Have never seen a BYzantine game book but that would be tre cool.
I've got about 5 hardback 3 ring (metal snap kind) notebooks on the world we play in, but it's the only world I've designed or DMed in maybe ten years or so.
Of course that includes the stuff for the other world as well.
I've never tried to collate all that data into book form for sale though. Just basically used it for us, for my own research, and as background material for stories I sometimes write, not game related, but historically related.
I've accumulated Theme maps and city maps and historical timelines and historical war-charts and armor types and weaponry and political nomenclature and Deme colors and heraldry and military divisions and whatnot. And none of that stuff was easy to find at all because there really isn't a lot of info to be found in most texts in this part of the world, compared to say what is easily available about the Western Empire. I had to get a lot of stuff from the Library of Congress, by getting some of my buddies stationed near Turkey to get some museum information, etc. And I did some archeological research concerning Persia, and Syria, the Middle East, and Israel and so forth. It took a long time though, cause mostly it was a piece of this here, and a little bit of that there, and trying to figure out what it meant and from what exact time period it was. Of course each era was different, the Byzantine Empire was very, very different every fifty to one hundred years of so of it's evolution. And of course they never called it Byzantium, to them they were the real Roman Empire. Only by that time it was the Christian Roman Empire.
I got to examine some interesting texts and artifacts; literary, military, historical, and religious. Even proto-scientific.
It was such a fascinating time period. And such an incredible culture.
Far from perfect of course, what is? But certainly fascinating and incredible.
Worth studying just for the sake of itself.
On good thing about historical and semi-historical settings is that you can create incredibly good adventures and missions simply by writing real events and places and people into your games.
Here are some scenarios I ran over the years which the players seem to have loved. It is pretty easy to put together stuff like this with a good and rich historical background.
Colossus Of Rhodes - The Basilegate is sent to the city of Rhodes after intelligence is received from spies mentioning that huge shipments of bronze have been noticed entering the city, in addition to rumors of Greek Fire being smuggled into and out of the harbor by ship. The Navicularii denies both the shipments of bronze and the illegal shipments of Greek Fire but supposed military and diplomatic contact with a strange group of what appear to be African Vadders has the Imperial Military worried that the rumors may involve more than a grain of truth. Arriving at Rhodes the Basilegate is unable to trace the Africans or the shipments of bronze and Greek Fire but begin to hear rumors of a strange underground project. A project to rebuild the legendary Colossus of Rhodes, perhaps even as some type of weapon. The Basilegate is unable to find who is behind this project or even what the exact details are but soon discover that apparently not only is the unknown group pf Africans somehow involved, but so is the Hoshi party and that perhaps even the Caerkara and the Consociatio may be operating in Rhodes. When a known member of the Khomainahas is found floating in the harbor, with his throat slit and apparently sacrificed in a ritual manner and shortly thereafter strange glyphs begin appearing on both docked ships and in alleyways of the city itself the Basilegate becomes convinced that a conspiracy is afoot. Unable to find either the Caerkara or the Hoshi the Basilegate eventually locates one of the Africans who tells them of a very disturbing story about strange men who are not men with strange powers, and of a monstrous creature who guards a Colossal Creation of bronze, gold and unknown, alien metals. (BC/CC/HC/OC/COC/KC/KHC/HEC)
Sub-Urban Warfare - The town of Euchaita in Armenia is overrun by Arab raiders, who are beaten off after a week’s worth of urban fighting, by an Armenian Theme army which is escorted by the Basilegate. The Theme army pursues the main Arab host in retreat to the east, leaving a small garrison under the command of the Basilegate with orders to retake the town and destroy any remaining pockets of resistance. The garrison and the party begin urban warfare in one small section of the city still under Arab control. Unknown to the party or garrison the fled Arab chieftain is trying to link up with a reinforcing party to ambush the Thematic Force, then return to the city and retake it. The chieftain has learned of an ancient, first century Christian treasury buried at Euchaita which the locals have forgotten about over time. Unknown to anyone else a party of Assassins have also learned of the reliquary and desire the treasure for their own reasons. So they are operating in secret against both the other Muslims and the Christians. At the same time a monster has invaded from Ghantik and has been drawn to the site by the bloodshed. When they finally discover the reliquary it has been covered in strange glyphs. (BC/KC/HEC)
