So, I was laying about today and as m mind wandered I thought of an interesting idea for a civilization I'm considering adding to my homebrew.
I was thinking about implementing the standard egyptian culture. In the desert, pyramids, blah blah blah. Why even bother copy pasting real cultures into your game? Butts, I say. So my first step towards changing my egyptian flavored civilization was simple: take it out of the desert. I'm thinking a temperate climate. Imagine, giant pyramids and obelisks surronded by decidous forest. Visualize the seasons. Winter would be especially interesting. Ancient egyptian architecture with a foot or more of snow burying everything? Pretty visually cool, I thought. Egyptians loved cats, too, so why not have everyone be catfolk? Simple enough. They also obsessed over death a lot. So, maybe undead catfolk?
I want to add some cool cultural quirks to avoid the land of endless gimmicks, but I think an (possibly) undead empire of egyptian cats in the forests and mountains of western-europe climate analog. The undead thing might be too much.
Thoughts? Too gimmicky? Am I a brilliant revolutionary, an insane hack, or simply an unmemorable forum goer? What would you add or change to this basic framework?
Haha sort of. But really, egyptians. I never hear about fantasy culutres simply being placed in an envirnment totally unlike their real world counterpart's. It seems like a simple and elegant way to give a civilization a unique twist. I'm talking hieroglyphs, obelisks, pharoahs, ankhs, death-focused religion, the whole thing. Uprooted from the desert and placed in eastern united states climate.
With catfolk. Maybe zombie catfolk.
Well, it's not like there weren't huge monuments built elsewhere in the world. Of course, there are some aspects of their culture that were affected by their environment that you might need to consider: mummification, for instance might occur through bogs.
You'd probably be more likely to see mummy undead in this culture. It's also possible that the souls of the dead are placed inside golem bodies that look like sphinxes.
The Nile played a huge role in Egyptian myths and society, so I'd advise there being a similar river near-by. You might also want to consider whether the pyramids are created to reflect some constellation in the sky (as some folks have suggested the real pyramids do with Orion).
You also should consider what condition the pyramids are in. We see them now in a lesser state than they would have been new.
I'm thinking this is a culture still thriving, so the pyramids are beautiful white and gold monuments. The river is a good idea, I'll definitely have that.
That's a good point about mummification, the desert definietly helped. So maybe they perform a similar process with the body, but instead of burying it in a dry, hot tomb they bury it in a tomb with all its possesions which is then filled with mud.
I would thought about civilized jackal-headed gnolls instead of catfolk. With intellectual capacity matching humans, educated and practicing ritual cannibalism and maybe some antropofagia to supplement the diet and keep with their gnollish origins. (eating ancestors make them closer to you, eating other humanoids honors them and prevents their spirits from becoming lost and reborn as lesser sapients while consuming lesser sapients is beneficial to them as their spirits merge with gnolls instead of lingering amongst the less fortunate races).
I'm thinking this is a culture still thriving, so the pyramids are beautiful white and gold monuments. The river is a good idea, I'll definitely have that.
That's a good point about mummification, the desert definietly helped. So maybe they perform a similar process with the body, but instead of burying it in a dry, hot tomb they bury it in a tomb with all its possesions which is then filled with mud.
They might even have hieroglyphics on them. A variation of arcane mark could work. A permanent version of gentle repose could be used for mummification.
Pachristian made some good suggestions. To go with them:
1) Temperate areas have a reliable climate. While not quite as reliable as a desert, the seasons and types of weather would be predictable - and made even easier by spells.
2/3) If you place the kingdom in a broad plain with Himalaya-like mountains surrounding it in most places you'd have a good area for farming, lumber, stone building materials, and other resources. Egypt was also near the ocean, so you could have there be an area by the sea - probably where the main river exits.
4) The river, like the Nile, should be easily boatable. It would probably also flood on occasion and help to fertilize the farms located along it.
5) The pyramids and necropolis is likely going to be located in a very specific area. All the pyramids are west of the Nile, for instance. This will likely have mythological reasons, though there could also be practical ones too.
