings, powerful priesthoods, eldricht scorcerers, manifest diety, and unfettered monsters.
the source material includes not only the Epic of Gilgamesh but also the Heroic Age of Greece (Fall of Troy, Jason and the Argonauts, Perseus v Medusa), the Vedas in India and Xia and Shang dynastys in China.
you can also look to Hesiods ‘Works and Days’ which list the 5 ages of Mankind
Golden Age - People lived with Cronus in peace and prosperity. Mankind was immortal with death being like sleep. the Golden Men are the Guardians of Mankind
Silver Age - People lived long lives, over 100 years, but were childlike and foolish. Zeus destroyed them for their impiety, but they were still called Blessed.
Bronze Age - People in this age were fearsome and warlike, with bronze weapons, armor and tools.
They destroyed each other and are the nameless masses of Hades
Heroic Age - The time of heroes who are just and noble, demigods but who still fell in war in Thebes and Troy
Iron Age - the current age of toil and hardship, Bad men use lies to be thought good, the social contract is forgotten and humans no longer feel shame or indignation at wrongdoing.
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Arimathean
Villager
Widespread literacy did not arise until well into the Iron Age. The handful of literate people in the Bronze Age were mostly priests and accountants. In this context, the distant past was mysterious, since it had left no written records. The ruins of older civilizations, inhabited by demons, highwaymen, or wild animals, become places for brave adventurers to explore. Thus, "dungeons" make more sense in a Bronze Age setting than in a Medieval setting.
Sepulchrave II
Legend
Dal Riata was founded around 500CE, some 1000 years after the Celtic Iron Age began, and flourished as a post-Roman, Christian kingdom in the 6th and 7th centuries. Post-Roman to the extent that Kintyre and Hibernia were never Roman in the first place.
gamerprinter
Mapper/Publisher
True it is the Iron Age, and not the British Bronze Age, which while was a thing, I'm not as attracted to the idea for story reasons than Iron Age Celts period...
Aldarc
Legend
I would deifnitely lean into the Chaoskampf motif of mythology for a Bronze Age game, with demons and monsters being representations of chaos, possibly even coming from the sea.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
The British Bronze Age covers the era when the Megalithic monuments like Stonehenge and Avebury were built, along with barrow mounds and various other megaliths. Its the rise of the celts in the form of Tuatha De, Formorions and Firbolg, heroes like Cuchulain, Nuada and Bran the Blessed, Druids, Giants and Old Magic. Its also notable for the Atlantic Bronze trade which linked Scotland and Cornwall with Armorica, Galicia and Portugal.
My first homebrew world, a group of PCs hailed from in the Lands of Nemed, the northern peninsula of the Island of Cruithne. Nemed was a rugged land where the Nemedians built stone walled villages to defend against the Formorians and newly arrived Tuatha De. They later followed the River Tay to explore the rest of Cruithne and across the giants causeway to trade with Flandra, Krajkrania and Iberos.
