I've been looking at the dates in some of the Wiki articles. Golarion's history is *very* long, when compared to earth history. The whole history of civilization on earth is something less than 6000 years, I believe. The age of Absalom is 4700+, right? That would be like a city existing from 2700 BC to today. Sure, a couple places might exist like that, but generally not in the same general shape. Wow, it sure is long. Almost 3000 years of fire arm production in Alkenstar, for instance.
I've been looking at the dates in some of the Wiki articles. Golarion's history is *very* long, when compared to earth history. The whole history of civilization on earth is something less than 6000 years, I believe. The age of Absalom is 4700+, right? That would be like a city existing from 2700 BC to today. Sure, a couple places might exist like that, but generally not in the same general shape. Wow, it sure is long. Almost 3000 years of fire arm production in Alkenstar, for instance.
I think part of this is fantasy and fantasy RPG tropes. Middle-earth has a similar level of looooong continuity, as does FR. This doesn't bother me too much since I've been buried in my Vudra research and Indian legend tends to casually bandy around numbers many times as long... However, take a look at this Wikipedia entry. Some of the cities mentioned are millennia older than Absalom.
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And that dosnt cover the new stone henge found by the black sea...
Creative Director
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I've been looking at the dates in some of the Wiki articles. Golarion's history is *very* long, when compared to earth history. The whole history of civilization on earth is something less than 6000 years, I believe. The age of Absalom is 4700+, right? That would be like a city existing from 2700 BC to today. Sure, a couple places might exist like that, but generally not in the same general shape. Wow, it sure is long. Almost 3000 years of fire arm production in Alkenstar, for instance.
While it's true that Golarion's got a long history... it's interesting that you single out Alkenstar's firearm production, because that's one of the few changes we're making to Golarion with the upcoming "Inner Sea World Guide." Alkenstar's only been making firearms for a couple hundred years, if that; it just didn't make sense to me that Golarion's had firearm technology for ten times as long as we've had it in the real world (more or less) but they've not progressed beyond the very beginnings of that technology.
Anyway, yeah, there's a lot of history in the world. We wanted to give ourselves enough "room" to fill things in as the world grows organically.
Cool - a good change on Alkenstar, I think. Thanks, James. I'm really looking forward to the new campaign setting.
I've been looking at the dates in some of the Wiki articles. Golarion's history is *very* long, when compared to earth history. The whole history of civilization on earth is something less than 6000 years, I believe. The age of Absalom is 4700+, right? That would be like a city existing from 2700 BC to today. Sure, a couple places might exist like that, but generally not in the same general shape. Wow, it sure is long. Almost 3000 years of fire arm production in Alkenstar, for instance.
Golarion's history isn't long enough! The history for my world is over 100,000 years old, and anything less than that is enough for me...
Golarion's history isn't long enough! The history for my world is over 100,000 years old, and anything less than that is enough for me...
There is still all that's known in Golarion's history with the Azlant as well. Considering they were "elven" in race, the little bit that we actually know of Golarion I'm sure is just that: We've only scratched the surface.
Yeah, Alkenstar has been stockpiling guns for thousands of years... ;)
While it's true that Golarion's got a long history... it's interesting that you single out Alkenstar's firearm production, because that's one of the few changes we're making to Golarion with the upcoming "Inner Sea World Guide." Alkenstar's only been making firearms for a couple hundred years, if that; it just didn't make sense to me that Golarion's had firearm technology for ten times as long as we've had it in the real world (more or less) but they've not progressed beyond the very beginnings of that technology.
Maybe they stuck some technological/development barrier or maybe Golarion physics is just a bit different to require different path of technological development.
And when it comes to Golarion's history... Erikson's Malazan Book Of The Fallen has 300,000+ years of mentioned history and some of the characters of that times are still around there. Howevere, Erikson is archeologist and anthropologist and it can be sensed when reading his books - Seven Cities in particular was what I thought when seeing list of ancient cities from the link above.
For people who are bothered by how long Golarion's history is (or just don't like 'Medival Stasis'), one suggestion that has been brought up more than once is to divide all historical dates by 10. To avoid rewriting adventures too much, you can leave dates in the last 100 years alone (so House Thrune can have has more than one monarch, for instance). But not too much needs adjustment if Azlant and Thassilon fell 1,000 years, rather than 10,000 years ago, and Absalom was founded 470, not 4,700 years ago.
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But according to the Time Cube and Universal Church of Tarvu, human civilzation dates back to at least 100,000 years back, so it's all fine ...
