Butterflies and the Fall of Societies
21 02 2008I keep myself busy in the car by listening to university course CDs from the Teaching Company. I find it far more useful learning about ancient history and modes of thought than listening to the most recent musical cacophony to sell sex to the kiddies. Now, I’ve been doing this a good while and burned through all the standards — Ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian histories, with a fun sideline of a en entire course dedicated to the great battles and military history (which were far more entertaining than some of the West Point history texts describing US Military history). I also hit the Chinese and Persian histories, and can now begin to appreciate how all these societies intermingled — how a major change in the Asia Minor such as the rise of a new society would send ripples eastward, displacing native tribes in the Mongolian Steppes, who, squeezed against a momentarily powerful Chinese dynasty, would pop north, then sweep westward on their horses through the Ukraine, pushing the semi-civilized Goths over river boundaries and into Roman territories to begin the fall of Rome (who had done an amazing job of displacing every other major civilization in a far more direct manner in their own time). So much glorious material in there for gaming, it’s hard to even start.
I’ve moved on to the later times (Early Middle Ages) to explore the escape from the collapse of (Western) society. Interesting stuff, covered in about 10 times the depth of most survey courses — still only a drop in the bucket. The current study is of the Vikings — those “barbarians” of the North. The ones that took Roman and Celtic barge building and advanced it to a level where they absolutely ruled the seas for 300 years. The ones that assembled a 120 ship fleet and sailed it into Paris, after defeating two armies sent to stop them. The ones that conquered 3 of 4 Saxon kingdoms in a 15 year “raid” — after the Saxons took 150 years to conquer the same space. Traders, Raiders, and Rulers of anything reachable within a week’s gallop from any river between Portugal, through Northern Europe, and down the Vistula to the Caspian Sea.
Impressive for inconsequential barbarians, eh? It makes me regret letting my Game of Thrones campaign slide right in the middle of an Iron Isles invasion of the North. I obviously made my Norse raiders a bit too easily beaten. Arig Botley rules!
Categories : RPG, whimsical
