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Alexandria Eschate
Or Alexandria the Furthest
Alexandria Eschate is a perfect city for your campaign where the West can touch the Far East. founded by Alexander, in the Real World the city has survived it's founding and is now the city of Khujand in Tajikistan. Alexander founded the city in the Fergana Valley to protect conquered lands from invaders, especially the conquered city of Cryopolis.
Alexandria Eschate exists as the furthest post of Western Civilization. Placing it into your campaign means that beyond is 400 miles of rough country until you get to your Campaign's equivalent of China. Here, the city survives and is so far out that it attracts adventurers, criminals, and the desperate. Despite this, the reason why the town has flourished that not only was it founded in a beautiful green valley in Central Asia, but it had many good rivers feeding it and the people who migrated there stayed there.
From the beginning of the Hellenistic Empire to the end of the Roman Empire, Alexander Eschate retained it's Hellenistic culture. In a Medieval-Renassiance setting like Gloarion, Alexander Eschate might still exist as a Hellenistic outpost. The last relic of an age gone by.
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ASPECTS OF HELLENISTIC CULTURE
Adopting a city from 300 years before the Christ is easy enough to do in your campaign. Hellenistic Culture is a later progression from the City State. Alexandria Eschate has:
- One Library. This is where students of philosophy go to learn and be taught by other Philosophers. By the Medieval Period, the Golden Age of Philosophy in the West has long past, and people relied on the Church. During the Renaissance, Humanist philosophy came into vogue. However, the amount of pontificating that went on for philosophy was only a trickle compared to the raging river of debates.
* Milesian Philosophy
* Xenophanese Philosophy
* Pythagoreanism (fun fact: Neo-Pythagoreanism had an impact on the fledgling Christian church. Plutarch, who wrote a history on Early Christianity known as the Book of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, was a Neo-Pythagorist.)
* Heraclitianism
* Eleatic philosophy
* Pluralism and atomism
* Sophistry (Fun fact: the word Sophistry has become synoptic with the word lie.)
* Socrates (Socrates is to Greek Philosophy as Sigmund Freud is to Psychology).
* Platonism (fun fact: Platonism was favored by the upper class).
* Aristotle (fun fact: Aristotle actually founded modern Science and his school was favored by the Middle Class. Aristotle also got to teach Alexander the Great. In return, Philip of Macedon rebuilt his home town.)
* Neoplatonism (Not so fun fact: Neoplatonism was the philosophic position of the Late Christian Church. "Saint" Cyril, who dismembered Hypatia alive, was a Neo-Platonist.)
* Academic Skepticism (Alas, if only true Academic Skepticism thrived in Modern Science! What we get is neo-skepticism.)
* Pyrrhonian Skepticism
* Cynicism
* Stoicism
* Epicureanism
* Eclecticism
- One Gymnasium. The "naked place." Greek Athletes go here to gain an education. In Greece, after the so called "Dark Ages," the age of the Polis was turning Hellas into a superpower. Athletes would train naked, mostly because of the climate in Greece. The Gymnasium was where you could go and work out much like today, and receive an education in the Arts and the Sciences (except in the case of the Library, above).
-- An Agora: where things can be bought and sold. Maybe even more than one.
-- And many houses.
-- At least one or two major temples dedicated to a Hellenic god or goddess.
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MONSTERS AROUND ALEXANDRIA ESCHATE
The city is so far from the Greek World that the usual monsters encountered in a Hellenic campaign cannot be encountered. The city is also close enough to the Far East that different kinds of dragons begins to be encountered by adventurers.
1. Angkheg
2. Giant Ants
3. any Azata
4. Behir
5. Any demon.
6. Drow
7. Giant Eagle
8. Gargoyle
9. any Genie
10. Orc
11. Wolf
12. Worg
13. Any Imperial Dragon
14. River Drake
15. Disenchanter
16. Foo creature
17. Jubjub bird
18. Catfolk
19. Kirin
20. Ratfolk
21. Roc
22. Rusalka
23. the Simurgh
24. Shedu
25. Suli
26. Taotieh
27. Jaing Shi Vampire