I'm writing an outline for a game set in the 13th century. My son came across this in Wikipedia:
The Devil's Brood
Popular legends surrounding the Angevins suggested that they had corrupt or demonic origins. While the chronicler Gerald of Wales is the key contemporaneous source for these stories, they often borrowed elements of the wider Melusine legend. For example, Gerald wrote in his De instructione principis of "a certain countess of Anjou" who rarely attended mass, and one day flew away, never to be seen again. A similar story was attached to Eleanor of Aquitaine in the thirteenth century romance Richard Coeur-de-lion. Gerald also presents a list of sins committed by Geoffrey V and Henry II as further evidence of their "corrupt" origins.
According to Gerald, these legends were not always discouraged by the Angevins. Richard the Lionheart was said to have often remarked of his family that they "come of the devil, and to the devil they would go." A similar statement is attributed to St. Bernard regarding Henry II. Henry II's sons reportedly defended their frequent infighting by saying "Do not deprive us of our heritage; we cannot help acting like devils." The legends surrounding the Angevins grew into English folklore and led some historians to give them the epithet "The Devil's Brood".
I think this makes Angevins, and their kids, the Plantagenets, a bunch of Tieflings and Infernal Sorcerors. This was the easy part.
The hard bits come from placing humanoids and demihumans. I want to place Dwarves in mountain ranges, Elves in forests, Halfings in hills, no problem.
If I give the Camargue and surrounding lowlands to the orcs, am I saying bad things about the French? This is real world stuff, and simple shuffling of populations could really annoy folks.
I want to avoid offending others (I have plenty of offensive material in the Cleric Domains already) but this seems like such rich material and a natural fit for the PFRPG.
If this Pathfindering of the real world interests you, please post any thoughts you might have. If it upsets you, 'cuz you live in Nottingham and don't want your town replaced with Halflings, post those thoughts as well.
I've really come to hate Elves always being stuck in the woods.
Why not put them in Italy, Greece, and Constantinople? Make them the squabbling heirs and former rulers of the classical world, as well as current rulers of the church?
I've really come to hate Elves always being stuck in the woods.
Why not put them in Italy, Greece, and Constantinople? Make them the squabbling heirs and former rulers of the classical world, as well as current rulers of the church?
I like that idea. In fantasy, some human cultures descend from Elven ones (Numenor springs to mind). So the Classical being "theirs" before we got "ours" is a really nice substitution.
I've toyed with some ideas of demihumans being evolutionary offshoots of the human race. Most of these thoughts revolved around contemplating an Atlantis campaign, but some of these characters could still be around in 13th Century Europe.
I also have other ideas too, some of them part of my 17th Century European setting, some of them part of an idea of considering what the world would look like if Dungeons and Dragons was real, and some of them just drifting around my brain.
Dwarves I've liked the idea of dwarves and orcs being descended from neanderthals who have retreated to the subterranean realms. Occasionally you'll find dwarves who have made contact with humans and employed among them, but most of them dwell in their mountainous kingdoms. Orcs tend to live deeper underground and rarely come up where they might see the sun.
Elves and goblins are the original inhabitants of Atlantis. (The goblins got there first, but most elves won't tell you that.) After the sinking of Atlantis, most of the elves retreated to other planar realms such as Vanaheim and Avalon. A few of them wander the earth, but are rarely seen in this world.
Gnomes are traditionally spirits of the earth, or closely related to them -- perhaps the children of humans and earth spirits.
Another option, perhaps combined with the above, is that gnomes are children who never grow up, always keeping their child-like size and temperment.
Halflings have sometimes been theorized to have been inspired by short ethnicities, especially in primitive times when there might have been more variability between one tribe and another. So with a little exaggeration, you can have halflings all over the place, in their little villages.
Later I'll go through the bestiary with some ideas that I've had for them.