Taldor is described as Byzantine in nature. How far do you take this comparison? Is this simply a means of generally describing the government and society there or do you use Byzantine terms there, ranks, titles etc.?
I think it's just a generalistic term to describe it's nature as a crumbling, once-great empire on the decline.
I have never run anything there, but I think the idea of using some Byzantine terms is a good one. They are not terms most players will be familiar with and will add flavour (if not over done)
However I think the developers were just getting the feel of the place over to reader rather then trying to talk about details.
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Medieval Greece isn't a bad comparison, but the combination of it being the center of a once sprawling empire and now a center of culture as seen in the opera that Roma and the northern Italia cities are a closer analogy. The Eastern Roman empire was steadily conquered by Turks, is there a force subsuming Taldor that I'm not remembering?
Well, there's Qadira. They aren't exactly 'subsuming' Taldor, but wars with them weaken Taldor and caused it to lose a bunch of holdings.
Back in Beta, I just envisioned France. It just kinda stuck.
Honestly, Taldor is pretty undefined for having its own sourcebook, though. So you've got a lot of room to do whatever you want.
-Matt
Its tricky, some specific and historically similar names and the like add flavor, but sometimes it backfires. Use a Roman sounding name and the players instantly covert the entire setting to Rome. Use something less obvious (like a Dekarchos leading a company of soldiers) and most players wont even recognize it. You may as well call it something made up. Using familiar terms (such as a Lieutenant) is less culturally significant but is instantly recognized. Somehow it seems a cop out however to describe the leader as "having the Taldan rank equivalent to a Lieutenant".
Back in Beta, I just envisioned France. It just kinda stuck.
Honestly, Taldor is pretty undefined for having its own sourcebook, though. So you've got a lot of room to do whatever you want.
-Matt
Same here.
I don't really know where I got France, but it's stuck.
It might be cool to envision it as a quasi-Holy Roman Empire. That would give it equal parts fractured hegemony of semi-independant feudal states owing fealty to a central authority AND desperate empire clinging to the last stages of relevancy.
Don't know, but it is a thought. I don't run much of anything in Taldor -- my current campaign is in Varisia, and there is plenty to work with there in terms of established canon.
CJ
Yes, Taldor is pretty wide open for personal interpretation. There are only a handful of settlements mentioned for example yet the description hints at hundreds of castles, villages and the like. There are only a few prefecture borders shown on the map but the existence of dozens of competitive families and royal lines are eluded to. Trying to get a 'flavor' in place before diving into to fleshing this pretty open canvas is daunting.
I never under stood the whole Byzantine, holy roman empire etc. Taldor has always 100% screamed dark age England to me. Warring knights....holy wars with Qadira....Byzantine never had a feudal knight structure to my knowledge.
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I never under stood the whole Byzantine, holy roman empire etc. Taldor has always 100% screamed dark age England to me. Warring knights....holy wars with Qadira....Byzantine never had a feudal knight structure to my knowledge.
Never saw Taldor as having a feudal structure. Taldor:Echos of Glory mentions Phalanxes as the standard military unit and in PFS a Taldor faction character can buy (with prestige) a title but they take pains to mention that it is an empty title.
It is a little confusing. The few characters and artwork you find of Taldor add to the confusion as well. There is a distinct Spanish or Mediterranean feel to some of the characters, deviding the kingdomn into prefectures instead of Baronies or Duchies or something is a little suprising, the fact that they field Elephant cavalry is not what one would expect and then the names dont really seem to hold to any none cultural trend.
Im not really sure how to view it. Ive been trying to kind of maintain a little of a mediterranean feel with names and the like, using some byzantian forms of titles and such yet I cant deny the influence of good ole conventional european midieval culture as some have said here.
Geeze, my Hyborian campaign was so much easier where each nation was tied directly to a historical equivalent. It allowed for an instant visual when considering any region. "Oh Shem is like ancient babylonia, I got it" Your mind instantly populates the place as appropriate with all the trappings you dont have time for as a GM to assign.
I suppose one could just chalk it up to the fact that Golarion is not Earth, and there is no comparison.. but it makes forming those cultures consistently so much harder.
