Alas, I too was thinking militarily when I placed the 1450 mark

I will have to agree with Ian here, I run most of my games in about 1350 from the social aspects of the game. I like the idea of the fuedal system on its last legs and giving way to true nation states.

Its a way for us to have are medieval world and our pretty swords and armor to boot.

I think that setting weapons and armor technology at 1425-1450 to be a good idea, and limiting the gunpowerder a bit.

As far as the church schism goes, that sounds downright realistic. Lord knows it happened enough in our world.



I agree completly here. Unfortunatly, I believe they were included in the MRB as a comprehensive measure, and not fully thought out. The problem becomes quite huge if you consider their use against nations that don't use anything of the sort.

Also, from a GM's perspective, I have had innumberable players, new to the game and fairly ignorant of medieval history, BEG me to let them use Rapiers, even though they do not exist as of yet in any game I run. These players, if I cave, suffer the same defeated self esteem time and time again when they try to use a rapier against... well anyone not using a rapier.

Armor totally negates a rapier, a shield makes it look silly, and it lack versitility, which means it just doesn't fit it. Yes they are cool, but they promote intense problems, especially for the uneducated player and GM.

I have no problem using Cut and Thrust style, and even your basic cut and thrust sword has a chance against armor.

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Arma virumque cano

Join me in battle Knave!

Hi all,

You have raised some fair points, but we all have forgot ONE important fact, this is thar Rapiers and the ilk are civilian weapons, where NO armour is worn.

They are not military weapons, and even in the 16th century Nobles would be wearing a Helmet and Cuirass as a minimum.

Simon Burling.

I fully understand that. The problem is, many players, with little knowledge of medieval warfare, do not. They then only know how to use a rapier at character creation (barring defaults) and proceed to take said rapier into battles with everyone else and not leave it in its proper civilian role. Every other game they have played allows them to do this, so why not this one?

These same players then get terribly discouraged, as they see what they thought of as a 'cool' and very good weapon, be on the losing end of any 'less sophisticated' fighting style.

I am trying to look at this from not only a nation building perspective, but also a game building perspective, if that makes any sense.

There is nothing wrong with tacking on 50-100 years to the information that is put out in the Weyrth forums, and then haveing merry rapier fights in crowded city streets. We simply need a baseline that the entire community of contributers can help with. Without it, the contributions will look like the OGL section of a hobby store.

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Arma virumque cano

Join me in battle Knave!

In fact, I haven’t forgotten that rapiers and co. are civilian weapons. When I spoke of anachronisms and problems, I was referring to the societies that propagated rapiers, societes of self-confident citizens, urban nobles and gentlemen of leisure – a kind of society that has nothing whatsoever in common with the feudal society of western Weyrth and that is also quite incompatible with everything that is to be expected of a nation ruled by the Church and an Emperor.

Widespread use of rapiers and fencing weapons requires also a certain kind of fashion in clothing – no long, robelike clothes that might obstruct the fancy footwork necessary for fencing moves. In short, it requires the clothing of the 16th century, not the early 15th. This is also an obstacle, even if one does not even consider that civilian fashion is always influenced by military fashion, which in turn is of course utterly dependent on what kind of armour is worn, which would once again bring up the issue of anachronism…

For all these reasons I feel absolutely compelled to design the Xanarian Empire without fencing weapons. And as it is going to be the technologically most advanced realm of the West, this will unfortunately also mean that future developers of other western countries will have to think of damn good and compelling reasons if they want to introduce fencing weapons without a major logical break – in addition the break in beleivebality commited by their inclusion in a late medieval society in any case.

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My real name is Michael; use it, if you like.

In Taveruun, rapiers are out. We're talking 1350s civil code. No citizen carries a weapon within the city nor are they armoured -- there is no need. Citizens are permitted to carry the tools of their craft -- and this can include a variety of knives and batons -- but only a soldier or a member of the guet would actually carry weapons designed to kill.

