TheCosmicKid
Hero
Because I'm not out to get you, I'll leave it to [MENTION=58172]Yaarel[/MENTION] to point out the difference between a skeld and a knarr.
American Indians Colonize the Old world in 1250 BC
Self-ascriptions aren't always accurate, however, from the point of view of historical or social analysis.
They were the Rum/Rumi to the end, as far as the Turks and Arabs were concerned.
TheCosmicKid
Hero
If you want to say they're not, though, the continuity of the Roman Empire in the East presents a bit of a challenge for determining when they stopped.
Zardnaar
Legend
It was the last remnant of the political continuation of the Roman Empire. Byzantine was a label they called themselves Romans and in the late empire non Romans were full citizens.
You could even argue the last remnants lasted to 1460 or 61 with the Morea and Trebizond lasting until then.
The term Byzantine was invented after the empire fell, the Islamic nations referred to them as Rum (Rome), the west did not due to a variety of reasons but when Byzantium was strong the west would not even use the term Emperor for centuries after the fall of Rome as it was exclusive to the Byzantine Emperor. The HRE being founded was not that popular to the Byzantines when it was done but they could not do much about it.
Once the Byzantines got weaker they called them the Empire/Kingdom of the Greeks. You did not have to be Latin to be Roman though much like you can be an American with whatever ethnic back ground now. Greek also did not displace latin to the 6th century either, and they did not reform the Empire until after the Islamic conquests so the Empire dying in the 5th,6th, 7th or 15th centuries are all viable arguments.
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Zardnaar
Legend
To the OP the overall idea is interesting I think and it has kind of been covered in the game Crusader Kings II when one of the fantasy scenarios is Sunset Invasion. The Aztecs invade medieval Europe circa 1300 AD.
If you want to do some time shifting 2E also covered this- the Age of heroes Book (ancient Greece), Combat and Tactics (what equipment was available and when) and the barbarians handbook.
Alot of 5E equipment won't be avaible though IDK if you are thinking of using D&D, writing your own system or using another RPG to do it.
However I don't think you need to turn the native Americans into pseaudo Europeans and give them european tech to enable it.
The missing ingredient is magic and the fanatasy world. Rather than horses perhaps they have dinosaurs. Broadly speaking you could pick a culture and run with it- the native north americans, the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca fantasy equivlents would all be useful.
The 2E Barbarians handbook also had magical paint that can duplicate the AC of plate armour although you really only need AC 15/16 or so.
You could also have animal spirit cavalry- panther spirits or something that are impervious to non magical weapons under the control of Shamans (Druids?). Horse ancestors also originated in the AMericas and went to Europe via Siberia and dies out in the Americas. Magic can bring them or their spirits back. Things like dire anmials, dinosaurs etc can also matter.
You also on't need to give them Carracks, Cogs and Galleons but perhaps they developed ships like the Polynesian deep sea craft which could be used or they use a magical portal, or even turn an army into a magical cloud to float across the ocean (one way). If they don't have reliable supply line that is something clever PCs could use to fight them- shut down the portal (like Magician) or deny the supplies if it was a one way trip and they are reliant on captured land to eat. Maybe they are fleeing something even worse. They could also have magical bio tech or a magical plague they are immune to.
Druid type magic could also be used instead of outright magic tech. Rather than a cannon or a magical device that spits fireballs and/or lightning bolts they have a lot of shamans that can use call lightning or something similar, the effect is the same. Or they have crap AC and weapons but some sort of blessing or paint that makes them impervious to normal weapons.
If you give the Americans an extra 2250 years its roughly 1000 AD which is roughly where the Maya and Toltecs are. 1250BC is roughly Ramses Egypt, 100 years before Troy, and western Europe is not even Celtic yet, no chain mail for another few hundred years spears and slings are a your missile weapons unless you are near modern Iraq, steppe lands and Egypt. Western Europe would be tribal.
If you want to do some time shifting 2E also covered this- the Age of heroes Book (ancient Greece), Combat and Tactics (what equipment was available and when) and the barbarians handbook.
Alot of 5E equipment won't be avaible though IDK if you are thinking of using D&D, writing your own system or using another RPG to do it.
However I don't think you need to turn the native Americans into pseaudo Europeans and give them european tech to enable it.
The missing ingredient is magic and the fanatasy world. Rather than horses perhaps they have dinosaurs. Broadly speaking you could pick a culture and run with it- the native north americans, the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca fantasy equivlents would all be useful.
The 2E Barbarians handbook also had magical paint that can duplicate the AC of plate armour although you really only need AC 15/16 or so.
You could also have animal spirit cavalry- panther spirits or something that are impervious to non magical weapons under the control of Shamans (Druids?). Horse ancestors also originated in the AMericas and went to Europe via Siberia and dies out in the Americas. Magic can bring them or their spirits back. Things like dire anmials, dinosaurs etc can also matter.
