have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.
any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.
any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
Because it's Epic!
I'd guess it's because most fantasy with long timelines include either a race or certain individuals with very long lifespans (thousands or more years), and/or magic that can effectively make a person immortal.
And regarding technological advances; I've read several such fantasy series where technology existed at an advanced level in the distant past, but something happened that ended the technological culture (fanatic warfare, cataclysms, etc).
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Yet modern humans have been around for what 10,000? Not only that but in a fantasy realm when you have intelligent beings who have not only culture but writing, and can live hundreds if not thousands of years, then civilization and more importantly knowledge of said civilization can be extended back a considerable length of time.
All one has to do is look back to the oral histories of the celts and the proto-celts where writing in their native tongue was taboo and histories and in fact all knowledge must be memorized because the belief seems to have been that if you write it down you dull the mind.
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Also please keep in mind that modern technological advancement was not until maybe the last say 400 years. That is still 3100 years of modern recorded history where no real technological advances were made.
This might be because of several influences, war, diseases, or just the cultures involved where knowledge was not generally shared and kept within closed groups.
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any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
Probably long-lived races.
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have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.
any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
I believe once we actually get the tech/monetary backing to do archelogical digs in places under the ocean we will discover mankind's civiliaztion has been around a lot longer then previously believed. Off the coast of India just receantly they have found remains of an ancient city, probably older then most. In bolivia Tiawanaku is 9,000 ft above sea level and covered in sea shells. The meditereanian is littered with underwater sites. There is a Sphynx under the ocean. That is just a few examples.
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Right, but in the vast majority of fantasy timelines, technology and societies are nearly static. Your examples all involve evolving societies and advancing technologies.Yet modern humans have been around for what 10,000? Not only that but in a fantasy realm when you have intelligent beings who have not only culture but writing, and can live hundreds if not thousands of years, then civilization and more importantly knowledge of said civilization can be extended back a considerable length of time.
All one has to do is look back to the oral histories of the celts and the proto-celts where writing in their native tongue was taboo and histories and in fact all knowledge must be memorized because the belief seems to have been that if you write it down you dull the mind.
If your speaking of Tolkien, I would have to agree. There is no reason why the Elves of that world did not have tanks and Uzi's.
If on the other hand you are speaking of say; the stereotypical sword and sorcery world, then I couldn't disagree more. Say REH's Conan and Hyperborean world. Where the bones of ancient empires lie all around you. So they came to prominence, more than once, and yet failed to ignite whatever is the "spark" that allows a culture to expand and advance or did so but fell victim to their own avarice and greed being now but barely remembered mythology.
Rome may have touched the world and last thousands of years, yet they still fell, partially to outside interference partially to a culture that tried to cover up there own short fallings by deluding themselves of a continuance of greatness that they did not continue to have.
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have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.
any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
I believe once we actually get the tech/monetary backing to do archelogical digs in places under the ocean we will discover mankind's civiliaztion has been around a lot longer then previously believed. Off the coast of India just receantly they have found remains of an ancient city, probably older then most. In bolivia Tiawanaku is 9,000 ft above sea level and covered in sea shells. The meditereanian is littered with underwater sites. There is a Sphynx under the ocean. That is just a few examples.
Not to mention what could be under the desert in Africa or buried under the water off the coast of Japan. With all the tectonic activity in some areas of the world there could many old cultures yet unknown to modern man. Or at least the Pulp fan in me would love to still believe. :)
Never really thought about it… It probably has something to do with competing for resources with the beasties and BBEGs that need to exist if adventuring is to happen… Plus, there is always the druids to contend with...?
But really it's because it's epic.
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Because technically Golarion is still post-apocalyptic.
Earthfall took out the height of human civilization. There was darkness for a thousand years as the orcs began their marauding, which didn't help the human survivors in any way. Humans probably lapsed back into tribal and/or nomadic ways on a desperate search for food because plants need light to survive. Without the base of the standard food chain you likely had a number of extinctions and a bottlenecking of the human population as entire races died of starvation.