Raiders - Quintus Septicus the former general of the Macedonian theme refused to put down his arms after the last war against the Serbs. He retained command over a large force of his former Theme Army and recruited Black Hun, Goth, Magyar and Dalmatian barbarians as mercenary troops. From his base in the Carpathian foothills he has led raids against all local provinces, barbarian, allied and Imperial alike. After his last raid into the city of Nicopolis in which he partially razed the city, and desecrated and robbed the Orthodox monasteries and cemeteries there, Constantinople has sent a combined Opsikion, Macedonian, Thracian and Thessalonican Theme Army against him, accompanied by the Basilegate. While following the mercenary troops north along the Danube the combined force learns that Quintus has taken a small group of select men and fled into the mountains of Carpathia. The Basilegate is dispatched to follow and arrest or kill him and tracks Quintus and his men to a remote and strange fortification deep in the Carpathian highlands. Waiting for them are Quintus, his men, and something else. Something from another world.(BC/COC/KC/KHC/HEC)
Patrol of the Last Moon - The Basilegate is sent secretly and under cover of night to the border area between Macedonia and Bulgaria, to the city of Skopje, in the dead of winter, near the winter solstice. The city had been besieged for six months by Bulgarian forces and Bulgarian sappers had begun to dig a tunnel beneath the city walls for penetrating the city before the autumn and winter weather had made the ground impossible to dig through any further. Macedonian spies discovered the tunnel but when winter set in and the Bulgarian siege was lifted for winter camps the Macedonians did nothing to destroy the tunnel. An observation force of mounted Bulgarians was left within sight of the city to keep the Bulgarian winter mountain encampment aware of activities in Skopje. Unknown to the Bulgarians the Macedonians have completed the unused sapping and infiltration tunnel from inside the city and the Basilegate and a small party of Macedonian Rangers/Raiders are to use it on the night of the winter solstice to steal into the Bulgarian observation post and kidnap the Bulgarian captain and military genius Voldegek Padru and his senior officers, then return them to Skopje for interrogation, sealing the tunnel behind them. Voldegek Padru may not be who he appears to be, however, and by kidnapping him the Basilegate may have accidentally let something far worse into Skopje than a mere Bulgarian enemy. (BC/KC)
The Black Hand - A reputed vicious criminal by the name of Lajos Ojciec, a Pole, also known as the Butcher of the Vistula, wants the help of the Basilegate to help track down and eliminate the leader of an international band of brigands and mercenary raiders named the Keishon, or Black Hand. A shadowy group, of unknown origins, membership, and history, the Black Hand is often suspected of various criminal activities; piracy, brigandry, caravan raiding, arms smuggling for barbarian nations, counterfeiting of coinage, mine raiding, pillaging, robbery, rape and murder. They are also suspected of trafficking in slavery and trade in humans, as well as somehow being connected to the cartel of the Khomainahas which operates in the Middle East and Orient. The empire considers the Keishon a very dangerous force and gives permission for the Basilegate to form a temporary alliance with Ojciec to hunt down the present leader of the Black Hand, as long as the mission does not establish Ojciec as the new leader of the Keishon. The current supposed leader of the Black Hand, Nyklotcha Navi, also known as Nyk or the Crimean Bull, has taken up temporary residence in the small village of Krakow. Following Ojciec to Krakow the party takes up temporary quarters from which they can watch Navi and surveil his operations, waiting for the right moment to strike. While keeping Navi under observation the small village is suddenly flooded by a large party of people accompanying Klaukus, the barbarian King of the Vandals, come to establish a peace treaty with the Southern Poles. The next morning the party awakens to discover both Navi and Ojciec missing, King Klaukus assassinated and the evidence seeming to implicate one of their own party members as the likely assassin. (BC/COC/KHC)