Regards,

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Ian Plumb
Illustrations for Gamers
Lyonpaedia
Griffin Grove Gaming
Kraftworks for Kids School Holiday Program

That's exactly it; that's what I meant when I spoke about anachronistic problems with rapiers. They are not children of the battlefield, they are children of the urban societies. Any society even roughly similiar to that of the real the late middle ages simply rules out rapiers.

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My real name is Michael; use it, if you like.

Hi All,

Fine, then there is no problem.

Ian, I am assuming that Daggers are exempt from this,



or is it as in Rome where only the Urban cohorts and the Emperors body guards are legally allowed to carry any weapons.

This makes sense in historical terms, as the dagger was the most common weapon carried.

Simon Burling

I am responding to this in the Taveruun area as it is specific to the society and laws of Taveruun.

Regards,

_________________
Ian Plumb
Illustrations for Gamers
Lyonpaedia
Griffin Grove Gaming
Kraftworks for Kids School Holiday Program

Hi all,

In relation to the control on all non approved weapon carrying, in some backgrounds meaning that no weapons can be legally carried. Would there be schools or Gymnasiums that would teach Wresling or Brawling skills along with general fitness and athletic skills?

Simon Burling

P.S. The idea for this comes from Ancient Greece and Imperial Rome.

P.P.S. The reason that I have placed this here is that it cound affect multiple countries, mainly ex parts of the Xanarium Empire.

In Stahl, as per the book, carrying a weapon is not so discouraged. However, I have decided to take it more alone the real world german train of thought, where non nobles carried weapons that wern't 'real' weapons.

_________________
Arma virumque cano

Join me in battle Knave!

While I have not given in-depth thought on this topic, the carrying of weaponry will certainly be severly limited within the Seat of the Xanarian Empire, following the practice of the later Roman Empire. As to wrestling and brawling, these things will probably still be practised at the baths of the towns, but they will not be part of a formal education, as was the case with ancient Greece. So you could say that while there is no formal training in unarmed combat, it will still be widespread, and both teachers and sparring partners will be readily and easily available.

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My real name is Michael; use it, if you like.

Below I give a tentative outline of technology in western Weyrth, based very closely on our “Europe 1425”-paradigm. Weapon technology and gunpowder have been deliberately left out of this overview. If others comment on it, it could, after any desired and agreed-upon changes have been made, be declared canonical for all further development.

Parchment is still the main writing material throughout much of western Weyrth.
The means of manufacturing paper, well-known in the far East for many centuries, have been discovered by the scholars of the Seat of the Xanarian Empire less than 50 years ago, and the first paper mills were subsequently set up. The Seat exports paper to its main trade partners, but the secret of the manufacturing process did recently leak out, and the first paper mills are being set up in other countries, too.
In the drier regions of the deep south, namely Tez’Hamun and Numeria, papyrus is used for all but the most important of documents, which are written on parchment.

The printing press is not yet inventend, save possibly in the far East.

The process of manufacturing glass is well-known in the West, but only the Xanarians do know how to manufacture absolutely clear glass, a secret guarded closely for centuries. Everybody else does only know to manufacture more or less smoky glass, wether tinted or not, and imports fine glassware from the Seat of the Empire.
The Imperials do also hold the secret of manufacturing glass mirrors with reflective backings of mercury (like modern mirrors) and export these to other countries, which are only able to manufacture crude mirrors of highly polished metal sheets.
Grinding and polishing glass into lenses is an art also known almost exclusively in the Seat of the Xanarian Empire, as glass of high enough quality is manufactured only here. The Imperials know how to manufacture magnifying glasses and glasses for reading, but even primitive telescopes are still far beyond their skill.

Porcelain is known as a precious import from the far East, but the people of western Weyrth are clueless as to its manufacture.

Mechanical clocks with complicated clockwork mechanisms are well-known throughout western Weyrth, being first constructed almost 300 years ago. Still, hour candles and water clocks are still more common than mechanical ones in most countries, and even the smallest and most advanced clocks are still about as large as a child’s head. The very first portable “watch” was constucted some ten years ago in the Seat of the Xanarian Empire – it is as big as a man’s fist and still mainly a curio item.