Once the light returned only a few human tribes remained. These are the human races in the Campaign Setting book, a dozen or so tribes who managed to survive the complete and utter hell that was a worldwide apocalypse.
Humans have had nine thousand years since the Age of Darkness ended to reinvent society, rediscover farming, and build their empires on the bones of what once was.
Even with the help of the gods that's a tall order. I'd say humans have done pretty well for themselves. I'd also venture to say that without Aroden handing these discoveries back to humanity on a silver platter it would have taken much longer than nine thousand years for humans to regain even the fraction of lost glory that they have.
And human civilization has not even come close to the level of sophistication they had at the height of Azlant and Thassilon.
I'm in the 'it adds plot opportunities' camp. Long lived races can be part of that (we presume that they are both long lived and often looking back to a time of greater prominence) but really its mainly for plot reasons.
I run a really long standing homebrew and originally set things up so that everything only went back 3000 years mainly because I felt it 'made more sense'. Over the decades of me running this homebrew I have found myself repeatedly 'filling out' the history and going back ever further simply because tying things down to just the last few thousand years in a fantasy RPG is really confining.
A big chunk of this is covered by Chris Kenney's remarks as well. Almost any fantasy campaign you play in will probably only take place over a fairly limited geographical area. Zipping from one continent to the next is the exception in terms of plot lines not the norm. The net effect is that you quickly run out of 'new' styles of adventure locals if there really is only a limited geographical area to play in that only has maybe four or five really defining events in its history.
I guess I'm one of the weird ones, then - and that's probably due to my studies of history and mythology and cultural migrations in college. Counting backwards from the current date in my personal campaign world, the timeline looks like this:
238 years ago - the current calendar was created
~240 years ago - Campaign by the Unity King to bring together all the various City-States of Angarn under one banner.
~300 years ago - The last of the Eternal Kings gives his life up for the land that would become Angarn, turning thousands of square miles of rough, barren, rocky terrain into fertile farmlands.
~310 years ago - The last of the Eternal Kings leads thousands of his people (and those of his allies) out of the Land of Kings and into the New World.
~315 years ago - The Rain of Glass destroys Harak-Ur.
~350 years ago - The Gods are reborn, and the power of the Eternal Kings begins to wane.
~315 to ~1000 years ago - The Eternal Kings rule the land of Harak-Ur, the land to which civilization has fled following the War Of Light And Dark.
~1250 to ~1000 years ago - Humanity and its small cousins migrate northward to Harak-Ur, away from the Kever Deserts and the jungles of Saron, fleeing the devastation of the previous age.
~1250 years ago - The War Of Light And Dark ceases, with the Gods all but dead.
And so on and so forth and blah blah blah. But, right there, you can see that a heck of a lot has gone on in those 1250 years worth of time. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen, and not one, but a series of nations have sprung up from the shattered husks of the ones before. Counting back to the time before the War Of Light And Dark, the civilization of that time lasted approximately two thousand years. And before that, there was no civilization to speak of, and we get into the whole area of Mako speaking in his Wizard Voice and saying "It was a time of High Adventure!" and we start talking about the Sons of Arius and Atlantis being swallowed by the ocean, and ancient Cthonian beasts lurking beneath the mountains and rivers and oceans.
Twelve hundred years is plenty of time to do a TON of stuff with timelines. While I have to agree, it does make things really feel epic to have these long, drawn out, aeons-long timelines, I'm not sure they're ever really written by people who've actually studied history and know how much can happen in a decade, let alone a century.
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Not to mention what could be under the desert in Africa or buried under the water off the coast of Japan. With all the tectonic activity in some areas of the world there could many old cultures yet unknown to modern man. Or at least the Pulp fan in me would love to still believe. :)have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.
any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
I believe once we actually get the tech/monetary backing to do archelogical digs in places under the ocean we will discover mankind's civiliaztion has been around a lot longer then previously believed. Off the coast of India just receantly they have found remains of an ancient city, probably older then most. In bolivia Tiawanaku is 9,000 ft above sea level and covered in sea shells. The meditereanian is littered with underwater sites. There is a Sphynx under the ocean. That is just a few examples.
