Prehistoric/ Bronze Age Setting

[trilobite]

I have a idea for a campaign setting that I would like some input on.

The general idea is a post apocalypic type fantasy game. Two or three thousand years ago a great disaster set back the tech level of the planet to a prehistoric/bronze age level. There are scattered settlements of various levels of civilization. The same disaster has also brought on a ice age to the world.

While I have heard of prehistoric setting with dinosaurs and such, I would like this one to be more of a "Age of Mammals" type with mastadons, sabre tooth tigers, and such.

The players would start in a isolated villiage and I can have them go out and explore from there. There would almost be a Gamma World feel with rare ancient artifacts showing up on occasion.

Any ideas on making the game better?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Any ideas on making the game better?

Wild magic zones. You can't have a post appocalyptic fantasy world without a good chunk of land where spells go off without you meaning to, or don't work at all, or have their area tripled and you get caught inside it... The magical fallout of the last wars, the rips in reality, whatever you want to call it.... mmmm.... magic flux wasteland with volcanic fireflats in the middle and pools of lava with motlen mithrel floating at the top in a testamate to the final end to the last of the great elven cities....

Oh wait, that was the part of the continent that my players never got to in the D&D survivor game...

Kahuna burger

 

[Dogbrain]

I have a idea for a campaign setting that I would like some input on.

The general idea is a post apocalypic type fantasy game. Two or three thousand years ago a great disaster set back the tech level of the planet to a prehistoric/bronze age level.

There's an enormous amount of difference between "prehistoric" (pre-Egypt, flint-knapping, H. s. neanderthalensis) and "bronze age" (Middle Kingdom Egypt, Babylon, Classical Greece). You might want to nail things down a bit more. Is it all utterly primitive with no organization and very little to no agriculture or have people gotten down basic metalworking and enough social organization and agriculture to have the cultures of ancient Babylon, Egypt, and Greece functional?

 

[DrZombie]

There's an enormous amount of difference between "prehistoric" (pre-Egypt, flint-knapping, H. s. neanderthalensis) and "bronze age" (Middle Kingdom Egypt, Babylon, Classical Greece).

Inserting a bit of anal-retentiveness : prehistoric means abscence of written sources, it has nothing to do with tech level as such.
The best thing to do is lend/buy a few history books on the tech level you want to have your game in. Deciding wich tech level is kinda hard.

No metalworking means no major tools or buildings, and means small groups of hunter-gatherers. No major cities, and no society as we know it. Examples are pygmies and aboriginals. Most magic-users would be shamans or witches. Semis would be rangers. No cities means no thieves. Only hide armor, and flint and bone weapons.

Bronze age starts to become more familiar. There is a possabilitie for better stone-working, thus bigger buildings. You'd have the start of agriculture, sometimes development of aquaducts and irrigation in the advanced societies. Food surplus means artisans, craftsmen and armies.
Armor would be limited to breastplates, but you'd have a lot more weapons available. This is the age of god- and demon worship, mage-academies, sometimes even universities. You can contrast these advanced centers with the less advanced societies, who have the same tech level (by stealing it) but can't have the same level of civilisation because of food shortage, worse climate or less fertile lands. They'll be looking to the cities with greed. Examples are the early greeks, the babylonians, the early celts. The nation wich learns how to craft iron and steel will have an extreme advantage.

You can always set your game in one of the barren regions of the world, near a "magical disaster zone" or near the wilds. Arrival of a peddler or merchant with goods or news from the outside world would be a major event.. Rampaging wild beasts would be an ever present threat. A visit to a big city an adventure beyond imagining, but if something would happen, or if something important was found some young able men would be sent to the center of civilisation to warn whomever is in charge. (Orcs are amassing a great army, a dragon has been sighted, the elves are awakening) They would be treated with scorn, mistrust or even enslaved.

Off course, there is always the possibility of an "Atlantis", a region wich has not fallen to the great plague/disaster

 

[Vahktang]

Tales of areas of untouched high tech(magic).
Everybody talking about how 'the good old days' were better than now.

Ananchronisms. A cargo ship in the middle of the desert.

Remember big beasts need a hot world.

Deeply buried undead who want to destroy the world to remake it.

Ancient aberations, etc, released by the works of modern man (so to speak)

Some movies:
5 million years to earth
Mothra

Forbiddan knowledge:
"Modern times should not know this. It is what killed the world before."

And did it effect the other planes?
Do outsiders visit regularly?

And you can get quite sophisticated with stone age items.
The aztecs had no metallurgy but had cities with over 100,000 people.

More later,

Vahktang