POLL: Biblical-era Middle-East setting

[DM_Matt]

Note that covering all three religions will have some big tme perios problems.

Torah: ~4000BC-100
New Testament: ~0-100
Koran: ~500

You almost cant even do two. You either do the time of jesus, the time of moho, or one of the various Torah times, but the torah times near jesus were not that interesting for these purposes, and would basicly amount to a jesus campaign. (Good ones would be just after or just before noah, forefathers time (lots of wars, intregue), exodus time, or the reign of the kings Saul, David, and Solomon, esp the late Saul, early David times when they had those long wars with the Philistines (who most scholors now believe to be the Myceneans) that has lots of heroes like Samson (many who believe in the Mycenean/Philistine theory think that he was one of, if not the primary, inspirations for the myths of Hercules/Heracles) and Gideon)

 

[Lady Dragon]

Covering the time periods would be cool however including actual religious material is just asking for trouble especially new testament stuff.

But a roman/ancient middle east book would be nice

 

[Melan]

"God is dead." - Nietzsche
"Yeah, we killed him. Very tough, lots of hit points. He turned Bob to a pillar of salt and shot laser beams from his eyes which fried Tim's Bladesinger. But the XP and the magical items were worth it! Multiple rings of wishes! A huge merald! Angelic henchmen!" - Anonymous Munchkin, now a small pile of ash.

Sorry, had to be said.

 

[smetzger]

Yes, I would be very interested. I was going to post a poll for just this sort of thing.

I am interested in:

Old Testament Holy Land campaign.
Crusades Holy Land Campaign.
Medieval Europe setting w/ Christianity
Fantasy End Times Biblical Campaign - Set during the events of Revelation

However, I would still like to be able to use the full gammut of monsters in the MM and I don't want spellcasters drastically changed.

 

[ax0n]

Biblical Cosmology

I was planning to write a biblical cosmology for the Netbook of Planes, including everything from authentic angels and demons, to special alignments rules for sin. If anyone is interested on working on this, drop by the Netbook of Planes.

 

[Michael Tree]

It's an interesting idea, but it's definitely also playing with fire.

My advice would be to create a fictionalized setting based on the aspects of the biblical eras you like the most, not a setting set in the real world. Using a fictional setting makes it a lot easier for religious people to deal with (and thu less inflamatory), and also allows you to incorporate all sorts of anachronisms for the sake of coolness. The heyday of the Jewish prohpets was from around 900-400 BC, the christian era was the first century or two AD, and Islam wasn't created until the late 500s AD.

 

[Turlogh]

This is definitely playing with fire what with some portions of Christendom already having problems with us and the world of Islam and Judaism who do not like to be taken lightly this is a problimatic area at best.

That being said it would make a cool gaming world- parting seas, calling fire from heaven, Besting 900 (by yourself) men while defending a field of lentils, giants, leviatians, behemoths, etc., etc.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think, perhaps, the more-or-less fictionalized world would be the best way to go now.

Mostly, I want to use these books as inspirations. Parting seas, prophets, opressive empires, holy wars, etc.

The inspiration for this is actually a campaign I DMed a little while ago that went through the process of Revelations, and introduced a savior-figure who didn't want to punish the guilty, and ended up defying both the forces of God and Satan in the final hour, sacrificing herself to save. Filled with all sorts of ambiguity and neat little moral dillemas. I mean, Revelations isn't *pleasant* at all...and that's really part of the point. But here was someone more interested in peace and love than in burning the heathans. Originally chosen to be the savior of mankind, she was eventually cast as the Adversary Incarnate by the church.

Maybe the best idea is just to take the "flavor" of various texts of that era, and apply D&D to it.

What do people think of having Orcs in place of Rome, and Elves in place of Egypt? Or would it make more sense to have it human-based, and leave the likes of these to legends and fables? Should the idea of a "Chosen Race" be actually a seperate race? How "Fantastical" do we want this?

Of course, the more fantasy we put into it, the less volatile the subject will be. But part of the appeal, IMHO, is that volitility. The idea that one can be put to death for having a prophecey that isn't popular. The idea that established faiths may be corrupt.

I'd probably fantasize it enough so that Rome isn't called Rome, and the Holy Land isn't known as such, and not stay 100% true to the timeline, but how far should it go? Should I fantasize the religions (I'm leaning away from this, actually, other than perhaps altering the titles a bit)?

Of course, it will cover a large swath of time...but it seems that I could do an overview of the events of a particular age, and then go into detail with future products...

 

[Corinth]

I disagree. Use the real thing, and use as much as you can. Truth (as it were; we're talking about mythology here) is stranger than fiction, and you're going to get called on it anyway if you go with a psuedo-version of things. If you're going to get criticized, then you might as well be guilty.

 

[Moleculo]

Are there any campaigns based during the crusades? There was a dragon that had characters from such a campaign and it was really cool. Anyone have any info on such a thing? It was like Crusades meets old fairy tales.

jake