Hi anons!
My players ask me to prepare campaign for them.
I want to run it in fantasy middle-east style setting, loosely inspired by pre-islamic Persia.
Now I need some help with brainstorming.
Give me some ideas and inspirations.
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>Some uppity city state not only refused to pay tribute, but also had the audacity to murder the envoy. They need to be taught a lesson.
Can we play sand pirates? It's like sea pirates but in the dunes and we all ride camels
What are your players like? What are their tastes? What gods do they worship? What elements/magic systems do they prefer? Are they orcs? Do they have any more thoughts to give us?
Details, man. Give us details!
They like semi-sandbox campaign. They want some monsters to slay, loot to collected.
They make weird characters. For example one of the players played a gnom with split personalty during last campaign.. One have ADHD and second was borderline clinically depressed.
Other player played elf druid and in a half point of the campaign he befriend a mammoth and give him name after some cartoon character.
So I am preparing for some lighthearted adventure in a sandbox when my players can mess around.
lol you think he has a group, that's adorable
Asked a mate who knows about this stuff, he recommends
https://www.academia.edu/72410349/Young_Avestan_Primer
https://www.academia.edu/72410563/Old_Persian_Primer
and reading some of the shahnameh to get an idea of what life was like and such.
I return with more gifts
last of these. Same author as the links.
Not OP, but thanks!
After the obvious, where can we steal ideas from for this?
why is that the version of the game you went with
Alright, aside from this, what else can we get inspired by? Does anyone have any ideas on, for example, what kind of elements we should have?
>elements
The key conflict is fire/light against cold/darkness. Anyone who uses magic is held in suspicion because of how easily they can use the forces of shadow/cold, but their power keeps them necessary.
Also, lots of Persia isn't desert, so don't fall exclusively into that. Lots of mountains, of course, but a lot of idyllic fertile land, too. Peaches, apples, dates, strawberries, lemons, oranges, rice, wheat, barley - lots of tasty shit. Persian food is top tier irl.
Interestingly enough the mountains of the north were where wolves (gorgān) and demons (mazanderān) were rumored to live. The ongoing story of frick-around-and-find-out king Key Kavus and his increasingly frustrated champion Rostam has a lot of stories involving frickup misadventures there. (Kavus and Rostam more or less mirror Gowron and Martok, if you're a Trekkie.)
jesus you're boring
He's right though and that's the appeal. The Persian empire was highly feudal and has different related people's within it with their own customs. The Medes were the ancestors of the northern Iranians who are more agricultural and urban. Or you can go with a Parsan tribe like modern day Qashqai or Bakhtiari, nomadic pastoral herders. And anything in between.
Ancient Persia is where that dualistic good vs evil way of thinking originates. You see it as boring because of how successful that idea has been at propagating itself throughout the ages.
That's not what Persians looked like, gaytron.
Kang of Persia.
>not the sands of time trilogy
You meme, but it still hurts to see how far the series has fallen
Still not as far as Might and Magic did.
>inspiration from that garbage version of the game
>no mention of Sinbad, Arabian Nights, Al-Qadim
>these meme players
They make weird characters. For example one of the players played a gnom with split personalty during last campaign.. One have ADHD and second was borderline clinically depressed.
Other player played elf druid and in a half point of the campaign he befriend a mammoth and give him name after some cartoon character.
So I am preparing for some lighthearted adventure in a sandbox when my players can mess around.
>"we"
Grim.
Be sure to set it in the reign of Shahriarh while he's marrying a virgin each night and executing her the next morning.
Obvious the Immortals have to come into it in some way. Soldiers enslaved from when they were children to be hyper-loyal and singularly skilled, who end up dying gruesomely anyway in mass army battles. Maybe a commander wants the PCs dead and is always sending his soldier-slaves after them, maybe someone wants to leave the life and tries to get the party to bring him back to the home he barely remembers and discovers he is no longer welcome. The devşirme are underused imo.
The reason they were called "immortals" is that supposedly they always replaced any men killed or unable to fight, so their strength was always ten thousand. They were well equipped but not "trained from birth to be loyal supersoldiers"
I mean the real life Immortals (if they actually existed and the word isn't a mistranslation by Herodotus) were the complete opposite of that.
A part that always stuck out to me in Xenophon's Anabasis is when they find this heavy cart crashed in a ditch on the side of the road and the Persian nobles are all jumping to help get it out to show off their strength. We don't typically see nobility depicted like that.
