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Primitive campaign setting
- Thread starter Vigilant Fiend
- Start date
Andrew D. Gable
First Post
I have the Primal Codex. It's pretty good. Features some new core classes (Pugilist, Hunter, Shaman, Witch Doctor), lots of RL diseases and toxins, rules for the more primitive traps, new spells, and several new monsters. The monsters are mostly from African, Native American, and Aboriginal folklore. The only thing that would've been better about the monsters is if there was a Jade Dragons and Hungry Ghosts-type list of which folklore each was from.
s/LaSH
First Post
Something I always wanted to do was a primal setting where you had loads of planetouched. Aasimar and tieflings as catalysts for civilisation, guided by their divine parents. After all, if you've got help from major-league outsiders, you can start doing things like forging iron or raising mighty armies well before such things were ever invented in real history.
On the topic of stone age cultures, New Zealand had a stone age culture until a couple of hundred years ago. Weapons tended to be spears and mere, which are sharp clubs made of greenstone. Such things as swords and other (slashing) weapons are too large for dense, overgrown terrain such as we have here. Try to swing a longsword in the bush and see how fast you tie yourself to a tree.
And on the topic of serrated blades of natural glass...
The cool thing about properly knapped obsidian, greenstone, glass etc. is that you can get the edge down to a molecule across with minimum effort. Even if it breaks, it's still going to be stunningly sharp across the broken edges. Has anyone here read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash? That's near-future cyberpunk and the most lethal guy in it (well, except the guy with the nam-shub and the guy with Reason - don't ask; let's just say people listen to Reason) has a pair of glass knives. Honestly, why did people ever muck around with steel?
Finally, I've actually seen Austro-Hungarian blades made with a blade that curves back and forth (like a kris dagger), but it's not serrated. Apparently, they were used by mercenaries who wanted to look cool, and were otherwise pretty useless.
On the topic of stone age cultures, New Zealand had a stone age culture until a couple of hundred years ago. Weapons tended to be spears and mere, which are sharp clubs made of greenstone. Such things as swords and other (slashing) weapons are too large for dense, overgrown terrain such as we have here. Try to swing a longsword in the bush and see how fast you tie yourself to a tree.
And on the topic of serrated blades of natural glass...
The cool thing about properly knapped obsidian, greenstone, glass etc. is that you can get the edge down to a molecule across with minimum effort. Even if it breaks, it's still going to be stunningly sharp across the broken edges. Has anyone here read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash? That's near-future cyberpunk and the most lethal guy in it (well, except the guy with the nam-shub and the guy with Reason - don't ask; let's just say people listen to Reason) has a pair of glass knives. Honestly, why did people ever muck around with steel?
Finally, I've actually seen Austro-Hungarian blades made with a blade that curves back and forth (like a kris dagger), but it's not serrated. Apparently, they were used by mercenaries who wanted to look cool, and were otherwise pretty useless.
s/LaSH
First Post
mmadsen said:
So... does this mean the Disguise skill could give some kind of synergy bonus to Intimidate? Honestly, if you can paint your friend to look like a howling demon charging your enemies, they're likely to drop their spears and run.
Don't know how that would work if you don't paint your own face, but a fun idea nonetheless.I found an interesting article on obsidian blades (like the macuahuitl) used by the Aztecs. An excerpt:
The Spanish crushed the Aztec empire with amazing ease, and the Americans' technological inferiority was undoubtedly partly responsible. The conquistadors had gunpowder and horses; the Aztecs had neither. However, blades of the Aztecs swords, made of obsidian, were sharper than steel. They could behead a horse.
Obsidian is a kind of glass formed during volcanic eruptions, and it shares all of the basic physical properties of ordinary glass. The fact that the edge of a newly chipped flake is sharper than surgical steel was only discovered in the 1970's, and it has led to the use of obsidian blades in eye surgery, since the evenness of their cut permits much faster healing. The Aztecs called their obsidian-edged sword macuahuitl. Usually the swords were lined with ten blades; five on each side. Because obsidian is glass, it naturally fractures into a sharp, even, predictably shaped blade when chipped. Also because it's glass, it is brittle and cannot be resharpened. The blades on swords undoubtedly had to be replaced after a few uses; this is the main reason steel eventually supplanted obsidian after the Spanish conquest.
Why didn't the Aztecs fare better against the Spanish with such effective swords? Probably because the swords didn't have tips and were not meant to pierce; they were designed only for lashing. An adept swordsman could fend off an Indian simply by ducking a swing of a sword and then running the enemy through.
Obsidian was used extensively among pre-Colombian societies throughout North and South America, but it reaches its highest development at the hands of the Aztecs. They used the blades for both hunting and warfare. Obsidian provided the projectile points for spears and arrows. Obsidian tools were used to shape the shafts of spears, arrows, and swords. Obsidian knives cut feathers and the cotton thread out of which mantles bestowed on successful warriors were made. The glass was used in butchering and in sacrifice. It was even used to cut a stillborn child into pieces before removal from the womb. And the versatility of obsidian made it a prized trade item.
The extreme sharpness of obsidian blades may help to explain why the Aztecs were willing to submit to self sacrifice. They cut their tongues and ears with obsidian blades on ritual occasions, caught the falling blood on the index finger, and flipped the blood in the direction of the sun or the moon. Such self-mutilation was formerly believed to be quite painful, but it is now understood that a fresh obsidian blade is so sharp one can barely feel a cut into the flesh.
The Spanish crushed the Aztec empire with amazing ease, and the Americans' technological inferiority was undoubtedly partly responsible. The conquistadors had gunpowder and horses; the Aztecs had neither. However, blades of the Aztecs swords, made of obsidian, were sharper than steel. They could behead a horse.