I usually go with a northern Italy feel in the 15th century for Taldor - they are the remains of the Roman Empire of the setting, and have decided to use trade to retake their empire. Lots of corrupt, scheming nobles of the Medici style, with a decadent culture. Cults are relatively common, and there's a good amount of corruption everywhere. Dueling is a common sport and paid "duelists" are assassins in all but name.
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I mix it up between England and Byzantium myself. I see I'm not alone in that.
Taldor is described as Byzantine in nature. How far do you take this comparison? Is this simply a means of generally describing the government and society there or do you use Byzantine terms there, ranks, titles etc.?
Taldor strikes me as basically a hodgepodge of influences. Although the political and strategic situation if you look at it in low enough resolution - empire on the decline and hampered by infighting - are clearly modeled after Byzantium, Taldan society and culture seem less so.
I think on the cultural and societal front the most dominant influences I picked up reading about Taldor would be Imperial British, Tsarist Russian, and medieval, pre-centralization French. But there are a lot of influences. Some that are traceable to medieval Byzantium? Not as many of them as I might have guessed.
I think with names it would be relatively safe to pick and choose. Looking at, e.g. the list of Taldan settlement names on the pathfinder wiki, there are some that are steppe or Middle Eastern, and some that are north-western European, but little that strikes me as Byzantine or Eastern European. The notable NPCs however have strong Greekish influence in their names. Titles from the Wiki are more Western than Eastern but with a few Byzantine entries.
Typically it makes things much easier if you have a set culture in mind. Need a name for a town? Flip open an atlas and pick one from the corresponding area. That way the names sound consistent. Need a character name? Google a list from that culture etc.
With Taldor, as you say, its already kind of mixed up. There doesnt seem to be a clear connection. When you merge several cultures (Imperial British, Tsarist Russian, and medieval, pre-centralization French for example, but Ive heard Greek, Italian, Spanish and now Turkish too) its impossible.
As Ive fleshed out my Taldor map my names and such have been pretty generic as a result, and I think the culture loses something in color.
My take, Pre-Revolution France + Medieval + Byzantine like beginning.
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The designers seem to have taken the Byzantine comparison pretty far themselves. The Taldan people look (roughly) Greek, many of the example Taldan names are taken from historical figures in the Eastern Roman Empire, Taldor is described (as I recall) as having a "senatorial class" called the "bearded ones," a Byzantine term, and the Grand Prince is guarded by the "Ulfen Guard," whose description in the books makes them sound basically identical to the historical Varangian Guard in Constantinople, all the way down to their wages being "as much as they can carry out of the Imperial treasury."
Then again, it's clear that not every element of Taldan society is inspired by Basileia Rhōmaiōn. Descriptions of the Taldan aristocracy make it sound like Taldor operates on a feudal system more similar to that of medieval western Europe than the governmental bureaucracies of Constantinople (though there are certainly still plenty of bureaucrats). Most significantly, the owners of large provincial estates in the Eastern Empire don't seem to have been permitted to raise their own armies, whereas the vassals of the Grand Prince of Taldor clearly do.
I would say, then, that Taldor is probably socially a lot like the Byzantine Empire, but with internal politics more like those of medieval France. I would shy away from making a close comparison to Versailles-era France - I get the impression that the Grand Prince has much less power over his own vassals than Louis XIV, which is probably the main reason that Taldor hasn't reclaimed any of its former territory from Galt or Andoran.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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The designers seem to have taken the Byzantine comparison pretty far themselves. The Taldan people look (roughly) Greek, many of the I get the impression that the Grand Prince has much less power over his own vassals than Louis XIV, which is probably the main reason that Taldor hasn't reclaimed any of its former territory from Galt or Andoran.
Oooh, kind of on a tangent, but my Winter Witch is both an eagle knight, and has the Taldor nobiity vanity (long story). So I think I'll make her title refer to a place in Andoran. :-) "Baroness Ksenia Skarten, of Falcon's Hollow," has a nice ring to it.
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Contributor
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The designers seem to have taken the Byzantine comparison pretty far themselves. The Taldan people look (roughly) Greek, many of the I get the impression that the Grand Prince has much less power over his own vassals than Louis XIV, which is probably the main reason that Taldor hasn't reclaimed any of its former territory from Galt or Andoran.Oooh, kind of on a tangent, but my Winter Witch is both an eagle knight, and has the Taldor nobiity vanity (long story). So I think I'll make her title refer to a place in Andoran. :-) "Baroness Ksenia Skarten, of Falcon's Hollow," has a nice ring to it.
