Unfocused Thoughts on Religion

While I like to present organised and cogent statements, I find them time-consuming and difficult. Consequently, I save that kind of energy for my day job, and anyway figure they're less important to gamers, who largely decide to go where their imaginations lead them.

In planning out The Bastard's Blade, It seems to me that the fundamental aspect of the campaign is religion. Or rather, the influence religious belief has on the setting's peoples and how it motivates their behaviour. With that starting point, here are some unfocused thoughts on religion in Barael's Europe: [1]

• Christianity represents Law, civilisation, and order. 
• Though historically significant, the specific differences between Arian and Trinitarian Christianity are likely to be glossed over in the campaign. I anticipate that efforts to distinguish the two as separate flavours of Law will be confusing (or, more accurately, that I won't do a good job of explaining the difference).
• That said, I can still represent the conflict between East and West: As the last man standing, the East Roman Empire sees itself as the "true" Christian authority, unspoilt (as it is) by the barbarian influence that toppled the West. Meanwhile, the Christian states in the West struggle to recover from Rome's fall, and some doctrinal details are bound to suffer for the greater good: You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
• Paganism represents Neutrality and teaches self-reliance for the benefit of the community.
• I'm thinking specifically of Germanic Paganism, and I'm applying a broad brush to include any non-Christian state. [2] In the interest of simplicity, I'll probably include about 6-10 deities, but without distinguishing between the Germanic, Norse, or Anglo-Saxon aspects of each.
• For now, I'm not touching Celtic Paganism. As the Celts begin converting to Christianity in the 5th century, I think it makes sense to depict Celtic culture as a mix of western Christians and Germanic pagans (via the Anglo-Saxons). I'm picking nits, but I think it's good enough for government work. If I want druids, I'll flaunt historical accuracy and make them cultists who worship demon lords.
• Who, by the way, represents Chaos and the rise of the individual to attain power over others. The roster includes Baal, Pazuzu, Dagon, Demogorgon, and perhaps a few others drawn from Babylonian, Mesopotamian, or Phoenician myth.
• Numerous cults venerate the demon lords (or aspects thereof); each focuses on different aspects—destruction, sadism, power, spider-worship, father-raping, essentially any value that promotes self at the expense of others. Or, perhaps more accurately, cultists are evil folks who worship demons to rationalise their depravity by associating it with a higher power.
• The demon lords are responsible for The Darkness, a pervasive evil force that covers all the white areas of the Shepherd Map. The Darkness spreads slowly west, subverting nature along the way. This is my rationale for monsters and arcane magic (and, by extension, non-clerical magic items).
• While all demon lords believe in spreading evil, they don't always agree on how to go about it. Thus, there are shifting demon alliances as they play politics and curry favour. Like, I'm sure Pazuzu would love to sink his talons into the Eastern Pope, but the other demon lords might have different mischief on their to-do lists, and struggles for priority amongst the demons occur as a result.
• All this brings up some spell-caster stuff: Christian clerics are Lawful, Pagan clerics are Neutral (and have access to reversible cleric spells). Demon lords have no clerics, but they are the source of arcane power, so all magic-users are Chaotic demon worshipers who pay for spells with their souls.
• In this light, I see Christian clerics from the west getting along with Germanic pagan clerics (after all, the pagan isn't a demon worshiper, and who knows—he might stand conversion?). At least they can probably work together in the same party. The same can't be said for clerics and magic-users—no cleric will be happy about hanging with a demon supplicant.

Next Up, Character class overview
Listening To: The Police, Synchronicity
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1. Thanks to Evan for endorsing this format—turns out that it's pretty useful. Credit where credit is due.
2. Emphasis on "state;" this excludes barbarian territories.

Fake History

Against my better judgement, I provided a capsule history of 486 Europe. Why was I against it? Because I don't want to bog you folks down with a lot of blah blah. You're here for gaming stuff, not history lessons.

Still, I think it's a necessary evil, because without it, making sense of the campaign's present is difficult. With that in mind, here are some made-up bits derived (and contrived) from the Barael's Blade lyrics:

The Darkness
Deep in the Siberian wilderness lies the Frost Court, ruled by the demon Baal, the Despot of Winter. A powerful and disturbingly ubiquitous pagan god, Baal seeks to convert God's faithful into his heartless servants. Wrathful and selfish, Baal demonstrates his power by spreading the cold chaos his followers call the Radiant Desolation, but known more commonly as the Darkness.

Ice Troll [1]

Like a slow flood, the Darkness courses steadily eastward, casting the land it covers into perpetual winter, attracting all manner of fell creatures: ice trolls, remorhaz, snowbolds, frost giants, white dragons, and subverted Hunnic men who venerate Baal or one of his many demonic lieutenants.

The white areas of the Shepherd map show the extent of the Darkness. Most of it is wasteland, occupied by monsters and nomadic tribes of demon worshipers. These are rarely encountered beyond the Darkness' borders, for they cannot enter consecrated ground and are vulnerable to banishment by Christian clerics.