Obsidian is a kind of glass formed during volcanic eruptions, and it shares all of the basic physical properties of ordinary glass. The fact that the edge of a newly chipped flake is sharper than surgical steel was only discovered in the 1970's, and it has led to the use of obsidian blades in eye surgery, since the evenness of their cut permits much faster healing. The Aztecs called their obsidian-edged sword macuahuitl. Usually the swords were lined with ten blades; five on each side. Because obsidian is glass, it naturally fractures into a sharp, even, predictably shaped blade when chipped. Also because it's glass, it is brittle and cannot be resharpened. The blades on swords undoubtedly had to be replaced after a few uses; this is the main reason steel eventually supplanted obsidian after the Spanish conquest.
Why didn't the Aztecs fare better against the Spanish with such effective swords? Probably because the swords didn't have tips and were not meant to pierce; they were designed only for lashing. An adept swordsman could fend off an Indian simply by ducking a swing of a sword and then running the enemy through.
Obsidian was used extensively among pre-Colombian societies throughout North and South America, but it reaches its highest development at the hands of the Aztecs. They used the blades for both hunting and warfare. Obsidian provided the projectile points for spears and arrows. Obsidian tools were used to shape the shafts of spears, arrows, and swords. Obsidian knives cut feathers and the cotton thread out of which mantles bestowed on successful warriors were made. The glass was used in butchering and in sacrifice. It was even used to cut a stillborn child into pieces before removal from the womb. And the versatility of obsidian made it a prized trade item.
The extreme sharpness of obsidian blades may help to explain why the Aztecs were willing to submit to self sacrifice. They cut their tongues and ears with obsidian blades on ritual occasions, caught the falling blood on the index finger, and flipped the blood in the direction of the sun or the moon. Such self-mutilation was formerly believed to be quite painful, but it is now understood that a fresh obsidian blade is so sharp one can barely feel a cut into the flesh.
As to the observations about the conquest of the Nahua (Aztecs), I have to say that while technological superiority can have a short-term effect, it is important to note that 75% of the population of Tenochtitlan died of smallpox during the siege. Many of our ideas about how much difference technology makes arise from North America's myth about itself. One could well argue that this belief in the power of technology from the revisionist histories of the Americas is one of the things that contributed to America's gross mismanagement of the Vietnam War. Arguments about the power of tech are best made using examples in which there was not another overwhelming factor, in this case a lack of resistance to European disease. (It finally paid off to be the filthiest people on the face of the earth 
)
Nonetheless, I find the observations about obsidian intriguing, especially in light of the George Martin Song of Ice and Fire books.
All that stated, the real reason I'm posting to this thread is that I too am in need of some helpful pointers for materials and/or advce for a campaign I plan to start in about three months set in a primitive ice age society. Being very short of funds, I'm hoping that I can be pointed to resources that don't entail a financial outlay.
While it's fairly easy for me to envision the primitive weapons, equipment and economies -- anything where we have real-world equivalents, I'm having trouble imagining D&D classes into an ice age world in which people are struggling for survival. So far, I've decided to get rid of the Fighter, Paladin, Monk and Wizard. It seems to me that Bards, Barbarians, Rangers and Sorcerors can basically be ported in without difficulty but I'm left with the problem of whether and/or how to include Rogues, Clerics and Druids.
While Druids initially seem a good fit for a primitive society, they seem vastly disadvantaged by the physical environment of an ice age, based on their spell list. Rogues and Clerics, on the other hand, seem to me to be very urban classes and I'm left wondering (a) how to modify rogues for a society without cities (b) how many rogue skills should be unavailable because of the non-urban nature of the campaign (c) how to culturally locate rogues. Clerics again, seem a very urban class to me but I find myself unable even to articulately express how they're unsuited to the environment I imagine. With the natural world in retreat, I'm essentially looking for some compromise between the Cleric and Druid classes. Attempting to create a divine spellcaster class is somewhat problematic; I'm reluctant to have a formal shaman class because there may at a later point be an opportunity for a divine spellcaster to advance as a cleric and I don't want to force people to start again at level 1 because they're then forced to multi-class.
Anyway, any and all advice is appreciated.
)Nonetheless, I find the observations about obsidian intriguing, especially in light of the George Martin Song of Ice and Fire books.
All that stated, the real reason I'm posting to this thread is that I too am in need of some helpful pointers for materials and/or advce for a campaign I plan to start in about three months set in a primitive ice age society. Being very short of funds, I'm hoping that I can be pointed to resources that don't entail a financial outlay.
While it's fairly easy for me to envision the primitive weapons, equipment and economies -- anything where we have real-world equivalents, I'm having trouble imagining D&D classes into an ice age world in which people are struggling for survival. So far, I've decided to get rid of the Fighter, Paladin, Monk and Wizard. It seems to me that Bards, Barbarians, Rangers and Sorcerors can basically be ported in without difficulty but I'm left with the problem of whether and/or how to include Rogues, Clerics and Druids.
While Druids initially seem a good fit for a primitive society, they seem vastly disadvantaged by the physical environment of an ice age, based on their spell list. Rogues and Clerics, on the other hand, seem to me to be very urban classes and I'm left wondering (a) how to modify rogues for a society without cities (b) how many rogue skills should be unavailable because of the non-urban nature of the campaign (c) how to culturally locate rogues. Clerics again, seem a very urban class to me but I find myself unable even to articulately express how they're unsuited to the environment I imagine. With the natural world in retreat, I'm essentially looking for some compromise between the Cleric and Druid classes. Attempting to create a divine spellcaster class is somewhat problematic; I'm reluctant to have a formal shaman class because there may at a later point be an opportunity for a divine spellcaster to advance as a cleric and I don't want to force people to start again at level 1 because they're then forced to multi-class.
Anyway, any and all advice is appreciated.
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