I would love for them to discover some 50,000 year old citadel buried under the Simpson Desert...in the middle of Australia. Maybe a megafauna death cult...where they lock you out of the city and sacrifice you to the fifty feet tall meat eating Kangaroos.
Because it would take the mystery out of the past if you could find people that were there.
Imagine how different Christianity would be if you could ask an elf or dragon who knew Jesus personally.
Also bigger is better. Thats why you see people holding rapiers the size of claymores and claymores the size of tanks.
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With all the tectonic activity in some areas of the world there could many old cultures yet unknown to modern man. Or at least the Pulp fan in me would love to still believe. :)With thirst for knowledge.
Studied sculpture at St Martin's College.
That's where I.
Caught her eye.
She told that her dad was mummified.
And I replied, I was horrified.
She said fine.
But in thirty seconds time,
She said
"I wanna live like the human people.
Wanna live like the short-lived people do.
Wanna live like the hairless monkeys,
Who were banging rocks,
While my home city was new."
I said, "I'll see what I can do.".
have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
You think that's long? Read the Vlad Taltos novels - in those novels, the Dragaeran Empire has been around for something like 250,000 years. That is not a decimal comma. Of course, a Dragaeran can expect to live for up to 3000 years.
Oh, and there is at least one non-deity that has been present at the creation of the Empire and is still around today. You should not annoy her.
The Dragaeran race is, by the way, not a natural occurence. They were created from human stock (what we call humans, by the way, because they themselves call themselves humans) by an ancient race who conducted genetic experiments on them and introduced animal DNA into their genetic make-up. That was probably shortly after their arrival on that world, "a few hundred thousand generations ago", and if we consider one generation to be 200 years (Dragaerans are considered children until about 100 years, and aren't considered adult until later than that), we're talking about tens of millions of years ago (though this is pre-history) and not much is known about that time. The real action started 300,000 years ago when insurgents instigated a disaster that killed off every member of that ancient race and left the Dragaerans to claim the world (or at least large parts thereof) for themselves.
And if the 40 or so million years wasn't long enough, those ancients found both native creatures on their arrival, and of course there were humans, which weren't native, but somehow arrived, bringing along a lot of their own lifeforms to the Planet (they probably came from Earth)
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed
Depends on the definition of civilisation really. There is talk about human civilisations that are twice as old and older, and the oldest cities and examples of writing are 4500 years or so old.
On the other hand, I consider no era or culture that had no access to computers to be civilised at all, so civilisation is really quite recent ;-P.
and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
For several reasons, I think:
First of all, fantasy worlds usually contain sentient creatures with lifespans that are considerably longer than what a human can hope for. In Pathfinder, humans have a shorter lifespan than any other common PC race except half-orcs.
The longest-living among those races are elves, which according to the rules can reach 700 years of age, and older editions, as well as several campaign settings, give them longer life-spans.
And that doesn't include the fact that humans and elves and all the other races can turn into vampires or liches and easily outlast even the elves.
Then there is dragons, whose natural lifespan is several thousand years.
And none of this even considers outsiders or gods, who are a lot more involved in matters than in our world.
All that means that if you Stick to anything less than, say, a thousand years, there will be "normal" people who were there when it happened (with normal I mean members of the common races, without any sort of magic or power that prolongs their life).
Even if you go above that, anything below, say, 5000 years means that there are probably mortals or once-mortals (undead, powerful wizards keeping their youth with powerful magic, or just long-lived creatures like dragons) around who were around at that time.
So if you don't want anyone other than maybe outsiders (whose interaction with mortals is somewhat limited and usually coloured by divine agenda, so that everything they say - if they do tell you anything - is to be taken with a grain of salt) around who can tell you about the time as if he was there himself - because he was! - you have to go beyond that.
The other thing is that in fantasy, they usually want to stress magic over technology, and the trend is usually the opposite of what we have: Instead of learning ever more and becoming ever more powerful, those fantasy worlds usually had their most powerful individuals (who created artefacts as a hobby and changed reality on a whim) in the distant past.
