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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SHARK" data-source="post: 170038" data-attributes="member: 1131">Greetings!Hey Arcady! Yeah, I like the *Use Rome and not the Medieval European model approach*! You know, the thing I don't understand is the idea that if the Europeans in the 14th century couldn't do *X* then it can't be done then. Well, what about Europe *before* the medieval times? Or Africa from before 1650 AD, or ancient China, or the Inca, or the ancient Babylonians? The Europe of the 14th century is not the only approach one can take to building campaign societies, or even the best, as you mentioned Arcady. You'd think after all of these years that people would be kinda done with a European flavor that is entombed in such a narrow scope, and be eager to branch out and incorporate other stuff.I like 14th century Europe. But 14th century Europe isn't all of time, nor is it the whole world. I like to integrate other elements of culture, society, government, economics, and technology into different areas of the campaign world, to allow it to depart from the old paradigm when and where I want it to. For example, I have backwater areas of the campaign world that resemble an impoverished non-magical European area, stuck somewhere between the Viking raids and the Black Death. But that's only part of the world. There are other areas, other kingdoms, other populations, that can think, dream, and build more than the backwater areas can even imagine. This campaign flexibility also provides interesting contrast, as well as different challenges and nuances from one area to another. It's great.I'm wondering about the cultures of the "Mother Goddess" that many seem to embrace. I even have a good number of books that discuss these ideas, and issues. The problem being, though, is that the model of the Cultures of Old Europe, who worshipped the "Mother Goddess" and being happy, friendly people that just danced, traded, and made love all the time, and lived in cities that were unwalled, and had no real military, and then all of the lovely Goddess-worshipping people were swept away in bloody conquest and slaughter by the Indo-European hordes who invaded from the East, and outlawed the Goddess, in favour of their own warlike Sky and Mountain Gods, just has a long distance to go in acceptable evidence. I had one history professor, an PHD, and expert in Ancient History from USC, explain that that stuff was just nonsense. It never existed, as there is precious little evidence for it. The logic of it just isn't there. he explained that no credible authority in History embraced such an understanding. He concluded that it was simply very unlikely that European history, and nearby societies developed that way at all. I checked many of my books at home about it, as well as magazine articles, and well, those who were making such claims were not often titled with degrees, or they were archeologists, or anthropologists, or something else. Even then, their "positions" were not accepted by the vast majority of scholars of History, or even the other academic disciplines. In all such cases, they seemed to be a tiny minority, whose positions were not accepted or taken seriously by professional academic circles. It was frustrating, because a lot of what they had to say was tantalizing and intriguing, but any evidence was open to different interpretations, and in any event, as I mentioned, they were all almost universally dismissed as fringe ideologically-motivated "history" and "myth-making." I've done an extensive paper on the subject, and while I think there is certainly evidence that the cultures of Old Europe may have been different from the invading Indo-Europeans, and there may have been goddess-cults that were popular, there isn't much evidence of the pristine, idyllic society that pagans like to depict. Even considering the fact that the Greeks and Romans were Indo-Europeans, and Patriarchal, they also had very strong goddess-cults that were extremely popular. These goddess-cults weren't necessarily peaceful, or peace-loving. The cultures that they influenced, and which developed around them, long before the advent of the "hated, ultimate patriarchal Christianity" were some of the bloodiest, most savage and cruel cultures ever recorded in the annals of history. Evidence--real evidence from historical and modern-day goddess-cults--indicates that they are no more united, nor are they any less bloodthirsty and violent than religions that are "patriarchal" and "male-dominated." This considerable and irrefutable evidence though, exists in massive scale, compared to the very "iffy" conjectures, seems to, perhapses, and maybes that constitute the mantra of the primarily feminist scholars that embrace such a historical theory. Myself, well, while some of the evidence is intriguing, and even interesting, I am doubtful that Old Europe ever existed as the feminist scholars claim it did. That doesn't mean that there is *no accuracy or truth* in their positions, just that much of their position is conjecture, and is thus fallacy to embrace such position as historical truth. That's my assessment of it at any rate.Oh, geez. I'm doing a fine job of hijacking the thread, aren't I? Well, it is just difficult for me to restrain myself from chewing on these kind of historical discussions, you know? Please, everyone, forgive my ranting monologue!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Some interesting thoghts, Arcady!Semper Fidelis,SHARK</blockquote>

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