Session 00 and Setting Background
Jul 17, 2017 5:43:18 GMT -8
Post by mrcj on Jul 17, 2017 5:43:18 GMT -8
This is not a criticism, just some things I was thinking of when I was listening to the actual play.
Timeline notes:
If the orcs had been in France for 200 years and the battle of 1066 never happened, this would radically change how England develops, as I assume the Norman influence would be reduced. So is England still a group of separate states? The map of England/Ireland is very different from 1,000 to 1,300.
Religion: I have heard the Spanish Inquisition mentioned a few times, which happened in 1478. Spain was not a single unit in 1300, but Castile and Aragon at that time were actively removing the last Islamic state from Iberia, Grenada. At the late 1400 you are moving closer to guns and cannons are already in use.
There is nothing close to religious tolerance in that period of history. Christianity spread through Europe largely when a king converted, his entire people converted. Pagan traditions would be suppressed or co-opted into a Christian tradition. Islam has been bottled up in Iberia at the time of Charlemagne in the 800s. France had not experienced a direct religious threat until the Huguenot wars of the 1500s. There was not an uneasy truce between Catholics and protestants until after the thirty years war in the mid 1600s. Paganism was met fairly directly with a blunt show of force. The experience of Jews in Europe at that time (an much of he time really) was not a pleasant one, second class citizens would be generous.
Having a direct orcish pagan force appear in France may also change what happened in Italy with their collection of small states. As well as the Holy Roman Empire with their own collection of semi-autonomous kingdoms in what is now Germany.
French feudalism: "How long have you worked for the merchant?" The idea of a land owning merchant class in France likely was not a thing until the 1500s, and even then the lower classes were serfs. In the 1300s France if someone was a land owner the chances of them not being nobility would be very slight, even less so if the nobility had it worse off than the merchant.
Timeline notes:
If the orcs had been in France for 200 years and the battle of 1066 never happened, this would radically change how England develops, as I assume the Norman influence would be reduced. So is England still a group of separate states? The map of England/Ireland is very different from 1,000 to 1,300.
Religion: I have heard the Spanish Inquisition mentioned a few times, which happened in 1478. Spain was not a single unit in 1300, but Castile and Aragon at that time were actively removing the last Islamic state from Iberia, Grenada. At the late 1400 you are moving closer to guns and cannons are already in use.
There is nothing close to religious tolerance in that period of history. Christianity spread through Europe largely when a king converted, his entire people converted. Pagan traditions would be suppressed or co-opted into a Christian tradition. Islam has been bottled up in Iberia at the time of Charlemagne in the 800s. France had not experienced a direct religious threat until the Huguenot wars of the 1500s. There was not an uneasy truce between Catholics and protestants until after the thirty years war in the mid 1600s. Paganism was met fairly directly with a blunt show of force. The experience of Jews in Europe at that time (an much of he time really) was not a pleasant one, second class citizens would be generous.
Having a direct orcish pagan force appear in France may also change what happened in Italy with their collection of small states. As well as the Holy Roman Empire with their own collection of semi-autonomous kingdoms in what is now Germany.
French feudalism: "How long have you worked for the merchant?" The idea of a land owning merchant class in France likely was not a thing until the 1500s, and even then the lower classes were serfs. In the 1300s France if someone was a land owner the chances of them not being nobility would be very slight, even less so if the nobility had it worse off than the merchant.