The compass was initially a discovery of the far East, but word of it spread to the West well over half a millennium ago, during the heyday of the Xanarian Empire. It is by now commonplace throughout Weyrth, every sailor knows how to use one and no ship goes without it.

Cutting facets into gemstones is not yet technically possible. Instead, gems are invariably “cut” and polished into dome-shapes.

Shipbuilding knows two basic design philosophies: there are ships built for the calm waters of the Sea of Fallen Gods and the almost as calm southern coastal waters, and there are ships built for the rougher and more open Sea of Raiders and the surrounding waters.
The lateen rig is the exclusively used type of rigging in the southern seas, and the galley is their dominant type of ship. All southern warships are lateen-rigged galleys with one to three masts, and even some merchantmen are of this type. Most merchentmen, though, are of a much squatter hull and are propelled not by rowers, but solely by lateen sails on one to three masts.
The square rig is the almost exclusively used type of rigging in the northern seas, only a tiny minority of threemasters carries a lateen sail on their hindmost mast (the besan). The main ship type here is the unlovely, squat and rounded, but seaworthy cog of one to three masts. The most advanced of northern nations (Gelure?) has recently started to build massive threemasted cogs (some 35 to 40 metres in length) with a square-rigged bowsprit, a lateen-rigged besan and two stories of square sails on the two other masts. These massive warships are called carracks.
The southern lateen rig is much better if one is to sail against the wind, but it becomes next to unmanageable in heavy weather. The northern square rig handles much better in heavy weather, but it is rather unable to tack against the wind, at the worst delaying journeys for weeks on end while one waits for favourable winds. The combined rig of the caravel and the full-fledged carrack, with both lateen and square sails, has not yet been invented, and thus far journeys weeks from land and at the sole mercy of the wind are therefore not yet possible.
Savaxen ships have been deliberately left out of this overview.

One note: There is one fact impacting on technological development which was true in Europe, but isn’t in Weyrth. In Europe, the collapse of the Roman Empire led to truly dark ages, whereas much of ancient Roman knowledge was preserved in Byzantium and by the Arabs. With the Arab conquest of Spain and the crusades, much of this knowledge started to flow back into Europe. But as western Weyrth did never experience cultural setbacks equal to those of western Europe, and as Weyrth’s “Byzantium” (the Seat of the Xanarian Empire) is not adjeactent to the East but located in the far West, I see no reason why Weyrth’s “Arabs” should be more highly developed than the “Europeans”. Any comments on this?

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My real name is Michael; use it, if you like.

So, the above post has been siting here uncommented for some five weeks now. Is this to mean that nobody cares or is this a case of consent by silence?

I really need to have facts like these (and the timeline, for that matter) declared either canonical or repudiated to be able to go on developing the Seat of the Xanarian Empire.

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My real name is Michael; use it, if you like.

Well, I can't think of any reason to disagree with that, really. It seems more or less in parallel with how my group and I have envisioned things.

One condition we usually play with regarding technology is that the development of gunpowder and pressure-based systems has been nigh halted due to sorcery's ability to fulfill most tasks they would have been designed for. No significant amount of people in Weyrth felt the need to use or create them, so explosive mixtures and pressurized gases are more of a tinker's curiosity.

Hope that sheds some light on how some of us are doing things, at least.

This looks straightforward to me. Nothing controversial.

Regarding the Weyrth-equivalent of the middle-east. I like the idea that they have a more religiously-tolerant society, and through that take a moral high-ground over the European-equivalents and their intolerant religious views. This underlying philosophy of acceptance of other's views in turn makes for a more creative society, a more inventive society -- justifying alignment with the historical view.

Regards,

_________________
Ian Plumb
Illustrations for Gamers
Lyonpaedia
Griffin Grove Gaming
Kraftworks for Kids School Holiday Program