Seeing that I am the fluff queen of endless minutiae I have ask how much detail do you make up for your campaign?
I've got many many folder with things like local and national costume, famous authors, local food, famous weapons, famous battles...famous every other category that you can think of.
I think that I'm singularly weird, but I live for detail.
I'm working on various detail project for Lastwall and Ustalav and trying to consider longitude and latitude and climate when designing the culture.
So tell me I'm not alone in my weirdness lol!
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You are not alone. I consider clothing, and how it reflects morals, customs, and the passage of time, to be extremely important when running my campaigns. One of the key differences between an immersive fantasy movie and a cheesy one is the production design and costume treatment. It has to be cohesive, detailed, thoughtful and respectful of the material - otherwise it's just a cosplay in a 'Medievaltown' back lot. The type of movies they used to churn out in the 70's and 80's. As DM my job is communicate the former as a part of my descriptive lexicon. I try not to obsess about it at the table, as I doubt my players care about corsets and baldrics, but I drop a mention here and there that textures the experience.
I've picked at Paizo's art direction in past posts, specifically on the matter of costume design ("Hey look, 10,000 years have passed and Karzoug's still in fashion!"), but it's an unfair criticism. You can't curate historically considerate costumes in a fantasy setting while drawing from a wide pool of artists - and also keep a publishing schedule.
We, however, have a lot more room to obsess on the forums. It might be just you and I, Witchy, but I'd be happy to go into further detail on what treatments I've given the cultures of Golarion to make them more 'real'. For example, my players can spot the differences between Magnimaran, Korvosan, Westcrown and Egorian Chelaxians by a glance.
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Hey! I'm glad to have another detail happy person to obsess with =}
I should likely start a blog or what ever to post all of my junk on so long as I make sure that it doesn't become confused as official Paizo material...well...again maybe not. I'm THE most forgetful person on Earth.
But I'd be glad to share some of my material if I can organize it well enough to make sense.
Lastwall is in the same latitude that I am though the topography is different as they have the Hungry mountains, Path and the lake to modify their weather patterns. Ustalav is north and seems that it would be a lot wetter with possibly a lot more snow. Katapesh is being interesting to consider and I'm having a lot of fun with Taldor. The warmer climes are being fun to mix up the possible cultural elements in. I'm trying to go with a different mix than the earth-like counterparts. I see a lot of people going for an Italian Renny look with Cheliax (sp?) I usually spell the wrong...But realize that Europe was in a very minor ice age phase at the time, according to research and so the heavier fabrics and styles would likely be too warm unless the same conditions applied. (I'm a life long history nerd)
Since I'm playing primarily in Ustalav and Lastwall, I've spent the most of my creative energy on those places. Though I've done a fair amount with Taldor too. Taldor played a large part in the founding of Lastwall and new paladin sorts still travel there from Taldor I believe. So there is a regular influx of current Taldan culture. Ustalav is more insular and so has a more stagnant culture.
Lastwall loves horses, music and the arts. It's kind of difficult to decide what Ustalav does for entertainment except for sitting in their houses and throwing rocks at each other =p I think that they'd be a lot more into folklore and storytelling.
Food would be mostly based on climate and the possibility of imports. Lastwall would have Taldan elements in their cuisine I imagine.
It's so much fun to me to paint cultures in an adventure setting. I think that my poor players get overloaded but usually don't whine too much about it.
I'll share details once I've put notes in some kind of order.
=}
Also I wanted to add. I'm very picky and more so than I need to be. Most artists aren't historians nor are they costume designers. Their talent is in drawing which is something that I can't do, so I feel that I shouldn't complain even if I detest the art. I wanted to show some love for the art that they have worked hard to create. I can't even draw attention =P So I just adjust and find my own art. It's wonderful to be able to imagine and mentally paint your version of the world. Looking really forward to hearing your ideas =}
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Me three!
I completely obsess on the details of the fashion. Like Witchy, taking EVERYTHING into consideration... history, trade routes, available materials, technology level, etc.
You should absolutely blog your research, Witchy (or anyone else!). I would love to read it.
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I haven't given a lot of thought to fashion, but I think a lot about weather and climate and how that should affect building design and city layout. I like to peg locations to places with a similar climate on Weather Underground and use their weather archive to create environmental effects for my games.
Add that to the general technology level and proliferation along trade routes and my cities look a little different from what we get in canon.
I haven't given a lot of thought to fashion, but I think a lot about weather and climate and how that should affect building design and city layout. I like to peg locations to places with a similar climate on Weather Underground and use their weather archive to create environmental effects for my games.
Add that to the general technology level and proliferation along trade routes and my cities look a little different from what we get in canon.
Climate also affects armor usage. There's a reason why full plate was more common in England than it was in Italy.
