Soucres for medieval Eastern Europe

[tarchon]

Where can you find a 75¢ cup of coffee in Boston?

Leave three quarters on the floor in a Starbucks, wait a bit, and when someone bends over to pick them up, grab their $3 coffee and run.

 

[TerraDave]

Pre-Christian

There probably isn't a lot known about Pre-Christian Magyar or Romanian beliefts. A little more is probably known about Slavic ones. From what I know they had strong shaministic elements. One approach would be to have druids represent these traditions (the animal companion and shapeshifting would seem to fit) or use one of the shaman classes floating around out there. For clerics, you could use the Roman/Greek pantheon, representing past or present Roman influance, or the influance of more civilised areas--perhaps from a still pagan Venice or Constatinople.

Or you could have church's similar to the Catholic and Orthodox ones (or better yet, some combination of all of the above).

Since Afrodyte asked for online resources I will plug the website again, some of this might be usefull
For our "Holy Church" and Orthodox religion:

www.terra-viejo.net/World/Church.htm

And for clerics--pagan and otherwise, including our "cloistered" cleric--and diety info:

www.terra-viejo.net/Guide/Clerics.htm

There is a smattering of regional info on the site for "Magyaria and Rumania" and the "Principalities of Russ" scattered through various parts that may also be usefull.

Afrodyte, please keep us posted on how it is going

 

[JoeGKushner]

Based on what I've seen, I think that you might be able to mine some material from Green Ronin's SpirosBlaak.

Is that book out yet? I know it's been pushed back a few times.

Has anyone mentioned the Gypsy style book for Talislanta? Good for any game system but I can't think of the name now. Sarista or something?

I also back the recommendations for GURPS Russia. Some good writing in there.

 

[Afrodyte]

*nudge*

Thanks for the sources, everyone. I spent some more quality time at the library, and I found some more information I'll probably use. Unfortunately, most of the sources I ran into are short on customs and folklore and long on who ruled when and passed what law. Not that the latter is unimportant, but the scale of the game is decidedly smaller than nation-spanning politics.

 

[Lawrence of Arabica]

At risk of saying the obvious, I've found it hard to just browse the stacks for social history books, in a university library using the Library of Congress catalog system. The political history for a given country is mostly in the History section, but other historical stuff may be under Sociology, Political Science, Folklore, Economics, etc., which may be on entirely different floors.

 

[Melan]

There are three ethnic groups, Magyars, the Romanians (called Vlachs, which I think is derogatory), and a third group, the “Saxons”, German speaking colonists brought in by the Hungarians (sometimes there is reference to another group of Hungarians, but here we are really getting into the details).

The second Hungarian group is called "szekelys" or "szeklers". They served as the guardians of the Hungarian borders and were thus free men - they had a collective nobility and didn't have to pay regular taxes. In the 1500s and 1600s, they remained Catholic when most of the other Hungarians, both in Transylvania and Hungary proper, turned Protestant.

The Saxons built the cities (which traditionally have both German and Romanian (and Hungarian??))names. The “vlachs” where not allowed in them.

Correct on the first. For example, Klausenburg is Kolozsvár in Hungarian and Cluj in Romanian. Much like Wien is Vienna in English and Bécs in Hungarian.
As for the second, I am not aware of that, although it is certain that settling in a city was not an easy thing in those days.

BEGIN EDIT There is of course also Gypsies!! END EDIT

Not in the old times. Horror movies seem to leave an impression that Transylvania is all about vampires and old, clairvoyant gypsy ladies. Neither were common until the 20th century.

The various ethnic divisions (4 main ones, plus outside intervention by Turks and Austrians) are one big source of conflict. This is compounded by religion, the Romanians are Orthodox, the Magyars Catholic. A Unite church was created to combine rights, but I don’t know much about this.

The united church is Unitarians or Anti-trinitarians (christians who don't acknowledge the Trinity). In the 16th and 17th century, Transylvania was probably the most tolerant country in Europe. In addition to the ruling Hungarian Calvinists, there were Lutherans (German city-dwellers), Catholics (Hungarian szekelys), Orthodox Christians (Wallachian and Moldavian shepherds), Jews and various fringe sects - Anabaptists, Unitarians and so on.

A good game oriented source is the Transylvania supplement produced for Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death.

I wouldn't trust game oriented sources if you are going for any level of historical accuracy beyond "thar be vampires and gypsies, and they are all slavic!"

 

[TerraDave]

Not in the old times. Horror movies seem to leave an impression that Transylvania is all about vampires and old, clairvoyant gypsy ladies. Neither were common until the 20th century.

Leaving aside the implication that vampires where common in Transylvania in the 20th century...I am surprised to see this about the gypsys. They came from the east into Europe well before that, some just didn't stop there? Do you know if they were driven from elsewhere?

I wouldn't trust game oriented sources if you are going for any level of historical accuracy beyond "thar be vampires and gypsies, and they are all slavic!"

The Transylvania Masque of the Red Death Suplement is not like that, at all.

The original Ravenloft module is a little like that (sort of a slavic/central europe melange), but it is not hard to adjust for flavour.

 

[Melan]

TerraDave: Roma migration started a lot of time before the 20th century, naturally. In fact, they were, as far as I know, slowly drifting into Europe by the 13th and 14th century. It is only in the 20th century, however, that they became a significantly large group - before they were one of many in the colourful tapestry the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was at the time.

Horror novels, which tend to go for mystique, tend to enlarge the extraordinary, and have ingrained into the public consciousness an image of Transylvania that isn't Transylvanian at all - if anything, it is more like the Transcarpathic regions of Romania, e.g. Moldva and Wallachia. Even the vampire myth comes from that area... for example, Tepes was most definitely of Wallachian origin. In Hollywood movies, and hthus public consciousness, well, that's different. And if people don't call it historical, I am even fine with it.