Don't forget that the priest class would play a huge role in this society. You might also need to determine if the pharaohs actually are descended from a deity. This could explain them coming back as undead advisers.
I like the idea of ritual cannibalism as a means of respect/ancestor worship. I like the gnolls idea, too. I'll drop the catfolk. I don't think I'd go true ancestor worship because I don't want anything to detract from the pantheon of gods, but there will be a deep veneration for the dead. Poor families will eat the dead, and those that can afford it/have the personal power will have their most honored dead raised as mummies or other undead.
As for location, I think a river and delta is a good idea. Still temperate, because I really want all four seasons. I imagine the civilization will stretch along this river for hundreds of miles, but they won't face the limitation of being stuck to the river like the egyptians were. They'll be able to travel away from the river without extreme survival conditions. Isolation is a good point, though. Aside from the desert, the cataracts along the Nile also protected them from other African nations. So those can stay. To partially replace the desert isolation, at least one side of the river should be flanked by serious mountains. There will be lots to mine in the mountain lowlands and a wealth of fertile farmland.
The culture will probably have basically conquered nature in their area. Dams, tons of advanced irrigation, lots of farmland. It will be very heavily populated, but the food production will still produce surpluses due to the extreme efficency and systematic nature of their agriculture.
The strong central government will absolutely stay, as will the longevity and consistency of the culture. Religion and the rest of society will be inseperable. People will think of everything in terms of their clerics and gods. This ingrained religion and shared history would create a very conservative, slow moving culture reluctant to change. This also goes hand in hand with undead being a serious presence in the civilization. When your dead pharoahs are still around, there's a lot of backing behind tradition.
A potentially interesting connection between gameplay and fluff could be interesting when sun worship and undead veneration mix.
I like the idea of ritual cannibalism as a means of respect/ancestor worship. I like the gnolls idea, too. I'll drop the catfolk. I don't think I'd go true ancestor worship because I don't want anything to detract from the pantheon of gods, but there will be a deep veneration for the dead. Poor families will eat the dead, and those that can afford it/have the personal power will have their most honored dead raised as mummies or other undead.
As for location, I think a river and delta is a good idea. Still temperate, because I really want all four seasons. I imagine the civilization will stretch along this river for hundreds of miles, but they won't face the limitation of being stuck to the river like the egyptians were. They'll be able to travel away from the river without extreme survival conditions. Isolation is a good point, though. Aside from the desert, the cataracts along the Nile also protected them from other African nations. So those can stay. To partially replace the desert isolation, at least one side of the river should be flanked by serious mountains. There will be lots to mine in the mountain lowlands and a wealth of fertile farmland.
The culture will probably have basically conquered nature in their area. Dams, tons of advanced irrigation, lots of farmland. It will be very heavily populated, but the food production will still produce surpluses due to the extreme efficency and systematic nature of their agriculture.
The strong central government will absolutely stay, as will the longevity and consistency of the culture. Religion and the rest of society will be inseperable. People will think of everything in terms of their clerics and gods. This ingrained religion and shared history would create a very conservative, slow moving culture reluctant to change. This also goes hand in hand with undead being a serious presence in the civilization. When your dead pharoahs are still around, there's a lot of backing behind tradition.
A potentially interesting connection between gameplay and fluff...
How is succession to the throne handled? With undead around and still capable of ruling, how does this affect the line of inheritance?
I can imagine that the pharaohs and priests all become mummies or some form of lich. You might need to address whether undeath actually works the same way here. Do you see the lower class and poor just doing cannibalism or do you think they might offer themselves up as flesh golems or have their spirits trapped inside other types of golems? I ask because of all the sphinx statues around, which could likely be much more than statues here.
Are the pyramids actually tombs or are they where the undead keep court? Are the pyramids separate structures or are they all linked through underground passages?
What's the magic level like in the kingdom? Are there any forms of undead that are shunned (for instance, zombies and skeletons because they are mindless)?
Not really horror, no. Succession would probably work normally. After death, a pharoah essentially becomes an advisor and is sort of retired. Like an ex-president, really. I like the pyramids being actively used buildings rather than just tombs. Each pharoah would have their own pyramid or other tomb, and it would be their house after being mummified. Reasonably, some of these will have been killed in dynasty changes and other such political upheavals, so there won't be every pharoah ever running around vying for power.