I get that. My big campaign is set in Brevoy, though, so pretty much any kind of armor goes, and I make a big deal about the weather conditions outside of summer.
If it was in Qadira or somewhere in Sargava instead I'd probably give it more thought.
Some older cultures wore tightly layered silk armor because it was much cooler than metal and it would actually stop arrows. Historical India and also the Mongols had some amazing weapons and armor.
I'm working on daily life and culture in Lastwall that includes everything from clothing to mannerisms,colloquialisms ,food, social norms...I'm a fool for detail. I've done a bunch of work on Ustalav as well. Today I'm trying to come up with a comprehensive social norms table to roll on for each country, culture or where ever one would be useful. Too hot to go outside so I'm hiding in my shady computer room brain doodling =P
I think people overestimate the silk shirt thing Mongols were supposed to have worn. From what I've read it was more to help getting arrows out in one piece rather than stopping them from penetrating. I know Japanese and Chinese lamellar used silk to connect the strips of metal, but they didn't rely on the silk to stop weapons.
It helps me a lot that Brevoy is a mashup of Game of Thrones and medieval Central Europe, so I adopt more than I make things up out of whole cloth.
I've only read historical and archaeological papers on it. It's good to know that. Thanks!
It sounds like you've got a great campaign going.
So to continue my fashion and culture blather I will start with a game cliche' issue that has bothered me in all high fantasy or sword and sorcery types of fantasy rpg.
Most games seem stuck in either a perpetual medieval-esque or renny-esque setting with little variation. Further they seem stuck in a British inspired style from one end of a northern continent to the other.
What's with the huge lack of fantasy over reality????? Usually these cultures have been going on for thousands or at least hundreds of years. And with true gods and magic, you'd think that they'd advance to some other level of culture and style. Wouldn't you?
I'm curious if any anyone else has found this weird? My home version of Golarion is a LOT more fantasy and not at all stuck in the medieval mold. Even backwards and hidebound societies like Ustalav have been fantasied up. Meh...PUMP UP THE FANTASY VOLUME!!!!!!!!!!!
There are no Catholic/Protestant morality codes and culture dictators to determine moral and societal norms. What would be considered moral and right with paladins of Golarion wouldn't be based on Christian values during that setting related time period on Earth. It's absolutely strange to even compare them. Why would they be???
I confess to an absolute love of shiny swords and armour too but beyond that,I like a lot of difference. Technology and science have always been a tricky and thorny issue and I'm still working on that.
So, when I post culture and fashion ideas, they will mostly be more fantasy oriented and not so much locked in the medi/renny style. I'll keep some of that but mix it with other cultural and fantasy styles and time periods. It gets boring playing the same thing all of the time.
Thanks and sorry if this came off as a rant.
I will post stuff when I get time...rl is being a pain in the butt right now.
I tend to agree, particularly given a topic I've been researching that is Golarion related.
A lot of the modes of dress in the real world, taboos, societal mores, etc. can be attributed to various religious restrictions and beliefs. The fact that Golarion (and other fantasy worlds) are openly pantheistic- and that the existence of the gods is verifiably provable- would more than likely mean that the development of styles of clothing would be very different than took place here in the real world. It would absolutely be great to see that sort of thing addressed.
Obviously, using real world cultures as inspiration is a quick and easy shortcut when trying to artistically and textually represent many of the different cultures, without having to exhaustively try and figure out the hows, wheres, whens, whys, and whats of those cultures developed, but it would also be nice to see them used merely as guidelines, rather than restrictions (which I'm not saying is done, per se, but it can viewed in some lights as a constraint- particularly artistically- when you see these nations canonically depicted as their RW equivalent.)
As an example- the Qadirans are loosely Arabic (more specifically Bedouin) in inspiration and general artistic representation, but culturally they are described in somewhat different terms, particularly vis a vis the role of women in their society. So, for example- a veil would have a much different development cycle and meaning to them than it does in Middle Eastern cultures today. (I can't offhand think of any veils in Golarion artwork- other than on Nefeshti, who is admittedly a djinni and not a human- but this was just one example that comes to mind.)
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One of my favorite things about PF is how we have regions based on Medieaval Arabic (Qadira), Conan-esque barbarian wastelands WITH ROBOTS (Numeria), gothic horror (Ustalav), Russian folk tales (Irrisen), a "nation" of pirates (The Shackles), and my personal favorite, Colonial America, (Andoran). Taldor is the only stereotypical medieval setting, as far as I know (still new to this setting)
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I live for the little details too. As GM, I probably put as much time into a region's weather/food/history/traditions/etc. as I do the actual mechanical aspects of the game. I'm not sure whether my players know that or even appreciate it if they do know, but it keeps me entertained.
Lastwall will play a significant role in my next campaign, so I'd be interested to see what you've come up with too!