POV you walked into the wrong Anabaseos.
I can't tell you to read the entire Shahnameh, since it's incredibly long, but you should definitely read at least the Seven Labors of Rostam. It recounts the most famous exploits of Iran/Persia's folk hero Rostam, specifically to save his King from the monstrous divs of Mazandaran.
There's even a great audiobook version on librivox.org if you'd rather listen than read to this particular tale.
Other stories from the Shahnameh that warrant reading if you wanna capture that old Iranian spirit are the Romance of Zaal and Rudaba and the Tragedy of Esfandiyaar.
>librivox
oh shit they're still around that's good, I was dl'ing shit to listen to from them on the school computers in the noughties because my home internet sucked.
Other than the Shahnameh, the Garshāspnāma is definitely worth reading. It's considerably shorter and is concerned with Garshāsp, a hero from the Zoroastrian Avesta and renowned dragon-slayer. His epic is less romantic and more political in nature, concerning both his fighting for and against the wicked lord Zahhak and eventually his taking command of Persia as its shah.
>Garshāsp
Picrel
Needs cool Scythians as the big external threat, also as useful Allies if you have the gold.
bump
BBEGs are clearly Afrasiyab and Zahhak (or, if you want to go into a Bronze Age setting, Azhi Dahaka the three headed dragon as the predecessor of Zahhak; swap Thraetona for Fereydun).
>Persian
Remember. A Lamassu is your friend. Don't mistake it with a Warhammer Fantasy Lamassu.
The Epic of Zahhak might be the most kino mythological story I have ever read.
The mythology becomes downright kino in the Avesta/bronze age. Zahhak is the three headed dragon (azhi, etymologically related to "ophiuchis" and "adder." Where in the Shahnameh he was defeated by Feridun, Feridun is "Thraetona," which means "Son of the Third."
The latter part is especially cool because in Indo European mythology, there was a three part system where air, fire and water were the first three gods. In some branches such as Roman and Iranian mythology they made the water God a descendant of another god. Apam Napat (grandson of the waters) in the Indo-Iranian branch, and Neptune (nephew of the waters) in the Roman branch. (Yes, the words nephew and nepotism are related.) No one knows why this shift happens. But suffice to say Thraetona has some serious relation to water.
Azhi Dahaka was drowned in the river Harahvati, which in Sanskrit is Saraswati and in modern Persian is the Zoroastrian angel Khordad. He then was imprisoned in mount Damavand where he rages to this day.
The reason this story is kino is because, like most mythical or Biblical flood stories, it appears to be attempting to explain a glacier melt at the end of the ice age. The river Saraswati was made when the glaciers that formed the Swat valley, j. Pakistan and Afghanistan, melted. Likewise, while Damavand is a dormant volcano, it has never rumbled in recorded history.
So it seems this story is telling something orally related since the end of the ice age.
Bad ass.
>Thraetona has some serious relation to water.
Also related to "Triton," son of Poseidon.
In one of the campaigns I'm in there is a "wandering city" in the desert, where even the people who live there don't know how it works or even notice it (or maybe some do, we've not yet been there). The city moves a bit each day, so traders and travellers who haven't been there in a while must first somehow figure out the general vicinity it is at right now to get there.
Read Herodotus.
Didn’t he have weird stuff like ants that dig for gold?
Maybe I should read Herodotus after all.
World of Greyhawk had quite a few persian style kingdoms at the north of the map, between the weatern style kingdoms and the northern tribes. Maybe read up on them for ideas? Alternatively, read up on persian myths.
Let's talk armor, weaponry, and battle tactics in a Persian Fantasy setting, since there hasn't been any mention of that shit yet.
Shamshirs (very cool scimitars) for later, broadswords for earlier.
Axes and archers aplenty. Shields should be common.
To other anons’ point with Rostam the mace is definitely a big dick prestige weapon, in part due to the association with cataphracts and groups like the Sogdians. Speaking of, you gotta have “barbarian” tribes in every periphery, who may or may not be loyal to the Empire (and semi-barbarians in the provinces who are as likely to betray you as help you…think the various satrapies in Asia Minor, mesopotamia, Egypt). Can add in the ubiquitous roving hordes of nomads too - Turan and the Dahae serve that purpose IRL.
Through the Shahnameh there is room for several archetypes of fighter, from Rostam (Heracles/Conan type), to Zal (bishie anime pretty boy who loves nature), or even to Kaveh the Blacksmith who was just a (rightly) pissed off commoner with a hammer and a good cause. Just depends what y’all want.