To further emphasise that there is no technology around and there is no progress, at least not to the breakneck pace we're accustomed to, they provide us with tens of thousands of years, and the people from those ancient myths were wizards and sword swingers, just like you see today.
And note that you only talk about human(oid) civilisation here. Our species is either 50000 or 200000 years old (the anatomy became essentially human 200ky ago, while our behaviour took until 50ky ago to get to where we basically are today, so take your pick). Dinosaurs hold great fascination for us, and they went extinct 65 million years ago. Life itself is not quite 4 billion years old on this planet, and the planet itself is 4.5 billion years old. The universe itself has recently started planning the big party for its 14 billionths birthday.
Ten thousand years doesn't seem that long a time if you consider those numbers, and these matters can capture the imagination and fascination just as well as elves and wizards and dragons.
Humans LOVE big numbers.
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in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed
Just a nitpick, but we believe that the Great Pyramid at Giza was completed in 2560 B.C.
And that is just The Great Pyramid! The oldest pyramid in Egypt belonged to King Djoser; a "step" pyramid of the 3rd Dynasty - which makes that pyramid OVER 4600 years old...
so I think you're off by about a thousand years or so in saying civilization is only 3500 years old...
But like I said, just a nitpick, because I do get what you're saying...
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Campaign Time Line vs. The Creation Myth
Feel free to come up with some Insnity that every one believes to be true. Creation Myths usually have a commonality: Some Being or Force created the universe and then completly ignored Man leaving him alone to suffer the calamities and chaos.
Also There is a Degree of Animal Creation Myth. After the Creater knocks out the Universe and buggers off...Man is left to learn from Animal Spirits in some form or other.
Creation Myth: The Great Egg fell from the sky in fire and from it Men hatched in the 'fire nest'.
Campaign Timeline:
-29,000CY: A volcanic eruption in the Great Forest creates a massive crater. Cracks in the earth of the surrounding lands cause acid pools and gas which destroys a surrounding forest.
Burning Rock lands in the surrounding regions. The Human Tribes begin to develop into a great nation.
-1,000CY: First Republic is founded unifying the Lands of Hule - The Great Forest.
-100CY: Demons are discovered living in the other dimensions by Wizards of the First Republic. Mortal Demons invade in huge numbers (becoming Elves, Werewolves, Dwarves, Trolls, and soforth). Entering through interspacial weaknesses existing in the Massive Crater later known as the Nest of Demons Fire. Some humans become worshipers of the Elder Demons still on the outer planes gaining Clerical Powers. Republic Falls into chaos as Mortal Demons begin to spread through the Republic.
-98CY: Senate Outlaws Demon worshiping religious groups. Clerical Worshipers of the Various demons attack the Senate soon after.
-50CY: Religious Factions take control of major communities exibiting hostile hatred toward rival faiths. The Republic is now little more than City States ruled by Demon Worshiping Factions. Wizards of the old Republic are hunted.
0CY: Now.
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have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.
any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
Where did you get 3500 years? Catal Huyuk (7,000BC-4000BC) Agricultural community which is re-settled every 200 years or so. Begins as a Consensus Governed Community focussing on Families and each time it collapses due to environmental crisis and the progressive emergence of Centralized Religion. Population of around 950 people over 13 acres. They are involved in Trade with Obsidian scroungers who bring obsidian to trade for wool cloth, and other locally produced goods from the obsidian scrounge at Kara Dag (a volcano 50 miles away).
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developedJust a nitpick, but we believe that the Great Pyramid at Giza was completed in 2560 B.C.
And that is just The Great Pyramid! The oldest pyramid in Egypt belonged to King Djoser; a "step" pyramid of the 3rd Dynasty - which makes that pyramid OVER 4600 years old...
so I think you're off by about a thousand years or so in saying civilization is only 3500 years old...
But like I said, just a nitpick, because I do get what you're saying...
