historical references for "points of light"?

[GlassJaw]

I'm becoming more and more intrigued by this "points of light" concept, and I've been thinking about borrowing heavily from Ravenloft for a possible homebrew down the road.

Here are some bullet points for my concept:

- Small towns
- People must band together and rely on each other for protection and survival
- People are very superstitious and untrusting
- Very little contact with outside world
- Little to no knowledge of what lies beyond the "wooded hills"
- Rely on gypsies/merchants for news from other towns
- Harsh and vast wilderness, filled with hostiles

What I'm wondering is whether there are any historical examples of this type of "society".

My concern is that this type of society would be essentially ungoverned by anyone other than themselves. There may be a lord of a castle of keep that would give people protection but that would probably be rare.

With no centralized government, would there be a need for currency at all? What other challenges or difficulties would people face in this type of world? A historical reference would help flesh out some of these questions.

Thanks!

 

[Cam Banks]

Um, how about a lot of Europe after the decline of the Roman Empire?

Cheers,
Cam

 

[med stud]

I would say Europe during the Dark Ages. A king ruled as much land as could be travelled by a horse and rider and travel was dangerous. The woods were still standing over Europe and thought by the inhabitants to be the home of trolls and monsters. Paganism was strong and Vikings, Magyars and Arabian pirates made life dangerous for the ones living on the fringes of civilization.

 

[WayneLigon]

What I'm wondering is whether there are any historical examples of this type of "society".

All civilization up until about, oh, 1700-1800.

Large parts of the world today are like that: huge swaths of countries that, yeah, the Fodor's book says they're 'modernizing' or 'coming into the 21st century' (Hey! Look! This one little village has internet access and this kid who eats maybe four times a week has a Spider-Man shirt! Look how much culture has penetrated into the dark areas of the world!) but 'law' only reaches as far as the muzzle of a gun. There are large, large areas of the world where except for a certain veneer and awareness the people there live much as they did 1,000 years ago.

The Old West in our own country is a perfect example of the Points of Light. Yeah, technically there is this large government that claims this land but claiming it and holding it are two different things. There are towns where the only order is created by outlaws. Bandits ride the roads with impunity. Law exists only when a man or a few men are willing to band together and make it so. The wilderness apart from the well-travelled trails and railroads is still mostly unknown. There are hostile natives, large predators, and sometimes a caravan (wagon train) or stagecoach just never reaches its destination, it's fate unknown until decades later.

 

[Thaumaturge]

Couldn't "Points of Light" describe pre-Westphailian Europe? Before "national sovereignty" was a widespread idea. Europe was constantly ravaged by war, the peasantry rarely left their villages, and the "nobility" were often as big a threat as the bandits.

I don't have much of a European history background, so mayhap someone can correct me on this.

Modern day Africa could fall into the PoL concept as well. Without delving into modern politics, there is constant conflict, a widespread lack of the rule of law, and (most importantly) pirates!

Thaumaturge.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I'd also suggest much of Eastern Europe during the declining years of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th/18th centuries could easily fall into this category (particularly the Balkan states).

 

[Aust Diamondew]

First Example that springs to mind: Early human civilization. When people were first beginning to settle into cities, I'm thinking of those early fortified towns in mesopotamia.

In such a setting towns would have to be reasonably well sized (+1000 people?) for self defense and to be more or less self sustaining (those merchant caravans might not be coming through for months at a time) and would need to be fortified so they could protect themselves from the terrors of the wilderness. Though not too well fortified (or the PCs will be out of a job).

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

With no centralized government, would there be a need for currency at all? What other challenges or difficulties would people face in this type of world? A historical reference would help flesh out some of these questions.

I'll tackle this part of it - if you presume the existence of a prior empire, the coins could be left over from that time. Very often in history, the production of coins was spotty even in the best of times, and largely depended on whether there were any silver or gold mines that hadn't been depleted.

I would expect most folks would use barter, as coins tended to get horded (eventually this kind of behavior helped lead to the development of concept of credit - I have no coins, so you can owe it to me!). The extent to which this happens would depend on how rare coins were, and how long its been since they were in circulation, I'd think.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

The Old West in our own country is a perfect example of the Points of Light.

There are still large swaths of the US that could almost fall into this POL categorization as is- I'm thinking particularly of states like Montana, Nebraska- regions of large swaths of very lightly populated areas, with only a few major cities far removed from them.

Heck, even here in Cali I'm shocked at some of the regional variation- east of the Rockies gets a lot more desolate and lonely than west, and even along the coast with some areas (Ventura and Monterey counties seem- to me- to be pretty remote and detached, due to intervening geography).

Of course, modern communication makes these seem less like POL than the model, but if something were to happen to our major means of communicating- phones, internet, all go down- you would probably get a better sense of how fragile a position they fill in the larger Federal scheme of things.

 

[howandwhy99]

Historically? Pretty much all of Earth pre-1500.

Even after that the world had borderland areas, the "Frontier Lands" where civilization had not yet encroached.

It's basically saying, "This is not the Modern Age".