distant/forgotten civilizations

[Hemlock Stones]

Atlantis, Babylon, Egypt And You

GREETINGS!

What an intriguing topic. I tend to watch a great deal about the mysterious cultures of the past. Lets look at it this way, if it weren't for a Rosetta Stone allowing us to read ancient Egyptian, we would know very little about ancient Egypt.

In this gaming world one or more of the PC's would need some historical impetus to be able to have an idea about the past cultures. I just watched the Mummy Returns last night. You could have one of the characters being the reincarnated spirit of somebody from the earlier culture.

Another thought is that when a culture fails, sometimes all that remains are enigmas. The Sphinx is a great deal older than first anticipated. As such Egyptologists are not too keen on changing their perspective on what they hold to be true. Skepticism of the existence of a past culture could make for some interesting plot angles. Dr. Zeus in Planet of The Apes was a fascinating character. Imagine a village elder NPC that knows more than he's letting on. Maybe even taking great lengths to side track the PC's.

Usually when a culture fails, Atlantis and Troy are good examples of this, the tales that remain are usually cautionary ones, about what not to do, lest the gods will punish you. From this perspective you can always use a plot angle that some NPC either knowingly or unknowingly is tampering with stuff that ruined a culture before. Were I the DM, I would make it a situation that required the PC's to really dig out the truth. In the event that they missed something, you could set the present culture on a road to severe ruin.

Orks and Elves Living Together...

Bone Daddy Hath Spoken!

 

[tarchon]

OK, so let's say you have a gameworld, and in the past, several distinct civilizations used to trade with and war against each other on a regular basis. Let's say that these groups were separated by great distance (like China and France) or by geographic features (oceans, deserts, mountain ranges), whatever. At any rate, trade/war between these cultures is possible, but involves spending a lot of time travelling. We're talking late classical/early dark ages technology here.

Now say something comes along and makes the travel impossible, or at least nearly so. Natural disasters, gods erect a barrier, dragons occupy the trade routes, doesn't matter for my purposes. My questions for you ancient culture mongers: How long, in your estimation, would it take for the distant cultures to fade into legend and/or be completely forgotten? Let's assume there are no printing presses, but there are scribes, libraries, and bards to maintain oral traditions. Are we talking centuries or what?

With Medieval technology and from regular contact, mm... basically never, though eventually the lost culture would come to be highly mythologized and knowledge of certain aspects like the language would be entirely lost.

 

[Henry]

I think Francisca's question is more along the lines of cultural rift, not cultural destruction or assimilation. Keep in mind also the "legendizing" would occur on BOTH sides, not just one. Each culture might be known for one or two major characteristics to the other culture, blown completely out of proportion by the retelling of tales.

I think your best marker would be to look at bardic tales over centuries both in Europe, the Mediteranean countries, and eastern Europe as well. Look at the differences between the Historical city of Troy, and Homer's version of it.

 

[Tonguez]

"My Great grandmother was struck by Lightning down by the river and died, the lightning is the 'guardian spirit' of our family and came to collect her"

Thats the oral story I was raised with since childhood, last year whilst reading through some early Newspapers I found the obituary that told the story at the time (about 1878) and yes she was struck by lightning whilst walking by the river with her daughter and son (and dog) - the story gave a few other details too.

So in a little over 100 years the story has been mythologised (the lightning is our family guardian spirit) and the actual site is underwater (because of the river changing its course) - a few more stories about our family guardain follow the event too

Going further back a lot of old village sites, burial sites and even battlegrounds are remembered as names but are not necessarily easy to locate the vague 'over there' usually covers it

I'd say going back 200 yrs should be suffice for a civilisation to be mythologised away and only a few more (500) to be forgotten

Of course fantasy worlds do have the problem of Elves, Dragons and Immortals who actually remember the place but I'm sure you can work on that

 

[elmuthalleth]

In a mostly-human culture , I think 150 years is right .

In a fantasy setting ,I'll go with 500-600 years : there are many long-living races ,and magic , the matter is different . Some old elf will remember fondly the days of seafaring ,

and , anyway , in mercantile guilds will remain some records / maps , etc.

 

[tarchon]

In a mostly-human culture , I think 150 years is right .

Only without writing, and even then I think Tonguez is more on the right track with 500 years for total oblivion. "Distant lands" have a very strong storytelling appeal, so they're very persistent in popular consciousness, even if factual information gets stripped away fairly rapidly. Francisca said that a written tradition was involved though, and those historically have persisted almost indefinitely. If anything, in the absence of any fresh facts, antiquated geographical information on distant locations tended to be recirculated as if it were the current state of affairs, as happened with the Prester John legends, which were viewed as current for hundreds of years after the very short-lived kingdom of Wang Khan had been wiped out, even while its supposed location got transferred from Central Asia to various parts of Africa. This is also why names used for China, like "Cathay," typically referred to ruling powers that had crumbled centuries earlier.

Adventurers going into such an area that had been cut off for 500 years would likely be carrying maps with names of cities that no one living would remember, with gifts and letters of greeting from their king to a monarch of dynasty whose conquerers had been conquered generations before, and notes on local customs that would seem strange and foreign to the people now living there. European travellers and explorers had to continually contend with this problem, as their best travel guides might be hundreds (if not thousands) of years old, and none too accurate to begin with.

 

[francisca]

Just wanted to chime in again and thank everyone for their input, even the prussian stuff.

 

[diaglo]

Just wanted to chime in again and thank everyone for their input, even the prussian stuff.

you're welcome.

i wanted to show a case in point study with the prussian stuff. i think it played out pretty much how i expected.

 

[francisca]

you're welcome.

i wanted to show a case in point study with the prussian stuff. i think it played out pretty much how i expected.

Well, if your point was that you don't even need major geographic barriers for a culture to fade from memory in short order, then the point was well taken.

 

[Umbran]

I think folks are vastly overestimating the time required. I submit that, at a late-classical and early Dark Ages tech, anything more than a week's travel away is pretty much legendary already.

Think - Europe had trade with the Orient back before Marco Polo, by the Silk road through the Middle East. But how many Eurpoeans really knew anything solid about the culture of India? Even during the Crusades, a time of active (if violent) contact, how much did Europeans know about the cultures of people in the Holy Land?

If trade is possible, but arduous, only a few people will undertake it. That means real knowledge of the other culture is limited to only a few. Everyone else only gets vague (and often exaggerated and fantastic) stories.