Undead like mummies and liches will be honored and exalted. Lesser intelligent undead will be in much the same social position as they were in life. Mindless undead will be used like animals. Poor people would sometimes offer to be used for golems and such, but the bodies will still be consumed. Basically, anybody not turned into undead will be eaten.
Not really horror, no. Succession would probably work normally. After death, a pharoah essentially becomes an advisor and is sort of retired. Like an ex-president, really. I like the pyramids being actively used buildings rather than just tombs. Each pharoah would have their own pyramid or other tomb, and it would be their house after being mummified. Reasonably, some of these will have been killed in dynasty changes and other such political upheavals, so there won't be every pharoah ever running around vying for power.
Undead like mummies and liches will be honored and exalted. Lesser intelligent undead will be in much the same social position as they were in life. Mindless undead will be used like animals. Poor people would sometimes offer to be used for golems and such, but the bodies will still be consumed. Basically, anybody not turned into undead will be eaten.
Okay. Do you see any divine bloodline here? Pharaohs were supposed to be descended from and/or incarnate versions of a god. This could explain the succession change where the living inherit the bloodline while the undead loose it or it changes.
It also depends on how many dynasties there have been. Pyramids are huge, and could be even larger here (or have extra dimensions thanks to magic). The first dynasty could have established the rules for building pyramids, who becomes what type of undead, and so on.
Do the undead here work like usual? Most undead have level-draining abilities, fear-auras or similar things that wouldn't seem to mesh with a society that actually looks forward to becoming one.
Also, what is considered punishment after death? For instance, if cannibalism is considered an honor, would letting a body rot (or be eaten by wild animals) be considered a way of dishonoring someone?
Another possible explanation for ritual cannibalism: for some reason the race is cursed so their spirits are bound to Abyss/Hell/Abaddon where they linger feeding corresponding fiends (or the race as a whole is haunted by daemonic spirits feeding on their souls). By ritual consumption of the physical remains, the spirit of the deceased is bound to his descendants and thus saved from the curse. At least as long as his descendants live and there is unbroken line of consumption. Mummification and undeath are another way of avoiding the curse/plague of soul-eating daemons but is limited to nobility and priesthood due to resources needed or sheer costs required.
Another possible explanation for ritual cannibalism: for some reason the race is cursed so their spirits are bound to Abyss/Hell/Abaddon where they linger feeding corresponding fiends (or the race as a whole is haunted by daemonic spirits feeding on their souls). By ritual consumption of the physical remains, the spirit of the deceased is bound to his descendants and thus saved from the curse. At least as long as his descendants live and there is unbroken line of consumption. Mummification and undeath are another way of avoiding the curse/plague of soul-eating daemons but is limited to nobility and priesthood due to resources needed or sheer costs required.
This sounds pretty neat! Do you think there would be a way to break the curse?
Another possible explanation for ritual cannibalism: for some reason the race is cursed so their spirits are bound to Abyss/Hell/Abaddon where they linger feeding corresponding fiends (or the race as a whole is haunted by daemonic spirits feeding on their souls). By ritual consumption of the physical remains, the spirit of the deceased is bound to his descendants and thus saved from the curse. At least as long as his descendants live and there is unbroken line of consumption. Mummification and undeath are another way of avoiding the curse/plague of soul-eating daemons but is limited to nobility and priesthood due to resources needed or sheer costs required.This sounds pretty neat! Do you think there would be a way to break the curse?
Of course! Return the Sacred MacGuffin to the city of Plotsville and pour the Unobtanium essence into the flask of Narrativium.
A divine bloodline should definitely be a factor, but in my world the divine are a little different. There is no 'divine spark' or ascension to divinty. The distinction isn't clear. Bsically, a super powerful being (whether outsider, dragon, fey, humanoid anything else) gathers worshipers and they follow the being's teachings. Then the worshipped being might get some unique godly powers frm worship. Maybe.