Nah I think physics works just fine, Alkenstar has Glocks and AK's they just sell Flints to everyone els...
I sort of like the late 18th-early 19th century vibe to a number of places. Some of the really far out fantasy places are cool, too, but that time period has some pretty interesting bits to it that I really like. I'm going to think more about this and post somewhere.
As George RR Martin says, everything in Fantasy is bigger. The Histories are longer, the wars bloodier, the castles taller and the people prettier.
So, timelines being longer is a really just part of the greater sense of scale. The best epic fantasy takes reflections of real human history and feeds them some steroids.
As George RR Martin says, everything in Fantasy is bigger. The Histories are longer, the wars bloodier, the castles taller and the people prettier.
So, timelines being longer is a really just part of the greater sense of scale. The best epic fantasy takes reflections of real human history and feeds them some steroids.
Funny you should mention Martin, as I was going to point out how far back the history of Westeros goes.
Also note that for an elf, a thousand years in the past could be "back when my dad was a kid" rather than thirty or forty generations ago. So civilizations that are lost in the mists of time pretty much have to be a lot older than that.
and the people prettier.
Or sometimes much, much, uglier.
and the people prettier.Or sometimes much, much, uglier.
That too.
The age of Absalom is 4700+, right? That would be like a city existing from 2700 BC to today. Sure, a couple places might exist like that, but generally not in the same general shape.
There are such cities, mostly in the Middle East. Damascus site has been lived in continuously for eight thousand years, according to the archaeologists, and has been a large city for roughly as long as Absalom. And isn't in half bad shape today as far as population, etc, it's the second largest in Syria.
(After Aleppo, which is pretty ancient itself)
But yeah, Golarion history is long.
Archeologists near Tucson have identified the remains of irrigation canals they date to 1200 BC. The city is believed to have been continuously inhabited since 7000 BC.
If I can find an elf, I'll check with him.
when I was in Zurich as a child it was celebrating it's 3000th anniversary. a number of key cities like Mexico city have been inhabited continuously for a very long time.
as far as the over all lengthevyherebis no reason for thev technology to love at the same rstecas earth. though that said civilization as we think of it pprobaly starts as early as 14000 bc.
I think thevsense of stagnation arises from us thinking of golarion having the same stuff historically it has now. though if anyone did a time travel game that would be easy to adjust.
As George RR Martin says, everything in Fantasy is bigger. The Histories are longer, the wars bloodier, the castles taller and the people prettier.
So, timelines being longer is a really just part of the greater sense of scale. The best epic fantasy takes reflections of real human history and feeds them some steroids.
Yes, George R.R. Martin is right, everything in Fantasy is bigger, including the writers. Have you seen Martin lately? The dude is as fat as a house! I am surprised he isn't in a diabetic coma. He needs to write more and eat less.
I personally dislike Medieval Stasis but I can definitely understand the appeal of the trope (along with several of the other common ones like Hidden Elven Village and Decade Dissonance) when designing a mass appeal fantasy setting.
For instance medieval Status allows you to have Elven cultures that are thousands of years old that simply haven't advanced appreciably for the vast majority of that time. Considering many people want Tolkien-esque ancient elves I can understand the desire to stay within the common high fantasy and sword and sorcery stereotypes.
The x0.10 solution offered above is pretty smart. You still have to deal with elves that have reasonably lived for a huge percentage of recorded history (I honestly wish Paizo had abandoned that trope for various logistical reasons) but you don't have to deal with infinitely long list of rulers that can't seem to rescue their societies from perpetual stasis.
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One thing to remember is that most technology advances don't stick unless you've also gone through the industrial revolution. Yes, the electric car existed in the 19th century but only a few rich guys each had a unique prototype. Technology went hand in hand with art in those days, and scientists/engineers operated with apprentices and guarded their secrets jealously.
So, in effect, you can have a world that is in medieval stasis for thousands of years unless you have ideological revolutions such as mass production and democracy. When you think of it, monarchies want to keep all the toys under their control... it's when you have a democracy that everyone then wants their own car (USA / Ford ; for example) and other advanced goods (i.e. the people who work at the bottom can exploit their surpluses in a democracy; in monarchies / dictatorships the ones in power make all the decisions in regards to that surplus).