You also on't need to give them Carracks, Cogs and Galleons but perhaps they developed ships like the Polynesian deep sea craft which could be used or they use a magical portal, or even turn an army into a magical cloud to float across the ocean (one way). If they don't have reliable supply line that is something clever PCs could use to fight them- shut down the portal (like Magician) or deny the supplies if it was a one way trip and they are reliant on captured land to eat. Maybe they are fleeing something even worse. They could also have magical bio tech or a magical plague they are immune to.
Druid type magic could also be used instead of outright magic tech. Rather than a cannon or a magical device that spits fireballs and/or lightning bolts they have a lot of shamans that can use call lightning or something similar, the effect is the same. Or they have crap AC and weapons but some sort of blessing or paint that makes them impervious to normal weapons.
If you give the Americans an extra 2250 years its roughly 1000 AD which is roughly where the Maya and Toltecs are. 1250BC is roughly Ramses Egypt, 100 years before Troy, and western Europe is not even Celtic yet, no chain mail for another few hundred years spears and slings are a your missile weapons unless you are near modern Iraq, steppe lands and Egypt. Western Europe would be tribal.
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ART!
Deluxe Unhuman
Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of my favorite non-fiction books, and I was this close to mentioning it in my own post!
With the added resources you mention and a larger-scale migration from Asia, you could get a much more competitive early history in the Americas, spurring the development of technology, social/political organization, etc. The more competition, the faster these developments will happen.
What spurred the larger migration from Asia? In a world with magic, this could be just about anything. You could also have the Pacific islands populated earlier (maybe driven from the mainland(s) by the same whatever that drove Asians into the Americas by more northerly routes) and have Pacific natives exploring and colonizing the western coasts of the Americas. This would contribute to the competition.
Thomas Bowman
First Post
The reason I give them an extra 2250 years is because the Americas of 1450 AD get sent back in time to 3500 BC, perhaps you missed that part of the explanation. The Indians continue as if nothing happened besides some strange lights in the sky, except that in 42 more years the Europeans don't discover them and their history continues without interference for another 2250 years and that brings them to 1250 BC, that is what I am talking about and why they get that extra time.
In fairness the 1450 AD timeline gets the Americas from 3500 BC in exchange, that creates a different timeline up time. Columbus discovers more primitive Indians not much of a change in that timeline except that the Spaniards have an easier time of it. But were talking about the other timeline.
If you want to add magic, then I guess that could be done. The question is who has the magic, would it be the Old World or the New? Since we are already giving the Indians a technological advantage, maybe the old World should get the magic. The Old World is also populated by various classical monsters such as the Cyclopes, Pegasi, Medusae, and things you might see from Clash of the Titans. Egypt has the Sphinx and the Phoenix. The Indians being or a more scientific mind are a bit blind sighted by all this, as they don't believe in such monsters or in magic, or at least the more educated of them don't. Lots of Indian fairy tales told among peasants however. Whether the Gods exist, I don't know.
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MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
that is a different scenario. The Vikings of 1000 AD had bows and arrows just like the Indians did. Viking ships were not the best at transporting cattle or horses, so I suspect the Vikings in the New World didn't have them, and the fact that the Indians didn't have horses when Columbus discovered them indicates that the Vikings didn't bring many horses over to the New World if any, they didn't spread and become wild as when the Spaniards arrived.
Here is a reconstructed Viking ship, you see any place where they might put horses? Without those horses, the Vikings lose a major advantage they could have had over the Indians, but they didn't have horses, so they were on foot and so were the Indians, and in the end, the Vikings decided that it wasn't worth sticking around and so they left.
It would likely have looked more like this:
They certainly did transport livestock in their knarrs (Norse merchant/cargo ship), longships, and karves (smaller longship with wider hull). The excellent Hurstwic site has a good page on the Settlement of Iceland in the Viking Age and another on Viking Ships.
Also both the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Eric the Red record that the Icelanders brought livestock on at least some of their expeditions. Interestingly in the Saga of Eric the red, they record the native traders being startled by the appearance of the Greenlander's bull which causes them to stay away for several weeks.
Also, they would tow large cargos. In the Saga of the Greenlanders, for example, they write about returning from "Vinland" (Newfoundland) with a boatload of timber, towing a boatload of grapes (which is how the North East got its Old Norse name).
What is interesting to me is that while there were hostilities between the natives and the Norse, the Norse seemed to be able to hold their own, even with their smaller numbers (though, of course, this is based on the Norse accounts). It seems that the failure of these expeditions was due largely to infighting among Icelandic Norsemen themselves. If they were more unified and organized more expeditions and established better-fortified, larger settlements, who knows what that continued trade and combination of cultures would have led to.
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Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
This is the first time I've seen that part of the explanation.
Please review your description of the concept to date, and compare it to your full vision. Is there anything else we should know about, but don't?
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