This is my working list of vaguely historical D&D settings I might like to try. Some of them I've talked about here before. Since finally giving one of these a go and running my Wessex stuff I find I really like the groundedness of using a real piece of history as a launching point. It makes the crazy stuff D&D adds all the more ridiculous in comparison.
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The idea of a Khazarian campaign sounds pretty cool. Did you happen to read Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road"? It's a pretty solid adventure story set in Khazaria around 950 AD.
ReplyDeleteI have not read that. Thanks for the lead!
ReplyDeleteI've always liked the Antarctica idea, myself.
ReplyDeleteI've also toyed with the idea of doing something on Pangea or some similar historical epoch with radically different geography and fauna. Struggling against serpent men on their own turf!
ReplyDeleteCool list. I'll second Blizack's recommendation of Gentlemen of the Road (or as Chabon says he originally thought of it Jews with Swords).
ReplyDeleteI've always thought the now-sunken Sunda Plate (like prehistoric Antarctica) might be another place where babarians could tread jeweled thrones beneath their sandalled feet.
The Khazars are cool. According to Richard Fletcher's The Barbarian Conversion -- which is much better than its title might make it appear -- several Jews in Spain argued that Jesus couldn't be king of the Jews because the Khazars had one. Not really relevant, but I thought it was cool.
ReplyDeleteI've wanted to do a campaign about mercenaries in 10th and 11th Century Byzantium for a while.
I'd like to see you blog about a campaign wherein you use the 1e Oriental Adventures book.
ReplyDeleteJust because I've never used it, but have always been strangely fascinated with the thing.
I wish Chabon had gone with Jews with Swords (btw the Jeff if you need even more reason to read it, it's dedicated to Leiber and the Lankhmar duo).
ReplyDeleteDefinitely want to hear more about warm Antarctica.
I often dream of a campaign set during the English Civil War, but then the words Civil War always get me thinking about how cool it would be to set one in the American Civil War and then I can never make up my damn mind.
ReplyDeleteSome nice ideas there Jeff. Great idea.
ReplyDeleteInteresting choices, especially that period in Japan.
ReplyDeleteMost of the fiction I see set in historical Japan seems to be in or near the Ōnin War (1467-1477).
I'm curious why the time around the Mongol invasions appeals to you more as a campaign setting. Were you wanting to avoid the firearms of the later years, or is there something going on in 1274-1281 that is just too good to pass up?