Sports in Eberron

[BrooklynKnight]

While it's not a modern sport, and may not have been a "sport" in the modern sense of the wrod at all, I think something like the Mayan ball games would work quite well in Eberron. Having just been to a Mayan site in Belize with 3 ball courts, the concept works quite well in a fantasy setting. More ritual than sport, with great prestige going to the winners.The current theory is that slaves and war captives were used in the games, and the games themselves were used to re-enact great battlefield victories. The Winning team's captain would be sacrificed, as winning the game was thought to bring perfection, making him worthy of the gods.

Some more info here: http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/chichen/eg_chichen_ballcourt1b.html

Hi You've just won the superbowl! What are you gonna do next...

I'm gonna...die?

Congradulations! I'm sure it will be a wonderfull sacrifice...


man thats gotta suck

 

[Vaxalon]

Warforged would probably compete separately in most sports. Warforged rugby would be great to watch! Yes, the sport wouldn't be popular DURING wartime, but since most of them are now discharged from the military, I'd say there'd be plenty of players available.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Hi You've just won the superbowl! What are you gonna do next...

I'm gonna...die?

Congradulations! I'm sure it will be a wonderfull sacrifice...


man thats gotta suck

Do a little research on the Mayan views of life and death, and you'll see this wasn't as bad a fate to them as it seems to you. Dying as a sacrifice to the gods was considered an honor. Remember, these were war captives who were involved, and the other option was being a slave and a dishonorable death at a later point anyway. Being able to die with honor, and live on with the gods was something they probably looked forward to.

But if you want to see a really bloody and violent people, check out the Aztecs...

 

[ConnorSB]

Another interesting thing about the mayan ball game was that it was actually used as a form of control over some of the provinces.

See, the emperor would basically task some of the richer, more likely to rebel provinces to make a whole lot of the rubber-from-rubber-trees balls they would use.

A whole lot like 16000 a year. The sport may have been a convienent excuse to ask for massive rubber tribute from the outlying provinces.

And if one province didn't give up the rubber, the common folk (who loved the game) would turn against that provincial government, thus preventing it from rebelling.

Plus, it was an easy way to get rid of slaves/war captives.

 

[trancejeremy]

Before you criticize something, get your references right.

First of all, it's a golden snitch.

Second of all, it's not an automatic game-winner. It's worth 150 points, where a goal is 10 points. If you get 16 goals up on the competition (which happens in one of the games in the novel series) then even if your seeker gets the snitch, you still lose.

A seeker in quidditch is about as important as a pitcher in baseball. Yes, if you don't have a good one, you're doomed, but if you think he's the only one that's important you're just as doomed.

Yeah, but the game ends when the golden weasel is caught. So why would any team behind by 15 goals want to catch it?

A better baseball analogy would be that it's like the mascot firing T-shirts from an air cannon - when the team's batboy catches one, their team gets 9 runs and the game is automatically over.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

They wouldn't. In a situation like that you want the Seeker of the "loosing" team to distract the other seeker and prevent him from grabbing the snitch untill such time that his team caught up.

 

[cdsaint]

OK, so for my campaign set in Zarash'ak (Shadow Marches), Easy ideas are boxing (orcs would likely dominate), Rat Race (trained dire rats in a swimming comptition), maybe swimming. Any other ideas? I'm not terribly familiar with watersports, and a city built on stilts in a river surrounded by swamp is going to be short of dry real estate.

Chris

 

[Gargoyle]

As far as sports in Eberron, I like the idea of having one magically influenced sport that is played almost everywhere in some form or another. It would ideally be something that could be played by as few as four players on a side, or as many as twelve. That would allow adventuring parties to be able to compete as a complete team. There would also have to be a minimal amount of equipment and no need for high specialized facilities.

 

[Dirigible]

With regards to Quidditch being a stupid game:

http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020915

 

[WanderingMonster]

This thread is...interesting. And by that, I mean weird.

Would Harry Potter manifest a Syberis Dragonmark?