Silver Blood
The lifeblood of Baal and his demonic minions is a liquid silver-like substance that seems to hold traces of angelic grace. When forged into a weapon, that weapon is considered both magic and silver for purposes of striking enchanted creatures. When bottled and Blessed, the inherent grace within is magnified, such that a vial of Silver Blood acts as holy water. A thin trickle poured from a vial forms a barrier akin to Protection from Evil (10' per vial; 2 hour duration if poured by a cleric or 1 hour for everyone else).

Barael
The hero of Wotan sagas, also known as the Halfbreed, the Orphan of Torment, Spiller of the Silver Blood, Barael wielded his eponymous blade, forged by the Crow Mage, against the powers of Baal and his minions. Barael was renown for his defeat of Lor the Poisoner, Balkh of the Spider Priests, and the lesser demon Melchom. Clad in fur and ring mail, the Halfbreed wandered the world  to oppose the Darkness, though was ultimately betrayed by his sword, whose thirst for demonic blood drove its wielder into peril. Among pagan Germans, there is a strong belief that Barael will return someday to stand again against the servants of Darkness.

The Crow Mage
A Wotan of great age and wisdom who used his powers to combine shards of Darkness, bore, and meteoric steel to forge the Bastard's Blade as a weapon against the Baalites. Barael's mentor and a popular folk hero, the Crow Mage disappeared when the Romans converted to Christianity, stealthily avoiding a Catholic purge. As with Barael, many German pagans believe that the Crow Mage will return during the hour of the Germans' greatest need.

Lor the Poisoner
A Hunnic sorcerer whose spurned love for an Ostrogoth maid prompted him to pierce the girl's father with the Talon of Greed. Lor kidnapped the girl and forced her to watch her kinsmans' fate—her father sprouted covetous talons of his own, and whosoever owned what he desired were themselves likewise afflicted, and on and on. Before long, the entire town was mad with possessive envy until the inhabitants murdered each other in an orgy of violent rapacity.

With a black heart, Lor then pricked the maid with the Talon and gave it to her as a reminder of what she had "forced" him to do. But the maid's only desire was for her home and her people. Heartsick, with no hope of satisfaction or freedom, the maid went mad, took out her eyes with the Talon, then her tongue, ears, face, and womanhood until, desperate with grief, she pierced her own heart.

The maid and her people were avenged by Barael, who (with the aid of the Crow Mage) slew Lor, though why the Halfbreed's path crossed that of the sorcerer's is not known. Some versions of the tale say that the maid was Barael's betrothed. Others say that the town destroyed by greed was Barael's childhood home. Still other tales hint that the Talon was of Melchom's hand and that Barael sought to retrieve it as a trophy.

The Spider Priests
The worst of many Baalite cultists who made their way to the Germanic Kingdoms by way of invading Huns. The Spider Priests venerated an unholy creature whose true name brought sorcerous power at the price of insanity and was thus known only as "Etterclaw." At the height of their power, the Spider Priests had established no less than a dozen shrines in civilized lands, where they bound sacrificial victims in webs to later cannibalize their putrefied remains. Their hold was broken when Barael slew their high priest, Balkh.

Next up, the Germanic Kingdoms.
Listening to: Fu Manchu, The Action is Go
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1. Photo © kevindooley; used without permission.

Source Material

An underlying goal of this campaign is to provide a framework that other GMs can build on. Not that Barael's Europe will be devoid of detail—rather, it should have just enough for GMs to expand on in whatever way feels natural to them.

I'm limiting myself to the following source material:

Swords & Wizardry Core Rules (4th Printing)
This is my first campaign setting using S&W, and to give it a fair shake, I plan to use it pretty much by-the-book (UPDATE: scratch that--I'll be including my house rules here and there, as they're developed). This will speed things along and also help me identify what areas are in need of tweaking for my next campaign (IOW, no need to preemptively "fix" anything until I decide it's "broken"). One caveat: since I'm limiting myself to the 4 Core classes (cleric, fighter, magic-user, and thief), I may inject some sort of "career paths" to help define specific character roles. There may be some minor table tweaks (e.g., the "to-hit" progression for each class, which is non-uniform and seems to give magic-users more punch than I think I like at first blush), and definitely some equipment updates (e.g., no plate mail).

Penguin Atlas of Medieval History
By Colin McEvedy, this book is a great summary of medieval European History. Each page is a map of Europe, covering topics such as language, religion, trade routes, barbarian invasions, etc. For our purposes, we need only the first 20 pages or so (i.e., up to 528 AD), but the capsule overview provides plenty of information for campaign use—at least enough of a springboard to other research if the GM desires. (affiliate link)

Shepherd's Map
The cartography that started it all. The image at right is a cropped version of the original, showing only Europe (I ditched the two maps of England, essentially because they depicted different time frames). I don't expect to do much alteration on the map. In general terms, coloured areas are "civilised," while white areas are terra incognita, populated by barbarian peoples and terrible monsters. Place names will remain, just to avoid mucking about with the map labels. Due to the detail shown, this is obviously for GMs' eyes only, and I'm sorely tempted to create a Hexographer version for players.

