![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm reading Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire by Caroline Finkel. There's a passage describing what Western Anatolia was like at the time of the rise of the Tribe of Osman. Both the Byzantine and Seljuk-Ilkhanid empires were in decline; the former withdrawing steadily towards Constantinople, the latter wracked by internal strife and clinging to territories along the Mediterranean coast to the south. The lands between these two fading states were. . .
Dervishes, in reality wandering Muslim holy men who had taken strict vows of poverty and charity, make great models for the tradition FRPG monk class. Everything else can be dropped in with almost no modification.
I'm picturing the larger setting being the rise of a new limited pantheon led by the Moon God, who has assumed the role of God of War. The Imperial Sun God cult has lost that, as it is old and tired. So along with the looting of tombs and slaying of monsters, you have the larger game of armies marching under the Crescent Moon. Will the players defend the Unconquered Sun? Rise in power until they can challenge the walls on Constantinople? Or forge a third path?
Let's find out. I need players.
. . . criss-crossed by overlapping networks of nomads and seminomads, raiders, volunteers on their way to join military adventurers, slaves of various backgrounds, wandering dervishes, monks and churchmen trying to keep in touch with their flock, displaced peasants and townspeople seeking refuge, disquieted souls seeking cure and consolation at sacred sites, Muslim schoolmen seeking patronage, and the inevitable risk-driven merchants of the late medieval period.Tell me that isn't an epic setting for adventures! Right in that passage, I see barbarians, fighters, rogues, clerics, and arcane magic users all crossing paths, uniting to save (or plunder) a column of refugees or follow up on the rumor of lost treasures on either side of the Byzantine/Seljuk split. Replace the Turkomen with hominids, add in some bad magic events, some lost cities.. the area is lousy with tombs and caves, and is home to one of the greatest subterranean cities known, the Derinkuyu site in Cappadocia. Plus, the highlands hold many ancient ruins dating to the Hittites and Hurrians. More lost places of mystery to explore!
Dervishes, in reality wandering Muslim holy men who had taken strict vows of poverty and charity, make great models for the tradition FRPG monk class. Everything else can be dropped in with almost no modification.
I'm picturing the larger setting being the rise of a new limited pantheon led by the Moon God, who has assumed the role of God of War. The Imperial Sun God cult has lost that, as it is old and tired. So along with the looting of tombs and slaying of monsters, you have the larger game of armies marching under the Crescent Moon. Will the players defend the Unconquered Sun? Rise in power until they can challenge the walls on Constantinople? Or forge a third path?
Let's find out. I need players.