So, the divine blood would really just be any sort of sorcerous bloodline, which could make for interesting dynasty dynamics. Perhaps one dynasty of kings is descended from a great wyrm dragon, and another from a solar. The current dynasty's ancestor would be given more prominence in the society. Sorcerers would be given power and prestige or treated as political enemies based on their bloodline relative to the current dynasty.
The curse could be interesting, but I don't know how I feel about a society wide curse. Convince me, I'm on the fence.
A divine bloodline should definitely be a factor, but in my world the divine are a little different. There is no 'divine spark' or ascension to divinty. The distinction isn't clear. Bsically, a super powerful being (whether outsider, dragon, fey, humanoid anything else) gathers worshipers and they follow the being's teachings. Then the worshipped being might get some unique godly powers frm worship. Maybe.
So, the divine blood would really just be any sort of sorcerous bloodline, which could make for interesting dynasty dynamics. Perhaps one dynasty of kings is descended from a great wyrm dragon, and another from a solar. The current dynasty's ancestor would be given more prominence in the society. Sorcerers would be given power and prestige or treated as political enemies based on their bloodline relative to the current dynasty.
The curse could be interesting, but I don't know how I feel about a society wide curse. Convince me, I'm on the fence.
What if the curse came in with a bloodline? Perhaps one of the pharaohs made a deal with a devil (or demon) for certain bloodline powers but later went back on that deal, feeling secure in power. The demon/devil then cursed the pharaoh and all the race with their souls now condemned to be eaten in the afterlife by whatever. The only way around this was to bind the soul to the mortal plane in some way (thus cannibalism and maybe even undeath).
Loving this thought line!
I'll bite. Why not? It's an interesting twist. Cannibalism, undeath, mummification all preserve the soul and prevent it from being bound to hell. I could really play this angle up and have devils, especially contract devils, present in the cities. Imagine a lawful good, sun-worshiping society of gnolls who venerate their dead with cannibalism and undeath and have to deal with the daily presence of devils, who they despise. And their architecure and religion and such are all based off of ancient egypt, but placed in a totally foreign climate. I love it.
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I, and I have no idea why but I've used them more then once, have a reoccuring society of civilised Orcs that are heavily based off of the Roman Empire (or at least how its stereotypically thought of) with an emperor, legions and an expansionist bent. Again, don't know why I like these guys but if you play in my games beware whispers of Emperor Krun the First, Uniter of the disparate Orcish hordes.
I'll bite. Why not? It's an interesting twist. Cannibalism, undeath, mummification all preserve the soul and prevent it from being bound to hell. I could really play this angle up and have devils, especially contract devils, present in the cities. Imagine a lawful good, sun-worshiping society of gnolls who venerate their dead with cannibalism and undeath and have to deal with the daily presence of devils, who they despise. And their architecure and religion and such are all based off of ancient egypt, but placed in a totally foreign climate. I love it.
If you want to keep the Egyptian theme even more, the creature(s) they get eaten by in the afterlife could be similar to Ammit. The contract devils could be in place thanks to the previously broken contract, or they could be the returned souls of gnolls who were subjected to the tenderizing by Ammit until they became these twisted versions of their former selves - a reminder, perhaps, of the fate that awaits them and the reason they must do all this.
Being lawful good, their undead may be quite different than usual. They probably refuse to travel alone on the idea that if any die they can always eat the others. If they were part of an adventuring group, they'd make their comrades promise to eat them upon death.
If there is any cure for the curse, it'd probably lie with someone who had died before the curse took place. Finding one of the noble gnolls in whatever LG afterlife awaited them before the curse and reincarnating/resurrecting that gnoll.
I'm feeling pretty good about this. I'll have to get my players to go there some time. This is all sorts of cool, thanks a ton for your help.
If everybody is still willing, I've got another society I could use some help with, althouh it's a lot more well-developed. In terms of style and culture, this is a lot more like classic medieval DnD setting. There's a feudal system and a class system that ranges from serfs to merchants to landowners to nobles. The primary conflict in this civilization is between the normal, urban/agricultural society and the wild men of the woods.