In effect, the leadership of Alkenstar could have mini guns in their bras and machinegun turrets around their mansions, but they would be one shot prototypes. Reading Ed Greenwood's new Alkenstar fiction though, I get the feeling that the campaign is trying to establish Alkenstar as a hotbed of industrial revolution though (descriptions of the Gunworks seem very industrial-like, for example). I would like the setting to maintain its medieval stasis so perhaps making Alkenstar the bad guys vs. the rest of magic Golarion could be a cool arc, with a whole mechanical/robot-style line of monsters and big flying starships roaming the continents Netherese-style... the strength of Alkenstar would be in its magic dead area though (i.e. no one can attack them in their home with magic) so any tech they bring outside their borders would be subject to fireballs and lightning bolts and what not... could be a fun idea to explore I think.
Another cool idea could be the Andoran angle (they have banks and democracy so they could go two ways: empower the people with tech or via magic). Surpluses = power remember? so if Andoran goes the way of magic instead of tech, you would get somekind of magical USA (i.e. perhaps not the best analogy... perhaps Ed Greenwood's FR magic land to the south - forgot its name, but it has flying ships - would be a better example).
The problem with medieval stasis isn't that it's not possible to have extended periods where technological advancement plateaus but rather that extended periods of stasis measuring centuries or even millenia (at the extremes this tends towards tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years) simply breaks verisimilitude for too many people.
Even our medieval period wasn't nearly so static as popular conceptions seem to have it. Weapons technology for instance took a hit for a time period (simply because the underlying infrastructure largely collapsed) but by the mid to late medieval period there was significant advances.
But typical D&D settings (like many of the high fantasy novels they are based on) have the same basic weapons technology over millenia. You can uncover an elven sword used countless generations ago and it's functionally similar to a "modern" one.
Really rapid idea dissemination probably requires stuff missing from many settings such as the printing press but magic can generally solve many of the issues such as rapid communication.
Now some settings lampshade medieval stasis with the conceit that if you have magic why would you need to develop technology but I don't think Paizo is really doing that with Golarion (possible exception being the magic dead regions like Alkenstar)
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...more ramblings:
Andoran: USA is famous for its love of guns... I don't know to which extent this is true, but Hollywood seems to like to portray the U.S. as a place where every farmer got its own gun. Could Andoran be that place or a place where every farmer got a magic missile wand? Wands definitely come with an instruction manual (i.e. you need ranks in UMD to use them) and they backfire if you have no ranks and miss the DC 20. In comparison, guns only backfire if you roll a natural one or two, depending on the gun, and some in the PFCS don't seem to backfire at all. Now, we all know the advantage of a gun over a bow, but in terms of game rules, it's still better for that farmer to have a bow. In real life, bows require training to use, but guns, not so much.
So in real life bows are like fantasy wands in that they require training, and guns don't need training.
In fantasy, guns require training via the Exotic Proficiency feat whereas bows are just martial (i.e. less training).
It seems that to have a credible "gun-based" nation in D&D, the rules will have to evolve to give guns a definite advantage over bows. Keep the EWP feat requirement perhaps, as they ARE exotic, but make their armor piercing... and "anti-DR" of sorts, or some similar innovative solution is required here to make them work and make them applicable / relevant / desirable.
Another thing that could be explored: because they are ballistic weapons, and rely on the speed of a tiny bullet to cause damage, perhaps they are completely useless against someone with even the tiniest amount of deflection bonus to AC. For example, anyone with a ring of protection +1 is immune to bullets. Simple no? :) So tweak the rules to make a gunshot really deadly (i.e. 10d6 bullet for example, and armor piercing, and organ-piercing akin to vorpal .... on a crit you pierce the heart or brain, etc.) and make everyone with a +1 ring or shield spell or mage armor or or or immune to them... etc.
I've been looking at the dates in some of the Wiki articles. Golarion's history is *very* long, when compared to earth history. The whole history of civilization on earth is something less than 6000 years, I believe. The age of Absalom is 4700+, right? That would be like a city existing from 2700 BC to today. Sure, a couple places might exist like that, but generally not in the same general shape. Wow, it sure is long. Almost 3000 years of fire arm production in Alkenstar, for instance.
Don't look our history through human eyes. We don't know what we don't know. Take a look at our world through the eyes of GM that would be very creator like view where you'd have a much grander history spanning the life of Planet Earth. That's why I think game system have such expansive histories as the GM would know the history of what was lost in current game civilization.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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For me, it's not just that the dates go back a long way, it's that not much happens in that time frame. Pick an arbirtray 200-year span in human history and usually a lot was going on in terms of nations merging, fading way, or coming in to being. But since what's happening now matters most, not a big deal either way. Just that Golarion's 10,000 year old ruins tend to be rather well-preserved compared to what one might expect ;)
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Somebody mapped out the coast of Antartica at some point in our history, even though accepted theory says that coastline has been under an ice sheet about a mile thick longer than we have had civilizations.
