Greetings!
Hey there Matt!
Write me!
Now, indeed, I agree with you. The civila wars, the strife, and ultimately the fall of the Roman Empire opened up a doorway of darkness, and a vast regression. In isolated instances, like the stirrup and a few other areas, progress was in fact made. But across so many fronts--literacy, philosophy, engineering, mass-farming, travel, laws, military organization, politics, medicine, and on and on, there was an enormous decline and loss. Most of which wasn't recovered until the 18th and 19th centuries. The sad thing is, with the burning of the Great Library at Alexandria in the early B.C.--where it was said that over 500,000 books, scrolls, papyri, and so on, were stored! Much of which was said to contain knowledge from the earliest memories and history of man. Can you believe that? It was said that there was such vast and ancient knowledge there, from when man first recorded history! Imagine the knowledge! Imagine what was lost! Imagine that there may have been the knowledge of the Pyramids, or Stonehenge, or trans-atlantic travel, or the ancient ways of Egypt, of Babylon, of Troy, and Mycenae! Things that we must now suffice ourselves with bits and pieces. Imagine what we might know--imagine what the Romans might have known, had they captured the Great Library intact?
Oh, the loss. I would give my left arm to travel back in time to spend just a month secluded in the Great Library!
The Romans hit Britain with an invasion force that they could not even concieve of. Caesar proved himself again and again the master of warfare, and of politics. It is just incredible that things that medieval Europe thought impossible or fantastic, were *ROUTINE* to Caesar, and to Rome!
In reading all of this, it confirms to me the limitations in playing the game with such "medieval mindsets." I like the Middle Ages, actually, but the knowledge and reality of the Ancients often offering so many brilliant, epic possibilities just makes many of the medieval assumptions weak. I like the epic possibilities--nay, the epic REALITIES of the ancient world! They are so evocative, so powerful, and yet--truth is stranger than fiction!--for much of the ancient ways is TRUTH!
Next up--Chapter VI: REVOLT AND REVENGE
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
are rumored to have sent a party to search for the ancient Great Bull, a battle standard carried by an ancient emperor and dedicated to the god of the minotaurs. History says that armies carrying this standard have never been defeated. The PCs must find the standard before the minotaur heroes or recover it before they can bring it to their army.