Generally Modern Humans have been around for at least 50,000 years, more perhaps. We can reliably say the Larger Pleistocene mammals went extinct due to the pressures of Human Hunter Gatherers.
The Agricultural Revolution occurred roughly at about 8000 BC. So humans had division of labor at least 10,000 years ago.
The human lifespan for most of history has been averaged at about 45 years (Our modern lifespan affects this average minimally if we are discussing this over time, granted more people are living NOW than have ever been born in the last 14000 years.)
If you include elves in the fantasy world, which generally live 20 times longer than the average humans before the INdustrial Revolution, you can easily make a case for long time lines.
Our roots started 10000 years ago. Within that time every empire in our history except for the United States has fallen. I would expect Elven empires to last for 10,000 years alone due to their life span.
Someone mentioned Magic above. Magic works all of the time, technology does not, but technology using the natural laws can be exploited to serve everyone. Magic will serve few.
I like thought experiments of fantasy worlds relying on Magic vs. Technology. Technology would serve all of civilization. Magic would be relegated to the priviledged few.
Plague comes into town? This handy vaccine will save everyone.
Magic? I am rich... I can afford the priest. Even MORE reliable than tech, but not as available. There are not enough priests to go around. The rich are cured, the poor die.
As a person eluded to above, the resources are divided. Magic is more reliable and yields more profit so most minds will explore magic. The amount of intellect required to research technology would be vastly divided.
It is also wise to point out, that this Continent layout we currently enjoy with the convenient gulf stream and all, is in our human memory. The other Continental orientations were altered LONG before humans evolved. Living with the Sea of Tethys would have sucked.
It would kind of be like living with the INNER SEA of Golarion. Thank God Golarion is a magic place because that would be ONE hell of a stagnant ocean.
If you want to include races living with the changes of geology you are going to have to make your timeline Millions of years.
Or make the changes in geography faster. Magic, the Gods, whatever.It is also wise to point out, that this Continent layout we currently enjoy with the convenient gulf stream and all, is in our human memory. The other Continental orientations were altered LONG before humans evolved. Living with the Sea of Tethys would have sucked.
It would kind of be like living with the INNER SEA of Golarion. Thank God Golarion is a magic place because that would be ONE hell of a stagnant ocean.
If you want to include races living with the changes of geology you are going to have to make your timeline Millions of years.
I actually take the Inner Sea comment back. I guess it would not be any worse thatn the mediterranean. Probably better, feeding to the south. The arch of Aroden would not do much for current.
Note I never bring science into my fantasy games, but I am a stickler on alternity and traveller.
I have explained earth elementals away, (because they would change geology massively, by the fact the Earth of (Faerun, Golarion) heals itself by reshaping after elemental forces pass through, though there are exceptions.
They are thousands of years that not that long in geological time. I want to see how golarion looked millions of years ago. I still think the time when the qlippoth and proteans where fighting each other were longer. Humans just live a redicoulously short amount of time.
have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.You think that's long? Read the Vlad Taltos novels - in those novels, the Dragaeran Empire has been around for something like 250,000 years. That is not a decimal comma. Of course, a Dragaeran can expect to live for up to 3000 years.
Oh, and there is at least one non-deity that has been present at the creation of the Empire and is still around today. You should not annoy her.
The Dragaeran race is, by the way, not a natural occurence. They were created from human stock (what we call humans, by the way, because they themselves call themselves humans) by an ancient race who conducted genetic experiments on them and introduced animal DNA into their genetic make-up. That was probably shortly after their arrival on that world, "a few hundred thousand generations ago", and if we consider one generation to be 200 years (Dragaerans are considered children until about 100 years, and aren't considered adult until later than that), we're talking about tens of millions of years ago (though this is pre-history) and not much is known about that time. The real action started 300,000 years ago when insurgents instigated a disaster that killed off every member of that ancient race and left the Dragaerans to claim the world (or at least large parts thereof) for themselves.
