Resources for a Darkages campaign.

[TheDood]

I was wondering if anybody had some good resources or even ideas for a darkages campaign.

I already have the dragon magazine focused on the subject and
have just about finished converting the first adventure of Pagan Call from CoCarkages for d20.

I'm really just interested in more reading marterial, particulary online, d20-orientated works.

 

[tetsujin28]

An essential would be The Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, which covers from 362 to 1478. Also good is Peter Brown's The World of Late Antiquity.

 

[krichaiushii]

perhaps some help here...

Online info for the Dark Ages can be found at (depends on your definition of Dark Ages):
http://www.julen.net/aw/
http://www.the-orb.net/
http://www.netserf.org/

The latter two are more medieval-oriented, but the (MANY) links provided may lead to pertinent topics.

You can likely pull useful period names from
http://www.kabalarians.com/html/surf-by.htm

Actual printed game books are sparse, methinks, but the following MIGHT help.

Steve Jackson Games' has done many sourcebooks for GURPS. Again, you will have to convert (presuming you find the title(s) you are looking for!), but these sourcebooks have rarely let me down, idea-wise. Start here - http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/ - and go from there.

Perhaps the book A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe (minus the magical parts) will help (or not). It can be found at: http://www.exp.citymax.com/page/page/351668.htm

Much of the Ars Magica game system (currently supported by Atlas Games - www.atlas-games.com) is based in Medieval Europe and Russia. As it is most assuredly NOT d20, much converting will need to be done.

Perhaps one of the old 2d Edition DM Campaign books might help. They are likely available online, either cheap or free as PDFs. I never got one, so cannot judge thier quality. I recall that the Roman Empire and Vikings and a few others were covered.

 

[allenw]

You could try Lisa Steele's "Fief: A Look at Medieval Society from it's Lower Rungs," available as a PDF from Cumberland Games at
http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/fief.htm. Some of White Wolf's Dark Ages Vampire/etc. stuff isn't bad either, and might be adaptable (Dark Ages Europe, Spoils of War, etc.) (Disclaimer: I'm biased, since I'm married to Lisa, and copyedited both "Fief" and her DAV projects).

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'll vouch for Peter Brown he is an amazing scholar of the period and a very fine writer.

My father does a lot of work in the history of the Dark Ages and early high middle ages. There is a lot more going on in that time period than people give it credit for.

In particular, I've always thought it made just about a perfect template for running a DnD game.

I wish you luck with your efforts and hope to hear more about it.

Fief seems very good but is based on information primarily relevant to a far later period. As is, oddly enough, Vampire the Dark Ages. And, to my knowledge, Magical Medieval Europe.

Penguin's History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours is an excellent and easily available primary source for the early dark ages.

Be warned that medieval history in general, particularly as it is available to non-academics, is a morass of misinformation and outmoded or faddish historical paradigms. Tread carefully.

Ideas about how historical information is supposed to be interpretted change all the time for this period, particularly due to its strange nature in modern culture and politics, and often times Role-playing books aren't very aware of these issues and play into them in a most naive way.

The dark ages, however, have been generally agreed upon to be a horrible period not worthy of attention, and as a result the smaller body of dedicated works tends to be of a higher quality and the community of people who work in it is smaller and very well informed about the works of the period.

I have no information on, or opinions about, resources published for the role-playing market other than those listed above.