>Rostam the mace is definitely a big dick prestige weapon, in part due to the association with cataphracts and groups like the Sogdians
It's a general feature of ancient Indo-European champion myths. Hercules had a club. Rostam a bull headed mace. Thor a hammer. The mace features in the martial arts of the Persian world, which uses heavy wooden clubs.
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>Zal (bishie anime pretty boy who loves nature
Wasn't Zal raised by the Simorgh and the mightiest warrior before Rostam? King of Sistan? Not really anime boy .
Yes, but he was also a white haired dude who was noted for being very good looking. Also his wife is of the lineage of Zahak and persecuted because of it, so I like to imagine she was a QT PIE (Proto Indo European lol) snake/dragon gf.
>QT PIE (Proto Indo European lol)
kek'ing at Schliemann's tale about thots and shaved body parts now
What kind of battle tactics were you thinking o? And how do you combine the magic system with that?
Definitely read / look into Shahnameh. It’s the cornerstone of Persian fantasy.
Dick Davis has a good English translation but there’s lots of good artwork and summaries out there too.
Read up on Zoastrianism and its oddball spinoff religions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism
I feel like it's important to remember that Persia is a bit like China, in that it's a very old empire that always seems to reform and is often conquered by barbarians to the north. For your worldbuilding, I'd make sure to include turkic steppe riders to the north. It would also be a good idea to add a fertile plain nearby. Mesopotamia was far more urban than Persia was in the Parthian Empire for example, so much so the capital was there instead of Persia proper. It may be cool to have a flatter region nearby your mountainous one.
Also, I don't know what this is called but the dragon banner is such a fricking cool design. It's a windsock with a dragon mouth that flaps around as you ride and looks like a dragon. I think it's called the Draco, except that's a Roman thing. I just always see it in relation to the Parthians so it feels very Persian to me.
The dragon flag thing actually came from Dacia, in modern day Romania. It was in the shape of a wolf's head, not a dragon's and it was built in such a way that the wind passing through it would make the sound of a wolf's howl.
As I remember this dragon thing was called Tug.
it is a type of oriental banner which have a Mongolian origin.
Fun fact: It is still used in some units of Polish military.
In a pic is a polish tatar with military tug from 1938.
Just Persian or are any Arabic influences welcome?
Maybe a little bit. But keep it pre-Islamic.
I don't want to go in a style of "tales of 1001 nights".
I think it is overused.
I didn't see anything that shout Islam from this pic.
Could you explain?
.
NTA but scorpions and other pestilent animals are considered anathema in a Zoroastrian society (the exception being letting vultures decompose the bodies of the dead in Towers of Silence), so they would never be used as war mounts.
Obviously you have the bad guy faction (led by not-zahak of course) be the scorpion riders.
Or the turanians led by Afraseyab.
It’s not overused, at all. Why would you think that?
>pre-islamic Persia
>pic of a clearly post islamic Persian
not!greek invaders
Check out Mockman's blog from a few years ago detailing his Dragons of Babylon campaign.
One thing people forget is that ancient Persians were very much a horse culture that just discovered cities — they were kind of "new money" but knew it. A lot of the art needs more emphasis on horses and archery.
Huh, I had no idea about that, neat. Any other cool facts that people tend to forget about the Ancient Persians?
NTA, but Prince of Persia has a frickton of references to actual Persian mythology in it. Would you like to hear some, or do you not want to be spoiled?
I've never played PoP, and I don't plan on doing so anytime soon, I just know that it has some badass art. I say go for it.
Ok cool, what kinda references would you be interested in hearing about? Specifically.
During the New Year's celebration, which falls on the Spring Equinox, there were a few rituals, some which remained and some which fell by the wayside.
>On the Tuesday night before, there was a purification ritual involving jumping over bonfires, the fires would take that year's sin and metaphorically burn it away. That part of the ritual still remains, but another part that went away was, the king would get shit faced drunk and trade places with a commoner for a day to remain humble. I think that's easier to pull off when you're just a chieftain of one of the Iranian tribes.
>There's a table with a variety of things, mostly food products and a bowl with a goldfish, laid out. This is still done today. The part many forget is that this was essentially like a "dia de los muertos" thing to appease ghosts of the ancestors. On the thirteenth day of the new Year it's customary to leave the house and it's bad luck to be indoors. The original reason was this was when the ghosts would come in and partake of the offering.