And if the 40 or so million years wasn't long enough, those ancients found both native creatures on their arrival, and of course there were humans, which weren't native, but somehow arrived, bringing along a lot of their own lifeforms to the Planet (they probably came from Earth)
I wanted to present Malazan Book Of The Fallen (which was writen by archeologist and antrophologist, by the way, so history, prehistory, archeology stratas, fossils and living fossils... ok, not always exactly living play very important part) with its 300,000 years since the Imas became T'lan Imas to commit genocide of Jaghuts and references to events older than this, up to nonspecified time around milion or two years before the main body of action is taking place but suggested 40 millions of years beats it. On the other hand Malazan Book Of The Fallen has lots of characters that are 300,000+ years old. There are moments when throwing a rock in random direction risks hiting at least one if not two or three of them.
I think it is the fact that everyone is always trying to one up each other. There are a lot of people who buy into the whole "bigger numbers are better" philosophy.
Me personally, I don't care for it. It irks me a little that everyone and their mom wants to have tens of thousands of years of static history without giving it any real explanation. The idea that the reason is because there are longer living creatures who don't sleep and are supposedly more intelligent makes it seem even more ridiculous that their tech level is so low. I could possibly believe that technology development could get stagnant if they ever ran out of problems to fix and lost all creative desire (which leads to a dull mind... thus less intelligent or creative beings); but that would require a apocalyptic event as in something that's so uncommon and rare that these long living intelligent beings that never sleep never thought up a solution to...
Long Extensive Histories would be good if they were rare. But instead it's the same old overused often unexplained antiquity.
I'd also like to point out that for me personally, powerful magic and deities that work with the mortals allow for a younger civilization. A world where already sentient beings and forces could act as catalysts to help develop civilization, rather than wait for chance to produce something viable. The inverse were if those very same forces decided to hinder the mortals, which would actually make sense for a long lasting civilization.
The point about long lived races especially contributes to this. Let's say we start with a village of 50 families. If this long lived race has a glacially slow birth rate, then obviously it would take a very long time for the population levels to get high enough for expansion to a city. Additionally, if birth rate were closer to human, you run into the problem of a city where something along the lines of 1 out of every 50 people you (being a native) encounter is either your brother/sister, nephew/niece (likely with some greats thrown in), or cousin. That kind of thing would cross into creepy real quick.
Long lived races also hold the potential for records to span multiple shorter lived civilizations, so a more complete long term historical record is possible.
I agree that slow birth rate would make expansion slower, however long lives lacking a reasonable death rate to counter long lives would balance the slow birth rate. As the fewer people are dying the population would still grow. Then there's the distinction between long living humanoids that mature at the rate of humans or mature slowly. Both bring in weird concepts. In the second one, you have it where it takes one a hundred years to mature which requires a really sheltered child for that child not to be ruined or slain in his or her hundred years of vulnerability. And the higher intelligence does not make sense if this character has been around for a hundred years and not picked up the vast amount of knowledge from his or her centuries old parents. Especially since they'll be spending a lot of time with them. In the other theory, which I find more believable, a century old character could flirt with another that turns out to be his grand daughter... awkward sauce flavored.
As far as stagnated technological development, look at isolated cultures and their lack of technology. It's not surprising that a culture can be centuries behind in technology, especially if maintaining the status quo is culturally enforced and there is little outside pressure to change (like encountering cultures with more advanced technology).
Well lets really look at history, the reason that isolated cultures tend to lack technology is because they are busy focusing on surviving rather than developing technology. Technology has a weird exponential growth where better technology can be used to more rapidly develop better technology.
In fact look at the real world; Bigger population does not equal better technology otherwise China would have superior technology while Japan would be technologically inferior.
Most cultures that lack good technology also have a tendency to lack a reliable means to record information. Lacking something to build off of makes it harder to develop something new because you have to reinvent the wheel. As Einstein said, "I stand on the shoulders of giants" meaning that he took the information that others have come across and built off of it.
In the end though, it is fantasy. Fantasy is not factually correct and usually justified through common misconceptions, but it still works in the environment of gaming. I mean come on, Fantasy has armor that makes warriors clumsy and slow, guns that ignore armor, and people dodging arrows and bullets.