Your character is named for Ksenia Solo?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Your character is named for Ksenia Solo?
Yup, since she's Latvian, and my Ksenia is Irrisen, I stole the name. (and face it, she's perfect winter witch material in appearance too. (Then I stole Rachel Skarsten's last name since it sounded Ulfen. I'm an equal opportunity naming thief.)
I think they are described in the 3.5 campaign guide as a crumbling formerly glorious empire filled with medieval french knights.
Byzantium fits for the declining empire aspect.
With their conflicts with Qadira I imagine them a little bit as reconquista or pre-reconquista Spain.
Ive ended up with Spain as the template, patterning some of the names, looks of the towns and castles and what not. Not a close match but similar enough that it stays consistent.
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I think they are described in the 3.5 campaign guide as a crumbling formerly glorious empire filled with medieval french knights.
Byzantium fits for the declining empire aspect.
With their conflicts with Qadira I imagine them a little bit as reconquista or pre-reconquista Spain.
To me, the conflict with Qadira is just another Byzantine parallel - Taldor has suffered terribly from more than a century of war with middle-easterny foes, and has accomplished nothing more than to maintain a fragile status-quo. They just better hope that some fantasy equivalent of the Turks doesn't come and supplant the Keleshites. :P
When I imagine Taldan written out, I imagine it looking like the lettering on this drinking ladle.
It just screams Taldor for me.
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The geographic and historic situation for Taldor definitely scream the middle Byzantine Empire to me (pre-Manzikert, circa 1000 AD). The loss by Taldor of the western lands closely echo Byzantium's role as the Eastern Roman Empire, standing nearly 1000 years after Rome and the western provinces fell to successor states. As Gnoll Bard said, the conflict with Qadira is also nicely paralleled by Byzantine position as the "bulwark" of Europe (from the Medieval Christian perspective) against Middle Eastern foes/invaders/conquerors. (Byzantium fought Persians, Arabs, and eventually Turks for hundreds of years before losing all of their provinces and the city eventually falling itself).
A decadent aristocracy yearning for former imperial glory can be seen in many real world places and eras, but the sexual decadence really evokes late Ancien Regime (pre-Revolutionary) France for me. (The symbolic example given is that to be socially correct, French noble dinner hosts during this era needed to invite a guest, that guest's spouse, and that guest's lover to be polite. Basically, socially institutionalized menage a trois.)
I think the early Russian Imperial artifacts are a very nice touch for Taldan items. (Since many in early Tsarist Russia considered themselves to be the "Third Rome," direct successors to Byzantine heritage of the "Second Rome," those styles mesh really nicely with a Byzantine feel, too).
There are plenty of more "High Medieval" elements in Taldor which don't exactly parallel Byzantium (or pre-Revolutionary France either). To me this is similar to Andoran's echoes of Revolutionary America, evoking those 18th Century ideas moved into a more traditionally "Medieval" setting.
I think the designers have said that no area in Golarion is supposed to be an exact replica/pseudo-version of a real world country or culture. They've drawn inspiration for each area from various historical and fantasy cultures, as well as their own ideas. So I use what works for me (including a mish-mash of Byzantine, French aristocratic, and fantasy/medieval elements for my interpretation of Taldor).
What many people already said about the Byzantium comparison. It's pretty clearly an expy for Byzantium, easily discernable by the numerous analogies. That entire corner of Avistan seems to take heavily from real-world inspirations, with Taldor (Byzantium), Quadira (The Turks/Arabia) and Osirion (Ancient Egypt) all very near to each other.
Its the small things that instantly steer the mind toward a certain parallel. Rondelero, the fighting style so popular in Taldor includes a Falcata and Buckler - for example, instantly lends a mediterranean feel - ancient Spain or Portugal for example. Considering they utilize phalanxes and war elephants the picture begins to take shape even if some of the other details dont fit. A post Roman empire feel is unavoidable in my opinion. I try to not allow that vision to influence my fleshing out of the Kingdom but its difficult not to just fall sway to that vision and design Taldor around it.