The idea is that this entire society used to be druidic nature worshipers. Some of them lived in cities and such, but most of them were sophisticated hunter gatherers, only farming natural plains and carefully using their natural resources. The greatest of these natural resources is the redwood tree. I apperance, this looks like the real world redwood tree, colossal evergreens. They are such a valuable resource for a few reasons. First, the basic wood of the tree is strong and light (that's how the trees get so tall). It's easy to work with, makes strong products, and looks cool with the red. Second, the cores of the largest trees have wood that is so compressed and filled with the magic of nature that it forms into dark(red)wood, so a lot of weapons and other metal items could be made from it. Finally, the sap of the trees is valuable in alcohol, illicit drugs, and traditional medicinces.
All of this makes the trees very desirable to cut down and sell, or at least farm for their sap. Excessive use of the trees, however, is clearly against the beliefs of the nature worshiping society. In order to curcumvent this, the nobles and landowners discovered a benevolent religion of communistic oracles. They worship their own pantheon and are generally really nice guys. They also really want to spread their religion. So, the nobles gave them the positions of power necessary to preach their beliefs to the people.
Skip forward a few hundred years, and everybody in the cities and farms all wear yellow, read, and orange clothing and call each other brother and sister. They value teamwork and loyalty above all else. It' a benevolent religion that focuses on individual sacrfice for the whole. The nature worshipers are still around and are unhappy that the nobes are now able to reap the forests as much as they want because the people don't protest. Cue religious tension and possibility of violent conflict.
Thoughts?
Let the benevolent religion be actually benevolent and reasonable in their wish for utilizing the nature for community benefit, even considering moderating the harvest and woodcraft to prevent disrupting of the natural order - let it be hardcore druids and wildmen following them that are working against the civilization just for the sake of extreme conservatism and unwillingness to accept different lifestyle.
I've run a homebrew quasi-Egyptian setting for years. Currently the setting is desert, but only because some centuries before a war between the gods unleashed enough magical fallout that it turned what had been a tropical paradise into desert wastelands. The current campaign arc is to put a new pharaoh on the throne to restore the land to its former glory.
I really want both sides of the nature-civilization conflict to be equal in morality, just different in beliefs. The pantheists are definitely going to be a truly good religion, but the nobles are taking advantage of its preference for civilization and commerce over nature. The druids think that nature is for more than just the use of civilization. The question is not good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. It's people living in community and brotherhood vs. people living in harmony with nature.
I agree with Drejk - if the religion is really benevolent and really wants this type of community, then it would make sense for them to want to also reach out to the druid-types.
I'm not sure the nobles would have been very happy with the communistic oracles. The whole point of much of Marxist communism is to get rid of class distinctions. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the Smurfs would be the idealized version of Marxist communism.
If there are red, orange, and yellow colors they could represent what each general job is. There could also be greens for folks who were part of the druidic bunch.
The tensions could come from two ends. The first could be any folks who might have gone against the oracles. The second would be extremists among the druid types.
One thing you could do is have the civilization side's religion be all about bringing more people into the fold.
The primary religious conflict one of my settings deals with is the Church vs. the Old Gods. While this is a low-magic setting and so neither pantheon really provides direct benefits, the notion is that the worshipers of the Old Gods expect to be left alone; worship as you will, as long as you keep it out of my face. The Church, however, devoted to the New Pantheon, believes it needs to eradicate worship of the Old Gods and make everyone toe its line. With strong beliefs that this is for the common good.
However, this could put a bad taste in some people's mouths; it's rather like some historical trends with major real-world religions.
It could also be that some of the local leadership of the pantheists are quite corrupt; the religion as a whole is good, but some of the local leaders are just as interested in wealth as the nobles are (even if they preach poverty & equality). Again, possibly unpleasant historical parallels.
Even though the nobles wouldn't like the communism part of the religion, they're pretty short sighted and just want money, assuming they can pay off the church and out down the serfs when need be. The colors for jobs is a good idea, but I'm thinking it's less about enforcing these colors as people choose to wesr them to show their unity. So it' probably be a mix, and I want the civilization as a whole to be pretty visually flamboyant. Bright clothing, red buildings, fancy beards and hair, lots of piercings for certain classes.