Malazan Book Of The Fallen
What are those books like? Are they good?
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Keep in mind the Paleolithic era takes place somewhere between 2.6 million years ago and roughly 10,000 years ago. That is a lot of time.
While between 50,000 years ago until 10,000 years ago "modern" people existed. Recorded history is only what 6,000 years ago? So we have at least 4 thousand years where we have no clue what happened outside of some archaeology. Modern agriculture only started maybe a thousand years before that.
Now the modern period, with all its technological wonders are only a few hundred years. A few hundred. Compare that to what has gone past, there is not only a long time span, but a longer time span that you could fill almost anything within.
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have you ever noticed that fantasy time lines are always THOUSANDS of years.
in the real world its been about 3500 years since what we consider civilization developed and the entirety of the time that most fantasy emulates was 200 or 300 years. but in most fantasy stories the history is 5000 or 10000 or even much much longer.
any one ever wonder why fantasy time lines are so exaggerated?
I think it is because there is generally a "Time Before" that hidden relics were created in, followed by some cataclysmic fall that you then need time for society to rebuild from.
So you have the rise of the original great whatever, followed by the sudden fall and thousands of years to recover and find all the stuff.
I will debunk one theory however. It makes no logical sense that the ruins of many previous civilizations would accumulate one on top of another in a small area and have them be preserved. The needs/curiosity of the newer civilizations would in all likelyhood result in the older ruins being stripped bare in a recurring cycle. And let's not forget each civilization's adventurers.
While it may not make logical sense (at first glance), our own historical examples have indicated that it can and does happen. For instance, the site of what is presumed to be Troy shows that nine different cities have been built upon what is virtually the same piece of land, with distinct ruins left behind from each of them.
And in a lot of ways, at some level it does make sense. The primary needs of a settlement have changed very little in human history... barring major changes in geography, a site which was at one point geographically desirable will continue to remain so for future civilizations.
We do have huge geographic changes over relatively short periods of time in golarion and other fantasy settings. Eye of Abendengo flooding the two nations that are now the Sodden lands, Baba Yaga creating Irrisen.
I think another reason for this is that the older something is, the less is known about it. The example of Troy mentioned earlier is a good example.
And the less is known about something, the more mysterious it gets. And the more exciting. And the more stories will be told about it based on legends, myths and half-truths.
When an artifact is made last Tuesday, you could almost (real-world analogy) just read the user guide and use it. But the user guide, in fantasy terms probably a vague and cryptic tome, gets lost first. And if it still exists, no one can read it anymore if it is older, since it is written in an ancient, cryptic language. And if someone can read the language, he or she probably could only understand half of the text, since it belongs to an ancient culture of which practically nothing is known anymore except myths and legends.
So I think it is basically a storytelling device to make things more mysterious and exciting.
Just imagine that in about 5,000 years from now someone will find an iPad during an archaeological dig. Would he know what it is for? And what to do with it? That would be awesome!
Malazan Book Of The FallenWhat are those books like? Are they good?Absolutely superb. And of course, one of the joys of them is that they're an amazingly well crafted fantasy epic which the author has actually been able to finish. No pain of waiting only to have an author die on you, or lose his muse and write something else for years, or what not... you can get the entire series from a book store (or a library).
As a caveat, it is a somewhat grey epic. There's very few examples of pure good or pure evil in the entirety of the series, and Erikson doesn't shy away from showing you how a liked character can be an utter bastard, or a hated character can have perfectly good reasons for what they're doing.
I love those series - its my favorite fantasy now, beating Roger Zelazny's Amber, Karl E. Wagner's Kane, G.R.R Martin Song Of Ice And Fire or Glen Cook's Garet PI and Dread Empire (I read only a few parts of Black Company) - and I ma great fan of all those.
I had a very Glen Cook-ish feeling when I read them - disillusioned veteran soldiers from forsaken army fighting weird wars and trying to survive. And being named character in no ways protects you from being mangled to death.
