Why must a special ritual always come in 'Ancient Tome' format?

[Kesh]

Q: Why an ancient tome?
A: Because an ancient 50-foot obelisk is much harder to stuff into a bag of holding.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Rather than the "they do" answer, I'll go with "they did." From the Classical period to the Dark Ages, much in the way of knowledge, sophistication of technique, and organization was lost to the simple struggle for day to day survival. The meme of "the ancients had it better" came from The Petrarchan Revision of the Renaissance, but it was grounded in the fact that there was a lot of culture and progress lost when Rome wated away from the AD 100's to 500's. Heck, it actually existed before then (referencing the Greek myths and plays) but not to the extent that it did from the Renaissance onward. That meme eventually made it into Science Fiction from fantasy, from what I can tell, and "the Ancients", "The Seeders", "Chariots of the Gods", etc. carried the idea to a whole different audience.

I wonder if, also, the inability to create magic items in previous editions is a cause of that meme (in D&D), too...as you were limited to what you could find in a dungeon. Since someone had to make them, obviously whoever made them was more advanced than the civilization that produced the adventurers...who, at most, might get to make a wand of fire after going through a lot of punishing effort.

Brad

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

This is not to knock the Egyptians or the Aztecs; their accomplishments were truly astounding for their time. But we in the modern world certainly know more than they did.

Of course.

I think the general idea behind the "we couldn't build the Great Pyramid today if we wanted to" is that our commonly-used methods would have a hard time moving multiple 500-ton blocks and putting them in place with tolerances observed inside the Pyramids. It's also unclear precisely how some monuments were completed, which is another part of the issue.

Not to say that it's impossible; we likely could if we really really wanted to, and would likely require bigger cranes than I'm aware we have right now. This is also ignoring that we'd have MUCH EASIER ways of doing some things...for example, instead of quarrying 500-ton blocks of limestone and shipping them 50-100 miles (or more), we'd likely be able to get away with making 500-ton blocks of concrete on site.

And we are getting more information on ancient construction methods all the time. I remember seeing one show on the Discovery channel testing a hypothesis that the Egyptians used wind power (basically kites) to set up obelisks. With a big enough sail and enough wind, it actually moved the obelisk over and into position.

Also, remember that astronomy and mathematics really don't require much in the way of material technology. People did naked-eye observations of the heavens for centuries, with a sky that was devoid of light pollution. Mathematics only requires a system of numbers and writing.

Brad

 

[mfrench]

Many settings involve some sort of Ancient Powerful Kingdom which underwent a Disasterous Magical Apocalypse. (FR, Greyhawk, and I think Eberron all have ruined kingdoms.) The Ancient Dark Ritual Tomes are typically not destroyed for plot reasons.

I actually think that the PCs writing/developing one is interesting, as the NPC groups that are interested will make plans to stop/usurp the ritual and enact them against the PCs.

 

[Psion]

Because consumers were wary of the DRM issues and the ebook format was a flop.