The fish will stop swimming during the exact moment of the equinox for the same reason you can do weird shit like balance an egg or pencil on its tip, it's like a very short lived Lagrange point. In very ancient Iranian mythology, the world was balanced on the horns of a bull and during the equinox the fish would freeze. Some people put an orange in a bowl of water, and the orange will briefly bob up.
>Bodies were not interred as it was seen as polluting the earth nor were they cremated as it was seen as polluting fire. So they'd be laid out in this giant towers called towards of silence for vultures to pick clean, similar to a tibetan sky burial.
>All major decisions and policies were to be debated/considered two times, once drunk and once sober.
I think they stole that one from the Babylonians, but it's a good ethos by which one should live ones life irl.
>The Persians invented the postal service.
Read up on this, it's amazing.
Your best bet is probably the Mithras cult. It’s not actually Persian, it’s a weird Roman imitation of faulty Persian stereotypes. Like stapling hamburgers and shotguns to Jesus statues — in an attempt to depict American Christianity. It’s very Roman, and therefore easily understood due to ‘Roman osmosis’. As far as I can tell, this was a respectful but ridiculously incorrect imitation of Persian myth/religion. Pretty hilarious, since the Romans normally just plagiarized religion. The lack of rampant boy-love must have confused them idk.
>As far as I can tell, this was a respectful but ridiculously incorrect imitation of Persian myth/religion. Pretty hilarious, since the Romans normally just plagiarized religion.
To be fair, they already plagiarized a sun god and were probably confused.
This supplement for Zenobia might help you out.
Not OP, but thanks.
What about races, does no one care about that anymore? Based on one thread that I barely remember from a while back, Dwarves should definitely be one of the races in a Persian fantasy setting. Sadly, that’s the only option or modification I can remember. If you have anything, go for it.
How about magical races? Does anyone have any ideas for magic races? What kind of gods would they have, and what sort of magic systems would they use? Thoughts? Thoughts?
Alright, but aside from the ones you mentioned, are there any other ways of finding out about Persian myths, aside from all the ways of finding out about Persian myths? It’s for a game I’ve been planning (coming up on ten years now! Exciting!)
Alright, but do you have any other thoughts on this kind of setting? Maybe something that would help us build a magic system?
About the fantasy races we have few options.
In "Arabic Nights" sourcebook for there is a mentions a creatures know as Peri. They are described as beautiful, humanoid creatures with inborn magical powers.
As the same sourcebook suggest, they can be used as middle-east equivalent of elves.
And of course we have djinns. They are described as trickery spirits, so they may not be the best companions.
I personally never heard about "Persian Dwarfs".
Could you tell us more?
*for GURPS
Peri is essentially a fae and is etymologically related to fairy. Would be aropos is a preislamic Persia.
Djinn, efreet etc are Arabic and would be an Islamic influence.
Monster races are called Div (pronounced "deev" and related to devils). It's interesting to note that in Zoroastrianism the Divs are troublesome and the Ahuras are good, whereas in Hinduism the Devas are good and the Asuras are troublesome. In the oldest Gāthās, Indra was considered a div but was cool.
There are also intelligent phoenix like birds called Simorgh, as well as a bird in the Avesta that is called Parō Dārsh, who—and I'm quoting verbatim here, it's hilarious—"evil men scornfully call 'chicken.' "
Not familiar with any dwarves in the older mythology.
Personally I would just have humans be playable, making other races a suitable player option takes the magic away. And I definitely wouldn't use the standard d&d races, why does every setting need to have bearded manlets in it?
>why does every setting need to have bearded manlets in it?
Without Persians this entire setting would be weird
Besides this guy, what are some heroes or other major figures from Persian legend that we can steal wholesale?
Zal
Rostam
Feridun/Thraetona
Jamshid/Yama
Zal
Saum
Key Khosrau
Siyavash
Alright, well, okay, how about we come up with some gods now? Does anyone have any Persian gods we can use? Aside from all the Persian gods
You can use the Hindu gods as villains. Indra proper is a bit of a scoundrel in the Gathas, although his positive traits live on in Verethragna/Bahram.
This makes it a bit like real life, too, where Indians are the enemy of civilization.
What? Do you not like designated shitting streets?
More seriously, Zoroastrians and the Hindus have a really strange theological relationship that designates the other side as worshipping the bad guys.