s.j. bagley
First Post
do you know what issue number that was?megamania said:
Eberrons bizzare maps
- Thread starter Yaksha_
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green slime
First Post
Lord Tirian said:
Those statistics really leave a lot to be desired.
INasmuch the grand total for "Others" (591,820) far exceeds the total number of Lizardfolk (120,000), Kobolds (110,500), ½-orcs (47,000), gnolls (100,000) & shifters (165,000) combined!
Droaam has a whopping 38% "Others" (190,000). Enough to populate a large city, but apparently not enough demihumans/humans...
Furthermore, are planetouched (aasimaar, teifling) included in the human total?
green slime
First Post
Gez said:As the long history of tribal warfare and interethnic slaughters in Africa, the Middle-East, Asia, and the America shows, it's purely an European propensity.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Methinks you give humanity too much credit.
Perhaps.
It is strange though, how, after the collapse of Rome, no single nation managed to dominate Europe for any lengthy stretch of time. I suppose if you regarded "Catholicism" as a nation, then this might not be the case.
Because European history is otherwise just filled with small petty nations bickering.
Africa was rift apart by the slave trade, and its history is basically lost or conveniently ignored, ME area was subjugated by islam for a great stretch, and China dominated Asia. America was colonised, and their cultures for all practical purposes exterminated.
This is really oversimplified, but it is quite interesting that no single nation managed to dominate Europe for any significant length of time during 15 centuries. Somehow, I think it is all the fault of the British.
Vocenoctum
First Post
The size never bothered me, but I did make the lightning rail much more common and cheaper. It's a simple matter to have the lightning rail go wherever you need it, while still being able to strand the players when you need to, or require a weeks journey into some place they don't go.Paradox said:Personally, I like the large size. It gives me plenty of room to drop my own stuff in there. Old School is back in session!
green slime said:
Only the last bit; during the height of the Empire, encouraging a disunited Europe was certainly Imperial policy. But that only covers a few centuries at most.
And, well, we did our bit on that score in the first half of the 20th century before flip-flopping on the issue post-WWII
green slime
First Post
crazy_cat said:I think you'll find actually that the usual and most reliable (and IMHO best) option in such circumstances is to blame the French. We Brits always do.
Tempting as though it may be to blame the French, it was the British policy for centuries to counter the growth of any single powerful entity on the continent. The French, at least, tried to unite Europe.
Gez
First Post
Without going into too much details, the "small bickering nations" stems simply from the fact that there were no lightning rails or stormships. The Roman Empire had a lot of trouble staying really united because of that -- if you had an emperor in Constantinople, he just wasn't going to be able to react to an usurpator seizing power in the West. So there were "vice-emperors" charged of administering a big chunk of the Empire, while the Emperor himself administered another.
It wasn't a very stable arrangement, so it fell; even though it made a surprisingly long time before doing so. But as long as it stood, there were periodically some general (or even a caesar) who decided he needed no longer pay tribute to the augustus and became an usurpator.
Another thing is that the Church discouraged mobility and travel, instead encouraging people to stay where they were. This was a good way of disuniting the Empire, as each province became more and more a nation, in a way.
Empires fragmented into kingdoms, and the European powers grew together, staying roughly balanced. The Antiquity became the Middle-Age which became the Renaissance which became the early Modern Era. Technology and the arts of war developed quite a lot throughout that time, until finally the biggest European powers decided it was futile to try to attack the neighbor that's just as well-armed as you, when there were so many other people who could be easily outgunned. And that's where whole continents were united -- by the Europeans. Guns trump bows.
The thing is, it wasn't just a question of better equipment. Even if the natives were outmatched in that respect, they still had a huge numerical advantage, be it in Africa, Asia, or the Americas. Europe could only afford to send a limited number of troops, after all -- especially considering the European powers were still wary of a neighbor who could jump on the opportunity to invade the mainland now that all the armies are oversea. So, why did the European win and manage to colonize about everybody else?
Because all the other continents were as united as Europe, that is to say, not at all. Tribe A made some deal with the invaders so that they could both attack Tribe B (Tribe A's hereditary enemies) and get rid of them. Then once that was done, the Europeans just allied with Tribe C in order to wipe out Tribe A. And so on.
Which just proves -- you give humanity far too much credit if you think that only the Europeans have really practiced internecine warfare!
It wasn't a very stable arrangement, so it fell; even though it made a surprisingly long time before doing so. But as long as it stood, there were periodically some general (or even a caesar) who decided he needed no longer pay tribute to the augustus and became an usurpator.
Another thing is that the Church discouraged mobility and travel, instead encouraging people to stay where they were. This was a good way of disuniting the Empire, as each province became more and more a nation, in a way.
Empires fragmented into kingdoms, and the European powers grew together, staying roughly balanced. The Antiquity became the Middle-Age which became the Renaissance which became the early Modern Era. Technology and the arts of war developed quite a lot throughout that time, until finally the biggest European powers decided it was futile to try to attack the neighbor that's just as well-armed as you, when there were so many other people who could be easily outgunned. And that's where whole continents were united -- by the Europeans. Guns trump bows.
The thing is, it wasn't just a question of better equipment. Even if the natives were outmatched in that respect, they still had a huge numerical advantage, be it in Africa, Asia, or the Americas. Europe could only afford to send a limited number of troops, after all -- especially considering the European powers were still wary of a neighbor who could jump on the opportunity to invade the mainland now that all the armies are oversea. So, why did the European win and manage to colonize about everybody else?
Because all the other continents were as united as Europe, that is to say, not at all. Tribe A made some deal with the invaders so that they could both attack Tribe B (Tribe A's hereditary enemies) and get rid of them. Then once that was done, the Europeans just allied with Tribe C in order to wipe out Tribe A. And so on.
Which just proves -- you give humanity far too much credit if you think that only the Europeans have really practiced internecine warfare!
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