Zak and Jeff
Two blog posts will guide my planning:

• How I Want To Hear About Your Setting - Zak provides a minimalist format that lets me create faster and doesn't impede your creativity
• Twenty Quick Questions for Your Campaign - Jeff urges me to proactively address what PCs really care about.

I have some ancillary references, but they're area-specific. For example, Ian Malcomson's "Dark Ages" article from DRAGON #257 has some good period info for Anglo-Saxon Britain; Udi Levy's "The Lost Civilization of Petra" explores a great ruined city/dungeon complex, and Barnes & Noble's "Book of Saints: A Day-by-Day Illustrated Encyclopedia" will no doubt prove valuable for religious background within the campaign. I'll reference them as needed.

Next up, let's take a closer look at Shepherd's map.
Listening to: Joe Jackson, Night & Day

Setting Overview and Ground Rules

If you happen to be in an elevator with me and ask, "What's this Bastard's Blade campaign about?" you'd get a reply something like this:

The Roman Empire that once dominated the civilised world has been reduced to a fraction of its former glory, and the barbarian warlords who pushed it back are the new masters of Europe. They have reawakened the old gods Christianity put to sleep, but in so doing, let loose powers they had forgotten how to control. Europe is a chaotic realm of warriors, sorcerers, and thief-kings, all vying for power and wealth in the vacuum of Roman stability. Will the PCs seek fortune as mercenaries in the service of a barbarian warlord? Or perhaps they’ll win a name by recovering the treasures of ruined Christian halls. Maybe still they’ll stem the tide of Chaos and revive the worship of the One God to bring order to an unruly land.

There's a lot potential there, so I'm going to lay down some ground rules to keep me on the beam:

The Map is Canon
I'll describe and populate the map based on what the map shows, so where there's a question about borders, cities, natural features, etc., the map is considered authoritative.

History Optional
I will neither achieve nor strive for 100% historical accuracy. This means I will misinterpret stuff, ignore important details, and reinvent in directions that real-life historical figures and events did not go. My goal is to create a setting based on history, not to follow the track of real world history in my setting.

Religious Freedom
At the time depicted by the map, Christendom consisted of Arian states, the Roman Catholic church, and Eastern Orthodoxy. Judaism exists in the Middle East, Zoroastrianism to some extent in the Persian Empire, and other various pagan states throughout Africa, and the Eastern lands. I'm bound to oversimplify the religious landscape to suit the campaign, but I do so only as an expedient to play and not, by any means, as a commentary on any religion or statement of faith. Feel free to send me a gentle reminder if you feel I've crossed this line.

Fantasy Stuff
I'll translate the S&W rules to what I hope to be intuitive historical analogues. Again, there's a lot of room for interpretation (e.g., what's does "magic-user" mean in fantasy Europe of 486?), but I'll explain myself where the need arises, and ask you to bear with me ('cause it won't all make sense).

Pick and Choose
There's every chance that I'll inject bits and pieces of historical "what-if" into the mix. It may not be practical, and it probably won't be the logical outcome of historical precedent. But, this is about making an exciting setting, so there's going to be a few mystery cults, some undead pontiffs, magical weapons like Excalibur, "real-life" golems and djinn, and white dragons on the Asian steppe. I'll try to weave them into the setting logically, but given that this is magic and the real world isn't, you'll need to suspend your disbelief here and there.

Next up, a short list of source material.
Listening to: Antibalas, Who Is This America?

Starting Off

Hi. My name's Erin. You may know me from such favourites as The Welsh Piper, or The Chimera RPG.

Click for Barael's Blade

A few months ago, I stumbled upon Historical Atlas (copyright © 1911 William R. Shepherd). One particular map, The Germanic Kingdoms and the East Roman Empire in 486, really held my interest. The year 486 AD is the Year of the Consulship of Basilius and Longinus. It is the exile of Emperor Nepos to Dalmatia. It is the rise of Odoacer, the end of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, and the beginning of the Middle Ages. It is the time of a young Celtic warlord named Arthur.

At the same time, The Sword song, Barael’s Blade has been playing in my head. In the shower, on the bus, at work, while mowing the lawn. I checked out the lyrics, which practically beg to be converted into a fantasy setting.

Shepherd's map and Barael's Blade? Your cartography is in my metal. No, your metal is in my cartography.

My goal is to make this map into a comprehensive Swords & Wizardry campaign setting, incorporating the bits suggested by Barael's Blade. We'll see how it goes.

Next up, an elevator pitch and "rules of engagement."
Listening to: (what else?) The Sword, Age of Winters