Their are sunken cities off the coast of most of our continents that don't fit into our historical time frame.
Our accepted history of human civilization only covers what we have developed since our last world-shattering cataclysm (the end of the last major ice age, roughly 12000 years ago).
At least, thats a theory.
In a way, the scale of Golarion's timeline intentionally mimics the length of Earth history since the last Ice Age (give or take a couple thousand years).
Do you have a citation for the mapping of the coast of Antarctica, btw?
I'll step up and throw in my two bits, since I've studied this idea and own much of the source material.
A couple of authors have asserted this, most famously in Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings. (Charles Hapgood).
A couple of people, including the Flem-Aths, who argued that Atlantis was Antarctica, have riffed off his ideas.
The most significant obstacle to his theories is that he rejected continental drift. But, then in the pulp universe, such as in Howard, Lovecraft, et al, that didn't happen either.
So regardless of the science it's interesting for gaming purposes.
Having also read the Hapgood book, I have to concur that it's scholarship is extremely dubious and much of his "evidence" concerning an advanced Atlantean civilization in Antartica is refuted by our current understanding of continental drift.
From a purely inspirational perspective the psuedo-science can be really fun though as an advanced society straight out of pre-history is pretty fun.
Most scholarship would indicate that Homo Sapiens arrived on the scene around 200,000 years ago with behavioral modernity showing up somewhere between 120k to 50k. Agriculture and the beginning of the ancient period is 12,000 years ago.
Regarding the Atlantis/Antarctica thing, Kenneth Hite wrote something in one of his articles about theories like this that has always stuck with me....
"Of course crazy people have the best theories. Crazy people don't have to worry about math."
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Do you have a citation for the mapping of the coast of Antarctica, btw?
The 1513 Piri Reis map is the usual citation for the mapping of the Antarctic coast prior to the 19th century, although the specific interpretation leading to this citation is dubious. This link sums it up for the skeptics.
Graham Hancock has written a book or two about civilization of some form predating the end of the last big ice age.
I think he is usually considered along the lines of Von Daniken or someone like that, but his idea was interesting.
We know that a lot of what is now sea was dry land at the peak of the last ice age, a large area as a matter of fact. For example Japan was linked to asia, vast territories off of India were dry land, the map is very different. The straits of Hormuz area was dry land.
Basically his idea is that civilization began in these lowlands that are now flooded. Metalworking, agriculture, etc. began here and stayed here. When the waters rose people naturally moved to higher ground that was previously undeveloped.
Maybe an archaeologist would rip his ideas apart, but it is kind of a nagging point that agriculture for one thing appears in 3 separated places (Mid east, India, China) around the same time (give or take a few years).
On a related note, I've read a couple of articles about exploration below the surface of the Black Sea. Around the time of the Ice Age again, this was separated from the Med, and was a dry valley. Remains of a village and a fence have been found beneath it, preserved due to the almost total lack of oxygen in the depths of this sea (it is really peculiar).
He's considered a sensationalist I think, but still...
Oh yeah, and you've probably heard about how widespread stories are about the "great flood" around the world. But there have been all kinds of theories proposed about that. From it is all a coincidence, floods are common, etc.
[Derail]
What I like about Hancock's books (specifically Fingerprints of the Gods and Underworld) is that he doesn't really approach things from the 'pseudo-science' side. He tries to use empirical data whenever possible, and puts together some interesting ideas. The fact that he is neither an archeologist nor a geologist is what usually gets him criticized (though as he wrote for The Economist, I would say that he has a pretty good analytical head on his shoulders). :)He got some of his information from an older book called Forbidden Archeology (by Michael Cremo) that is a collection of many unusual finds and discoveries. Most of the writings are by the archeologists as I recall, though, so it's anything but a light read...