It's easy to got lost amongst the throngs of characters, places, events and plots. Especially when reading the first book, which somewhat weaker than the rest - many things become clear only on second or thrid reading, after you know most of the books.
Erikson makes a deliberate twists in plot to deconstruct many fantasy tropes. The series has incredibly complex history and prehistory (Erikson himself is arechaelogist and anthropologist), rich cultures (which are not calques of real world cultures - seven cities have north african/middle eastern feel to them and Dal Hon is African-based but that's about all of it) and complete cosmology (which is confusing at times, as not all information are revealed in the series).
More rant how Malazan Book of The Fallen is wonderful coming later ;)
The other thing that you have to look at, as far as civilizations and the like, is the tendency for things to rise and fall, and for technological advances to be lost in the shuffle.
[...]
Ultimately, knowledge and technology have never moved in a continuously building cascade, within human experience. Technologies are developed, dismissed, perfected, forgotten, rediscovered, reshaped, discarded, and reclaimed repeatedly. Batteries? Close to three thousand years old. The steam engine? The principles and workable diagrams are explored in texts that are more than two thousand years old.*
... except ...
You see those "really long lived races", would also tend to resist the loss of large amounts of knowledge.
Consider an Elven craftsman for example. He or she would likely remember how to perform her craft for hundreds of years.
Also, as someone pointed out, practicing the same caft for hundreds of years would tend to either result in ...
And, yet this does not really happen.
Malazan Book Of The FallenWhat are those books like? Are they good?Absolutely superb. And of course, one of the joys of them is that they're an amazingly well crafted fantasy epic which the author has actually been able to finish. No pain of waiting only to have an author die on you, or lose his muse and write something else for years, or what not... you can get the entire series from a book store (or a library).
As a caveat, it is a somewhat grey epic. There's very few examples of pure good or pure evil in the entirety of the series, and Erikson doesn't shy away from showing you how a liked character can be an utter bastard, or a hated character can have perfectly good reasons for what they're doing.
I don't mind grey areas.
What would you compare the books to, in matters of writing style? For example, I couldn't bring myself to finish the Lankhmar series or Elric stories, since both writing styles are not to my liking.
On the other hand, I like Song of Ice and Fire (though the latest book was maybe a bit on the bland side), and I love the Vlad Taltos books (and even the Phoenix Guard spin-off despite or maybe because of its intentionally overblown "long-winded historical" writing style) and everything Butcher writes (that is, the Dresden Files and the Codex Alera).
The other thing that you have to look at, as far as civilizations and the like, is the tendency for things to rise and fall, and for technological advances to be lost in the shuffle.
[...]
Ultimately, knowledge and technology have never moved in a continuously building cascade, within human experience. Technologies are developed, dismissed, perfected, forgotten, rediscovered, reshaped, discarded, and reclaimed repeatedly. Batteries? Close to three thousand years old. The steam engine? The principles and workable diagrams are explored in texts that are more than two thousand years old.*
... except ...
You see those "really long lived races", would also tend to resist the loss of large amounts of knowledge.
Consider an Elven craftsman for example. He or she would likely remember how to perform her craft for hundreds of years.
Also, as someone pointed out, practicing the same caft for hundreds of years would tend to either result in ...
... a very dull, unimaginative people.
... a HIGHLY technologically advanced people. And, yet this does not really happen.
When I was still running a game world with Elves and Dwarves and other Ridiculously Long Lived Fantasy Races (tm), one of the things that I made sure to point out was that the longer-lived the race was, the more "soulless" and "without spark" their craftsworks became. So an Elven Woodworker might produce incredibly beautiful, intricate pieces - but they had no life. They were like the mass produced flat-pack furniture of the fantasy world. Dwarven stonework would last centuries and never lose its smooth finish, but it lacked warmth and was always as cold as the deepest cave.
It took short-lived races, Humans and Orcs and Goblins, to really breathe life into crafts and construction and effort. After a while, all those seemingly immortal races just went through the motions of their work, without ever really feeling it again.