[/Derail] :)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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The messageboards ate my comment (which still shows in my Recent Posts, oddly enough), so here it be again:
For me, it's not just that the dates go back a long way, it's that not much happens in that time frame. Pick an arbirtray 200-year span in human history and usually a lot was going on in terms of nations merging, fading way, or coming in to being. But since what's happening now matters most, not a big deal either way. Just that Golarion's 10,000 year old ruins tend to be rather well-preserved compared to what one might expect ;)
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Creative Director
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The messageboards ate my comment (which still shows in my Recent Posts, oddly enough), so here it be again:
For me, it's not just that the dates go back a long way, it's that not much happens in that time frame. Pick an arbirtray 200-year span in human history and usually a lot was going on in terms of nations merging, fading way, or coming in to being. But since what's happening now matters most, not a big deal either way. Just that Golarion's 10,000 year old ruins tend to be rather well-preserved compared to what one might expect ;)
Pick an arbitrary 200 year span in human history, and then look at how big a book that talks only about those events would be.
We don't have much time to talk about history in the Inner Sea World Guide at all. Nor, frankly, do we want to, as you mention above. History isn't something that you can really use in play as much as you can use stuff that's going on Right Now. So we try to keep the history lesson part of the campaign setting as minimal as possible.
While it sounds quite long, taking in consideration some factors, it is not all that distant from our own.
The cities of the Levant (modern Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel), for example, have evidence of being continously inhabited since as far back as 9.000 BC (so more than 11.000 years of being permanent settlements), while some of the cities in Greece have existed as such for more than 7.000 years. Even South-East Asia (which is relatively new as far as human settlement) has cities numbering in the 3.000+ years old.
So while the time scale in Golarion is indeed bigger, we can find a lot of examples of real world cities that have existed for time periods that truly defy the mind (I mean, Damascus is thought to have existed for 110 centuries, and is still a city. Picture that).
Besides, we have that Golarion has the continous threat of civilization-ending events far more regularly than us, mainly because miracles and magic are quite tangible, and the beings capable and willing to use them as well. Sure, wizards creating magical mansions and gods raining kebabs are not a thing of every day all across Golarion, but they are common enough to pose a sort of limiting factor to how civilizations evolve, because they often turn up as "Reset Buttons", not to mention civilizations like those of Qadira and Vudra, who just went "Screw it. We got genies. I'm not building this house. Go get me a mojito". And mojito abuse can stagnate societies.
All in all, one can produce arguments to make the time scale and odd societal development at least partly convincing.
But in the end, there's always the best argument of all: "It's magic. I ain't explaining".
Or create societies that host Carnival and have a disportionate number of supermodels.Go get me a mojito". And mojito abuse can stagnate societies.
Well, the mojito is actually Cuban. Brasilians are better known for the cachaça and caipirinha.
Nothing bars you from having your army of enslaved genies create flying fountains filled with those, though.
There is a valid point to the argument "long history, but nothing happens". Of course, the less populated a world is, the less "history" can "happen". The near seven billion people today will do something of historical significance every day, I guess. 10000 years ago, only about 5 to 10 million people are thought to have lived. Less humans with rather primitive technology means less traces to be found today. I don´t know how populated Golarion is today, but I´d hazard a guess at several dozen million at best, with a slow growth over the past few thousand years. So thats one possible explanation for the seeming dearth of history.
Technical development, like guns, is another story. Tech/industry needs something like an industrial revolution. This is probably hindered by magic, but even more important could be the existence of gods. Gods exist and take an active interest in Golarion, as spellcasting clerics prove. Perhaps the gods do their best to deny an industrial revolution - if you take our real world, this came with the Age of Enlightenment, which all but reduced faith to a side note (not religion, but faith in the existance of God, at least in the so-called western countries). Perhaps the gods of Golarion are prescient to know that if they allowed an industrial revolution, it would reduce their importance, perhaps overthrowing religion completely. Reason enough to stop any ideas like guns, cars, telephones and stuff.
(As an unrelated side note, I seem to recall that the Japanese were introduced to guns by the Dutch in the 17th century, and closed their country to all foreigners for 200 years. When they allowed foreigners again, these noted that the gun technology was not developed any further that it was back then. So, the medieval stasis might not be entirely without merit.)
Stefan
I really appreciate the BIGHUGELARGEness of Golarion's timeline. It makes it a lot easier to plug your own stuff into it without disturbing the surroundings overly much. :)
Count that as a vote for "It's not a flaw, it's a feature." I guess.
Well, there does seem to have been some change over time.
Alkenstar show lots of technological and industrial growth and chnage.Galt and Andoran show significant political and social change.
Were the early civilizations of the humans and other races ignorant of iron working, perhaps? Did ancient Taldor's soldiers wear bronze-scaled coats of leather and fight with bronze tipped spears?
The answers to such questions may vary from one campaign to the next, of course.